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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 - North Carolina 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 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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'Actively Malevolent': Trump EPA to Eviscerate Rules on Planet-Heating Pollution From Power Plants
In what environmental advocates describe as "another gift to the fossil fuel industry," the Trump administration plans to end rules limiting the release of planet-heating emissions from power plants that burn coal and gas.
Power plants are considered the largest industrial source of greenhouse gas emissions in the US and account for about a quarter of the nation's climate pollution, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
In 2024, the EPA under the Biden administration used the Clean Air Act to require that many new gas plants and existing coal plants reduce their carbon emissions by 90%, including by installing carbon capture technology, by 2032.
The EPA estimated that the rule would reduce the amount of CO2 emissions by about 1.38 billion metric tons over the next two decades, the equivalent of about a year of emissions from the entire US electric power sector.
On Monday, Lee Zeldin, the EPA administrator under President Donald Trump, announced an end to this policy at a meeting of energy ministers at the Group of 20 conference in Houston.
Not only will this prevent the enactment of a policy that the EPA has estimated would prevent around 1,200 premature deaths and 360,000 asthma cases by 2035. But the administration is also rolling out a proposal seeking to prevent future administrations from regulating carbon emissions as a health risk.
It is an effort that runs parallel to the administration's rescission of the 2009 "endangerment finding," which allowed the EPA to regulate vehicle emissions under Section 202 of the Clean Air Act on the grounds that they are harmful to human health. That move is also being challenged in court.
Power plants are regulated under a different section of the Clean Air Act, Section 111, which allows the EPA to regulate facilities that "cause, or contribute significantly to" dangerous air pollution.
But whereas the courts have previously interpreted this statute to regulate the outputs of entire facilities, the Trump administration is asking courts to adopt a novel reading of the statute which says each individual chemical under scrutiny must “contribute significantly” to climate change.
As Meredith Hankins, legal director for climate and energy at the Natural Resources Defense Council, explained in a policy memo last week, it likely won't be easy for the administration to prove that the CO2 emissions from US power plants aren't a significant driver of climate change.
"Power sector emissions account for a quarter of total US emissions, so if they cannot be counted as significant, it’s hard to conceive of any emissions that would," Hankins wrote. "In fact, if the US power sector were a nation, it would be the world’s fifth-largest emitter after China, the United States, India, and Russia. That’s a pretty 'significant contribution' to the problem."
The effort to gut power plant regulations comes after the hottest meteorological summer recorded in US history and amid a year with one of the largest numbers of climate disasters on record, including widespread drought, destructive wildfires, and repeated flooding and tornado outbreaks.
As the planet has warmed over the last half-century, the US has seen a sharp, near-sevenfold increase in weather disasters costing over $1 billion, according to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
“While wildfires rage, floods devastate communities, and families struggle to afford skyrocketing electricity bills and insurance premiums, the Trump administration is handing the fossil fuel industry a license to keep polluting," said Holly Bender, chief program officer for the Sierra Club, following news of the EPA's rollback of power plant rules. "This is full-throated climate denial while the climate crisis happens in real time and a shocking betrayal of the American public."
She added that "the Sierra Club will fight back against this reckless and dangerous proposal with everything we have in the courts, in Congress, and in communities across the country.”
If successful, the reversal of the power plant rules would be one of the most significant steps in Zeldin's push to eviscerate the EPA's authority to combat climate change on behalf of the fossil fuel industry. Earlier this summer, during a meeting of the National Coal Council, he bragged that "many of the items" on the industry's "wish list are now done."
He has put the wheels in motion to roll back virtually every Biden-era regulation on the coal industry, including rules limiting pollution from mercury and toxic metals, controls on toxic wastewater from coal plants, and limits on coal ash.
And while seeking to undermine the legal basis to regulate greenhouse gases, Zeldin's EPA has also taken a sledgehammer to its practical ability to do so, dismantling offices that collect climate data, erasing information about human-caused climate change from the agency's websites, and filling research panels with scientists employed by the fossil fuel industry.
Former State Department energy official Alan Eyre noted that on the world stage, the US "has always been obstructionist" when it comes to climate policy. Under Trump, he said, "we're actively malevolent."
Sep 14, 2026
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Vulnerable Countries Spend Nearly 25 Times More Repaying Debt Than on Climate Action
The world's most climate-vulnerable nations are spending nearly 25 times more on servicing their debts than on addressing the climate emergency, an ActionAid International report released Wednesday revealed, underscoring what the advocacy group called a "vicious cycle" of debt, disasters, and underinvestment.
The report, "Debt Fuels the Climate Crisis: How the Finance Flows," examines government revenues, debt payments, national budgets, and climate plans in the 65 countries considered most vulnerable to climate change. The authors found that debt servicing consumes 65% of these nations' combined government revenue, while 93.5% of the countries are either in debt distress or facing a significant risk of it.
"Climate-vulnerable countries are being forced to spend nearly 25 times as much on repaying debt as on climate action," the report states. "Indeed, in 2026 total debt servicing on external and domestic debt in these countries is nearly four times that of spending on education, nearly seven times that of health, and nearly six times that of social protection."
🚨 New ActionAid analysis: countries facing the worst climate disasters are spending nearly 25 times more on debt than on climate action. That is not an accident. It is how the global debt system is built right now. Full findings 👉 https://bit.ly/4Acxh0c#ClimateJustice #FundOurFuture #DebtJustice
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— ActionAid USA (@aausa.bsky.social) September 16, 2026 at 6:31 AM
The disparity is even greater when comparing debt payments with climate grants. ActionAid estimated that countries in the Global South will make approximately $8.8 trillion in debt repayments in 2026, compared with just $39 billion in grant-based climate finance received in 2024—a ratio of roughly 225 to 1.
"For too long, the debt and climate crises have been treated separately," ActionAid International secretary-general Arthur Larok said in a statement. "This research exposes how tightly they are connected and quantifies the devastating cost involved. Yet this is a crisis we can fix."
The report—whose release coincides with the Global Week of Climate Action—highlights how climate disasters frequently force already indebted nations to borrow even more money for recovery and reconstruction. Subsequent debt payments and austerity measures forced upon them by global financial institutions like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank then restrict their spending on climate resilience, public services, and clean energy transitions.
