LIVE COVERAGE
The Worst of The Worst
Well damn, we sure feel safer knowing ICE pulled 5-year-old Liam Tadeo and his construction worker dad Victor off Austin's streets on their way to a soccer game before Liam could start kindergarten the next day; also that they were held at a family concentration camp, ICE refused to let Liam's mother take him, and both father and son will "self-deport" to not further sully our pristine white shores. Question: How do these sick fucks sleep at night?
Thanks to the obscene $200 billion-plus gifted to DHS and ICE by their evil overlords, arrests of undocumented or at least unwanted immigrants surged to nearly 50,000 largely innocent people in July, a 15% spike from a month earlier and the regime's highest monthly arrest total to date. So yes, the sadists are still at it, just more quietly than when a psychotic Noem and Bovino were blasting out histrionic videos of daredevil agents dropping from helicopters onto apartment rooftops to grab terrified families - images reportedly, inexplicably "provoking a lot of ordinary people." Wusses, all.
Many recent arrests come during "traffic stops," increasingly with the help of partnering state and local law enforcement lured by "generous financial incentives," especially in Texas and Florida; ICE is also arresting more Haitians whose protections have been stripped away. Among those detained are over 6,200 kids, 10 times more than during Biden's tenure, despite ongoing, fantastical DHS claims they're going after the "worst of the worst" murderers, drug traffickers, sex offenders - and despite ghastly data showing up to 85% of ICE thugs themselves have sex offenses on their records, most against children. New data, like old data, also shows less than a quarter of those arrested have any criminal convictions.
Elsewhere, ICE abuses go on apace. A sailor aboard the troubled USS Lincoln said ICE has taken his father, who had a work permit, into custody. “Having a family member in the military is not a free pass to violate our nation’s laws,” said a DHS statement "in the same support-our-troops spirit Trump is so famous for." In an interview, the mother, father and sister of Alex Pretti family said no officials have come forward in the last seven months to retract or apologize for the "disgusting" claims of "assassin" and "domestic terrorist" they made about Alex - "We still hear those words about our child,” said his mother Susan - nor have any criminal charges been filed against his killers.
Meanwhile, J.D. Vance just came to Maine to spew racist lies, flaunt his "trademark absence of charisma," and claim, "If you bring in millions and millions of illegal aliens and give them houses that ought to go by right to American citizens, it's going to increase the cost of housing for everybody else." He also dismissed ICE's killing of Colombian Johan Durán Guerrero, who had a social security card, two jobs, a wife and a three-year-old daughter. Worried residents, he said, should "have a little bit of perspective" to ensure "that poison stops coming into our country." Troy Jackson called J.D. "a dirtbag": "I mean, he had a life." As to Susan Collins, who declined to regret giving ICE "$70 billion more to pull this shit off": "I’m sick of your ‘concerns.’"
And on Aug. 16, brave ICE thugs stopped five-year-old Liam Tadeo - their second small Liam like the bunny-hat-wearing Liam Ramos in Minnesota - and his father Victor Martinez Nieto on their way to play soccer. Without bothering with the nicety of pretending it was a legit traffic stop, they asked Victor, originally from Mexico, if he had legal status. Candidly, he said no; in 2025, he'd been arrested by ICE, "voluntarily" left, then "criminally" reentered the U.S. to (horrors) be with his wife and son. Heart-rending video soon surfaced of Liam crying beside his father and trying to hold one of his hands, cuffed behind him, as Victor tried to console his tearful son, talking to him as they walked. It was the day before Liam was set to start kindergarten.
They were both taken to the for-profit Dilley concentration camp, which rights groups have repeatedly accused of medical neglect, poor living conditions and abuse. According to Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch, their family's attorney, Victor begged ICE to release Liam to his mother Maria, also not a legal citizen, at home, or another member of the family. ICE refused, though DHS proudly, routinely declaims ICE "will place the children with a safe person the parent designates," like how they also contend Dilley is "retrofitted for families, with access to teachers, classrooms, and curriculum booklets...generously funded by the U.S. taxpayer." Instead, they had Victor sign papers in English he didn't fully understand, and booked both father and son.Lincoln-Goldfinch says Maria is "desperate and distraught, separated from her child and worrying about his well-being." Back at their home, "It feels like when you go to someone’s house after a sudden death, and there’s a wake or a gathering. Everybody is just stunned." Maria released a statement: "Liam was supposed to start kindergarten this week. Instead he is (in) detention. He should be in school, playing soccer, and at home with his family." Saturday, CNN aired emotional video of her talking by phone to her five-year-old. “I love you so much and I miss you so much, my love,” she tearfully told Liam in Spanish. “Don’t despair, my love, okay?” Lacking options, Liam timidly responds, "Okay." One furious, horrified online comment: "Anyone!!??!!"
This week, Austin's KUT News reported Victor has decided to be deported to Mexico along with his son, rather than risk Liam being separated from him and placed in a dystopian regime's custody as an "unaccompanied migrant child.” Said Lincoln-Goldfinch, "His family did what any family would do: Agree." As Maria reportedly struggles to find a way to re-unite with her family - "My son is only five years old" - Americans fume about "sadistic barbarians harming humanity every single day." "How sick can these people be? I used to think merciless psychopathic villains were only found in movies and fiction," said one. Also, "America has concentration camps. I. Hate. It. Here." and, "That poor little boy, That poor family. I am so tired."
Meanwhile, Texas' Dem lawmakers have called for Liam to be released and for Dilley to be shut down. "I just sat with Liam's mother as she found out what it means to have your child held hostage by ICE. It was horrifying," wrote Rep. Greg Casar, who charged Liam's arrest showed Trump uses children “as bait and leverage to fuel his mass deportation machine.” "Liam should be starting kindergarten this week, and instead he's sitting in a trailer prison." Rep. Joaquin Castro said ICE denied his request to visit Liam at Dilley in what he called "shady stuff," and he vowed to return; he also cited human rights violations, privacy concerns, and untenable phone, video call and e-mail strictures: “I’m telling y’all, ICE is getting worse."Because this is ghoul-filled America in 2026, Liam's aunt Patricia Resendiz has begun a Gofundme to help with legal expenses and her sister Maria's household costs, as Victor was the sole provider. "If we manage to get Liam and his dad to go free, Liam will also need psychological support, as the detention has left him traumatized. These funds will be to mitigate all aspects of child detention," she wrote. "The detention of Liam and my brother-in-law was cruel. They are not criminals - they were simply on their way to a soccer match. Liam is a beautiful, intelligent, and big-hearted little boy. My sister is devastated, as are we. Liam was detained right in front of my son, his cousin. My son told me that ICE agents said to Liam, 'You can't escape.'"
We feel safer already.
