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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><rss version="2.0" xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/" xmlns:wfw="http://wellformedweb.org/CommentAPI/" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" xmlns:sy="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/syndication/" xmlns:slash="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/slash/" xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/"> <channel> <title>Truthdig</title> <atom:link href="https://www.truthdig.com/feed/" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" /> <link>https://www.truthdig.com/</link> <description>An Independent, Progressive Journal of News and Opinion.</description> <lastBuildDate>Mon, 15 Sep 2025 20:18:36 +0000</lastBuildDate> <language>en-US</language> <sy:updatePeriod> hourly </sy:updatePeriod> <sy:updateFrequency> 1 </sy:updateFrequency> <generator>https://wordpress.org/?v=6.8.2</generator> <image> <url>https://truthdig.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/cropped-favicon.png?fit=32,32</url> <title>Truthdig</title> <link>https://www.truthdig.com/</link> <width>32</width> <height>32</height></image> <site xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">210803858</site> <item> <title>The Supreme Court Has Officially Blessed Racial Profiling</title> <link>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-supreme-court-has-officially-blessed-racial-profiling/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-supreme-court-has-officially-blessed-racial-profiling</link> <comments>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-supreme-court-has-officially-blessed-racial-profiling/#respond</comments> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Bill Blum]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Mon, 15 Sep 2025 16:53:17 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Activism]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Column]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Courts & Law]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Immigration]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Opinion]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Politics]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Race]]></category> <category><![CDATA[TD Column]]></category> <category><![CDATA[TD Original]]></category> <category><![CDATA[US]]></category> <category><![CDATA[brett kavanaugh]]></category> <category><![CDATA[immigration and customs enforcement]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Operation at Large]]></category> <category><![CDATA[racial profiling]]></category> <category><![CDATA[supreme court]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.truthdig.com/?p=311475</guid> <description><![CDATA[<p>"Shadow docket" ruling allows immigration agents to detain suspects based solely on their ethnicity, language, location and occupations. </p><p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-supreme-court-has-officially-blessed-racial-profiling/">The Supreme Court Has Officially Blessed Racial Profiling</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p class="has-drop-cap">In what may be its most reactionary ruling since <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1850-1900/163us537" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">Plessy v. Ferguson</a>, the Supreme Court decided on Sept. 8 to allow the <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/tag/donald-trump/" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c="4" title="Donald Trump" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Trump</a> administration and <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/tag/immigration-and-customs-enforcement/" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c="20" title="immigration and customs enforcement">Immigration and Customs Enforcement</a> to resume overt racial profiling in immigration raids in Los Angeles. The raids, which began in June under the title of <a href="https://calmatters.org/justice/2025/09/la-immigration-sweeps-supreme-court/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">Operation At Large</a>, have resulted in some <a href="https://www.dhs.gov/news/2025/08/26/secretary-noem-announces-dhs-arrest-5000th-illegal-alien-los-angeles-operations#:~:text=Secretary%20Noem%20Announces%20DHS%20Arrest,City%20in%20June%20%7C%20Homeland%20Security" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">5,000 arrests</a>. </p><p>The order was handed down in the case of <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/25a169_5h25.pdf" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">Noem v. Perdomo</a> on the court’s emergency, or “shadow,” docket, which consists of cases decided on an expedited basis — without comprehensive briefing and without oral arguments — outside of the normal “merits docket.” The order lifts a lower-court injunction that had barred the administration from detaining suspected undocumented immigrants based solely on their ethnicity, language, geographic location and occupations. </p><p>Like most shadow docket rulings, the Perdomo order is bare-bones, comprising a single paragraph that fails to explain the court’s rationale for its decision. Nonetheless, it sends a clear message: If you are Latino, you’d better start carrying your identification papers with you — and they had better be in order. Otherwise, you will be subject to detention, and you might just find yourself on a deportation flight to El Salvador, South Sudan or Uganda. </p><p>The Perdomo litigation originated with a <a href="https://www.aclusocal.org/sites/default/files/vasquez_perdomo_v_noem_-_first_amended_petition_and_complaint.pdf" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">lawsuit</a> filed on behalf of a group of immigration advocacy organizations and five individuals, including two U.S. citizens who contend they were detained by ICE during Operation At Large in violation of their Fourth Amendment rights to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. On July 11, Los Angeles District Court Judge Maame E. Frimpong issued a <a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cacd.975351/gov.uscourts.cacd.975351.87.0_7.pdf" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">temporary restraining order</a> against the administration, finding that a “mountain of evidence” supported the plaintiffs’ claims that “roving patrols” of masked federal agents were conducting indiscriminate and sometimes violent dragnet-style immigration raids of workplaces and communities. </p><figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>It sends a clear message: If you are Latino, you’d better start carrying your identification papers with you.</p></blockquote></figure><p>The court’s quick overturning of Frimpong’s TRO comes as no surprise. Although the court has a long history of entertaining emergency appeals that bypass the normal appeals process — such as last-minute requests for stays of execution in death penalty cases — no president has relied on the shadow docket more than <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/tag/donald-trump/" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c="4" title="Donald Trump" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Donald Trump</a>. According to Georgetown University law professor and shadow docket scholar <a href="https://www.law.georgetown.edu/faculty/stephen-i-vladeck/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">Steve Vladeck</a>, the first Trump administration <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/17/books/review/the-shadow-docket-stephen-vladeck.html#:~:text=THE%20SHADOW%20DOCKET:%20How%20the,percent%20of%20the%20court's%20decrees" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">sought</a> emergency relief 41 times. By comparison, the George W. Bush and Obama administrations filed a combined total of eight emergency relief requests over a 16-year period while the <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/tag/joe-biden/" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c="5" title="Joe Biden" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Biden</a> administration <a href="https://www.stevevladeck.com/p/bonus-157-why-the-supreme-court-keeps" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">filed</a> 19 applications across four years.</p><p>During its recently completed 2024-25 term, the court’s shadow docket<a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/emergency/emergency-docket-2024/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank"> exploded</a> to more than 100 cases, fueled by the second Trump administration’s authoritarian power grab. In addition to Perdomo, the court has issued pro-Trump shadow docket orders <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/24a1153_l5gm.pdf" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">permitting</a> noncitizens to be deported to third-party countries with histories of egregious human rights violations; <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/2025/05/supreme-court-allows-trump-to-ban-transgender-people-from-military/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">barring</a> transgender people from serving in the military; <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/2025/04/supreme-court-allows-trump-to-halt-millions-in-teacher-training-grants/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">withholding</a> $65 million in teacher training grants to states that include diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in their operations and curriculums; and <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/2025/06/supreme-court-sides-with-trump-in-two-doge-suits/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">endorsing</a> the <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/tag/doge/" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c="18" title="DOGE">Department of Government Efficiency</a>’s access to Social Security Administration records, to cite <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/emergency/emergency-docket-2024/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">just</a> a <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/emergency/emergency-docket-2025/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">few</a> instances. </p><p>And while shadow docket decisions are technically “interim” in nature — operating to remand cases to the lower courts for additional proceedings and leaving space for a possible return to the Supreme Court — they have enduring practical consequences. Unless and until the Supreme Court takes up the Perdomo case again, for example, ICE will be free to ramp up its roving masked raids in Los Angeles and other cities like Chicago, Baltimore and Washington, D.C. There are no longer any safe zones. </p><p>Of the high court’s six Republican ideologues, only Brett Kavanaugh explained his reasoning in Perdomo. In a poorly crafted opinion filled with misstatements of fact and law, Kavanaugh cited provisions in the Immigration and Nationality Act and a 1975 Supreme Court case (<a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1974/74-114" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">United States v. Brignoni-Ponce</a>) that authorize immigration agents to briefly detain and question individuals if they have a “reasonable suspicion” (less than probable cause but more than a hunch) that the person being questioned is an alien illegally in the country. From there, however, Kavanaugh dropped the proverbial ball by remarking, without any citations to the trial court’s evidentiary record:</p><blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow"><p>The Government estimates that at least 15 million people are in the United States illegally. Many millions illegally entered (or illegally overstayed) just in the last few years. </p> <p>Illegal immigration is especially pronounced in the Los Angeles area, among other locales in the United States. About 10 percent of the people in the Los Angeles region are illegally in the United States—meaning about 2 million illegal immigrants out of a total population of 20 million. </p> <p>Not surprisingly given those extraordinary numbers, U.S. immigration officers have prioritized immigration enforcement in the Los Angeles area. The Government sometimes makes brief investigative stops to check the immigration status of those who gather in locations where people are hired for day jobs; who work or appear to work in jobs such as construction, landscaping, agriculture, or car washes that often do not require paperwork and are therefore attractive to illegal immigrants; and who do not speak much if any English. If the officers learn that the individual they stopped is a U. S. citizen or otherwise lawfully in the United States, they promptly let the individual go. If the individual is illegally in the United States, the officers may arrest the individual and initiate the process for removal.</p></blockquote><div id="ad_slot_wrapper_22724279127_1" class="max-w-td m-auto p-6 ad-slot--wrapper ad-slot--wrapper--article-hrec-1"> <!-- 71161633/article_hrec_1/article_hrec_1 --> <div id="ad_slot_22724279127_1" class="ad-slot ad-slot--article-hrec-1" data-fuse="22724279127" data-fuse-slot-code="fuse-slot-227242791271"> </div></div><p>Given what he took for granted as the outsized illegal alien population in greater Los Angeles, Kavanaugh reasoned that it is “common sense” (his words, trust me) for ICE agents to detain any Latinos who fit the government’s criteria of suspicion based on their race, language or employment in low wage jobs. </p><p>In a blistering 21-page dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by fellow Democrats Elena Kaga and Ketanji Brown Jackson, took Kavanaugh to school, instructing the former Yale frat boy that the reasonable suspicion standard requires …</p><blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow"><p>“… an individualized suspicion that a particular citizen was engaged in a particular crime” beyond just a “demographic profile.” … </p> <p>The Fourth Amendment thus prohibits exactly what the Government is attempting to do here: seize individuals based solely on a set of facts that ‘describe[s] a very large category of presumably innocent’ people. … As the District Court correctly held, the four factors [the administration relies on]—apparent race or ethnicity, speaking Spanish or English with an accent, location, and type of work—are no more indicative of illegal presence in the country than of legal presence.</p></blockquote><p>Sotomayor also educated Kavanaugh on the harsh on-the-ground realities of Operation At Large, noting several examples from the trial court record of violence and intimidation. In the L.A. suburb of Glendale, for instance …</p><blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow"><p>… nearly a dozen masked agents with guns “jumped out of … cars” at a Home Depot, and began “chasing and tackl[ing] Latino day laborers without “identify[ing] themselves as ICE or police, ask[ing] questions, or say[ing] anything else. … In downtown Los Angeles, agents “jumped out of a van, rushed up to [a tamale vendor], surrounded him, and handled him violently,” all “[w]ithout asking … any questions.</p></blockquote><p>In still another Home Depot encounter drawn from the evidentiary record, masked agents wearing bulletproof vests got out of a car and tear-gassed a crowd that had gathered to witness a raid. Far from being polite and respectful, Sotomayor continued, Operation At Large has sparked “panic and fear” across Los Angeles and its surrounding areas. “Countless people in the Los Angeles area,” she observed, “have been grabbed, thrown to the ground, and handcuffed simply because of their looks, their accents, and the fact they make a living by doing manual labor.” </p><p>The Fourth Amendment, she reminded her Republican colleagues, “protects every individual’s constitutional right to be free from arbitrary interference by law officers.” Sadly, she concluded, after the Perdomo ruling, “that may no longer be true for those who happen to look a certain way, speak a certain way, and appear to work a certain type of legitimate job that pays very little.”</p><p class="is-td-marked">As a Supreme Court justice constrained by the need for collegiality on the bench, Sotomayor stopped short of denouncing Kavanaugh and the court’s Republicans as enablers of racism. There is no reason for the rest of us to feel so reserved.</p><p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-supreme-court-has-officially-blessed-racial-profiling/">The Supreme Court Has Officially Blessed Racial Profiling</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-supreme-court-has-officially-blessed-racial-profiling/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>0</slash:comments> <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">311475</post-id> <enclosure url="https://truthdig.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/ice_racial_profiling.png?width=878&height=585" length="1100989" type="image/png" /> <media:thumbnail url="https://truthdig.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/ice_racial_profiling.png?width=878&height=585" /> </item> <item> <title>Trump’s Phase 2 Has Begun</title> <link>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/trumps-phase-ii-has-begun/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=trumps-phase-ii-has-begun</link> <comments>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/trumps-phase-ii-has-begun/#respond</comments> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Robert Reich / Substack ]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Mon, 15 Sep 2025 15:38:33 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Activism]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Column]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Courts & Law]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Media]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Opinion]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Politics]]></category> <category><![CDATA[US]]></category> <category><![CDATA[democrats]]></category> <category><![CDATA[donald trump]]></category> <category><![CDATA[fox news]]></category> <category><![CDATA[maga]]></category> <category><![CDATA[stephen miller]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.truthdig.com/?p=311469</guid> <description><![CDATA[<p>The effort to discredit all of his political opponents lacks popular support, and it will fail.</p><p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/trumps-phase-ii-has-begun/">Trump’s Phase 2 Has Begun</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong>We are now witnessing</strong> the start of what might be seen as Phase 2 of President <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/tag/donald-trump/" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c="4" title="Donald Trump" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Donald Trump</a>’s efforts to eradicate political opposition.</p> <p>Phase 1 has centered on silencing criticism. It has featured retribution toward people Trump deemed personal “enemies” — not just Democrats who had led the criticisms and prosecutions of him in his first term, but also Republicans and his own first-term appointees who subsequently criticized him, such as John Bolton.</p> <p>Phase 1 also entailed an assault on universities that utilize so-called diversity, equity and inclusion, harbor faculty members and students who speak out critically against Benjamin Netanyahu’s genocide in Palestine or offer classes critical of the United States’ history toward Black people and Native Americans.</p> <p>Finally, Phase 1 has gone after media that criticized Trump by withdrawing funding for public radio and television and relying on the billionaire owners of The Washington Post,<em> </em>ABC, CBS and X to suppress criticism of Trump on their media platforms.</p> <p>Phase 2, it appears, will entail a more direct attack on all Trump’s political opponents, including the entire <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/tag/democratic-party/" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c="12" title="democratic party" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Democratic Party</a>.</p> <p>Trump has vowed to order troops into cities run by Democrats — Washington, Chicago, Memphis and New Orleans.</p> <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>Phase 2, it appears, will entail a more direct attack on all Trump’s political opponents.</p></blockquote></figure> <p>He posted a video last week assailing Democratic mayors on crime, although crime rates have fallen sharply in recent years. “For far too long, Americans have been forced to put up with Democrat-run cities that set loose savage, bloodthirsty criminals to prey on innocent people,” he says in <a href="https://truthsocial.com/@WhiteHouse/posts/115175155559334769" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">the video</a>.</p> <p>Meanwhile, he’s sending disaster relief to states run by Republicans and that he won in 2024, most recently announcing $32 million in aid for North Carolina, “which I WON BIG all six times, including Primaries,” suggesting that states run by Democrats will not receive such relief.</p> <p>He has taken off the gloves with Democratic states and their representatives in Congress, virtually ordering the governors of Texas, Missouri, Indiana and Ohio to redistrict in order to come up with more Republican seats.</p> <p>Another aspect of Phase 2 is his willingness to describe Democrats as “evil.” In a Fox News interview last week in which he complained about “excesses” by the left, he referred to Zohran Mamdani, the democratic socialist and front-runner for mayor of New York, as a “communist.”</p> <p>In calling the entire <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/tag/democratic-party/" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c="12" title="democratic party" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Democratic Party</a> the “radical left,” Trump seems eager to use the murder of Charlie Kirk to go after Democrats and liberals. Within hours of the murder, he declared that “we just have to beat the hell” out of “radical left lunatics,” and he has hammered Democrats and liberals as “vicious and … horrible.”</p> <p>Trump’s Phase 2 thinking can be seen most vividly in the remarks of his deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, who is turning Kirk’s murder into a political cause. As <a href="https://x.com/StephenM/status/1966869396942630970" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">Miller wrote on Saturday</a>:</p> <blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow"><p>“In recent days we have learned just how many Americans in positions of authority — child services, law clerks, hospital nurses, teachers, gov’t workers, even DOD employees — have been deeply and violently radicalized,” calling them “the consequence of a vast, organized ecosystem of indoctrination.”</p></blockquote> <p>Miller continued:</p> <blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow"><p>“There is an ideology that has steadily been growing in this country which hates everything that is good, righteous and beautiful and celebrates everything that is warped, twisted and depraved. It is an ideology at war with family and nature. It is envious, malicious, and soulless. It is an ideology that looks upon the perfect family with bitter rage while embracing the serial criminal with tender warmth.</p> <p>Its adherents organize constantly to tear down and destroy every mark of grace and beauty while lifting up everything monstrous and foul. It is an ideology that leads, always, inevitably and willfully, to violence—violence against those [who] uphold order, who uphold faith, who uphold family, who uphold all that is noble and virtuous in this world. It is an ideology whose one unifying thread is the insatiable thirst for destruction.”</p></blockquote> <p>Miller has vowed to use the power of the government against MAGA’s political enemies, calling his political opponents “domestic terrorists” and warning:</p> <blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow"><p>“[T]he power of law enforcement under President Trump’s leadership will be used to find you, will be used to take away your money, take away your power, and, if you’ve broken the law, to take away your freedom.”</p></blockquote> <p>Phase 2 must be understood against the backdrop of Trump’s rapidly declining popularity. The latest <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-approval-rating-42-weak-economy-reutersipsos-poll-shows-2025-09-09/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">Reuters/Ipsos poll</a>, from Sept. 9, shows that only 32% of Americans support Trump’s deploying armed troops to large cities.</p> <p>His economic policies are similarly unpopular. Only 36% approve of Trump’s handling of the economy, 30 % approve of his handling of cost of living and 16% support Trump’s having the power to set interest rates or tell companies where to manufacture products.</p> <p><a href="https://today.yougov.com/politics/articles/52926-economic-concerns-ai-economic-effect-donald-trump-age-jeffrey-epstein-investigations-september-5-8-2025-economist-yougov-poll" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">Other polls</a> show similar declines in support for Trump.</p> <p>Trump’s Phase 2 aims to overcome these declining poll numbers by demonizing the Democratic Party, liberals and all other political opponents in an effort to divide the nation into those who are with Trump and those who are against him.</p> <p>The overall goal is to make loyalty to Trump a litmus test of American patriotism.</p> <p>I believe he will fail. Americans won’t fall for it. To the contrary: Trump’s Phase 2 will reveal the depths of his anti-democratic authoritarianism, from which even more Americans will recoil.</p><p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/trumps-phase-ii-has-begun/">Trump’s Phase 2 Has Begun</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/trumps-phase-ii-has-begun/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>0</slash:comments> <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">311469</post-id> <enclosure url="https://truthdig.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/AP25258013523455-scaled.jpg?width=878&height=585" length="402283" type="image/jpeg" /> <media:thumbnail url="https://truthdig.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/AP25258013523455-scaled.jpg?width=878&height=585" /> </item> <item> <title>As Data Center Demand Surges, the Grid Can’t Kick Its Gas Habit</title> <link>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/as-data-center-demand-surges-the-grid-cant-kick-its-gas-habit/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=as-data-center-demand-surges-the-grid-cant-kick-its-gas-habit</link> <comments>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/as-data-center-demand-surges-the-grid-cant-kick-its-gas-habit/#respond</comments> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Deep Vakil / Inside Climate News ]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Mon, 15 Sep 2025 15:31:56 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Business & Economy]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Environment]]></category> <category><![CDATA[News]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Technology]]></category> <category><![CDATA[US]]></category> <category><![CDATA[artificial intelligence]]></category> <category><![CDATA[big tech]]></category> <category><![CDATA[climate change]]></category> <category><![CDATA[data centers]]></category> <category><![CDATA[natural gas]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.truthdig.com/?p=311466</guid> <description><![CDATA[<p>Big Tech’s AI frenzy is leaving the power grid stuck in natural gas-fueled inertia and slowing the arrival of clean energy projects.</p><p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/as-data-center-demand-surges-the-grid-cant-kick-its-gas-habit/">As Data Center Demand Surges, the Grid Can’t Kick Its Gas Habit</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p class="has-small-font-size"><em>This article originally appeared on <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/14092025/data-center-ai-demand-natural-gas-power/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">Inside Climate News</a>, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for their newsletter </em><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/newsletter/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank"><em>here</em></a><em>.</em></p> <p><strong>Every three months</strong>, Jon Rea gets an up-close look at the possible future of the nation’s power grid, and lately he’s seeing a lot more natural gas.</p> <p>Rea, a senior associate with the nonprofit RMI, analyzes the latest plans put out by U.S. electricity utilities for meeting projected demand over the coming decades. </p> <p>His <a href="https://rmi.org/the-state-of-utility-planning-2025-q2/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">most recent review</a> of all 128 plans found that utilities were looking to build twice as much natural gas capacity as they had anticipated just 18 months earlier.</p> <p>The main reason for this shift: Utilities are rushing to accommodate the electricity needs of data centers, and projections of those needs keep rising. It’s a troubling trend for anyone concerned about the costs for ratepayers and the effects on the climate.</p> <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>Utilities are rushing to accommodate the electricity needs of data centers.</p></blockquote></figure> <p>“Utilities that have updated their plans since the end of 2023 have added just a small amount of wind and solar capacity, 4 gigawatts, but a lot more gas capacity, 52 gigawatts,” said Rea, whose organization seeks to accelerate the energy transition. </p> <p>At first glance, utilities’ long-term plans seem to favor renewables overall, projecting wind and solar growth of 258 gigawatts versus natural gas additions of 102 gigawatts through 2035. But a closer look reveals the shift. </p> <p>Just one year back, these plans showed wind and solar could overtake natural gas as the nation’s biggest source of electricity generation by 2035. At the new rate, gas would keep reigning. </p> <h3 class="wp-block-heading">AI Boosts Demand</h3> <p>U.S. tech giants are betting big on an AI future, but the power grid is still a relic of the past. </p> <p>Data centers — essentially warehouses for computers that form the backbone of the internet — are multiplying as companies add power-hungry servers for artificial intelligence. Some existing sites use as much energy as a <a href="https://blog.ucs.org/mike-jacobs/power-hungry-why-data-centers-are-developing-their-own-energy-sources-to-fuel-ai/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">small city</a>, and new ones are even bigger.</p> <p>As a result, data centers, which used less than 2% of total U.S. electricity prior to 2018, consumed 4.4% in 2023 and are on track to make up anywhere between 6.7% and 12% by 2028. That’s according to a congressionally mandated <a href="https://escholarship.org/uc/item/32d6m0d1" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">report</a> by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory last year.</p> <p>After nearly <a href="http://eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=65264" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">two decades of flat demand</a>, the power grid — much of it running on equipment that is over half a century old — is scrambling to keep up. </p> <p>“It was designed to accommodate big central power plants that sent electricity in one direction down the lines to the customers,” said Todd Olinsky-Paul, senior director of the Clean Energy Group’s Resilient Power Project. </p> <p>It was not built for a system that has much more rooftop solar and home-based batteries, with electricity going to and from the customer.</p> <p>Energy companies and regulators have been working for years to modernize the grid and move toward cleaner sources of energy. But when faced with a rapid increase in electricity demand, ambitions of just a few years have faded in favor of plans to rely heavily on new natural gas power plants — with everyone bearing the costs, from higher electricity bills to harmful climate impacts.</p> <h3 class="wp-block-heading">Resorting to Natural Gas</h3> <p>Experts say that utilities are leaning extensively on gas due in part to the inertia of existing regulatory processes and a tendency of the power sector to hype its demand outlook.</p> <p>When utilities want to raise rates, they almost always have to make their case in public proceedings before a state commission. In most states, the regulator-approved rate hikes only account for the fixed costs of building new infrastructure, including plants and power lines. The fluctuating cost of the fuel that goes into running those plants is passed through to consumers on a rolling basis year after year. </p> <p>“Often the fuel price risk is ignored, probably intentionally ignored, by utilities when they speak with their regulators,” said Rob Gramlich, president of Grid Strategies, a D.C.-based consultancy focused on transmission and power markets. </p> <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>Ambitions of just a few years have faded in favor of plans to rely heavily on new natural gas power plants.</p></blockquote></figure> <p>Gramlich, who <a href="https://www.energy.senate.gov/services/files/AF68ACFA-8FD9-4611-A936-76F4418E0C7C" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">testified</a> before a Senate committee in July about rising electricity demand, previously worked with a Republican chairman of the federal energy regulator as well as with the country’s biggest grid operator, PJM Interconnection. </p> <p>Among the reasons for utilities to favor gas is the rate-setting process, which makes it more profitable for utilities to opt for power plants in their territory rather than contracting for renewables, Gramlich said. </p> <p>“Renewables have been a little bit less attractive because often they’re in a neighboring service territory or spread around the region,” he said, and “they’re usually developed and owned by independent power producers.” </p> <p>Utilities also like to err on the side of caution. To avoid blackouts, they prefer to build more rather than less, which shows up in their off-the-charts projections. Since 2006, their 10-year growth forecasts have <a href="https://rmi.org/fast-flexible-solutions-for-data-centers/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">overshot reality by 17%</a> on average, according to an RMI analysis. </p> <p>That saddles customers with the bill for unneeded facilities. And it’s a particular risk in the current fast-changing environment.</p> <p>Utilities are preparing to meet a <a href="https://rmi.org/the-state-of-utility-planning-2025-q2" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">24% increase</a> in electricity demand by 2035, according to another RMI analysis. </p> <p>Jeremy Ortiz, a spokesperson for the Edison Electric Institute, a utility trade group, said in a statement, “Our members are investing more than <a href="https://www.eei.org/en/news/news/all/eei-releases-2024-financial-review" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">$1.1 trillion</a> in infrastructure projects nationwide over the next 5 years to help keep costs as low as possible for families and businesses while enabling the innovation America needs to win the AI race.”</p> <p>Without regulatory changes, the costs will be effectively socialized across the customer base even though much of the growth is coming from one kind of customer — data centers.</p> <p>“The typical rate-making structures are not set up for this because typically electrical infrastructure — generation, transmission, distribution lines — is paid for by the entire customer base, which is a reasonable assumption when you assume that everything is growing in a similar way,” said Cathy Kunkel, a North America energy consultant with the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. </p> <p>But today’s growth is coming from some of the world’s largest corporations, which are sparing no expense to win the AI arms race.</p> <p>“Because the data centers are so enormous,” Kunkel said, “it’s a different paradigm.”</p> <p>While this is playing out around the country, the most acute impacts are regionally concentrated. Northern Virginia is the world’s largest hub of data centers — and the utility that serves them, Dominion Energy, raised its capital expenditure by one-fifth to <a href="https://www.eei.org/-/media/Project/EEI/Documents/Issues-and-Policy/Finance-And-Tax/Financial_Review/FinancialReview_2024.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">$12 billion</a> last year, the largest jump for any investor-owned electric utility in the nation. </p> <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>“We’re going to end up overbuilding generation, particularly overbuilding fossil-fuel generation.”</p></blockquote></figure> <p>Soaring electricity prices in Virginia, and throughout the wider <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/07082025/inside-clean-energy-pjm-utility-prices-soar/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">Mid-Atlantic region</a>, have been attributed in large part to data centers. </p> <p>As Virginia strains to accommodate that growth, “we’re seeing data center companies right now seek out anywhere that they see perceived headroom or ability to power their load throughout the country,” said Lauren Shwisberg, a principal at RMI’s Carbon-Free Electricity Practice. </p> <p>Against this backdrop, many other states are courting data centers and their tax revenue, following in Virginia’s footsteps. </p> <p>But data centers don’t produce a lot of permanent local jobs, and they “may be effectively crowding out other forms of economic development” by siphoning large portions of the region’s available electricity away from other types of industrial and manufacturing investments, Kunkel noted.</p> <p>Meanwhile, sparse information disclosed by data-center developers — and the speculative nature of many proposals on the cutting edge of tech — makes it harder to effectively plan the grid of the near future.</p> <p>“It is worrisome that we’re going to end up overbuilding generation, particularly overbuilding fossil-fuel generation, which no one wants to see,” Kunkel said.</p> <h3 class="wp-block-heading">Blow to Clean Energy</h3> <p>Clean energy is literally waiting in line to help the grid out — and waiting, and waiting. </p> <p>Another <a href="https://emp.lbl.gov/sites/default/files/2024-04/Queued%20Up%202024%20Edition_R2.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">report</a> from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory last year found that 95% of energy projects queued up at the end of 2023 for permission from grid operators to get connected were either solar, batteries or wind. The report noted that wait times are rising, from less than two years for projects completed in 2008 to nearly five years for those finished in 2023. Historically, just about one in five projects in the queue gets completed. </p> <p>With all these projects in the pipeline, “we can meet the vast majority of the requirements for many of these data centers with pretty close to exclusively clean energy, if we had both the political apparatus and will to be able to do so,” said Jeremy Fisher, principal adviser on climate and energy with the Sierra Club’s environmental law program, who co-authored a <a href="https://www.sierraclub.org/sites/default/files/2024-09/demandingbetterwebsept2024.