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Dazed and Confused and Bigly Kingly For A Day
As our decrepit despot traipsed across Asia, he was fêted by leaders anxious to dodge his peevish trade wars by assiduously plying him, as one would for any dangerous, demented child, with adoration and treats: burgers, golf clubs, trinkets, ketchup and, in South Korea, even a crown for the wounded boy who would be king. Still, he couldn't keep up. In Japan, he wandered off mid-glitzy-ceremony like a nursing-home gramps looking for pudding, to be steered back in place. Nothing to see here.
The decline, of course, is ongoing. Monday, Trump told reporters he'd gone to Walter Reed Medical Center and gotten an MRI as part of a "routine yearly checkup,” except he'd just had one six months ago and an MRI is decisively not part of a routine test, but not to worry: He said it was "perfect," except that doesn't exist. For those inexplicably wondering about his cognitive state, he said he also aced a "very hard" sort of "aptitude test," except it's a very basic dementia screening that requires the patient to solve elementary-school level problems like remembering five words, identifying a giraffe or lion, and drawing a clock; he added that the test "took a while" and "was difficult,” two key factors doctors consider when assessing cognitive skills
Then, days before the expiration of federal food benefits that could leave tens of millions of Americans facing hunger along with soaring health insurance costs, and as the House GOP remains MIA during what could be the longest shutdown in history, he left for a six-day, gold-plated tour of Asia, because fuck you all. In Malaysia, he cringe "danced" with "zero class"; in Japan, he got a red carpet, golf clubs, and lost. On Wednesday, heading to fraught trade talks with both South Korean President Lee Jae Myung and then Chinese President Xi Jinping, he landed in South Korea to a hero's welcome: a brass band playing YMCA - gay hookups! - a red carpet adorned with multi-hued flags - "That was a very good red carpet" - and President Lee in a custom-made gold tie.
Leaning into the theme of peace to honor Trump's famed, fictional role as a "global peacemaker" - and clearly eager to get Trump's vengeful, randomly spiked 25% tariffs back down to a manageable 15% - Lee was just getting started on his campaign for Sycophant of the Week Award. An official lunch, bedecked with peace lilies, featured “mini beef patties with ketchup” and Thousand Island Dressing in a nod to Trump’s “success story in his hometown of New York." The menu also included a "Korean Platter of Sincerity" - U.S. beef and local rice - grilled fish with a glaze of ketchup and gochujang chili paste, and a "Peacemaker’s Dessert” of a brownie adorned with gold. After the ketchup and gold brownie, came the shiny, kingly objects.
Days after almost eight million furious Americans protested Trump's abuses under the mantra No Kings, in a lavish ceremony at Gyeongju National Museum, Lee presented Trump with...a crown. Specifically, a gilded replica of one of several 1,000-year-old crowns excavated from the ancient, golden Silla Kingdom that ruled much of the Korean Peninsula until the 10th century. The crown represents a period of peace and unity, an official explained, in tribute to the first dynasty to unify the three kingdoms on the Peninsula; it "symbolizes the divine connection between the authority of the heavens and the sovereignty on Earth," as well as the authority of a strong leader. Trump, wooed and dazzled, stared raptly, a kid at a humongous candy store.
There was more. Lee also awarded him the Grand Order of Mugunghwa, their highest civil honor, a laurel medal hung from a golden collar. Trump, the first U.S. President to get it, burbled he'd "like to wear it right now." After the bribes, they talked trade. Ultimately, Trump said they "pretty much finalized" a deal wherein South Korea would pump $350 billion of new investment into the U.S.economy in exchange for returning tariffs to 15%, including on cars, their largest export. Officials said details on the pact's "structure" still had to be resolved - like the Gaza "truce?", tensions remain on security costs, and polls show most South Koreans don't trust Trump; they just figure they need the U.S. economically to fend off China, a bigger threat.
