LIVE COVERAGE
Garbage: Racist Shits 'R Us
Improbably, the White-Nationalist-In-Chief still plunges to lower, ranker, more nakedly racist depths as he tries to deflect from his failings, lies, naps and crimes. The fake Peace President’s ugly apogee, topping murders at sea, banning migrants “non-compatible with Western Civilization,” siccing ICE dogs on innocents et al: His vicious invective against Somalis as “garbage” while his Stepford bigots stand silent before it all, complicity unbound. Ferris Bueller's hapless teacher: "Anyone? Anyone?"
Obviously the mild cluelessness of blank students facing Ben Stein's teacher in Ferris Bueller's Day Off pales before the toxic spectacle of a blithering, execrable fascist stirring up gutter-level hatred as he spews "possibly the most openly racist shit any US president has ever been caught saying." The dissonance of the furious bigotry erupting from an alleged national leader - its vitriol, animus, beyond-the-pale crudeness, the eerie silence into which it falls - also prompts a jarring, queasy sense of, "what the fuck is wrong with this picture?" even as it comes from a ghastly human whose most longstanding, foundational tenet is brutish racism (plus greed), going back to his KKK father, his deadly hatred for the Central Park Five, his snarling claim all Mexicans are criminals and rapists.
In his ongoing "shitification of American politics," there's always, obviously much more. There's blithering, gaslighting, verbal incontinence: "Affordability is a con job, a hoax started by Democrats." Self-serving grandiosity: "The Ukraine war never would have happened if I'd been president." Outlandish fantasy: "They're finding money in our country now they never knew existed. The other day - $30 billion. Where did it come from? I said, 'Why don't you check the tariffs shelf?' They call back: Sir, you're right.'" (America: "Of all the things that didn’t happen, this didn’t happen the most.") Cult worship: The National Park Service has removed MLK Jr. Day and Juneteenth from their free admission days, replacing them with Dear Leader's birthday; he'll be 12 next year.
In further Stalinesque self-glorification - and in the first time a living (sort of) president (ditto) named a building for himself while in office - months after DOGE tried to illegally seize control of the U.S. Institute of Peace, a non-profit think tank for international conflict resolution, the building has re-emerged with massive silver letters as the Donald J. Trump U.S Institute of Peace. A White House spokesbot, lauding straight-faced the what is it now 38? wars he's ended, declared, "Congratulations, world!" The world, noting the Orwellian renaming of an institute created in 1984, helpfully if hopelessly pointed out that Orwell's dark masterwork "was supposed to be a cautionary tale, not an instruction manual," but here we are.
Other atrocities proliferate. The report Trump’s military occupation of U.S. cities has cost over $473 million - from $270 million in D.C and $172 million in L.A. to $13 million in Chicago - even as he cut more than $1 trillion from vital domestic services. The fact that both of the DOJ's wildly unqualified, illegally appointed partisan hacks/pretend acting U.S. attorneys Alina Habba and Lindsey Halligan still claim to hold their non-existent positions. The fact that, after boasting about rolling back food stamps and her "gratitude and joy for this work," USDA Sec. Brooke Rollins is still "hellbent on people going hungry" in blue states. Passage of Texas' racist redistricting coup - "Let's talk about cowardice" - and the White House's icky Daddy's Home holidays meme.
And everything "no stupid rules of engagement" dunk-tank clown Pete Hegseth does: The Signalgate report that his massive security leak "risked endangering U.S. military personnel," which he somehow turned into, “Total exoneration." His slimy, shifting narratives - the Pentagon has no idea who's on board vs. they're all on a secret list of military targets - for 48 minutes of murderous video showing "what it looks like when the full force of the United States military is turned on two guys clinging to a tiny piece of wood and about to go under," aka, "a shooting gallery with helpless targets" which is clearly either a war crime or murder - plain and simple,” both impeachable, though Megyn Kelly would've preferred "they lose a limb and bleed out a little."
Still, with sinking polls, rising prices, Epstein lurking, a tragic D.C shooting to open the floodgates and billions for ICE's jackbooted thugs, the splenetic racism from a presidential bully pulpit is paramount, a timeless scapegoating ploy now at "absolutely unique" levels of depravity. "It all started with Barack Hussein Obama," he raved, before attacking Somalis who have "nothing" to do with the shooting or anything else. America will "go the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage," "They have destroyed our country," "Ilhan Omar is "garbage," "her friends are garbage," Somalia "is just people walking around killing each other," "they come from hell and do nothing but bitch," "their country stinks," "we don’t want them," "Minnesota is a hellhole right now," ”Let them go back to where they came from." And, evil one, may you too. Oh please.
