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Oh Canada: We Will Neither Cower Nor Bend
More insane idiocy from the petty huckster clown king whose idea of governance is threatening lawsuits, trade wars, buildings that won't put his name on them; bungling war and peace; flaunting Nazi loyalty queries and sadistic images of black men in chains; and distracting from it all with the dumbass geographic circlejerk of inventing “LAKe AMeRiCA.” The Internet was born for this: Cue Donald Ducks, the Straits of Our Moose, Lake Dead Pedo Bestie, Lake Superior President Obama, and Lake Stupid Fucking Moron.
Last week, after God killed the wrong 80-year-old in the 784th year of a presidency that feels like "being in middle school when there's a substitute teacher and a student has a medical emergency," yet more banal slop issued from a needy racist sociopath so stupid he once seemingly conflated the Very Hard words "transistor" and "transgender" to claim Biden's CHIPS Act offered billions to domestic tech companies but "if you weren't transgender, (you) didn't qualify." Jesus. No wonder, à propos of nothing, the widely deemed "worst president in U.S. history" took time out from his busy mob boss schedule to declare himself the bestest - take that Honest Abe - after his faithful Human Printer dug up a similar 1948 Life Magazine chart, which is "exactly the kind of thing a healthy, high-functioning person shares."
Other things he did, abetted by a confederacy of dunces, stooges, techno-fascists, warmongers, crypto dorks, "unfuckable hate nerds" and "an actual Jewish Nazi": Having hit the six-month mark of his Iran debacle, he giddily proclaimed, "Mission Accomplished!" despite a. the only thing achieved is handing a newly empowered Iran control of the Strait of Hormuz as U.S. gas prices skyrocket and the economy implodes, b. he evidently missed the part where George W's 2003 banner aboard an aircraft carrier became a queasy punchline, c. he did so amidst reports his and Kegsbreath's said debacle has pushed the US military into a "beyond critical" shortage of money and missile interceptors in the case of an enemy attack, forcing them to shift funds around "in imaginative ways" - because everything he touches dies and we probably will too.
A fragile child, he demands fealty to even his ceaseless clusterfucks. Thus the latest inane authoritarian hokum from a Department of Homeland (sic) Security that alas hasn’t lost any of its fascist fervor since the brutal puppy-killing days of ICE Barbie. Its new, dystopian, “genuinely deranged” missive: A glowering image of Dear Dumb Leader with the dark challenge, “Did you remain loyal?”, which chillingly fails to consider just what atrocities they’re demanding allegiance to. The answer came in a post that swiftly followed: Sadistic footage of shackled Haitian immigrants, targeted after losing Temporary Protected Status for no reason but mindless, racist cruelty, being shuffled onto planes in pouring rain to the sneering tune of a Creole song about returning home - complete with fawning close-ups of the chains on their feet. Well done, sick fucks.
Meanwhile, the trail of destruction goes on apace. In D.C., after the East Wing and reflecting pool - we like the meme of him studying it with, "All I see is scum" and a lackey saying, "Well, it is a reflecting pool, sir" - we've reached the mobsters' "offer-they- can't-refuse" phase on the besieged Kennedy Center. Having repeatedly lost in court, the regime now threatens to demolish the not-long-ago-flourishing Center unless a tantrum-throwing 10-year-old gets his name "prominently added" to its exterior with "appropriate respect" of his efforts to "save” it from a fictional "death spiral" that's rendered it "dilapidated, outdated, decrepit and embarrassing to the Nation’s Capital," which is some pot/kettle. If they can't plaster his ghastly name over it - inscription, plaza et al - they'll replace it with "an outdoor amphitheater," aka a lawn.
They're also pushing to sell off part of Yosemite National Park, like everything else, to the highest bidder, though the seller is such an imbecile he still cringingly says "Yo, Semites!" He's such a petty dolt he's also skipping this year's 9/11 remembrance at Ground Zero because he wasn't allowed to give a Nazi speech there, opting to give it at the Pentagon before rushing off to the Irish Open at his crappy golf course, 'cause priorities. Having trashed jobs, health insurance, food aid, the environment and most of our global alliances, he blew up trade talks with Canada, calling its endlessly nice residents "nasty people," and holding a clownish Oval Office event to sign an idiotic executive order renaming Lake Ontario to “LAKe AMeRiCA,” which he's "been thinking about for a long time" with what's left of his tiny brain. (Here he is on trade: The stupid, it burns.)