Like everywhere else, the talks were met by protests that echoed ours; signs read, “No Kings," "Trump Not Welcome," "This Is Robbery Not Negotiation." Said one protester, “It seems the U.S. (is) treating South Korea as its cash cow." Before leaving, Trump also met with China's Xi Jinping in Busan. Trump later called the meeting "amazing" and "12 out of 10," with agreements on "many important points," including soybeans, rare earths and much lower tariffs than the 100% Trump at some point wildly threatened in one of his hissy fits. He also said, “Ukraine came up very strongly," because he never learned to speak English. There've been no statements about the meeting from the Chinese, so God knows what really happened there.
As a befuddled, newly crowned king returns to his fractured country, he may be mulling where to put his new bling in a space packed with Tim Apple's plaque, his Olympic medals, the World Cup he stole and other ill-begotten gains. Others are wondering what happened to the Constitution's Foreign Emoluments Clause that bars officeholders from accepting personal gifts "from any king, prince or foreign state" worth more than about $480. Asked about the issue, a White House spokesperson asserted that Trump is "working night and day on behalf of the American people." He could be. Or maybe, amidst the fog and lies and phantasms he inhabits, he's trying to remember what just happened during his recent "Weekend at Donnie's territory."
Whatever he may have accomplished by way of reversing the catastrophic effects of his own economic idiocy, for many the enduring image of his trip will be viewed through the twisted prism of his Tuesday misadventures in Japan, when, Monty Python-style, he lost the thread during a welcoming ceremony in Tokyo. Now-viral videos show Japan's new Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi gently guiding Trump as they somberly walk through a palatial room filled with dignitaries; a stunned Trump abruptly halts, stares at an Honor Guard, shuffles past US/Japanese flags where he should stop, aimlessly lumbers on, randomly salutes, lurches ahead and gapes at the band as, behind him, an aghast Takaichi bows as expected before rushing to drag him back to earth.
The spectacle of a U.S.president with mush for brains stumbling around a palace like a toddler lost at the mall before marching up to shake hands with his own entourage was too much for many. "Bro has no idea what is going on," said one. Also, "Is this real life? This guy has control of our nukes." It was noted, if it's any consolation, he probably has no idea how to launch them; it was also noted Stephen Miller would happily do it for him. It was suggested "this is that 'high energy' we always hear about," that "his handlers should put a shock-collar on him (so) when he wanders off they can just zap him back to coherence," that "it's great, totally cool knowing this guy gets to do whatever he wants these days." One thing to look forward to: "Can't wait for this guy to ask what happened to the East Wing." What a time to be alive, for now.
'The Stuff of Nightmares': Hurricane Melissa Makes Catastrophic Landfall in Jamaica
Hurricane Melissa made landfall in Jamaica on Tuesday as a monstrous Category 5 storm as the island country braced for devastating impacts, humanitarian operations urgently mobilized, and experts voiced horror at the latest climate-fueled weather disaster.
"This is an extremely dangerous and life-threatening situation," the National Hurricane Center said in an update after the storm made landfall.
Early video footage posted to social media shows the storm—the most powerful to ever strike the island and the third-strongest to ever form in the Atlantic—wreaking havoc and destruction.
🇯🇲 | Video que muestra los daños y las inundaciones en el área de Black River, Jamaica, por el huracán Melissa. pic.twitter.com/k6RZDE9jdB
— Entredostv (@Entredostv1) October 28, 2025
Anne-Claire Fontan, the World Meteorological Organization's tropical cyclone specialist, told reporters that "a catastrophic situation is expected in Jamaica" and described the hurricane as "the storm of the century" for the island. Melissa's landfall is expected to bring extreme flooding, landslides, and other life-threatening impacts.
Tens of thousands of Jamaicans lost power as the slow-moving storm approached the island, bringing torrential rain and maximum sustained winds of 185 mph, with gusts over 220 mph. Storms like Melissa are the reason scientists are pushing to formally add a Category 6 for hurricanes.
