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On Unseriousness: Digging More Bonkers GOP Holes
In a possibly more than averagely batshit news cycle, the apocalyptic clusterfuck of clowns "governing" this country got up to some serious weirdness last week. As the chief clown waffled on the best way to kill us all - AI, nukes, nukes in space, forever war, hissy fits, agitprop up the wazoo - his lackeys frantically gaslit us with brain-dead pols, high T warriors and drunken sheep fuckers. No wonder Americans are said to be dreading the fall - not autumn, but the fall of democracy and civilization (sic) itself.
With Trump's approval rightly cratering but his faithful flunkies inexplicably urging us to vote like he's on the ballot - umm, okay - he's so far gone he still giddily maintains the deranged fiction we "have the greatest economy in history," we're resplendent in "a Golden Age of America," and he's all good on shamelessly, unconstitutionally banning news outlets he doesn't like - "I don't want them in my (sic) office," aka, "I’ll take 'Something a dictator would say' for $1000, Alex" - because he evidently thinks "repressive" is a compliment, devoutly to be wished. Otherwise, heading into a mid-term election that promises ("Oh please, oh please") to be a GOP rout, he's doing nothing to drag them out of the deepening holes he's dug except flailing and digging more.
Historically, inanely dazzled by nuclear power - see his "irresponsible and dangerous and frankly incompetent" burbling about the "N-word" - he's now touting the option of a shiny new Space Force military "offensive." Never mind America's 1969 moon landing assurance from "Planet Earth," "WE CAME IN PEACE FOR ALL MANKIND"; the one relatively peaceable place in the galaxy, space-weapons free for 18 billion years, now faces possible invasion from "Mister Schlock, Trash Gordeon, Darth Hater, Puke Skyfucker." Or in the pointedly indecipherable jargon of Air Force Secretary Troy Meink, "The United States now has on-orbit space control weapons capable of defending the joint force against hostile adversary action." By more "aliens"?
Back on an increasingly fragile Planet Earth, the same dangers loom amidst an Iran debacle wherein the U.S. is committing war crimes, hiding deaths and shortfalls along with damage to buildings, equipment, vehicles - one active service member: "We’re standing with our eyes closed getting punched in the face" - lying about a vital Strait of Hormuz that remains "a parking lot" and spending up to $2 billion a month despite a third House vote to end the carnage and a defiant Iran insisting it will not reopen the Strait until “the criminal Trump and bloodthirsty Netanyahu” are gone. All as the mad child-king muses publicly about his "big decision coming up. Do I want to go in and annihilate them or do I not? Anything could happen with me."
Hence another equally incoherent whiplash on the hazards of AI: From unhinged denial spewed by the master of "Person. Woman. Man. Camera. TV": the only guardrail needed is "a STRONG AND SMART (high IQ!) PRESIDENT, and the U.S. has that, in spades!" - to tentative hedging - a supposed concept of a plan to create an AI Czar - with the moronic, "Only High I.Q. individuals need apply!” - and an AI Force - like his "tremendous SUCCESS" the largely illusory Space Force - back to a knee-jerk "SICK conspiracy" against AI and data centers like the "many Hoaxes generated by the Radical Left Dumocrats, for purposes of destroying our Country.” When in God's name will he learn: "It ill behooves a man to rave on at length."
Still nursing a long-held grudge against the elites of the arts world, especially the storied family who both embodied it and always outclassed him, he also remains obsessed with slapping his odious name on the Kennedy Center or, now, threatening to tear it down if he can't. George Conway: "To destroy things he can’t possess or control is his essential nature." After multiple losses in court - the most mortifying the forced removal of his name, which rankled so much he's lamely kept the facade covered with a tarp - he persists in arguing the flourishing-until-he-came-along Center is "a mess" that's lost "tens of millions" or maybe "hundreds of billions" and "I’m the one capable of fixing it." Otherwise, "The building is destined to doom (sic)."
Unsurprisingly, an emerging backstory is far seedier. The only thing straining finances is the arts world boycotting him and his own Treasury holding hostage hundreds of millions in funds. After a storm brought down some ceiling plaster, lackeys left it, posted photos - Trump will fix it! - mapped the “debris field” for a 55-page bullshit briefing, and voted to close down. Richard Grenell partly replaced the art collection, including African works honoring JFK, with MAGA "art," some from "the Tony Montana Meets Saddam Hussein Collection," and workers glitzed up Trump's theater boxes. After a judge again refused to restore his name, Trump threw a tantrum and brought in forklifts, prompting the judge to issue an emergency order forbidding any mob-like, midnight demolition.
Meanwhile, he whines - The Federal Reserve is raising interest rates “to make Trump do as bad as they can possibly do” (sic) - threatens - GOP-led North Carolina, whose streets are "blood-soaked killing fields" (LOL) may get no more FEMA funding after Helene, "the biggest water hurricane" - propagandizes - the Smithsonian's "Ideological Capture” - and a desperate GOP goose-steps along. Vance lies about immigrants, RFK Jr. blithers about "chemtrails," Melania sneers let them eat flowers, fabulist MAGA Mike, seeking to be raptured, boasts of an uber-productive House "almost unmatched in history." And Mitch 'Weekend at Bernie's - McConnell is outlandishly wheeled out, dead-eyed and smile-plastered, from a months-long stupor to cast a vital "vote." Mother Mary of God, make it stop.
Preening peacock Pete Hegseth, evidently thinking he’s still on TV, ordered commanders to choose only soldiers who meet “impeccable grooming and uniform standards (no exception)” to attend his upcoming “State of the Force” speech; if they’re really cute they may get to join one of his dorky workouts. He also revived testosterone screening for symptoms like low energy and “loss of spontaneous morning erections.” Rex Huppke: “OUR ENEMIES WILL QUAKE AT THE SIGHT OF AMERICA’S BONER WARRIORS!” No wonder Unholy Mike ran away - aka sent the House home early "to explain all the great things we’ve done" - so they couldn't vote on Rep. Thomas Massie's articles of impeachment against Hegseth for "high crimes and misdemeanors."
Finally, there was Kash Patel, lackiest lackey of all, with his "unbelievable" testimony before a Senate hearing on newly lowered standards to work at the FBI. First, Tom Wellborn's background on Patel, a grown, childless man who wrote a kids' trilogy about a wizard named Kash serving a king named Donald; sold Ka$h-branded merch and anti-COVID-vaccine supplements; compiled an enemies list of high-level anti-Trump conspirators; took a government plane to hear his SWAT-team-protected girlfriend sing at a wrestling match; long yelled for release of the Epstein files until he was in power and found nothing to see; likewise ignored ICE abuses, rampant corruption, right-wing extremism while purging the FBI of 1,100-plus "disloyal" agents; and abruptly lowered standards to stop losing candidates to "the rigors of the requirements from yesteryear.”