"All it takes is a good pen and some intelligence,” he said, only batting one for two in a pretend-name-changing event labeled, "Making the Great Lakes Even Greater.” Then - what a feckin’ playacting infant - he drew a line through the doomed lake and intoned, “We have notified various people who needed to be notified...This is official.” He said he’d instructed craven lickspittle and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to "take all appropriate actions." Burgum slavishly wrote, “We’re on it, Mr. President!”, thus becoming the only person on Planet Earth to take this puerile claptrap seriously, evidently unaware an executive order is not a law and every ship entering the Great Lakes has to go through Canada's Welland Canal, including $26 billion in U.S. trade, and it would be a shame if Canada up and supersized their tolls, and thank you for your attention to this matter.
Uncle Bernie and most of America promptly responded they'd rather have affordable health care, thanks, also housing, food, education and cancer research. Nova Scotia's Conservative premier Tim Houston, "not exactly a firebrand," opined, “We’re into some real foolishness now. It’s Lake Ontario, buddy." Canada's newly combative Prime Minister Mark Carney, out of fucks to give, noted that long before Europeans came the lake was named by Native Americans using the Huron word "Ontari’io," for, "The lake is beautiful, the lake is big." "The name is more than 400 years old," he said. "Canadians know that naming reality means calling it Lake Ontario - then, now and always." The Canadian Resistance Army, who earlier defended penguins, also chimed in, declaring, "We're going to trade war/Beavers and moose won't take it any more."
Above all, it was agreed, “LAKe AMeRiCA" is what God invented the Internet for. The names spooled out in a gleeful torrent.
Lake Release the Epstein Files. Lake Gulf of Mexico. Lake Are We Doing This Again. Lake Micropenis. Lake Natalie. Lake Huron Thin Ice with Melania. Lake Universal Healthcare. Lake Eerily Overweight Pres Dick J. McRectum. Lake Felon. Lake Not Eerie. Lake Oh Canada. Lake Small Dick Energy. Many chose Lake Obama. Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers created the politically incorrect Lake Retard: "See, I can sign napkins that say things too." One decided to "just keep calling it Lake Epstein, like the Founders wanted." Mapquest, unlike cowering Google, not only declined to change the lake's name but invited viewers to "spread some geographic joy" and "name it whatever you want." One result: Lake Who Uses Mapquest Anymore.
Many noted the traditional Great Lakes litany of "H.O.M.E.S" had entirely logically become "S.H.A.M.E." People renamed their toilet bowl to Lake Trump. The White House to Home of Diaper Butt. Mar-a-Lago to Poopy Pants Palace. The United States of America to the Epstein States of Pedophiles, or just South Canada. President Trump to President Dickhead. California to Amerifornia. Strait of Hormuz to Strait of Our Moose. People mocked his thieving choice of one of the smallest and dirtiest Great Lakes. They noted, "Nobody in Ontario gives a single solitary fuck what Assclown McCrappy-Pants says about anything." They griped the name change "really screws with the lyrics of Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald."
"What are they trying to distract us from this time?" they asked. Response: "The previous distraction." Some coddled the needy child-king: "Good for you, li'l fella." Some railed: "Jesus Christ, can somebody just get him a coloring book already?" Some were still baffled by how low we've gone: "Wait, this is real?" Some refused to go there: "Nope." Some summoned the great Talking Heads: "As things fell apart/Nobody paid much attention." And some fought back against the incessant bullying. After the Center for American Progress released a report finding billions spent on ICE thugs and National Guard swarms had no real effect on reducing violent crime, Trump threatened a $5 billion lawsuit if they didn't retract it. The center stood firm against "a transparent attempt to silence us." "We will neither cower nor bend in the face of it," they said. And, still and all, we will snark away.
Update: Talk about "Do not obey in advance": After defying the petty madness, usage of Mapquest has surged to about 50 times its usual rate, leapfrogging past Google and Apple Maps to become the most-downloaded mapping app, and the fourth most popular of all apps excluding games in the US. Along with their "spread some geographic joy" invite, they posted a mocking, all-caps retort: "OUR MAPS ARE BIG AND BEAUTIFUL. PEOPLE COME UP TO US AND SAY WE'LL GET THEM PLACES. AND WE DO!!" Lol.