His on-camera racistmania was dutifully lapped up, first by the obsequious (seated) members of his creepy circle jerk, then by the obsequious (standing) minions - blinding white, stiffly smiling, hands clutched, tongues tied - performatively gathered for his "supine authoritarian MAGA messaging...a barely coded cry of 'Everybody into the pool!' for a supporting cast of racist demagogues." One by one, they obeyed. J.D. banged on the table to lay the blame where it belonged: "Why did homes get so unaffordable? Because we had 20 million illegal aliens taking homes that ought by right to go to American citizens." Marco Rubio, in some insane optics - try watching without sound - feverishly genuflected to the peace president, sitting next to him, dozing off.
ICE Barbie thanked him for having "kept the hurricanes away" and "saved hundreds of millions of lives with the cocaine you’ve blown up in the Caribbean"; she urged a travel ban on "every damn country that’s been flooding our nation with killers, leeches, and entitlement junkies" - but not those getting free jets - who "slaughter our heroes, suck dry our hard-earned tax dollars, or snatch benefits (from) AMERICANS. We don't want them." Whew. She flamboyantly echoes both Stephen Goebbel's Nazi rhetoric and Trump's calls for stripping citizenship, blocking all refugees - except sad white Afrikaners - from a vague list of “third world countries,” aka brown and black, "non-compatible with Western Civilization" - an illegal move that def turns the racism up to 11. Manifesting "cultishness off the charts," Press Barbie celebrated all this as "amazing" and "epic."For Minnesota's Somali community of up to 80,000, the largest in the country, it is "extraordinarily harmful." Already tense in the wake of an alleged $250 million fraud scandal involving federal nutrition aid and two non-profits - both run by white people but involving dozens of Somalis - pressure from the new racist surge feels "inescapable...The volcano has erupted." Though many are U.S. citizens, and Minneapolis' police chief has told officers they'll be fired if they don't stop illegal force by ICE goons, people are afraid to go to work, to school, to Friday prayers, especially in Somali-dense areas like "Little Mogadishu" and the Karmel Mall. "We know authoritarianism," said a Somali city council member, and with it the potency of racism and nativism. After Haitians eating pets, he said, "It's just the next iteration."
Meanwhile, ugly ripples ooze from Trump's rhetoric. ICE thugs keep thugging, though most of their victims have no criminal record and some are U.S. citizens. They've sicced dogs on people, resulting in horrific injuries and reviving MAGA's sick "good old days." They have a cruel new plan dubbed "Operation Irish Goodbye" to arrest those already self-deporting, and they're canceling citizenship ceremonies for people from the "wrong" countries. A 2025 blood-and-soil US National Security Strategy touts great replacement theory, warns Europe it faces "civilizational erasure" by migrants of color, supports their fascist groups, rejects our allies for Russia, imagines a "Crusader-style reconquest (of) Europe by the white right." He just trashed a "decaying" Europe with "weak" leaders, 'cause brown people. A Wisconsin worker was fired and went viral for calling a Somali couple "niggers"; fellow racists raised $100,000 for her, echoing "garbage" slurs.
Despite outrage about his murders at sea, Dunk-tank Pete killed four more brown people, bragged about it, insisted Trump can kill "as he sees fit" and gave a speech with ominous shock-and-awe echoes declariring "narco-terrorists are the al-Qaida of our hemisphere (and) we will keep killing them." Then the most petty, hateful person on the planet - spite-revoking a pardon?! - giddily accepted a hideous, made-up, Happy Meal, savagely mocked FIFA Peace Prize and medal - the “Trump dance! the Village People! - to appease his no-Nobel ego because "if you show up with a tchotchke (and) give it to the three-year-old in the Oval Office, he will (be) happy." Gavin Newsom got the Kennedy Center Peace Prize: “AUDIENCE WAS AMAZING (CHAIRS NOT GREAT)...CROWD WENT WILD."The View gave out medals too: "You get a medal! And you get a medal!" Okay, all medaled up. Now can he go home?

62,000 African Penguins Starving to Death Highlights Humanity-Driven Extinction Crisis
A study published this week about tens of thousands of starving African penguins is highlighting what scientists warn is the planet's sixth mass extinction event, driven by human activity, and efforts to save as many species as possible.
Researchers from the South African Department of Forestry, Fisheries, and the Environment (DFFE), the United Kingdom's University of Exeter, and other institutions examined a pair of breeding colonies north of Cape Town, South Africa, and published their findings Thursday in Ostrich: Journal of African Ornithology.
"These two sites are two of the most important breeding colonies historically—holding around 25,000 (Dassen) and around 9,000 (Robben) breeding pairs in the early 2000s. As such, they are also the locations of long-term monitoring programs," said study co-author Azwianewi Makhado from the DFFE in a statement.
As the study explains: "African Penguins moult annually, coming ashore and fasting for 21 days, when they shed and replace all their feathers. Failure to fatten sufficiently to moult, or to regain condition afterwards, results in death."