As the report notes:
Even though the IMF recognizes that there is a "development crisis," the IMF refuses to even talk about a systemic debt crisis—because for them and their shareholders, there is no systemic crisis so long as there is no significant default and creditors are being paid. Moreover, the IMF thrives on countries needing to come to them for bailout loans, as this expands their own power and influence. The IMF is both a creditor and a debt collector, serving its own interests and those of its main shareholders in the Global North—making it both judge and jury when it comes to debt renegotiation processes.
The report also details how Global South governments under pressure to generate foreign currency can expand fossil fuel extraction and industrial agriculture, potentially worsening the climate pressures that contributed to their debt in the first place.
“Debt is a triple whammy for the climate: It drives fossil fuel and industrial agriculture expansion, blocks vital climate action, and leaves communities dangerously exposed when disasters strike," ActionAid International global climate justice lead Teresa Anderson said Wednesday.
"This is a toxic relationship," she added. "Countries borrow to rebuild, austerity weakens their resilience, and repayment pressures push more extraction, fueling the next disaster. We need a breakup: Cancel unjust and unsustainable debt, stop making countries borrow to survive climate impacts, and deliver climate finance as grants rather than loans. This vicious cycle can and must be broken.”
“Debt is a triple whammy for the climate."
In Senegal, the imbalance is particularly stark. ActionAid said the government is spending $605 on debt servicing for every $1 budgeted for climate action, while debt payments consume more than 96% of government revenue.
"Behind these figures are impossible choices between servicing debt and investing in agroecology, public services, and climate resilience," ActionAid Senegal director Khaita Sylla said Wednesday. "Women and girls who bear the brunt of climate impacts are then disproportionately affected by cuts in public services even as they lead solutions for a more resilient future.”
ActionAid is calling on governments and international institutions to take steps including:
- Canceling unpayable or unjust debt for countries spending more than 10% of their revenues on external debt repayments;
- Agreeing on a universal rule enabling the suspension of debt payments for any country hit by a climate disaster;
- Creating a United Nations Framework Convention on Sovereign Debt that gives indebted countries an equal voice;
- Requiring private creditors to take part in meaningful debt restructuring;
- Regulating credit rating agencies to remove conflicts of interest and bias;
- Ensuring that climate finance comes in the form of grants, not loans or any other debt-creating financial instruments;
- Reforming debt-sustainability assessments so that climate responses, public services, and human rights are central to decisions about what countries can afford to repay; and
- Conducting public debt and climate audits in countries facing debt crises to examine how domestic and external debt deepen climate impacts, poverty, and exclusion—particularly for women and girls—and identify actions to break the cycle.
“Rich countries like the US have outsized global financial power," ActionAid USA executive director Niranjali Amerasinghe said on Wednesday. "Their lack of willingness to provide climate finance at scale and relieve the debt burden of climate-vulnerable countries is unconscionable."
"There are trillions for defense budgets," Amerasinghe added, "but peanuts for the biggest existential crisis of a generation.”
Sep 16, 2026
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Advocates Call BS on Trump EPA Study of Imaginary Water Contamination From Abortion Pills
After a yearslong pressure campaign led by Students for Life, President Donald Trump's top environmental agency is including pills used in medication abortions in a new study of drinking water pollutants—part of what one rights advocate called a ramped-up effort to weaponize "environmental protections to restrict abortion medication"—and potentially birth control, as well.
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin announced the study last week, saying that the agency has "heard loud and clear that Americans are concerned about potential unknown pollutants lurking in their drinking water."
But as Mother Jones pointed out, the Trump administration has shown little concern for drinking water safety as it has gutted the Clean Water Act as recently as this month, pushed for the expansion of artificial intelligence data centers despite evidence that they pollute water, and sought a reversal of rules to protect people from "forever chemicals" in drinking water.
In fact, the outlet noted, the announcement of the abortion pill study came days after Zeldin announced an elimination of pollution standards for power plants.
"The EPA’s unrelated but tandem announcements reveal an agency that has fundamentally overhauled its policies toward environmental and human health in pursuit of the Trump administration’s 'energy dominance' and 'Make America Healthy Again' agendas," wrote Rachel Santasiero at Mother Jones.
The MAHA agenda at the EPA appears to mean a study that will test for mifepristone and misoprostol, the drugs used in medication abortions, as well as levonorgestrel, which is used in contraception, including emergency contraception pills such as Plan B.
"This is the latest tactic of trying to weaponize laws that are meant to protect our environment and protect our wastewater.”
Nathan Donley, director of environmental science at the Center for Biological Diversity, emphasized in an interview with The Cut that the EPA's water-testing approach won't determine how much of a chemical is in drinking water—just that it exists at all in a sample, even in trace amounts.
"That doesn’t matter much, though, in terms of the politics," wrote Jessica Valenti, author of the blog Abortion, Every Day. "If the test finds any trace of abortion pills, conservatives will use it to legitimize their new legal front in the war on reproductive rights—one that includes weaponizing environmental protections to restrict abortion medication (and possibly contraception)."
Anna Bernstein, a federal policy adviser at the Guttmacher Institute, told The Cut that the study is part of an effort to convince Americans that medication abortions are unsafe, at a time when the number of abortions in the US has actually gone up since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Experts have attributed the increase to the expanded use of telehealth and the ability to mail medication abortion pill regimens to patients.
“The anti-abortion movement has become increasingly frustrated with that fact, so they really are throwing everything at the wall and seeing what sticks,” Bernstein told The Cut. “They are really ramping up disinformation campaigns about the safety of medication abortion. This is the latest tactic of trying to weaponize laws that are meant to protect our environment and protect our wastewater.”
She added that she is "concerned about the risk of added surveillance that testing for these chemicals could create in an environment where criminalization is already a factor."
Valenti noted that Kristi Hamrick, the vice president of Students for Life, has acknowledged that attempting to crack down on medication abortion access via environmental protections is "all bullshit."
"This is not because the environment was my first weapon of choice—it’s because it’s the one we have now," Hamrick said last year of the group's Clean Water campaign. "Environmental law has teeth. It already exists. And, frankly, I’m for using the devil’s own tools against them.”
The water study is part of an effort that also includes a push for legislation requiring women who have abortions and miscarriages to collect their pregnancy remains in "catch kits," which has been proposed by state lawmakers in Wisconsin and at the federal level earlier this year.