‘Perfect Storm’ of Trump’s War and Super El Niño to Drive Food Prices Even Higher
Experts are warning that a combination of a super El Niño climate pattern and two separate wars is threatening to put further upward pressure on food prices over the next several months.
A study released by Oxford Economics on Wednesday projects that global food prices will rise by 12% in 2026 and by 5% in 2027 due in large part to the fertilizer shortage caused by the closure in the Strait of Hormuz and increased grain prices caused by Russia's war with Ukraine.
The strait's closure, which began after President Donald Trump launched an illegal war with Iran in February, cut off a major shipping lane for fertilizer, whose price Oxford Economics projects will surge by 22% this year.
The four-year conflict between Russia and Ukraine, meanwhile, is putting a strain on grain supplies, as the two countries combined account for 30% of global wheat exports.
And the two wars might not be the biggest driver of higher food prices.
The Independent on Friday reported that the Met Office, the UK's official weather forecasting service, is projecting this year's El Niño will be "the largest since the 19th century," with sea temperatures projected to reach 3ºC above their long-term average in the coming months.
Professor Adam Scaife, head of long range forecasting at the Met Office, told The Independent that he has "never seen an El Niño signal this intense in our forecasts," describing the projected increase in ocean temperatures as "an unprecedented event."
Bill McGuire, professor emeritus of geophysical hazards at University College London, told The Independent that the Met Office's forecasts "suggest that the world is in for one hell of a ride."
“The astonishing and unprecedented amount of heat building across the eastern Pacific Ocean," McGuire said, "is all but certain to make this the most powerful El Niño in living memory possibly even the biggest in several centuries."
McGuire said that this heat would manifest itself in several destructive ways over the next year, such as "bringing drought and wildfire conditions to the Amazon and parts of Australia, torrential rainfall and floods to California, and a reduced South Asian monsoon."
In an interview with CNBC published Friday, trade and agriculture analyst Noel Fryer noted that North America and Europe have experienced very hot summers that has "decimated" some crops and has hurt grazing prospects by reducing the available supply of grass and hay.
And all this occurred, Fryer added, before the full impact of El Niño has arrived.
“It’s just a huge mix of different issues and we don’t know how they’re going to end," said Fryer. "It’s a perfect storm."
Top OpenAI Executive Labels Social Security a ‘Fraud’ That Must be Dismantled
A top executive at one of the world's biggest artificial intelligence companies drew backlash on Tuesday for describing Social Security as "a kind of accounting fraud" that will have to be dismantled.
Dean Ball, head of strategic futures at OpenAI who previously worked in President Donald Trump's White House, wrote in a social media post that while Social Security may have once been a "reasonable affordance" to people who "were dealing with an economic depression and a world war," it was nonetheless "accounting fraud, whose debt is coming due and is coming due fast."
Ball concluded his post by informing younger generations of Americans that "unwinding the great fraud... is your job, whether you wish it to be or not."
Ball's attack on Social Security drew a swift rebuke from David Segal, a former Democratic Rhode Island State Representative and founder of Demand Progress, who observed that it undercut other AI executives' claims that their technology would create an era of unprecedented abundance.
"AI is gonna shoot productivity to the moon," wrote Segal, "oh and also society can't afford to pay old people $2,000 per month anymore starting today."
Author Lincoln Michel similarly spotted the contradiction between AI industry vows that the technology "is going to give us [universal basic income] and we'll never work again" and Ball's declaration that "our main mission is to destroy Social Security."
Henry Burke, senior researcher at the Revolving Door Project, argued that Ball's analysis of Social Security revealed the true priorities of Big Tech elites.
"It's notable that the Abundance guy turned OpenAI hack considers Social Security to be a 'fraud' that must be remedied," wrote Burke, "and not the reckless tax breaks successive Republican presidents have given away to the wealthy which have exploded the national debt."
Putting aside policy arguments, many critics pointed out that Ball's call to dismantle Social Security was a major political loser.
Polling analyst Lakshya Jain, citing survey data showing vast and bipartisan support for Social Security, informed Ball that his rhetoric about the program is optimal for "anyone who wants to unite the whole of America (against them)."
Josh Orton, president of We Demand Justice, marveled at the politically tone deaf messaging coming from an executive at a company whose own CEO has said that "my job is to help people destroy jobs" with AI.
"These AI guys are not just condescending elitists," wrote Orton, "they're tremendously stupid about politics. It's incredible."
Max Steele, senior communications director at gun safety advocacy group Everytown, made a similar observation.
"Is it possible these guys are doing a performance art piece on the worst possible PR run in recorded history?" Steele asked.
Journalist Jon Schwarz questioned why Big Tech companies have been allowed to amass so much economic and political power in the US if their executives want to destroy the country's most popular social insurance program.
"It's a bad idea," wrote Schwarz, "to have our society run by people like this who are so far out of touch with reality that they are functionally insane."
RFK Jr. Dismisses Impact of SNAP Cuts as Data Shows 5 Million People Have Lost Aid
US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Wednesday dismissed the impact of massive food aid cuts signed into law last summer by President Donald Trump, saying he doesn't believe the cuts will have "that much effect" as new data showed at least 5 million people have lost assistance so far—including roughly 1.5 million children.
Speaking at a news conference on children's nutrition in Florida, Kennedy falsely claimed that "the only people kicked off of" the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) under the GOP budget law signed by Trump "were people who were not eligible for it," either "because their income is too high or because they were illegal aliens."
Kennedy's remarks came as a new analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) found that SNAP enrollment nationwide has fallen to a 17-year low following enactment of the Trump-GOP budget law, which will cut the program by around $190 billion over the next decade, enact stricter work reporting mandates, and require states to contribute a portion of benefit costs for the first time.
"'Not much effect?' Based on available data from 25 states, we estimate that well over 1.5 million kids nationwide have lost SNAP in the wake of the unprecedented cuts in the Republican reconciliation law," Katie Bergh, a policy analyst at CBPP, wrote in response to Kennedy's remarks. "Many of those kids and their families lost SNAP despite still being eligible."
Watch Kennedy's comments:
Q: “Are either of you concerned that the reduction in funding for SNAP and the reduction in eligibility for SNAP will reduce access to food for children and families?”
Sec. Kennedy: “I don't think it's gonna have that much effect.” pic.twitter.com/1h97NP6rcN
— BulwarkClips (@BulwarkClips) August 26, 2026
News reports, anecdotal accounts from impacted families, and expert assessments contradict Kennedy's insistence that only those who were no longer eligible for SNAP due to income or immigration status have lost benefits. An explosion of red tape due to the new work reporting requirements imposed by the Trump-GOP budget law has made it more difficult for eligible beneficiaries to continue receiving SNAP, forcing many to seek aid from food banks and take desperate measures—such as skipping meals and doses of medication—to make ends meet.
