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King Donald the First: Fuck That
The run-up to No Kings Day has seen a crazed wave of hysteria from a right wing shrieking about Hamas, Marxists, Huns, Orcs, Barbarians at the Gate with the sinister portent, "You'll see the hate for America all over this thing." What the. We think we'll see millions of people - also frogs, chickens and a detained giraffe - who support health care, free speech, our neighbors, and the right to oppose becoming an authoritarian hellhole. DeNiro: "We're all in this together, with liberty and justice for all."
Organizers vowing, "No Thrones, No Crowns, No Kings" are predicting the largest, one-day demonstration in U.S. history, with people in 2,500 towns and cities across the country celebrating the First Amendment's guarantee to "the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." The original No Kings protest took place 250 years ago, Robert DeNiro noted in a sober ad for Indivisible , when Americans decided they didn’t want to live under the rule of King George III; they declared their independence and fought a bloody war for democracy, which since then has proved "often challenging, sometimes messy and always essential." As to today's would-be king, he said, "Fuck that." Indeed.
The messaging around the new No Kings from hundreds of groups organizing it has been strikingly consistent, calling on people to “engage in the work of democracy." The Human Rights Campaign blasts "an authoritarian regime that’s forgotten who it serves," charging us to "stand together in the belief that America belongs to its people." Authoritarians, they note, require division to carry out their agenda: "They need people to stop trusting each other, to stop talking to each other, to make us forget who we are, we, the people, demanding a country that makes good on its promise of freedom. And there is nothing more American than that." Despite the abuses and intimidation, the task is "to remind those in power who they answer to. This is our country."
Over time, the right's frantic bloviating and fear-mongering have escalated along with the reasons to protest - health care, shut down, masked thugs, broccoli prices. But its basic tenets have stayed the same: Only GOP speech is protected, not yours. If you oppose them, you're a terrorist, probably paid. The only legit American is one who thinks and looks like them. And they can viciously lie, provoke, insult, harass, dissemble or demonize you as communists, fascists, pedophiles, vermin all they like, but Democrats are the ones "inciting violence." Thus on Saturday, will they recoil from what smug, obsequious, despicable fraud MAGA Mike calls "the hate America rally," and no wonder. Damn, little Christo-fascist dude, what would Jesus say?
"I have had it with these people," Mike sputtered a few weeks ago on "the pro-Hamas wing and, you know, antifa people" planning to gather and "playing games with real people's lives...I can’t believe they’re actually doing this." (The next thing you know, they could be cutting health care..) This week, it was an “outrageous gathering for outrageous purposes,“ again with "pro-Hamas supporters," "antifa types," "Marxists in full display (who) don’t want to stand and defend the foundational truths of this republic,” which of course include the foundational truth that we have free speech and no kings. The hypocrisy went even more over the top when Thug-In-Chief Tom Homan inveighed about "hateful rhetoric," darkly warning "there will be bloodshed."
Scott Bessent,vowed he'd investigate the event's "networks of terrorist organizations" as “the farthest left, hardest core, most unhinged in the Democratic Party.” Pundit Scott Jennings charged Dems "care more about criminals than victims...more about illegal aliens than American citizens. And if you speak up or push back? We saw what happened to Charlie." (OK, but we're still gonna need to see those Epstein files.) The most insane bullshit spewed from Press Barbie, who after seeing an interview with Zohran Mamdani sneeringly told Fox News it shows Democratics' main constituency is “made up of Hamas terrorists, illegal aliens and violent criminals." Whereas Repubs are "standing up for law-abiding Americans." Just fuck off, Barbie.
"The White House says outrageous things to make you hate your neighbor," responded Tim Walz. "Your neighbor isn’t the problem. The White House is." Hakeem Jeffries slammed Leavitt as "sick" and "out of control," linking her claptrap to a surge in hate speech evidenced by recently leaked, racist, sexist, Hitler-loving sewer talk from Young Republicans. "They are ripping the sheets off in plain view," he said. "This is what the American people are getting from the Trump administration." Bernie Sanders on their "Hate America" drivel: "Really? Because people are defending the Constitution (and) are not going to let (you) turn this country into an authoritarian society? The right to protest is what America is about. You are not going to stop us."