Canada vs. the Epstein Statesof AmericaImage from Bluesky
Investigation Exposes Massive New Jersey Data Center Operating Army of Polluting Generators Without Permits
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.
Watchdog Finds Trump Crypto Schemes Have Left Investors on the Hook for Over $4 Billion in Losses
A report released Thursday by government watchdog Public Citizen estimates that President Donald Trump's assorted cryptocurrency products have left investors on the hook for billions of dollars in losses.
In total, Public Citizen found that Trump's crypto schemes have left investors at least $4.7 billion in the hole, with the majority of those losses coming from investments into the president's personal meme coin, which he launched just three days before the start of his second term.
The value of Trump's meme coin peaked at over $73 per token two days after its launch. Since then, its value has completely cratered and it is currently trading in the $2 range.
Early investors in the coin scooped up tokens that they quickly unloaded to other buyers, who were left holding the bag after the value of the digital assets collapsed.
In all, Public Citizen explained, 1% of wallets that invested in the coin reaped 80% of all gains, while 65% of wallets that put money into it are underwater to the tune of $3.2 billion.
Even as many investors in the Trump coin saw the value of their investments deteriorate, the president profited handsomely, hauling in $635 million in licensing fees from the coin last year alone.
Trump was also not personally hurt by the coin's drop in value given that he invested no money to acquire his own share of the digital tokens, which Public Citizen estimated is worth $271 million.
While the Trump meme coin accounted for the lion's share of losses suffered by investors, Public Citizen also highlighted the damage done by governance tokens issued by World Liberty Financial, the cryptocurrency venture co-founded by Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump in 2024.
As explained by Public Citizen, a governance token is "a digital commodity that conveys to holders certain 'rights with respect to the associated functional crypto system,' according to the SEC and Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC)."
In practice, however, Public Citizen said that owning such tokens is akin to having "membership in a condo board—but without actually getting to vote on many issues or even own the condo."
The price of the tokens reached a peak of $0.33 per unit in September 2025, but they're now trading at under $0.06 per unit.
And much like the Trump meme coin, a small group of early investors made a killing on the tokens while most others racked up losses totaling at least $1 billion.
"The accredited and foreign investors who got in on the private sale paid $0.015 or $0.05, meaning they’re up anywhere from 15% to 283%," wrote Public Citizen. "Almost everyone who bought the tokens on the public market, though, is down—possibly as much as 83%, if they bought at the peak."
Public Citizen also highlighted the money lost by people who bought nonfungible tokens (NFTs) that Trump marketed as digital trading cards and that sold for $99 a piece.
While the cards were initially worth $12.3 million at the time of their release, their aggregate value has since fallen to $3 million, leaving investors $9.3 million underwater. But regardless of how well investors in the cards fared, Trump still made $7.2 million in licensing fees and royalties on secondary market sales, Public Citizen found.
Zach Everson, research director for Public Citizen's Trump Accountability Project and author of the report, cautioned Trump critics against ridiculing people who invested in the president's crypto products in a Thursday social media post.
"Trust me, I get the desire to sneer," wrote Everson. "People decided to put their money into virtual currencies backed by the word of a man who: admitted to misusing charitable funds; took six companies into bankruptcy; was convicted of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. But these people got screwed over nevertheless."
'Mobster Language': Trump Says Venezuelan Oil Will Replenish US Reserves
President Donald Trump was accused of naked gangsterism and revisionist history on Sunday when he announced that Venezuelan oil would be used to refill the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
"One of the things I am going to do with the Venezuelan Oil is fill up the Strategic National Reserves which, because of Sleepy Joe Biden, has been virtually emptied. The 'topping out' process will begin very shortly, and is a Gift from Venezuela to the People of the United States," Trump wrote on Truth Social.
The oil in question comes from a deal announced between the governments of Trump and acting Venezuelan President Delcy Rodriguez on Friday, which would allow the US to take majority control of 65 billion barrels worth of Venezuelan oil preserves. While Rodriguez has spoken favorably of the arrangement, it is hard to know how freely she speaks and acts given that her predecessor Nicolás Maduro was kidnapped by US forces in January.