Last week, Patel defended a new policy that no longer automatically disqualifies people for several offenses: paying for sex, defrauding employers, and bestiality - having sex with animals. In the FBI's universe of moral relativism, now you're all good if you hired a prostitute fewer than three times or over ten years ago; stole from your employer at least three years ago, or did unspeakable things with a sheep, horse, goat, dog etc when you were young and presumably horny. Throughout his testimony - here starting at 5:25 - Patel, who's suing The Atlantic for $250 million for credibly charging he's often drunk on the job, frantically shuffled papers that turned out to be cheat sheets to trash Sen. Dick Durbin, who calls him "the least qualified and most partisan FBI director in U.S. history."
Patel's surreal, wide-eyed, often bellicose testimony on, say, goat-fucking rattled even Louisiana's fake-folksy GOP Sen. John Kennedy, who was trying hard to give him the bizarre benefit of the doubt. After Patel explained the earlier policy "automatically disqualified any individual who participated on either side of it," a confused Kennedy asked, "Which side of what, the bestiality?" Patel: "Yes." Kennedy: "So, you disqualified the animal?" Patel: "We have some great canines - we're not gonna disqualify them. Hang on, I'm trying to explain." Kennedy: "So if Joe participated in bestiality, not as the animal but as the human, don't you think he ought to be disqualified?" Patel: "If he voluntarily did it, sure, but if he was trafficked into it..." Kennedy: But how do you involuntarily do it?" Etc.
Bravely, Kennedy tried to understand Patel's response to what he assumed was an underling's report. "Why would you get into bestiality?" he asked. "When you saw bestiality, I say this with respect...Why didn’t you just say, 'What planet did you parachute in from?'" Smirking, Patel said that was his response until he learned people were often "trafficked (into) these awful heinous acts." Then, he summoned his best impersonation of self-righteousness. "We did not want to punish victims of bestiality," he intoned, with the once-clear word "victim" doing a ludicrous amount of work. "At this FBI, we're not gonna criminalize and prevent victims from serving (America) in the premier law enforcement agency in the world." Maybe it was, before him. Or not. Just sayin'.
Hacks, trolls, crooks, clowns. "This is what unseriousness looks like," noted one observer, "when it finally hits a wall." And when the edict, "Do not obey in advance" matters. Tolstoy: "The wicked become even worse when they are tolerated." Friday night, with a few hours' notice, organizers of a protest dubbed "Hands Around the Kennedy Center" hoped for a turnout of 400 to 800 people. They were pleased when 950 signed up. Then over 6,400 showed up. The mood was defiant. One longtime volunteer said she'd "stand in front of the wrecking ball." People formed a human chain around the concert hall an inept, vengeful narcissist had just closed and called "a dump," relishing what it felt like “to hold hands with somebody you don’t know for something you believe in.” Afterwards, they all sang America the Beautiful. There may be hope. (Or not.)
Sep 21, 2026
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Antarctic, Greenland Sheets Have Melted Enough Since the '70s to Cover US in 5 Feet of Ice
Following fresh warnings from scientists about governments not doing nearly enough to cut fossil fuel pollution and what that could mean for the warming planet, an international team of experts on Wednesday published "the most complete picture of ice loss from Greenland and Antarctica to date."
The polar scientists compared and combined 42 independent estimates derived from satellite observations for Earth's two main ice sheets to determine their gains and losses from 1972 in Greenland and 1979 in Antarctica until 2023—then released their findings in the journal Scientific Data.
The Ice Sheet Mass Balance Inter-comparison Exercise (IMBIE) team found a collective loss of about 11.3 trillion metric tons, or 12.5 trillion US tons.
Inès Otosaka, the professor from England's Northumbria University who led the study, told Reuters that "to put this very large number into context, 11.3 trillion tons of ice is enough ice to fill in a cube that would be 23 kilometers (14.3 miles) in height."
The Associated Press pointed out that it is also "enough frozen water to stack ice 5 feet (1.5 meters) deep across the continental United States."
The ice loss led to around 3.1 centimeters, or 1.2 inches, of global sea-level rise. Study co-author, IMBIE founder, and Northumbria professor Andrew Shepherd said in a statement that the figure "may sound small, but that puts another 6 to 9 million people at risk of coastal flooding and erosion."
The study stresses that "since the 1990s, the pace of ice loss from the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets has accelerated, contributing to the increase in global mean sea-level rise, with the ice sheets now representing almost a quarter of global sea-level rise."
"Our dataset shows that Antarctic mass loss continues to be dominated by ice discharge from West Antarctica," the scientists explained, "rising in every decade of our record," from 29 billion metric tons per year in the 1980s to 163 billion in the 2010s. Across the ice sheet, that rate rose from 48 metric tons in the 1980s to 202 billion in the 2010s. The team estimated that during the study period, Antarctica lost a total of 4.78 trillion metric tons.
"Greenland was close to a state of balance in the 1970s but started to lose mass in the following decades," they explained. While the ice sheet lost about 60 billion metric tons annually in the 1980s and 57 billion in the 1990s, "losses then accelerated, reaching a rate three times higher in the 2000s," at 192 billion metric tons, and climbing to 264 billion in the 2010s. Overall, Greenland lost 6,215 trillion metric tons of ice from 1972 to 2023.
TK said that "by reaching back to the 1970s, we can now see how the ice sheets have changed across half a century. More than four-fifths of the ice lost was discharged into the ocean by faster-flowing glaciers, rather than melted at the surface—which tells us the long-term trend is being driven by the dynamic response of the ice sheets to a warming ocean."
International scientists have previously found that the ocean stores an estimated 91% of the heat from excess greenhouse gases, and the rate of ocean warming has more than quadrupled over the past four decades, as humanity has largely ignored experts' warnings to urgently phase out fossil fuels.
The new study was released less than two months ahead of the next United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP31) in Türkiye—where recent deadly fires have reignited demands for a swift global transition away from fossil fuels and stronger efforts to prepare vulnerable communities around the world for what UN scientists now warn is an inevitable, but potentially temporary, overshoot of the Paris Agreement's 1.5°C target for temperature rise this century.
Otosaka told Reuters that "when ice sheets melt, they contribute to rising global sea levels. And with every additional centimeter of sea-level rise, about 2 to 3 million people are put at risk of annual coastal flooding."
"These findings have implications for coastal planning," she added, "showing that we urgently need to develop plans for protecting coastal communities around the world from the impact of ice sheet melting."
Sep 16, 2026
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'Working Families Foot Trump's Bill Twice' as Fed Hikes Rates Amid Worsening Affordability Crisis
The US Federal Reserve on Wednesday raised its benchmark interest rate for the first time since 2023, prompting renewed criticism from progressive economists and Democratic lawmakers who argue that President Donald Trump’s tariffs and warmongering are fueling inflation and further squeezing working families.