Their choice of slurs are "classic authoritarianism," says anti-fascism expert Stanislav Vysotsky, "playing to a base that is rabid for violent retribution against their enemies." The name-calling instills us-vs.-them fear of dissent, dehumanizes opponents as an existential threat, helps justify a violent crackdown, and in this case is carefully calibrated to fit into Trump's demented decree outlawing "Antifa," which is still not a thing, as "a domestic terrorist organization," which is also not a thing. "I don't think it's that complicated," said Indivisible's Ezra Levin. "The one thing an unpopular authoritarian regime is scared of is mass, organized, peaceful people-power." "When people rise, kings fall," notes Michael Moore. "There are more of us than there are of them."
There've been glitches. As part of a look-over-here-what-Epstein-files-campaign, they're having a 250th anniversary celebration for the Marines, including a "live-fire Amphibious Capabilities Demonstration" at Camp Pendleton just as No Kings is underway, along with a "beach bash" and “vanity parade” Gavin Newsom calls "an absurd show of force"; he did convince them to cancel a planned shutdown of a major highway that would've caused chaos. And L.A. Mayor Karen Bass urged protesters, as The Onion noted, "not to engage in violence and give (the regime) an excuse to inflict all the damage thhttps://www.salon.com/2025/10/16/portlands-protest...ey have been inflicting (since) day one of Trump’s term" because "you wouldn’t want them abducting people in broad daylight and deporting them."
Up to Friday night, the right's feverish smears kept coming: There would be "mobs of radicals," the "anarchists and pro-Hamas wing," "terrorists" to be treated "just (like) Al-Qaeda or ISIS." Unexpectedly, some of the most powerful rebuttals to their ridiculous bunkum has come from Portland's now-iconic, blow-up, often-dancing animal creatures: Its Portland Frog, new comrades from the Oregon Frog Brigade - "The Few. The Proud. The Web-Footed" - the longtime Portland Chicken, and various dolphins, roosters, sharks, T-rex and other anti-fascist critters relying on their inherent absurdity and their town's legacy of staunch anti-authoritarianism to make fools of the masked, armed, awkward, camo-swathed thugs accosting them "in this uniquely chaotic moment."
The creatures are serious about their absurdism. Seth Todd, 25, the somber OG Frog, sees it as "a strategy" to dismantle the narrative of violent protesters and ICE's strongman cosplay: Guns pointed at black-clad, scary- looking activists play differently drawn on a boogeying, oversized, silent frog: "Nice body armor, but (you'll) look stupid trying to take down an inflatable frog." Jack Dickinson, 26, the "chicken" Noem bravely stared down, has a graduate degree in economics with a focus on game theory, read most of Project 2025, and likes using "whimsy" to combat bullies: "What they rely on is fear." "At some point, I just I tied my own fate to that of the movement," he says. "The place this is going (is) such a departure from the world I thought (of) as a kid, I would much rather do anything I can to prevent that world from happening."
Other heroes have stepped up. The giraffe-suited comedian Robby Roadsteamer was singing Rod Stewart songs of peace and love outside ICE when three camoed jerks, rifles at the ready, detained him; a GoFundMe has raised over $115,000. Kermit, the timeless leader of The Frog Resistance, has re-surfaced with a new take on his classic Rainbow Connection: "Why are there so many/ Trump thugs in ski masks/ and why do they have to hide?” And a little-known Irving Berlin song from 1941 has re-emerged; it was sung by Al Bowlly, killed in London by a German bomb sent by the subject of the song just weeks after it was released: "When that man is dead and gone/We'll go dancing down the street..." Speak up, stay safe, hold onto hope.
- YouTube www.youtube.com
Oct 18, 2025
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Nationwide Backlash Brewing Against Big Tech's Energy-Devouring AI Data Centers
America's biggest tech firms are facing an increasing backlash over the energy-devouring data centers they are building to power artificial intelligence.
Semafor reported on Monday that opposition to data center construction has been bubbling up in communities across the US, as both Republican and Democratic local officials have been campaigning on promises to clamp down on Silicon Valley's most expensive and ambitious projects.