The Food and Drug Administration already confirmed decades ago—before mifepristone was approved—that it was safe to use “without any expected adverse environmental effects."
A study by Students for Life—published in a journal run by anti-abortion doctors—was called "misleading" by experts who told Politico earlier this year that the research "should not be considered in environmental or public health decision-making.”
Donley called the notion that a one-time dose of mifepristone—a drug that's been taken by about 1% of the US population—could be contaminating water supplies "a joke."
“If you think of most pharmaceutical drugs, you’re not just taking one pill. You’re taking a pill on a daily or semi-regular basis,” Donley told The Cut. What that means is that those drugs used by tens of thousands—sometimes millions—of Americans every day enter our wastewater system at a much larger scale than abortion pills."
“I’ve seen no credible evidence that these drugs are causing widespread environmental harm. There’s just no data to support that whatsoever. Including mifepristone and misoprostol on this list is just stupid, but then again, we’re in a stupid administration,” he added. “It’s completely ideologically driven."
Bernstein told Abortion, Every Day that "singling out medication abortion while ignoring the agricultural and industrial pollutants that are proven threats to our health makes clear that these efforts are about restricting access to abortion, not protecting our water.”
Sep 17, 2026
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'Straight Out of the Authoritarian Playbook': Trump Bans CNN, MSNOW, and Politico From White House
In one of his most direct assaults on the First Amendment, President Donald Trump announced in a Friday afternoon tirade that he would ban CNN, MSNOW (formerly MSNBC), and Politico from the White House.
"I am proud to announce that, effective immediately, I am banning Fake News CNN, MSNOW... and Politico from the White House as a result of their constant 'reporting' FAKE NEWS!" the president wrote in a rambling Truth Social post.
"Media Outlets shouldn’t be able to constantly write or report FICTION and LIES when they’re covering the President of the United States, the Trump Administration, or the United States of America," he added, though he did not specify any particular reports he objected to. He added that bans on "Other Fake News Media Outlets" would soon follow.
Trump, who has long portrayed himself as a defender of free speech, has taken unprecedented actions to censor news outlets during his second term, including threatening networks' broadcast licenses through the Federal Communications Commission over unfavorable programming.
As of Friday afternoon, it's unclear whether Trump actually plans to follow through on his White House ban.
Reacting to the news on the air, CNN anchor Brian Stelter said that the network's reporting team "remains at the White House working just like a usual normal Friday afternoon." He added that "right now, there is no indication that the administration is taking any steps to actually follow through on his threat."
"Certainly, if there is an attempt to remove journalists from the White House, well, our cameras are rolling. I think viewers will see it happen," he said.
"CNN stands fully behind our White House team and their fair and accurate reporting," the network said in a statement following news of the ban. "We have a right under the US Constitution to do that reporting without hindrance or interference from the government."
Bruce D. Brown, the president of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, told Common Dreams in an email Friday that simply banning news organizations from the White House over the content of their reporting "would be flatly unconstitutional."
"The First Amendment is clear that once the White House invites in some journalists, it can't ban others because it doesn't like their reporting," he said. "This is textbook viewpoint discrimination and will be quickly struck down by the courts if challenged."
Federal courts have previously struck down attempts by Trump to bar certain press outlets on First Amendment grounds. Last year, a judge ruled that Trump's removal of the Associated Press from the White House press pool for its refusal to adopt the name "Gulf of America" for the Gulf of Mexico was an unconstitutional form of viewpoint discrimination.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's rule banning reporters from obtaining information not authorized by the Pentagon, which led dozens of journalists to turn over their press badges and walk out of the building in protest, was also struck down as a violation of press freedom.
In light of these previous failures, Jameel Jaffer, the executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, expressed bewilderment that Trump was once again trying to ban news outlets from the White House.
"With so many courts having ruled against him on exactly this point, you’d think President Trump would have learned this lesson by now," he said in a statement.
Seth Stern, chief of advocacy at the Freedom of the Press Foundation, agreed it was "difficult to imagine a more blatant violation of the First Amendment than Trump banning news outlets from the People’s House for criticizing the government."
"It’s also hard to imagine a dumber move," he said. "The historically unpopular president has been retaliating against the press for years, but it hasn’t helped him. The press keeps exposing his corruption and his failures. These outrageous attacks only demonstrate how scared he is of an informed public."
He added that the press must "fight back to protect their rights, not only to access the White House but to access the public records and whistleblowers this administration so desperately wants to keep from them."
Trump's announcement was met with outrage from Democrats in Congress, who described it as an assault on a basic constitutional freedom.
Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) responded to the news simply by posting the full text of the First Amendment on X.
"Fascist and communist governments limit press access to only favorable outlets, persecute journalists, and suppress truthful reporting," said Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) in a post to social media. "Trump’s administration is doing all of that."
Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) agreed the move was "straight out of the authoritarian playbook."
Sep 18, 2026
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Star YouTube Educator Ms. Rachel Vows to Match Macklemore's $1 Million Donation to Palestinian Aid Groups
Rachel Griffin Accurso, the YouTube star and child educator known popularly as Ms. Rachel, is vowing to match the $1 million donation made by rapper Macklemore to Palestinian aid organizations.
In a Thursday social media post, Ms. Rachel said she was giving $1 million to groups dedicated to helping Palestinians who have been suffering for years under Israeli military assaults and occupation.
The YouTube star also encouraged "every wealthy white celebrity to match it and speak out against the genocide in Gaza."
"Over 20,000 precious Palestinian children have been killed and children continue to be killed every day," Ms. Rachel said. "We have a moral obligation to use our privilege and platforms to protect children and human rights."
In the comments, Macklemore thanked Ms. Rachel, who has a long history of advocating for Palestinians and highlighting the horrors inflicted on Gaza by the Israeli military, for backing his campaign.
"Love you so much," he wrote.
Macklemore first announced his $1 million donation shortly after he was removed as an opening act from fellow musician Ed Sheeran's nationwide stadium tour because he said "Free Palestine" onstage earlier this month during a show at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey.
On Wednesday, Macklemore revealed his donation campaign and invited New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft—who led the pressure campaign to remove the rapper from the tour—to join him.