The team found that "between 2004 and 2011, the sardine stock off west South Africa was consistently below 25% of its peak abundance, and this appears to have caused severe food shortage for African penguins, leading to an estimated loss of about 62,000 breeding individuals," said co-author and Exeter associate professor Richard Sherley.
The paper notes that "although some adults moulted at a colony to the southeast, where food may have been more plentiful, much of the mortality likely resulted from failure of birds to fatten sufficiently to moult. The fishery exploitation rate of sardines west of Cape Agulhas was consistently above 20% between 2005 and 2010."
Sherley said that "high sardine exploitation rates—that briefly reached 80% in 2006—in a period when sardine was declining because of environmental changes likely worsened penguin mortality."
Humanity's reliance on fossil fuels is warming ocean water and impacting how salty it is. For the penguins' prey, said Sherley, "changes in the temperature and salinity of the spawning areas off the west and south coasts of South Africa made spawning in the historically important west coast spawning areas less successful, and spawning off the south coast more successful."
The researcher also stressed that "these declines are mirrored elsewhere," pointing out that the species' global population has dropped nearly 80% in the last three decades. With fewer than 10,000 breeding pairs left, the African penguin was uplisted to "critically endangered" on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species last year.
Sherley told Mongabay at the time that the IUCN update "highlights a much bigger problem with the health of our environment."
"Despite being well-known and studied, these penguins are still facing extinction, showing just how severe the damage to our ecosystems has become," he said. "If a species as iconic as the African penguin is struggling to survive, it raises the question of how many other species are disappearing without us even noticing. We need to act now—not just for penguins, but to protect the broader biodiversity that is crucial for the planet's future."
Looks like the combined effects of climate change and over fishing are key factors in decimating the populations of these penguins.www.washingtonpost.com/climate-envi...
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— Margot Hodson (@margothodson.bsky.social) December 5, 2025 at 4:46 AM
Fearful that the iconic penguin species could be extinct within a decade, the conservation organizations BirdLife South Africa and the Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds (SANCCOB) last year pursued a first-of-its-kind legal battle in the country, resulting in a settlement with the commercial fishing sector and DFFE.
The settlement, reached just days before a planned court hearing this past March, led to no-go zones for the commercial anchovy and sardine fishing vessels around six penguin breeding colonies: Stony Point, as well as Bird, Dassen, Dyer, Robben, and St. Croix islands.
"The threats facing the African penguin are complex and ongoing—and the order itself requires monitoring, enforcement, and continued cooperation from industry and the government processes which monitor and allocate sardine and anchovy populations for commercial purposes," Nicky Stander, head of conservation at SANCCOB, said in March.
The study also acknowledges hopes that "the revised closures—which will operate year-round until at least 2033—will decrease mortality of African penguins and improve their breeding success at the six colonies around which they have been implemented."
"However," it adds, "in the face of the ongoing impact of climate change on the abundance and distribution of their key prey, other interventions are likely to be needed."
Lorien Pichegru, a marine biology professor at South Africa's Nelson Mandela University who was not involved in the study, called the findings "extremely concerning" and warned the Guardian that the low fish numbers require urgent action "not only for African penguins but also for other endemic species depending on these stocks."
Critics Warn of ‘Catastrophic’ Threat If Netflix Acquires Warner Bros.
Netflix announced a deal Friday to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery’s film studio and streaming business for $83 billion, a merger that—if approved by the Trump administration—would create a media behemoth that critics say threatens industry competition, higher costs for consumers, the rights of entertainment workers, and democracy.
Netflix, the largest streaming company in the world, and Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD), owner of the third-largest streaming platform HBO Max, unveiled the proposed agreement after a closely watched bidding war that included Paramount Skydance, the company that the Trump administration reportedly favored to acquire WBD. Paramount is owned by David Ellison, the son of billionaire Republican megadonor Larry Ellison—a close ally of President Donald Trump.
David Ellison reportedly met with Trump administration officials on Thursday to "press his case" against Netflix's pending acquisition of WBD. An unnamed senior official told CNBC on Friday that the Trump administration is treating the Netflix-WBD deal with "heavy skepticism."
While some expressed relief that Paramount appears—at least for now—to have lost the bid for Warner Bros., antitrust advocates argued such a view overlooks the much broader and more serious threat of corporate consolidation.
"Does anyone think Netflix won’t do what Trump wants to get their deal through?" asked Matt Stoller, director of research at the American Economic Liberties Project. "The threat to democracy isn’t the Ellisons, it’s media consolidation."
The American Prospect's David Dayen expressed a similar sentiment, writing on social media: "Keeping WBD out of Paramount's hands is good. Putting it in Netflix's is still unlawful consolidation though. This is the #1 streamer merging with #3. State enforcers should speak up."