In Virginia's 30th House of Delegates district, for example, both Republican incumbent Geary Higgins and Democratic challenger John McAuliff have been battling over which one of them is most opposed to AI data center construction in their region.
In an interview with Semafor, McAuliff said that opposition to data centers in the district has swelled up organically, as voters recoil at both the massive amount of resources they consume and the impact that consumption is having on both the environment and their electric bills.
"We’re dealing with the biggest companies on the planet,” he explained. “So we need to make sure Virginians are benefiting off of what they do here, not just paying for it.”
NPR on Tuesday similarly reported that fights over data center construction are happening nationwide, as residents who live near proposed construction sites have expressed concerns about the amount of water and electricity they will consume at the expense of local communities.
"A typical AI data center uses as much electricity as 100,000 households, and the largest under development will consume 20 times more," NPR explained, citing a report from the International Energy Agency. "They also suck up billions of gallons of water for systems to keep all that computer hardware cool."
Data centers' massive water use has been a consistent concern across the US. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported on Monday that residents of the township of East Vincent, Pennsylvania have seen their wells dry up recently, and they are worried that a proposed data center would significantly exacerbate water shortages.
This is what has been happening in Mansfield, Georgia, a community that for years has experienced problems with its water supply ever since tech giant Meta began building a data center there in 2018.
As BBC reported back in August, residents in Mansfield have resorted to buying bottled water because their wells have been delivering murky water, which they said wasn't a problem before the Meta data center came online. Although Meta has commissioned a study that claims to show its data center hasn't affected local groundwater quality, Mansfield resident Beverly Morris told BBC she isn't buying the company's findings.
"My everyday life, everything has been affected," she said, in reference to the presence of the data center. "I've lived through this for eight years. This is not just today, but it is affecting me from now on."
Anxieties about massive power consumption are also spurring the backlash against data centers, and recent research shows these fears could be well founded.
Mike Jacobs, a senior energy manager at the Union of Concerned Scientists, last month released an analysis estimating that data centers had added billions of dollars to Americans' electric bills across seven different states in recent years. In Virginia alone, for instance, Jacobs found that household electric bills had subsidized data center transmission costs to the tune of $1.9 billion in 2024.
"The big tech companies rushing to build out massive data centers are worth trillions of dollars, yet they’re successfully exploiting an outdated regulatory process to pawn billions of dollars of costs off on families who may never even use their products," Jacobs explained. "People deserve to understand the full extent of how data centers in their communities may affect their lives and wallets. This is a clear case of the public unknowingly subsidizing private companies' profits."
While the backlash to data centers hasn't yet become a national issue, Faiz Shakir, a longtime adviser to US Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), predicted in an interview with Semafor that opposition to their construction would be a winning political issue for any politician savvy enough to get ahead of it.
“For any Democrat who wants to think politically, what an opportunity,” he said. “The people are way ahead of the politicians.”
Oct 14, 2025
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Fed Governor Warns 'Job Growth Has Probably Been Negative' as US Labor Market Stalls
Christopher Waller, a Federal Reserve governor, warned on Friday that the US labor market at the moment is in poor shape and showing little sign of improvement.
In an interview on CNBC, Waller said that the data released by processing firm ADP earlier this month showing that the economy lost 32,000 jobs in September was "consistent with what we're starting to see with [Bureau of Labor Statistics] data."
"Job growth has probably been negative the last few months," he explained. "It doesn't look like it's doing much better. Anecdotally... I don't hear anybody with big hiring plans. All I ever hear is, 'We're not backfilling, we're not firing, we're holding off any job things.' That's the anecdotal evidence."
Fed Governor Christopher Waller: "Job growth has probably been negative the last few months. it doesn't look like it's doing much better. I don't hear anybody with big hiring plans." pic.twitter.com/aXDZPNTixq
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 10, 2025
Waller's analysis was shared by Ed Al-Hussainy, rates strategist with Columbia Threadneedle investments, who told Axios on Friday that the job market was "bed rotting," with employers reluctant to make any major hiring commitments in the face of economic uncertainty.
Al-Hussainy also warned that the current problems with the job market could "continue to get worse, until they reach a tipping point where consumption starts to degrade, and then you have another recession scare."