CBPP warned that the impacts of the cuts are likely to intensify once the budget law's provision shifting benefit costs to states takes full effect next year.
"The magnitude of the cost shift and the urgency surrounding error rates may incentivize states to take drastic measures to reduce their payment error rates quickly and cut program costs, even if it means delaying or improperly denying benefits to eligible people," the think tank said on Wednesday. "We’re likely seeing some of those initial effects in SNAP participation data."
A report published last month by a pair of food policy experts argued that the unprecedented assault on SNAP undercuts Kennedy's so-called "Make America Healthy Again" initiative, which purports to place nutrition "at the center of health."
“If we are serious about improving Americans’ health, we need policies that make healthy food more accessible, not less,” said Priya Fielding-Singh of George Washington University’s Global Food Institute. “Cutting off food assistance for millions of families undermines MAHA’s stated goals of improving diet quality and preventing chronic disease. Food security and public health go hand in hand.”
'I'm Going to Ask Tom': Maine GOP Nominee for Governor Calls for ICE at Polling Stations
By letting attendees at a Maine Young Republicans event in on his "secret" plan for the midterm elections, the state's Republican nominee for governor detailed a proposal that, according to one public policy think tank, is wholly illegal.
In an audio clip released Wednesday by the Bangor Daily News, Bobby Charles, a lawyer and former Reagan administration staffer, boasted about his connections to the Trump administration's border czar, Tom Homan, a key figure in President Donald Trump's mass deportation operation.
"Here's my secret. I have a friend named Tom Homan," said Charles, drawing applause from the GOP voters. "I'm going to ask Tom... three or four weeks before the election, maybe three, I'm going to make an appeal for ICE and Marshals to be at our voting booths."
🚨 NEW Audio: Bobby Charles reveals "secret" plan to invite ICE to Maine three weeks before Election Day. pic.twitter.com/nSx2o9yxjJ
— Maine Democrats (@MaineDems) August 26, 2026
Charles was referring to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the US Marshals, both armed federal law enforcement officers whose presence at polling sites to intimidate voters would be against the law, according to the Brennan Center for Justice .
Trump has also alluded to sending ICE and other armed federal agents to polling places during the midterm elections in November, saying in May when he was asked about the idea that he would "do anything necessary to make sure we have honest elections."
At the Brennan Center for Justice last month, senior counsel Hayne Yoon wrote that "despite the implied threat, the law is clear."
"Sending armed federal agents, including those from ICE, to election sites is illegal," wrote Yoon. "Federal law and many states’ laws prohibit not only armed federal agents at polling sites, but also interference in elections or voter intimidation by any officials or private citizens. More important, using these tactics would be a flagrant attempt to hold on to power through force and intimidation and an affront to free and fair elections."
In his comments at the Young Republicans event, Charles also asked rhetorically whether “illegals who are being paid money” to vote would "like" the deployment of ICE agents at polling places. The remark made the gubernatorial candidate one of several Republicans to push the baseless claim that undocumented immigrants or noncitizens have committed voter fraud in order to sway elections.
There are no documented reports of immigrants ever being paid to vote, and a 2024 American Immigration Council analysis of data collected by the right-wing Heritage Foundation found only 68 cases of proven noncitizen voting dating back to 2000, "amounting to less than 0.0001% of total votes."
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Hannah Pingree said Wednesday that Charles' comments make clear that he would push Trump's MAGA agenda, despite his recent attempts to distance himself from the president, who is unpopular with Mainers.
"He is begging Trump's ICE to come interfere with our free and fair elections," said Pingree. "I think that conduct speaks for itself and I trust the Maine people to see it for what it is."
Devon Murphy-Anderson, executive director of the Maine Democratic Party, added that Charles "continues to prove that he is a MAGA extremist who will stop at nothing to put himself and his MAGA agenda ahead of Mainers. His plan to ask Trump’s border czar to send ICE agents to Maine polling places just weeks before Election Day is not only deeply alarming—it is likely illegal. This is a blatant attempt to intimidate voters and yet another reason Bobby Charles is too extreme for Maine.”
Charles' comments come six weeks after an ICE agent fatally shot Biddeford, Maine resident Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero in an incident that the Trump administration has not appeared to investigate. ICE has made more arrests in Maine so far this year than it did in all of 2024-25 combined, and out of 491 arrests made, 89% of those detained had no criminal convictions.
Homan recently told a Republican state lawmaker that the state would soon "see a lot more enforcement action" due to Trump's decision to end Temporary Protected Status for Haitians and Syrians.
The Justice Department announced this month that it would deploy at least 1,000 federal officers to polling places as people vote in the November 3 elections. The administration has suggested the public should not be alarmed by the plan because anyone who is a citizen will not be targeted by the agents, but as the ACLU noted, at least 155 citizens in eight states last year, including 32 children, were detained, targeted, or subjected to misconduct by federal immigration agents.
Trump Envoy Tom Barrack in Hot Seat for Admitting Israeli Occupation of Golan Heights
Tom Barrack, the US ambassador to Türkiye and special presidential envoy for Syria and Iraq, on Sunday retracted his acknowledgment of Israel's illegal occupation of Syria's Golan Heights amid mounting Republican calls for his resignation.
Directly contradicting Trump's formal recognition of Israel's unlawful 1981 annexation of the Golan Heights, Barrack said during a Friday interview with podcaster Mario Nawfal that Israel would face difficulties if it moved to unlawfully annex parts of southern Lebanon it invaded and currently occupies.
"In the Golan with Syria, they still occupy the Golan against the [United Nations] resolutions, against all of the international order, which has said the Golan is Syria’s," Barrack noted. He also floated the possibility that last week's Israeli strike on an air base in northwestern Syria may have been an attempt at "baiting" Türkiye.
Israel invaded and captured the strategically important Golan Heights during the Six-Day War in 1967, ethnically cleansing more than 100,000 Syrians and eventually annexing the conquered territory, a move unanimously rejected by the United Nations Security Council in Resolution 497. Since then, tens of thousands of Israeli settlers have unlawfully colonized the Syrian territory.
UN Security Council Resolution 242 demands that Israel withdraw from the Golan Heights and all occupied Palestinian territories as well.
No country recognized Israel's occupation of the Golan Heights until US President Donald Trump did so during his first term. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu showed his appreciation for the move by naming one of the dozens of illegal Jewish settlements in the territory Trump Heights.
Barrack subsequently reversed himself, telling The Associated Press on Sunday that “United States policy on the Golan was set by President Trump in 2019 and is unchanged."
This, as Israeli leaders denounced Barrack's remarks and Republican politicians and pundits called for his firing or resignation.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar said the ambassador's comments were "full of inaccuracies" and “contradict the position of Trump himself regarding the Golan Heights.”
US Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) said on X: "The Senate confirmed [Barrack] to enact the PRESIDENT’S AGENDA, which millions of Americans voted for. It seems the ambassador forgot that or failed to do his research, so here’s a refresher for him… President Trump has been CLEAR about Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights for years!"
Far-right provocateur and Trump confidant Laura Loomer called Barrack "absolutely brain dead."
"Tom Barrack is hands down the most retarded ambassador nominated by President Trump," she contended. "He should resign for his lack of understanding of US foreign policy."
Meanwhile, some experts positively noted Barrack's short-lived acknowledgment of what the international community has long maintained.
"[Barrack] said the Golan is occupied Syrian land under UN resolutions. That is simply what the UN says. It has said it since 1967. Most of the world agrees," political analyst Michael Arizanti said on X.
"Israel's foreign minister said his remarks were full of inaccuracies," he continued. "Professional lunatic Laura Loomer demanded he resign and claimed he was compromised by Arab money, with no evidence at all! Sen. Rick Scott told him to do his research. And because Barrack had criticized Israel's strike on a Syrian air base the week before, he was accused of siding with the bad guys."
"Four attacks," Arizanti added. "Not one about the actual policy!"
After Supreme Court Ruling, 4th Circuit Tosses Verdict Against US Company for Abu Ghraib Torture
"History will show that it was the Supreme Court that denied us justice," said Salah Al-Ejaili, one of the Iraqi plaintiffs.
The US Supreme Court recently delivered a "lethal blow" to lawsuits filed under an 18th-century law, including a case brought by Iraqis tortured at Abu Ghraib as part of the George W. Bush administration's invasion of Iraq, whose landmark verdict was struck down on Friday by a federal appellate court.
The Iraqis' case against US military contractor CACI Premier Technology was first filed in 2008, and eventually led to a trial and retrial in 2024. That November, a federal jury found the company liable for torture at the notorious prison in Iraq, and ordered it to pay the three prisoners a total of $42 million.
After unsuccessfully seeking another trial at the US District Court for the District of Virginia, CACI turned to the US Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, which this past March upheld the historic verdict in favor of the three tortured men: middle school principal Suhail Al Shimari, fruit vendor Asa'ad Zuba'e, and journalist Salah Al-Ejaili.
Then came the Supreme Court's June decision in Cisco Systems v. Doe, which effectively reversed the high court's 2004 ruling on the Alien Tort Statute (ATS), nullifying "a vital law that could check corporate abuses and provide an essential remedy to those whose rights have been violated," as University of California, Berkeley law professor Erwin Chemerinsky wrote earlier this week.
As legal experts feared, the 4th Circuit reconsidered the CACI verdict in the wake of the June decision, and determined that "just as the court concluded that the Cisco plaintiffs' ATS claims—including aiding and abetting torture—must be dismissed, so too must we dismiss plaintiffs' claims here—conspiracy to commit torture" and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment.
Baher Azmy, legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, which represented the Iraqis alongside other law firms, responded with a Friday statement calling out both the Supreme Court and CACI.
"As radical and regressive as the Supreme Court's decision in Cisco is," Azmy said, "it will never change this fundamental truth: A jury heard voluminous testimony and unanimously concluded CACI was responsible for the torture and abuse of dozens of Iraqis at Abu Ghraib, including these plaintiffs, rendering CACI, in the words of a foundational ATS-human rights case, 'hostis humani generis'—an 'enemy of all mankind.'"
"We remain in awe of the bravery and dedication of our clients, who fought for 18 years for justice for themselves, their families, and other survivors of horrific human rights abuses," Azmy added. "This Supreme Court may continue to do great damage to human rights cases, but it cannot take the courage and dignity away from our clients' historic achievement."
One of the plaintiffs in the case, Al-Ejaili, also took aim at the country's highest court, which is dominated by right-wing justices.
"What we did in pursuing accountability for 18 years for the torture we suffered at Abu Ghraib was a big thing. We trusted a US jury with our stories, and they believed us and sided with us—this is the most important part of the case," he said Friday. "History will show that it was the Supreme Court that denied us justice."
'Yet Another Trump Grift': Congress Called to Stop US Takeover of Venezuelan Oil Fields
"Handing over Venezuela's oil wealth to the US contravenes the Constitution and is not in the interest of the Venezuelan people—much more when it is done at gunpoint," said one analyst.
Trump administration officials are claiming that talks between US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the Venezuelan government regarding control of the country's oil fields will ultimately secure "America's energy future for generations to come"—but analysts on Friday called on lawmakers to halt President Donald Trump's "colonial" push to take over the reserves.
As Axios reported, officials including Rubio and Deputy White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller have been involved in talks with Venezuelan acting President Delcy Rodriguez about taking an ownership stake in more than a dozen oil fields in the Orinoco Belt and Lake Maracaibo regions, which have about 90 billion barrels of oil reserves. In all, Venezuela's vast reserves—the world's largest—contain about 300 billion barrels.
The deal would double US oil reserves at a time when Americans have seen gas prices skyrocket and oil firms reap profits as a result of Trump's war on Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz—events to which countries that have expanded renewable energy sources have proven far more resilient, according to data from JP Morgan Commodities research.
Despite that resilience, the Trump administration has reportedly approached the talks as a way to lock the US into generations of continued reliance on planet-heating oil extraction. According to Bloomberg, one deal under consideration is a 100-year lease on the oil fields.
Axios reported that in return for giving the US an ownership stake—something Trump began privately discussing before US forces invaded Venezuela and abducted President Nicolás Maduro in January—Venezuela "would benefit from private companies, including American firms, developing the fields and returning more oil revenue" to the South American country.
Tyler Slocum, director of Public Citizen's energy program, said that if the deal is finalized, "Trump will likely transfer operational control to US oil companies," which donated heavily to his campaign.
The proposed deal would open "the door to Trump’s typical bilateral transactional corruption" and bestow "lucrative opportunities for the oil companies he chooses to reward," said Slocum.
“In the nearly eight months since Trump’s illegal January 2026 Venezuelan invasion, the Trump administration has managed a $13 billion slush fund gleaned from its control over Venezuelan oil sales, with zero transparency, and little to no public oversight or accounting," Slocum continued. "The president has no authority to negotiate a deal where the federal government takes control over foreign oil production facilities, and Congress must intervene and put an end to Trump’s oil-fueled imperialism."
One opposition leader in Venezuela, where Energy Secretary Chris Wright is expected to travel next week to discuss increasing oil production by US companies, said the deals currently being discussed amount to "a land grab—a massive land grab."