"Unimaginable violence is hiding in the very small and compact eyewall of Melissa," said Greg Postel, hurricane specialist at The Weather Channel. "Nearly continuous lightning will accompany the tornadic wind speeds."
The International Federation of the Red Cross said up to 1.5 million people in Jamaica—roughly half the island's population—are expected to be directly affected by Hurricane Melissa, the strongest storm on Earth this year.
"We are okay at the moment but bracing ourselves for the worst," Jamaican climate activist Tracey Edwards said Tuesday. "I've grown weary of these threats, and I do not want to face the next hurricane."
The International Organization for Migration warned that "the risk of flooding, landslides, and widespread damage is extremely high," meaning that "many people are likely to be displaced from their homes and in urgent need of shelter and relief."
Melissa's landfall came on the same day that United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said the international community has failed to prevent planetary warming from surpassing the key 1.5°C threshold "in the next few years."
Meteorologist Eric Holthaus wrote on social media that "this is the news I've dreaded all my life."
"Humanity has failed to avoid dangerous climate change," he wrote. "We have now entered the overshoot era. Our new goal is to prevent as many irreversible tipping points from taking hold as we can."
Hurricane Melissa will make landfall in Jamaica in a few hours as one of the two strongest hurricanes ever to make landfall anywhere in the Atlantic Basin -- on par with the 1935 Labor Day hurricane in south Florida.Just horrific. The stuff of nightmares.
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— Eric Holthaus (@ericholthaus.com) Oct 28, 2025 at 9:48 AM
Climate experts said Hurricane Melissa bears unmistakable fingerprints of the planetary crisis, which is driven primarily by the burning of fossil fuels.
The warming climate is "clearly making this horrific disaster for Jamaica, Cuba, and the Bahamas even worse," Jennifer Francis, a senior scientist at the Woodwell Climate Research Center, told the New York Times.
Akshay Deoras, a meteorologist at the University of Reading in the United Kingdom, told the Associated Press that the Atlantic "is extremely warm right now."
"And it's not just the surface," said Deoras. "The deeper layers of the ocean are also unusually warm, providing a vast reservoir of energy for the storm."
Amira Odeh, Caribbean campaigner at 350.org, warned in a statement Tuesday that "what is happening in Jamaica is what climate injustice looks like."
"Every home without electricity, every flooded hospital, every family cut off by the storm is a consequence of political inaction," said Odeh. "We cannot continue losing Caribbean lives because of the fossil fuel industry's greed."
"As world leaders head to COP30, they must understand that every delay, every new fossil fuel project, means more lives lost," Odeh added. "Jamaica is the latest warning, and Belém must be where we finally see a steer to change courses. The Caribbean is sounding the alarm once again. This time, the world must listen."
This story was updated after Hurricane Melissa made landfall.
Senators Accuse Trump Admin of Hiding Info on 'Biggest Premium Hike in History'
More than half of the Democratic Party caucus in the US Senate on Monday accused the Trump administration of covering up massive planned premium increases that are going to hit Americans who buy their health insurance through Affordable Care Act exchanges.
In a letter to Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) administrator Mehmet Oz, the senators charged that his agency has "failed to open early window-shopping" the week before the start of open enrollment, which they said has left "millions of Americans who buy their own insurance on Healthcare.gov... unaware of the catastrophic premium hikes barreling towards them."
The senators emphasized that the early window-shopping period is crucial because "the 24 million people who buy insurance on the ACA Marketplace need as much time and information as possible to understand and prepare for these significant premium increases."
The letter also argued that CMS has reduced enrollees' ability to access this crucial information by issuing guidance last summer that "allowed insurance companies to omit premium numbers and tax credit information from the notices they are required to send to enrollees ahead of open enrollment," while also "allowing insurance plans to delay sending information to their enrollees."
As a result of this, the letter continued, "millions of Americans have still not received any information from their insurance plan, or from CMS, about the biggest premium hike in history."