Earlier in the week, Fortune reported that Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics, estimated that there was "essentially no job growth" in the last month, while pointing to the Conference Board's recent report showing that US consumers haven't been this pessimistic about the labor market since the end of the Covid-19 pandemic.
"There’s no better predictor of changes in unemployment, which thus likely rose again in September," he added.
Abby McCloskey, a columnist at Bloomberg and a former economist at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, argued in a Friday column that the US economy had now slowed down so much that even supporters of President Donald Trump were rating it unfavorably.
"Only 44% of Republicans think the economy is excellent or good, according to new data from the Pew Research Center," McCloskey explained. "Compare this to the soaring approval of GOP voters in Trump’s first term before Covid hit—when 81% thought the economy was good."
She then noted that, despite a record-breaking stock market and stabilized inflation, voters' concerns about the economy appeared to be justified.
"Despite enormous tax cuts in this summer’s reconciliation bill and sweeping reductions to the federal workforce—things Republicans would typically cheer—tariffs and political uncertainty are taking a toll," she argued. "When a voter balances the tax cuts from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act against tariffs raising prices on everything from groceries to clothes, it feels like running just to stay in place."
Oct 10, 2025
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'Pay for Access': Critics Level Corruption Charges at Trump Over White House Ballroom Dinner
President Donald Trump on Wednesday evening held an event at the White House to thank some of America's richest corporations for financing his planned $250 million ballroom—an event that garnered the latest accusations of corruption against a president who has also raked in billions of dollars in profits in the cryptocurrency market since he took office.
As reported by The Washington Post, Trump "treated donors from Silicon Valley, Wall Street and the defense sector to a candlelit dinner in the East Room on Wednesday as a thank-you, praising them for quickly heeding his call for support and noting some offered as much as $25 million."
Trump also told the guests in attendance that they would likely be inviting to the ballroom's grand opening.
According to a report from The Wall Street Journal, several of the most powerful corporations in the US sent representatives to attend the dinner, including Apple, Lockheed Martin, Microsoft, Meta, Google, Amazon, and Palantir. Others expected to attend were Stephen Schwarzman, founder of investment firm Blackstone, as well as prominent cryptocurrency investors Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss.
The White House dinner drew immediate criticism from the Democratic National Committee (DNC), which labeled it a "cash-for-access" event that took place as Americans across the country are struggling to afford basic necessities such as groceries and healthcare, and as the Republican Party has refused to negotiate with Democrats on extending healthcare subsidies in exchange for ending the government shutdown.
"This administration’s slogan should be ‘Let them eat cake,'" said Rosemary Boeglin, communications director for the DNC. "Trump is busy wining and dining with his rich friends and wealthy donors while failing to make a deal to end the government shutdown. Instead of trading cash for access, Trump and his Republican loyalists in Congress should be getting back to work to reopen the government and avoid a healthcare crisis."
Boeglin added that Trump's "betrayal of Americans is brazen," and noted that he could find money to bail out his political ally in Argentina but not enough to fund enhanced tax credits that help Americans pay for health insurance.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) released a video on Wednesday night that also bashed Trump for hosting an entire dinner at the White House to thank big corporate donors for funding his vanity project.
" Donald Trump has found the time to wine and dine billionaires," she said. "Oh, and apparently to carve his corporate donors' names permanently into the walls in the White House. You cannot make this up! As usual, billionaire corporations are lining up to dump money into Trump's ballroom, possibly in exchange for some favors."
I didn't know draining the swamp meant Donald Trump building a $200 million ballroom for billionaires to bend the knee for special favors. pic.twitter.com/dqKb0glyl6
— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) October 16, 2025
Richard Painter, a law professor at the University of Minnesota and vice-chairman for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, told The New York Times that the White House event honoring wealthy donors "shows what the ballroom is really all about: pay to play."
"This is payment for access," he added. "Not just to the grounds of the White House but access to the president of the United States."
Many of the attendees at the dinner were from industries that are pushing for loose regulations of artificial intelligence and other technology and companies—such as Amazon, Lockheed Martin, and Palantir—that have contracts with the federal government.