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">report</a> last September about leveraging growing electric demand for a cleaner grid.</p> <p>At the federal level, with a president who has made no secret of his disdain for renewables, the will is now entirely absent. </p> <p>“The cancellation of permits, the difficulty of getting federal permits and the uncertainty and loss of tax credits are all very likely to reduce renewable energy growth in the next few years,” Grid Strategies’ Gramlich said, referring to <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/tag/donald-trump/" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c="4" title="Donald Trump" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Trump</a> administration moves to discourage wind and solar. All of that compounds the effects of burgeoning demand, he said, “making clean energy targets more difficult to meet in a number of places.”</p> <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>Clean energy is literally waiting in line to help the grid out.</p></blockquote></figure> <p>Take Virginia’s example. The state passed the Virginia Clean Economy Act in 2020, setting staggered targets, under financial penalty, for investor-owned utilities to keep raising the share of carbon-free electricity in their statewide power sales, topping out at 100% in 2045 for Dominion. </p> <p>But Dominion’s long-term planning indicates that it might <a href="https://jlarc.virginia.gov/pdfs/reports/Rpt598.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">miss those targets</a>. In 2023, its modeling showed it might not meet the statutory requirement to retire all carbon-emitting power generation by 2045, citing “an increasing load forecast.” Last year’s plan said it was getting ready to collect fines for some of the years through 2040, when it expects to fall short of the targets. Those fines would pass to customers.</p> <p>Dominion did not respond to requests for comment.</p> <p>Even if compliance with the law was possible and compatible with high levels of data center growth, it would require “unprecedented investment in an ‘all-of-the-above’ strategy” on energy. That was the finding of a <a href="https://jlarc.virginia.gov/pdfs/presentations/JLARC%20Virginia%20Data%20Center%20Study_FINAL_12-09-2024.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">study</a> released in December by the state Legislature’s Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission, which also said the state’s current regulatory practices “were not designed to account for this level and continued pace of large load growth from essentially a single customer type.”</p> <p>In neighboring North Carolina, where data center construction is <a href="https://www.cbre.com/press-releases/north-carolina-data-center-construction-jumps-15x-as-cloud-and-artificial-intelligence-providers" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">exploding</a>, the Republican-led Legislature last month <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/29072025/will-north-carolina-power-bill-reduction-act-work/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">dropped</a> a 2030 deadline for utility Duke Energy to slash its carbon emissions by 70%. </p> <h3 class="wp-block-heading">Risks to Consumers</h3> <p>Already, utility bills are rising as climate change drives more extreme weather and grid hardening costs. Deepening dependence on gas further piles on risks for ratepayers, and not only because gas worsens climate change. </p> <p>“When [gas prices] spike, that’s an instant rate increase outside the rate-case process that flows directly to your bill,” said Ted Thomas, founder of consultancy Energize Strategies and former chair of the Arkansas Public Service Commission. “If you’re a regulator, your consumers are twisting in the wind if they’re just sitting there eating those costs on both electricity and natural gas home heating.”</p> <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>“The people that think the only reason to do renewables is environmental, they get it wrong.”</p></blockquote></figure> <p>Then there’s the possibility of the political pendulum swinging back. Make energy investment decisions assuming the current federal policy environment won’t change, and “you’re probably going to get hammered,” Thomas said.</p> <p>“The people that think the only reason to do renewables is environmental, they get it wrong,” Thomas said. His guidance for utility commissioners: “You’ve got to leave your ideology at home. … We can’t pretend that natural gas prices don’t spike because if they do, our constituents are going to have to pay for it.”</p> <p>Some states are taking a hard look at the other major grid issue posed by data centers: everyone bearing the costs of that development. In July, utility American Electric Power got <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/17072025/inside-clean-energy-ohio-data-centers-penalties/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">buy-in</a> from state regulators in Ohio to make large data centers pay for at least 85% of their projected energy use each month, even if they end up needing less. A <a href="https://www.cesa.org/wp-content/uploads/Load-Growth.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">report</a> that same month from the Clean Energy States Alliance details other ways that officials are trying to make data centers pick up the tab — and stay the course on the clean-energy transition. </p> <p>“The momentum was always at the state level,” said Olinsky-Paul, a co-author of that report. “States have a very good, effective ability to institute new policy and regulations and new programs to accelerate the deployment of clean energy resources. They know how to do it. They’ve been doing it for decades.” </p><p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/as-data-center-demand-surges-the-grid-cant-kick-its-gas-habit/">As Data Center Demand Surges, the Grid Can’t Kick Its Gas Habit</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/as-data-center-demand-surges-the-grid-cant-kick-its-gas-habit/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>0</slash:comments> <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">311466</post-id> <enclosure url="https://truthdig.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/AP24331768231102-scaled.jpg?width=878&height=585" length="399631" type="image/jpeg" /> <media:thumbnail url="https://truthdig.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/AP24331768231102-scaled.jpg?width=878&height=585" /> </item> <item> <title>The Cooked-Up Case Against Lisa Cook</title> <link>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-cooked-up-case-against-lisa-cook/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-cooked-up-case-against-lisa-cook</link> <comments>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-cooked-up-case-against-lisa-cook/#respond</comments> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Dean Baker / Beat the Press ]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Mon, 15 Sep 2025 15:17:01 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Business & Economy]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Column]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Courts & Law]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Opinion]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Politics]]></category> <category><![CDATA[US]]></category> <category><![CDATA[bill pulte]]></category> <category><![CDATA[donald trump]]></category> <category><![CDATA[federal reserve]]></category> <category><![CDATA[lisa cook]]></category> <category><![CDATA[mortgage fraud]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.truthdig.com/?p=311462</guid> <description><![CDATA[<p>It is unclear whether the Fed governor committed fraud—and why is Trump’s housing director rifling through the mortgage documents of his political opponents, anyway?</p><p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-cooked-up-case-against-lisa-cook/">The Cooked-Up Case Against Lisa Cook</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong>A few weeks back</strong>, Bill Pulte, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) director and the billionaire heir to a housing construction firm, claimed to have found evidence that Federal Reserve Board Gov. Lisa Cook had committed mortgage fraud. President <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/tag/donald-trump/" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c="4" title="Donald Trump" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Donald Trump</a> immediately tried to fire Cook from her position at the Fed, with the intention of getting another seat on the Fed’s seven-person board.</p> <p>This attempted firing raised several serious questions. Most immediately, whether the FHFA director is supposed to be rifling through the mortgage documents of Trump’s political opponents. </p> <p>Previously, Pulte had claimed to have found evidence that California Sen. Adam Schiff had committed mortgage fraud. Schiff had led the first impeachment case against Trump in 2019 as a member of the House. Pulte also claimed to have found evidence of mortgage fraud by Letitia James, the attorney general of New York, who had gotten a civil conviction against Trump for, among other things, lying on loan forms. </p> <p>But it also raised questions about Trump’s power as president. While the Republican Supreme Court claimed to find wording in the Constitution that allowed the president to freely fire members of ostensibly independent agencies like the Federal Trade Commission, which oversees antitrust law, and the National Labor Relations Board, which monitors labor law violations, it also apparently found wording that prevented the president from behaving similarly toward the Fed. </p> <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>It was not clear that what Cook had allegedly done amounted to fraud.</p></blockquote></figure> <p>The Republican Supreme Court’s argument for the Fed’s special treatment was a bit more complicated, but it would only be a slight simplification to say that it was because the Fed is important. The court apparently accepted the argument of the vast majority of economists that it would be bad news to have a Fed under the complete control of the president. For this reason, they appeared to leave in place the preexisting standard for appointees of independent agencies, that they could only be removed for cause.</p> <p>This is where Pulte’s accusation appeared useful. Trump could now pronounce Cook, a Black woman (like Letitia James), guilty of mortgage fraud, and therefore someone who could be fired for cause. This was never the open-and-shut case that Trump and his sycophants claimed.</p> <p>First, it was not clear that what Cook had allegedly done amounted to fraud. According to Pulte, she had listed two different homes as primary residences on mortgage applications. If true, this may violate the law, but it is a common breach that is rarely prosecuted. It turns out three Trump Cabinet members, as well as Pulte’s parents, seem to have done the same thing. If Cook’s actions had violated the law, it probably ranks as something somewhat more serious than a traffic ticket, but considerably less serious than the spousal abuse that Trump laughed off as a real crime last week. </p> <p>There was also the second point, that the alleged offense had occurred prior to Cook’s appointment to the Fed. Can “cause” refer to an action someone had done before being appointed to office? </p> <p>There were allegations of sexual assault against Trump Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth before his appointment. <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/tag/rfk-jr/" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c="13" title="RFK JR" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Robert F. Kennedy Jr.</a> was an admitted heroin addict in his youth. While both Cabinet members are political appointees, who clearly hold their positions at the president’s discretion, would these past offenses in principle be grounds for removal for cause?</p> <p>And then there is the final point. Cook was never proved to have done anything wrong. All Trump had was Pulte’s accusation of wrongdoing.</p> <p>It turns out Pulte’s accusation is not worth very much. NBC News, among other outlets, <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-administration/lisa-cook-federal-reserve-bank-documents-mortgage-fraud-allegations-rcna230964" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">obtained</a> loan documents showing that Cook had identified her Atlanta house as a “vacation home,” which would seem to be in full compliance with the law. The question is now whether Trump can fire a Fed governor over a seemingly false allegation from one of his political appointees. That seems to be a pretty clear-cut loss for Team Trump, but I can’t speak for the Republican Supreme Court.</p> <p>Since we’re on the topic of Trump lies, let me digress for a moment to the assassination of Charlie Kirk. First, no one should in any way applaud this act. As my eighth-grade teacher told the 13-year-old idiots celebrating the shooting of George Wallace in 1972, you kill the movement, not the man. Like Wallace, Kirk was a real human being, with friends and family. His death is a tragedy.</p> <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>Cook was never proved to have done anything wrong.</p></blockquote></figure> <p>But moving to the broader political context, Team Trump moved to weaponize the shooting before the body was even cold, blaming the left for the killing at a point where they knew nothing about the shooter. They looked to purges of the media, schools and universities, and all other institutions. </p> <p>Now that the suspect, Tyler Robinson, is in custody, it appears that the motivation for the killing was more likely to have come from the right than from the left. It’s still early, and more information will surely come out, but one thing that seems clear from this shooting is that it was done by a troubled young man who had too easy access to guns. The same is true of Thomas Cook, the 20-year-old man who shot Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, last summer.</p> <p>Trump and his supporters are quick to blame these shootings on a mysterious “they,” implying that it is somehow part of a grand plot by the left. But like the charges against Cook, the story of the plot is a lie, invented entirely by Team Trump. Lying is apparently a way of life for those born into families with billions, but the rest of the country should not have to suffer the consequences of the lies from the rich and very rich. </p><p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-cooked-up-case-against-lisa-cook/">The Cooked-Up Case Against Lisa Cook</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-cooked-up-case-against-lisa-cook/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>0</slash:comments> <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">311462</post-id> <enclosure url="https://truthdig.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/AP25238487130525-scaled.jpg?width=878&height=585" length="469624" type="image/jpeg" /> <media:thumbnail url="https://truthdig.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/AP25238487130525-scaled.jpg?width=878&height=585" /> </item> <item> <title>Trump FDA Seeks to Abandon Expert Reviews of New Drugs</title> <link>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/trump-fda-seeks-to-abandon-expert-reviews-of-new-drugs/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=trump-fda-seeks-to-abandon-expert-reviews-of-new-drugs</link> <comments>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/trump-fda-seeks-to-abandon-expert-reviews-of-new-drugs/#respond</comments> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Arthur Allen / KFF Health News ]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Fri, 12 Sep 2025 15:36:48 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Courts & Law]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Health & Wellness]]></category> <category><![CDATA[News]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Politics]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Science]]></category> <category><![CDATA[US]]></category> <category><![CDATA[alzheimers disease]]></category> <category><![CDATA[big pharma]]></category> <category><![CDATA[drug evaluation]]></category> <category><![CDATA[fda]]></category> <category><![CDATA[pharmaceutical industry]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.truthdig.com/?p=311432</guid> <description><![CDATA[<p>Critics say ending the decades-old practice would likely shield the agency’s decisions from public scrutiny.</p><p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/trump-fda-seeks-to-abandon-expert-reviews-of-new-drugs/">Trump FDA Seeks to Abandon Expert Reviews of New Drugs</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p class="has-small-font-size"><em><a href="https://kffhealthnews.org/about-us" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">KFF Health News</a> is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at <a href="https://www.kff.org/about-us/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">KFF</a> — the independent source for health policy research, polling and journalism.</em></p> <p><strong>Food and Drug Administration leaders</strong> under President <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/tag/donald-trump/" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c="4" title="Donald Trump" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Donald Trump</a> are moving to abandon a decades-old policy of asking outside experts to review drug applications, a move critics say would shield the agency’s decisions from public scrutiny.</p> <p>The FDA “would like to get away” from assembling panels of experts to examine and vote on individual drugs, because “I don’t think they’re needed,” said George Tidmarsh, head of the agency’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. He relayed the message Tuesday at a meeting of health care product makers and Wednesday to an FDA advocacy group.</p> <p>In addition to being redundant, Tidmarsh said, advisory meetings on specific drugs were “a tremendous amount of work for the company and for the FDA. We want to use that work and our time to focus on the big questions.”</p> <p><a href="https://www.fda.gov/advisory-committees" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">The FDA’s advisory committees</a> were created in their current form by a 1972 law aimed at expanding and regulating the government’s use of experts in making technical decisions. They’re periodically summoned for advice, including to review evidence and vote on whether the FDA should approve drugs, vaccines and medical devices, often when officials face decisions that are not clear-cut.</p> <p>FDA actions have traditionally aligned with committee votes. A departure can provoke controversy and public debate, as was the case with the split 2021 decision on whether to approve the Biogen drug Aduhelm to treat Alzheimer’s disease.</p> <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>FDA actions have traditionally aligned with committee votes.</p></blockquote></figure> <p>The FDA <a href="https://kffhealthnews.org/news/article/medicare-ruling-aduhelm-controversial-alzheimer-drug-critics/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">approved the drug</a> despite a “no” vote from its advisory committee, whose members felt the medicine did little to treat the disease. The conflict over Aduhelm laid bare the FDA’s struggle to reconcile pressure from industry and desperate patients with its rigorous evaluation of drug risks and benefits.</p> <p>Tidmarsh said the committees would still be consulted on general issues like how to regulate different classes of drugs. But meetings on specific drugs, in which experts plow through piles of studies and hours of testimony from FDA and company officials, were mainly useful, he said, because they allowed the public to see how the FDA worked.</p> <p>This month the FDA began publishing the “complete response letters” it sends to companies when it declines to approve their products. Release of the letters, which previously required the filing of a request under the federal Freedom of Information Act, promotes a level of transparency akin to the advisory meetings, Tidmarsh said.</p> <p>Advisory committee meetings on individual drugs “are redundant when you have the complete review letters,” he told KFF Health News in a brief interview after appearing at the health care products conference.</p> <p>Former FDA officials and academics who study the agency disagree. The meetings help FDA scientists make decisions and increase public understanding of drug regulation, and abandoning them doesn’t make sense, they said.</p> <p>Tidmarsh’s reasoning is “hard to follow,” former FDA Commissioner Robert Califf told KFF Health News. “It’s extremely useful for people inside FDA to find out what other experts think before they make their final decisions. And it’s important to do that in a way that enables the public to understand the points of view.”</p> <p>“Experts might ask questions of the company or FDA that neither of them thought of on their own,” said Holly Fernandez Lynch, an associate professor of bioethics and law at the University of Pennsylvania. “The public has few other opportunities to comment about FDA decisions.”</p> <p>Spokespeople for the FDA and the Health and Human Services Department did not respond to repeated requests for elaboration on Tidmarsh’s comments.</p> <p>Califf at times disagreed with advisory committees as commissioner of the agency and once floated the idea that it might be better if they deliberated but did not vote on products. Still, while “maybe someone can come up with a better one, I always thought it was an amazing system,” he said.</p> <p>The FDA is not obliged to ask the outside experts to review drugs and usually hasn’t. It calls on them mainly for important new types of medications or when a decision is especially tricky because of high demand for a product that may have limited value, Aduhelm being a classic example.</p> <p>The advisory committees are “an important resource” for the FDA, said Sarah Ryan, a spokesperson for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America. “They can play an important part of the rigorous human drug review process we have in the U.S.”</p> <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>“The public has few other opportunities to comment about FDA decisions.”</p></blockquote></figure> <p>The committees are often asked to help settle disagreements within the FDA about how to move forward on a regulatory decision, said Reshma Ramachandran, a health services researcher and clinician at the Yale School of Medicine.</p> <p>She and other researchers and former FDA officials praised FDA Commissioner Marty Makary’s decision to publish the complete response letters.</p> <p>But the letters don’t obviate the need for committee meetings, said Peter Lurie, a former associate FDA commissioner who heads the Center for Science in the Public Interest.</p> <p>“A disclosed complete response letter tells the public that a company’s application was rejected and why,” Lurie said. “An advisory committee meeting says to outside experts and the public, ‘Here’s what we’re thinking of doing and we’d love your input before we decide.’ Plainly, those are not equivalent.”</p> <p>The changes Tidmarsh described are already playing out on the ground. The FDA has held only seven advisory committee meetings since Trump reentered the White House, compared with 22 over the same time frame last year. Officials say they will now release complete response letters as they are sent, and published a batch of 89 earlier in September.</p> <p>Makary has to some extent <a href="https://www.politico.com/newsletters/prescription-pulse/2025/08/08/the-shrinking-number-of-advisory-committee-meetings-00499116" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">replaced the advisory committees</a> — whose members have traditionally been vetted for expertise and biases and are <a href="https://www.gsa.gov/policy-regulations/policy/federal-advisory-committee-management/legislation-and-regulations/federal-advisory-committee-act" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">required to deliberate in public</a> — with panels of handpicked scientists who support Makary’s views on subjects such as <a href="https://www.raps.org/news-and-articles/news-articles/2025/7/panel-urges-fda-to-remove-boxed-warning-on-women-s" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">hormone replacement therapy</a> and <a href="https://gooznews.substack.com/p/fda-advisory-committee-system-on" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">antidepressants</a>.</p> <p>Diana Zuckerman, a critic of the drug industry, attended the <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/07/25/nx-s1-5477644/menopause-hormone-therapy-fda-health" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">July hormone replacement therapy panel</a> that considered the FDA’s black-box warning listing dangers of the treatment. Makary had <a href="https://oncodaily.com/blog/marty-makary-332760" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">wanted the warning removed</a> and packed the panel with like-minded experts.</p> <p>The event was hastily called with no opportunity for the public to review discussion materials or comment on them, she said.</p> <p>“All that was transparent was that they didn’t want to hear from anyone who disagreed with them,” said Zuckerman, who leads the National Center for Health Research.</p> <p>Before becoming commissioner, Makary pushed for more advisory committee meetings. In early 2022, he blasted the FDA’s decision to approve COVID boosters for children 12 to 15 without consulting its Vaccine and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee. <a href="https://x.com/MartyMakary/status/1477430796780773376" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">Makary posted</a> on social media at the time, “It is a slap in the face to science for @US_FDA to circumvent the standard convening of the expert advisory board.”</p> <p>But Tidmarsh seems to disagree.</p> <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>“All that was transparent was that they didn’t want to hear from anyone who disagreed with them.”</p></blockquote></figure> <p>Instead of asking an advisory committee to vote in favor of or against a Duchenne muscular dystrophy drug, for example, he said the FDA would be better served by a committee studying the best way to evaluate such drugs, such as which outcomes, or end points, to measure. “Is this end point correct for Duchenne muscular dystrophy? That’s an important question that cuts across many different companies,” he told KFF Health News.</p> <p>FDA official Vinay Prasad canceled a planned July advisory committee meeting to discuss a Duchenne drug made by the biotech company Capricor Therapeutics. The FDA later published its complete response letter to Capricord rejecting its application. Capricor then published its own letter of response to the FDA. Prasad was later pushed out and rehired with fewer powers.</p> <p>An advisory committee meeting could have worked through the drug’s risks and benefits in a calmer, public, less politicized atmosphere, Ramachandran said.</p> <p>The FDA usually agrees with the votes of its several dozen advisory committees. A <a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama-health-forum/fullarticle/2807050" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">2023 study</a> found that the FDA agreed with 97% of “yes” votes and 67% of “no” votes.</p> <p>That’s why Tidmarsh’s comments “come as a complete surprise,” said Genevieve Kanter, an associate professor of public policy at the University of Southern California who wrote commentary accompanying the study. The FDA has postponed a lot of meetings this year, but “everyone thought it was temporary, with the transition and all the firings.”</p> <p>“Another theory is that this decision is strategic,” she said, “in terms of consolidating power in the agencies so that you are no longer accountable to outside experts or the public.”</p> <p><a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-fda-expert-reviews-of-new-drugs/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank"></a></p><p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/trump-fda-seeks-to-abandon-expert-reviews-of-new-drugs/">Trump FDA Seeks to Abandon Expert Reviews of New Drugs</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/trump-fda-seeks-to-abandon-expert-reviews-of-new-drugs/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>0</slash:comments> <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">311432</post-id> <enclosure url="https://truthdig.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/AP25113478411212-scaled.jpg?width=877&height=585" length="673017" type="image/jpeg" /> <media:thumbnail url="https://truthdig.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/AP25113478411212-scaled.jpg?width=877&height=585" /> </item> <item> <title>Bezos to D.C.: Drop Dead</title> <link>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/bezos-to-d-c-drop-dead/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=bezos-to-d-c-drop-dead</link> <comments>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/bezos-to-d-c-drop-dead/#respond</comments> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Pete Tucker]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Fri, 12 Sep 2025 15:22:54 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Business & Economy]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Column]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Courts & Law]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Labor]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Media]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Opinion]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Politics]]></category> <category><![CDATA[US]]></category> <category><![CDATA[amazon]]></category> <category><![CDATA[donald trump]]></category> <category><![CDATA[jeff bezos]]></category> <category><![CDATA[washington d.c.]]></category> <category><![CDATA[washington post]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.truthdig.com/?p=311416</guid> <description><![CDATA[<p>How the billionaire's bizarre worldview and cosmic fantasies explain the Washington Post's abandonment of its hometown.</p><p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/bezos-to-d-c-drop-dead/">Bezos to D.C.: Drop Dead</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><em>The following story is co-published with <a href="https://petetucker.substack.com/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">Pete Tucker’s Substack</a>.</em></p> <p class="has-drop-cap">Shortly after Jeff Bezos touched back down to earth in 2021, he credited those who made his space exploration possible. “I want to thank every Amazon employee and every Amazon customer, ‘cause you paid for all of this,” Bezos <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/jeff-bezos-thanks-amazon-workers-blue-origin-launch-revealingly-tone-ncna1274565" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">enthused</a> while decked out in his blue space suit.</p> <p>That same year, an internal report noted that Amazon was churning through employees at such a brisk clip that the company feared exhausting the labor pool of the entire United States, a country of over 300 million people. “If we continue business as usual, Amazon will deplete the available labor supply in the US network by 2024,” stated the report, which was <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/23170900/leaked-amazon-memo-warehouses-hiring-shortage" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">obtained by Vox</a>.</p> <p>Amazon’s relentless churn — <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/15/us/politics/amazon-warehouse-workers.html" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">150% a year</a> for warehouse workers — was, for Bezos, a feature, not a bug. “In his drive to create the world’s most efficient company, Jeff Bezos discovered what he thought was another inefficiency worth eliminating: hourly employees who spent years working for the same company,” the New York Times noted <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/15/briefing/amazon-warehouse-investigation.html" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">in a newsletter</a> accompanying its 2021 <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/06/15/us/amazon-workers.html" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">investigation of Amazon</a>:</p> <blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow"><p>Longtime employees expected to receive raises. … And they were a potential source of internal discontent. </p> <p>Bezos came to believe that an entrenched blue-collar work force represented “a march to mediocrity,” as David Niekerk, a former Amazon executive who built the company’s warehouse human resources operations, told the Times<em>.</em> …</p> <p>In response, Amazon encouraged employee turnover. After three years on the job, hourly workers no longer received automatic raises, and the company offered bonuses to people who quit. It also offered limited upward mobility for hourly workers.</p></blockquote> <p>Bezos’ indifference to the workers whose backbreaking labor made him rich is remarkable. And it has me wondering where the rest of us fit into Bezos’ worldview.</p> <h3 class="wp-block-heading">‘A Thousand Mozarts’</h3> <p>Jeff Bezos has long believed that he can save humanity, but only by placing Earth’s heavy industries on the moon, then shipping manufactured products back to Earth, and leaving the pollution behind.</p> <p>“The Earth is finite,” a teenage Bezos told his local newspaper, “and if the world economy and population is to keep expanding, space is the only way to go.”</p> <p>“I still believe that,” Bezos said four decades later, while doing his best Steve Jobs impersonation on a darkened stage at the D.C. convention center with a captive audience of students looking on.<a href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!WWuQ!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F208ed469-1a72-4d19-95cd-df3d9adce5fb_1820x994.heic" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow"></a></p> <p>With population and energy use growing exponentially, we’re on a “bad path” that leads to “rationing,” Bezos explained. But not to worry! With all the fervor of a snake oil salesman, Bezos continued:</p> <blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow"><p>The good news is that if we move out into the solar system, for all practical purposes we have unlimited resources. So we get to choose: Do we want stasis and rationing? Or do we want dynamism and growth? This is an easy choice.</p></blockquote> <p>By placing heavy industry in space, “Earth ends up zoned residential and light industry,” explained Bezos, who also made an excited pitch for humans living in space. “We can have a trillion humans in the solar system. Which means we’d have a thousand Mozarts and a thousand Einsteins. This would be an incredible civilization,” Bezos said.</p> <p>And the weather! “These are ideal climates, these are shirtsleeve environments. This is Maui on its best day all year long. No rain, no storms, no earthquakes,” Bezos said in his 2019 talk, humbly entitled “For the Benefit of Earth.”</p> <h3 class="wp-block-heading">‘Directly in the first lady’s pocket’</h3> <p>I don’t begrudge Bezos for having a rich fantasy life. And if he wants to flit away his billions flying himself and his friends into space, I wish him all the best. Where I draw the line is at public funding.</p> <p>Why billionaires like Bezos feel entitled to tap the public purse for their fantasies is beyond me. But that’s what Bezos is doing with his space company, Blue Origin, which is his true passion.</p> <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>Without federal contracts, “Blue is dead in the water.”</p></blockquote></figure> <p>“He cares most about Blue Origin,” a longtime Bezos adviser <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/00e81e1a-a38f-4d45-89e8-0e8c162572b8" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">told</a> the Financial Times. But without federal contracts, “Blue is dead in the water,” said the adviser. “[Bezos’] chance of being the player he wants to become in space could be destroyed” if he doesn’t stay in President <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/tag/donald-trump/" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c="4" title="Donald Trump" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Donald Trump</a>’s good graces.</p> <p>So showering the first family with donations and sweetheart deals makes sense. My personal favorite is the $40 million Amazon paid for Melania Trump’s documentary, of which roughly $28 million goes “directly in the first lady’s pocket,” the Financial Times <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/00e81e1a-a38f-4d45-89e8-0e8c162572b8" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">reported</a>. The eye-popping sum makes it “probably the most expensive documentary ever paid for in history,” filmmaker Alex Holder <a href="https://www.wsj.com/politics/elections/trump-family-election-cash-bonanza-2f5f8714?st=k8deQk" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">told</a> the Wall Street Journal.</p> <p>This largesse is at best a rounding error for both Amazon, a company valued at over $2 trillion, and Bezos, who’s worth over $200 billion. But the potential upside is immense, as things can quickly go awry when Trump’s hand is on the public money spigot, as Bezos is well aware.<a target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!aYhl!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F16abde6b-1c65-42cc-9cb2-5a2904342832_2084x1354.heic" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow"></a></p> <h3 class="wp-block-heading">‘A surprising decision’</h3> <p>During Trump’s first term, a joke went around that the Washington Post didn’t cost Bezos $250 million — the amount he bought the paper for in 2013 — but $10 billion.</p> <p>The latter figure represents the size of a Pentagon cloud computing contract that Amazon lost out on after Trump became enraged at the coverage he was receiving in the Post.</p> <p>The $10 billion contract instead went to Microsoft. “It was a surprising decision since Amazon Web Services was the industry leader in cloud computing and was judged by many to have presented a stronger bid,” the Wall Street Journal <a href="https://www.wsj.com/politics/what-game-is-jeff-bezos-playing-aa12dda3?mod=hp_lead_pos7" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">reported</a>.</p> <p>Amazon promptly sued, and the $10 billion contract was eventually broken into four components, one of which Amazon secured.</p> <p>But Bezos was “deeply hurt” by the ordeal, the Financial Times <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/00e81e1a-a38f-4d45-89e8-0e8c162572b8" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">reported</a>. “He sat there going: ‘This is not right.’”</p> <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>“He’s prioritizing his other businesses over the <em>Post</em>.”