"Describing oil you are looting by force as a 'Gift from Venezuela to the People of the United States' is straight mobster language," Drop Site News journalist Ryan Grim wrote on social media in response to Trump's statement on Sunday.
"No one told the demented jerk that he drained over 100 million barrels from the Strategic Reserves?"
Nathan J. Robinson, editor-in-chief of Current Affairs, also commented on the imperialism inherent in Trump's remarks, writing: "I feel like I used to spend so much time trying to prove that the US was not interested in promoting democracy and just preferred autocratic governments that give us whatever we want. And now he just posts this every day on social media."
In an article on Sunday entitled "Trump’s Venezuela Oil Grab Reprises Industry’s Neocolonial Past," Bloomberg reported that the oil deal reminded some analysts of 20th century US colonialism in Latin America.
Venezuelan economist Francisco Rodríguez told Bloomberg that Venezuela is “functioning as a protectorate of the US in all but name,” and that the current deal “isn’t furthering the interests of Venezuelans. It’s about securing the economic and security interests of the United States.”
New York University associate history professor Alejandro Velasco, meanwhile, compared today's Venezuela with the Central American "Banana Republics" that were heavily influenced by the US-based United Fruit Company during the first half of the 20th century.
The Venezuelan people “are entirely at the whims of whatever the US government, by way of these companies, is going to give to them,” he told Bloomberg. “Venezuela is a client state now.”
Both Rodriguez, the economist, and Robinson questioned whether the deal would survive a change in Venezuela's government.
“If I were an investor in Venezuela right now, I would be asking myself if there’s going to be a government in the future that will repudiate the contracts,” Rodriguez told Bloomberg.
Robinson, meanwhile, wrote on social media, "It's obvious that a democratic Venezuela would never hand over its oil to the US, so the US actually strongly opposes democracy in Venezuela."
Other experts pointed out that Trump lied about how the Strategic Petroleum Preserve (SPR) was depleted in the first place. While President Joe Biden did drawn upon the reserve in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Trump has also relied on reserves to offset the impact of his war on Iran and the subsequent closure of the Strait of Hormuz. As of August 21, the SPR held 289.7 million barrels, a 30% decrease from the start of the year, according to the Energy Information Administration. It is supposed to fall further to 243 million barrels per Trump's orders, Drop Site News reported.
"No one told the demented jerk that he drained over 100 million barrels from the Strategic Reserves?" Dean Baker, senior economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, asked on social media.
It is also unclear how quickly any Venezuelan oil could top out the SPR, given that Venezuela's oil industry has been weakened by sanctions and mismanagement and needs substantial investment and work before it can increase production, according to Reuters.
At the same time, Drop Site pointed out that Delcy Rodriguez made no mention of gifting the US oil when she laid out more details of the deal on Saturday night. According to the acting Venezuelan leader, the deal would last 25 years and the country would maintain “ownership of and sovereignty” over the oil “while leveraging capital, technology, and operational expertise to support the recovery of a strategic industry that has been severely affected by sanctions," as Reuters reported.
In response, Francisco Rodriquez outlined a series of questions about the deal, including how Delcy Rodriguez's remarks compared with Trump's.
"President Trump has also said that with immediate effect, the United States' strategic oil reserve will begin to be supplied through a gift from Venezuela. Can you explain under what conditions this gift is being made?" the economist asked the Venezuelan leader on social media on Sunday. "Which articles of the law or Constitution allow you to give away Venezuelan oil property? And if that flow begins immediately, as President Trump says, does that mean it will be supplied from current production, and therefore imply lower revenues for the national treasury in the immediate term?"
Health Aid Cuts in Secret Trump Deals Will Inflict 'Preventable' Death, Disease on Global South: Report
The US Congress has pushed back against President Donald Trump's efforts to slash foreign aid, which has long been supported by Democrats and Republicans alike—but a new report on more than a dozen Memoranda of Understanding that the White House has reached with countries that have long relied heavily on healthcare assistance shows that the administration is underspending "congressionally appropriated global health funds by potentially billions of dollars," as it pushes its "America First Global Health Strategy."
That's according to Public Citizen, which on Sunday joined Partners In Health in releasing an analysis of documents that the two nonprofits obtained after suing the Trump administration and filing a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.