Kathleen Clark, a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis who specializes in government ethics, told the Post that the ballroom raised serious ethical concerns because "it may or not be money in his pocket, but it’s absolutely to benefit Trump personally because it’s important to him."
Oct 16, 2025
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'We're Not Going to Forget': Pritzker Warns Trump Enforcers Miller, Homan, Bovino That Immunity Not Forever
Democratic Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker is warning top lieutenants of President Donald Trump's violent and unlawful immigration enforcement policies that they will not always have the protection of presidential immunity and that lawmakers in the future will seek to hold them to account for their behavior, including unlawful orders given at the behest of the president.
With episodes of violent raids, unlawful search and seizures, and the mistreatment of immigrants, protesters, journalists, and everyday citizens, Pritzker, in a Thursday evening interview on MSNBC, specifically named White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, border czar Tom Homan, and Gregory Bovino, the Customs and Border Patrol commander operating in the Chicago area, as people whose actions will not be forgotten.
"All these people need to recognize, you may have immunity because Donald Trump's willing to pardon anybody who's carrying out his unlawful orders," said Pritzker, "but you're not going to have it under another administration."
Pritzker: "Stephen Miller is clearly ordering people to break the law. So he should know that yeah, it may be three years from now that he is held accountable, but I think it's important for them to know that whatever they do now, it's not like we're going to forget." pic.twitter.com/ExpdyijtnO
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 17, 2025
Pritzker said that all the people serving the president, "including all the way down to ICE agents, can be held accountable when there's a change in administration that's willing to hold them accountable when they break the law."
Calling out Miller in particular, the governor charged that the xenophobic Trump advisor, who has been a leading champion and director of the harsh crackdown measures and federal deployments in Los Angeles, Washington, DC, Chicago, and elsewhere, has "clearly ordering people to break the law."
Critics and legal experts have said the deployments themselves are unconstitutional, and the heavy-handed tactics of agents have resulted in numerous violations of civil liberties and constitutional protections.
Miller should know, said Pritzker, that "it may be three years from now that he is held accountable, but I think it's important for them to know that whatever they do now, it's not like we're going to forget and it's not like we don't have a record of what they're doing."
On Thursday, ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee Rep. Jeremy Raskin (D-Md.) led a letter from Democrats on the committee demanding that the Trump administration "immediately end its unlawful and violent enforcement campaign in the Chicagoland region, warning that the Administration’s actions are undermining public safety, violating constitutional rights, and destabilizing communities."
According to a statement from Raskin's office:
For months, personnel from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have employed military-style tactics in enforcement operations across Chicago, spreading fear, chaos, and violence. Such extreme enforcement tactics have only escalated since the Administration’s announcement of Operation Midway Blitz in September. In early October, President Trump went further, federalized the National Guard—over the objections of Illinois Governor JB Pritzker—and ordered troops to Illinois to enable these unlawful and unconstitutional assaults on Chicagoland residents.
In October alone, DHS personnel have shot two people and publicly advanced self-serving narratives that were immediately contradicted by body camera and surveillance footage, handcuffed an Alderperson at a hospital checking on the welfare of a constituent being detained by ICE, indiscriminately deployed tear gas in front of a public school and against civilians and local law enforcement, placed a handcuffed man on the ground in a chokehold, shot a pastor in the head with a pepper ball, thrown flashbang grenades at civilians, and raided an entire apartment complex and reportedly zip-tied U.S. citizens, children, and military veterans for hours.
In a letter addressed to Trump, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, and Acting Director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement Todd Lyons, the 18 Democratic members of the committee, including Rep. Jesús “Chuy” García, who represents the Chicagoland district, said, "The Administration claims the mantle of law and order, yet its actions in the Chicagoland
area demonstrate it is a catalyst for lawlessness and dysfunction."
"Violently abusing residents, kidnapping parents and children and disappearing them into detention facilities without access to basic necessities, and illegally deploying the militaryagainst a great American city," the letter continues, "does nothing to make anyone safer—in fact, it jeopardizes the safety and well-being of every community members."