The senators' letter concluded with a demand for CMS to "launch window-shopping immediately and deliver the transparency American families deserve ahead of open enrollment on November 1."
The fight over health insurance premiums is at the heart of the current shutdown of the federal government, as Democrats say they will not vote to fund the government without an extension of enhanced ACA tax credits that were first passed into law under the American Rescue Plan in 2021.
The Washington Post last week reported on leaked documents showing that the most popular healthcare plans purchased on the ACA exchanges are expected to see a 30% hike next year, which would mark the "largest annual premium increases by far in recent years."
Were the enhanced tax credits for these plans allowed to expire, the Post added, this would likely result in millions of Americans seeing their insurance premiums double or triple next year.
The expiring subsidies aren’t the only threat to Americans’ healthcare, as Republicans over the summer passed a massive budget law that cut spending on Medicaid by nearly $1 trillion over the next decade, which the Congressional Budget Office estimated would result in more than 10 million people, among the nation’s poorest, losing their coverage. Congressional Democrats have also demanded undoing some Medicaid cuts in government shutdown negotiations.
In Gift to Private Prisons and Telecom Giants, Trump FCC Jacks Up Price of Inmate Phone Calls
The Federal Communications Commission, an agency controlled by appointees of US President Donald Trump, voted Tuesday to raise the maximum price for prison phone calls—a gift to telecom firms and private prison giants that profit from what critics have long described as predatory charges.
The agency's 2-1 vote rolled back a Biden-era cap on the price of prison phone calls, a limit that the FCC estimated would have collectively saved incarcerated people and their loved ones hundreds of millions of dollars a year. The Equal Justice Initiative noted earlier this year that "many families struggle with the high cost of phone calls and video visits, which are especially critical for people incarcerated far away from their families."
"Staying connected can cost families as much as $500 per month, and more than one in three families reported going into debt or going without food, medical care, and other basic needs to stay in touch with their loved ones," the group said.
The FCC, led by Trump loyalist Brendan Carr, also raised the possibility of revoking a Biden-era ban on telecom commission payments to jails and prisons. According to Bloomberg, the agency "reopened the topic for public comment on Tuesday."
Popular Information reported earlier this year that "the high cost of prison phone calls is a cash windfall for the private prison industry, which spent vast sums to help elect Trump president."
"The companies that provide prison telephone services offer kickbacks, known as 'commissions,' to prison operators to secure lucrative contracts," the outlet noted. "This means up to 50% of the money incarcerated people spend on telephone calls is routed back to the company or government that operates the prison. This system incentivizes prison operators to award contracts to companies that charge exorbitant fees, creating a larger pool of money for kickbacks."
Telecom companies that provide services to jails and prisons are also poised to benefit from the FCC's move. Bloomberg observed that the agency's Tuesday vote was "a boon for telecom providers such as ViaPath Technologies and Aventiv Technologies," both of which complained to the FCC that the Biden-era price cap would have devastated their businesses.
Anna Gomez, the lone Democratic commissioner on the FCC, condemned the agency's vote as "indefensible."
"It implements an egregious transfer of wealth from families in incredibly vulnerable situations to greedy monopoly companies that seek to squeeze every penny out of them," said Gomez, who voted against the price cap increase.
‘Midnight Massacre’: ICE Leaders Purged as Trump Admin Eyes ‘More Aggressive’ Nationwide Campaign Led by Border Patrol
In an effort to further ratchet up its already brutal and indiscriminate mass deportation campaign, the Trump administration has begun a sweeping purge of Immigration and Customs Enforcement leadership across US cities. The agency's leaders are expected to be replaced with even more aggressive officials from the Border Patrol and Customs and Border Protection.
In what was dubbed a "midnight massacre," the Washington Examiner reported that over the weekend, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) quietly relieved the ICE field office directors in five US cities—Denver, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Phoenix, and San Diego—of their duties.