"Whatever we disagree about, perhaps we can agree on this: Palestinian lives are worth protection,” Macklemore wrote in a social media post, addressing Kraft directly. “A Palestinian life is no less valuable than any life on this earth.”
The rapper said he was giving to six organizations who were aiding Palestinians: HEAL Palestine, Gaza Soup Kitchen, Medical Aid for Palestinians, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), and American Near East Refugee Aid.
Sep 18, 2026
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Secret Trump Drug Deals Reveal Perks for Big Pharma, Uncertainty for Patients
"The Trump team appears to be doing more to protect pharma profits than patients’ pocketbooks,” said Public Citizen.
Sep 20, 2026
The Trump administration’s secretive deals with Big Pharma to lower prescription drug prices included benefits for the companies that were not publicly disclosed, according to documents obtained by the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen via a Freedom of Information Act request and published Saturday.
Public Citizen said the deals allow drugmakers to raise prices overseas and limit the scope of promised savings for American patients.
“Trump’s drug pricing deals are a mirage, designed to convince Americans that he’s taken significant action on drug pricing while creating minimal, if any, downside for Big Pharma,” Peter Maybarduk, director of Public Citizen’s Access to Medicines program, said Saturday.
“The texts show Trump handing out favors to Big Pharma, undercutting his own models to lower prices, and throwing the support of the US government behind corporate decisions to deny medicines entirely to other countries,” he added.
Read Public Citizen’s analysis of Trump’s secretive deals with pharma: www.citizen.org/article/publ...
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— Access to Meds | Public Citizen (@pcmedsaccess.bsky.social) September 19, 2026 at 1:19 PM
The disclosures come as President Donald Trump continues to tout his “most-favored nation” (MFN) drug-pricing initiative. On Friday, the administration announced that all 50 states, Washington, DC, and Puerto Rico had applied to participate in a Medicaid program built around MFN pricing, under which participating drugmakers are supposed to offer certain medicines at prices comparable to those charged in other wealthy nations.
However, Public Citizen said the newly disclosed contracts raise questions about how much patients will actually save. The deal with Eli Lilly excludes the company’s blockbuster GLP-1 drugs Mounjaro and Zepbound from the definition of products subject to certain MFN discounts. Public Citizen said a similar carveout for Novo Nordisk could reduce potential Medicaid savings by $1.7 billion.
Eli Lilly’s agreement also permits the company to stop supplying a medicine to another country under certain circumstances, removing that nation’s price from the calculation used to determine the US MFN price.
“That practice threatens patients’ health,” Public Citizen said, adding that such provisions could effectively encourage pharmaceutical companies to make medicines unavailable abroad rather than reduce US prices.
“By agreeing to terms that endorse and facilitate pharma companies discontinuing supplying drugs in other countries, so they can continue to charge US customers more, the Trump team appears to be doing more to protect pharma profits than patients’ pocketbooks,” it said.
Public Citizen also said that the documents do not publicly reveal the full scope of tariff exemptions and other incentives provided to drugmakers, including reported benefits involving expedited US Food and Drug Administration reviews. The Pfizer agreement indicates that the company may share additional revenue generated by higher prices abroad with the US government. But crucial portions are redacted, leaving the public unable to determine how much money is involved, who receives it, or how it would be spent.
“The Trump administration continues to favor secrecy in these limited disclosures under FOIA today,” Maybarduk said, noting that the government has blacked out “the prices, product lists, and information needed to assess whether Trump accomplished anything of substance.”
Public Citizen's disclosures follow months of criticism over Trump's claims that his administration has dramatically reduced drug prices. In August, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) accused the administration of failing to make the agreements public despite Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s previous commitment to provide them, saying, “still crickets.”
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'Do I Blow the Entire Nation Up?': Trump Says He's in 'Deciding Mode' on Iran War
A senior Iranian official said that “our conditions are an end to the war on all fronts, the release of our frozen funds, and an end to the naval blockade."
Sep 20, 2026
Three days after saying that he's weighing whether or not to “annihilate” Iran in a bid to end his increasingly unpopular and protracted war against the Middle Eastern nation, US President Donald Trump on Sunday again said that he is deciding if he should destroy the entire country of over 90 million people.
Fox News chief foreign correspondent Trey Yingst reported he "just spoke with President Trump about the situation with Iran" and that the US leader said he's "in a deciding mode and that very big things are going to be happening in the not-so-distant future."
Trump said he is considering three strategies for ending the 204-day war: "wiping Iran out, letting them rot economically, or making a deal."
"My question is, if and when do I blow the entire nation up, they better behave," Trump added, according to Yingst.
Fox correspondent: "The president said the US is in constant communication with the Houthis, and that they've agreed not to fight the United States. But the big headline here is the president said he's in a deciding mode as it relates to Iran, adding that the Iranians better… pic.twitter.com/nCTMRlEvWY
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 20, 2026
On Saturday, Mohsen Rezaei, the secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, told Al Jazeera that Tehran has conveyed its conditions for ending the war to Qatari mediators and is "awaiting President Trump's response."
“Our conditions are an end to the war on all fronts, the release of our frozen funds, and an end to the naval blockade,” Rezaei added. “It is in Washington’s interest to accept these conditions. Trump’s threats will not achieve any results. We are prepared for a decisive war.”
Iran's military responded to Trump's latest threat by warning US allies Sunday that they will be considered "complicit" if American strikes resume, vowing "painful attacks" in retaliation.
Trump—who has been threatening to destroy Iran since at least 2019—is facing pressure on multiple fronts to end his highly unpopular and illegal war of choice, in which at least 23 US troops have died and tens of thousands of Iranians have been killed or wounded.
Americans are feeling the pain of higher consumer prices, especially for gasoline and diesel fuel, for a war that many say is making the country less safe. Six in 10 US voters queried in a new Fox News poll said Trump was wrong to wage war on Iran, while 7 in 10 respondents believe that his administration has no clear strategy for ending the conflict.
Republican lawmakers are also increasingly expressing dissatisfaction with the war and distancing themselves from the conflict ahead of November's midterm elections, with some going as far as helping to pass a war powers resolution directing Trump to withdraw US forces from hostilities with Iran, and one—outgoing Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky—supporting the impeachment of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
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Trump Greenland Deal Panned as 'Largely a Rebranding of the Status Quo to Claim a Win'
"Trump did an incredible job negotiating for things we already had in Greenland," said one US critic.