Demanding a halt to the attacks by federal agents in Chicago, the lawmakers said "[t]he American people want a common- sense approach to public safety and immigration, not violent tactics that traumatize and destabilize communities. They want leadership, not theater. We urge you to step back from the brink and use your positions to enhance public safety, instead of undermining it."
Oct 17, 2025
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'Wow': Observers Surprised After Dem Moderate Rejects AIPAC Cash
A centrist Democratic lawmaker on Thursday surprised many political observers when he announced he would be returning donations he'd received from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.), who is running a primary challenge against Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), said that he was rejecting donations from AIPAC because it had aligned itself too closely with the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who last year was accused of committing crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court.
"I'm a friend of Israel, but not of its current government, and AIPAC's mission is to back that government," Moulton said in a social media post. "I don't support that direction."
As flagged by New York Times reporter Annie Karni, Moulton is now the fourth Democratic lawmaker who once received heavy support from AIPAC to reject their donations, following Reps. Morgan McGarvey (D-Ky.), Deborah Ross (D-NC), and Valerie Foushee (D-NC).
Hamid Bendaas, communications director for the Institute for Middle East Understanding Policy Project, observed in a post on X that Moulton appeared to be ignoring advice given by a prominent Democratic consultant over the summer to not focus on the Israel-Palestine conflict because polls showed it wasn't important to voters.
Dylan Williams, the vice president for government affairs at the Center for International Policy, argued that Moulton's rejection of AIPAC cash showed how far the organization's reputation with the electorate has fallen over the past several years.
"AIPAC is now so toxic to Democratic voters that support from it is widely seen as a political liability," he wrote. "The NRA-ization of AIPAC is nearly complete."
Ishaan Tharoor, a Washington Post global affairs columnist, also reflected on how much AIPAC's brand has been damaged over the last two years of war in Gaza, which has resulted in the deaths of at least 68,000 Palestinians.
"There was a time when people would refer to AIPAC as the gold standard in lobbying," he wrote. "So many in India and the Indian diaspora have talked about a future 'Indian AIPAC' one day influencing US politics in similar fashion. But AIPAC's brand is increasingly, perhaps irredeemably toxic."
Journalist Ryan Grim had a one-word reaction to Moulton's rejection of AIPAC cash: "Wow."
Oct 16, 2025
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Under Pressure From Trump, UN Shipping Regulator Delays Vote on Net-Zero Rules
“With climate warming impacts being felt everywhere on Earth, kicking this decision down the road is simply evading reality," says one campaigner.
Oct 17, 2025
Advocates of establishing an international framework for decarbonizing global shipping on Friday decried a postponed vote on proposed rules—a move that came amid pressure from the administration of US President Donald Trump and Saudi Arabia.
Members of the United Nations International Maritime Organization's (IMO) Marine Environment Protection Committee gathered in London for a special meeting, MEPC 83, to vote on its Net-Zero Framework (NZF), a new set of global regulations aimed at slashing the shipping industry's greenhouse gas emissions.
A Saudi proposal to adjourn the meeting and delay a final decision on the NZF narrowly passed by a vote of 57-49, with 21 abstentions, Mongabay reported.
The NZF—whose goal is net-zero shipping by 2050—has two main interconnected components, a global fuel standard requiring ships to gradually reduce emissions, and a pricing mechanism meant to encourage the industry to voluntarily slash greenhouse gas output.
"The delay leaves the shipping sector drifting in uncertainty."
The NZF was approved at the last MEPC meeting in April, then shared with member nations for review, with an eye toward final assent during the current special meeting. However, while the European Union and nations including China and Brazil have been pushing for the NZF, the world's two largest oil producers—the United States and Saudi Arabia—are working to scupper the proposal, which Russia also opposes.
Trump took to his Truth Social network Thursday to pressure MEPC members to vote "no" on the NZF:
I am outraged that the International Maritime Organization is voting in London this week to pass a global Carbon Tax. The United States will NOT stand for this Global Green New Scam Tax on Shipping, and will not adhere to it in any way, shape, or form. We will not tolerate increased prices on American Consumers OR, the creation of a Green New Scam Bureaucracy to spend YOUR money on their Green dreams. Stand with the United States, and vote NO in London tomorrow!