It is expected to be just the beginning of a broader overhaul, carried out "in hopes of netting more arrests and ratcheting up its flashy, high-profile deportation campaign." Fox News national correspondent Bill Melugin later reported that up to 12 of the agency's 24 regional directors may be replaced, including those in El Paso, Seattle, Portland, and New Orleans.
The replacements are expected to come from the ranks of the US Border Patrol, which—to an even greater extent than ICE—has carried out indiscriminate mass arrests of immigrants, regardless of whether they have criminal records.
Many of the replacements are expected to be handpicked by Gregory Bovino, the Border Patrol commander currently leading President Donald Trump's "Operation Midway Blitz" in Chicago, where he's faced widespread criticism for his ruthless tactics against protesters and for his apparent authorization of explicit racial profiling when carrying out arrests.
Under his watch, federal immigration enforcement carried out the infamous overnight raid on a South Shore apartment building earlier this month in which agents rappelled from Black Hawk helicopters and indiscriminately broke down residents’ doors, smashed furniture and belongings, and dragged dozens of them, including children, into U-Haul vans, where some were detained for hours.
"Border Patrol and ICE are different agencies, with different duties and different leadership and different styles," explained Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council. "Border Patrol are the aggro cowboys compared to ICE. Now they're going to be the ones running the show."
The sweeping purge reportedly comes amid a rift within the Trump administration over the scale and speed of its mass deportation crusade. The White House has repeatedly claimed it is targeting the “worst of the worst” criminals, but its immigration enforcement operation is predominantly targeting immigrants with no criminal history.
In May, senior Trump advisor Stephen Miller reportedly berated ICE leaders for not executing deportations swiftly enough and ordered a quota of 3,000 arrests per day.
As The Examiner notes, "those high figures have been impossible to achieve as ICE has simultaneously focused on arresting the 'worst of the worst,' often a one-by-one process." As of late September, NBC News reports that ICE was arresting 1,178 people on average per day, well short of Miller's goal.
Melugin reports that "there is significant friction within different wings of DHS and the administration, with Border Czar Tom Homan and ICE Director Todd Lyons preferring to prioritize targeting criminal aliens and the 'worst of the worst' or those with deportation orders, while DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, [chief DHS adviser] Corey Lewandowski, and [Border Patrol] commander Bovino prefer to use aggressive tactics to arrest anyone in the US illegally, including but not limited to criminals, to ramp up deportation numbers and achieve President Trump's promises of mass deportations."
Already, most of those being detained are not criminals: According to immigration data from late September, nearly 72% of current ICE and CBP detainees have not been convicted of a crime. Earlier data from the libertarian Cato Institute indicated that most of those with criminal records committed only minor offenses rather than violent crimes. The increased role of the Border Patrol signals a shift toward even more sweeping and indiscriminate operations.
As Melugin explains: "Border Patrol, under Trump 2.0, while sometimes doing their own targeted operations, has been extremely aggressive and has been at the forefront of some of the most controversial immigration enforcement operations we've seen so far, carrying out roving patrols in Los Angeles, Chicago, etc, often at Home Depot, car washes, flea markets, etc, leading to a handful of federal judges around the country issuing injunctions against them."
Bovino is expected to testify on Tuesday before a federal judge over his use of tear gas against peaceful protesters in a Chicago neighborhood in apparent violation of a court order. However, he has signaled he may refuse to show up to court, saying, “I take my orders from the executive branch."
DHS officials informed NBC that Bovino and Lewandowski personally compiled the list of ICE officials to be removed, but Miller is closely guarding it within the White House. Although the names have not been released, it is anticipated that those targeted for firing or reassignment will be officials with low arrest numbers and those who have opposed the harsher tactics favored by Miller and Border Patrol leaders.
"The old guard, which prioritized targeted enforcement operations aimed at people with criminal records, is being replaced with Border Patrol and Greg Bovino's 'Midway Blitz' style," said Reichlin-Melnick. "Think things are bad now? It'll get worse."