Francisco Rodríguez, a senior research fellow at the Center for Economic and Policy Research and author of The Collapse of Venezuela, said the country's National Assembly "should deny authorization for this predatory deal."
Following Trump's invasion of Venezuela in January, energy historian and Eurasia Group analyst Gregory Brew told The Guardian, "US dominance over Venezuelan oil reserves allows the US to regard Venezuelan reserves as its own reserves: a source of oil from which the United States can draw and that nobody else has access to."
"I think that’s how the administration is conceiving of this—excluding China, excluding Russia, but I think also excluding other potential customers for Venezuelan oil,” Brew said. “It sounds colonial, because it is.”
The president's "effort to establish a South American kleptocracy is an outrage," said Slocum. "There’s been no improvement in human rights in Venezuela, so Trump’s move is further evidence that his illegal actions in Venezuela are all about controlling oil with no public accounting, transparency, or oversight. This is yet another Trump gift for Big Oil.”
Destruction of East India Company Gives US Lawmakers a Blueprint for Confronting Big Tech: Historian
The instruments to take apart entrenched corporate power "still exist," but current governments are "lacking... the political nerve to use them," said historian William Dalrymple.
A historian who has written four books about the British East India Company is warning that big technology companies in the US are amassing similar levels of unchecked power and will need to be reined in.
In a New York Times op-ed published on Friday, William Dalrymple described how the British government eventually realized that it had allowed the East India Company—key to the British Empire's rise in the 18th and 19th centuries—to become too powerful and decided to finally clamp down.
The situation faced by the British Parliament in the 19th Century was strikingly similar to the situation faced by US lawmakers today, Dalrymple explained, as the East India Company had spent decades spending money to capture influence within the government.
"Around one in 20 members of Parliament sat on the East India Company’s board," the historian wrote, "and more than a fifth of the company’s directors sat in Parliament at some point; about 40% of members of Parliament were shareholders."
In the contemporary context, the executives of the nation's largest tech firms are spending lavishly to curry favor with lawmakers and government officials of both major parties
Writing in The Nation last month, investigative journalist David Moore detailed the massive political spending of major tech firms in the 2026 midterms, noting that "Super PACs working on behalf of crypto, AI, and AIPAC donors are the highest-spending groups on independent expenditures to influence voters this cycle—combining to spend more than $180 million so far, according to a review of Federal Election Commission records."
In addition to political clout, the East India Company in its day also had the power to raise its own army, which at its peak topped 200,000 soldiers, twice the size of England's own armed services.
Dalrymple pointed out that this is one power that today's Big Tech firms do not have, although he argued that they have been increasingly integrating themselves into the US military-industrial complex.
"In June 2025 the US Army commissioned the chief technology officers of Palantir and Meta and OpenAI’s chief product officer as lieutenant colonels in a new Reserve unit," he noted. "The new dispensation puts tech executives straight into a position of federal power, which in one way puts them ahead of their 18th-century counterparts."
The government finally dropped the hammer on the East India Company, Dalrymple said, after the bloody Indian Rebellion of 1857, as they feared the firm's "greed and self-interest" would cause the British Empire to lose what it considered its most valuable colony.
"The company’s navy was disbanded and its army passed to the Crown," wrote Dalrymple. "In 1858 the governor general of India announced that the company’s Indian possessions would be nationalized and pass into the control of the British Crown."
Less than two decades later, what was once the most powerful private corporation in world history shut down after the expiration of its charter.
What this shows, concluded Dalrymple, is that "states can master corporations," even if those corporations have their own private armies.
However, he said that while the instruments to take apart entrenched corporate power "still exist," it appears our current governments are "lacking... the political nerve to use them."
Dalrymple's op-ed was echoed thematically by a Friday op-ed written by SFGATE travel editor Silas Valentino, who argued that the city of San Francisco has not gotten any benefit from the current artificial intelligence boom, despite being the home of OpenAI and Anthropic, the world's two biggest AI firms.
In particular, Valentino argued that the AI firms have done nothing to give back to the city and alleviate its affordable housing crisis. In fact, Valentino found that the AI firms' initiatives in the city appear to be mostly self-serving.
"OpenAI says it has invested in our community, but so far, that’s meant less than a million dollars in 'SF civic contributions,'" Valentino wrote. "And worst of all, some of that is for things like AI training programs... That’s not improving the city; it’s OpenAI trying to make more money."
Valentino also noted that Anthropic last year teamed with the Tipping Point Community nonprofit group, which was founded by current San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie, to provide free training on the company's Claude chatbot.
"In the years since language models like ChatGPT and Claude proliferated to usher in the AI boom," the travel editor wrote, "I’m only counting negatives for nearly everyone trying to figure out a way to live here."
Valentino concluded by warning that if Lurie and his administration "don’t demand these companies start giving back and enhance our city for the better, they’ll continue ruining our city without pause."
Progressives Warn Democrats Endlessly Invoking Hasan Piker to 'Get Their Shit Together'
"Every Democrat talking about Piker is handing the midterms to Trump."
Progressives this week have grown increasingly frustrated with the oxygen that Democratic lawmakers are wasting invoking the name of left-wing commentator Hasan Piker, warning that too many in the party are falling for a trap that so obviously favors President Donald Trump and Republicans with midterm elections just slightly more than two months away.
"Democrats need to get their shit together. I'm tired of hearing about Hasan," said Maurice Mitchell, national director of the Working Families Party, said in a social media post on Thursday.
"Whatever 3D chess you think you're playing is only pushing away real people," Mitchell added. "Stop obsessing over a streamer. We’re fighting authoritarianism here."
Chuck Idelson, a progressive Democratic voter and retired union official based in California, agreed.
"Exactly," Idelson said in response to Mitchell's declaration. "The obsession with Piker is the rabbit hole the GOP is counting on to focus the Democrats on anything other than the horror show of what Trump is doing to this nation. Every Democrat talking about Piker is handing the midterms to Trump."
As The Independent reports: "All of this is occurring under the spectacle of a national media frenzy surrounding Piker and the Democratic Socialists of America, whom journalists have made the focus of their questions to Democrats of all stripes. And some Democrats are beginning to air publicly their resentment over party leaders like Jeffries falling into what they call a Republican trap."
While much of the discourse around Piker is taking place on the airwaves and social media, Newsweek reported this week on an Echelon Insights poll conducted in April that "found that Piker remains largely unknown among Democratic voters," results that underscore "the gap between his enormous online following and his reach with the broader electorate."
Common Dreams reported earlier this week how critics have viewed the obsession with Piker on the part of establishment Democrats and certain members of the corporate media as a "mass psychosis event."
"I am begging everybody to spend less time arguing about Hasan Piker and more time attacking Republicans," said Mike Nellis, a City Councilman in Chicago representing the city's 32nd Ward, on Friday.