"If we don’t speak now, we may have no industry—and no democracy—left to defend."
In a newsletter post following news of the merger agreement, Stoller argued the Netflix-WBD deal is plainly illegal under the Clayton Antitrust Act and "a recipe for monopolization."
"The ideal scenario now is a trial that puts the secrets of Hollywood executives and financiers on display, and crushes the financiers who think mergers are the only move in business," Stoller wrote. "Then Hollywood can get back to the business of making good TV shows and movies."
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said that "this deal looks like an anti-monopoly nightmare."
"A Netflix-Warner Bros. would create one massive media giant with control of close to half of the streaming market," said Warren. "It could force you into higher prices, fewer choices over what and how you watch, and may put American workers at risk."
"Under Donald Trump, the antitrust review process has also become a cesspool of political favoritism and corruption," the senator continued. "The Justice Department must enforce our nation’s anti-monopoly laws fairly and transparently—not use the Warner Bros. deal review to invite influence-peddling and bribery."
Ahead of the announcement, major figures in the entertainment industry sounded alarm over the possibility of a Netflix takeover of WBD. In a letter to members of Congress on Thursday, a group of film producers warned that Neflix would "effectively hold a noose around the theatrical marketplace" if it acquired WBD.
The Writers’ Guild of America, which represents film and TV writers, has said it would oppose WBD merging with any "major studio or streamer," warning it "would be a disaster for writers, for consumers, and for competition."
"Merger after merger in the media industry has harmed workers, diminished competition and free speech, and wasted hundreds of billions of dollars better invested in organic growth," the union said in a recent statement.
Jane Fonda, the renowned actress and activist, wrote Thursday that "the threat of this merger in any form is an alarming escalation in a consolidation crisis that threatens the entire entertainment industry, the public it serves, and—potentially—the First Amendment itself."
"Consolidation at this scale would be catastrophic for an industry built on free expression, for the creative workers who power it, and for consumers who depend on a free, independent media ecosystem to understand the world," Fonda wrote. "It will mean fewer jobs, fewer opportunities to sell work, fewer creative risks, fewer news sources, and far less diversity in the stories Americans get to hear."
"If we don’t speak now, we may have no industry—and no democracy—left to defend," she added.
Watchdog Denounces Trump AI Order Seen as Giveaway to Big Tech Billionaire Buddies Like David Sacks
President Donald Trump is drawing swift criticism after announcing he would be signing an executive order aimed at clamping down on state governments' powers to regulate the artificial intelligence industry.
In a Monday morning Truth Social post, Trump said that the order was needed to prevent a fragmented regulatory landscape for AI companies.
"We are beating ALL COUNTRIES at this point in the race, but that won’t last long if we are going to have 50 States, many of them bad actors, involved in RULES and the APPROVAL PROCESS," the president wrote. "THERE CAN BE NO DOUBT ABOUT THIS! AI WILL BE DESTROYED IN ITS INFANCY! I will be doing a ONE RULE Executive Order this week. You can’t expect a company to get 50 Approvals every time they want to do something."
Although specifics on the Trump AI executive order are not yet known, a draft order that has been circulating in recent weeks would instruct the US Department of Justice to file lawsuits against states that pass AI-related regulations with the ultimate goal of overturning them.
Emily Peterson-Cassin, policy director at watchdog Demand Progress, slammed Trump over the looming AI order, which she said was a giveaway to big tech industry billionaire backers such as David Sacks, a major Trump donor who currently serves as the administration's czar on AI and cryptocurrency.
"David Sacks and Big Tech want free rein to use our children as lab rats for AI experiments and President Trump keeps trying to give it to them," she said. "Right now, state laws are our best defense against AI chatbots that have sexual conversations with kids and even encourage them to harm themselves, deepfake revenge porn, and half-baked algorithms that make decisions about our employment and health care."
Peterson-Cassin went on to say that blocking state-level regulations of AI "only makes sense if the president’s goal is to please the Big Tech elites who helped pay for his campaign, his inauguration and his ballroom."
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) also accused Trump of selling out Americans to do the bidding of Silicon Valley oligarchs.
"This is a direct ask from Big Tech lobbyists (who also donated millions to Trump’s campaign and ballroom) who only care about their own profits, not our safety," Jayapal wrote in a social media post. "States must be able to regulate AI to protect Americans."
Some critics of the Trump AI order questioned whether it had any legal weight behind it. Travis Hall, the director for state engagement at the Center for Democracy and Technology, told the New York Times that Trump's order should not hinder state governments from passing and enforcing AI industry regulations going forward.
“The president cannot pre-empt state laws through an executive order, full stop,” Hall argued. “Pre-emption is a question for Congress, which they have considered and rejected, and should continue to reject.”