The groups reviewed the MOUs that have been signed for 18 out of 34 countries whose agreements have been negotiated by the US State Department, including Rwanda, Liberia, Burundi, and Madagascar.
Although Congress has voted to keep foreign aid levels relatively constant—rejecting a budget that called to slash global health spending by $6.2 billion before approving one that proposed a $615 million decrease in spending—the report finds that the MOUs cut foreign health aid by about $2 billion by 2030, compared to 2024 levels.
“These documents suggest that the Trump administration is on course to underspend on global health by billions of dollars compared to what Congress has ordered, risking lives and allowing diseases to spread,” said Peter Maybarduk, director of the Access to Medicines program at Public Citizen. “The administration must answer how and when it intends to invest the missing billions for health.”
Overall, funding for programs that aim to prevent the spread of diseases including HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and Ebola—which is currently spreading in the Democratic Republic of Congo's fastest-spreading outbreak on record—is set to be reduced by 59% from historical spending, according to the MOUs viewed by Public Citizen and Partners in Health.
Some countries would see their health assistance from the US plummet even more, with Rwanda's MOU stipulating a 97% reduction in US health aid. Liberia is set to receive 84% less funding for health initiatives by 2030, and Burundi is set to lose 78% of its aid.
"Partners In Health provides direct care in Rwanda, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, along with seven other countries, and expects under-spending of these funds to impact patients’ access to care," said Public Citizen.
The MOUs also demand that the countries meet strict co-financing requirements to make up for their lost funding, and governments in poor countries across Africa could face penalties "which could worsen funding cuts" if they miss the co-financing targets.
"The planned decreases in US funding are larger for several countries than the funding increases from partner governments," reads the report. "For more than half of countries (11 out of 18), co-financing commitments fall short of the US government’s cuts over five years compared to baseline US government funding."
Countries are likely to struggle to meet the co-financing requirements in the MOUs, warned Public Citizen and Partners In Health.
Malawi would be required to secure new healthcare funding equal to 56% of the country's total health expenditure, the report found. With Uganda also facing co-financing requirements from international health organizations including the Global Fund and Gavi, the East African country would be required to mobilize funds equal to 44% of its total health budget.
"These funding cuts will cause death and disease that is preventable,” said Vincent Lin, associate director of health policy and advocacy for Partners In Health. “The State Department is setting up other countries for failure with the co-financing requirements outlined in these agreements, but it will be patients who will pay the ultimate price.”
Maybarduk told The Washington Post that Sierra Leone will be required under its MOU to fill a 71% health funding gap by 2030.
“It’s going to be very difficult, and if a country like that falls behind, and then is punished for that, then of course the health problems compound," said Maybarduk.
The State Department denied to the Post that the Trump administration will not spend all the foreign health assistance funds appropriated by Congress; it suggested that more of the money than usual may go to religious organizations as well as an "innovation fund" to support US technology that aims to fight disease.
Last week, Public Citizen sued the Trump administration under FOIA to obtain the rest of the MOUs that remain hidden from the public.
The White House, said the group, "has kept the public in the dark about the full details of its plans for the future of US support for global health."
"The State Department has negotiated these bilateral agreements," the group said, "on rushed timelines with limited participation from civil society and affected communities."
'This Is Ethnic Cleansing': Retired Israeli Generals Decry Settler Terrorism Against West Bank Palestinians
Several retired Israel Defense Forces generals are publicly denouncing their own government for permitting settlers living in the illegally occupied West Bank to wage a campaign of violence against the Palestinian population.
As The New York Times reported on Monday, the retired generals have been touring the West Bank in recent days to witness first-hand the damage that has been done to Palestinians' livelihoods by the Israeli settlers, whose violent actions have grown so outrageous that even US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee described them as "terrorists."
Ephraim Sneh, retired brigadier general and former minister of health, did not mince words in describing the settlers' campaign of attacking Palestinian villages.
"This is ethnic cleansing, to put it simply," said Sneh.
Asaf Agmon, a retired Air Force general, likened the attacks on Palestinians to the kinds of pogroms once suffered by Jews living in Europe.
Agmon also said that the Israeli government's tacit support of these attacks bodes ill for the future of Israel.
“Once a society behaves this way,” said Agmon, “that society is doomed.”