Ben & Jerry's Co-Founder Wants Help Designing Ice Cream for Gaza That Corporate Bosses Wouldn't Allow
One of the co-founders of Ben & Jerry's is asking fans to help design a new ice cream flavor to show support for the people of Palestine, after the company's corporate owners refused.
The ice cream brand's founders, lifelong political activists Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, have long been at odds with the company that now owns their product, Unilever/Magnum, which they say has stifled efforts to use their platform to advocate against Israel's occupation of Palestine and its genocidal war in Gaza.
In a video posted to social media on Tuesday, Cohen—armed with a masher and a plate of watermelons, an international symbol of Palestinian solidarity—said he was taking matters into his own hands.
"A while back, Ben & Jerry's tried to make a flavor to call for peace in Palestine, to stand for justice and dignity for everyone, like Ben & Jerry's always has," Cohen said. "But they weren't allowed to. They were stopped by Unilever/Magnum, the company that owns Ben & Jerry's. Just like when Ben & Jerry's tried to stop selling ice cream in the occupied territories, they were blocked again by their parent company."
"So I'm doing what they couldn't," he continued. "I'm making a watermelon-flavored ice cream that calls for permanent peace in Palestine and calls for repairing all the damage that was done there."
Since October 2023, more than two years of genocidal war and siege have left at least 248,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing, hundreds of thousands of others starving, and the vast majority of Gaza's more than 2 million people forcibly displaced. As a result of Israel's punishing bombing campaign, 92% of residential buildings have been destroyed, according to the United Nations.
Despite the ceasefire agreement signed between Israel and Hamas earlier this month, the violence in Gaza has continued. On Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced new "powerful strikes" on Gaza after alleging that Hamas violated the ceasefire. Gaza officials have alleged that Israel has violated the truce 125 times.
"The scale of suffering of the Palestinian people over the last two years has been unimaginable," Cohen said. "They deserve dignity, safety, and the same rights that every human being should have."
Unilever purchased Ben & Jerry's from Cohen and Greenfield in 2000, but allowed Cohen and Greenfield to remain on as brand ambassadors and members of its board, with what the pair said was a commitment that the company would give them the "independence to pursue our values."
However, in September, Greenfield stepped down from the board of Ben & Jerry's, alleging that Unilever had routinely used threats and intimidation to stop the pair from calling for "peace" and a "ceasefire" in Gaza.
Cohen said that he is producing his new product—a watermelon sorbet—independently from the company's owners.
"I'm doing this to shine a light on the experience of Palestinian people and children in particular. So the world does not look the other way," he said.
He asked viewers for suggestions to help determine what other ingredients should be included, a name for the flavor, and to create a design for the container.
Many viewers have already offered their ideas: One suggested naming the flavor "From the River to the Seed." Others suggested using components of Palestinian desserts like pistachios and pomegranates.
"Revolutions are creative," Cohen said. "Let's see some of that creativity!"
Demand for Trump's Social Security Chief Bisignano to Resign After $30 Billion Implosion of Former Company
"Bisignano is in charge of the American people’s hard-earned Social Security benefits, as well as the collection of our taxes," said one advocate. "If he engaged in wrongdoing, the people need to know."
The new CEO of the financial services technology company Fiserv said Wednesday that the firm's financial outlook was grim, sending its stock collapsing by more than 40% and erasing $30 billion in market value—and laid the blame squarely with a Trump administration appointee whom the president has praised as "amazing."
When nominating former Fiserv CEO Frank Bisignano as Social Security administrator earlier this year, President Donald Trump said the executive frequently "takes troubled entities and turns them around."
With current Fiserv chief Mike Lyons warning on Wednesday that Bisignano had made major missteps as CEO, overinflating its sales projections and relying on short-term cost-cutting before selling his stock for $500 million, the advocacy group Social Security Works said beneficiaries of the government's anti-poverty program for senior citizens should be alarmed that the former executive is now in charge of their crucial benefits.