"The election is in about two month," added Nellis. "Lock the fuck in."
'RFK Jr. Lied to Congress': Criminal Probe Sought Over Samoa Trip Linked to 83 Measles Deaths
"He told us his Samoa trip had nothing to do with vaccines—now this letter shows that was false," Sen. Ed Markey said of President Donald Trump's health and human services secretary.
US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Thursday faced calls for a criminal investigation after newly published documents appear to contradict his repeated testimony during Senate confirmation hearings that his 2019 trip to Samoa, which is linked to 83 measles deaths, “had nothing to do with vaccines.”
The advocacy group American Oversight on Thursday asked the US Department of Justice to investigate whether Kennedy knowingly made materially false statements during his 2025 Senate confirmation hearings. The request follows the publication of a January 2019 letter, signed by Kennedy and addressed to Samoa’s then-prime minister, Tuilaʻepa Saʻilele Malielegaoi, that explicitly proposed a vaccine-focused assessment of the Pacific island nation’s measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) program.
“Robert F. Kennedy Jr. repeatedly testified before two separate Senate committees that his trip to Samoa had nothing to do with vaccines. But a letter he wrote to Samoa’s prime minister six years earlier appears to contradict that testimony,” American Oversight executive director Chioma Chukwu said Thursday in a statement.
“Congress relies on truthful testimony to do its job, particularly on matters as consequential as public health," Chukwu added. "If Kennedy lied to the Senate while seeking confirmation as the nation’s top health official, the Justice Department must investigate and hold him accountable.”
Questioned by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) before the Senate Finance Committee, Kennedy said his trip had “nothing to do with vaccines,” describing it instead as an effort to introduce a medical informatics system to digitize the nation's health records.
The following day, when Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) pressed him on the same issue before the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, Kennedy again said his trip had “nothing to do with vaccines.”
Markey's office released a statement Thursday noting that Kennedy "traveled to Samoa in 2019 to promote disinformation about the measles vaccine. Shortly after his trip, Samoa experienced a deadly outbreak of measles that killed over 80 people and has been attributed to mass vaccine disinformation."
My statement on new reporting that RFK Jr. lied to me in his Senate confirmation hearing.
[image or embed]
— Senator Ed Markey (@markey.senate.gov) August 27, 2026 at 1:47 PM
Of the 83 measles deaths during the outbreak, 72 were children under the age of 5. More than 1,860 hospitalizations in Samoa have been linked to the outbreak.
“New documents confirm what we already knew: RFK Jr. lied to Congress," Markey said. "He told us his Samoa trip had nothing to do with vaccines—now this letter shows that was false, just like it was false when he denied his role in the deadly outbreak that followed."
"This is a pattern, not a slip," he added. "RFK Jr. has lied to the Senate, lied to the American people, and jeopardized the health of children to advance his anti-vaccine agenda. He should never have been confirmed, and he cannot be trusted to run [the US Department of Health and Human Services] for even one more day."
Democratic Hawaii Gov. Josh Green, who is a physician, was invited by the Samoan government to help lead the measles response and recovery in the South Pacific archipelago.
“Misinformation and measles are a deadly combination—I saw that firsthand in Samoa," Green said on Thursday. "The truth is, this is a disease we know how to prevent. The MMR shot is the only proven and effective way to prevent the spread of measles."
"Vaccines save lives," he added. "Our public health decisions must be guided by doctors, scientists, and evidence—not conspiracy theories or political convenience. We owe it to every family to protect our children and communities, and make sure no one else dies from a preventable disease.”
The group 314 Action, which recruits, trains, and works to elect Democrats with expertise in science, published a statement Thursday noting that "now, America is facing its worst measles crisis in decades, and two more Americans have lost their lives to a disease we have long known how to prevent."
Public health experts have warned that the US is on track to lose its measles elimination status, which the country achieved in 2000, and blame the regression on declining vaccination driven by misinformation and conspiracy theories, including that vaccines are dangerous and even deadly.
Earlier this month, President Donald Trump signed an executive order overhauling federal recommendations for children that calls for separating the MMR vaccine into three individual shots.
"The only thing ‘lethal’ about vaccines is listening to RFK Jr.’s lies about them," said 314 Action. "America needs more leaders like Gov. Green who are willing to stand up to Trump and RFK Jr. and put public health over politics. We won’t stop fighting until RFK Jr. is fired or removed from office.”
Study Suggests Climate Crisis Is Supercharging 'Godzilla' El Niños
"We are seeing a trend of stronger El Niños, and the one we have now is consistent with that trend," said the lead author. "That is bad news for climate hazards and for people."
As the flooding disaster in Tibet and Nepal demonstrates the deadly consequences of the climate emergency, experts wrote Thursday in the journal Science that fossil fuel-driven global heating has intensified the warm phase of a key pattern in the Pacific Ocean.
The El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) has a warm phase, called El Niño, as well as a neutral phase and a cold one, La Niña. In June, scientists declared the start of a warm event nicknamed "Godzilla," which helped push last month's average global ocean surface temperature to the hottest ever recorded in July.
The current event is expected to become not only a super El Niño, but the most intense one on record—and it could contribute to 2027 possibly being the hottest year humanity has ever endured.
While ENSO is a naturally occurring phenomenon, the scientists behind the new paper studied coral skeletons from the Galápagos Islands and concluded that global warming—tied to humans continuing to burn fossil fuels—has intensified El Niño phases.
"Our findings suggest El Niño can supercharge global warming, but also global warming can supercharge El Niño—that is what we are seeing," said lead author Julia Cole, who chairs the University of Michigan's Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences.
The scientist also spoke with Inside Climate News, which noted that "the first documented super El Niño in 1982-83 killed about 95% of the shallow-water corals around the Galápagos Islands, right around the time Cole began her research career."
Based on the team's analysis, "after the El Niño in 1982, we start seeing much more variability; it's a lot more extreme and looks like nothing in the previous 1,000 years," Cole told The Guardian. "What surprised me was how consistent it was. There is just such a large, distinct difference between what has been happening in the last 40 years compared to preindustrial times."
As Inside Climate News reported:
When Cole visited the islands in 1989, many of the large mapped corals that could have served as sample material were gone, wiped out by the El Niño early in the decade and then decomposed quickly by organisms in the biologically active waters. But in 2006, her team discovered fossil coral remnants, often perched as boulders near remote east-facing coastlines, tossed inland by large waves or tsunamis.
Cole said the signal of El Niños intensified by human-caused warming would have been even stronger if the study had included the most recent occurrences. All the events categorized as super El Niños have occurred since the 1980s and have triggered flooding in East Africa, led to disease outbreaks, and intensified tropical storms. This year’s El Niño is intensifying drought in Indonesia, fueling widespread fires that are sending smoke and hazardous air pollution across Southeast Asia, Cole said. Her team is currently analyzing corals to show the changes from the El Niños in 2015-16 and 2023-24, she added.