The one-year postponement drew sharp rebuke from supporters of the NZF.
“We are disappointed that member states have not been able to agree a way forward at this meeting," International Chamber of Shipping secretary general Thomas Kazakos said following Friday's vote. "Industry needs clarity to be able to make the investments needed to decarbonize the maritime sector, in line with the goals set out in the IMO [greenhouse gas] strategy."
"As an industry we will continue to work with the IMO, which is the best organization to deliver the global regulations needed for a global industry," Kazakos added.
John Maggs, who represents the Clean Shipping Coalition at the IMO, said in a statement, “By delaying adoption of its Net-Zero Framework, IMO has today squandered an important opportunity to tackle global shipping’s contribution to climate breakdown."
“With climate warming impacts being felt everywhere on Earth, kicking this decision down the road is simply evading reality," he added. "Governments serious about climate action must spend the next 12 months rallying every nation that supports the framework, convincing those who are on the fence, or opposing, that its adoption is the only sane way forward.”
Elissama Menezes, co-founder and director of the advocacy organization Equal Routes, said: "Delay costs the climate—and coastal Indigenous peoples and Arctic communities are already paying the price for inaction. This week’s non-outcome should mean that states and the marine sector should double down on related efforts to reduce the impacts from the triple planetary crisis.”
Faig Abbasov, director of shipping at the green group Transport & Environment, told Reuters that "the delay leaves the shipping sector drifting in uncertainty."
Global shipping accounts for approximately 3% of the world's CO2 emissions. Approximately 90% of all international trade is conducted at sea, and proponents of the NZF warn that emissions will soar without the regulations.
While leading shipping companies including Maersk and CMA CGM have taken steps to transition their fleets to zero emission vessels, they are still falling short of the goals laid out in the landmark Paris climate agreement or even the IMO’s own 2023 emissions reduction strategy.
”However, all is not lost—not by a long shot," said Maggs, "as there is an immediate opportunity to slash [greenhouse gas] emissions from shipping, minimize fuel burn, and the overall cost of the energy transition, and that is to strengthen and make enforceable the carbon intensity indicator (CII), the IMO’s cornerstone energy efficiency measure."
CII is a shipping industry regulatory metric that measures a vessel's annual carbon intensity.
“There’s no time to waste," Maggs added. "At MEPC 84 in April 2026 member states need to focus all their attention on transforming the CII into the energy efficiency powerhouse needed to quickly right this ship and put it back on route to being a climate solution.”
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Pro-Democracy Americans Gear Up for 'No Kings' Day Nationwide
"Don’t miss this chance to be part of the largest expression of free speech we’ve ever had," said progressive filmmaker Michael Moore.
Oct 17, 2025
Organizers are expecting Saturday's nationwide "No Kings" rallies to be among the largest single-day demonstrations in US history, and many activists and politicians on Friday sent messages of encouragement to demonstrators.
Leah Greenberg, the co-founder and co-president of Indivisible, which is one of the main organizers of the demonstrations, told Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! on Friday that she and her group are "engaging in the most American activity in the world, which is coming together in peaceful protest of our government."
Greenberg then addressed attacks from President Donald Trump and other Republican lawmakers over the last week that the "No Kings" events were a "hate America" rally.
"This is a classic exercise of the authoritarian playbook, to try to create fear, to try to threaten, to try to make people back off preemptively," she said. "We're not going to do that... we won't be cowed."
Former US Labor Secretary Robert Reich also hit back at GOP claims that the "No Kings" rallies were anti-American, and he argued that the people attending them will be doing so out of a deep sense of patriotism.
"We’re rallying tomorrow because we LOVE America," he wrote in a post on X. "It's an opportunity for all of us who love this country to express our determination that our nation’s ideals not be crushed by the Trump regime."
Progressive filmmaker Michael Moore encouraged his supporters to take part in Saturday's demonstrations, and he wrote on his personal Substack it was of the utmost importance for Americans to make their voices heard in the face of authoritarian threats from the Trump administration.
"Don’t miss this chance to be part of the largest expression of free speech we’ve ever had," he said. "Time has run out. One year from now, don’t find yourself wishing you had done something. Said something. This is our last chance, the final moment to stop the madness. I implore you to join us."