Sep 19, 2026
Danish and international commentators dismissed President Donald Trump's claim that the deal he announced Friday gives the United States "permanent control" over Greenland's security as what one journalist called a "repackaging" of long-standing agreements spun as a foreign policy win.
Trump—who has repeatedly threatened to gain control of the autonomous Danish territory, including by military force—said on his Truth Social network: "I am pleased to announce that the United States of America has entered into an Agreement with The Kingdom of Denmark, and Greenland, that gives the United States permanent control over security, and all other needs, in Greenland, completely addressing ALL of our many US concerns. There will be NO COST to the United States!"
"Additionally, from now on, no US adversary can EVER have a base in Greenland, have a military presence in Greenland, or make sensitive investments in Greenland, without our express written approval," the president continued. "This is an 'Infinite Life' Agreement, there is no end!"
"We look forward to working with the wonderful people of Denmark and Greenland toward a magnificent future with respect to this large, and highly strategic, parcel of land," Trump added. "We will be very protective of it! This is a dream come true for the United States of America, one that is very important, historic, and special."
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio hailed what he called a "historic deal" and "a huge win for the United States and the American people."
A joint statement released by the office of Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and Jens-Frederik Nielsen, who chairs the Naalakkersuisut—Greenland's governing body—confirmed that "Greenland, Denmark, and the United States are expected to sign an agreement on strengthened security in the Arctic and the North Atlantic area next week" at the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
Frederiksen stressed that the agreement "recognizes the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Kingdom [of Denmark] and the Greenlandic people’s right to self-determination," while Nielsen said the pact "is to the benefit of us all."
While the official text of the deal is not yet public, observers said it is unclear how it differs from the terms of a Cold War-era agreement that already gives the US broad military access to Greenland.
“In terms of rights, they were already allowed quite a lot under the original agreement,” Mikkel Runge Olesen, a researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies in Copenhagen, said of the United States in a Saturday interview with The New York Times. “Is there anything here that one could not have achieved without this crisis?”
Trump did an incredible job negotiating for things we already had in Greenland.
— Ron Filipkowski (@ronfilipkowski.bsky.social) September 18, 2026 at 6:10 PM
University of Maryland government and politics professor David Karol said on Bluesky that "this seems to be largely a rebranding of the status quo to claim a win."
Karol likened the Greenland deal to the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement that replaced the Clinton-era North American Free Trade Agreement—which Trump called the "worst trade deal ever made"—during the president's first term. Critics noted that differences between the two pacts were "mostly cosmetic," as one expert put it.
As the illegal US-Israeli war of choice against Iran dragged on with no end in sight, the US president also pursued a deal to end the conflict that observers noted was broadly similar, and even more favorable to Tehran, to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action—better known as the Iran nuclear deal—signed during the Obama administration and unilaterally abandoned by Trump during his first term, despite Iranian compliance.
Sofie Pultz, an international policy research fellow at the progressive UK think tank Institute for Public Policy Research, told LBC on Saturday that "it does sound like the Americans have accepted a repackaging of all deals and agreements, maybe with Denmark footing some of the defense bill. But overall, there's not a lot of new stuff in here."
Some Danish commentators were more blunt in their assessment of the deal. Henrik Højgaard Sejerkilde wrote for Jyllands-Posten that “everything suggests that Donald Trump’s agreement on the military presence in Greenland is a flea market find, found in diplomatic recycling.”
Other Danish observers expressed relief that what many viewed as an utterly unnecessary clash between two NATO allies has seemingly been defused.
"One can hope that the crisis of Greenland ends here—but one can never be sure," Jacob Heinel Jensen of the Danish daily newspaper Berlingske said. “There is reason to be cautiously optimistic that this nonsense of taking over Greenland is now over. But with Trump, you can never be sure."
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NAACP Sues to Stop Trump From Sending Armed Agents to 'Intimidate' Minority Voters at Polls
"When the federal government puts fear between people and the ballot box, that is voter intimidation—plain and simple."
Sep 19, 2026
A coalition of civil rights and labor groups led by the NAACP sued the Trump administration Friday in a bid to prevent armed federal agents from being deployed at or near polling places during November's midterm elections, warning that the threatened presence of such officers could intimidate voters of color and repress turnout.
The lawsuit was filed in the US District Court for the District of Columbia by the NAACP, National Urban League, Mi Familia en Accion, OCA-Asian Pacific American Advocates, SEIU, American Federation of Teachers, International Union of Painters, and United Food and Commercial Workers International.
The complaint names senior Trump administration officials as defendants, including Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, Attorney General Todd Blanche, FBI Director Kash Patel, and White House border czar Tom Homan. The lawsuit seeks an order barring the administration from "deploying agents in a manner that unlawfully intimidates voters or anyone urging or aiding voters."
The plaintiffs are represented by the Legal Defense Fund, Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF), Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law, LatinoJustice PRLDEF, National Immigration Law Center, Protect Democracy, and Democracy Defenders Fund. They argue that the administration's policies and statements have created a reasonable fear among Black, Latino, Asian American, naturalized, immigrant, and mixed-status voters that they could face questioning, surveillance, detention, or force while voting.
Asked in May whether he would send National Guard troops or ICE agents to polling locations, President Donald Trump refused to rule out such a move, saying that he would “do anything necessary to make sure we have honest elections.”
Other senior administration officials have similarly refused to rule out the deployment of federal forces to polling places in the name of fighting voter fraud—which is extremely rare.
The Justice Department, meanwhile, has denied that it is preparing to send agents to polling places. Spokesperson Kiersten Pels called such suggestions "fearmongering," while Mullin has said ICE would not patrol polling locations.
The coalition is suing under Section 11(b) of the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits intimidation, threats, or coercion of people for voting or attempting to vote, as well as those assisting others in voting.
“All American voters have the sacred right to have a voice in our democracy, and should be able to exercise that right freely and without fear,” said Janai Nelson, president and director-counsel of the Legal Defense Fund.
“Using federal law enforcement as a scare tactic to target and intimidate Black communities is illegal and antithetical to the promise of a multiracial democracy that was enshrined in the Voting Rights Act," Nelson added. "Neither Black, Latino, Asian, or any other voters nor any other communities should ever again face the threats of terror and intimidation at the ballot box that defined the Jim Crow era.”