"Fiserv lost 40% of its value because the former CEO, Frank Bisignano, is a liar," said SSW. "But Bisignano is Trump's buddy, so he can only fail up. He's now in charge of your Social Security."
Lyons told analysts and investors that when Bisignano was leading Fiserv from 2020 until earlier this year, the company made sales projections that "would have been objectively difficult to achieve even with the right investment and strong execution."
He added that Bisignano made "decisions to defer certain investments and cut certain costs [which] improved margins in the short term but are now limiting our ability to serve clients in a world-class way, execute product launches to our standards and grow revenue to our full potential.”
Translating Lyons' comment, Brett Arends wrote at MarketWatch that "under Bisignano, the company made forecasts it could not plausibly have achieved" and that the former CEO "was chasing short-term quarterly results, not building the business."
"Did Bisignano know that Fiserv’s stock was about to tank, and ask his friend Donald Trump for a life raft?"
Lyons broke the news to investors weeks after a police pension fund sued Fiserv and Bisignano, as well as the new CEO, for "artificially inflating [Fiserv’s] growth numbers."
But along with causing his former company's value to plummet, emphasized SSW president Nancy Altman on Thursday, Bisignano personally benefited from overestimating his firm's performance—selling more than three million shares after he was appointed Social Security administrator for at least $500 million.
"That sale saved him $300 million (and counting) in stock value," said Altman. "Did Bisignano know that Fiserv’s stock was about to tank, and ask his friend Donald Trump for a life raft?"
Altman demanded that Bisignano "resign immediately" from his roles at the Social Security Administration and the Internal Revenue Service, where he was also named the first-ever CEO earlier this month.
"Bisignano is in charge of the American people’s hard-earned Social Security benefits, as well as the collection of our taxes—despite his total lack of expertise, or even basic knowledge, of either," said Altman. "He infamously admitted that he had to Google ‘Social Security’ when Trump offered him the job. If he engaged in wrongdoing, the people need to know."
Altman called on the US Department of Justice and Congress to launch "immediate" investigations into Bisignano's conduct as CEO of Fiserv, but noted that with Republican allies of Trump running the government, the former executive is unlikely to be held accountable."
"The only recourse," said Altman, "is for Democrats to win control of Congress and make investigating Bisignano a top priority.”
Even During Shutdown, Senate GOP Does Big Oil's Bidding With Vote to Gut Arctic Protections
"This vote will authorize the fossil fuel industry's continued destruction of habitat and landscapes that are critical for wildlife to survive."
The Republican-controlled US Senate voted Thursday to scrap a Biden-era policy that protected millions of acres in the Alaskan Arctic from fossil fuel drilling, even as the government shutdown continued with no end in sight.
The final vote on the resolution, led by Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), was 52-45, almost entirely along party lines. Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) was the only Democrat to join Republicans in voting for the measure, which aims to use the Congressional Review Act to revoke a 2022 Biden administration decision protecting swaths of the Western Arctic.
The resolution still must pass the House, which is also controlled by Republicans.
Athan Manuel, director of the Sierra Club's Lands Protection Program, said the vote shows that President Donald Trump and his Republican allies are "exploiting" the prolonged shutdown to "hand over our public lands and wild places to corporate polluters."
"Donald Trump's government shutdown has dragged on for nearly five weeks, and what is the top priority for Congressional Republicans? Opening up the western Arctic to oil and gas drilling, not funding services or making sure our military is paid?" said Manuel. "It's shameful."
Robert Dewey, vice president of government relations at Defenders of Wildlife, warned that "this vote will authorize the fossil fuel industry's continued destruction of habitat and landscapes that are critical for wildlife to survive."
"The Trump administration and its allies in Congress are prioritizing profits for oil executives and billionaires over the basic needs of hardworking Americans."
The Senate vote comes days after Trump's Interior Department, led by billionaire drilling enthusiast Doug Burgum, wrenched open all 1.56 million acres of the Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas leasing.