Several Democratic politicians also expressed support for the demonstrations.
Rep. Pat Ryan (D-NY) blasted Trump and the GOP for attacking the patriotism of the "No Kings" protesters.
"I'll be damned if I'm gonna let the Draftdodger-in-Chief tell me what a patriot is," he wrote in a social media post. "We're STANDING UP, SPEAKING OUT, and FIGHTING BACK. No Kings in America. See you Saturday."
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) sent out a video message expressing solidarity with Chicago and Portland, Oregon, two cities in which Trump has tried to deploy National Guard soldiers, and let them know that they fighting against authoritarianism by themselves.
"The people everywhere are standing up, in all 50 states and thousands of towns and cities across America," he said. "We have no kings here, no crowns, no thrones."
A Message for No Kings Weekend: The millions rallying across the country love America and are defending it with joy, wit, defiance and courage. Everyone who stands with us now will win the affection and gratitude of people for all time. pic.twitter.com/xmHD5MjTpm
— Jamie Raskin (@jamie_raskin) October 17, 2025
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) accused Trump and Republicans of waging a campaign of intimidation aimed at frightening Americans out of exercising their rights to peacefully demonstrate.
"The Republicans' attacks on the No Kings protests are sickening," he wrote in a post on Bluesky. "To them, only pro-Trump speech is protected. If you oppose Trump, you 'hate America' or you're a 'terrorist.' What they're trying to do is simple: suppress turnout this weekend. Don't let them win."
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Russell Vought Shuts Down Another $11 Billion Worth of Projects in Blue Cities
The administration had already paused more than $28 billion worth of infrastructure funding, virtually all to Democratic congressional districts.
Oct 17, 2025
Russell Vought, the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget announced Friday that he would cut another $11 billion from federal projects in blue cities.
"The Democrat shutdown has drained the Army Corps of Engineers' ability to manage billions of dollars in projects," Vought wrote on social media. "The Corps will be immediately pausing over $11 billion in lower-priority projects and considering them for cancellation, including projects in New York, San Francisco, Boston, and Baltimore."
Vought's post did not specify which projects would be halted, stating that more information would be "soon to come" from the Army Corps of Engineers. Many of the Corps' major projects involve infrastructure and water maintenance, as well as environmental restoration and cleanup efforts.
As the government shutdown enters its third week, the Trump administration has plainly stated its goal of using it to punish Democrats and liberal cities. On Tuesday, the New York Times reported that of the more than $28 billion worth of projects frozen during the shutdown, $27.24 billion of it has come from Democratic-leaning congressional districts.
Among those frozen funds are $18 billion for infrastructure projects in New York City, including the Hudson River Tunnel and Second Avenue Subway, and $8 billion slated for climate-related projects exclusively in blue states.
Vought, an architect of the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 agenda, has also been in charge of President Donald Trump's efforts to use the shutdown to carry out mass layoffs of federal workers. A federal judge halted that effort Wednesday, describing it as "both illegal and in excess of authority and... arbitrary and capricious." Prior to the ruling, Trump had said that those laid off by his administration were "gonna be Democrats.”
This is not the first time the administration has used the Army Corps of Engineers as a political tool. As Aidan Quigley, a reporter for Roll Call, noted on social media, it "has been prioritizing red states over blue states for Army Corps of Engineers projects under the current continuing resolution."
He reported that in the 2025 full-fiscal year stopgap spending law signed in March, "nearly two-thirds of Army Corps of Engineers construction funding is going to red states, a sizable shift from former President Joe Biden’s final budget request and the initial fiscal 2025 House and Senate Energy-Water appropriations bills, which were all closer to an even split."
The report noted that "funding for projects in California, which would have received over $125 million in Biden’s budget request and both chambers’ appropriations bills, has been zeroed out under the new corps work plan."
Brendan Duke, the senior director for federal budget policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, pointed out that the Trump administration's shutdown plan published last month stated that the Corps' projects would not be affected by the shutdown because 97% of their funding does not come from annual appropriations.
"Why on Earth would any projects need to be paused, much less considered for cancellation?" he asked.
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