Matthew Stoller, an antitrust advocate and researcher at the American Economic Liberties Project, also expressed doubt that Trump's order would be effective at blocking state AI regulations.
"Trump can issue an executive order mandating it rain today, it doesn't really matter though," said Stoller.
Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) predicted the Trump order would be repeatedly struck down in courts.
"Trump’s one rule executive order on AI will fail," Lieu posted on social media. "Executive orders cannot create law. Only Congress can do so. That’s why Trump tried twice (and failed) to put AI preemption into law. Courts will rule against the EO because it will largely be based on a bill that failed."
Billionaire Palantir Co-Founder Pushes Return of Public Hangings as Part of 'Masculine Leadership' Initiative
Venture capitalist Joe Lonsdale, a co-founder of data platform company Palantir, is calling for the return of public hangings as part of a broader push to restore what he describes as "masculine leadership" to the US.
In a statement posted on X Friday, Lonsdale said that he supported changing the so-called "three strikes" anti-crime law to ensure that anyone who is convicted of three violent crimes gets publicly executed, rather than simply sent to prison for life.
"If I’m in charge later, we won’t just have a three strikes law," he wrote. "We will quickly try and hang men after three violent crimes. And yes, we will do it in public to deter others."
Lonsdale then added that "our society needs balance," and said that "it's time to bring back masculine leadership to protect our most vulnerable."
Lonsdale's views on public hangings being necessary to restore "masculine leadership" drew swift criticism.
Gil Durán, a journalist who documents the increasingly authoritarian politics of Silicon Valley in his newsletter "The Nerd Reich," argued in a Saturday post that Lonsdale's call for public hangings showed that US tech elites are "entering a more dangerous and desperate phase of radicalization."
"For months, Peter Thiel guru Curtis Yarvin has been squawking about the need for more severe measures to cement Trump's authoritarian rule," Durán explained. "Peter Thiel is ranting about the Antichrist in a global tour. And now Lonsdale—a Thiel protégé—is fantasizing about a future in which he will have the power to unleash state violence at mass scale."
Taulby Edmondson, an adjunct professor of history, religion, and culture at Virginia Tech, wrote in a post on Bluesky that the rhetoric Lonsdale uses to justify the return of public hangings has even darker intonations than calls for state-backed violence.
"A point of nuance here: 'masculine leadership to protect our most vulnerable' is how lynch mobs are described, not state-sanctioned executions," he observed.
Theoretical physicist Sean Carroll argued that Lonsdale's remarks were symbolic of a kind of performative masculinity that has infected US culture.
"Immaturity masquerading as strength is the defining personal characteristic of our age," he wrote.
Tech entrepreneur Anil Dash warned Lonsdale that his call for public hangings could have unintended consequences for members of the Silicon Valley elite.
"Well, Joe, Mark Zuckerberg has sole control over Facebook, which directly enabled the Rohingya genocide," he wrote. "So let’s have the conversation."
And Columbia Journalism School professor Bill Grueskin noted that Lonsdale has been a major backer of the University of Austin, an unaccredited liberal arts college that has been pitched as an alternative to left-wing university education with the goal of preparing "thoughtful and ethical innovators, builders, leaders, public servants and citizens through open inquiry and civil discourse."
Trump Envoy Ripped for Claim That 'Benevolent Monarchy' Is Best for Middle East
Tom Barrack, President Donald Trump's ambassador to Turkey and special envoy for Syria, faced backlash Monday after arguing that US-backed Middle Eastern monarchies—most of which are ruled by prolific human rights violators—offer the best model for governing nations in the tumultuous region.
Speaking at the Doha Forum in Qatar on Sunday, Barrack, who is also a billionaire real estate investor, cautioned against trying to impose democratic governance on the Middle East, noting that efforts to do so—sometimes by war or other military action—have failed.
“Every time we intervene, whether it's in Libya, Iraq, or any of the other places where we've tried to create a colonized mandate, it has not been successful," he said. "We end up with paralysis."
"I don’t see a democracy," Barrack said of the Middle East. "Israel can claim to be a democracy, but in this region, whether you like it or not, what has worked best is, in fact, a benevolent monarchy."
Addressing Syria's yearlong transition from longtime authoritarian rule under the Assad dynasty, Barrack added that the Syrian people must determine their political path "without going in with Western expectations of, 'We want a democracy in 12 months.'"
While Barrack's rejection of efforts to force democracy upon Middle Eastern countries drew praise, some Israelis bristled at what they claimed is the suggestion that their country is not a democracy, while other observers pushed back on the envoy's assertion regarding regional monarchies and use of what one Palestinian digital media platform called "classic colonial rhetoric."