</p></blockquote></figure> <p>Having learned his lesson about crossing Trump, Bezos quietly reached out when it looked like the former president might return to office in 2024. Bezos even <a href="https://www.axios.com/2025/02/27/jeff-bezos-trump-tech-alliance" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">suggested</a> to Trump that he select North Dakota Gov, Doug Burgum as his running mate. (Trump named Burgum to his Cabinet, as interior secretary.)</p> <p>Bezos’ alignment with Trump only became public in the days before the election, when Bezos <a href="https://fair.org/home/bezos-declaration-of-neutrality-confirms-billionaires-arent-on-your-side/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">personally spiked</a> the Post’s endorsement of <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/tag/kamala-harris/" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c="3" title="Kamala Harris" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Kamala Harris</a>.</p> <p>Once Trump won, Bezos quickly sought to <a href="https://fair.org/home/to-cozy-up-to-trump-bezos-banishes-dissent-from-wapo/?fbclid=IwY2xjawIvG_ZleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHXOb5Q4Ib6CbQbL5n4lUf_bUk-c3djzD71NVQiApiuQUn2Ak_PAts5zLtw_aem_QTN-B6-PWBHWZ9AtpuvMIg" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">remake his paper</a> in the president’s image, thereby ensuring neither Amazon nor Blue Origin would lose out on billions in federal contracts.</p> <p>“He’s prioritizing his other businesses over the Post,” former <em>Post</em> executive editor Marty Baron <a href="https://zeteo.com/p/jeff-bezos-washington-post-opinion-marty-baron-reaction-trump?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=2325511&post_id=157913728&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=jyjn&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">told</a> Zeteo.</p> <blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow"><p>Amazon has a big cloud computing business. Blue Origin is wholly dependent on the U.S. government. Trump can just decide that they’re not going to get any contracts. Is he going to put that at risk? Obviously, he’s not going to put that at risk.</p> <div style="height:30px" aria-hidden="true" class="wp-block-spacer"></div></blockquote> <h3 class="wp-block-heading">Bezos to D.C.: Drop dead</h3> <p>While Post reporters continue to produce some excellent journalism, the paper’s transformation on the opinion side is so complete that when Trump carried out a military occupation of Washington, D.C. — the city the Post calls home — the editorial page all but <a href="https://fair.org/home/wapo-editors-doing-their-best-to-conceal-reporters-vital-work-on-dc-occupation/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">rolled out the red carpet</a>.</p> <p>This is an extraordinary dereliction of journalistic duty. It’s also a fuck you to the local readers and businesses who have kept the Post viable over generations. (To experience Bezos’ fuck you in physical form, pick up a paper copy of the Post and try to find the Metro section, now buried in the back of Sports or Style.)</p> <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>“The reason he’s earning so much money is to get to outer space.”</p></blockquote></figure> <p>But I suppose we should have seen this coming. After all, if Bezos can dispose of the Amazon workers who made him rich, why should we expect him to treat D.C. residents and Post readers any better?</p> <p>In Bezos’ world, he’s Player One, on an intergalactic quest to save humanity. The rest of us are NPCs (nonplayer characters). And earthly matters like journalistic integrity and democracy are beside the point.</p> <p>To Bezos’ credit, he’s always been transparent about his solipsistic worldview. So have some of those around him.</p> <p>“Whatever image he had of his own future, it always involved becoming wealthy. … There was no way to get what he wanted without it,” Bezos’ high school girlfriend Ursula Werner told reporters in the 1990s, according to author Brad Stone’s “The Everything Store.”</p> <p>And what exactly did Bezos want? “The reason he’s earning so much money is to get to outer space.”</p> <p class="is-td-marked">The rest of us — Amazon workers, Post readers, etc. — are just flotsam and jetsam.</p><p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/bezos-to-d-c-drop-dead/">Bezos to D.C.: Drop Dead</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/bezos-to-d-c-drop-dead/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>0</slash:comments> <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">311416</post-id> <enclosure url="https://truthdig.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/AP25096161458986-scaled.jpg?width=891&height=585" length="374035" type="image/jpeg" /> <media:thumbnail url="https://truthdig.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/AP25096161458986-scaled.jpg?width=891&height=585" /> </item> <item> <title>Greenwashing Debt in the Galápagos Islands</title> <link>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/greenwashing-debt-in-the-galapagos-islands/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=greenwashing-debt-in-the-galapagos-islands</link> <comments>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/greenwashing-debt-in-the-galapagos-islands/#respond</comments> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Sophia Boddenberg / NACLA ]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Fri, 12 Sep 2025 15:20:18 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Activism]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Americas]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Business & Economy]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Courts & Law]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Environment]]></category> <category><![CDATA[News]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Politics]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Social Justice]]></category> <category><![CDATA[US]]></category> <category><![CDATA[conservation]]></category> <category><![CDATA[debt-for-nature swap]]></category> <category><![CDATA[ecuador]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Galápagos]]></category> <category><![CDATA[greenwashing]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.truthdig.com/?p=311427</guid> <description><![CDATA[<p>Ecuador’s historic debt-for-nature swap promises to bridge the international funding gap for biodiversity conservation, but island residents say it erodes sovereignty and empowers foreign interests.</p><p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/greenwashing-debt-in-the-galapagos-islands/">Greenwashing Debt in the Galápagos Islands</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong>The Galápagos Islands</strong> harbor some of the most distinctive ecosystems on the planet. Their isolated location in the middle of the Pacific Ocean has allowed species to evolve independently from their relatives on the mainland over millions of years. Creatures such as Darwin’s finches, giant tortoises and marine iguanas are found only on the Galápagos Islands. It was here, 600 miles west of the South American mainland, that Charles Darwin gathered insights that shaped his theory of evolution.</p> <p>In 1959, the Ecuadorian government founded the Galápagos National Park, protecting around 97% of the archipelago’s landmass. It was the country’s first national park. In 2022, the government expanded the Galápagos Marine Reserve by 60,000 square kilometers with the creation of the Hermandad Marine Reserve, bringing the total protected area to 198,000 square kilometers — almost half the size of mainland Ecuador. But there was a problem: The Ecuadorian state lacked the funding required to protect this vast marine territory.</p> <p>In May 2023, then-President Guillermo Lasso therefore announced the largest debt-for-nature swap in history. The Ecuadorian state bought back bonds worth $1.63 billion from international bondholders at a discount and exchanged them for a new loan of $656 million to be invested in marine conservation. The government hailed the deal as a “historic agreement” that would help to protect endangered species such as whales and turtles, as well as promote sustainable fisheries and strengthen climate resilience. Ecuador was as wealthy as any of the richest countries in the world, the Ecuadorean foreign minister said, “but our currency is the biodiversity.” The idea behind debt-for-nature swaps is simple: A heavily indebted country like Ecuador reduces its debt burden while promising to allocate funds to environmental or marine conservation. In doing so, nature is increasingly treated as a tradable commodity. It seems like a win-win outcome. But who truly benefits from this arrangement?</p> <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>In doing so, nature is increasingly treated as a tradable commodity.</p></blockquote></figure> <p>“We had no idea there was a debt-for-nature swap — we found out about it through social media,” said Patricia Moreno, a human rights and environmental activist who lives on San Cristóbal, the easternmost island in the Galápagos archipelago. Home to around 6,000 people, it has the second-largest human population in the islands. Moreno said islanders are routinely excluded from the conversation when it comes to conservation. “We exist,” she said. “And we are more than just predators.”</p> <p>Moreno remembers when Lasso visited the Galápagos Islands in 2023 to announce the agreement. At the time, residents were already protesting a supply crisis. A recent shipwreck had disrupted deliveries, leading to shortages of basic goods like eggs, rice and potatoes. Located hundreds of miles off the Ecuadorian coast, the islands rely on shipments of food and fuel from the mainland by ship and plane. “People were already angry,” Moreno recalled. “And when we learned about the debt-for-nature swap, we got even angrier. We had no information about it. Some even thought that the islands had been traded away and now belonged to another country.”</p> <p>Moreno said the public wasn’t consulted on the agreement, nor were Galápagos residents invited to the president’s announcement. Only political authorities and tourism industry representatives were present. “We felt like we meant nothing,” Moreno said. She began organizing with other islanders to find out what the debt-for-nature swap was really about and reclaim their right to information, consultation and participation.</p> <h3 class="wp-block-heading">Gambling With Government Debt Is Lucrative</h3> <p>The Galápagos Islands’ debt-for-nature swap was the largest to date, but it was not the first. These types of deals have been around since the 1980s. Bilateral debt-for-nature swaps involve one country negotiating directly with another to forgive or restructure debt in return for conservation commitments. Commercial swaps involve private third parties — such as nongovernmental agencies, investment firms or banks — purchasing discounted government bonds from the debtor country on the secondary market. Commercial swaps have taken place in the Seychelles, Belize, Barbados and, most recently, Ecuador.</p> <p>In the case of Ecuador’s Galápagos deal, the investment bank Credit Suisse facilitated the buyback of more than $1.6 billion in sovereign bonds for the Ecuadorian government. These bonds had fallen in value due to Ecuador’s high national debt and political instability, making them attractive for repurchase. Although the identities of the bondholders are not publicly known, they likely include international investment funds, insurance companies and pension funds.</p> <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>Moreno said the public wasn’t consulted on the agreement.</p></blockquote></figure> <p>To finance the buyback of the bonds, a special purpose vehicle (SPV) named GPS Blue Financing was established in Ireland, which is known for its favorable tax regime. This entity issued a new set of “Galápagos Marine Bonds.” In this transaction, Ecuador was the borrower, GPS Blue Financing was the lender and the Bank of New York Mellon acted as the facility agent, a kind of intermediary. According to Bloomberg News, one of the major investors in the new bonds was the Swedish pension fund Alecta, which has faced criticism for high-risk investments and allegations of corruption. Alecta was also involved in the 2021 Belize swap, which was similarly arranged by Credit Suisse. Credit Suisse was the leading bank to arrange debt-for-nature swaps for a long time, until it collapsed in 2023 following several bribery scandals, after which it was taken over by another bank.</p> <p>To reduce the risk for investors and lower the cost of borrowing for the Ecuadorian state, the U.S. Development Finance Corp. provided a $656 million guarantee in the event of default — equal to the total value of the bonds. Additionally, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) provided $85 million to cover the first six interest payments if Ecuador defaulted. These guarantees mean that investors bear very little financial risk, while banks can market the deal as a commitment to marine conservation.</p> <p>After Credit Suisse collapsed in 2023, its former head of debt-for-nature swaps, Ramzi Issa — who handled the Galápagos deal — founded his own company in 2025: Enosis Capital, a so-called impact credit fund specializing in sustainable financial transactions. Business is booming because gambling with government debt is lucrative. Investors are keen to sell government bonds issued by highly indebted countries in the Global South — known in financial jargon as “junk-rated issuers” — at a good price. Wealthy investors and banks buy debt cheaply, secure public guarantees and profit from restructuring it into conservation-based loans.</p> <p>Meanwhile, it was these same Western financial institutions, backed by U.S. monetary policy, that caused the debt crisis in the Global South in the first place by offering high-interest loans on predatory terms.</p> <p>Despite this backdrop, the United Nations, the World Bank, the European Union and U.S. conservation organizations are presenting debt-for-nature swaps as a promising solution to the biodiversity conservation funding gap. At the U.N. Biodiversity Conference in Colombia in October 2024, groups like the Nature Conservancy, World Wildlife Fund, Pew Charitable Trusts, Conservation International and Re:wild formed a coalition to advocate for these instruments. In a joint statement, they described debt-for-nature swaps as “a win-win for governments, local communities and nature,” and as “one of the largest potential sources of funding to help achieve the global climate and nature goals.”</p> <h3 class="wp-block-heading">The Myth of “Win-Win”</h3> <p>The new wave of debt-for-nature and debt-for-climate swaps is being framed by Global North institutions as a solution to both sovereign debt crises and conservation funding shortfalls. These instruments, they argue, can channel new financing into developing countries with high biodiversity by turning ecological stewardship into a service that wealthier nations pay for — while incentivizing creditors to offer debt relief. This is an important debate in the context of climate and development policy because the lack of adequate funding for biodiversity conservation remains an urgent and unresolved issue. But behind the technocratic language of innovation and efficiency lie deeper political questions: Who benefits, and who bears the burden?</p> <p>The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, adopted in 2022, calls for protecting 30% of land and marine areas by 2030 — a goal commonly referred to as “30 by 30.” The framework also stipulates that those countries most responsible for ecosystem destruction — wealthy, industrialized nations — should provide financial support for conservation efforts in poorer countries. But according to a report on debt-for-climate swaps by the Latin American Network for Economic, Social and Climate Justice (LATINDADD), 80% of climate finance is delivered in the form of loans. This allows rich countries to shift the burden to the private sector while avoiding the use of public funds. “Many countries in the Global South spend less than 1% of their budget on environmental protection, but more than 20% on debt servicing,” said Carola Mejía, an economist with LATINDADD. “Debt-for-nature swaps distract from the fact that the countries responsible for the climate and environmental crises are not fulfilling their international commitments.”</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" width="1024" height="688" src="https://truthdig.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/AP22015830803263.jpg?width=1024&height=688" alt="" class="wp-image-311429" srcset="https://truthdig.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/AP22015830803263-scaled.jpg?width=1024&height=688 1024w, https://truthdig.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/AP22015830803263-scaled.jpg?width=300&height=202 300w, https://truthdig.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/AP22015830803263-scaled.jpg?width=768&height=516 768w, https://truthdig.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/AP22015830803263-scaled.jpg?width=268&height=180 268w, https://truthdig.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/AP22015830803263-scaled.jpg?width=402&height=270 402w, https://truthdig.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/AP22015830803263-scaled.jpg?width=603&height=405 603w, https://truthdig.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/AP22015830803263-scaled.jpg?width=871&height=585 871w, https://truthdig.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/AP22015830803263-scaled.jpg?width=2000 2000w" sizes="(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px" data-recalc-dims="1" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">A giant tortoise at the Galapagos National Park in Puerto Ayora, Galapagos Islands, Ecuador, on Jan. 14, 2022. (AP Photo/Dolores Ochoa)</figcaption></figure> <p>Mejía argues that instead of promoting new debt instruments, the international community should prioritize financing mechanisms for climate mitigation and biodiversity conservation that do not generate new debt. As the main perpetrators of the climate crisis, industrialized countries in the Global North should meet their obligations and provide funds directly in the form of grants or reparations. Together with LATINDADD, Mejía supports the global movement “Debt for Climate,” which campaigns for debt relief for countries in the Global South. “Debt is a neocolonial mechanism that controls our countries,” she said. Debt-for-nature swaps reinforce the narrative that debt is the fault of countries in the Global South, rather than the result of exploitative practices by powerful nations and international financial institutions. In this sense, swaps often serve as a tool for greenwashing and perpetuating debt.</p> <p>In response, LATINDADD and the Ecuadorian human rights group Centro de Derechos Económicos y Sociales (CDES) have proposed a set of “High-Integrity Principles for Debt Swaps.” Released in October of last year, their report emphasizes transparency, independent auditing and monitoring, democratic participation and equitable distribution of benefits. It also sharply criticizes the Galápagos deal for its lack of transparency and for excluding local actors from decision-making and resource management. In May 2024, CDES and several Galápagos-based organizations filed a formal complaint to the Inter-American Development Bank’s Independent Consultation and Investigation Mechanism (MICI), an office that addresses complaints about possible harms caused by IDB-financed projects. “There are so many needs in the community, and we want to participate,” said Patricia Moreno, who was involved in the complaint alongside members of the Asamblea Comunitaria San Cristóbal. “Local organizations also need support for social and conservation projects, but it’s always the same NGOs that receive the funding.”</p> <p>After two months of negotiations, an agreement was reached between the representatives of 24 civil society organizations, the IBD, Ecuador’s Ministry of Economy and Finance, and the Ministry of Environment, Water and Ecological Transition. The deal guarantees, among other points, that local communities have public access to information about the Galápagos Life Fund — the entity managing conservation funds from the debt swap — and commits at least 18% of its funding to local social and community groups on the Galápagos Islands. It also establishes a permanent observer role for community representatives on the fund’s board. MICI will monitor the implementation of the agreement.</p> <h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="d1e117">The Conservation Elite</h3> <p>Lorenzo Idrovo, who was born and raised in the Galápagos Islands and also took part in the complaint, is critical of how conservation is managed on the archipelago. “There’s a very elitist discourse coming from the NGOs, as if the local population doesn’t exist,” he said. His two children attend a public school where the roof is damaged, the tables are broken and basic school materials are lacking. Meanwhile, a biologist friend of his studying sharks uses advanced equipment with sophisticated technology to listen to the heartbeats and perform ultrasounds on pregnant sharks. “Many of the children here have never even heard their own heartbeat,” Idrovo observed, “because the health centers don’t have that kind of equipment. There is a conservation elite made up of large NGOs managing millions of dollars. We’re only asking for a small percentage to go toward social needs — because without social justice, conservation is impossible.”</p> <p>In biodiversity-rich regions like the Galápagos, conservation is increasingly dictated by international NGOs — particularly U.S.-based organizations. Among the most influential is the Nature Conservancy, a major proponent of debt-for-nature swaps. The organization has been involved in debt swaps in the Seychelles, Belize and Barbados, with more agreements reportedly in the pipeline. Through its Blue Bonds for Conservation model, it claims these arrangements will improve management across more than 4 million square kilometers of ocean. But for critics like researcher Andre Standing, such approaches represent the financialization of conservation — a trend in which financial institutions and conservation NGOs gain increasing control over vast ecosystems and sovereign territories in heavily indebted countries through market-based instruments.</p> <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>“There’s a very elitist discourse coming from the NGOs, as if the local population doesn’t exist.”</p></blockquote></figure> <p>The Galápagos are no exception, with international conservation organizations holding considerable power and influence over the islands. These include the Galápagos Conservancy and Re:wild from the United States, the United Kingdom’s Galápagos Conservation Trust, Belgium’s Charles Darwin Foundation, Switzerland’s World Wide Fund for Nature and Ecuador’s own Jocotoco. While conservation is officially managed by the Galápagos National Park, most of the funding comes from international foundations, organizations and trust funds. In early 2025, for instance, the Bezos Earth Fund — backed by U.S. billionaire and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos — donated a ship equipped with modern monitoring technology worth around $800,000 to the park.</p> <p>There is also a kind of revolving door between leading roles at the national park and top positions at these NGOs; according to sources on the islands, high-ranking figures in the park used to direct one of these organizations, and vice versa. These dynamics create, on one hand, a dependency of Ecuadorian public institutions on international funding and, on the other, the consolidation of a kind of “conservation elite,” a small group of individuals holding influential positions in conservation management — both of which undermine democratic oversight and exclude local communities from decision-making and the management of funds.</p> <p>The Galápagos Life Fund (GLF), which manages the debt-for-nature swap funds, is based in the U.S. state of Delaware — a well-known tax haven. The fund was established with assistance from Baker McKenzie, the law firm implicated in the Pandora Papers revelations for facilitating offshore financial secrecy. GLF’s board is composed of 11 members: six from the private sector and five from government ministries. This means the Ecuadorian state is in the minority. Private board members include representatives from the Pew Bertarelli Ocean Legacy project, a partnership between Swiss billionaire Dona Bertarelli and the Pew Charitable Trusts, founded by heirs of a U.S. oil company.</p> <p>Over the next 18½ years, the Galápagos Life Fund will distribute $12 million per year to marine conservation efforts in the Galápagos Islands. Half will go to state institutions; the other half to local projects for which organizations and companies can apply. Over the next three years, $6 million of that total will be invested annually in the control and monitoring of marine protected areas, to be overseen by the armed forces, the National Park Directorate and the Undersecretariat of Fisheries. Yet, according to multiple sources interviewed for this story, the funds do not go directly to the Ecuadorian state but to the NGOs Re:wild and Jocotoco, which will manage them on behalf of the GLF. Among other things, the money will be used to repair ships and improve satellite systems for monitoring the Galápagos and Hermandad marine protected areas. Two years after the announcement of the debt-for-nature swap for the Galápagos Islands, it remains unclear whether the funds will genuinely benefit marine ecosystems or primarily serve the interests of private investors and NGOs.</p> <h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="d1e141">Militarization or Sovereignty</h3> <p>The new Hermandad Marine Reserve, located between the Galápagos Islands and Costa Rica’s Cocos Island, is an important migration route for sea turtles, whales and rays. It is one of the most species-rich areas on the planet and is therefore particularly popular with industrial fishing fleets. To prevent illegal fishing in the marine reserve, Ecuador’s military and the national park are set to increase patrols in the area.</p> <p>The reserve is not only a migration route for marine species — it’s also a transnational corridor for the international drug trade. In 2024, the Washington Post described the Galápagos Islands as a “gas station for drug smugglers” en route from South America to the United States. The recently reelected right-wing President Daniel Noboa has signed a security cooperation agreement with the United States that allows the presence of U.S. ships and submarines in the waters surrounding the islands in order to combat organized crime on the sea. Noboa is also planning to set up a U.S. military base on the Galápagos Islands.</p> <p>Islanders like Idrovo and Moreno are concerned about the plans for a military base. Together with over 50 organizations, they have started a campaign against the proposed base, under the slogan: “Galápagos, natural sanctuary, not a military base.” In a joint declaration, the coalition stated: “The militarization of our islands is incompatible with their natural sanctuary status and threatens decades of conservation efforts. … This decision violates our Constitution, ignores the right to prior consultation of local communities and compromises Ecuadorian sovereignty.”</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img decoding="async" width="1024" height="683" src="https://truthdig.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/AP22014827661192.jpg?width=1024&height=683" alt="" class="wp-image-311430" srcset="https://truthdig.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/AP22014827661192-scaled.jpg?width=1024&height=683 1024w, https://truthdig.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/AP22014827661192-scaled.jpg?width=300&height=200 300w, https://truthdig.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/AP22014827661192-scaled.jpg?width=768&height=512 768w, https://truthdig.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/AP22014827661192-scaled.jpg?width=270&height=180 270w, https://truthdig.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/AP22014827661192-scaled.jpg?width=405&height=270 405w, https://truthdig.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/AP22014827661192-scaled.jpg?width=608&height=405 608w, https://truthdig.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/AP22014827661192-scaled.jpg?width=878&height=585 878w, https://truthdig.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/AP22014827661192-scaled.jpg?width=2000 2000w" sizes="(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px" data-recalc-dims="1" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Former U.S. President Bill Clinton puts on a protective face mask sitting next to Ecuador’s then-President Guillermo Lasso at a signing ceremony that expanded the Galapagos Maritime Reserve by 60,000 square kilometers in Puerto Ayora, Galapagos Islands, Ecuador, on Jan. 14, 2022. (AP Photo/Dolores Ochoa)</figcaption></figure> <p>While it is unclear whether the security agreements between Ecuador and the United States are linked to the debt-for-nature swap, both initiatives signal a troubling shift: the erosion of democratic structures in Ecuador that threaten the state’s sovereignty over resource management and conservation strategies. Together, they consolidate power in the hands of U.S.-based organizations, financial institutions and the military at the expense of national autonomy.</p> <p>Social movements argue that the notion of a benevolent debt swap diverts attention from more transformative proposals, such as debt cancellation, which could free up national budgets for environmental initiatives without deepening financialization or eroding the sovereignty of Global South nations. Still, some contend that, under the right conditions, debt-for-nature swaps could play a constructive role. Daniel Ortega Pacheco, Ecuador’s former environment minister and an expert in sustainable finance and debt-for-nature swaps, believes the Galápagos debt swap could offer valuable lessons for the future if grounded in a transparent, inclusive and resilient global regulatory framework. “The countries involved should be strengthened, not undermined, in their democratic structures and autonomy,” he insists.</p> <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>“The banks, NGOs, and investors make money from these deals.”</p></blockquote></figure> <p>Like Idrovo and Moreno, Ortega Pacheco emphasizes that long-term conservation is most effective when rooted in the needs and participation of local communities. “It has been proven that managing nature reserves with the involvement of local communities is cheaper and more sustainable in the long term,” he observed. In contrast, he is critical of what he calls “parastatal structures” — namely international NGOs — that restrict state autonomy, privatize resource management and operate without independent oversight. “It is naive to believe that those involved in debt-for-nature swaps are acting out of philanthropy,” Ortega Pacheco added. “The banks, NGOs, and investors make money from these deals.” </p> <p>The debt-for-nature swap in the Galápagos reveals not only asymmetrical power dynamics in conservation policy and financing, but also the colonial logic that underpins global climate politics. International actors impose externally defined priorities and frameworks that fail to incorporate the needs, knowledge systems and rights of local populations. For example, the 30 by 30 conservation goal is rooted in the “Half-Earth” concept proposed by U.S. biologist E.O. Wilson, which advocates for protecting half of the planet from the destructive influence of humans. This vision universalizes a specific notion of “humanity” that denies our capacity to coexist with nonhuman life, as Indigenous groups have done for millennia. </p> <p>Across Latin America and much of the Global South, environmental struggles usually do not artificially separate the protection of nature from the defense of livelihoods, autonomy and the social reproduction of communities. This more holistic vision sees these elements as intrinsically intertwined. “Nature conservation” as an independent concern, represented by U.S. conservation organizations, often treats nature as “wild and untouched” — something detached from our everyday lives. It emerged in contexts in which livelihoods are not existentially threatened by climate change, extractivism and displacement. The feminist theorist Nancy Fraser calls this approach an “environmentalism of the rich,” based on the idea that it is possible to protect nature without questioning the structural dynamics of capitalist society.</p> <p>Debt-for-nature swaps do not solve either the debt crisis or the climate crisis. While they may be useful in specific cases under a strong regulatory framework, they should not be considered a viable solution to the funding gap for climate action and biodiversity conservation. The case of the Galápagos Islands makes clear that real climate justice cannot be separated from the social needs of local communities and requires going beyond market-based instruments. To effectively address the climate crisis and biodiversity loss, we must confront the global economic structures and colonial legacies that fuel both environmental degradation and social inequality, and reimagine conservation as a radical transformation of social and economic relations.</p><p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/greenwashing-debt-in-the-galapagos-islands/">Greenwashing Debt in the Galápagos Islands</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/greenwashing-debt-in-the-galapagos-islands/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>0</slash:comments> <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">311427</post-id> <enclosure url="https://truthdig.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/AP22015830693636-scaled.jpg?width=929&height=585" length="415647" type="image/jpeg" /> <media:thumbnail url="https://truthdig.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/AP22015830693636-scaled.jpg?width=929&height=585" /> </item> <item> <title>The Life and Legacy of Charlie 4Chan</title> <link>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-life-and-legacy-of-charlie-4chan/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-life-and-legacy-of-charlie-4chan</link> <comments>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-life-and-legacy-of-charlie-4chan/#respond</comments> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Jeb Lund]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Thu, 11 Sep 2025 19:55:37 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Activism]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Belief & Religion]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Column]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Courts & Law]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Media]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Opinion]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Politics]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Race]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Social Justice]]></category> <category><![CDATA[TD Column]]></category> <category><![CDATA[TD Original]]></category> <category><![CDATA[US]]></category> <category><![CDATA[4chan]]></category> <category><![CDATA[assassination]]></category> <category><![CDATA[charlie kirk]]></category> <category><![CDATA[gun control]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Turning Point USA]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.truthdig.com/?p=311406</guid> <description><![CDATA[<p>Public officials who went silent after Democratic lawmakers were executed in their homes are tripping over themselves to honor the man who franchised internet chan culture as politics.</p><p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-life-and-legacy-of-charlie-4chan/">The Life and Legacy of Charlie 4Chan</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p class="has-drop-cap">We don’t know yet how far away the shooter was, what kind of gun or ammunition they used, what radicalized them and what made them choose their target. But, coincidence or not, they had a dramatic sense of timing. The last thing Charlie Kirk ever said before a bullet fatally struck his neck Wednesday afternoon was a racist dog whistle in the middle of smearing transgender Americans about gun violence.</p> <p>If there is any silver lining for his legacy and organization, Turning Point USA, it’s that Charlie’s job was to mint lots more Charlie Kirks, so service should only be interrupted for a few days. Given that his gig required stoking eliminationist violence toward the right’s enemies, and that his colleagues have spent the last day retributively threatening the same, it’s like he never left us.</p> <p>Some might tell you that the right has spent the last decade championing unrestricted free speech to smuggle back into the discourse the sorts of naked racism, homophobia and misogyny that academia has repeatedly invalidated and polite society did its best to anathematize. But let us adopt the sincerity they profess and heed their fondness for an apocryphal Voltaire quote — “I may not agree with what you say, sir, but I will defend to the death your right to say it” — by moving on to a real quip from that gentlemen — “To the living, we owe respect; to the dead, we owe only the truth” — and tell the truth about Charlie Kirk. That doing so has already led MSNBC to fire Matthew Dowd and the <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/10/06/1203271345/florida-politics-peter-schorsch-southeast" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">pay-for-play</a> Florida Politics blog to <a href="https://x.com/PeterSchorschFL/status/1965873789021073734" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">turf a reporter for asking a smart question</a> should not dissuade us. Nor should the rat king of right-wing influencers demanding the heads of anyone even faintly describing him, or, evidently, the EU Parliament for failing to honor him.</p> <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>Charlie’s job was to mint lots more Charlie Kirks.</p></blockquote></figure> <p>Like most good right-wing origin stories, Charlie’s began in resentment and ended in affirmative action for white people. He allegedly wasn’t accepted to West Point, not for lack of qualifications, but because “<a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/a-conservative-nonprofit-that-seeks-to-transform-college-campuses-faces-allegations-of-racial-bias-and-illegal-campaign-activity" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">a far less-qualified candidate of a different gender and a different persuasion</a>” was given his slot by a woke admissions process. (Please join me in calling on the president of the United States to call on the president of Harvard — because that’s how we do these things — to demand that Charlie Kirk’s high school release his transcripts.) Stuck for what to do next, like get a job in the private sector, he instead saw the success of <a href="http://moveon.org/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">MoveOn.org</a> and found a dad to give him money to copy it. Thus did Kirk found Turning Point USA, a nonprofit dedicated to seeding conservatism in American high schools and colleges.</p> <p>Success did not come overnight. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0wzZhgbYWc" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">Charlie’s first video for TPUSA</a> features him talking to Neil Cavuto about the generational theft of Barack Obama’s budgets, professing his nonpartisan objections to an oncoming fiscal cliff and $16 trillion in national debt. (As you can imagine, <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/tag/donald-trump/" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c="4" title="Donald Trump" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Donald Trump</a> did not receive nonpartisan criticism from TPUSA for adding $8 trillion to the national debt in his first term and a <a href="https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/us-debt-tops-37-trillion-big-beautiful-bill-allows-rise-trillions-higher" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">projected $4 trillion so far in the second</a> or for raising the debt ceiling by another $5 trillion.) Unfortunately, the young ideas wing of the tea party flatlined for much the same reasons as the real thing, failing to translate effectively outside of an extremely gerrymandered atmosphere and the structurally minoritarian features of Congress. The economic and political incoherence and hypocrisy never hit the big time until stripped of polite obfuscations about negative liberty in our fiscal household.</p> <p>TPUSA took off when it decided to ride in Trump’s wake, when the theory of government became that anything we want it to do is our unalienable right, and anything the opposition does is unconstitutional. We no longer needed an interposing libertarian rationale to make doing things for, or preventing bad things from happening to, minorities or the poor not only unnecessary but illegal. Naturally, the new product needed a new kind of salesman, comfortable stating as a matter of course and without shame that things sure go to shit when a Black person is put in charge, when these fucking Mexicans move in next door, when I have to see a queer person existing unterrified in public, when a woman tells me what to do when I am not certain she’s just repeating something her husband told her.</p> <p>What TPUSA learned on the ground was something that columnist <a href="https://www.splinter.com/charlottesville-was-a-preview-of-the-future-of-the-repu-1797988745" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">Alex Pareene spotted all the way from New York City in 2017</a>: that, having adopted an ideology that had literally nothing to offer any young person except racism, Young Republicans clubs in high schools and colleges were recruiting fewer and fewer kids who weren’t racists. Demography met destiny when it was paired with both Kirk’s facility for youth-oriented but otherwise standard conservative memes — mean as hell and dumber’n a pile of pig shit — and a promotional structure up to a nationwide conservative machine that would reward loud amoral trolls.</p> <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>Charlie franchised internet chan culture as politics, and the results speak for themselves.</p></blockquote></figure> <p>Combined with some tactically astute modesty and the <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/is-the-free-press-worth-a-quarter-billion-dollars/">Bari Weiss-like</a> capacity for <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/10/magazine/charlie-kirk-american-right.html" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">convincing wealthy people to give money because he’s the conservative child they never had</a>, Charlie franchised internet chan culture as politics, and the results speak for themselves. The chapters <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/a-conservative-nonprofit-that-seeks-to-transform-college-campuses-faces-allegations-of-racial-bias-and-illegal-campaign-activity" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">helmed by unvarnished racists</a>. <a href="https://gizmodo.com/tweets-about-diapers-broke-the-entire-conservative-yout-1823345007" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">Diaper-based internecine strife</a>. Or the fact that an organization that gained national attention outside the right-wing ecosystem for trolling college campuses about free speech built an apparatus for McCarthyite reporting on professors who teach woke wrongthink. (Or that one of the fastest ways for Charlie to block mainstream journalists’ accounts was for them to correct him in the replies where his followers could see.) It was an online and real-life troll exercise without accountability or facts, built on the most exhausted whack-ass racist beliefs and raining anger comically or cathartically on whichever of the day’s persons of interest had gained traction — just some of the most comfortable malignancies in the world brigading individuals out of the blue, day after day, between <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/which-way-western-wuss/">ritualistically pausing to cry victim</a>.</p> <p>Name an oppressed group or protected class, and Charlie said something that sounded like the reason those adjectives were there in the first place. Name an actual victim, and chances are you’ve also found the person he’d blame for their condition one or two tweets away from a pharisaical display of his faith. He would have you believe he was afraid of Black airline pilots and lesbians doing surgery on him because diversity, equity and inclusion promotes unqualified people into positions of lethal incompetence. He took a page from Lew Rockwell’s old racist Ron Paul newsletters and vilified Martin Luther King Jr. and civil rights legislation. He called for Nuremberg trials for doctors performing gender-affirming care. He promoted the deeply antisemitic Great Replacement theory, beloved of mass shooters and Elise Stefanik. He spoke at the Stop the Steal rally and later invoked his Fifth Amendment privilege about Jan. 6. He called for the military occupation of a <a href="https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/charlie-kirk-trump-military-occupation-b2805750.html" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">laundry list of blue cities</a>. </p> <p>He was a bold tribune of dynamic ideas like Black history month is too long, and affirmative action is part of <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/tag/democratic-party/" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c="12" title="democratic party" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the Democrats</a>’ war on white people. Democrats are going to trans your children. One day you’ll leave your house, and when you come back Democrats will have already moved in a family of pet-eating immigrants. Democrats are fundamentally weak. Democrats are strong enough to destroy America. Democrats already <em>are</em> destroying America. We have to do anything to stop them. Democracy’s overrated anyway. His <a href="https://x.com/charliekirk11" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">X account</a> will live forever; anytime you want, you can scroll it and see how many tweets it takes before you get to one where the outrage and its subject stop being a coincidence.</p> <p>Today, Democratic public officials who had nothing to say about Democratic lawmakers being executed in their homes by a right-wing lunatic just a few months ago are tripping all over themselves to honor the career of a replacement-level fascist who achieved being on TV for a sustained period. Establishment dweeb Ezra Klein abundantly showed his whole ass in a New York Times column headlined, “Charlie Kirk Was Practicing Politics the Right Way.” To quote former journalist <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/ianboudreau.com" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">Ian Boudreau</a>, who if anything is being too generous: “Would it have been possible to quote Kirk at length on any subject and run that headline? I don’t think so.”</p> <p>As expected, the default message of yesterday and today has been, “Political violence is unacceptable.” Agreed. However, the rest of that message keeps getting cut off. The remainder reads: Militarily occupying American cities to quell a crime wave that isn’t happening is political violence. Attempting a coup that features “hang the vice president” on its to-do list is political violence. Pardoning nearly a thousand offenders who committed that political violence <em>as a reward for it</em> and to intimidate your opposition is political violence. “Swatting” your political opponents is political violence. Bomb threats for doctors, abortion clinics and facilities performing gender-affirming care is political violence. The Supreme Court eliminating the Fourth Amendment for Latinos is political violence. Black-bagging people — lawful American residents or no — and shipping them to torture prisons in countries they aren’t even from is political violence. There will be no unanimity of message today on any of those; for most, we will be fortunate if it earns 50% uptake.</p> <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>“Political violence is unacceptable.” Agreed. However, the rest of that message keeps getting cut off.</p></blockquote></figure> <p>The void left by those above messages going unrepeated will be filled with shaming. Those glad he’s gone will be shamed for giving conservatives a pretext for retributive political violence. But whatever sentences they utter about the need to extirpate all Democrats from the nation will differ from last week’s only in terms of which proper name they insert as a predicate this time. Critics will be shamed too, because Charlie Kirk was a family man, leaving behind a wife and children. He lost his life while doing his best to save his country from what he saw as the lethal march of communism. The 6th Army widows probably said the same thing about Stalingrad.</p> <p>Between Stephen Miller retasking the federal law enforcement and military apparatus toward ethnic cleansing and Kash Patel remaking the FBI as an elite squad of coked-up podcasters, Charlie Kirk’s killer is much less likely to be brought to justice. That doesn’t have to be a bad thing for conservatives. When you find the killer, you wave the bloody shirt at the killer; when you don’t find him at all, you can wave it at anyone you want, which is why the right hasn’t waited for a single suspect and has already implicated Democrats so broadly as to put 80 million people on the wanted list. </p> <p class="is-td-marked">A cynic might argue that turning Charlie Kirk into the new proper name you tack onto your “and another thing …” rant without even breaking stride in your vengeance march toward “The Left” is the most disrespectful thing of all. The march isn’t going any faster or slower, and it isn’t changing direction. Charlie Kirk might have been a father and a husband, but to his avengers, he won’t even be much of a speed bump.</p><p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-life-and-legacy-of-charlie-4chan/">The Life and Legacy of Charlie 4Chan</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-life-and-legacy-of-charlie-4chan/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>0</slash:comments> <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">311406</post-id> <enclosure url="https://truthdig.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/charliekirk4chan.png?width=878&height=585" length="2129511" type="image/png" /> <media:thumbnail url="https://truthdig.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/charliekirk4chan.png?width=878&height=585" /> </item> <item> <title>Death of a Troll</title> <link>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/death-of-a-troll/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=death-of-a-troll</link> <comments>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/death-of-a-troll/#comments</comments> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Joseph L. Flatley]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Thu, 11 Sep 2025 16:21:28 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Activism]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Belief & Religion]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Column]]></category> <category><![CDATA[LGBTQIA+]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Opinion]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Politics]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Race]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Social Justice]]></category> <category><![CDATA[TD Column]]></category> <category><![CDATA[TD Original]]></category> <category><![CDATA[US]]></category> <category><![CDATA[assassination]]></category> <category><![CDATA[charlie kirk]]></category> <category><![CDATA[great replacement theory]]></category> <category><![CDATA[political violence]]></category> <category><![CDATA[talking points USA]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.truthdig.com/?p=311365</guid> <description><![CDATA[<p>Charlie Kirk, 1993—2025.</p><p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/death-of-a-troll/">Death of a Troll</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p class="has-drop-cap">It was possibly the lamest iteration of the music festival: Lollapalooza for people who think arguing with Charlie Kirk is a good way to spend an unseasonably warm fall afternoon. The American Comeback Tour was a series of campus events hosted by Kirk’s organization, Turning Point USA, where students were invited to debate him on a variety of political and cultural issues, primarily for the purpose of creating viral content for his social media operation. As much as people like to call Charlie Kirk a “conservative activist,” he is better described as an influencer and a troll, a human 4chan in a tight suit.</p> <p>Clips are now circulating of Kirk declaring that gun deaths are “worth it” compared to the alternative of a slightly pared back Second Amendment. “You will never live in a society when you have an armed citizenry and you won’t have a single gun death,” <a href="https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/charlie-kirk-gun-deaths-quote/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">he told</a> a crowd of the faithful in 2023. “I think it’s worth it. I think it’s worth it to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year.”</p> <p>Yesterday, while Kirk held court in a tent on the campus of Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, <a href="https://www.opb.org/article/2025/09/10/charlie-kirk-shot/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">an audience member asked</a>: “Do you know how many transgender Americans have been mass shooters over the last 10 years?”</p> <p>“Too many,” Kirk replied.</p> <p>“Five” was the correct answer. The next question: “Do you know how many mass shooters there have been in America over the last 10 years?” </p> <p>“Counting or not counting gang violence?” Kirk asked. </p> <p>These were his last words. </p> <p>Charlie Kirk died as he lived — making very little sense.</p> <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>“I think it’s worth it to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year.”</p></blockquote></figure> <p>Kirk was 18 years old when he cofounded TPUSA in 2012 after deciding that his high school teachers <a href="https://politicalresearch.org/2022/01/28/ten-years-turning-point-usa" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">were all rabid Marxists</a>. By 2016, the group had raised $4.3 million; by 2020,<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/oct/23/turning-point-rightwing-youth-group-critics-tactics" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank"> $39.8 million</a>. The business model was elegant in its cynicism: Set up a table on campus. Put up a sign: “Men Cannot Get Pregnant” or “Build the Wall,” something calculated to draw a crowd. Wait for someone to get angry. Film them getting angry. Post the video: WOKE MOB ATTACKS CONSERVATIVE STUDENT. Then watch the donations roll in. Buy more tables, find more people to sit at them. Repeat. The exercise wasn’t about building bridges or winning converts, but whipping up hostility for <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/a-conservative-nonprofit-that-seeks-to-transform-college-campuses-faces-allegations-of-racial-bias-and-illegal-campaign-activity" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">tax-exempt donations</a>.</p> <p>Kirk understood something about the attention economy that the traditional conservatives missed: moderation is expensive. It requires explanation, nuance, the kind of careful thinking that makes terrible video content. But <a href="https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/this-must-stop-tpusas-charlie-kirk" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">advocating violence against trans people</a> — that goes viral. It encourages the worst of us to break out our checkbooks.</p> <p>TPUSA was largely bankrolled by stunts calculated to inject chaos into the system, increasing the possibility of violence. Its <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/resources/reports/turning-point-usa-case-study-hard-right-2024/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">School Board Watchlist</a> published names, affiliations and crimes against conservative thought, <a href="https://www.aaup.org/issues-higher-education/political-attacks-higher-ed/targeted-harassment-faculty/what-turning-point" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">leading to death threats</a>, which Charlie dismissed as the cost of doing business. “We’re at war,” he often said. </p> <p>There had been violence, of course. At the <a href="https://www.ucdavis.edu/news/controversial-student-led-event-goes-planned" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">University of California, Davis in March 2023, windows were smashed, an officer was injured and two people were arressted</a>. The protesters tried to shut Kirk down, Kirk’s cameras catching every broken pane. <a href="https://portal.csun.edu/persona_selector_2024/news/detail?feed=daily-sundial-rss&id=7cf2c356-20fc-525b-92f4-c2c0ddbbc208" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">At California State University, Northridge in the same year, a crowd swarmed Kirk’s tent</a>, someone threw punches, a deaf student tried to ask a question and Kirk accused the sign language interpreter of “being a jerk.” It was all great content. And all of it confirmed the narrative: <em>We are under attack</em>.</p> <p>The Great Replacement theory made regular appearances at Kirk’s events. “We native-born Americans are being replaced by foreigners,” Kirk said while stumping for <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/tag/donald-trump/" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c="4" title="Donald Trump" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Donald Trump</a>, warning about “the enemy occupation of the foreigner hordes.” This is the same white nationalist conspiracy theory that has appeared in countless manifestos. But Kirk was too smart to write one; manifestos were for losers who shot up Walmarts. Kirk was building something more durable: an infrastructure of rage that would outlast any single act of violence.</p> <p>Jan. 6 should have been the end of it. (It should have been the end of a lot of things.) Turning Point Action — the organization’s political arm — boasted of sending “<a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/jan-6-organizer-ali-alexander-blames-turning-point-usa-for-capitol-riot/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">80-plus buses full of patriots</a>” to Washington. At least, that’s what Kirk tweeted before deleting it, before the windows of the Capitol started breaking. But it wasn’t the end. Nothing ever is anymore. The donations kept coming. The tours continued. The machine ground on.</p> <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>Charlie Kirk died as he lived — making very little sense.</p></blockquote></figure> <p>I heard the news about Charlie Kirk on TMZ. Harvey Levin looked absolutely shocked — like he was having a panic attack on the livestream. Meanwhile, some conservative Gen Z member of the newsroom kept repeating TPUSA talking points about civilians having the right to possess assault rifles. It was chaos. They kept cutting the sound, then it would come back on 10 seconds later. Levin recalled witnessing RFK’s assassination in Los Angeles in 1968, and how he thought America could never get worse than that night.</p> <p>My thoughts upon hearing the news turned to a different assassination, that of George Lincoln Rockwell, the American Nazi Party founder who was shot by a fellow racist at a laundromat in Arlington, Virginia, in 1967. The bullet caught him in the chest while he was holding laundry detergent and a copy of the New York Daily News. The party had expelled the assassin, John Patler, for his Greek heritage. But while he may not have been Nordic enough for the ANP purists, Patler possessed other key requisites.</p> <p class="is-td-marked">Like Kirk, Rockwell had devoted his life to hate speech, until hate fired a gun in his direction.</p><p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/death-of-a-troll/">Death of a Troll</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/death-of-a-troll/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>1</slash:comments> <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">311365</post-id> <enclosure url="https://truthdig.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/CharlieKirkDeath.png?width=878&height=585" length="1174921" type="image/png" /> <media:thumbnail url="https://truthdig.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/CharlieKirkDeath.png?width=878&height=585" /> </item> <item> <title>The Roots of Trump’s Wars on Terror Trace Back to 9/11</title> <link>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-roots-of-trumps-wars-on-terror-trace-back-to-9-11/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-roots-of-trumps-wars-on-terror-trace-back-to-9-11</link> <comments>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-roots-of-trumps-wars-on-terror-trace-back-to-9-11/#respond</comments> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Elizabeth Beavers / Responsible Statecraft ]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Thu, 11 Sep 2025 15:36:34 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Americas]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Column]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Courts & Law]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Middle East]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Military]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Opinion]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Politics]]></category> <category><![CDATA[US]]></category> <category><![CDATA[donald trump]]></category> <category><![CDATA[patriot act]]></category> <category><![CDATA[september 11]]></category> <category><![CDATA[venezuela]]></category> <category><![CDATA[war on terror]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.truthdig.com/?p=311355</guid> <description><![CDATA[<p>After the attacks on New York and Washington, the US built a legal framework for permanent conflict that all presidents since have systematically abused.</p><p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-roots-of-trumps-wars-on-terror-trace-back-to-9-11/">The Roots of Trump’s Wars on Terror Trace Back to 9/11</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong>The U.S. military</strong> recently launched a plainly illegal strike on a small civilian Venezuelan boat that President <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/tag/donald-trump/" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c="4" title="Donald Trump" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Donald Trump</a> claims was a successful hit on “<a href="https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/115136798909755892" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">narcoterrorists</a>.” Vice President <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/tag/jd-vance/" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c="9" title="JD Vance" target="_blank" rel="noopener">JD Vance</a> responded to allegations that the strike was a war crime <a href="https://x.com/JDVance/status/1964341436096057502" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">by saying,</a> “I don’t give a shit what you call it,” <a href="https://x.com/JDVance/status/1964341094226743787" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">insisting</a> this was the “highest and best use of the military.”</p> <p>This is only the latest troubling development in the Trump administration’s attempt to repurpose “War on Terror” mechanisms to use the military against cartels and to expedite his much-vaunted mass deportation campaign, which he says is necessary because of an <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/protecting-the-american-people-against-invasion/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">“invasion”</a> at the border.</p> <p>Unfortunately, more than two decades of widely accepted, bipartisan laws and norms laid the groundwork for this to occur.</p> <p>After 9/11, the Bush administration created the Specially Designated Global Terrorists list, and Congress expanded the preexisting Foreign Terrorist Organization list. These lists allow the executive branch, at its sole discretion, to add and remove individuals and groups to standing lists of “terrorists,” a term that is defined broadly.</p> <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>More than two decades of widely accepted, bipartisan laws and norms laid the groundwork for this to occur.</p></blockquote></figure> <p>The Trump administration has exercised this authority to formally <a href="https://www.state.gov/designation-of-international-cartels/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">designate</a> transnational cartels as terrorists due in part to their role in the flow of people and drugs across the southern border into the United States. They have leveraged this designation to justify a range of actions, including <a href="https://x.com/PeteHegseth/status/1931533276985823392?t=NsDuw1gelGEM9Cxe2r299A&s=19" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">deploying</a> troops to Los Angeles and <a href="https://x.com/StephenM/status/1908944082342129665" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">deporting</a> immigrants to a brutal Salvadoran prison without due process.</p> <p>Another post-9/11 legal invention that paved the way to what the Trump administration is doing today was the USA Patriot Act’s updates to immigration law that <a href="https://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1963&context=facpub" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">allowed</a> deportation of not just those involved in actual violent acts of terrorism, but also those loosely associated with designated “terrorist groups,” even if those associations were peaceful and law-abiding or involuntary and a result of duress. People who have previously been excluded from the United States by these provisions include <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/national/2008/03/23/stalwart-service-for-us-in-iraq-is-not-enough-to-gain-green-card/80683dcc-45b5-4dab-8925-d6f3b06561de/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">Iraqi interpreters</a> for U.S. troops, <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/a-victim-of-terrorism-faces-deportation-for-helping-terrorists" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">victims</a> of forced labor by violent armed groups in El Salvador, and even <a href="https://time.com/5338569/nelson-mandela-terror-list/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">Nelson Mandela</a>. These provisions mean that not just alleged members of cartels, but also cartel victims could be denied entry into the United States or deported if already here.</p> <p>These same post-9/11 immigration law amendments also allow for revoking or denying immigration benefits to foreign nationals who “endorse or espouse” “terrorist activity,” defined broadly. The Trump administration has already revoked the visas of several immigrant students and scholars <a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mad.282460/gov.uscourts.mad.282460.73.0.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">solely</a> for their nonviolent activities criticizing the U.S.-Israel genocide in Gaza, as part of what they call a “<a href="https://x.com/SecRubio/status/1897776709778211044" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">zero-tolerance</a>” policy for terrorism. The administration has primarily leaned on an older and more obscure provision of immigration law to carry out these attacks on immigrants’ free speech rights. But if current efforts are blocked by courts, or they wish to go further, post-9/11 immigration law may give them the tools to justify doing so.</p> <p>The original decision to treat the 9/11 attacks not as crime but as warfare, and to launch a literal war on terror in response, remains the primary post-9/11 legal innovation on which so many abuses are made possible. Under this global war paradigm, the Obama administration carried out ruthless drone killings, including one that targeted a <a href="https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/olc/pages/attachments/2015/04/02/2010-07-16_-_olc_aaga_barron_-_al-aulaqi.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">U.S. citizen</a>, and justified the strikes with a mishmash of <a href="https://www.aclu.org/news/national-security/details-abound-drone-playbook-except-ones-really-matter-most" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">legal standards</a> that applied rules of war outside of actual war zones, and expansively interpreted what constitutes an “imminent threat” and resulting “self-defense” powers.</p> <p>Every post-9/11 president has claimed wide authority to use military force so long as it serves a vague “<a href="https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/olcs-meaningless-national-interests-test-legality-presidential-uses-force" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">national interest</a>.” We can see echoes of this in the Trump administration’s insistence that the small Venezuelan boat blown up by the U.S. military posed an “<a href="https://archive.ph/HoNBt" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">immediate threat</a> to the United States,” that the strike <a href="https://archive.ph/HoNBt" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">complied</a> with the laws of war, and was “in defense of vital U.S. national interests.”</p> <p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/04/us/politics/trump-drug-smugglers-military.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">Commentators</a> are entirely correct to denounce these assertions of legal authority. But policymakers have spent more than two decades accepting a war paradigm against whomever presidents determine to be “terrorists,” making it politically and legally all the more difficult to push back against what the Trump administration is doing now.</p> <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>Every post-9/11 president has claimed wide authority to use military force so long as it serves a vague “national interest.”</p></blockquote></figure> <p>It is also worth recalling that dragnet detentions and deportations of immigrants under the auspices of the war on terror are not entirely unique to the Trump era. In the George W. Bush administration, then-FBI Director Robert Mueller leaned on civil immigration enforcement authorities to round up more than 1,000 Arab, Muslim and South Asian immigrants without due process for <a href="https://oig.justice.gov/sites/default/files/legacy/special/0306/full.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">secret detention</a> until they were “cleared” of having terrorist ties.</p> <p>A year later, the National Security Entry and Exit Registration System, which some have called the original “<a href="https://www.sacbee.com/news/article119755693.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">Muslim registry</a>,” was launched, imposing onerous registration and surveillance requirements on lawful noncitizen immigrants suspected of no wrongdoing, almost entirely from Muslim-majority countries, with a stated justification of countering terrorism. This program wasn’t fully dismantled until well into the Obama administration, and produced no convictions for acts of terrorism. It did result in the deportation of more than 13,000 people, mostly over minor immigration process violations.</p> <p>There are more powers that post-9/11 legal infrastructure affords that this administration has not pursued. It is not impossible to imagine terrorism prosecutions against low-level drug purchasers at home, new hot wars across Latin America and more dragnet deportations of immigrants, justified by a melding of the laws of war, counterterrorism and immigration enforcement. This is because, on a bipartisan basis, our lawmakers have built and strengthened a post-9/11 package of powers that gets handed to each successive president, ripe for potential new weaponization and abuse. The targeting of immigrants and cartels as “terrorists,” including with the tools of warfare, is not a sharp deviation from our recent history — it is its logical conclusion.</p><p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-roots-of-trumps-wars-on-terror-trace-back-to-9-11/">The Roots of Trump’s Wars on Terror Trace Back to 9/11</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-roots-of-trumps-wars-on-terror-trace-back-to-9-11/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>0</slash:comments> <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">311355</post-id> <enclosure url="https://truthdig.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/AP25254484126147-scaled.jpg?width=878&height=585" length="331622" type="image/jpeg" /> <media:thumbnail url="https://truthdig.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/AP25254484126147-scaled.jpg?width=878&height=585" /> </item> <item> <title>Letter From Sicily: A Migrant-Rescue Ship Charts a Course for Gaza</title> <link>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/letter-from-sicily-a-migrant-rescue-ship-charts-a-course-for-gaza/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=letter-from-sicily-a-migrant-rescue-ship-charts-a-course-for-gaza</link> <comments>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/letter-from-sicily-a-migrant-rescue-ship-charts-a-course-for-gaza/#respond</comments> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Stefania D'Ignoti]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Thu, 11 Sep 2025 15:14:08 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Activism]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Europe]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Immigration]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Middle East]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Military]]></category> <category><![CDATA[News]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Social Justice]]></category> <category><![CDATA[TD Original]]></category> <category><![CDATA[World]]></category> <category><![CDATA[gaza]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Global Sumud Flotilla]]></category> <category><![CDATA[humanitarian crisis]]></category> <category><![CDATA[NGO Emergency]]></category> <category><![CDATA[sicily]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.truthdig.com/?p=311349</guid> <description><![CDATA[<p>An NGO that usually saves drowning migrants in the Mediterranean has joined the latest besieged Gaza aid flotilla.</p><p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/letter-from-sicily-a-migrant-rescue-ship-charts-a-course-for-gaza/">Letter From Sicily: A Migrant-Rescue Ship Charts a Course for Gaza</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p class="has-drop-cap">SICILY—On the afternoon of Aug. 29, a little more than one day into its 36th mission in the Mediterranean, the search-and-rescue (SAR) vessel Life Support made an unexpected midsea U-turn back to Sicily. The boat, owned by the humanitarian nongovernmental organization Emergency, had already begun rerouting when head of mission Jonathan Nanì La Torre summoned crew members for a meeting. Standing in a room filled with old books and maritime knots, he informed the crew that they were being recalled to join the Global Sumud Flotilla expedition to Gaza, the latest attempt to break the siege Israel has imposed on the Gaza Strip and open a symbolic humanitarian aid corridor.</p> <p>The sudden decision from the Italian NGO’s Milan headquarters came “like thunder from a clear sky,” said Nanì La Torre, an SAR rescuer and former head of mission. “I had goose bumps. It’ll forever be a historic moment for our crew.”</p> <p>Nanì La Torre and his colleagues understand their new assignment as an extension of their work in the Mediterranean, where their boat is one of the two dozen vessels navigating search-and-rescue zones to save migrants left stranded at sea while attempting to reach Europe from North Africa. According to official data by the U.N.’s International Organization for Migration, more than 25,000 people have lost their lives over the past 10 years in what is considered the world’s most dangerous migrant route.</p> <p>“Just as in Gaza, political inaction leaves a gap to be filled by civilians at sea,” said Maria Elena Delia, Italian spokesperson of the Global Sumud Flotilla, during a press conference.</p> <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>“Just as in Gaza, political inaction leaves a gap to be filled by civilians at sea.”</p></blockquote></figure> <p>“From aiding migrants at sea to aiding besieged Gazawis, the struggle for liberation in the Mediterranean is one, so our presence is not out of context in this mission,” said Nanì La Torre. “We have been witnessing a progressive political closure of the sea that should be a safe passage, as right-wing governments in Europe have created a humanitarian gap that aid workers and civilians must fill. This mission is about filling that gap of basic human rights.”</p> <p>Since August of 2024, Emergency has been on the ground in Gaza providing medical assistance to victims of Israeli attacks, and its staff is well aware of the atrocities taking place on the ground. A few days before their decision to join the Sumud, the house next to their office in Khan Younis was bombed, killing a family of six that they had come to care for as neighbors and friends over the past two years. They will be joined in the Sumud by four coalitions that also bring prior experience in land and sea efforts to break Gaza blockades: Global Movement to Gaza, Freedom Flotilla Coalition, Maghreb Sumud Flotilla and Sumud Nusantara.</p> <p>“For us it was a natural decision to join this solidarity movement,” Anabel Montes Mier, head of Emergency’s mission with the flotilla, told Truthdig. “We cannot accept what is happening in Gaza, we have to do something concrete to stop the siege. Logistically, it will be a completely different mission than the ones we are used to. Thematically, we don’t see any difference.”