The 12-member Federal Open Market Committee unanimously lifted its federal funds target range by a quarter percentage point, to 3.75-4%, while signaling that it could raise the rate again to around 4.1% in the coming months. Fed officials cited persistently elevated inflation and said the move would support a “timelier return” to their 2% inflation target.
The increase came despite months of pressure from President Donald Trump for the central bank to cut rates. Trump has repeatedly demanded substantially lower borrowing costs, including calling for rates as low as 1%, while accusing the Fed of holding rates too high.
"Interest Rates in the United States should be 1%, or less, because we are the Best Credit in the World—BY FAR," Trump said on his Truth Social network in response to the hike. "Our Country is BOOMING with new Investment! If we stopped Trading with every country that we have a Deficit with, which is most of them, we would make, at least, 1.5 Trillion Dollars a year."
The United States is actually rated AA+ by S&P and Fitch—which is not the "best credit in the world" by any measure. Numerous nations have AAA ratings from major agencies, the highest level of creditworthiness.
"The word 'Deficit' is nothing more than a fancy word for LOSS," Trump added. "We are 'carrying' almost every country in the World, and that cannot go on any longer. LOWER THE INTEREST RATES FOR THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AND FAST!"
Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh—whom Trump tapped to lead the central bank—nonetheless backed the increase. The Fed's latest projections indicate that inflation will remain above its target and that most officials anticipate at least one additional rate increase before the end of the year.
The rate hike means consumers and businesses will face higher borrowing costs for mortgages, auto loans, and other debt. The average 30-year mortgage rate had already risen above 7% by Wednesday.
Referring to the worsening affordability crisis caused by Trump administration choices like tariffs and the illegal US-Israeli war on Iran, the progressive economic advocacy group Groundwork Collaborative lamented how "working families foot Trump's bill twice."
Trump's "never-ending war with Iran and his chaotic tariffs have driven inflation high enough that his own pick for chairman raised rates anyway, in a unanimous vote—a decision that will lead to higher borrowing costs for families and small businesses but does little to combat high prices from Trump’s economic mismanagement," the group said in a statement.
Groundwork Collaborative chief economist Breyon Williams said that "Trump can deny, disparage, and deflect from Americans’ economic reality all he wants, but there’s no hiding the truth: His recklessness in the White House has pushed working families’ budgets to their breaking point."
"Under his watch, inflation has skyrocketed, prices on essentials like gas and groceries have emptied wallets, and the labor market has lost steam," Williams added. "Today’s decision from the Federal Reserve confirms Americans’ fears of continued price pains to come, and its own forecast now says families will not see borrowing costs go down until 2028.”
Addressing the Fed rate hike, US Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said Wednesday that "the chaos of Trump’s disastrous war and costly economic policies are drowning Americans in inflation. Trump has sown chaos in our economy, scared off potential investors, rattled our markets, and made it harder for American workers and businesses alike to succeed."
"Ever since taking office, Trump has taken aim at the Fed and other institutions designed to keep our economy stable and growing. That has only added to the economic chaos plaguing our country," he added. "But what does Trump care? Trump doesn’t care that Americans have to pay to more; he only cares about raking in as much money as he can off the presidency before Americans send him and his Republican Party packing."
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said during a Wednesday interview on CNN that "it's the American people who are paying the price" for Trump's policies.
"There is no happy solution at this moment based on interest rates," she added.
Sep 16, 2026
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Trump Event Broadcast With No Audio After He Booted Press Pool Members
It turns out that President Donald Trump may not have thought through all the consequences before he banned some of his most hated news outlets from the White House.
After Trump declared CNN, MS NOW, and Politico "fake news" and exiled them from the White House grounds on Friday, the other networks that make up the White House press pool—including ABC, CBS, NBC, and even Fox News—agreed to boycott their pool duties on Monday in solidarity with the banned outlets.
"There will be no replacement pool put in place," wrote Bryan Boughton, Fox News’ Washington bureau chief and chair of the White House television pool, in an internal notice to news organizations obtained by Politico.
It became clear exactly what that meant when the White House attempted to broadcast a ribbon-cutting ceremony for Trump's new helipad on the White House lawn on Monday afternoon.
The president's voice could be heard faintly. But his words were inaudible over the whir of a helicopter parked nearby.
"There's no microphone because the pool cameras aren't there," explained Bianca de la Garza, who was covering the event for the Trump-friendly outlet Newsmax.
The anchor said this was maybe "one example" of the president's attack on the media "backfiring just a little bit."
As of Monday afternoon, there is no reported effort by the White House to find a new press pool. This may prove problematic for Trump as he attends the United Nations General Assembly this week.
Meanwhile, the three outlets banned by Trump filed a lawsuit on Monday, arguing that their removal from White House grounds violated the First Amendment. Previous attempts by the Trump administration to ban news outlets from covering its activities have been shot down in court.
Aidan McLaughlin, the Washington correspondent for Vanity Fair, suggested on social media that, at the rate things are going, a lawsuit may not even have been necessary.
"He’s gonna lift the ban by the end of the week," he predicted.
Sep 21, 2026
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Trump Pushes AI Data Centers on Public Land as Big Tech Reaps Billions in Tax Breaks
The Trump administration is considering construction of at least a dozen artificial intelligence data centers on thousands of acres of public land across six Western states, reporting revealed Friday, while a separate analysis found that Big Tech is receiving tens of billions of dollars in tax breaks for AI investments they were already likely to make.
The US Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is reviewing proposals for at least 12 data centers and related infrastructure projects on 17,600 acres of public land across Arizona, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, and Wyoming, according to an investigation published Friday by The Washington Sun's Mara Hoplamazian and Jade Lozada. Many of the proposals had not previously been publicly reported.
The Sun's report came on the heels of an Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) analysis published Thursday that found that five major technology companies—Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, Microsoft, and Oracle—received approximately $70 billion in federal tax breaks in 2025.
The Trump administration is considering proposals for at least 12 data centers and data center-related infrastructure projects to be built on federal public lands — far more than previously known.
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— The Washington Sun (@washingtonsun.bsky.social) September 18, 2026 at 4:00 AM
Matthew Gardner, who authored the ITEP analysis, wrote that "AI leaders have acknowledged that the demand from other companies for data centers is 'insatiable,' suggesting that the tax breaks are a windfall rewarding Big Tech companies for building what they would build anyway."
According to Gardner:
Few investments in the American economy look less in need of encouragement right now than the hundreds of billions of dollars the world’s largest technology companies are already racing to spend on AI. And it’s hard to think of an investment that American taxpayers value less: Polling shows that Americans dislike data centers, distrust AI, and are concerned about the economic and environmental effects it may bring.