"The reality on the ground is the opposite of his claim: It is the absence of democratic rights, accountable governance, and inclusive federal structures that has fueled Syria’s fragmentation, empowered militias, and pushed communities toward separatism," Syrian Kurdish journalist Ronahi Hasan said on social media.
Ronahi continued:
When an American official undermines the universal principles the US itself claims to defend, it sends a dangerous message: that Syrians do not deserve the same political rights as others and that minority communities should simply accept centralized authoritarianism as their fate.
Syria doesn’t need another foreign lecture romanticizing monarchy. It needs a political system that protects all its people—Druze, Alawite, Kurdish, Sunni, Christian—through genuine power-sharing, decentralization, and guarantees of equality.
"Federalism is not the problem," Ronahi added. "The problem is denying Syrians the right to shape their own future."
Abdirizak Mohamed, a lawmaker and former foreign minister in Somalia, said on social media: "Tom Barrack made public what is already known. The US labels dictators and monarchies benevolent when their behavior is aligned with US interest, and when their behavior isn’t aligned with US interest they are despots. Labeling dictators benevolent is [an] oxymoron that shows US hypocrisy."
For nearly a century, the US has supported Middle Eastern monarchies as successive administrations sought to gain and maintain control over the region's vast oil resources. This has often meant propping up monarchs in countries such as Saudi Arabia, Iran (before 1979), the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Qatar—regardless of their often horrific human rights records.
While nothing new in terms of US policy and practice in the region, the Trump administration's recently published National Security Strategy prioritizes "flexible realism" over human rights and democracy and uses more candid language than past presidents have in explaining Washington's support for repressive monarchs.
"The [US] State Department will likely need to clarify whether Barrack’s comments represent official policy or personal opinion," argued an editorial in Middle East 24. "Regardless, his words have exposed an uncomfortable truth about US foreign policy in the Middle East: the persistent gap between democratic ideals and strategic realities."
"Perhaps the most troubling aspect of this episode is what it reveals about American confidence in its own values," the editorial added. "If US diplomats no longer believe democracy can work in challenging environments, what does this say about America’s faith in the universal appeal of its founding principles?"
Hakeem Jeffries Pilloried for Putting Pro-Industry Democrats on AI Policy Task Force, Despite Voter Distrust of Big Tech
"This is the most populist moment of voter rage I've ever seen, and the leading Democrats are absolutely hostile to the idea of doing anything to address Silicon Valley's massive power," said one anti-monopoly expert.
At a time when the American public, and especially Democratic voters, express overwhelming distrust of artificial intelligence and Big Tech, the top House Democrat is being accused of failing to meet the moment.
On Tuesday, in preparation for an executive order to be signed this week by President Donald Trump, which would seek to block states from implementing new AI regulations, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) unveiled his own effort to cozy up to the industry, whose major players have set aside more than $200 million to push out anti-AI politicians during the 2026 midterms, according to the New York Times.
Jeffries announced the creation of a “House Democratic Commission on AI and the Innovation Economy,” which will “develop policy expertise in partnership with the innovation community, relevant stakeholders, and committees of jurisdiction.”
What immediately caught the eye of critics was the list of fellow Democrats Jeffries picked to serve on the commission. It will be co-chaired by Reps. Ted Lieu (Calif.), Josh Gottheimer (NJ), and Valerie Foushee (NC), with Reps. Zoe Lofgren (Calif.) and Frank Pallone (NJ) serving as ex officio co-chairs.
As Sludge reported Tuesday: "The panel’s leaders rank among the House Democrats with the deepest ties to Big Tech and AI, from holding millions of dollars in tech stock to the contributions they’ve raised for their campaigns and the Republican-backed deregulation bills they've signed onto."
In July, Gottheimer introduced a bill along with Rep. French Hill (R-Ark.) "that would require financial regulators to create 'AI Innovation Labs' where firms could experiment with AI-driven financial products under looser regulations and without the normal threats of enforcement actions."
Gottheimer is also a major stakeholder in Microsoft, which has invested tens of millions of dollars into AI and nearly $7.5 million on lobbying in 2025 so far. Beyond the almost $100,000 in contributions Gottheimer has received from Microsoft, he is also a former executive who received anywhere from $1 million to $5 million last year from his stock holdings in the company, according to financial disclosure forms. He also frequently trades in other AI power players like Amazon, Meta, and Dell.
Lofgren, meanwhile, has accepted more money from the Internet industry over the course of her career than all but one other current House Democrat—including $265,000 from Google, $115,000 from Apple, and $110,000 from Meta, according to data from OpenSecrets.
In September 2024, Lofgren co-sponsored a bill introduced by Rep. Jay Abernolte (R-Calif.) which "would create a federal 'center for AI advancement and reliability' that it would instruct to work closely with private companies and other stakeholders on developing 'voluntary best practices and technical standards for evaluating the reliability, robustness, resilience, security, and safety of artificial intelligence systems.'"