“We are experiencing a level of voter intimidation like we haven’t seen since the civil rights era."
AALDEF executive director Bethany Li asserted that "when the federal government puts fear between people and the ballot box, that is voter intimidation—plain and simple."
“We are experiencing a level of voter intimidation like we haven’t seen since the civil rights era, when local governments and the KKK openly intimidated Black voters," Li added. "This time, it is the federal government ordering ICE and other federal law enforcement to intimidate naturalized citizen voters and immigrant communities. In 2026, voters should not have to choose between their safety and their right to vote.”
NAACP general counsel Kristen Clarke said the threatened deployment would turn polling places into "militarized zones."
"Turning the fundamental right of exercising our vote into a high-stakes encounter with the militarized strong arm of the current administration isn't protection and it isn't oversight; it's disenfranchisement, period," she argued.
The lawsuit comes one week after a similar challenge was filed by the League of United Latin American Citizens, UnidosUS, Common Cause, and the city and county of Denver, Colorado. That case cites an 1865 federal law that generally prohibits federal officials from bringing "troops or armed men" to places where elections are being held, except when necessary to repel armed enemies of the United States.
“The Trump administration has been waging a campaign to undermine American elections, and their insinuations that federal law enforcement agents might be at the polls this November are part of that effort,” Jasleen Singh, senior counsel and manager in the Brennan Center’s Democracy Program, said during Friday's announcement of the new suit. “We’re bringing this lawsuit so that voters are protected against intimidation and can have their voices heard.”
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'Unforgivable Sin': Pentagon Reportedly 'Hiding' US Deaths in Iran War
"When the government hides the true cost of its war, it misleads the country and dishonors the fallen," said one veterans' group.
Sep 19, 2026
The Trump administration—which calls itself the "most transparent administration in history"—is once again under fire for its lack of transparency after The Washington Post on Friday published a report in which US officials said more American troops have died during the Iran War than the Pentagon has disclosed.
Five officials familiar with the Pentagon's internal casualty accounting told the Post under condition of anonymity that at least 22 US service members have died since Trump launched the Iran War on February 28—four more than the 18 fatalities currently listed in the Pentagon's public Defense Casualty Analysis System, or DCAS. A sixth official put the number at 23.
The officials said that not all of the additional deaths were necessarily caused directly by Iranian attacks, but rather involved US personnel stationed in the Middle East.
The report raises questions regarding transparency, as well as the military's line-of-duty investigations following service member deaths that can affect survivors' benefits.
Retired US Army Brig. Gen. Steve Anderson asked some of those questions in a Friday Substack post directed at Hegseth and calling the reported obfuscation an "unforgivable sin":
- Why are you hiding from the American people and the media?
- Why haven’t you done a press conference in the Pentagon for four months?
- What were the families of the fallen told about the circumstances around the deaths of their loved ones? Were they denied recognition for their loved ones’ service and sacrifice in war?
- Who made the call to hide the number from the American people?
- How many more people have been wounded than we know about?
- What are [you] going to do to make this right?
Responding on social media to the Post report, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth wrote, "This is DISGUSTING and FAKE. A complete LIE."
"Shame on The Washington Post—they’re worse than Iranian state media," Hegseth added.
Hegseth's denial follows earlier controversies over the Pentagon's casualty reporting.
In July, the department's public database briefly excluded four US service members killed during renewed fighting, even though the Pentagon had separately announced the deaths. Officials subsequently blamed the discrepancy on technical problems.
Also in July The New York Times revealed that the Pentagon hid dozens of US military injuries from Iranian strikes on bases in Jordan.
Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), a disabled Iraq War veteran, wrote on Bluesky in response to the Post report that "22 of our service members have been killed in Trump's illegal war. Not 18 like we were told."
"The Pentagon hid four more heroes' deaths from us for months," she added. "Congress cannot let them get away with this."
To that end, Duckworth and other Democratic lawmakers in both the House and Senate have introduced legislation aimed at preventing the Pentagon from manipulating troop casualty data.
Last month, Duckworth led 17 upper chamber colleagues in introducing the Honoring the Sacrifices of Our Troops in War Act, which her office said came partly in response to the Trump administration's "shameless attempt to downplay the damage done and evade accountability to the American people."
Outgoing Congressman Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) on Thursday separately moved to force a House vote on impeaching Hegseth, accusing the defense secretary of violating provisions of the War Powers Resolution by continuing hostilities without congressional authorization.
After several failed attempts, both houses of Congress in June passed a war powers resolution directing Trump to withdraw US forces from hostilities with Iran. Trump did not comply.
The number of US troops killed and wounded in the Iran War pales in comparison to Iranian casualty figures. Thousands of Iranians—including more than 3,500 civilians, more than 380 of them children—have been killed and tens of thousands more wounded by US and Israeli attacks since February 28, according to Iranian and international officials.
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Trump Pushes AI Data Centers on Public Land as Big Tech Reaps Billions in Tax Breaks
One expert asserted that "the tax breaks are a windfall rewarding Big Tech companies for building what they would build anyway."
Sep 18, 2026
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.”
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Trump's Third Country Removal Policy Putting Unlawfully Detained Men At Risk of Torture: Amnesty
The group believes Ahmed Soliman and Samson Birhane were targeted by police in Equatorial Guinea for speaking out about poor treatment in the hotel they were detained in following their deportation.
Sep 18, 2026
As Amnesty International warned that two men are now at risk of being tortured in detention in Equatorial Guinea, where the Trump administration deported them earlier this year under one of several secretive deals, US. Rep. Adelita Grijalva said that the "ultimate responsibility lies with" the White House, which sent the men "into harm's way."
The human rights group issued an urgent appeal, calling on supporters to send letters to the vice president of Equatorial Guinea, Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue, saying that that Ahmed Soliman, an Egyptian national, and Samson Birhane, who is from Eritrea, were "beaten and violently taken by police officers from the Hotel Bamy in Malabo," the capital of Equatorial Guinea.
They had been "arbitrarily" held at the hotel along with dozens of other people since US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) sent them there on deportation flights earlier this year. Soliman and Birhane had protection from refoulement to their countries of origin from US immigration courts, but President Donald Trump's administration has arranged with five governments, through direct payments of tens of millions of dollars in taxpayer money, to send hundreds of migrants to countries where they have never lived—many with records of human rights abuses.