At the same time, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum has directed BLM officials to identify federal lands "ripe for data center development," according to the Sun. State BLM officials were reportedly given only three days to compile lists, with the effort described as a "top priority."
Burgum has also been meeting with Big Tech executives about accelerating data center development, an effort stemming from an executive order President Donald Trump signed in July 2025 directing the federal government to identify lands that could be used for data centers.
Mary Jo Rugwell, president of the Public Lands Foundation—a nonprofit advocacy group—and a former BLM state director, recently accused the Trump administration of “bending [the] knee to the tech oligarchs and letting them do whatever they need to do” without adequate consideration for the impact of data centers on public lands.
Environmentalists warn that building on public land would help tech companies skirt growing public opposition to data centers, which is increasingly transcending the political divide. It would also have outsized consequences for Western states where public lands comprise a disproportionate share of total land area.
“In Oregon, this would be a really bad precedent,” Ben Brint , the senior climate program director at the Oregon Environmental Council, told the Sun. “Some very large percentage of the state is public lands, and if we’re starting to allow that, that’s large swaths of the state that really could be at risk of further development.”
Sep 18, 2026
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Markey, Merkley, and Sanders Lead Charge Against Trump's $5 Billion Saudi Weapons Deal
A trio of progressive US senators this week introduced legislation to block a $5 billion conventional weapons sale to Saudi Arabia while also pushing for the release of more details about President Donald Trump's proposed nuclear cooperation agreement with the Middle Eastern kingdom.
"The United States must not send thousands of conventional weapons to Saudi Arabia or allow it to develop a nuclear program," said Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) in a Thursday statement—a day after he partnered with Sens. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) to introduce the joint resolution of disapproval, which was referred to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
"I am deeply concerned by the kingdom's human rights abuses, the security of the region as the war in Iran rages on, and the proxy war that is escalating between Iran and Saudi Arabia in Yemen," Markey explained. "Further escalation in the Saudi-Iran proxy war will worsen an already dire humanitarian catastrophe in Yemen and risks setting off a nuclear arms race between Iran and Saudi Arabia."
The resolution targets a sale approved by the US State Department on September 4 that includes over 10,000 joint direct attack munition (JDAM) guidance kits. As Breaking Defense detailed, "The prospective transaction includes a similar number of dumb bombs—split almost evenly between 500 lb. and 2,000 lb. munitions—which, when equipped with a JDAM, can be used as a precision weapon."
The bill does not apply to the other possible sale to Saudi Arabia endorsed by the department that same day—$750 million for AGT-1500 engines and related equipment—or the $24.3 billion deal for F-35 Lightning II fighter jets, which the Trump administration greenlit Thursday, after the resolution was introduced.
The latest approval "comes nearly two months after Saudi Defense Minister Khalid bin Salman traveled to Washington to lobby senior Trump administration officials on the sale, with Riyadh hoping to advance the deal ahead of the midterms," Semafor noted. The upcoming US elections could lead to Trump's Republican Party losing control of Congress.
The warplanes sale could also face pushback from Congress. According to Politico, Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.), who sits on the House Intelligence Committee, warned that "it could put the crown jewels of American military technology within reach of the Chinese Communist Party."
US approves $24.3 billion sale of 48 F-35 stealth warplanes to Saudi Arabia.US intelligence analysts have raised the possibility that China could acquire F-35 technology through its partnerships with Saudi. Israel had been the only country in the Middle East to operate the jetsu.afp.com/SjRn
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— AFP News Agency (@en.afp.com) September 17, 2026 at 9:41 PM
In addition to unveiling their resolution about the JDAMs and bombs on Wednesday, Markey and Merkley, co-chairs of the bicameral Nuclear Weapons and Arms Control Working Group, led a bipartisan group of senators—including Sanders—in urging a pair of Trump Cabinet members to declassify two side letters associated with the administration's proposed nuclear deal.
The administration submitted the pending 30-year agreement—which would allow US companies to share nuclear power technology with the kingdom—to Congress after it was signed by US Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman in July.
Under Section 123 of the Atomic Energy Act, Congress has 90 days of continuous session to review the deal and either move to block it or let it take effect. The senators' new letter to Wright and Secretary of State Marco Rubio notes that "in previous 123 agreements, the executive branch publicly released the agreement along with side letters and related documents."
"Access to the full text is required for the Senate and the public to have a clear understanding of the commitments being made on the nation's behalf and those being made by Saudi Arabia to the United States," the senators argued. "Their public release would also allow civil society, independent experts, and other affected stakeholders to scrutinize the deal."
"Transparency and open debate are cornerstones of our democracy," they emphasized. "Congress and the American public must have a meaningful opportunity to review and debate the key components of the US-Saudi nuclear deal before it potentially enters into force. To that end, we call on you to declassify and release the two side letters without delay."
Sep 18, 2026
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Intensified by Fossil Fuel-Driven Climate Crisis, 'Godzilla-Level' El Niño Smashing Records Ahead of Peak
"As long as we continue to burn fossil fuels," said one scientist, El Niño "occurs on an increasingly hotter baseline, making it much more difficult for communities to deal with the consequences.”
Sep 22, 2026
Although “El Niño comes and goes," as one climate scientist said of the naturally occurring warm-weather phenomenon on Monday, experts are in agreement that this year is different—with meteorologists already recording a temperature rise of 3.07°C in the Pacific Ocean, putting it at a statistical tie with November 2015, when El Niño caused the ocean to warm by 3.08°C.
The temperature rise is not expected to peak until November and December, when an average of 14 models examined by Zeke Hausfather of Carbon Brief and Berkeley Earth found that a temperature rise of 4.1°C is forecast.
The event has been underway since June, Hausfather wrote, and has been gathering strength "faster than any previous event on record."
Scientists typically track the strength of El Niño—which leads to heavy rainfall, higher global temperatures, and other extreme weather as warmer Pacific waters are pushed to the south—using the Niño 3.4 anomaly, or ONI, which determines how much hotter the central Pacific is compared with a 30-year rolling average.
A temperature rise above 2.0°C is considered a "very strong" El Niño, and scientists and policymakers are already calling this year's event a "super El Niño," with some experts using the terms "Godzilla-level" and "jaw-dropping" to describe the weather conditions that can be expected in the coming months due to the warmer climate.
As Common Dreams reported late last month, planetary heating driven by fossil fuel emissions is intensifying El Niño, while the naturally occurring phenomenon can in turn worsen the impacts of the climate emergency.
In the last 40 years scientists have recorded a 16% increase in the strength of El Niño events, according to a study published in Science last month. They've also gotten 36% stronger than they were before industrialization began.