</p> <p>Earlier this year, the dots connecting Israel’s war on Gaza and the European Union’s crackdown on migration were highlighted when Israeli drones<a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2025/05/02/europe/gaza-flotilla-ship-sos-intl-hkn" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank"> deliberately targeted</a> one Freedom Flotilla vessel, then<a href="https://trt.global/world/article/505bb953ef9b" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank"> spied on another</a>, using technology that a<a href="https://newlinesmag.com/spotlight/the-israeli-drones-guarding-fortress-europe/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank"> recent investigation</a> found to be the same used by the EU’s border patrol agency Frontex to surveil and curb migration in the Mediterranean. The overlap represents “an amalgamation of years of brutal repression aimed at migrants and refugees trying to cross the water and the repression of Palestinians,” the author reported.</p> <p>Emergency’s participation reflects this amalgamation, the crew says. During the mission, their vessel will hold an observer role, stopping 150 nautical miles from Gaza’s coast. They will be the last ones to depart<strong> </strong>from Sicily and join the rest departing from Tunis. Their boat will bring up the rear of the group, together with the legal vessel, named in honor of the late Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, to offer logistical and witnessing support in the event of any incidents. After two Israeli warplanes were spotted at the nearby American base of Sigonella, security concerns changed the initial plan of all the boats departing together on Sept. 4 from the port of Catania in Sicily, where the Life Support is currently docked.</p> <p>The boats that left Barcelona on Sept. 1 and diverted their route to Tunis, however, ended up being attacked twice, on the night of Sept. 8 and again on Sept. 9, when Israeli drones struck the Family Boat, the flotilla’s head vessel, and another vessel within Tunisian territorial waters.</p> <p>The event took place after Israel’s Ministry of Security threatened to treat flotilla activists as terrorists and confiscate their boats and repurpose them for Israel Defense Forces use. Since 2018, Italy’s far-right government has also threatened and criminalized the work of humanitarian workers on multiple occasions.</p> <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>“For us it was a natural decision to join this solidarity movement.”</p></blockquote></figure> <p>In January 2023, three months after the far-right government of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni came to power, Italy issued a decree ordering the impoundment of humanitarian boats that refused to abide by the Ministry of Interior’s choice of ports of safety. In the past, those ports were usually assigned based on geographical proximity; now it is based on the government’s determination of “availability,” which Davide Giacomini, Emergency’s advocacy officer, claims puts the boats in the furthest ports from operational areas. “This means extra days of navigation, further sufferings for the saved castaways and a lesser presence of SAR vessels in rescue areas,” he added.</p> <p>This past August, a rescue ship named the Mediterranea was impounded and fined more than 10,000 euros after having refused Rome’s order to disembark in Genoa, adding an extra four days of navigation compared to the nearest port in Sicily, which the NGO used against government orders.</p> <p class="is-td-marked">Emergency’s crew is conscious of the risks ahead but determined to contribute to the expedition. The day before his Sept. 10 departure from Catania’s port, where a military vessel from NATO’s Operation Sea Guardian had been docked menacingly next to the Life Support, Nanì La Torre had a spark in his eye. “I don’t know what to expect, but I feel ready,” he said. “I’m just grateful to have the opportunity to join the biggest civilian effort to break the siege on a starving and martyred population.”</p><p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/letter-from-sicily-a-migrant-rescue-ship-charts-a-course-for-gaza/">Letter From Sicily: A Migrant-Rescue Ship Charts a Course for Gaza</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/letter-from-sicily-a-migrant-rescue-ship-charts-a-course-for-gaza/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>0</slash:comments> <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">311349</post-id> <enclosure url="https://truthdig.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/AP25252530899493-scaled.jpg?width=878&height=585" length="528753" type="image/jpeg" /> <media:thumbnail url="https://truthdig.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/AP25252530899493-scaled.jpg?width=878&height=585" /> </item> <item> <title>CBS Drifts Further Toward Right-Wing State Television</title> <link>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/cbs-drifts-further-toward-right-wing-state-television/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=cbs-drifts-further-toward-right-wing-state-television</link> <comments>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/cbs-drifts-further-toward-right-wing-state-television/#respond</comments> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Saurav Sarkar / FAIR ]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Wed, 10 Sep 2025 15:50:30 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Column]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Media]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Opinion]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Politics]]></category> <category><![CDATA[US]]></category> <category><![CDATA[bari weiss]]></category> <category><![CDATA[cbs news]]></category> <category><![CDATA[face the nation]]></category> <category><![CDATA[kristi noem]]></category> <category><![CDATA[propaganda]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.truthdig.com/?p=311322</guid> <description><![CDATA[<p>In an effort to appease the White House, the network will no longer edit interviews with administration officials on Face the Nation.</p><p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/cbs-drifts-further-toward-right-wing-state-television/">CBS Drifts Further Toward Right-Wing State Television</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong>After President <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/tag/donald-trump/" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c="4" title="Donald Trump" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Donald Trump</a>’s</strong> Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem <a href="https://x.com/Sec_Noem/status/1962256536475926676?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1962256536475926676%7Ctwgr%5E2a66a539bd9fa5885e797cdeb790570bb3e26238%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mediaite.com%2Fmedia%2Fshamefully-edited-noem-posts-her-own-version-of-kilmar-abrego-garcia-answer-from-face-the-nation-interview%2F" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">complained on X</a> that several minutes of her Aug. 31 “Face the Nation” <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/video/full-interview-homeland-security-secretary-kristi-noem/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">interview</a> had been “shamefully edited … to whitewash the truth,” CBS News announced that its flagship Sunday morning program will <a href="https://apnews.com/article/cbs-face-nation-editing-kristi-noem-0a148a59c50ee50921b029528946244e" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">no longer edit</a> its interviews, except for “legal or national security” reasons.</p> <p>According to the Associated Press, CBS said it had edited the interview, which ran 16 minutes and 40 seconds in its original form, for length, and posted the full interview on its website and YouTube. As the AP correctly noted, Noem “made a series of <a href="https://fair.org/home/top-papers-dutifully-echo-cooked-up-charges-against-abrego-garcia/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">unproven accusations</a> about Ábrego García” in the portion of the interview that was cut. This is a <a href="https://fair.org/home/top-papers-dutifully-echo-cooked-up-charges-against-abrego-garcia/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">pattern</a> of <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/2025/09/08/kilmar-abrego-garcia-ms-13-documents-gang/85891593007/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">behavior </a>by the administration with respect to Kilmar Ábrego García, a Salvadoran refugee who had been illegally deported to the CECOT <a href="https://www.damemagazine.com/2025/05/08/its-not-hyperbole-to-call-cecot-a-concentration-camp/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">concentration camp</a> in his country of origin.</p> <p>In the context of the recent capitulations by CBS News and its parent company Paramount in the face of Trump administration demands, the announcement is noteworthy — and dangerous.</p> <h3 class="wp-block-heading">Uneditable propaganda</h3> <p>Writing for FAIR, Ari Paul <a href="https://fair.org/home/paramount-sells-out-journalism-to-secure-purchase-by-skydance/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">noted in July</a> that, in order to facilitate a merger with Skydance, </p> <blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow"><p>Paramount has settled what is widely regarded as a frivolous lawsuit from Trump for $16 million over a CBS “60 Minutes” interview with <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/tag/kamala-harris/" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c="3" title="Kamala Harris" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Kamala Harris</a>; it has also canceled its highly successful and long-running “Late Show With Stephen Colbert,” whose host was critical of the settlement.</p></blockquote> <p>Variety <a href="https://variety.com/2025/tv/news/cbs-news-face-the-nation-interviews-no-edits-backlash-1236509301/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">argued that</a> CBS‘ promise not to edit “Face the Nation‘s” interviews, which overwhelmingly feature government officials,</p> <blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow"><p>is an unorthodox one, potentially leaving show moderators and producers unable to remove false statements or propaganda uttered by political operatives and officials and undermining the authority and credibility of Margaret Brennan, the moderator of the Sunday public affairs program.</p></blockquote> <p>An anonymous CBS source weakly protested to the AP that “Face the Nation‘s” Brennan would “still be able to factcheck or challenge claims made by interview subjects.” But corporate media outlets have <a href="https://fair.org/take-action/action-alerts/cbs-skips-bachmann-factcheck/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">never been good</a> at <a href="https://fair.org/home/cnns-debate-plan-makes-democracy-the-likely-loser/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">stopping political figures</a> from <a href="https://fair.org/home/to-cozy-up-to-trump-bezos-banishes-dissent-from-wapo/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">spewing</a> <a href="https://fair.org/home/media-sidelined-deadly-consequences-of-trumps-reconciliation-bill/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">propaganda</a>, particularly those from Trump and his minions, who produce falsehoods at such a rapid clip that it’s impossible to challenge each one. Now CBS will have even fewer tools to do so.</p> <h3 class="wp-block-heading">Installing a commissar</h3> <p>In yet another move to the right, days after its editing announcement, CBS News<a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cbs-news-names-ombudsman-kenneth-r-weinstein/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank"> announced</a> that, to fulfill part of its settlement with Trump, it would be appointing <a href="https://www.poynter.org/commentary/2025/cbs-ombudsman-kenneth-weinstein-who/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">Kenneth R. Weinstein</a> to serve as an ombudsman. In addition to being a prominent conservative — Weinstein previously headed the <a href="https://www.desmog.com/hudson-institute/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">Hudson Institute</a> for over a decade — the new appointee was nominated by Trump to be U.S. ambassador to Japan in 2020 (though his nomination was <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/trumps-former-japan-ambassador-nominee-appointed-cbs-news-ombudsman-2025-09-08/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">never confirmed</a>). Weinstein “will review editorial questions and concerns from outside entities and employees,” CBS said.</p> <p>While FAIR has <a href="https://fair.org/home/killing-the-public-editor-nyt-deals-another-blow-to-the-publics-trust/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">lamented</a> the gradual disappearance of ombuds from major journalistic outlets over the years, and the loss of accountability to their audiences that that entails, it’s critical that ombuds be independent. Weinstein’s clear ideological tilt, his connection to the Trump administration and his position’s creation at the command of that administration stand as obvious obstacles to him performing any role but state censor.</p> <p>FAIR also <a href="https://fair.org/home/paramount-sells-out-journalism-to-secure-purchase-by-skydance/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">pointed out</a> that Paramount was looking to give right-wing journalist and <a href="https://theintercept.com/2018/03/08/the-nyts-bari-weiss-falsely-denies-her-years-of-attacks-on-the-academic-freedom-of-arab-scholars-who-criticize-israel/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">censorious</a> “free speech” activist <a href="https://fair.org/home/supposedly-taboo-ideas-that-actually-appear-frequently-in-the-pages-of-the-new-york-times/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">Bari Weiss</a> a top role at CBS News. It has since <a href="https://puck.news/david-ellison-set-to-acquire-the-free-press/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">been reported</a> that the company is looking to buy her publication, the Free Press, for as much as $200 million.</p><p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/cbs-drifts-further-toward-right-wing-state-television/">CBS Drifts Further Toward Right-Wing State Television</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/cbs-drifts-further-toward-right-wing-state-television/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>0</slash:comments> <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">311322</post-id> <enclosure url="https://truthdig.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/AP25238723522783-scaled.jpg?width=878&height=585" length="499239" type="image/jpeg" /> <media:thumbnail url="https://truthdig.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/AP25238723522783-scaled.jpg?width=878&height=585" /> </item> <item> <title>Colonize Then, Deport Now</title> <link>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/colonize-then-deport-now/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=colonize-then-deport-now</link> <comments>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/colonize-then-deport-now/#respond</comments> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Jonathan Ort / Africa Is A Country ]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Wed, 10 Sep 2025 15:37:32 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Activism]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Africa]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Column]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Courts & Law]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Europe]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Immigration]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Opinion]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Politics]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Race]]></category> <category><![CDATA[US]]></category> <category><![CDATA[World]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Decolonization]]></category> <category><![CDATA[liberia]]></category> <category><![CDATA[racism]]></category> <category><![CDATA[slavery]]></category> <category><![CDATA[third country deportation]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.truthdig.com/?p=311315</guid> <description><![CDATA[<p>Trump’s deportation regime revives a colonial blueprint first drafted by the American Colonization Society, when Black lives were exiled to Africa to safeguard a white republic.</p><p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/colonize-then-deport-now/">Colonize Then, Deport Now</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong>Robert Goldsborough</strong>, a Maryland lawmaker, rose one Friday early in 1826 to clinch what he fancied a good deal for his state. Goldsborough informed his fellow legislators that a private entity had “incurred an expense in a late deportation of 150 free people of color to the African settlement in Liberia.” Given that “twenty of those free people of colour [sic] were from the state of Maryland,” he <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=ien.35556011468543&seq=415&q1=deported" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">directed the state’s treasury</a> to reimburse the cost of their removal.</p> <p>The recipient: the American Colonization Society (ACS). It was the ACS, composed of prominent white men, that founded Liberia as a colony where the U.S. could send its free Black populace. The self-styled colonization movement encompassed both abolitionists and enslavers. Many were ministers zealous to evangelize and “redeem” Africa. While the ACS disavowed any official position on slavery, its members insisted that free Black people had no place in their body politic.</p> <p>Flash forward two centuries: <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/tag/donald-trump/" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c="4" title="Donald Trump" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Donald Trump</a> is using mass deportation to plunge the U.S. into a tin-pot fascist police state. Jamelle Bouie has <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/24/opinion/trump-deportation-immigration-border.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">likened</a> the horrors <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2025/07/ice-public-opinion-civil-war-trump-revolt.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">we now witness daily</a> — masked agents abducting Black and brown people from restaurants and courthouses, street corners and schools — to the <a href="https://constitutioncenter.org/the-constitution/historic-document-library/detail/the-fugitive-slave-act-1850" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">Fugitive Slave Act of 1850</a>. The comparison is right, but the roots of this catastrophic moment reach even further back. Mass deportation follows the anti-Black blueprint that white colonizationists had laid a generation before.</p> <p>To be sure, Black immigrants, born both enslaved and free, came to Liberia seeking liberation. Many settlers embraced the proposition of returning to their ancestral homeland. Liberia’s motto remains “The Love of Liberty Brought Us Here.” But if Liberia promised escape from slavery and racism, the promise would be betrayed.</p> <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>Mass deportation follows the anti-Black blueprint that white colonizationists had laid a generation before.</p></blockquote></figure> <p>Though the ACS claimed no one would leave against their will, the choice was burdened. The ubiquity of American racism made emigration plausible in the first place. Some enslavers forced families to purchase their freedom <a href="https://exhibits.lafayette.edu/s/mcdonogh/page/voyage-to-liberia" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">on the condition that they sail for Africa</a>. Many Black abolitionists, <a href="https://frederickdouglasspapersproject.com/s/digitaledition/item/15967" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">Frederick Douglass</a> foremost among them, denounced the ACS. Long before Kristi Noem would <a href="https://www.themarshallproject.org/2025/06/14/ice-immigration-dhs-deportation-facts" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">dangle a poisoned offer of cash</a> to incentivize “self-deportation,” colonizationists manufactured the illusion of Black people’s consent.</p> <p>The colonization movement enveloped Washington, counting legislators, judges and presidents among its ranks. Those power brokers advanced ACS interests from public office. Then-President James Monroe, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/07/us/politics/monroe-slavery-highland.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">an enslaver</a> and ardent colonizationist, became the namesake for Liberia’s capital, Monrovia, by <a href="https://2001-2009.state.gov/r/pa/ho/time/dwe/16337.htm" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">securing funds</a> for the fledgling colony. Long before <a href="https://www.tampabay.com/news/florida-politics/2025/07/03/alligator-alcatraz-desantis-cdr-maguire-gardaworld-contractors/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">contractors would build</a> a concentration camp in the Everglades, the ACS used federal patronage for its eliminationist ends.</p> <p>Goldsborough noted that of the 150 immigrants who had arrived in Liberia, 20 “were from the state of Maryland.” The remark admitted that the newest Liberians had spent their lives in his state. Goldsborough nevertheless urged their removal. Long before the White House would <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/kilmar-abrego-garcia-update-donald-trump-el-salvador-2094334" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">berate journalists</a> for recognizing that Kilmar Ábrego García is a “Maryland man,” the ACS avowed that only white settlers could call the U.S. their own.</p> <p>The ACS seized a stretch of African coastline, making no effort to bring immigrants where their ancestors had been enslaved. After the trade of enslaved Africans was outlawed, American warships took to patrolling the Atlantic. Upon intercepting slave ships, the Navy “returned” the captives aboard to Liberia — though most had been shackled along the Congo Basin. The term “Congo” now signifies all those who came, no matter their birthplace, to Liberia. The settlers would, in turn, establish Liberia <a href="https://eprints.lse.ac.uk/122549/1/Development_Dual_Citizenship_and_Its_Discontents_in_Africa.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">as Africa’s first Black republic</a>, a paradox in that the new nation <a href="http://www.liberlii.org/lr/cases/LRSC/1919/2.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">colonized the land</a> and <a href="https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-resources/essays/colony-nation-liberian-independence-and-black-self-government-atlantic" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">oppressed its Indigenous peoples</a>.</p> <p>Today’s White House is disappearing detainees to “third countries,” a euphemism for nations where they have never set foot — and often face grave danger. Most notorious is El Salvador, whose right-wing dictator Nayib Bukele boasts a hideous pact with Trump. But the pair’s homegrown gulags are only one thread in an unfolding global plot.</p> <p>Most countries facing pressure to take American detainees are African. In June, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/trump-south-sudan-djibouti-deport-supreme-court-50f9162cff680b5c8729873e11d514e9" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">the U.S. Supreme Court authorized</a> the expulsion of eight detainees, who had endured months inside a shipping container in Djibouti, to <a href="https://humanrightsfirst.org/dvd-v-dhs/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">South Sudan</a>. <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2025/7/25/is-trump-using-africa-as-a-dumping-ground-for-criminals" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">Flights to Eswatini</a> and <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/rwanda-received-migrants-deported-us-earlier-this-month-2025-08-28/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">Rwanda</a> have followed. The White House is eyeing Liberia — alongside Gabon, Guinea-Bissau, Libya, Mauritania, Nigeria, Senegal and Uganda — <a href="https://apnews.com/article/trump-migration-nigeria-deal-rwanda-south-sudan-1978d5923e8f110ec1c390a7a01723df" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">for similar designs</a>. (<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn02eezlykdo" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">Honduras</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jul/23/trump-administration-asks-tiny-pacific-nation-of-palau-to-accept-migrants-deported-from-us" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">Palau</a> are also under duress.)</p> <p>True to the <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/trump-referred-haiti-african-countries-shithole-nations-n836946" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">infamous slur</a> that Trump uttered in his first term, one African nation deserves “<a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/trump-vowed-deport-worst-worst-new-data-shows/story?id=123287810" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">the worst of the worst</a>” as much as any other. While governments <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2025/07/30/south-sudan-might-take-more-us-migrant-deportees-it-has-a-few-asks-00482793" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">might ask favors</a> for holding detainees, the gutting of the U.S. Agency for International Development has deprived many, <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/world/africa/us-abruptly-ends-support-liberia-faces-empty-health-clinics-unplanned-rcna217407" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">particularly Liberia</a>, of leverage. What’s more, a <a href="https://www.cfr.org/article/guide-countries-trumps-2025-travel-ban-list" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">travel ban</a> now targets much of Africa — Afrikaner “refugees” <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2025/05/21/africa/trump-resettling-south-africas-afrikaners-intl" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">exempted</a>, of course. Little surprise that Trump was <a href="https://apnews.com/article/liberia-president-language-speaking-us-trump-4357549a81d24c6ee161091aaed9b66a" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">bewildered</a> when Liberian President Joseph Boakai recently addressed him in English. The White House, to quote Swazi activists, takes the continent for “<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/17/africa/africa-eswatini-trump-us-deportees-intl" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">a dumping ground</a>.”</p> <p>The U.S. has no monopoly on perpetuating <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1287g49" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">the global color line</a>. Trump’s tactics resemble <a href="https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/trump-australia-inspired-cruel-immigration-crackdown-rcna220576" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">Australia’s removal of migrants</a> to Papua New Guinea and Nauru. The United Kingdom <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/aug/09/foreign-criminals-tried-uk-deported-immediately-new-plans" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">still champions</a> mass deportation, even after its misbegotten scheme to <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/explainers-61782866" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">deport asylum seekers</a> to Rwanda. That is to say nothing of Israel’s <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/8/13/israel-south-sudan-in-talks-over-forced-transfer-of-palestinians-report" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">reported efforts</a> to remove those who survive its genocide in Gaza to South Sudan — a chilling echo of the Nazi “<a href="https://forward.com/opinion/696193/trump-gaza-proposal-madagascar-plan-nazis/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">Madagascar Plan</a>.”</p> <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>The U.S. has no monopoly on perpetuating the global color line.</p></blockquote></figure> <p>Rarely, however, is it grasped stateside that mass deportation is neocolonial — much less that <em>colonial </em>implicates the U.S. two centuries ago. Goldsborough and his ilk deemed free Black people an intolerable problem. They saw in Africa their salvation — the means, Norfolk colonizationists had declared weeks before Goldsborough spoke, of “putting away the whole of <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=ien.35556011468543&seq=377&q1=evil" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">this black and menacing evil</a>, gradually, safely, and most happily, from our land.”</p> <p>The continent likewise seals the promise that returned Trump to power: deliver America from the migrant hordes that are “<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/trump-says-immigrants-are-poisoning-blood-country-biden-campaign-liken-rcna130141" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">poisoning the blood of our country</a>.” <a href="https://apnews.com/article/immigration-border-security-venezuela-tps-noem-af43e2135ea588717669794288e5b6e6" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">Venezuelan</a> or <a href="https://apnews.com/article/afghans-protected-status-trump-homeland-security-8ea0569a79700c32ddbcac3a4b616cb1" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">Afghan</a> or <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2025/06/28/tps-haiti-terminated-trump-00431124" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">Haitian</a> or <a href="https://www.liberianobserver.com/news/don-t-risk-jail-or-deportation/article_6b66aebd-d255-406e-ac0d-973d962e34e4.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">Liberian</a> — anyone who imperils the nation’s whiteness can be sent “back” to Africa.</p> <p>“We do not mean to go to Liberia,” Douglass <a href="https://utc.iath.virginia.edu/abolitn/abar03at.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">proclaimed in 1849</a>. “Our minds are made up to live here if we can, or die here if we must; so every attempt to remove us will be, as it ought to be, labor lost.” His words were prophetic.</p> <p>Two hundred years after the ACS came into being, Liberia endures as a sovereign republic, a diverse nation that represents freedom in all its complexity. Black America has gone nowhere. The colonizationist fantasy, to rule Liberia and to make America white, failed. So must its latter-day heir.</p><p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/colonize-then-deport-now/">Colonize Then, Deport Now</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/colonize-then-deport-now/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>0</slash:comments> <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">311315</post-id> <enclosure url="https://truthdig.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/AP25221593809141-scaled.jpg?width=877&height=585" length="639159" type="image/jpeg" /> <media:thumbnail url="https://truthdig.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/AP25221593809141-scaled.jpg?width=877&height=585" /> </item> <item> <title>Hot for Teacher</title> <link>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/hot-for-teacher/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=hot-for-teacher</link> <comments>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/hot-for-teacher/#respond</comments> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Siddhant Adlakha]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Wed, 10 Sep 2025 15:24:15 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Arts & Culture]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Film]]></category> <category><![CDATA[LGBTQIA+]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Opinion]]></category> <category><![CDATA[TD Original]]></category> <category><![CDATA[ballet]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Dag Johan Haugerud]]></category> <category><![CDATA[norway]]></category> <category><![CDATA[oslo]]></category> <category><![CDATA[queer cinema]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.truthdig.com/?p=311304</guid> <description><![CDATA[<p>The queer coming-of-age drama “Dreams” captures the rush of young, forbidden love.</p><p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/hot-for-teacher/">Hot for Teacher</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p class="has-drop-cap">Dag Johan Haugerud’s “Dreams” — the third chapter in his loose Oslo trilogy, following<a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/intimate-in-oslo/"> “Sex” and “Love”</a> — is a tender teenage saga about a lovelorn high schooler who falls for her female teacher. Like its predecessors, it seeks the holy in the mundane, and uses the Norway capital’s architecture as a mirror for its characters’ introspections. However, unlike the previous entries, it’s a voice-over heavy piece that wields narration to probe the troubled expressions of remarkable teen actress Ella Øverbye. The result is a coming-of-age story that feels like something genuinely new in nouveau queer cinema.</p> <p>The movie follows 16-year-old Johanne (Øverbye), a ballet dancer who has recently quit the hobby over its gender rigidity. On the first day of school, she becomes smitten with her French literature instructor Johanna (Selome Emnetu), a well-traveled woman of unspecified ethnicity (the actress playing her is Eritrean). The young, lovestruck Johanne grows more distracted by the day, until she concocts excuses to show up at the teacher’s high-rise apartment. Before we’re shown what transpires behind closed doors — it’s more innocent than initially suggested, but far more emotionally complicated — Haugerud reveals that at least some of Johanne’s narrations are excerpts from a memoir penned a year after the depicted rendezvous.</p> <p>The only people she trusts with her writing are her poet grandmother Karin (Anne Marit Jacobsen) and her publisher mother Kristin (Ane Dahl Torp), who debate the nature and meaning of Johanne’s confession while critiquing her prose. They suspect the manuscript is worthy of being published, though they worry that it might be a veiled account of emotional abuse. They’re both single and romantically unfulfilled, and their work seldom loves them back, scenarios of rejection that Johanne recognizes all too well, once she matures enough to do so.</p> <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>A coming-of-age story that feels like something genuinely new in nouveau queer cinema.</p></blockquote></figure> <p>The debate between Karin and Kristin over what to do with the memoir is the film’s window to the past, through which we’re shown the events as they transpired from Johanne’s ecstatic point of view. Although they were never physically intimate, the time the schoolteacher Johanna spent teaching Johanne to knit after hours left an indelible mark on the suggestible teen, who writes of adolescent, sensual yearning. Whenever we see them together, Johanne’s naïve recollections are masked by a warm, rose-tinted glow, a flourish Haugerud and cinematographer Cecilie Semec reserve for the crescendos of prior entries. In “Dreams,” ethereal shimmers represent teenage nostalgia for the small comforts of unconsummated intimacy.</p> <p>The voice-over device allows Haugerud to dramatize the way all-encompassing teenage love colors Johanne’s every waking moment; her conversations with her teenage peers say one thing, but her imagination is consumed by the fantasy of being desired. She seeks solace and closure in writing about her crush, which she believes, deep down, was reciprocated. Her recollections are peppered with astute observations about Oslo and its architecture, making the film a worthy thematic successor to “Sex” and “Love,” both of which were built on metaphors about municipal architecture. En route to her teacher’s apartment one evening, traipsing through an immigrant neighborhood, scored by composer Anna Berg’s upbeat percussions, the spring in Johanne’s step is accompanied by her reflections on class and religion, including her envy of her teacher’s pious, more traditional background. As the young writer looks up at the skyscrapers surrounding Johanna’s building, a flashing Deloitte logo towers over her, a symbol of the capitalism that has enervated communal bonds and replaced beautiful buildings — a subtle undercurrent throughout the trilogy.</p> <p class="is-td-marked">The story’s emotional grays, especially in the final act, bring the teacher’s questionable behavior into focus without being preachy or didactic. Instead, Haugerud unspools his drama through convincing approximations of teenage girlhood in all its silent self-loathing and eruptive desire (and across a story that, notably, features no significant male presence). The camera never leers at the movie’s queer female characters, but studies the visual and emotional details of the teenage sapphic gaze: how sweaters shape the body, the way thrilling romantic highs give way to steep crashes. For Johanne, this brief moment in time is “the most beautiful thing [she’ll] ever experience.” While adult viewers might know better intellectually, her emotional truths are rendered in such vivid, pulsing hues that it’s hard to disagree with her.</p><p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/hot-for-teacher/">Hot for Teacher</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/hot-for-teacher/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>0</slash:comments> <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">311304</post-id> <enclosure url="https://truthdig.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/02_Selome-Emmetu-Ella-Overbye_@AgneteBrun_K1.jpg?width=805&height=585" length="3426238" type="image/jpeg" /> <media:thumbnail url="https://truthdig.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/02_Selome-Emmetu-Ella-Overbye_@AgneteBrun_K1.jpg?width=805&height=585" /> </item> <item> <title>The Government Abandoned LGBTQ+ Workers. Its Former Civil Rights Lawyers Stepped Up.</title> <link>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-government-abandoned-lgbtq-workers-its-former-civil-rights-lawyers-stepped-up/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-government-abandoned-lgbtq-workers-its-former-civil-rights-lawyers-stepped-up</link> <comments>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-government-abandoned-lgbtq-workers-its-former-civil-rights-lawyers-stepped-up/#respond</comments> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Amanda Becker / The 19th ]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Tue, 09 Sep 2025 15:48:46 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Activism]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Courts & Law]]></category> <category><![CDATA[LGBTQIA+]]></category> <category><![CDATA[News]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Politics]]></category> <category><![CDATA[US]]></category> <category><![CDATA[DEI]]></category> <category><![CDATA[diversity]]></category> <category><![CDATA[donald trump]]></category> <category><![CDATA[eeoc]]></category> <category><![CDATA[usaid]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.truthdig.com/?p=311293</guid> <description><![CDATA[<p>Inside the unofficial effort to prevent gender-identity discrimination in the workplace — and the former agency employees leading it.