Soliman has publicly spoken out against their arbitrary detention, and international media recently published a video showing a police officer at Hotel Bamy pointing a weapon at him and another man.
Last Friday, days after the video went public, said Amnesty, Soliman and Birhane were "targeted" by police, who arrived at the hotel and took them away briefly.
Amnesty continued in its letter and call to action:
Later during the day police officers went back to the hotel, bringing Ahmed Soliman and Samson Birhane back with them, who had their heads covered with bags tied with a rope. Police officers beat them in their heads, backs, and ribs with their elbows, knees, and guns, asking them where they hid the phones. They pushed one of the men down the stairs of the hotel and said to others that they may never see Ahmed Soliman and Samson Birhane again.
The group wrote that the men were taken "the Malabo gendarmery station known as 'La Luna'" and were accused of breaking a mirror at the hotel.
"Since then, they have not been informed of the charges against them, nor allowed to speak to their lawyers, and are held in an overcrowded police cell, in inhumane conditions," reads the sample letter. "I am concerned that they are at heightened risk of torture."
The New York Times reported that a lawyer who has been able to get some information about Soliman and Birhane's condition said they have been denied food and are "covered in bruises."
"The authorities must immediately release them, inform them of any charges against them, and allow them unimpeded access to counsel," said Amnesty International.
Officials in the Trump administration, said Grijalva (D-Ariz.), "need to take responsibility and demand Ahmed’s immediate release."
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'Straight Out of the Authoritarian Playbook': Trump Bans CNN, MSNOW, and Politico From White House
One press freedom advocate said it was "difficult to imagine a more blatant violation of the First Amendment."
Sep 18, 2026
In one of his most direct assaults on the First Amendment, President Donald Trump announced in a Friday afternoon tirade that he would ban CNN, MSNOW (formerly MSNBC), and Politico from the White House.
"I am proud to announce that, effective immediately, I am banning Fake News CNN, MSNOW... and Politico from the White House as a result of their constant 'reporting' FAKE NEWS!" the president wrote in a rambling Truth Social post.
"Media Outlets shouldn’t be able to constantly write or report FICTION and LIES when they’re covering the President of the United States, the Trump Administration, or the United States of America," he added, though he did not specify any particular reports he objected to. He added that bans on "Other Fake News Media Outlets" would soon follow.
Trump, who has long portrayed himself as a defender of free speech, has taken unprecedented actions to censor news outlets during his second term, including threatening networks' broadcast licenses through the Federal Communications Commission over unfavorable programming.
As of Friday afternoon, it's unclear whether Trump actually plans to follow through on his White House ban.
Reacting to the news on the air, CNN anchor Brian Stelter said that the network's reporting team "remains at the White House working just like a usual normal Friday afternoon." He added that "right now, there is no indication that the administration is taking any steps to actually follow through on his threat."
"Certainly, if there is an attempt to remove journalists from the White House, well, our cameras are rolling. I think viewers will see it happen," he said.
"CNN stands fully behind our White House team and their fair and accurate reporting," the network said in a statement following news of the ban. "We have a right under the US Constitution to do that reporting without hindrance or interference from the government."
Bruce D. Brown, the president of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, told Common Dreams in an email Friday that simply banning news organizations from the White House over the content of their reporting "would be flatly unconstitutional."
"The First Amendment is clear that once the White House invites in some journalists, it can't ban others because it doesn't like their reporting," he said. "This is textbook viewpoint discrimination and will be quickly struck down by the courts if challenged."
Federal courts have previously struck down attempts by Trump to bar certain press outlets on First Amendment grounds. Last year, a judge ruled that Trump's removal of the Associated Press from the White House press pool for its refusal to adopt the name "Gulf of America" for the Gulf of Mexico was an unconstitutional form of viewpoint discrimination.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's rule banning reporters from obtaining information not authorized by the Pentagon, which led dozens of journalists to turn over their press badges and walk out of the building in protest, was also struck down as a violation of press freedom.
In light of these previous failures, Jameel Jaffer, the executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, expressed bewilderment that Trump was once again trying to ban news outlets from the White House.
"With so many courts having ruled against him on exactly this point, you’d think President Trump would have learned this lesson by now," he said in a statement.
Seth Stern, chief of advocacy at the Freedom of the Press Foundation, agreed it was "difficult to imagine a more blatant violation of the First Amendment than Trump banning news outlets from the People’s House for criticizing the government."
"It’s also hard to imagine a dumber move," he said. "The historically unpopular president has been retaliating against the press for years, but it hasn’t helped him. The press keeps exposing his corruption and his failures. These outrageous attacks only demonstrate how scared he is of an informed public."
He added that the press must "fight back to protect their rights, not only to access the White House but to access the public records and whistleblowers this administration so desperately wants to keep from them."
Trump's announcement was met with outrage from Democrats in Congress, who described it as an assault on a basic constitutional freedom.
Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) responded to the news simply by posting the full text of the First Amendment on X.
"Fascist and communist governments limit press access to only favorable outlets, persecute journalists, and suppress truthful reporting," said Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) in a post to social media. "Trump’s administration is doing all of that."
Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) agreed the move was "straight out of the authoritarian playbook."
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'Outrageous': Sanders Slams FCC for Approving Saudi and UAE Ownership of Paramount-Warner Bros.
"We don't need Middle East dictators to control American media."
Sep 18, 2026
US Sen. Bernie Sanders on Friday joined a growing chorus of critics angered by the Federal Communications Commission's approval of foreign investment in the company that would be created if Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros. Discovery are allowed to merge.
Led by Chair Brendan Carr, an appointee of President Donald Trump, the FCC on Thursday approved Paramount's petition to allow foreign investors to hold over 25% of ownership. The commission concluded it would be in the "public interest" to greenlight a plan for 49.5% foreign ownership, including 38.5% from investment funds based in Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
"Trump's FCC just approved Trump pal David Ellison's deal to allow Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE to own nearly 50% of a merged Paramount-Warner Bros," Sanders (I-Vt.) wrote on social media Friday, referring to Paramount's chair and CEO—and the son of billionaire Republican megadonor Larry Ellison.