The "double whammy," as The Guardian called it, could make 2027 the hottest year ever recorded, blowing through heat records that have just been set this year—and that have been linked to the deaths of people around the world from extreme heat and flooding.
“This event is a huge redistribution of energy in the climate system and is dangerous because it is unfolding on top of a much warmer, human-influenced climate system," climate scientist Friederike Otto of Imperial College London told The Guardian. “So, in many places around the world we will see never-before-experienced heat extremes, with all their consequences on health, food security, and water stress."
Despite the fact that El Niño predates the human-caused climate emergency, Otto said, "as long as we continue to burn fossil fuels, it occurs on an increasingly hotter baseline, making it much more difficult for communities to deal with the consequences.”
This year's event is likely to be the most intense El Niño in 1,000 years, reported to The Guardian, with hotter and drier conditions already linked to deadly wildfires in Indonesia and crop losses in Central America and the Caribbean region due to drought conditions. Rice production this season is expected to fail in Indonesia, according to the Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability at Harvard University.
As the Southern Hemisphere's summer months approach, southern Africa and Australia are at heightened risk of wildfires and droughts as well. Meanwhile, cocoa production could be damaged by extreme rainfall in parts of South America.
"All strong El Niño events on record have continued to strengthen well into the winter—and the models are in near-unanimous agreement that this one will, too," wrote Hausfather at Carbon Brief. "If the forecast holds, the current event will peak between November and January at a level far beyond any event previously observed in the instrumental record."
In California on Monday, Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency in an effort to prepare communities for El Niño's impacts in the coming months, which could include coastal flooding and heavy snow in mountain regions.
Hausfather noted that strong El Niño events like those that occurred in 1997 and 2015 were also "associated with hundreds of billions of dollars in damages globally."
"This event," he told The Guardian, "is leaving those past ones in the dust."
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'The Gerrymander That Won't Die': Missouri GOP's Map Headed to Supreme Court a Third Time
"Officials should stop wasting taxpayers' money on pointless legal action and instead focus on administering our elections," said the head of People Not Politicians Missouri.
Sep 21, 2026
Despite its right-wing supermajority, the US Supreme Court has twice struck down Missouri Republicans' rigged congressional districts for the November midterm elections, but after an appellate panel's Monday decision, the map fight is headed back to the justices.
Less than two weeks after the justices delivered their second blow to the Missouri GOP's gerrymandering effort with no noted dissents, a three-judge panel from the US Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit ruled that the state's "current plan to use the 2022 map in the November 2026 general election violates the Constitution," and "only use of the 2025 map complies with the Constitution and federal law."
All three panel members were appointed by Republicans: Judge James Loken by former President George HW Bush, and Judges David Stras and Justin Smith by President Donald Trump. The Associated Press reported that "prior to his June appointment, Smith was an attorney who represented Trump as he unsuccessfully appealed a $5 million jury verdict in a lawsuit filed by the writer E. Jean Carroll to the US Supreme Court."
People Not Politicians Missouri, which has been battling the gerrymandering scheme since state lawmakers passed House Bill 1 during last September's special session, pledged to immediately file an emergency appeal with the nation's top court.
"Everyone is aligned on what is true. HB 1 is not the law and cannot be the law unless voters ratify it," said the campaign's executive director, Richard von Glahn, in a statement. "The Supreme Court of Missouri, the United States Supreme Court, the Missouri attorney general, Missouri secretary of state, and People Not Politicians all have agreed on this."
"Ballots have been printed, and Missourians have already voted," he stressed. "Thousands more will vote before this order seeks to take effect. Officials should stop wasting taxpayers' money on pointless legal action and instead focus on administering our elections. Missourians are already voting and will continue to vote no on Proposition A through November 3."
The 8th Circuit's decision also drew attention from beyond Missouri. Politico reporter Kyle Cheney said that "it's the gerrymander that won't die," while Democratic Texas Congressman Christian Menefee—whose state was the first to pass a new rigged map at Trump's request—declared that "this is outrageous."
"The Supreme Court already stepped in twice to block Missouri's rigged map," Menefee added. "Ballots are already in the mail. Now, at the eleventh hour, an appeals court is letting Missouri Republicans force that rigged map on voters anyway. All to erase a Kansas City district and silence Black and Brown voters. Catastrophic for confidence in our elections."
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‘The Diagnosis Is Unambiguous’: 2026 Planetary Health Report Finds Pressure Mounting on Earth Systems
"Seven of nine planetary boundaries are transgressed, and pressure on all seven is at its highest recorded level," said one scientist.
Sep 21, 2026
Like other recent warnings from climate scientists, the message sent by the latest Planetary Health Check report on Monday was clear: "We need to move fast," as the director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, the group behind the report, said.
"Seven of nine planetary boundaries are transgressed, and pressure on all seven is at its highest recorded level," said Johan Rockström, director of the Potsdam Institute (PIK).
The report finds that seven measures of the Earth's health are no longer within the "safe operating space": ocean acidification, freshwater change, land system change, climate change, modification of biogeochemical flows, introduction of novel entities, and change in biosphere integrity.
Just two markers, stratospheric ozone depletion and the increase in atmospheric aerosol loading, have shown improvement over the last decade, said the Planetary Boundaries Science Lab at PIK.
“The diagnosis is unambiguous," said Boris Sakschewski, the lead author of the report. "Pressure is rising across every planetary boundary already outside the safe operating space. It means that the risk of large-scale, persistent, and potentially irreversible change is increasing, while our margin for error in tackling these problems is shrinking."
The scientists behind the report emphasized that with recent news regarding the state of the planet's crucial coral reefs, forests, and extreme weather events like heatwaves and flooding, it should come as no surprise that the Earth's boundaries have been transgressed, as continued fossil fuel emissions have caused runaway planetary heating.
Earlier this month, United Nations scientists said the planet can no longer avoid at least a temporary temperature rise above 1.5°C over preindustrial levels.
Oceans have also become so warm that stressed coral reefs have less and less time to recover from climate damage, as Common Dreams reported last month, and a UN report last year found that the world's governments are not moving fast enough to end the destruction of forests.
Last month and the summer of 2026 both set heat records, with extreme heat killing more than 1,000 people across Europe, and wildfires spreading across the continent and Canada. Record-breaking heat was also recorded in parts of Asia and the Middle East.
In June, the UN Children's Fund found that nearly every child on Earth is now exposed to at least one climate hazard driven by fossil fuel emissions, including flooding, heatwaves, and drought.
"Pakistan’s 2025 monsoon floods affected more than 6.9 million people," said PIK. "Global ocean heat content reached a new record in 2025, with Hurricane Melissa rapidly ramping up to a Category 5 hurricane and striking Jamaica after passing over exceptionally warm seas. From January 2023 to September 2025, bleaching-level heat stress impacted about 84.4% of the world’s coral reef area, making it the largest global coral-bleaching event observed to date."
Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim, chair of Planetary Guardians, implored readers of the Planetary Health Check report to "read that list again: Pakistan, the Caribbean, Europe, the reefs beneath our oceans. These are not separate emergencies; the planet is telling us, in every region at once, that it is out of balance."
"As chair of Planetary Guardians, I hear this same story wherever I go, whether from a pastoralist watching the rains fail season after season or a coastal community watching the sea rise," said Ibrahim. "The 2026 Planetary Health Check puts data behind what communities on the frontlines already know from living it. We do not have the luxury of treating these as separate crises any longer.”
Rockström emphasized that while "we do not have the luxury of time... we do have the knowledge, capacity, and solutions to change course."
"Accelerating action to return to the safe operating space across all planetary boundaries is essential to protect lives and livelihoods," said Rockström, "and to deliver on the promise of shared future prosperity."
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As Iran War and Economic Struggles Persist, Trump Approval Rating Hits Record Low
"It’s clear: Americans are fed up with Trump and Republicans."
Sep 21, 2026
As US diesel prices are hitting record highs, President Donald Trump's approval ratings are hitting record lows.
A poll from Reuters released on Monday shows Trump's approval rating clocking in at just 32%, the worst rating recorded over either of his two terms.
One reason for Trump's rock-bottom ratings has been increasing dissatisfaction from Republican voters, who in the past have stood by him even after he incited a violent attack on the US Capitol that sent lawmakers running for their lives.
Overall, Trump's job approval ratings among Republicans fell by nine points in the span of a week, going from 82% to 73%. The survey also finds for the first time that Republican voters disapprove of Trump's handling of the cost of living, with 51% registering dissatisfaction.
The Reuters survey wasn't even the worst poll for Trump released on Monday, as a poll from American Research Group shows the president with an approval rating of 29% and a disapproval rating of 68%.
Notably, American Research Group said Trump's approval rating now is 10 points lower than it was in September 2018, shortly before the Republican Party lost 41 seats in the US House of Representatives in that year's midterm election.
The next midterm elections are less than two months away, and the biggest difference between 2018 and 2026 is the state of the economy, as Trump's illegal war with Iran has led to skyrocketing energy prices with no end in sight.
Data released by the American Automobile Association on Monday shows the average price of gasoline in the US rising to $4.48 per gallon, with the average price of diesel fuel hitting another record high of $6.51 per gallon.
Economists say the record diesel prices are likely to lead to further increases in grocery prices, as the fuel is used to power both farm equipment and delivery trucks. According to a Monday report from Axios, higher costs for farmers are set to "reach store shelves in the coming months, starting with bread, meat, dairy, and eggs."
In a Monday social media post, Trump tried to cast blame for high diesel prices exclusively on Russia's war with Ukraine, without mentioning the illegal war with Iran he started more than six months ago.
"Russia has unfortunately lost control of its Diesel Oil Industry due to its War with Ukraine," Trump wrote. "A large number of their Diesel refineries have been blown up and are, at least temporarily, out of commission. This ridiculous and never ending War with Ukraine must be ended."
The social media account for House Democrats pounced on the record-low approval numbers for the president.
"It’s clear: Americans are fed up with Trump and Republicans," they wrote.
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'Huge Blow' to 'Lawless' Practices of Trump DHS as Court Orders End to Warrantless Construction Site Raids
"By setting aside those unconstitutional policies, the court has restored the rule of law."
Sep 21, 2026
A federal judge on Monday handed down a decision in a case brought by US citizen Leo Garcia Venegas, who was detained three times in the Trump administration's immigration raids at construction sites—but the court's order, said advocates, will protect workers across the country from federal agents' warrantless, violent raids.
Chief US District Judge Jeffrey U. Beaverstock in the US District Court for the Southern District of Alabama temporarily blocked Department of Homeland Security officers from conducting raids at construction sites. He issued stays on three DHS policies while Venegas' case proceeds and said agents had likely violated his Fourth Amendment rights.
The three practices Beaverstock blocked include DHS' warrantless entry policy; its preemptive detention policy, which allows agents to detain a person simply based on suspicion, even without evidence, that they are an undocumented immigrant; and its continued detention policy, which permits officers to hold a person even after they show evidence of citizenship or lawful presence in the US.
Those policies have resulted in three arrests of Venegas since the spring of 2025, including one instance in which masked officers followed him home from the construction site where he worked, ripped him from his car, tackled him to the ground, and handcuffed and shackled him—all while he was trying to show them his REAL ID to prove his citizenship.
“They can suddenly show up and detain you without having done anything,” Venegas testified in May. “Now I don’t feel free to drive, to go to work, or go to the store.”
The Institute of Justice, which is representing Venegas, noted that the Trump administration has urged all Americans to get their REAL ID cards—which, in most states, have a symbol like a star on them to comply with new rules—and Venegas' state of Alabama issues the cards only to citizens or those who are lawfully present. Yet a DHS official testified in Venegas' case that REAL ID cards do not prove that someone is authorized to be in the US.
"Venegas was not promptly released following the production of his REAL ID to officers. Instead, the officers disregarded the veracity of his documentation and continued to detain him," reads the court order. "A policy that permits such action is likely to run afoul of the Fourth Amendment."
In the ruling, Beaverstock also noted that DHS last year had claimed Venegas tried to interfere with officers when he was first detained in May 2025—something that video of the arrest did not support.
DHS also claimed that the agency treats construction sites as "open fields" where agents do not need a warrant or even a reason to search the premises and make arrests—but Venegas works in closed construction sites that are posted with "No Trespassing" signs, and was working inside a house that was in the finishing stages of being built when he was arrested for a second time last June.
"Agents walked inside a house where Leo was working, surrounded him, and ordered him to follow them," said the Institute for Justice last year when Venegas sued the Trump administration. "Again, Leo produced his REAL ID. Again, the agents refused to accept it. They marched him out of the development and detained him alongside other workers they had grabbed—only releasing him (and other lawful residents) 20 minutes later after confirming his citizenship."
Beaverstock wrote that "the government has not convinced this court that the warrantless entry into a structure—which undisputedly occurred during the June encounter—does not implicate the Fourth Amendment."
Jared McClain, senior attorney at the Institute for Justice, called the judge's decision "a huge blow to DHS’ lawless enforcement practices."
“The government stood up in court and argued that they don’t need warrants to enter private construction sites and round up all the workers, and that they can’t trust government-issued IDs," said McClain. "By setting aside those unconstitutional policies, the court has restored the rule of law. Construction workers like Leo can finally go to work in peace again.”