</p><p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-government-abandoned-lgbtq-workers-its-former-civil-rights-lawyers-stepped-up/">The Government Abandoned LGBTQ+ Workers. Its Former Civil Rights Lawyers Stepped Up.</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>This story was originally published by <a href="https://19thnews.org/2025/09/eeoc-former-agency-employees-workplace-protections/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">The 19th</a>.</p> <p><strong>When just weeks</strong> into President <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/tag/donald-trump/" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c="4" title="Donald Trump" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Donald Trump</a>’s second term, the federal agency charged with safeguarding civil rights in the workplace withdrew from seven cases it had brought related to gender-identity discrimination, Chai Feldblum took note. </p> <p>For the last 60 years, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, or EEOC, has investigated and brought cases on behalf of aggrieved workers — at no cost to the workers, and with an eye-popping success rate that is often above 90%. </p> <p>The cases the EEOC withdrew from included those brought on behalf of an Alabama hospitality group worker who alleged their manager said they needed to be “hidden” on the night shift before firing them outright; a transgender woman at an Illinois hog farm who said her coworker exposed his genitals to her and touched her breasts; and a transgender hotel worker in New York who said their supervisor referred to them as “transformer” and “it.”</p> <p>“The EEOC was bringing the cases on their behalf, and then the EEOC said: ‘We’re done.’ So the only way those folks could get legal relief was if there were other lawyers who would step up and take their cases,” said Feldblum, a lawyer and longtime activist for disability and LGBTQ+ rights who served as one of the EEOC’s five commissioners during the Obama administration and into the beginning of Trump’s first term. </p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img decoding="async" width="1024" height="683" src="https://truthdig.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/feldblum-EEOC-1024x683.webp?width=1024&height=683" alt="" class="wp-image-311296" srcset="https://truthdig.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/feldblum-EEOC.webp?width=1024&height=683 1024w, https://truthdig.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/feldblum-EEOC.webp?width=300&height=200 300w, https://truthdig.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/feldblum-EEOC.webp?width=768&height=512 768w, https://truthdig.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/feldblum-EEOC.webp?width=270&height=180 270w, https://truthdig.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/feldblum-EEOC.webp?width=405&height=270 405w, https://truthdig.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/feldblum-EEOC.webp?width=608&height=405 608w, https://truthdig.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/feldblum-EEOC.webp?width=878&height=585 878w, https://truthdig.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/feldblum-EEOC.webp?width=1800 1800w" sizes="(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px" data-recalc-dims="1" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Lawyer and activist Chai Feldblum started tracking how the nascent Trump administration was moving to erode the civil rights of queer people. (Via Yale Law School)</figcaption></figure> <p>Feldblum knew that the rights of the Americans she’d spent her career protecting were at heightened risk when the president kicked off his second term with <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/ending-radical-and-wasteful-government-dei-programs-and-preferencing/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">executive orders</a> titled: “Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing” and “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.”</p> <p>Feldblum started tracking how the nascent Trump administration was moving to erode the civil rights of queer people. As Pride and other affinity groups began to disband across the federal government following Trump’s first executive orders, Feldblum connected with a fellow EEOC alum and an impacted federal worker. The three of them started putting together Pride in Exile, a <a href="https://www.prideinexile.org/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">nonprofit organization</a> “committed to ensuring equal employment opportunity for LGBTQ+ individuals.” Then, after Trump <a href="https://www.littler.com/news-analysis/asap/trump-fires-eeoc-commissioners-general-counsel-depriving-agency-quorum" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">fired two Democratic EEOC commissioners</a> and its general counsel, and the agency proceeded to drop the seven cases brought by transgender plaintiffs and their workplace allies, Feldblum started to think about what she and other former EEOC leaders could do to record what the agency was — and wasn’t — doing to protect workers’ civil rights.</p> <p>Feldblum sent some emails and the enthusiastic response led to the first online meeting of what would become a second organization, which they now call <a href="https://www.eeoleaders.org/about-us" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">EEO Leaders</a>. They meet regularly, on their own time and at their own expense, and maintain an active, encrypted group chat in which they discuss and monitor the actions of the agency where many of them once served.</p> <p>“The impetus for the first gathering of this group was to see if we knew lawyers that could help these individuals,” Feldblum said.</p> <p>“Then, at that first meeting, we realized that apart from what pulled us together in the first place, we could serve a role in monitoring what [then] <a href="https://19thnews.org/2025/06/eeoc-nominee-would-likely-lead-real-retreat-from-agencys-civil-rights-mission/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">Acting Chair [Andrea] Lucas was doing</a>. We also realized that there was support in community and by gathering, we were supporting each other,” Feldblum said.</p> <p>Trump’s second presidency has been marked by chaos throughout the federal agencies. His administration has fired more than 100,000 workers, either in alleged pursuit of greater government efficiency or to install leaders with more like-minded ideologies, and the cuts went beyond the senior-level political appointees who typically turn over at the start of a new administration. Many are contesting their firings in court. </p> <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>Alums of federal agencies have banded together to preserve the knowledge and history of their former employers.</p></blockquote></figure> <p>The early months of Trump’s administration have also involved an unprecedented assault on the rights of LGBTQ+ Americans, specifically transgender people. In addition to his executive order declaring that the government would only recognize two unchangeable sexes, male and female, his administration has sought to <a href="https://www.npr.org/2025/09/03/nx-s1-5504670/the-dod-told-trans-troops-to-get-diagnosed-its-using-the-paper-trail-to-kick-them-out" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">bar transgender people from serving in the military</a>, threatened to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/28/us/politics/trump-denver-schools-transgender-bathrooms.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">pull funding from public school systems</a> that provide gender-neutral bathrooms, and sought to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/07/transgender-women-prison-trump" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">transfer trans women to men’s prisons</a>. CNN reported last week that Trump’s Justice Department is <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/04/politics/transgender-firearms-justice-department-second-amendment" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">weighing prohibitions on transgender Americans owning guns</a>. All of these moves have or are likely to face legal challenges.</p> <p>At the same time, the Trump administration has <a href="https://civilrights.org/blog/disappearing-data-why-we-must-stop-trumps-attempts-to-erase-our-communities/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">removed content across the federal government’s websites</a> perceived to be related to diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, using broad keyword searches that resulted in datasets related to HIV/AIDS being scrubbed from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Pentagon <a href="https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/national-international/war-heroes-and-military-firsts-are-among-26000-images-flagged-for-removal-in-pentagons-dei-purge/3861030/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">deleting photos and information about the World War II aircraft the Enola Gay</a>. </p> <p>Alums of federal agencies have banded together to preserve the knowledge and history of their former employers. Workers ousted from the nearly dismantled U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, have an encrypted group chat. A bipartisan group of former Justice Department officials formed Justice Connection to “protect the Department’s workforce and the rule of law.” But Pride in Exile, and to an even greater extent EEO Leaders, has taken the extra step of providing real-time responses to their former agency’s actions as a form of private-sector oversight.</p> <p>EEO Leaders’ work is akin to the “shadow cabinet” system in the United Kingdom, wherein opposition party leaders scrutinize and respond to the elected party’s policy actions and offer a counterpoint to the public. Former Rep. Wiley Nickel, a Democrat from North Carolina, urged his party to form a shadow cabinet shortly after Trump’s reelection, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/11/11/shadow-cabinet-democrats-opposition-trump/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">writing in the Washington Post</a> that it could be “democracy’s insurance policy.” Historian Timothy Snyder, who authored the Trump resistance bibles “On Tyranny” and “On Freedom,” <a href="https://snyder.substack.com/p/shadow-cabinet" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">wrote in January</a> that a “shadow cabinet would remind us of how much better things can be.” To avoid any conflation with the “deep state” bogeyman of conservative politics, Snyder floated the idea of using a different term for the practice in the United States.</p> <p>EEO Leaders sees three audiences for its work. The first is employers who, as Feldblum put it, would “still like to do the right thing, who need to know what they are still permitted to do under the law.” For example, the <a href="https://19thnews.org/2025/06/eeoc-nominee-would-likely-lead-real-retreat-from-agencys-civil-rights-mission/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">EEOC’s application of Trump’s order on gender identity</a> seemingly counters the <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=bostock+v+clayton+county&oq=bostock+v+cl&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqBwgAEAAYgAQyBwgAEAAYgAQyBggBEEUYOTIHCAIQABiABDIHCAMQABiABDIHCAQQABiABDIHCAUQABiABDIHCAYQABiABDIHCAcQABiABDIHCAgQABiABDIHCAkQABiABNIBCDI0ODJqMGo3qAIAsAIA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">Supreme Court’s 2020 ruling</a> in Bostock v. Clayton County, which established that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 — the same law that created the agency itself — prohibits employment discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. </p> <p>“A second audience is people who themselves have experienced discrimination, or might experience discrimination in employment, to let them know what their rights are. And then the third audience is just general people in the public who need to know what is happening to civil rights protections in this country,” Feldblum said. </p> <p>EEO Leaders <a href="https://www.eeoleaders.org/eeoledershipgroupdocuments" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">sent a public letter to the EEOC’s Lucas</a> raising “grave concerns about the letters you recently sent to 20 major law firms” about DEI-related discrimination, concluding: “These letters appear to exceed your authority.” They also weighed in on Lucas’ scrubbing of post-Bostock guidance and reminded the public that her unilateral changes are not official agency policy. </p> <p>“We thought there would be real power in collective action and in speaking as a group about the ways in which we think that the anti-discrimination laws should be interpreted and the ways in which the EEOC should be operating as a federal enforcement agency,” said Jocelyn Samuels, a group member and former EEOC commissioner and vice chair who was fired by Trump. </p> <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>“We thought there would be real power in collective action.”</p></blockquote></figure> <p>Samuels noted that EEO Leaders also plans to file friend-of-the-court briefs in litigation filed by private parties to enforce civil rights laws still on the books — and potentially in cases “in which the EEOC is involved if we believe that the current EEOC is misrepresenting the standards of the law,” she said.</p> <p>Early actions by EEO Leaders focused on LGBTQ+ workers because they are the group of Americans whose civil rights the EEOC first signaled it will not fight to protect. But EEO Leaders has <a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/67f14b136c5a8838cca88ae0/t/683fa09d38aa72134433f80e/1749000349572/EEO+Leaders+Statement+on+Disparate+Impact+05.13.25.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">also weighed in on Trump’s executive order</a> aimed at limiting disparate-impact cases. These types of cases, which are about policies that are seemingly neutral but result in protected classes of workers being treated differently, are often associated with racial discrimination but can also be related to sex, gender and disability. They are particularly impactful because they can lead to systemic change. </p> <p>One example is a case that the EEOC brought in 2009 on behalf of a Muslim American woman who said Abercrombie & Fitch would not hire her because her headscarf violated the clothing retailer’s dress code. The dispute went all the way to the Supreme Court, which established in an 8-1 ruling that civil rights laws protect workers from religion-based discrimination, even if the worker or job applicant does not explicitly ask for an accommodation. </p> <p>EEO Leaders has also begun <a href="https://www.eeoleaders.org/backgrounddocuments" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">preserving EEOC documents</a> it believes are at risk of disappearing from the agency’s website to ensure they remain available to the public — something that Pride in Exile is also doing on a larger scale in a <a href="https://www.prideinexile.org/restored-information" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">section of “restored information”</a> about LGBTQ+ Americans from across the federal government. They note that none of the documents are classified and were previously available to the public. They include everything from <a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/67b79cafbfe01e1f1651473b/t/6892a1038dc1680cb9770c4b/1754439939152/Federal-Sector+EEO+Cases+Involving+Sexual+Orientation+or+Gender+Identity+%28SOGI%29+Discrimination+_+U.S.+Equal+Employment+Opportunity+Commission.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">EEOC case summaries related to gender-identity discrimination</a> to <a href="https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/ofccp/ofccp20160614" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">Labor Department guidance related to sex discrimination</a> regulations at federal contractors to <a href="https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GOVPUB-Y3_EQ2-PURL-gpo158586/pdf/GOVPUB-Y3_EQ2-PURL-gpo158586.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">bathroom access rights of transgender workers</a>. </p> <p>Pride in Exile has also hosted <a href="https://www.prideinexile.org/events" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">two “know your rights” trainings</a> for LGBTQ+ workers — the first for federal employees and the second, during Pride Month, for all U.S. workers. More are expected. </p> <p>Anupa Iyer, a disability-rights lawyer and former Labor Department official, said Pride in Exile began as a lunch check-in between herself and a government worker to see “how they were handling the attack on LGBTQ+ folks in the federal government.” That person had begun printing out materials from the EEOC’s website related to LGBTQ+ rights fearing that at some point, it might disappear. Iyer, who considers herself an LGBTQ+ ally, started a text thread among herself, the worker and Feldblum, whom she worked with earlier in her career at the EEOC. </p> <p>“You gotta use your networks where you can and pay it forward,” Iyer explained. “This individual was sharing how the folks at EEOC Pride had been disbanded because of the <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-politics-and-policy/justice-department-doj-pride-lgbtq-erg-trump-rcna189866" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">disbanding of employee resource groups.</a> That was where we initially started. Then, it was ‘let’s do something’ leveraging the commitment from former senior EEOC officials who really cared about this work and care about supporting civil rights.”</p> <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>“You gotta use your networks where you can and pay it forward.”</p></blockquote></figure> <p>Pride in Exile was born. Then, the same sort of collaborative spirit prompted Feldblum to create the EEO Leaders group.</p> <p>“That was really the genesis, it was: Let’s find a way to create community and build solidarity in a moment where everything around us, that we’ve all worked so hard for, is falling apart,” Iyer said.</p> <p>Charlotte Burrows, an EEO Leaders member who was EEOC chair until Trump fired her in January, said she does not believe that Americans want the Trump administration to dismantle or diminish the agency that has secured landmark civil rights settlements on behalf of workers. </p> <p>EEOC cases resulted in <a href="https://www.eeoc.gov/newsroom/walmart-inc-pay-20-million-settle-eeoc-nationwide-hiring-discrimination-case#:~:text=Walmart%2C%20Inc.%20to%20Pay%20$20,U.S.%20Equal%20Employment%20Opportunity%20Commission" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">Walmart’s $20 million payout in 2020</a> over a pre-employment physical screening test that unfairly disadvantaged women applicants; the $240 million that now-defunct Henry’s Turkey Service paid in 2013 over supervisors severely abusing men with intellectual disabilities; and the $192.5 million that Coca-Cola paid in 2000 to settle a case brought by Black salaried employees who accused the company of discrimination. </p> <p>“I feel very powerfully that it’s important to remind people that this agency, which has been around for 60 years, represents the best values of American people, that everybody deserves a fair shake, everybody deserves dignity and respect in the workplace, and I think that truly does reflect what most Americans believe,” Burrows said.</p><p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-government-abandoned-lgbtq-workers-its-former-civil-rights-lawyers-stepped-up/">The Government Abandoned LGBTQ+ Workers. Its Former Civil Rights Lawyers Stepped Up.</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-government-abandoned-lgbtq-workers-its-former-civil-rights-lawyers-stepped-up/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>0</slash:comments> <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">311293</post-id> <enclosure url="https://truthdig.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/AdobeStock_490432305-scaled.jpeg?width=850&height=585" length="1342145" type="image/jpeg" /> <media:thumbnail url="https://truthdig.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/AdobeStock_490432305-scaled.jpeg?width=850&height=585" /> </item> <item> <title>Should Democrats Shut the Government?</title> <link>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/should-democrats-shut-the-government/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=should-democrats-shut-the-government</link> <comments>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/should-democrats-shut-the-government/#respond</comments> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Robert Reich / Substack ]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Tue, 09 Sep 2025 15:38:24 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Activism]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Column]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Courts & Law]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Opinion]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Politics]]></category> <category><![CDATA[US]]></category> <category><![CDATA[congress]]></category> <category><![CDATA[democrats]]></category> <category><![CDATA[donald trump]]></category> <category><![CDATA[fascism]]></category> <category><![CDATA[government shutdown]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.truthdig.com/?p=311288</guid> <description><![CDATA[<p>It’s the only way they can fight back against the Trump catastrophe.</p><p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/should-democrats-shut-the-government/">Should Democrats Shut the Government?</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong>The U.S. government</strong> runs out of money Sept. 30.</p> <p>Under ordinary circumstances, I would see that as a huge problem. I was secretary of labor when the government closed down, and I vowed then that I’d do everything possible to avoid a similar calamity in the future.</p> <p>Under ordinary circumstances, people like you and me — who believe that government is essential for the common good — would fight like hell to keep the government funded beyond Sept. 30.</p> <p>But we are not in ordinary circumstances. The U.S. government has become a neofascist regime run by a sociopath.</p> <p>That sociopath is using the government to punish his enemies. He’s using the government to rake in billions of dollars for himself and his family.</p> <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>We are not in ordinary circumstances.</p></blockquote></figure> <p>He’s using the government to force the leaders of every institution in our society — universities, media companies, law firms, even museums — to become fawning supplicants: pleading with him, praising him, and silencing criticism of him.</p> <p>He is using the government to disappear people from our streets without due process. He is using the government to occupy our cities, overriding the wishes of mayors and governors.</p> <p>He is using the government to impose arbitrary and capricious import taxes — tariffs — on American consumers. He is using the government to worsen climate change. He is using government to reject our traditional global allies and strengthen some of the worst monsters around the globe.</p> <p>Keeping the U.S. government funded now is to participate in the most atrocious misuse of the power of the United States in modern times.</p> <p>So I for one have decided that the best route is to shut the whole f*cking thing down.</p> <p>Morally, Democrats must not enable what is now occurring. Politically, they cannot remain silent in the face of such mayhem.</p> <p>To keep the government funded, Senate Republicans need seven Democratic senators to join them.</p> <p>Last March, when the government was about to run out of money, Chuck Schumer, the leader of the Senate Democrats, voted to join Republicans and keep the government going. Schumer successfully got enough of his Democratic colleagues to follow him that the funding bill passed.</p> <p>As New York Times columnist Ezra Klein has <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/07/opinion/trump-senate-democrats-shutdown.html" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">argued</a>, even if you supported Schumer’s decision then, this time feels different.</p> <p>By now, President <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/tag/donald-trump/" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c="4" title="Donald Trump" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Donald Trump</a> has become full fascist.</p> <p>Congressional Republicans are cowed, spineless, deferential, unwilling to make even a small effort to retain Congress’s constitutional powers.</p> <p>The public is losing faith that the <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/tag/democratic-party/" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c="12" title="democratic party" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Democratic Party</a> has the capacity to stand up to Trump — largely because it is in the minority in both chambers of Congress.</p> <p>But this doesn’t mean Democrats must remain silent.</p> <p>If they refuse to vote to join Republicans in keeping the government open, that act itself will make them louder and more articulate than they’ve been in eight months.</p> <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>It is time for Democrats to stand up to Trump.</p></blockquote></figure> <p>It will give them an opportunity to explain that they cannot in good conscience participate in what is occurring. They will have a chance to show America that they have chosen to become conscientious objectors to a government that is no longer functioning for the people of the United States but for one man.</p> <p>They will be able to point out the devastating realities of Trump’s regime: its lawlessness, its corruption, its cruelty, its brutality.</p> <p>They will be able argue that voting to fund this government would violate their oaths to uphold the Constitution of the United States.</p> <p><em>Then </em>what?</p> <p>They can then use their newfound leverage — the only leverage they’ve mustered in eight months — to demand, in return for their votes to restart the government, that their Republican compatriots give them reason to believe that the government they restart will be responsible.</p> <p>It is time for Democrats to stand up to Trump. This is the time. This is their clearest opportunity.</p><p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/should-democrats-shut-the-government/">Should Democrats Shut the Government?</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/should-democrats-shut-the-government/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>0</slash:comments> <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">311288</post-id> <enclosure url="https://truthdig.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/AdobeStock_605924727.jpeg?width=1040&height=585" length="8320064" type="image/jpeg" /> <media:thumbnail url="https://truthdig.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/AdobeStock_605924727.jpeg?width=1040&height=585" /> </item> <item> <title>Medicaid Cuts Will Worsen the Opioid Safety Gap</title> <link>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/medicaid-cuts-will-worsen-the-opioid-safety-gap/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=medicaid-cuts-will-worsen-the-opioid-safety-gap</link> <comments>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/medicaid-cuts-will-worsen-the-opioid-safety-gap/#respond</comments> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Nada Hassanein / Stateline ]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Tue, 09 Sep 2025 15:33:46 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Activism]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Economic Justice]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Health & Wellness]]></category> <category><![CDATA[News]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Race]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Social Justice]]></category> <category><![CDATA[US]]></category> <category><![CDATA[congressional budget office]]></category> <category><![CDATA[drug addiction]]></category> <category><![CDATA[emergency room]]></category> <category><![CDATA[medicaid]]></category> <category><![CDATA[opioid crisis]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.truthdig.com/?p=311282</guid> <description><![CDATA[<p>Opioid overdose deaths are up in communities of color, even as they decrease overall.</p><p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/medicaid-cuts-will-worsen-the-opioid-safety-gap/">Medicaid Cuts Will Worsen the Opioid Safety Gap</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong>Pharmacies in Black and Latino neighborhoods</strong> are less likely to dispense buprenorphine — one of the main treatments for opioid use disorder — even though people of color are more likely to die from opioid overdoses.</p> <p>The drug helps reduce cravings for opioids and the likelihood of a fatal overdose.</p> <p>While the nation as a whole has seen decreases in opioid overdose deaths in recent years, overdose deaths among Black, Latino and Indigenous people have continued <a href="https://stateline.org/2024/10/29/overdose-deaths-are-rising-among-black-and-indigenous-americans/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">to increase</a>.</p> <p>Many medical and health policy experts fear the broad domestic policy law President <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/tag/donald-trump/" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c="4" title="Donald Trump" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Donald Trump</a> signed in July will worsen the problem by increasing the number of people without health insurance. As a result of the law, the number of people without coverage will increase by about 10 million by 2034, <a href="https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2025-08/61367-Uninsured-Data.xlsx" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">according to the Congressional Budget Office</a>.</p> <p>About 7.5 million of the people who will lose coverage under the new law are covered by Medicaid. Shortly before Trump signed the bill into law, researchers from the University of Pennsylvania and Boston University <a href="https://ldi.upenn.edu/our-work/research-updates/estimated-overdose-deaths-due-to-the-loss-of-moud-in-the-one-big-beautiful-bill-act/#:~:text=memo%20estimates%20that-,156%2C000%20people,-to%20lose%20access" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">estimated</a> that roughly 156,000 Medicaid recipients would lose access to medications for opioid addiction because of the cuts, resulting in approximately 1,000 more overdose deaths annually.</p> <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>About 7.5 million of the people who will lose coverage under the new law are covered by Medicaid.</p></blockquote></figure> <p>Because Black and Hispanic people are <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/06/24/what-the-data-says-about-medicaid/#:~:text=Non%2DHispanic%20White%20enrollees%20account,U.S.%20population%20as%20a%20whole." target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">overrepresented on the rolls</a>, the Medicaid cuts will have a disproportionate effect on communities that already face higher barriers to getting medications to treat addiction.</p> <p>From 2017 to 2023, the percentage of U.S. retail pharmacies regularly dispensing buprenorphine increased from 33% to 39%, according to a <a href="https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/10.1377/hlthaff.2025.00349" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">study</a> published last week in Health Affairs.</p> <p>But researchers found the drug was much less likely to be available in pharmacies in mostly Black (18% of pharmacies) and Hispanic neighborhoods (17%), compared with mostly white ones (46%).</p> <p>In some states, the disparity was even worse. In <a href="https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/full/10.1377/hlthaff.2025.00349#:~:text=versus%2047.8%C2%A0percent)%2C-,California,-(9.1%C2%A0percent%20versus" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">California, </a>for example, only about 9% of pharmacies in Black neighborhoods dispensed buprenorphine, compared with 52% in white neighborhoods.</p> <p>The researchers found buprenorphine was least available in Black and Latino neighborhoods across nearly all states.</p> <h3 class="wp-block-heading">Barriers to treatment</h3> <p>Dr. Rebecca Trotzky-Sirr, a family physician who specializes in addiction medicine, said many communities of color are “pharmacy deserts.” Even the pharmacies that do exist in those neighborhoods tend to “have additional barriers to obtain buprenorphine and other controlled substances out of a concern for historic overuse of some treatments,” said Trotzky-Sirr, who wasn’t involved in the study.</p> <p>In addition to its federal classification as a controlled substance, buprenorphine is also subject to state regulations to prevent illegal use. <a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama-health-forum/fullarticle/2795746#:~:text=Pharmacists%20are%20aware%20that%20their,in%20their%20inventory%20at%20all." target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">Pharmacies</a> that carry it know that wholesalers and distributors audit their orders, which dissuades some from stocking or dispensing it.</p> <p>Dima Qato, associate professor of clinical pharmacy at the University of Southern California and an author of the Health Affairs study, said that without changes in policy, Black and Hispanic people will continue to have an especially hard time getting buprenorphine.</p> <p>“If you don’t address these dispensing regulations, or regulate buprenorphine from the aspect of pharmacy regulations, people are still going to encounter barriers accessing it,” she said.</p> <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>“Medicaid is the backbone of care for people struggling with opioid use disorder.”</p></blockquote></figure> <p>In neighborhoods where at least a fifth of the population is on Medicaid, just 35% of pharmacies dispensed buprenorphine, Qato and her team found. But in neighborhoods with fewer residents on Medicaid, about 42% of pharmacies carried the drug.</p> <p>Medicaid covers nearly <a href="https://www.kff.org/medicaid/implications-of-potential-federal-medicaid-reductions-for-addressing-the-opioid-epidemic/#:~:text=Medicaid%20provided%20coverage%20to%20nearly,Use%20and%20Health%20(NSDUH)." target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">half</a> — 47% — of non-elderly adults who suffer from opioid use disorder. In states that expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, another recent study found an <a href="https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/full/10.1377/hlthaff.2025.00343" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">increase</a> in people getting prescriptions for buprenorphine.</p> <p>“Medicaid is the backbone of care for people struggling with opioid use disorder,” said Cherlette McCullough, a Florida-based mental health therapist. “We’re going to see people in relapse. We’re going to see more overdoses. We’re going to see more people in the ER.”</p> <p>Qato said the shortage of pharmacies in minority communities is likely to get worse, as many independent pharmacies are already <a href="https://stateline.org/2025/01/17/independent-pharmacies-know-their-communities-but-many-are-struggling-to-stay-open/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">struggling to stay open</a>.</p> <p>“We know they’re more likely to close in neighborhoods of color, so there’s going to be even fewer pharmacies that carry it in the neighborhoods that really need it,” she said.</p> <h3 class="wp-block-heading">‘There needs to be urgency’</h3> <p>Qato and her colleagues say state and local governments should mandate that pharmacies carry a minimum stock of buprenorphine and dispense it to anyone coming in with a legitimate prescription. As examples, they point to a Philadelphia ordinance mandating that pharmacies carry the opioid overdose-reversal drug naloxone and similar emergency contraception requirements in Massachusetts.</p> <p>“We need to create expectations. We need to encourage our pharmacies to carry this to make it accessible, same day, and there needs to be urgency,” said Arianna Campbell, a physician assistant and co-founder of the Bridge Center, a California-based organization that aims to help increase addiction treatment in emergency rooms.</p> <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>“We need to encourage our pharmacies to carry this to make it accessible.”</p></blockquote></figure> <p>“In many of the conversations I have with pharmacies, when I’m getting some pushback, I have to say: ‘Hey, this person’s at the highest risk of dying right now. They need this medication right now.’”</p> <p>She said patients frequently become discouraged due to barriers they face in getting prescriptions filled. The Bridge Center has been expanding its patient navigator program across the state and helping other states start their own. The program helps patients identify pharmacies where they can fill their prescription fastest.</p> <p>“There’s a medication that can help you, but at every turn it’s really hard to get it,” she said, calling the disparities in access to medication treatment “unacceptable.”</p> <p>Trotzky-Sirr, the California doctor, fears the looming Medicaid cuts will cause many of her patients to discontinue treatment and relapse. Many of her patients are covered by Medi-Cal, the state’s Medicaid program.</p> <p>“A lot of our patients are able to obtain medications for treatment of addiction like buprenorphine, because of the state covering the cost of the medication,” said Trotzky-Sirr, who also is a regional coordinator at the Bridge Center.</p> <p>“They don’t have the resources to pay for it, cash, out of pocket.”</p> <p>Some low-income patients switch between multiple providers or clinics as they try to find care and coverage, she added. These could be interpreted as red flags to a pharmacy.</p> <p>Trotzky-Sirr argued buprenorphine does not need to be monitored as carefully as opioids and other drugs that are easier to misuse or overuse.</p> <p>“Buprenorphine does not have those features and really needs to be in a class by itself,” she said. “Unfortunately, it’s hard to explain that to a pharmacist in 30 seconds over the phone.”</p> <p>More is known about the medication now than when it was placed on the controlled substances list about two decades ago, said Brendan Saloner, a Bloomberg Professor of American Health in Addiction and Overdose at Johns Hopkins University.</p> <p>Pharmacies are fearful of regulatory scrutiny and don’t have “countervailing pressure” to ensure patients get the treatments, he said.</p> <p>On top of that fear, Medicaid managed care plans’ prior authorization processes may also be adding to the pharmacy bottleneck, he said.</p> <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>“There’s a medication that can help you, but at every turn it’s really hard to get it.”</p></blockquote></figure> <p>“Black and Latino communities have higher rates of Medicaid enrollment, so to the extent that Medicaid prior authorization techniques are a hassle to pharmacies, that may also kind of discourage them [pharmacies] from stocking buprenorphine,” he said.