The merged company would include CBS, CNN, HBO, the Discovery Channel, BET, Fandango, MTV, Nickelodeon, Paramount, PlutoTV, Showtime, TBS, The CW, TNT, Warner Bros., and more, the senator noted. He added: "Outrageous: We don't need Middle East dictators to control American media."
Anna Gomez, the sole Democratic commissioner, was similarly critical: "The FCC just let some of the most repressive governments in the world indirectly control nearly all of a combined Paramount-Warner Bros. An investment this large in one of America's biggest media companies doesn't just buy equity, it secures influence over what gets said and made."
"That's why I called for this new and novel issue to go to a full commission vote given what's at stake," she noted. "Instead, the FCC snuck this ruling out as a staff-level decision, with no public vote and no accountability for a call of this magnitude."
Welcoming Gomez's comments, Michael Sozan pointed to his and Andrew Miller's June article for the Center for American Progress highlighting that "the three Middle Eastern authoritarian regimes have deep financial relationships with Trump and his family, and... long records of human rights abuses and engage in media censorship."
"These autocracies could leverage Paramount's news outlets and other media properties to advance their own interests at the expense of the United States' national security and foundational rights, including press freedoms," the pair warned. "Given these factors, these foreign ownership levels are another reason why regulators must rigorously review this merger and take all lawful actions to block it."
As the Los Angeles Times reported:
Several groups, including the 1st Amendment nonprofit Free Press, asked the FCC to consider additional safeguards to shield the news organizations—CNN and CBS—from foreign control. One suggestion was to spin off CBS and CNN into a subsidiary that would be wholly owned by Americans.
Paramount and the FCC were dismissive, arguing "the concerns raised in the record... are speculative and unsupported," according to the FCC ruling.
While a Paramount spokesperson welcomed the FCC's decision not to block the plan—and pointed out that "when the proposed transaction with Warner Bros. Discovery closes, the Ellison family and RedBird will collectively hold the largest equity stake in the combined company and 100% of the voting shares, with no other equity participant having any governance rights"—fresh outrage mounted over the already widely criticized $111 billion merger.
Lee Hepner, an antitrust lawyer and senior legal counsel for the American Economic Liberties Project, addressed the questions: "But it's just indirect equity interests, right? What about the condition that the Saudis, UAE, and Qatar cannot interfere with or even comment on any decisions related to content?"
As he explained: "The only way that firewall is conceivably enforceable is if the FCC assigns an independent monitor to sit in on every meeting, taps every burner phone, and is invited to every Signal chat between any representative of Paramount and its new financial backers. The point is not that that should happen, but that this condition is patently unenforceable. Which is all to say, the FCC just approved the sale of a crown jewel of the entertainment and media industry to foreign interests that relish in exercising economic, political, and regional military leverage over the United States. All based on a pinky promise."
"The reality is that ownership alone, even of nonvoting, indirect equity interests, creates its own financial leverage and influence," he warned. "To the extent Paramount's new owners are prohibited from exercising influence, it's patently paradoxical. Paramount won't approve anything that risks losing half of its financial backing, including criticizing a regime that not too long ago ordered the execution of a Washington Post columnist, Jamal Khashoggi, who became an international figurehead for politically persecuted journalists."
"Does anyone think CBS' new leadership has the will, much less fortitude, to prioritize truth over financial ruin?" he added. "If this all sounds like a total mess, that's because it is. And it only becomes doubly worse if Paramount acquires Warner Bros.-Discovery."
Due to legal pushback from state attorneys general and unions, the merger—which some opponents have condemned as an "existential" threat—is on hold until the outcome of a trial scheduled to begin in March.
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Free Press Defenders Demand End of 'Horrifying' ICE Detention of Journalist Luis Galeano
"If our government can close off channels of exchange and the free flow of ideas, it is no more than a dictatorship."
Sep 18, 2026
A coalition of 15 press freedom advocacy organizations on Friday demanded the release of Nicaraguan journalist Luis Galeano, who was arrested by federal immigration enforcement officials earlier this week.
The groups—which include Free Press, the Committee to Protect Journalists, the Freedom of the Press Foundation, the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, and Reporters Without Borders (RSF)—released a letter decrying Galeano's detention at the hands of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents on Monday.
The organizations expressed concern about Galeano being potentially deported back to Nicaragua, where he could face imprisonment for his past work exposing that government's human rights abuses. According to a Wednesday report in The Guardian, Galeano fled his home country eight years ago shortly after police raided the news outlet where he worked.
The groups also said Galeano's detention marked "a troubling escalation of attacks on journalists and media workers, particularly immigrant journalists, who consistently provide much-needed journalism and civic information for their communities."
Galeano was taken into custody despite entering the US legally in 2018 and having a pending asylum case. The Nicaraguan journalist also has a work permit and a Social Security number.
Nora Benavidez, senior counsel at Free Press, called Galeano's arrest "horrifying," while noting that the Nicaraguan is "the latest in a long line of journalists who came to the United States to report on issues of the day and instead face deportation."
"These cases aren’t just about cracking down on immigration," said Benavidez. "They are about cutting off community access to vital coverage and scaring reporters from holding those in power accountable. If our government can close off channels of exchange and the free flow of ideas, it is no more than a dictatorship."
Edith Rodríguez Cachera, vice president of RSF Spain, pointed out that Galeano was also a citizen of Spain, and urged the Spanish government to secure his freedom.
"Spain cannot stand by while one of its citizens, a journalist persecuted for doing his job, is detained in the United States and faces the risk of being sent back to a country he fled because of severe repression," said Rodríguez Cachera, "where his safety could be seriously endangered if he is deported. Spain must use every diplomatic and consular instrument at its disposal to safeguard his security and prevent his return to a country where he will likely be targeted due to his journalistic work."
Galeano's wife, Deykell Santamaría, said in an interview with El País published Thursday that she has been able to contact her husband during his detention, but she still fears "for his safety, his freedom, and his integrity if he were to be sent to Nicaragua."
Javier Melendez, a longtime friend of the detained journalist, was even blunter about what would happen to Galeano were he to be deported, describing it as nothing less than a "death sentence" in an interview with The Guardian.
The El País report noted that US Reps. María Elvira Salazar (R-Fla.) and Mario Díaz-Balart (R-Fla.) have expressed concerns about Galeano's detention, with Salazar saying that the US government should "always know how to distinguish between a criminal and a political exile."
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