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Trump Event Broadcast With No Audio After He Booted Press Pool Members
A host on the Trump-friendly Newsmax network said it seemed his exile of the press was "backfiring just a little bit.”
Sep 21, 2026
It turns out that President Donald Trump may not have thought through all the consequences before he banned some of his most hated news outlets from the White House.
After Trump declared CNN, MS NOW, and Politico "fake news" and exiled them from the White House grounds on Friday, the other networks that make up the White House press pool—including ABC, CBS, NBC, and even Fox News—agreed to boycott their pool duties on Monday in solidarity with the banned outlets.
"There will be no replacement pool put in place," wrote Bryan Boughton, Fox News’ Washington bureau chief and chair of the White House television pool, in an internal notice to news organizations obtained by Politico.
It became clear exactly what that meant when the White House attempted to broadcast a ribbon-cutting ceremony for Trump's new helipad on the White House lawn on Monday afternoon.
The president's voice could be heard faintly. But his words were inaudible over the whir of a helicopter parked nearby.
"There's no microphone because the pool cameras aren't there," explained Bianca de la Garza, who was covering the event for the Trump-friendly outlet Newsmax.
The anchor said this was maybe "one example" of the president's attack on the media "backfiring just a little bit."
As of Monday afternoon, there is no reported effort by the White House to find a new press pool. This may prove problematic for Trump as he attends the United Nations General Assembly this week.
Meanwhile, the three outlets banned by Trump filed a lawsuit on Monday, arguing that their removal from White House grounds violated the First Amendment. Previous attempts by the Trump administration to ban news outlets from covering its activities have been shot down in court.
Aidan McLaughlin, the Washington correspondent for Vanity Fair, suggested on social media that, at the rate things are going, a lawsuit may not even have been necessary.
"He’s gonna lift the ban by the end of the week," he predicted.
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ICE Denounced for Enacting 'Official Government Policy of Disappearing People'
"Hiding prisoners from the courts is unconstitutional," said one expert.
Sep 21, 2026
Critics reacted with horror to a Monday report from The Associated Press detailing how US Immigration and Customs Enforcement has abruptly ended its practice of disclosing the locations of thousands of detainees.
According to the AP, ICE "has stopped publicly revealing where it is holding... detainees who are subject to final deportation orders, an unannounced move that has made it far more difficult for lawyers and relatives to find them."
Immigration attorneys who spoke with the AP said that their clients had "vanished" from the system after ICE removed them from its online detainee locator system last week.
Greg Chen, senior director of government relations at the American Immigration Lawyers Association, told the AP that families of detainees "are freaking out because they think the person has been deported and they don’t know where the person might be."
Chen added that the new policy has "serious implications" for attorneys' ability to make contact with their clients.
Michelle Mendez, legal director at the National Immigration Project, told the AP that the new policy is "just another iteration of disappearing people."
"Why would we do that in the United States of America?" Mendez asked. "It's something we’d hear about in another country and be concerned about individual rights and due process."
Tom Jawetz, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, echoed Mendez's analysis, writing in a social media post that the AP report reveals "an official government policy of disappearing people," as "systems for attorneys and loved ones to know where—even whether—a person with a final removal order is in ICE custody have been wiped clean."
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, described the new ICE policy as "unprecedented" for US immigration enforcement.
"People who have been detained for months are suddenly disappearing from the locator system—even if they haven't been moved anywhere," Reichlin-Melnick explained. "And people newly arrested are not showing up at all, their location now hidden from view."
Georgetown University political scientist Jonathan Ladd argued that the ICE policy was a fundamental violation of long-established rights in the US that date to before the country's official founding.
"The government moving or hiding jailed people to avoid review by courts isn't some loophole in our habeas corpus rights," Ladd explained. "This government behavior has been considered a violation of the people's habeas corpus rights since at least the Habeas Corpus Act of 1679."
Ladd further pointed out that "habeas corpus rights are guaranteed by Article I of our Constitution," which means "hiding prisoners from the courts is unconstitutional."
Journalist Gillian Brockell observed that the new ICE policy "will make it nearly impossible to file habeas petitions, because attorneys won’t even know what federal district their client has been moved to to stage for their removal."
Among those sharing the AP report on social media was Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch, an attorney for Wilbur Rafael Garces Perez, a 28-year-old Venezuelan shot by ICE in Austin, Texas on Sunday.
Initially, she and the immigrant's wife could not make contact with him, because ICE moved him from the hospital "to an undisclosed location," but Lincoln-Goldfinch said Monday afternoon that her client "is being held at Pearsall for interrogation."
"We got Wilber on the phone live from detention at the press conference," the attorney added. "He says he still has the bullet lodged in his shoulder. He says he is not doing well and has not received the medical care he needs."
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Israel Blocking Hundreds of Wheelchairs for Injured Children From Entering Gaza
More than 11,000 children have severe life-changing injuries, including thousands who have had limbs amputated as a result of Israel's assault on Gaza.
Sep 21, 2026
Gaza has the world's largest concentration of child amputees thanks to Israel's genocidal war. Now, as Australian charities seek to deliver hundreds of wheelchairs to the children injured in the onslaught, Israel has reportedly been blocking them for more than a year and a half.
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) reported last week that:
More than 900 wheelchairs, donated by two Australian charities to help injured children in Gaza, are stuck in warehouses in Jordan due to Israeli restrictions on aid deliveries into the war-ravaged strip.
Two shipments from New South Wales-based charity Kids on Wheels Alliance arrived in Jordan in February 2025, while a third, from Wheelchairs for Kids based in Western Australia, arrived in October 2025.
But instead of being delivered to children with severe mobility issues inside Gaza, they remain sitting in storage facilities managed by the Jordan Hashemite Charity Organization (JHCO).
According to the report, JHCO submitted an application in February 2025 for the wheelchairs to be included in an aid convoy headed to Gaza, where more than 11,000 kids have been left with "severe, life-changing injuries, including permanent disabilities that require long-term care and rehabilitation," according to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).
That application was denied by the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), the Israeli agency responsible for aid coordination, because "medical equipment and medicines were not approved for inclusion in that convoy." The application has been marked as "pending" for the last 19 months, meaning that a new request cannot be sent.
An Israeli government source told ABC that Israel had not blocked the delivery of the wheelchairs. But COGAT did not answer specific questions from the network about what had happened to the shipment.
The agency said it had allowed the entry of thousands of wheelchairs "without any quantitative restrictions," as well as "approximately 22,000 tons of medical equipment and medicines" since the beginning of the ceasefire in October 2025.
One source told the outlet that the wheelchairs may have been held up under Israel's rules blocking possible "dual-use" items that authorities believe could serve a military purpose.
The wheelchairs have specialized features: they are adapted for rough terrain to help users navigate the rubble-strewn streets of Gaza and are adjustable to grow with the children who use them.