The tours of the West Bank are being organized by Yaakov Or, a retired Israeli general who spent much of his career working inside the occupied territory.
According to the Times, Or begins every tour with a speech where he emphasizes the importance of speaking out against what he says are indefensible atrocities.
"When I take you to see what is happening in the West Bank, you will have two choices," Or said during the start of a recent tour. "You can stay silent, and be complicit, or you can speak out, and tell everyone you know about what is happening."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the weekend once again downplayed the significance of settler attacks on Palestinians, describing them as rogue actions taken by troubled individuals.
"We are talking about a very small handful of people," Netanyahu said, "usually young people who come with all kinds of distress and problems, often from home, and I am determined to stop this."
The Israeli prime minister also said that attacking Palestinian villages "harms the settlement movement" and "gives us a bad name around the world."
Netanyahu on "settler" terrorism:
We are talking about a very small handful of people, usually young people who come with all kinds of distress and problems, often from home, and I am determined to stop this.
You want to enter a village? You will not enter. That is not your… pic.twitter.com/MlnKxlaxlB
— Clash Report (@clashreport) August 30, 2026
Palestinian Christian theologian Munther Isaac pointed out that the Israeli government itself has been actively working to push Palestinians out of their homes in the West Bank, pointing to recent Israeli demolitions of homes in the town of Birzeit.
"This is what ethnic cleansing looks like in Palestine," wrote Isaac.
Birzeit: Israeli occupation forces demolished two inhabited residential buildings. Each was four stories high, with every floor covering 250 square meters.
This is what ethnic cleansing looks like in Palestine. pic.twitter.com/XsYu92VUFw
— Munther Isaac منذر اسحق (@MuntherIsaac) August 31, 2026
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.”
Federal Panel Halts What Would Be First Data Center on Public Lands
"The Trump administration is pulling out all the stops to let tech companies build massive data centers on our public lands. This tremendous victory proves communities have the power to fight back and win.”
Environmental groups are celebrating on Tuesday after a federal panel halted construction of what would be the first artificial intelligence data center to be built on US public lands.
The Interior Board of Land Appeals, an appellate body within the US Department of the Interior, put a temporary stay on the Bureau of Land Management's (BLM) approval of the proposed 80-acre Townsite Data Center near Boulder City, Nevada, which environmental groups warned would jack up electricity demand and water usage and threaten local species.
The board sided with the Sierra Club, the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD), and the local government of Boulder City, which argued that the BLM had not conducted the legally required review of the plan's environmental impacts.
The BLM had approved the site based on a review of a proposed solar power plant, but had not reevaluated the impacts of a data center.
The board said that the environmental groups were "likely to prevail" in their case that the BLM had acted illegally "because the two projects are not ‘substantially the same.’” It also ruled that continuing the project without a proper review was likely to cause "irreparable harm" to the landscape—including soil disruption, habitat loss for species like the Mojave desert tortoise, and construction activities that pollute the air.
The temporary stay blocks the data center project from continuing while the board considers the environmental groups' appeal.
While it was not a final ruling on whether the project will be built at all, Patrick Donnelly, Great Basin director at the CBD, said the group was "thrilled that this data center has been stopped dead in its tracks."
Townsite has been described as a test case as BLM considers approving other data center proposals on federal lands, including in Nevada, where 80% of the land is federally managed.
Building data centers on federal lands is a major priority of the Trump administration's "AI Action Plan," which was published by the White House in 2025 and directs US agencies to identify public lands “well-situated for large-scale data centers."
Under the plan, the US Department of Energy announced in July 2025 that it had identified at least four other sites around the country for potential development, including the Idaho National Laboratory, the Oak Ridge Reservation in Tennessee, the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Kentucky, and the Savannah River Site in South Carolina.
Donnelly said Tuesday's ruling had shown BLM would not be able to approve these and other sites without conducting the appropriate environmental reviews.
"The Trump administration is pulling out all the stops to let tech companies build massive data centers on our public lands," he said. "This tremendous victory proves communities have the power to fight back and win.”
Boulder City is one of many locales around the country where plans for large data centers have received public backlash. For months, the project faced protests at City Hall from residents who raised concerns about energy and water use, light pollution, and impacts on the local desert habitat.