Foushee, a member of the corporate-backed New Democrat Coalition, rode to Congress in 2022 with more than $1 million from the Protect Our Future political action committee, which was backed by former FTX CEO and convicted fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried.
In response to Trump's industry-friendly "AI Action Plan" in July, Foushee and the New Democrats unveiled their own "Innovation Agenda," which called for federal tax credits to companies that "reskill" workers and perform private research and development as well as federal investments in apprenticeships and "labor market data modernization."
Jeffries has neglected to take a position on Trump's proposal to preempt state regulations. Last Monday, he told reporters, "That conversation hasn't been brought to the leadership level yet."
In his statement announcing the Democratic commission on Tuesday, Jeffries said, "It is important that American companies continue to thrive" in the arena of AI, while "at the same time, Congress must consider what policies are needed to prevent bad actors from exploiting this transformative technology and inflicting harm upon the American people." However, he did not specifically mention Trump's pending block on state regulations.
A poll released Friday by the progressive group Demand Progress showed that Americans across the political spectrum are unsettled by AI's influence in Washington: 68% of respondents overall said they were more worried that "the US government will not regulate artificial intelligence enough," as opposed to just 21% who feared too much regulation. While Democrats and independents were somewhat more concerned about underregulation at 71%, Republicans largely shared those fears, with 62% saying they feared the government would not regulate AI enough.
The consensus was even stronger regarding Big Tech's power over AI policy, with 78% of respondents overall saying it had too much influence. This included 81% of Democrats and independents and 74% of Republicans.
With this in mind, many critics were puzzled by Jeffries' decision to stack his AI commission with some of the industry's top allies.
As Aaron Regunberg wrote in the New Republic last month, harnessing anger against the rapid, largely unregulated expansion of expensive, energy-sucking AI data centers was an essential part of Democrats' victories across the board in November's off-year elections:
In New Jersey, Gov.-elect Mikie Sherrill’s closing argument was a pledge to freeze electricity rates, which have soared because of data-center demand.
In Virginia, Gov.-elect Abigail Spanberger won after pledging to make data centers “pay their own way,” and many Democrats went even further.
At least one candidate, John McAuliff, flipped a seat in the House of Delegates by focusing almost entirely on tying his Republican opponent to the “unchecked growth” of data centers, with an ad that asked, “Do you want more of these in your backyard?”
And in Georgia, Democrats won their first nonfederal statewide races in decades, earning 60% of the vote against two Republican members of the Public Service Commission by criticizing Big Tech “sweetheart deals” and campaigning for policies “to ensure that the communities that they’re extracting from” don’t end up with their “water supplies … tapped out or their energy … maxed out.”
"This is the most populist moment of voter rage I've ever seen, and the leading Democrats are absolutely hostile to the idea of doing anything to address Silicon Valley's massive power," said Matt Stoller, an anti-monopoly expert.
"Anticorruption is one of the strongest arguments with the broadest appeal in American politics right now, but the Democratic leadership simply refuses to stop tanking it," added Matt Duss, a former advisor to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).
"I have never seen a gulf this wide between Democratic leadership and the party writ large," said author Zachary D. Carter. "The top is corrupt, the base is raging against corruption."
'A Good Day for Our Democracy': Judge Orders Trump to End National Guard Deployment in LA
"For more than five months, the Trump administration has held California National Guard troops hostage as part of its political games," said California's attorney general. "But the president is not king."
In a win for Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom, state Attorney General Rob Bonta, and the residents of Los Angeles, a federal judge on Wednesday ordered President Donald Trump to stop deploying the National Guard in the nation's second-largest city.
"The founders designed our government to be a system of checks and balances," wrote US District Judge Charles Breyer, an appointee of former President Bill Clinton. "Defendants, however, make clear that the only check they want is a blank one."
Trump mobilized around 4,000 California National Guard troops in June amid protests against his violent crackdown on undocumented immigrants. Since then, the Republican leader has also pursued deployments in other Democrat-led cities, including Chicago, Illinois; Portland, Oregon; and Washington, DC, where two soldiers were recently shot.
The new ruling from San Francisco-based Breyer comes as the administration was cutting troops in LA from 300 to 100, according to the New York Times.
"Once again, a court has firmly rejected the president's attempt to make the National Guard a traveling national police force."
"Six months after they first federalized the California National Guard, defendants still retain control of approximately 300 guardsmen, despite no evidence that execution of federal law is impeded in any way—let alone significantly," the judge said. "What's more, defendants have sent California guardsmen into other states, effectively creating a national police force made up of state troops."
After ruling in September that Trump's deployment of Marines in Los Angeles violated the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act, the judge on Wednesday blocked the president's federalization of California National Guard troops—but he also halted his own decision until next Monday, allowing for appeals.