But as Dr. Abdullah Al-Balawi, a physician with the Palestinian Australian New Zealand Medical Association who has watched the boxes pile up undelivered, explained, "they do not pose any threat."
The stalled wheelchairs are hardly the first medical or disability equipment to be blocked as a result of Israel's strict restrictions on humanitarian supplies entering Gaza. Human rights groups have previously documented the use of dual-use restrictions to block wheelchair batteries, X-ray equipment, and materials used to manufacture prosthetic limbs.
It's not just medical supplies. Portable toilets have also been blocked, as have sleeping bags and tarps. These items are in high demand as around 90% of Palestinians living in Gaza remain displaced, with Israel's attacks having destroyed most of the buildings. According to a report from humanitarian organizations in April, bandages, diapers, shampoo, and tent poles have also been blocked.
Human Rights Watch has argued that the dual-use restrictions are unnecessarily broad and arbitrary, allowing certain items some days and rejecting them on others. The organization has called on Israel to remove the dual-use label on "medical-related supplies, assistive aids, and accessible technology like eyeglasses, wheelchairs, walkers, canes [and] hearing aids."
Amnesty International has described Israel's blocking of lifesaving medical and other forms of humanitarian assistance—including food, water and sanitation supplies, fuel, and shelter materials and equipment—as part of a pattern that amounts to genocide.
"The humanitarian aid must not stop," Al-Balawi said. "This is part of the stubbornness of the other side by not letting in this aid; the wheelchairs are only a part of it."
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Free Press Advocates Call on David Ellison to Publicly—and 'Harshly'—Condemn Trump's Ban on News Outlets
"If he doesn’t, then there can be no doubt that he is, and always will be, an enemy of the free press, just like his buddy in the White House."
Sep 21, 2026
A coalition of more than 100 journalists, press freedom campaigners, and advocacy organizations demanded Monday that Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison fully and publicly back CNN, MS NOW, and Politico in their legal fight against President Donald Trump, who banned the outlets from the White House last week.
Ellison's company owns CBS and is currently on track to acquire CNN's parent firm, Warner Bros. Discovery. In a letter to Ellison, whose billionaire father is a megadonor to Trump and the Republican Party, the press freedom coalition urged the Paramount CEO to "publicly, harshly, and immediately condemn Trump’s unconstitutional ban on news outlets he dislikes, in violation of decades of precedent protecting the press from content-based punishment, including retaliatory restrictions on their access."
"We further call on you to publicly commit to fully backing any legal challenge to the illegal ban should you come to own CNN," the letter continues. "We need you to make clear that you stand with the reporters, photographers, camera operators, and other journalists you seek to employ, even when their reporting angers the president. If you fail to do so, the only logical conclusion is that your claims to value press freedom, editorial independence, and the First Amendment are empty talk and can’t be trusted."
The coalition's letter was spearheaded by the Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF), a vocal opponent of Trump's assault on journalism and Paramount's megamerger with Warner Bros. The Committee to Protect Journalists, Free Press, and investigative journalist Laura Poitras were among the other signatories.
Seth Stern, FPF's chief of advocacy, said in a statement that "Ellison’s past actions, from trading away CBS News’ independence to throwing dinner parties for Trump and his censorial hangers-on, have convinced many that he’s all talk when it comes to press freedom."
"Can he instantly rebuild that broken trust by finally standing up for the First Amendment only now, after such an extreme and outrageous action by Trump? Of course not," said Stern. "But if he doesn’t, then there can be no doubt that he is, and always will be, an enemy of the free press, just like his buddy in the White House."
The coalition's letter came shortly after CNN, MS NOW, and Politico sued Trump in a federal district court in Washington, DC, arguing his decision to ban the three outlets from the White House "could not be a more direct assault on the First Amendment nor a more blatant violation of our most fundamental constitutional principles."
The call for Ellison to back the outlets' legal challenge also came amid news that state attorneys general reached a deal with Paramount that paves the way for the company to acquire Warner Bros., CNN's parent company.
"This moment is a test of your sincerity," the coalition wrote in its Monday letter to Ellison. "CNN, under its current ownership, has already released a statement, as have MS NOW and Politico, and they’ve announced they’ll file a lawsuit. Only one of those entities, however, has a parent company seeking to close a transaction in the near future that could steer control of its news operations to friends and political allies of the president."
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'Good Luck With That': Critics Mock Trump for Hyping 'Deal' With Belarus to Replace Canadian Fertilizer
"Canada exports more potash to the US than Belarus produces."
Sep 21, 2026
President Donald Trump drew ridicule on Monday when he announced he was working on an agreement to import potash, an important fertilizer for US farmers, from Belarus.
In a social media post, Trump claimed that the "massive deal" with Belarus would let the US import potash for "substantially less than we are currently paying to Canada," which he described as "very good news for our Farmers and Ranchers."
Canada supplies roughly 80% of all potash used by US farmers, and Trump's trade war against America's largest trading partner has been putting upward pressure the prices of all Canadian imports.
However, even if Trump's deal to buy potash from Belarus comes to fruition, it is unclear how much relief it would provide to US farmers, who have been also been paying a heavy price his illegal war with Iran, which has led to record-high diesel fuel prices.
As noted by a Monday report from Bloomberg, Belarus in 2021 only shipped around 700,000 tons of potassium fertilizers to the US before trade with the nation was restricted following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Canada, meanwhile, supplied the US with more than 10 million tons of such fertilizers last year.
Bloomberg also pointed out that "Belarus doesn’t have enough capacity to supply large volumes to the US" at the moment "because production for the year is already under contract."
There are also several logistical challenges to shipping large quantities of fertilizer from Belarus.
Oil market researcher Rory Johnston observed in a social media post that Belarus is a landlocked country with no easy way to export its products to the west after Lithuania terminated its transit agreement with the country at the start of the Ukraine conflict.
Canada, Johnston added, is "right next door."
Journalist Diana Henriques offered a similar assessment of the challenges of importing potash from Belarus.
"It is 5,080 miles from Nebraska to Minsk," Henriques wrote. "It is about 700 miles from Nebraska to Saskatchewan, the source of most Canadian potash. That's gonna have to be one heckuva discount to cover the transportation differential."
Ross O'Connor, former foreign affairs and national security advisor to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, was openly dismissive of Trump's Belarus gambit.
"Good luck with that," O'Connor wrote. "Canada exports more potash to the US than Belarus produces."
David Ryan Miller, professor of government at American University, offered a satirical summary of Trump's latest geopolitical maneuver.
"We are spurning our longtime democratic ally directly to our north in favor of an autocratic regime aligned with [Russian President Vladimir] Putin that is 4,000+ miles away," Miller wrote. "We are very smart, serious people!"
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