</p> <p>In some states, buprenorphine is much more readily available. In Maine, New Hampshire, Oregon, Rhode Island, Utah and Vermont, more than 70% of pharmacies carried the drug, according to the study. Buprenorphine availability was highest in states such as <a href="https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/full/10.1377/hlthaff.2025.00349#:~:text=states%2C%20such%20as-,Oregon,-%2C%20that%20had%20the" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">Oregon</a> that have the least restrictive regulations for dispensing it.</p> <p>In contrast, less than a quarter of pharmacies in Iowa, North Dakota, Texas, Virginia and Washington, D.C., carried the medication.</p> <p>“We’re going to see more people becoming unhoused, because without treatment, they’re going to go back to those old habits,” McCullough, the Florida therapist, said. “When we talk about marginalized communities, these are the populations that are going to suffer the most because they already have challenges with access to care.”</p><p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/medicaid-cuts-will-worsen-the-opioid-safety-gap/">Medicaid Cuts Will Worsen the Opioid Safety Gap</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/medicaid-cuts-will-worsen-the-opioid-safety-gap/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>0</slash:comments> <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">311282</post-id> <enclosure url="https://truthdig.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/AP24145628937902.jpg?width=878&height=585" length="1599801" type="image/jpeg" /> <media:thumbnail url="https://truthdig.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/AP24145628937902.jpg?width=878&height=585" /> </item> <item> <title>Inside the Post-Musk Social Security Administration</title> <link>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/inside-the-post-musk-social-security-administration/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=inside-the-post-musk-social-security-administration</link> <comments>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/inside-the-post-musk-social-security-administration/#respond</comments> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Eli Hager / ProPublica ]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Mon, 08 Sep 2025 16:19:13 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Activism]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Courts & Law]]></category> <category><![CDATA[News]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Politics]]></category> <category><![CDATA[US]]></category> <category><![CDATA[DOGE]]></category> <category><![CDATA[donald trump]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Frank Bisignano]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Leland Dudek]]></category> <category><![CDATA[social security administration]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.truthdig.com/?p=311265</guid> <description><![CDATA[<p>Key DOGE team members have transitioned to permanent top jobs at the SSA, deepening one of the most dramatic transformations of the U.S. government since the New Deal.</p><p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/inside-the-post-musk-social-security-administration/">Inside the Post-Musk Social Security Administration</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p class="has-small-font-size">This story was originally published by <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/inside-doge-social-security-takeover-leland-dudek" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">ProPublica</a>.</p> <p><strong>On Feb. 10</strong>, on the third floor of the Social Security Administration’s Baltimore-area headquarters, Leland Dudek unfurled a 4-foot-wide roll of paper that extended to 20 feet in length. It was a visual guide that the agency had kept for years to explain Social Security’s many technological systems and processes. The paper was covered in flow charts, arrows and text so minuscule you almost needed a magnifying glass to read it. Dudek called it Social Security’s “Dead Sea Scroll.”</p> <p>Dudek and a fellow Social Security Administration bureaucrat taped the scroll across a wall of a windowless executive office. This was where a team from the new <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/tag/doge/" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c="18" title="DOGE">Department of Government Efficiency</a> was going to set up shop.</p> <p><a href="https://www.truthdig.com/tag/doge/" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c="18" title="DOGE">DOGE</a> was already terrifying the federal bureaucracy with the prospect of mass job loss and intrusions into previously sacrosanct databases. Still, Dudek and a handful of his tech-oriented colleagues were hopeful: If any agency needed a dose of efficiency, it was theirs. “There was kind of an excitement, actually,” a longtime top agency official said. “I’d spent 29 years trying to use technology and data in ways that the agency would never get around to.”</p> <p>The Social Security Administration is <a href="https://www.ssa.gov/news/en/press/releases/2025-08-14.html" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">90 years old</a>. Even today, thousands of its physical records are stored in former limestone mines in Missouri and Pennsylvania. Its core software <a href="https://www.ssa.gov/open/materials/IT-Modernization-Plan.pdf" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">dates back to the early 1980s</a>, and only a few programmers remain who understand the intricacies of its more than <a href="https://oig.ssa.gov/congressional-testimony/2016-07-14-newsroom-congressional-testimony-july14-ssa-modernization/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">60 million lines</a> of code. The agency has been talking about switching from paper Social Security cards to electronic ones for two decades, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2025/05/05/social-security-cards-to-go-digital.html" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">without making it happen</a>.</p> <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>“There was kind of an excitement, actually.”</p></blockquote></figure> <p><a href="https://www.truthdig.com/tag/doge/" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c="18" title="DOGE">DOGE</a>, billed as a squad of crack technologists, seemed perfectly designed to overcome such obstacles. And its young members were initially inquisitive about how Social Security worked and what most needed fixing. Several times over those first few days, Akash Bobba, a 21-year-old coder who’d been the first of them to arrive, held his face close to Dudek’s scroll, tracing connections between the agency’s venerable IT systems with his index finger. Bobba asked: “Who would know about this part of the architecture?”</p> <p>Before long, though, he and the other DOGErs buried their heads in their laptops and plugged in their headphones. Their senior leaders had already written out goals on a whiteboard. At the top: Find fraud. Quickly.</p> <p>Dudek’s scroll was forgotten. The heavy paper started to unpeel from the wall, and it eventually sagged to the floor.</p> <p>It only got worse from there, said Dudek, who would — improbably — be named acting commissioner of the Social Security Administration, a position he held through May. In 15 hours of interviews with ProPublica, Dudek described the chaos of working with DOGE and how he tried first to collaborate, and then to protect the agency, resulting in turns that were at various times alarming, confounding and tragicomic.</p> <p>DOGE, he said, began acting like “a bunch of people who didn’t know what they were doing, with ideas of how government should run — thinking it should work like a McDonald’s or a bank — screaming all the time.”</p> <p class="has-text-align-center"><strong>* * *</strong></p> <p>The shock troops of DOGE, at the Social Security Administration and myriad other federal agencies, were the advance guard in perhaps the most dramatic transformation of the U.S. government since the New Deal. And despite the highly public departure of DOGE’s leader, <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/tag/elon-musk/" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c="19" title="Elon Musk">Elon Musk</a>, that campaign continues today. Key DOGE team members have transitioned to permanent jobs at the SSA, including as the agency’s <a href="https://fedscoop.com/social-security-administration-doge-chief-information-officer/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">top technology officials</a>. The 19-year-old whose self-anointed moniker — “Big Balls” — has made him one of the most memorable DOGErs <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/teen-doge-staffer-big-balls-left-trump-administration-rcna214900" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">joined the agency this summer</a>.</p> <p>The DOGE philosophy has been embraced by the SSA’s commissioner, Frank Bisignano, who was confirmed by the Senate in May. “Your bias has to be — because mine is — that DOGE is helping make things better,” Bisignano told senior officials weeks after replacing Dudek, according to a recording obtained by ProPublica. “It may not feel that way, but don’t believe everything you read.”</p> <p>In a statement, a Social Security Administration spokesperson said that Bisignano has made “notable” initial progress and that “the initiatives underway will continue to strengthen service delivery and enhance the integrity and efficiency of our systems.” The statement asserted that “under President <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/tag/donald-trump/" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c="4" title="Donald Trump" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Trump</a>’s leadership and his commitment to protect and preserve Social Security, Commissioner Bisignano is strengthening Social Security and the programs it provides for Americans now and in the future.”</p> <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>They could have worked to modernize Social Security’s legacy software.</p></blockquote></figure> <p>For all the controversy DOGE has generated, its time at the Social Security Administration has not amounted to looming armageddon, as some Democrats warn. What it’s been, as much as anything, is a missed opportunity, according to interviews with more than 35 current or recently departed Social Security officials and staff, who spoke on the condition of anonymity mostly out of fear of retaliation by the <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/tag/donald-trump/" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c="4" title="Donald Trump" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Trump</a> administration, and a review of hundreds of pages of internal documents, emails and court records.</p> <p>The DOGE team, and Bisignano, have prioritized scoring quick wins that allow them to post triumphant tweets and press releases — especially, in the early months, about <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/16/us/politics/doge-social-security.html" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">an essentially nonexistent form of fraud</a> — while squandering the chance for systemic change at an agency that genuinely needs it.</p> <p>They could have worked to modernize Social Security’s legacy software, the current and former staffers say. They could have tried to streamline the stupefying volume of documentation that many Social Security beneficiaries have to provide. They could have <a href="https://www.ssa.gov/agency/materials/ssa-action-plan-2024.pdf" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">built search tools</a> to help staff navigate the agency’s 60,000 pages of policies. (New hires often need at least three years to master the nuances of even one type of case.) They could have done something about wait times for disability claims and appeals, which often take over a year.</p> <p>They did none of these things.</p> <p class="has-text-align-center"><strong>* * *</strong></p> <p>Ultimately, no one had a more complete view of the missed opportunity than Lee Dudek. A 48-year-old with a shaved pate and a broad build that suggests an aging former linebacker, Dudek is a figure seemingly native to the universe of President Donald Trump — an unlikely holder of a key post, elevated after little or no vetting, who briefly attains notoriety in Washington circles before vanishing into obscurity — not unlike Anthony Scaramucci in the first Trump administration.</p> <p>Dudek, a midlevel bureaucrat with blunt confidence and a preference for his own ideas, had failed in his one past attempt to manage a small team within the SSA, leading him and his supervisors to conclude he shouldn’t oversee others. Despite that, Trump made him the boss of 57,500 people as acting commissioner of the agency this spring.</p> <p>Dudek got the job, wittingly or not, through an end-run around his bosses. After Trump won the <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/tag/election-2024/" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c="2" title="Election 2024" target="_blank" rel="noopener">2024 election</a> and rumors of a cost-cutting-and-efficiency SWAT team began to swirl, Dudek asked people he knew at big tech companies for introductions to potential DOGE members. In December, a contact set him up with <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/tag/elon-musk/" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c="19" title="Elon Musk">Musk</a>’s right-hand man, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/20/technology/elon-musk-steve-davis-doge.html" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">Steve Davis</a>, which led to conversations with other DOGE figures about how they could “hack” Social Security’s bureaucracy to “get to yes,” Dudek said.</p> <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>Dudek got the job, wittingly or not, through an end-run around his bosses.</p></blockquote></figure> <p>By February, Dudek had become the conduit between DOGE and the SSA, alerting top agency officials that DOGE wanted to work at SSA headquarters. And unlike Michelle King, the acting agency chief at the time, Dudek was willing to speed up the new-hire training process to give DOGE access to virtually all of the SSA’s databases. This precipitated a <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/22/politics/leland-dudek-acting-social-security-head-doge" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">sequence of events</a> that began with him being placed on administrative leave, where he wrote a LinkedIn post that propelled him into the public eye for the first time: “I confess,” he posted. “I helped DOGE understand SSA. … I confess. I … circumvented the chain of command to connect DOGE with the people who get stuff done.” The same weekend, King resigned and Dudek, who was at home in his underwear watching MSNBC, got an email stating that the president of the United States had appointed him commissioner.</p> <p>Between February and May, when Dudek’s tenure ended, his erratic rhetoric and decisions <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/21/us/politics/social-security-dudek-judge-doge.html" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">routinely made</a> <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2025/04/02/maine-governor-trump-transgender/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">front-page news</a>. He was often portrayed as a <a href="https://www.thehandbasket.co/p/leland-dudek-ssa-doge" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">DOGE patsy</a>, perhaps even a <a href="https://www.democrats.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/as-americans-worry-about-ability-to-put-food-on-the-table-and-pay-bills-following-cruel-and-indefensible-cuts-to-social-security-leader-schumer-calls-for-social-security-acting-commissioner-leland-dudek-to-resign" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">fool</a>. But in his interviews with ProPublica this summer, he revealed himself to be a much more complex figure, a disappointed believer in DOGE’s potential, who maintains he did what he could to protect Social Security’s mission under duress.</p> <p>Dudek is the first agency head to speak in detail on the record about what it is like to be thrust into such an important position under Trump. He told ProPublica that he decided to speak because he wishes that “those who govern” would have more frank and honest conversations with the public.</p> <p>To the 73 million Americans whose financial lives depend on the viability of Social Security, those first months were a seesaw of apprehension and rumor. Inside the agency, Dudek, ill-prepared for leadership or for DOGE’s murky agenda, was stumbling through the chaos in part by creating some of his own.</p> <p class="has-text-align-center"><strong>* * *</strong></p> <p>Dudek knows what it’s like to depend on Social Security. When he was a kid in Saginaw, Michigan, his mother turned to Social Security disability benefits to support him and his siblings after she got injured at a Ford-affiliated parts factory; she also had a mental health breakdown. (Dudek’s now-deceased father, who worked for General Motors, was alternately abusive and absent, according to the family.)</p> <p>At school, Dudek was isolated and bullied for being poor, his sister told ProPublica, and he’s had an underdog’s quick temper ever since. But he was always an advanced student, and he developed an early interest in computer science and politics. As a teenager, he often watched C-SPAN. He was fascinated, he said, by “how government worked and how it could change people’s lives.”</p> <p>Dudek arrived in Washington in 1995 to attend Catholic University of America. He was the type of earnest young man who was enthralled by President Bill Clinton’s campaign at the time to “<a href="https://www.govexec.com/management/2013/04/what-reinvention-wrought/62836/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">reinvent government</a>” by injecting it with private sector-style efficiency, much as Trump and DOGE later said they would.</p> <p>In college, he also displayed the tendency to buck authority that would mark his professional career. He had a night job running the university’s computer labs; if there were problems, he was supposed to call his boss. He wasn’t supposed to install new software on all the computers, but that’s what he did. It worked, although he got a talking-to about knowing his role.</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="683" src="https://truthdig.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/AP25226641797255.jpg?width=1024&height=683" alt="" class="wp-image-311270" srcset="https://truthdig.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/AP25226641797255-scaled.jpg?width=1024&height=683 1024w, https://truthdig.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/AP25226641797255-scaled.jpg?width=300&height=200 300w, https://truthdig.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/AP25226641797255-scaled.jpg?width=768&height=512 768w, https://truthdig.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/AP25226641797255-scaled.jpg?width=270&height=180 270w, https://truthdig.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/AP25226641797255-scaled.jpg?width=405&height=270 405w, https://truthdig.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/AP25226641797255-scaled.jpg?width=608&height=405 608w, https://truthdig.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/AP25226641797255-scaled.jpg?width=878&height=585 878w, https://truthdig.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/AP25226641797255-scaled.jpg?width=2000 2000w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px" data-recalc-dims="1" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">President Donald Trump holds up a just-signed proclamation honoring the 90th anniversary of the Social Security Act as Social Security Commissioner Frank Bisignano looks on in the Oval Office on Aug. 14, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)</figcaption></figure> <p>After graduating, Dudek spent nearly a decade working for tech companies that contracted with the federal government on modernization projects, before migrating to several jobs within federal agencies themselves.</p> <p>In 2009, he arrived at the Social Security Administration as an IT security official. The agency was just like the Saginaw he’d run from, Dudek said: an insular, hidebound place where everyone knew everyone and they all thought innovation would cost them their jobs.</p> <p>But the SSA wasn’t the only institution at fault. Congress had enacted byzantine eligibility requirements for disability and <a href="https://www.ssa.gov/ssi" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">Supplemental Security Income</a> benefits, forcing the agency to expend <a href="https://www.ssa.gov/oact/ssir/SSI20/2020_SSAB_Nancy_Altman_Statement.pdf" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">huge amounts of time and money</a> running those programs. At the same time, lawmakers had capped the agency’s administrative funding just as tens of millions of baby boomers were aging into retirement, exploding Social Security’s rolls. (The SSA is now at its lowest staffing level in a half-century, even as it has taken on 40 million more beneficiaries.)</p> <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>“Certainly from an internal perspective within SSA, certainly from a congressional perspective, I was violating rules.”</p></blockquote></figure> <p>Because of the SSA’s stultifying culture, Dudek said, he leaned into his insubordinate streak. He had the sense that he could do it better, and when he felt like his proposals weren’t receiving money or attention, he went around his superiors. In one instance, he approached potential partners at credit card companies, hoping they would like his ideas for combating fraud and would relay those ideas to the Social Security commissioner at the time. “Certainly from an internal perspective within SSA, certainly from a congressional perspective, I was violating rules,” Dudek said.</p> <p>In part because of moves like this, Dudek got reassigned within the agency several times. Over the years, he was given multiple roles as a “senior adviser,” a title he said is for federal employees who are either incompetent but too established to fire or highly competent in a technical way but lacking in management or people skills.</p> <p>Dudek was stubborn. He could come off as a know-it-all, and he tended to ramble when speaking. But he is also thoughtful and well read. In our interviews, he brought up everything from the origins of the concept of Social Security among sociologists and psychologists in the Depression era to the bureaucrats who were left behind in faraway places after the decline of the British Empire. He repeatedly cited James Q. Wilson’s seminal 1989 book “Bureaucracy,” which spills considerable ink on the inefficiencies of the Social Security Administration — and on a businessman named Donald J. Trump who supposedly knew how to cut through red tape to get building projects done. (“No such law constrained Trump,” Wilson wrote.)</p> <p>Dudek had been a lifelong Democrat and voted for <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/tag/kamala-harris/" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c="3" title="Kamala Harris" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Kamala Harris</a>. But, like some <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/18/books/review/abundance-ezra-klein-derek-thompson.html" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">other liberals</a>, he was becoming exasperated with the “administrative state” and special-interest groups, including corporations, unions and social-justice organizations, that “capture” government and stifle reform. If it took Trump to cut through that, Dudek was open-minded. “The world has changed,” he scribbled in a note to himself. “We must change with it.”</p> <p class="has-text-align-center"><strong>* * *</strong></p> <p>Immediately after Dudek became commissioner in February, he got a call from Scott Coulter, a hedge fund manager with a $12 million Manhattan apartment who’d been picked to lead DOGE’s team at Social Security. “We’re coming,” Coulter said. “Be prepared.”</p> <p>DOGE arrived ready to embark on a specific mission: Its operatives at the Treasury Department had seen data suggesting that the Social Security Administration wasn’t keeping its death records up to date. They thought they saw signs of fraudulent payments. Musk was very, very interested.</p> <p>Dudek wasn’t initially concerned about this focus, which he and his colleagues viewed as misguided. To him, the young coders were nerdy outsiders just like he’d once been, albeit ones from privileged Ivy League and Silicon Valley backgrounds. They “reminded me of myself when I first got into computers,” he said. He thought he could mold them.</p> <p>In particular, Dudek liked Bobba, who had a gentle air and a thick pile of dark hair that covered his forehead. Dudek had spent hours with Bobba, trying to get him to focus on concrete problems like how beneficiaries’ records were stored, often as cumbersome PDF and image files. Instead, Bobba, who did not respond to a request for comment, prioritized Musk’s quest to prove that dead people were receiving Social Security benefits.</p> <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>“It was a maelstrom of topic A to topic G to topic C to topic Q.”</p></blockquote></figure> <p>Bobba had completed high school in New Jersey just 3½ years earlier. As a class speaker at his graduation, he’d encouraged his classmates not to ignore “nuance” and “complexity.” He’d lamented the “increasing willingness to simplify even the most complex narratives into sensational tidbits” like “280-character tweets,” which “perpetuates misinformation.”</p> <p>Yet Dudek had barely settled in as commissioner when Bobba unintentionally sparked a national misinformation firestorm: A table he created appeared as a screenshot in a grossly <a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1891350795452654076?lang=en" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">misleading Musk tweet</a> about “vampires” over the age of 100 allegedly collecting Social Security checks. Bobba had sorted people with a Social Security number by age and found more than 12 million over 120 years old still listed in the agency’s data.</p> <p>Bobba said he knew these people weren’t actually receiving benefits and tried to tell Musk so, to no avail, according to SSA officials. Dudek watched in horror as Trump then shared the same statistics <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/04/us/politics/transcript-trump-speech-congress.html" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">with both houses of Congress</a> and a national television audience, claiming the numbers proved “shocking levels of incompetence and probable fraud in the Social Security program for our seniors.” (The White House declined to comment on this episode. Bisignano, the new SSA commissioner, has <a href="https://www.foxbusiness.com/video/6373170593112" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">repeatedly</a> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/16/us/politics/doge-social-security.html" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">said</a> that “the work that DOGE did was 100% accurate.”)</p> <p>Inside the SSA, the DOGE team tried to find proof of the fraud that Musk and Trump had proclaimed, but it didn’t seem to know how to go about it, jumping from tactic to tactic. “It was a maelstrom of topic A to topic G to topic C to topic Q,” said a senior SSA official who was in the room. “Were we still helping anything by explaining stuff?” the official said. “It really wasn’t clear by that point.”</p> <p>Dudek began to realize that the problem wasn’t primarily the people he called the “DOGE kids.” It was the senior leaders who were issuing orders without heeding what the young DOGErs were learning.</p> <p class="has-text-align-center"><strong>* * *</strong></p> <p>Dudek was perhaps the most favorably disposed to the outsiders. Plenty of agency officials were already put off by the DOGErs, who often issued peremptory orders to meet with them and answer questions.</p> <p>Michelle Kowalski, an analyst who has since departed the agency, was instructed to take one of the DOGE people, Cole Killian, through earnings data and historical records to analyze the cases of extremely old people whose deaths had not been recorded in Social Security data. She found herself having to explain to him, again and again, that many of these people were born before states reported births and deaths to the federal government and decades before the advent of electronic record keeping. In the early days of the agency, some people didn’t even know their birthdays.</p> <p>Kowalski had assumed that Killian was middle-aged, since he was issuing instructions to her team. But he usually kept his camera turned off during video meetings. When he finally turned it on for one call, the face she saw seemed like that of a teenager.</p> <p>Killian was actually 24, <a href="https://www.cambridgeday.com/2025/03/01/theres-a-familiar-face-among-elon-musks-team-dismantling-the-federal-government-a-crls-grad/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">just six years removed</a> from performing “Hotel California” at his high school talent show at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School outside of Boston. (Killian, whose DOGE responsibilities also involved work at the Environmental Protection Agency, did not respond to a request for comment from ProPublica.)</p> <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>When he finally turned it on for one call, the face she saw seemed like that of a teenager.</p></blockquote></figure> <p>Kowalski was exasperated by having to answer to such inexperience, even as so many of her colleagues were being pushed out the door by the Trump administration. She was not alone.</p> <p>“Many of us had actually believed in the marketed idea of genius technologists coming in to make things work better,” one senior SSA official said. But DOGE ended up being more interested, the official said, in “trying to prove that the Social Security Administration was entirely incompetent” than in suggesting improvements.</p> <p>Employees at headquarters took their time walking past the glass-walled conference room where DOGE staffers had set up, glaring in at them as they worked among stacks of laptops that they used for assignments at different agencies. On a blog popular among SSA staffers, the mood in the comments section turned dark, with some anonymous posters identifying where in the building the “incel DOGE boys” were located and saying that “they are just warming up … just think what will come next.”</p> <p>Dudek sensed the growing tension. He felt it, too. He’d been getting anonymous death threats mailed to his house. He decided to move the DOGE operatives to a more secluded area of the campus and assigned an armed security detail to protect them.</p> <p class="has-text-align-center"><strong>* * *</strong></p> <p>During his first month as commissioner, Dudek ran his executive meetings in bombastic fashion, as if he were Trump on “The Apprentice.” And he sent out insulting full-staff emails pressuring career employees to retire. (Some 5,500 have left, with 1,500 more expected to follow.)</p> <p>Dudek says this behavior stemmed partly from being in over his head, amazed by whom he was suddenly answering to. “When the president of the United States asks you to do stuff,” he said, “you get caught up.”</p> <p>But he also claims he was just performing a role. “Early on, I put on a persona of a yeller,” Dudek said. (Multiple longtime colleagues and friends noticed the change, they told ProPublica. As one put it, “There’s Lee, and then there’s Leland-performingly-Dudek.”)</p> <p>This, he hoped, would convince the White House and DOGE of his commitment, which could in turn give him credibility as he kept trying to push them toward the real issues at Social Security.</p> <p>But the Trump administration kept having other plans. Its demands usually came through Coulter, the DOGE lead with the Harvard and hedge fund background, who early on dropped by Dudek’s office unannounced multiple times a week, Dudek said.</p> <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>“When the president of the United States asks you to do stuff,” he said, “you get caught up.”</p></blockquote></figure> <p>“I really think it would be helpful if you were to do this tomorrow,” Coulter would say to Dudek about eliminating an entire division of the SSA or cutting more staff, according to Dudek. To him, these suggestions felt like orders. If he responded, “I don’t know, let me think about it,” Coulter would call a few hours later on the encrypted messaging app Signal to ask, “You really aren’t catching on, are you?” and “Do you know how many times I’ve defended you?”</p> <p>“I was supposed to get the message — and it would be ‘my own decision,’ so I’d be stuck with it,” Dudek said. “He can say he never told me to do anything.” (Coulter, who has been working for DOGE at NASA in recent months, did not respond to a request for comment.)</p> <p>One of Coulter’s suggestions involved the SSA’s Office of Transformation, which had been doing the seemingly DOGE-like work of developing an online application to replace many of the agency’s paper-based forms and in-person interviews. The office had been working with elderly, low-income and disabled people to see what most confused them about SSA processes and what would most help them if these were redesigned.</p> <p>But instead of facilitating this effort at greater efficiency, Coulter told Dudek to close the office, according to Dudek, claiming it was wasteful. Agency staff joked that DOGE shut it down because its name included a word that began with “trans.”</p> <p class="has-text-align-center"><strong>* * *</strong></p> <p>Dudek and his colleagues sometimes attempted to co-opt DOGE’s obsessions in the hope that they could address a genuine problem at the agency. This strategy was not successful.</p> <p>Such was the case with the issue of phone fraud. Knowing that the DOGErs would perk up at the mention of anything fraud-related, Dudek and other officials made a point of explaining that they’d been working on an initiative to block bots that had been calling the agency. The bots would impersonate beneficiaries, using dates of birth and other information that can be found on the internet, to try to change the beneficiaries’ bank-routing information and steal their benefits.</p> <p>In 2024, Dudek had been on a team that spearheaded an effort to combat this type of fraud. The plans included running all phone-based requests for bank account changes against a Treasury Department database of suspicious accounts and analyzing such calls to verify whether they were being made from the vicinity of the address on file of the person purportedly calling.</p> <p>DOGE ignored the proposed solutions. Instead, the White House instructed Dudek to end all claims and direct-deposit transactions by phone. Beneficiaries would have to <a href="https://federalnewsnetwork.com/benefits/2025/04/social-security-administration-outlines-new-plan-for-stricter-id-proofing-options/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">verify their own identities</a> by using an often-confusing web portal or by traveling to a field office to do it in person. For millions of elderly or disabled people, these were daunting or impossible options.</p> <p>When this policy was rolled out at the end of March, beneficiaries panicked. Many flocked to field offices to preemptively provide proof of their identities even when they didn’t need to.</p> <p>Back at headquarters, in a weekly staff meeting, Dudek asked who could jump on the increasingly urgent task of making it easier to schedule field office appointments via the SSA website. “Well, Lee, you just fired that team,” one official answered, referring to the Office of Transformation. (Dudek said he asked this question on purpose to make sure DOGE heard the answer.)</p> <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>As Dudek restored the phone policy to its pre-Trump version, Miller got angrier.</p></blockquote></figure> <p>Over the course of six weeks under Dudek, the phone policy zigged and zagged a half dozen times — for example, the SSA adopted, then abandoned, a <a href="https://www.nextgov.com/digital-government/2025/05/doge-went-looking-phone-fraud-ssa-and-found-almost-none/405346/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">three-day waiting period to conduct an algorithmic fraud check</a> on all calls — before finally ending up nearly where it began. Transactions could be carried out by phone again.</p> <p>Throughout this saga, Dudek was still getting calls from White House officials — most often from <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/18/style/katie-miller-stephen-miller-trump-musk.html" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">Katie Miller</a>, DOGE’s spokesperson and the wife of Stephen Miller, one of Trump’s closest advisers. (Katie Miller went on to <a href="https://fortune.com/2025/07/03/katie-miller-trump-white-house-elon-musk-xai/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">work for Musk</a> before announcing plans to <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2025/08/07/katie-miller-podcast-doge-00497627" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">launch her own podcast</a>. She did not respond to a request for comment.) Miller often called well into the evening, Dudek said, to chastise him about anything the press had reported that day that had caught the administration off guard.</p> <p>As Dudek restored the phone policy to its pre-Trump version, Miller got angrier. “You changed the president’s policy,” she said, according to Dudek.</p> <p>“I’m like, ‘No, I’m still with the president’s policy,’” Dudek said he told Miller. But, if Social Security officials could implement the anti-fraud measures that he and his team had previously been planning, he said, they could “achieve the same end.” In that case, Dudek said, “we will do so and ease the friction point on the public.”</p> <p>“How dare you,” Miller said.</p> <p class="has-text-align-center"><strong>* * *</strong></p> <p>Increasingly dismayed, Dudek hatched a plan that seemed to embody his mix of good intentions, hubris and melodrama. He decided he would continue to play along with DOGE on the surface, in part so that Coulter and the other bigwigs would think he was still handling their business and thus spend less time at the agency. The younger DOGE team members, he said, were “easier to work with when their masters weren’t around.”</p> <p>But behind the scenes, he began to undermine DOGE however he could. Sometimes he did this by making intemperate statements that he knew would find their way into the press and draw attention to what DOGE was asking him to do. “Have you ever worked with someone who’s manic-depressive?” <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/recording-reveals-leland-dudek-thoughts-trump-doge-social-security" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">he said of the Trump administration’s leadership in one meeting</a>.