Trump campaigned on a pledge to accelerate climate-destroying fossil fuel drilling and openly promised oil and gas executives that he would move swiftly to gut regulations in exchange for their financial support in the election.
One estimate released in the wake of the election found that oil and gas interests spent nearly $450 million to boost Trump and Republican candidates and bolster their legislative priorities on Capitol Hill.
Andy Moderow, senior director of policy at the Alaska Wilderness League, said in a statement that Thursday's vote "is yet another reminder that the Trump administration and its allies in Congress are prioritizing profits for oil executives and billionaires over the basic needs of hardworking Americans."
Dutch Voters Have 'Turned the Page,' Center-Left Leader Says as Far Right Rebuked in Elections
"We’ve shown not only to the Netherlands, but also to the world that it is possible to beat populist and extreme-right movements," said Rob Jetten.
The leader of the Netherlands' center-left Democrats 66 Party hailed the results of Wednesday's snap parliamentary elections as proof that "millions of Dutch people have turned a page and said goodbye to the politics of negativity," with the far-right Party for Freedom set to lose 11 seats and its vehemently anti-migration leader, Geerts Wilders, appearing to have no path to a majority.
"We’ve shown not only to the Netherlands, but also to the world that it is possible to beat populist and extreme-right movements," D66 Leader Rob Jetten, who is now likely to become the Netherlands' youngest and first openly gay prime minister.
Full election results may not be known for weeks, but the Dutch news outlet NOS reported Thursday morning that the D66 was in the lead by 15,122 votes, putting Jetten in a likely position to lead talks on forming a new coalition government.
Both D66 and the Party for Freedom (PVV) were projected to win 26 seats in Parliament's 150-seat lower house.
The results represented a precipitous fall from power for PVV, which stunned observers in 2023 with its first-place finish in that year's elections, capturing 37 seats.
Wilders has led the far-right party for nearly two decades, and his surprise victory two years ago earned him the nickname the "Dutch Donald Trump" as he promoted his virulently Islamophobic rhetoric and pushed to eliminate all migration from Muslim-majority countries, end asylum, and revoke Dutch citizenship from people with dual passports.
He also called to revoke climate regulations and pull the Netherlands out of the European Union, but as the New York Times reported in an analysis of the election, Wilders "could not rally the support to turn those extreme stances into reality."
In June, Wilders—whose chants against Moroccan immigrants at a rally in The Hague led to him being convicted of inciting discrimination in 2016—withdrew his party from the governing coalition after failing to get support for his extreme anti-migration proposals.
The PVV's campaign ahead of the parliamentary elections promised those same policies and led other major parties to pledge that they would refuse to form a new coalition with Wilders.
René Hendriks, an election volunteer in the Hague, told the Times that "the Netherlands is a bit fed up" with PVV's leadership.
Jetten's party focused heavily on affordable housing, proposing the construction of 10 new cities to help solve the country's chronic housing shortage. D66 also called for "making smart use of [artificial intelligence] and digital progress" to pave the way for a four-day workweek, ending fossil fuel subsidies, the passage of an Anti-Discrimination Act, and “well-thought-out and effective policies, rather than using strong language" on migration.
D66 did shift to the right on some migration policies, however, backing a proposal requiring refugees to submit their asylum applications outside of Europe.
But Kristof Jacobs, a political scientist at Radboud University, told the Times that the election results suggest the far right in Europe may not be poised to seize power as it campaigns on anti-migration policies.
"We thought it was almost a deterministic thing, that the radical right was always going to become bigger—that they were bulletproof," Jacobs said. “Not so bulletproof after all.”
Far-right movements have recently gained favor with the public in Germany, the United Kingdom, and France, although have largely failed at actually achieving power within governments.
Jetten said as the election results came in that "the positive forces have won!"
"I want to get to work for all Dutch people," he said, "because this is the land of us all!”
Meetings to start the process of forming a new coalition government are expected to begin next week.