Despite the prospect that the Trump administration would continue the court fight, Bonta and Newsom—who is expected to run for president in 2028—welcomed the ruling.
"Once again, a court has firmly rejected the president's attempt to make the National Guard a traveling national police force," Bonta said in a statement. "For more than five months, the Trump administration has held California National Guard troops hostage as part of its political games."
"But the president is not king. And he cannot federalize the National Guard whenever, wherever, and for however long he wants, without justification," the attorney general declared. "This is a good day for our democracy and the strength of the rule of law."
In addition to battling Trump's invasion of LA, Bonta has backed lawsuits filed by Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul, Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield, and DC Attorney General Brian Schwalb challenging the president's deployments in their cities and filed an amicus brief with the US Supreme Court for the Chicago fight.
'Defeat for Justice': Ecuador to Pay Amazon-Polluting Chevron $220 Million
"A debt is not owed to Chevron. A debt is owed to the Amazonian families still waiting for truth, justice, and full reparation."
A US advocacy group, American human rights lawyer Steven Donziger, and the group in Ecuador behind a historic legal battle against Chevron over its dumping of toxic waste in the Amazon rainforest are condemning the Ecuadorian government's plans to pay the oil giant hundreds of millions of dollars due to an arbitration ruling.
In response to the legal fight in Ecuador that led to a $9.5 billion judgment against Chevron—which bought Texaco—the fossil fuel company turned to the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) system, suing the South American country in the Hague-based Permanent Court of Arbitration. As part of the latter case, Ecuadorian Attorney General Diana Salazar Méndez's office announced Monday that the government would pay the US company only around $220 million, rather than the over $3 billion Chevron sought.
While Chevron said in a statement that it was "pleased with the resolution of this matter" and claimed the decision "strengthened the rule of law globally," and Salazar Méndez's office celebrated the dramatically lower figure, and the Union of Peoples Affected by Chevron-Texaco (UDAPT)—the group that began the case against oil company in 1993—pushed back against the government's framing of the reduction "as if it was a success and an economic achievement."
"The reality is it is a defeat for justice," UDAPT argued in a Tuesday statement. "For 32 years, UDAPT has documented pollution, environmental crime, and lives broken by Chevron, proving what should be obvious: Communities have not recovered, health has not been restored, clean water has not returned, and the territories that sustain life remain contaminated. A debt is not owed to Chevron. A debt is owed to the Amazonian families still waiting for truth, justice, and full reparation."
Amazon Watch deputy director Paul Paz y Miño similarly said Tuesday that "this illegitimate arbitration process is nothing more than Chevron abusing the law to escape accountability for one of the worst oil disasters in history."
"Ecuador's courts ruled correctly and based largely on Chevron's own evidence, that Chevron deliberately poisoned Indigenous and rural communities, leaving behind a mass cancer zone in the Amazon," the campaigner continued. "Adding insult to injury, the idea that Ecuador's people should now pay a US oil company that admitted to deliberate pollution is the epitome of environmental racism."
Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa "must not honor this ISDS award, and the international community must stand behind the victims of Chevron's crimes and demand that the company clean up Ecuador once and for all," Paz y Miño added. "Amazon Watch stands with the affected Indigenous peoples and communities of the Ecuadorian Amazon. We urge President Noboa to reject this illegitimate award, disclose any negotiations with Chevron, and enforce Ecuadorian law by ensuring Chevron pays its debt to those it poisoned."
Donziger—who was detained in the United States for nearly 1,000 days after Chevron went after him in the American legal system for representing Big Oil's victims in Ecuador—was also sharply critical, saying Tuesday that "the decision by a so-called private corporate arbitration panel that claims to absolve Chevron of its massive pollution liability in Ecuador has no legitimacy and does not affect the historic $9.5 billion damages judgment won by Amazonian communities."
"That judgment still stands as the definitive public court ruling in the case," he said. "The private arbitral panel has no authority over the six public appellate courts, including the Supreme Courts of Ecuador and Canada, that issued unanimous decisions against Chevron and confirmed the extensive evidence that the company devastated local communities by deliberately dumping billions of gallons of cancer-causing oil waste into rivers and streams used by thousands of people for drinking, bathing, and fishing."
"I also strongly condemn President Daniel Noboa for his plans to betray his own people by agreeing to send $220 million from the public treasury to Chevron, a company that owes Ecuador billions under multiple court orders for poisoning vulnerable Indigenous peoples with toxic oil waste," Donziger added. "Noboa would effectively grant Chevron a taxpayer-funded bailout financed by the same citizens who remain victims of the company's pollution. This would be an outrageous dereliction of duty and a violation of his oath of office, warranting removal."

