"We are seeing a trend of stronger El Niños, and the one we have now is consistent with that trend—it's not a fluke. We are seeing a shift where El Niño doesn't look like what it did prior to industrial times," Cole said. "That is bad news for climate hazards and for people, particularly those who are badly impacted and yet have done little to cause climate change."
According to the United States' National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, consequences of El Niño include "increased rainfall across the southern tier of the US and in Peru, which has caused destructive flooding, and drought in the West Pacific, sometimes associated with devastating brush fires in Australia."
Dalhousie University marine scientist Boris Worm wasn't involved with the new study but told The Associated Press on Thursday that "El Niño is the most violent aspect of climate variability worldwide, with effects ranging from local fisheries collapse, to widespread coral die-offs to severe droughts, and food shortages around the world."
Experts are already worried about the latest El Niño's impact on food security and prices, with the United Nations World Food Program projecting earlier this month that almost 50 million more people worldwide face the prospect of acute hunger.
Pointing to late climate scientist Wallace Broecker's warning that "the climate system is an angry beast and we are poking it with sticks," Worm said that "human emissions are the stick, and El Niño is [one] of the 'angry' outbursts that can be so threatening to our collective safety."
Investigation Exposes Massive New Jersey Data Center Operating Army of Polluting Generators Without Permits
“It seems that this industry, in particular, values speed to market more than almost anything else."
A joint investigative report published by Floodlight and The Guardian on Thursday revealed that one of the largest planned artificial intelligence data centers on the East Coast is operating dozens of gas-powered generators without permits in a possible violation of federal law.
Using a thermal drone to take footage of the Microsoft-backed DataOne facility in Vineland, New Jersey last week, Floodlight determined that the data center was operating 45 generators at once.
The investigation noted that the generators were operating roughly one mile from two different schools, and that the gas-powered generators used as the facility "emit substantial amounts of health-harming air pollution linked to asthma, heart attacks, and even premature death."
Bruce Buckheit, who previously served as air enforcement chief at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), told Floodlight that DataOne is likely violating federal law with its unpermitted generators, and he said the government should make the facility pay a fine for "illegal emissions."
Buckheit added that DataOne's apparent disregard for regulations appeared to be a common trait in the AI industry.
“It seems that this industry, in particular, values speed to market more than almost anything else,” he said.
A New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection spokesperson told Floodlight that the agency is investigating DataOne's use of gas generators but has yet to reach "a full compliance determination."
Local residents told Floodlight that they have for months complained about the nonstop humming produced by the facility, which they suspect is being caused by the generators.
"It's just constant," resident Andrew Groetsch told Floodlight of the noise coming from the facility. "It never goes away."
DataOne, which is projected to cover 2.5 million square feet upon its completion, has long been controversial.
In an interview with NBC Philadelphia published earlier this month, Vineland resident Peggy Schumacher said that the noise from the data center has gotten so bad that it's making her neighborhood "unlivable."
"We are a mile away," Schumacher explained, "and the vibration in our house is horrible now."
Fellow Vineland resident Tallis West offered a similar description of living near DataOne in an interview with CBS News published in May.
"Outside is not even enjoyable to sit outside because of the noise sometimes," West said. "We can't enjoy being outside anymore."
Despite the objections of many local residents, the Vineland Planning Board earlier this month voted to approve the second phase of construction at the facility.
The tech industry's rapid buildout of AI data centers is getting major pushback from voters across the US, as residents issue complaints about both pollution and energy consumption that has been raising their utility bills.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) earlier this year proposed a moratorium on new data center construction.
'Democracy Is Under Attack': Civil Rights Lawsuit Aims to Block Trump Assault on Mail-In Voting
“These mail-in ballot restrictions threaten to disenfranchise millions of eligible voters who rely on mail voting to participate in our democracy," said one advocate.
A day after a federal judge lifted her injunction on President Donald Trump's executive order targeting mail-in ballots, a quartet of civil rights groups on Thursday filed fresh claims in their lawsuit challenging the administration's weaponization of the US Postal Service to attack the right to vote under the pretense of fighting nearly nonexistent fraud.
The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, NAACP, Common Cause, and Black Voters Matter Fund argued in the US District Court for the District of Columbia that Trump’s March 31 executive order unlawfully attempts to federalize important parts of election administration—especially voter eligibility verification and mail-ballot delivery—by presidential fiat, without authorization from Congress, while creating serious risks of disenfranchisement and misuse of personal data.
The plaintiffs—and many legal experts—argue that the US Constitution gives the states and Congress the authority to regulate federal elections, not the president.
"Our democracy is under attack," NAACP president and CEO Derrick Johnson said Thursday in a statement. "No federal entity should be allowed to implement last-minute rules that disenfranchise voters and override state election laws."
"This new USPS rule is a direct assault on the fundamental freedoms of millions of Americans—particularly Black voters, communities of color, seniors, military members, and rural residents—just weeks before a critical election,” Johnson added, referring to November's pmidterms. "We will not stand idly by while the voices of the people are silenced. We must protect every eligible citizen’s right to cast their ballot.”
Damon Hewitt, president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, warned that “these mail-in ballot restrictions threaten to disenfranchise millions of eligible voters who rely on mail voting to participate in our democracy while balancing work, caregiving responsibilities, disabilities, and other realities of daily life."
"The Trump administration is trying to limit access to the ballot, sow confusion at the polls, and to use the ensuing chaos as an excuse to exert power over agencies and processes in a politicized way," Hewitt added. “We will not let this or any administration further undermine our democratic process. We will fight to ensure our elections are free and fair, and that eligible voters are not shut out—especially Black voters and other voters of color, who are frequently targeted by voter suppression schemes.”
Several courts had ruled against Trump's order. But this week, the US Supreme Court cleared the way for the administration to proceed with its plans, and on Wednesday US District Judge Indira Talwani, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, was compelled to lift her injunction on the executive order as a result of the high court's decision.
Also on Wednesday, the groups behind the case before Talwani moved to block the Postal Service rule, as did a coalition of two dozen Democratic state attorneys general, whose initial challenge had resulted in the ruling from the Supreme Court—which found that the AGs filed their first suit prematurely.
Republicans including Trump—who has repeatedly voted by mail—have used fearmongering and disinformation to push the nearly nonexistent “threat” of voter fraud, especially in regard to mailed ballots, and noncitizens voting in US elections.