</p> <p>Other times Dudek himself was the leaker. As commissioner, he was often an anonymous source for articles in The Washington Post and The New York Times. “If it was stupid stuff from the DOGE team, a lot of times I would go out to the press and immediately tattletale on myself so that it would blow up the next day,” Dudek said, adding that he did this in part to help Social Security advocates understand and bring attention to the growing crisis at the agency.</p> <p>Rebecca Vallas, CEO of the nonprofit National Academy of Social Insurance, said she was in a one-on-one meeting with Dudek in March when he started getting calls from DOGE officials and the media. The calls were about his recent <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-admin-threatens-shut-down-131705092.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cueWFob28uY29tLw&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAANxwG2aNrOwmdyUV1Fz56HXsz0cmidsrQ9cUEPa23GSb2XendqKog8R5CKxn9hIcHNrq_8Zny-emThPLLHdRQlkaqSF7656djaaIj7sFkb7k9YfL7R-ycZyz8DNmZea7VAgyIKG_fZYO7X2Sf2OzVqojCKotb4wKp1DR7vNzqshz" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">public comments</a> claiming he might have to shut down the entire Social Security Administration if <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-administration/social-security-chief-backs-threat-shut-agency-doge-ruling-rcna197632" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">a federal judge continued to deny</a> DOGE access to sensitive Social Security data. “He just let me sit there with the volume up high,” Vallas said.</p> <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>Behind the scenes, he began to undermine DOGE however he could.</p></blockquote></figure> <p>On one of the calls, she said, someone told Dudek, “Elon loved that, but now it’s time to walk it back.” Afterward, Dudek told her, “I don’t know how we get out of this without hurting huge numbers of people. … I’m just trying to give advocates some ammunition.”</p> <p>Dudek’s strategy was easier to pull off without DOGE catching on if it came off as the blundering of an amateur, he told ProPublica. In the most striking example, DOGE instructed Dudek to cancel two contracts that the SSA had with the state of Maine, according to Dudek and other SSA officials. The contracts, which all 50 states have long had versions of, allowed Maine to automatically report births and deaths to Social Security. Canceling them would impede government efficiency: Births and deaths in the state would take weeks or months longer to enter the federal system. That would likely cause benefits to continue to be sent to thousands of Mainers after they’ve died, exactly the kind of thing that Trump and Musk had been railing against.</p> <p>It seemed clear to Dudek that he was being told to do this only because Trump was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/21/us/politics/trump-maine-governor-transgender-athletes.html" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">publicly feuding with</a> Maine’s governor about transgender athletes. (The White House declined to comment on this episode.) So he decided to “write the hell out of” an email directing that the contracts be canceled. He did so in a way he thought would still earn him points with Trump and DOGE but that would, simultaneously, be so inflammatory that it would create a major storyline for reporters, advocates and Congress.</p> <p>“Please cancel the contracts,” Dudek’s email read. “While our improper payments will go up, and fraudsters may compromise identities, no money will go from the public trust to a petulant child.” That last phrase referred to Maine’s governor, Janet Mills, the one Trump had been fighting with. (“Do I care about Janet Mills? No,” Dudek told ProPublica.)</p> <p>As Dudek had hoped, the press attention he generated compelled him to do what he already wanted to do: reinstate the contracts. In a <a href="https://www.ssa.gov/news/en/press/releases/2025-03-07.html" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">written apology</a>, he explained that he was only belatedly realizing the potential harm of what he (alone) had done. “I screwed up,” he told reporters. “I’m new at this job.”</p> <p>Once again, Miller called Dudek and excoriated him. “What the hell is going on?” she said.</p> <p>“This place leaks like a sieve,” he answered. “What can I tell you?”</p> <p class="has-text-align-center"><strong>* * *</strong></p> <p>Looking back on his tenure, Dudek maintains that his three months working alongside DOGE were not as harmful as they could have been, especially compared with what happened this spring at other federal agencies, some of which were essentially vaporized. Social Security checks, he points out, are still going out the door.</p> <p>Still, the SSA is reduced in his wake, with thousands fewer staff members to process claims and improve systems. These departed employees were disproportionately experienced and knowledgeable; they were the ones able to get other jobs or to retire with a pension. They took a lot of know-how with them.</p> <p>And the emotional harm that DOGE caused to older people and to people with disabilities — worsened by Dudek’s confusing actions — lingers. Many of these people have had money taken out of their paychecks their entire careers to pay for something more than just retirement benefits: security. It’s a feeling that may now be lost to them forever.</p> <p>Indeed, DOGE and Dudek caused so much consternation about the stability of the system that hundreds of thousands of people <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/16/business/social-security-early-retirement.html" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">have filed early for retirement in recent months</a>, even though doing so is not financially wise in the long term. The SSA must now pay out more in benefits than expected, contrary to DOGE’s cost-saving mission.</p> <p>Dudek’s sister back in Saginaw, Ana Dudek, relies on Social Security disability benefits. “I would talk to my brother when he was commissioner and be like, dude, the decisions you’re making are causing people to feel terror,” she said. “Terror is an apt descriptor.”</p> <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>“I’ll forever be associated with the pain of DOGE.”</p></blockquote></figure> <p>Dudek acknowledges much of this. “I’m not a cold, callous son of a bitch, I really do get it,” he said. “I’ll forever be associated with the pain of DOGE. … But so much went on in such a short amount of time. I tried to make the best decisions I could given the circumstances.”</p> <p>Since being dismissed from the agency in June, Dudek has been struggling to find another job. “My name is mud,” he said. “It is as if I no longer exist.”</p> <p>As a former SSA colleague put it, Dudek’s story is “the story of a disposable pawn, and there’s lots of those under Trump. They just <a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1892413385804792307?t=W2qfKAz86N-PMzA4vmoHdQ&s=09&" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">used him</a>, and then they disposed of him.”</p> <p>The White House, presented with extensive questions for this article, sent a one-paragraph statement disparaging ProPublica and Dudek. ProPublica’s story, White House spokesperson Davis Ingle said, “is largely based around the comments of a disgruntled former employee who openly admitted to leaking to the media, manipulating his colleagues, and repeatedly telling lies from his official position. On his last day as Acting Commissioner, <a href="https://nypost.com/2025/05/06/opinion/dont-trust-social-security-hysteria-trump-delivers-results/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">Leland Dudek showered praise</a> upon President Trump in an op-ed and touted the ‘real results’ of the Social Security Administration, but now that he’s bitter about being out of the top job — he’s singing a different tune.”</p> <p>Dudek said the administration asked him to write the op-ed and then vetted it. Referring to the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/26/us/politics/trump-cabinet-meeting.html" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">litany of extravagant praise</a> that cabinet secretaries lavished on Trump recently, he said, “you saw the cabinet meeting.”</p> <p class="has-text-align-center"><strong>* * *</strong></p> <p>Bisignano, the Social Security commissioner, comes to the role with a very different professional background than Dudek (though, like Dudek, he has working-class roots, in his case in Brooklyn). Until this job, Bisignano, 66, spent his career in the private sector. He was a top executive in operations and technology at massive banks like Citigroup and JPMorganChase and went on to become CEO of the payment processor Fiserv.</p> <p>Yet, like DOGE, he appears to have embraced the appearance of efficiency rather than efficiency itself. He has repeatedly told staff that Social Security should be run more like Amazon, with AI handling more customer interactions. But disability claims are more complicated than ordering toothpaste, according to SSA officials and experts, and Social Security’s customer base is older and more likely to have an intellectual disability than the average Amazon Prime member.</p> <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>He appears to have embraced the appearance of efficiency rather than efficiency itself.</p></blockquote></figure> <p>Bisignano has also fixated on how much time it takes to reach an agent on the SSA’s 800 number. In a <a href="https://www.ssa.gov/news/press/releases/2025/#2025-07-23" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">July press release</a>, he claimed that the average was down to six minutes, an 80% reduction from 2024. He achieved this in part by <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/07/10/social-security-phone-service-wait-times/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">reassigning 1,000 field office employees</a> to phone duty. That means initial calls are getting answered faster, but there are significantly fewer staff members available to handle complex, in-person cases. And “reaching an agent” turns out to mean speaking to a human being — or an AI bot. Internal SSA statistics obtained by ProPublica reveal that Bisignano’s estimate treats cases in which beneficiaries interact with a chatbot and opt for a callback as “zero-minute” waits, skewing the average. If you actually stay on the line, <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/06/26/social-security-wait-times-controversy/84334688007/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">USA Today has found</a>, it often takes over an hour to reach a live representative.</p> <p>In its statement, the SSA reiterated that call wait times have dramatically improved and that “using technology on our national 800 number has enabled 90 percent of calls handled to be served via automated self-service options or convenient callbacks.”</p> <p>Even the latest phone fraud policy feels like a rerun from DOGE’s earlier season. In late July, Bisignano’s team quietly posted a <a href="https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAViewDocument?ref_nbr=202507-0960-006" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">document to the Office of Management and Budget website</a> stating that 3.4 million more people would have to go into field offices to verify their identities instead of being able to do so by phone, starting Aug. 18. Days later, the SSA announced that this was actually optional.</p> <p>The DOGE era may officially be over at the agency, but the approach, it seems, is the same. As one SSA official put it, Bisignano is “doing all the same fundamentally inefficient things, more efficiently.”</p> <p class="has-small-font-size"><a href="https://www.propublica.org/people/alex-mierjeski" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">Alex Mierjeski</a> contributed research.</p><p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/inside-the-post-musk-social-security-administration/">Inside the Post-Musk Social Security Administration</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/inside-the-post-musk-social-security-administration/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>0</slash:comments> <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">311265</post-id> <enclosure url="https://truthdig.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/AP25066150402679-scaled.jpg?width=878&height=585" length="992487" type="image/jpeg" /> <media:thumbnail url="https://truthdig.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/AP25066150402679-scaled.jpg?width=878&height=585" /> </item> <item> <title>Texas Passes ‘Bounty Hunter’ Ban on Abortion Pills</title> <link>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/texas-passes-bounty-hunter-ban-on-abortion-pills/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=texas-passes-bounty-hunter-ban-on-abortion-pills</link> <comments>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/texas-passes-bounty-hunter-ban-on-abortion-pills/#respond</comments> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Mary Tuma / Texas Observer ]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Mon, 08 Sep 2025 15:45:22 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Activism]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Courts & Law]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Health & Wellness]]></category> <category><![CDATA[News]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Politics]]></category> <category><![CDATA[US]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Women]]></category> <category><![CDATA[abortion]]></category> <category><![CDATA[greg abbott]]></category> <category><![CDATA[HB 7]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Mifepristone]]></category> <category><![CDATA[roe v. wade]]></category> <category><![CDATA[texas]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.truthdig.com/?p=311262</guid> <description><![CDATA[<p>House Bill 7 attacks one of the last remaining options for reproductive care in Texas and declares legal war on blue states.</p><p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/texas-passes-bounty-hunter-ban-on-abortion-pills/">Texas Passes ‘Bounty Hunter’ Ban on Abortion Pills</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p class="has-small-font-size">This article was originally published by the <a href="https://www.texasobserver.org/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">Texas Observer</a>, a nonprofit investigative news outlet and magazine. Sign up for their <a href="http://eepurl.com/hjNtob" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">weekly newsletter</a>, or follow them on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/texasobserver/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">Facebook</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/texasobserver" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">X</a>, and <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/texasobserver.org" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">Bluesky</a>.</p> <p><strong>On Wednesday evening</strong>, the Texas Senate approved an extreme bill that, pending the governor’s signature, will empower citizens to sue anyone who “manufactures, distributes, mails, transports, delivers, prescribes, or provides” abortion pills to Texans for at least $100,000 in damages. While Texas already broadly bans abortion, with <a href="https://capitol.texas.gov/BillLookup/History.aspx?LegSess=892&Bill=HB7" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">House Bill 7</a> Republicans aim to halt the flow of abortion medication from out of state, one of the only remaining avenues for Texans to still access this care. The measure has been sent to Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk and is slated to become law in about three months, barring successful legal challenges. </p> <p>Democrats and reproductive rights advocates caution the law will instill even more fear in abortion patients — living under bans since 2021 — and may lead to<a href="https://www.propublica.org/series/life-of-the-mother" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank"> additional pregnancy-related deaths</a> in Texas. </p> <p>“This bill will harm women and could even lead to more pregnant women dying because they couldn’t access lifesaving medications,” said state Rep. Donna Howard, an Austin Democrat and chair of the Texas Women’s Health Caucus, on the House floor before the lower chamber cast its vote late last month. “The only reason we haven’t returned to the days of [pre-Roe v. Wade] ‘coat-hanger abortions’ is because of the medication abortion pill. I ask you: When will this be enough? How many women have to die or suffer severe bodily injury because they couldn’t access the care they needed?”</p> <p><a href="https://www.truthdig.com/tag/republican-party/" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c="11" title="republican party" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The GOP</a>-backed attempt to “crack down” on abortion pills and those who provide them<strong> </strong>could potentially impact access in much of the country and serve as a blueprint for other states to adopt, a professed goal of Texas Republicans who support the bill. </p> <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>“This bill will harm women.”</p></blockquote></figure> <p>“HB 7 exports Texas’ extreme abortion ban far beyond state borders,” said Blair Wallace, policy and advocacy strategist on reproductive freedom at the ACLU of Texas, in a statement. “It will fuel fear among manufacturers and providers nationwide, while encouraging neighbors to police one another’s reproductive lives, further isolating pregnant Texans, and punishing the people who care for them.”</p> <p>Largely a<a href="https://www.texasobserver.org/legislature-abortion-reproductive-rights-bills-2025/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank"> revival of a bill</a> that stalled in a House committee during the Legislature’s regular session (and also stalled during a first special session prior to the second special session that came to a close early Thursday morning), the so-called Woman and Child Protection Act claims to not target abortion patients. Domestic abusers or men who commit sexual assault resulting in pregnancy are not allowed to bring suit under the bill. Texas hospitals, doctors and those who manufacture or distribute the pills for medical emergencies, ectopic pregnancies and miscarriage management would be exempt; however, such medical gray areas have already confused and frustrated physicians, who say abortion law exceptions often don’t work in practice. </p> <p>The bill is modeled after<a href="https://capitol.texas.gov/BillLookup/History.aspx?LegSess=87R&Bill=SB8" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank"> Senate Bill 8</a>, the 2021 “bounty hunter”-style six-week abortion ban that encouraged reproductive health vigilantism with $10,000 lawsuits and chilled abortion care in Texas nearly a year before the fall of Roe. HB 7 allows those connected to someone who seeks out abortion medication — for instance, a pregnant person’s parent or partner — to sue in Texas court a doctor, distributor or manufacturer of the medication based anywhere in the country and reap the legislation’s hefty cash payout. </p> <p>Similar to its predecessor, HB 7 also seeks to evade judicial review by placing the power to sue in the hands of private citizens rather than state officials, preventing state court constitutional challenges to the law. It also relegates all appeals to the 15th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals — a conservative court recently created to handle challenges to state statutes.<strong> </strong></p> <p>Among the many troubling concerns raised by Democrats, including state Rep. Erin Zwiener: An abortion doesn’t need to take place for someone to sue a drug manufacturer or provider under the bill; pills only need to be mailed, potentially incentivizing “sting operations” by anti-abortion activists. HB 7 also allows Texans unrelated to the person ordering the pills to bring suit — but they can be awarded only $10,000, with the rest directed toward a charitable organization of their choice (as long as they or their family members don’t financially benefit from the organization). Advocates with the anti-abortion group Texas Right to Life have<a href="https://x.com/lukemaciastx/status/1960142256976851109" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank"> already openly suggested</a> they could be a recipient of those funds. </p> <p>While both a near-total abortion ban and a<a href="https://capitol.texas.gov/BillLookup/History.aspx?LegSess=872&Bill=SB4" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank"> law prohibiting</a> the mailing of abortion pills went into effect in 2021, the latter has been<a href="https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/texas-medication-abortion-pill-ban-ineffective/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank"> difficult to enforce</a> due to the fact that proving a violation of the law requires accessing people’s mail, a federal crime. </p> <p>With travel time, distance and costs for abortion care<a href="https://www.texasobserver.org/abortion-funds-texas-dwindling-donations-demand-costs/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank"> rising dramatically</a>, many abortion seekers in Texas have relied on mail delivery of pills through online providers like Aid Access and out-of-state physicians as a lifeline for care. About 2,800 Texas residents obtain abortion medication from telehealth providers across state lines per month, according to<a href="https://societyfp.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/WeCount-Report-8-June-2024-data.pdf" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank"> the Society of Family Planning</a>. Texas accounts for the largest share of this type of patient nationally. (Across the United States, the total number of abortions has <a href="https://www.kff.org/womens-health-policy/issue-brief/abortion-trends-before-and-after-dobbs/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">slightly increased</a> since Roe<em> </em>was overturned in 2022, in part due to mail order access, raising the ire of abortion opponents.) Anti-abortion advocates in Texas and elsewhere consider these remaining channels a nagging <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jan/14/texas-anti-abortion-bills-filed" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">loophole in abortion law</a> and have worked to find ways to stop pill providers.</p> <p>“We are cracking down, being vigilant and giving Texans the tools necessary to enforce our existing abortion laws,” bill author and Rep. Jeff Leach, a Plano Republican, told a House committee last month. “I believe this bill provides the nation’s strongest tool to protect Texans’ unborn and their moms. Texas is proudly leading the charge and we hope other states will follow.” </p> <p>Republicans and anti-abortion advocates have pushed the bill on the premise that women are being “victimized” by<a href="https://texasrighttolife.com/texas-senate-votes-to-stop-dangerous-abortion-pills/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank"> “dangerous”</a> abortion pills, despite more than two decades of documented scientific evidence that proves mifepristone and misoprostol, the most common pill combination, are<a href="https://apnews.com/article/fact-check-medication-abortion-783874945633" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank"> safe and effective</a> drugs. </p> <p>In reality, the process entails<a href="https://www.ansirh.org/sites/default/files/2024-05/Analysis%20of%20MA%20Risk%20and%20FDA%20Report%20Issue%20Brief%20FINAL.pdf" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank"> minimal health risk</a>, and legal abortion care overall is shown to be<a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22270271/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank"> 14 times safer</a> than childbirth.<strong> </strong>There were five deaths associated with mifepristone use for every 1 million people in the country since 2000, amounting to a 0.0005% death rate, according to <a href="https://www.cnn.com/health/abortion-pill-safety-dg" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">a CNN analysis</a> of federal Food and Drug Administration data. The risk of death by penicillin is four times greater while Viagra is nearly 10 times deadlier, as Howard noted during debate on the floor.<strong> </strong>Last month, more than 260 researchers, including those with the University of California-based group Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health,<a href="https://law.ucla.edu/reproductive-health-researchers-comment-letter-fda" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank"> sent a letter</a> to the FDA affirming the 25-year rigorous safety record of mifepristone. </p> <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>“HB 7 exports Texas’ extreme abortion ban far beyond state borders.”</p></blockquote></figure> <p>HB 7 is part of a broader, aggressive effort by Texas officials and anti-abortion advocates to attack individuals and groups that supply abortion pills to Texans. In an ongoing legal battle that could potentially reach the U.S. Supreme Court, Attorney General Ken Paxton<a href="https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/news/releases/attorney-general-ken-paxton-sues-activist-new-york-doctor-illegally-providing-abortion-drugs-across" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank"> sued</a> a New York-based doctor in 2024 for allegedly mailing abortion pills to a patient in Texas and, last month, sent<a href="https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/sites/default/files/images/press/PlanC%20Cease%20and%20Desist%20Redacted.pdf?utm_content=&utm_medium=email&utm_name=&utm_source=govdelivery&utm_term=" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank"> cease-and-desist letters</a> to abortion pill support groups in an attempt to put “an immediate end” to the shipment of abortion-inducing drugs across state lines. Paxton has also <a href="https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/texas-florida-seek-join-legal-challenge-abortion-pill-2025-08-22/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">asked to join a lawsuit</a> that challenges the FDA’s approval of mifepristone, including the agency’s allowing it to be sent by mail.</p> <p>Jonathan F. Mitchell, architect of the Texas abortion private enforcement scheme, is also working to bring down out-of-state providers, recently <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/07/jonathan-mitchell-texas-hes-suing-his-girlfriends-doctor-for-prescribing-abortion-pills-could-this-gut-access-everywhere/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">targeting</a> a California doctor in federal court on behalf of a Galveston man who claims the doctor sent his girlfriend medication. </p> <p>Some of these efforts are being thwarted by the “shield laws” of other states, measures put in place in abortion-legal states like California and New York to protect doctors from being sued by states where abortion is banned. HB 7 is crafted to directly bypass these shield laws, setting up “interstate legal warfare,” according to Democrats including state Sen. Molly Cook, who stressed that the bill is rife with constitutional violations.</p> <p>“This bill doesn’t stop at our borders,” said Sen. Carol Alvarado, a Houston Democrat, on the floor shortly before HB 7’s passage. “Providers outside Texas can be sued in Texas courts for lawful conduct in their own states. This sets a dangerous precedent; it flies in the face of state’s rights and contradicts the rationale behind the Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs [which struck down Roe] that each state should set its own laws on abortion.”</p> <p>Angel Foster heads the<a href="https://www.cambridgereproductivehealthconsultants.org/map" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank"> Massachusetts Medication Abortion Access Project</a>, a telemedicine abortion pill service founded in 2023. One-third, or roughly 800, of the project’s patients per month are from Texas. Despite the threat of litigation, Foster’s organization will not succumb to fear and halt her practice of serving Texans; she still feels confident in protection from her state’s shield law. </p> <p>“This Texas law would be a tremendous overreach and is meant to scare us away from helping our patients. We know that blocking access to pills is a huge part of the anti-abortion movement’s agenda today,” Foster told the Observer. “But our mantra is ‘no anticipatory obedience.’ We are not deterred in our mission. We will not stop our work.”</p><p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/texas-passes-bounty-hunter-ban-on-abortion-pills/">Texas Passes ‘Bounty Hunter’ Ban on Abortion Pills</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/texas-passes-bounty-hunter-ban-on-abortion-pills/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>0</slash:comments> <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">311262</post-id> <enclosure url="https://truthdig.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/AP25204416659399-scaled.jpg?width=877&height=585" length="878986" type="image/jpeg" /> <media:thumbnail url="https://truthdig.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/AP25204416659399-scaled.jpg?width=877&height=585" /> </item> <item> <title>Why Is Congress MIA on Looming Venezuela War?</title> <link>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/why-is-congress-mia-on-looming-venezuela-war/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=why-is-congress-mia-on-looming-venezuela-war</link> <comments>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/why-is-congress-mia-on-looming-venezuela-war/#respond</comments> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Connor Echols / Responsible Statecraft ]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Mon, 08 Sep 2025 15:36:08 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Americas]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Column]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Courts & Law]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Military]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Opinion]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Politics]]></category> <category><![CDATA[US]]></category> <category><![CDATA[congress]]></category> <category><![CDATA[drug trafficking]]></category> <category><![CDATA[pentagon]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Tren de Aragua]]></category> <category><![CDATA[venezuela]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.truthdig.com/?p=311258</guid> <description><![CDATA[<p>So far, members are ignoring their own obligations, despite Trump’s promise to keep bombing and amassing more firepower in the Caribbean.</p><p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/why-is-congress-mia-on-looming-venezuela-war/">Why Is Congress MIA on Looming Venezuela War?</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong>Military tensions</strong> in the southern Caribbean have rapidly grown following President <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/tag/donald-trump/" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c="4" title="Donald Trump" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Trump</a>’s decision to launch an airstrike on a boat allegedly smuggling drugs near Venezuela. As the U.S. <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/trump-deploys-f-35s-puerto-rico-war-drug-cartels-report-2124984" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow"><u>announced</u></a> the deployment of 10 F-35 fighter jets to bolster its <a href="https://responsiblestatecraft.org/trump-venezuela/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank"><u>forces</u></a> in the region, a pair of Venezuelan planes <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/04/us/politics/venezuela-jets-us-navy-ship-trump.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow"><u>flew</u></a> over an American warship in a move that the Pentagon described as “highly provocative.”</p> <p>All evidence suggests that a broader military operation could be in the offing. Last Thursday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/04/world/americas/rubio-ecuador-crime-groups-boat-strike.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow"><u>pledged</u></a> to continue the attacks and said regional governments “will help us find these people and blow them up.”</p> <p>Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, asked whether the end goal is regime change in Venezuela, <a href="https://x.com/kenklippenstein/status/1963337157906694473" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow"><u>told</u></a> “Fox and Friends” that the Pentagon is “prepared with every asset that the American military has” should <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/tag/donald-trump/" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c="4" title="Donald Trump" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Trump</a> choose to move forward with such an operation.</p> <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>All evidence suggests that a broader military operation could be in the offing.</p></blockquote></figure> <p>The rapid escalation seems to have put Congress on the back foot. While many lawmakers moved quickly to condemn Trump’s attacks on Iran earlier this year, strikingly few members of Congress have shown the same level of enthusiasm when it comes to Venezuela.</p> <p>Responsible Statecraft reached out to 19 congressional offices about the campaign but only heard back from Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), who simply shared a statement asking a series of questions about the goals and legality of the strike. (Smith later used stronger language, <a href="https://x.com/RepAdamSmith/status/1963783375375720511" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow"><u>accusing</u></a> Trump on Thursday of trying to start “a war with Venezuela.”)</p> <p>A smattering of other lawmakers have <a href="https://x.com/RepCasar/status/1963616999029776531" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow"><u>put out</u></a> <a href="https://x.com/Ilhan/status/1963686945130693064" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow"><u>statements</u></a> condemning the strikes. Rep. Chuy Garcia (D-Ill.) <a href="https://x.com/RepChuyGarcia/status/1963964069368697294" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow"><u>lamented</u></a> that Trump launched the campaign without congressional authorization and called on Congress to act in order to avoid a new “forever war.” Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), for his part, <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/rand-paul-slams-trump-strike-venezuela-drug-vessel_n_68b989f3e4b0e20f601acde8" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow"><u>told</u></a> Newsmax that “it isn’t our policy just to blow people up.” But Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Sen. <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/tag/bernie-sanders/" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c="7" title="Bernie Sanders" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Bernie Sanders</a> (I-Vt.), Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) — all of whom often rail against presidents for starting conflicts without consulting Congress — have so far stayed silent on the issue.</p> <p>This relative quiet contrasts sharply with the outrage expressed by legal experts, who have loudly rejected Trump’s claim that he has the right to blow up alleged drug traffickers in order to defend the United States from “narco-terrorists.” As Andy McCarthy of the National Review <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/2025/09/are-we-at-war-with-venezuela/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow"><u>noted</u></a>, Trump is taking the position that a boat operated by a designated terror group is “functionally the same as a hostile foreign naval force that is in the act of conducting an armed attack against the United States” — a “controversial claim, to put it mildly.”</p> <p>“When you see the premeditated killing of another person outside of an armed conflict, there’s a term for that, and that term is murder,” former State Department lawyer Brian Finucane <a href="https://www.npr.org/2025/09/05/nx-s1-5528890/international-crisis-group-adviser-on-legality-of-u-s-strike-on-venezuelan-boat" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow"><u>told</u></a> NPR, noting that the administration has failed to establish that the U.S. is at war with the organizations it is now bombing. “This is not an appropriate use of lethal military force.”</p> <p>The Trump administration <a href="https://x.com/alaynatreene/status/1964413783314448397/photo/1" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow"><u>sought</u></a> to legally justify the strikes in a notification to Congress in which it argued that the threat from drug trafficking has reached a “critical point” that can only be resolved using “military force in self-defense.” But the brazen nature of the strikes has even drawn some criticism from within the Trump administration. An anonymous senior Pentagon official <a href="https://theintercept.com/2025/09/05/pentagon-official-trump-boat-strike-was-a-criminal-attack-on-civilians/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow"><u>told</u></a> the Intercept that the attack amounted to an illegal execution of civilians. “The U.S. is now directly targeting civilians,” the official said. “Drug traffickers may be criminals but they aren’t combatants.”</p> <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>“This is not an appropriate use of lethal military force.”</p></blockquote></figure> <p>This week could offer an indication of whether lawmakers are willing to take steps to rein in the rapidly escalating standoff in the southern Caribbean. Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas) has <a href="https://x.com/justfp/status/1962981852324757802" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow"><u>introduced</u></a> an amendment to this year’s National Defense Authorization Act that would block funds for any use of military force “in or against Venezuela.” In a statement on X, Casar emphasized, “Only Congress has the power to declare war.”</p> <p>If the proposal makes it through the Rules Committee, then lawmakers will be forced to take a side on the issue. In the meantime, most members of Congress appear content to take a back seat as Trump tests his ability to bring the war on terror to the Western Hemisphere.</p><p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/why-is-congress-mia-on-looming-venezuela-war/">Why Is Congress MIA on Looming Venezuela War?</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/why-is-congress-mia-on-looming-venezuela-war/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>0</slash:comments> <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">311258</post-id> <enclosure url="https://truthdig.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/AP25248839705802-scaled.jpg?width=878&height=585" length="754717" type="image/jpeg" /> <media:thumbnail url="https://truthdig.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/AP25248839705802-scaled.jpg?width=878&height=585" /> </item> </channel></rss> If you would like to create a banner that links to this page (i.e. this validation result), do the following:
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