“Mail-in voting is so safe that even the president has used it twice this year,” Common Cause president and CEO Virginia Kase Solomón said on Thursday. “The Postal Service exists to deliver our mail, not to be weaponized by this administration to silence voters. Common Cause will keep fighting to protect a democracy where people choose their leaders—not the other way around.”
Trump’s March order is part of a broader attack on voting rights that includes pushing an updated version of Republicans’ so-called SAVE America Act, which would mandate proof of citizenship and strict photo ID requirements to register to vote in federal elections. The legislation, which was passed by the House of Representatives in February, is stalled in the narrowly split Senate, where it lacks the support of 60 lawmakers needed to avoid a Democrat filibuster.
"Mail-in voting gives people the freedom and flexibility to participate in our democracy, and we should be honest about what these efforts to restrict it are really doing: creating barriers to the ballot under the guise of election security," Black Voters Matter Fund co-founders Cliff Albright and LaTosha Brown said in a joint statement Thursday. "We are not fooled. This is the same old playbook—manufacture confusion, create unnecessary hurdles, and chip away at voting access."
“When the same politicians who defend their own access to mail-in voting move to restrict that access for others, the hypocrisy is hard to ignore," Albright and Brown continued. "We cannot allow voter suppression to be repackaged as voter protection or allow political interference to determine who gets to participate and whose voice counts."
"This is not about making democracy more secure; it is about reshaping who can fully participate in it," they added. "We will continue to call these efforts what they are and fight for every eligible voter’s freedom to make their voice heard.”
Senate Resolution Will Demand Answers on Extremist Israeli Settler Violence Against US Citizens
"The United States cannot keep bankrolling this violence and looking the other way—it’s time to end our complicity, once and for all," said US Sen. Bernie Sanders.
A group of Senate Democrats on Thursday announced plans to introduce a privileged resolution requiring the Trump administration to give Congress more information about violence carried out by extremist settlers in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Led by Sens. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Tim Kaine (D-Va.), and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who caucuses with Democrats, the lawmakers are demanding the US Department of State produce reports detailing investigations into the killings of nine US citizens at the hands of Israeli settlers in recent years, as well as assessments on the human rights impact of Israeli policies such as the detention of Palestinian children.
Van Hollen said the resolution was necessary because the Trump administration has done nothing to hold the Israeli government accountable for the deaths of US citizens.
"As we've seen violence rise in the West Bank, American citizens have been killed time and again, and they have received no justice and no accountability," said Van Hollen. "It’s past time we get answers on their deaths—and on the growing violent instability in the West Bank and the injustices facing Palestinian civilians on a daily basis."
Sanders accused the Israeli government of offering "impunity" to settlers who carry out "horrific violence" against Palestinian civilians regularly.
"Enough is enough," said Sanders. "The United States cannot keep bankrolling this violence and looking the other way—it’s time to end our complicity, once and for all."
Kaine described the Israeli government's "lack of response" to the settler violence as "unacceptable," saying it "threatens the long-term safety and security of the entire region."
"Friends need to listen to each other," said Kaine, "and my colleagues and I have repeatedly urged Israeli leaders to take firmer action to curtail illegal settlements in the West Bank, prosecute violent settlers, and protect Palestinian residents as well as American citizens living in or visiting the West Bank."
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who is also supporting the resolution, slammed the Trump White House's complicity in the Israeli settler attacks, nothing that the administration "has even gone so far as to reverse sanctions against individuals connected to this pattern of horrific violence."
"It's long past time for the US government to stand up for human rights," said Warren, "investigate this violence against Americans and Palestinian civilians, provide full information to Congress, and hold the perpetrators accountable."
By introducing the measure as a privileged resolution, the Democrats can force a vote on it on the floor of the US Senate if the chamber's Foreign Relations Committee fails to act on it within 10 days of its introduction.
Human rights organizations for months have been sounding the alarm about the situation in the West Bank, where Israeli settlers have routinely attacked Palestinians at their own homes.
An analysis published by the Carter Center last month found that "settler attacks are now the leading cause of Palestinian injuries in the West Bank," as "more than 3,200 Palestinians have been displaced by settler attacks and home demolitions this year—double the daily rate of the previous three years."
Big Oil Stocks Surged Due to Iran War—and New Filings Show How President Trump Cashed In
The president is making "significant profits on the global instability he's inciting," said one government ethics expert. "It's profoundly unethical."
In a mandated filing with the Office of Government Ethics released Thursday, President Donald Trump was found to have made more than 1,000 stock transactions in June, including thousands of dollars invested in energy companies that were reaping record profits from the war Trump started with Iran.
Trump submitted financial disclosure forms to the OGE covering the second quarter of 2026, during which the Iran War continued, was paused for a ceasefire, and restarted again.
CBS News pointed to a "notable large transaction" on April 7, the day Trump declared a ceasefire with Iran after having threatened to destroy the country's "entire civilization." His investment accounts sold between $500,000 and $1 million of ExxonMobil stock that same day.
The filings were submitted days after Democrats on the Joint Economic Committee (JEC) estimated that Trump's oil and gas stocks have soared in value since before he began attacking Iran in February—an act that raised oil prices due to Iran's retaliatory closing of the Strait of Hormuz. The holdings were estimated at $13 million to $46 million at the start of 2026 and $17 million to $61 million this month.
"President Trump saw his wealth go up by as much as $15.5 million just through stocks he owned in oil and gas companies at the end of 2025," said the JEC Democrats. "These companies’ profits and stock values are rising because Trump’s reckless war in Iran has caused gas and oil prices to skyrocket."
The JEC's estimates were based on his holdings in 2025 and did not account for the trades he continued to make as the war dragged on.
"Trump's war in Iran has inflicted higher energy and gas prices on the American people," said Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW). "Meanwhile, Trump's brokers have been trading oil and gas stocks for him, helping him profit on the global instability he's inciting. It's profoundly unethical."
The White House said the president does not make trades himself, but CREW president Donald Sherman told CBS News that Trump should not be making "significant profits on the global instability he's inciting."
"President Trump's war of choice in Iran has cost the American people in the form of higher energy and gas prices and higher shipping costs," Sherman said. "Meanwhile, Trump's brokers have been trading oil and gas stocks for him... It doesn't matter whether he's trading the stocks himself—the president has a duty to avoid conflicts of interest between his finances and what's best for the American people."
Unlike other US presidents, Trump has refused to place his assets in a blind trust, instead continuing to hold stocks that are visible to him in all 11 sectors involved in the stock market.
In June, the president's stock portfolio made a series of energy trades, including two sales and one purchase of ExxonMobil stock that were valued between $1,001 and $15,000. He also bought and sold Chevron stocks three times and made three sales of ConocoPhillips holdings.
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) said that the new filings show "Trump's only focus is enriching himself at the expense of the American people."