Public anger ultimately led the Boulder City Planning Commission to turn against the project, voting in May against adding data centers to the city's land management process. To bypass the city, BLM approved the same project on adjacent federal lands. Boulder City responded by joining environmental groups' appeal against the project.
“The BLM essentially, sweepingly, approved a new land use without following processes in federal law, which include a meaningful engagement process with the city," City Attorney Brittany Walker told the Nevada Current in July, after the City Council unanimously voted to appeal.
Olivia Tanager, director of the Sierra Club Toiyabe chapter, called Tuesday's ruling "a victory for democracy, public participation, and the principle that our public lands should serve the public."
"The people of Boulder City have made clear that they do not want a data center on public lands, and this ruling gives their voices the weight they deserve," she said. "Data centers do not belong on public lands, and we will continue to fight unfettered data center development.”
Townsite is just one of several data center proposals being considered on federal lands in Nevada. In June, BLM officials told local leaders that it had received four applications for data centers on public lands around Silver Springs, a small community east of Reno in Lyon County, which has eight facilities planned in total, according to the US Data Center Map.
The sudden explosion of data center planning in the area has led many residents to push for a moratorium on new data center approvals.
Brynn deLorimier, a Boulder City resident who joined the appeal, said she hopes her city's victory will help to protect neighboring communities from unaccountable data center growth.
“We love our community and our desert, and we’re so grateful to our friends and neighbors for working hard to protect both,” she said. “We’re also grateful to the Interior Board of Land Appeals for recognizing that this case matters far beyond Boulder City and could set an important precedent for public lands in Nevada and across the country.”
Iran Says Trump's New Attacks Show Americans 'Stuck in the Massive Error They’ve Made'
"We cannot accept any orders being dictated upon us," said the spokesperson for Iran's Foreign Ministry. "If they continue with this philosophy, they will not get any different result.”
As US President Donald Trump returns to bombing Iranian territory, Esmaeil Baghaei Hamaneh, the spokesperson for Iran's Foreign Ministry, said at a press conference on Tuesday that it's only a sign of the quagmire he's found himself in, and emphasized that the only way out will be negotiation rather than force.
"It has become clear they are now stuck in the massive error they’ve made, and it’s their usual habit to raise excessive demands," Baghaei said, noting that mediation efforts by Pakistan were continuing even as the Trump administration claims that Iran is refusing "meaningful negotiations."
When Trump launched the war in February, he predicted that Iran would be brought to its knees in a matter of weeks. Six months later, there is no sign that an end to the conflict is in sight as Trump rejects a return to the negotiating table.
Baghaei said it's clear that the US was once again falling into "a state of miscalculation." Iran, he said, had been adhering to the Memorandum of Understanding reached in June, while the US refused to abide by its terms of ending its economic blockade, unfreezing assets, and ending threats of aggression, as well as ending attacks by US ally Israel in Lebanon.
Baghaei said Iran was willing to reach another agreement to end the war. The problem, he said, was that Trump had shown himself unwilling to follow any deal that included concessions to Iran and was demanding its full capitulation.
"We cannot accept any orders being dictated upon us," Baghaei said. "If they continue with this philosophy, they will not get any different result.”
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian echoed Baghaei's position on Tuesday, saying that Iran would “immediately reciprocate” if Washington honored its commitments under the June interim agreement.
Failing to break Iran with military might, Trump tried to switch last month to a strategy of "economic warfare," imposing "the toughest sanctions in history" and pressuring other nations around the world to do the same in an effort to isolate Iran and fully topple its government.
Baghaei acknowledged that US sanctions were having a devastating effect on the people of Iran. According to Reuters, Iran's foreign trade is down by 35%, and inflation reached 66% in July, cranking up the pain felt by the civilian population.
But efforts to create the "greatest coordinated economic isolation in the history of the world," as Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent described it, have faced resistance, with Iran's major trading partners such as China and Pakistan refusing to cut ties.
"Six months of US bombing and naval blockade have produced no US victory, so the plan now is to starve Iran into capitulation," wrote Columbia University professor Jeffrey Sachs and UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network adviser Sybil Fares on Monday for Al Jazeera. "The new approach is illegal, cruel, and will fail for several reasons."
"To begin with, there is the historical record. Economic sanctions do not bring down governments determined to survive them. Yes, sanctions can impoverish populations, empower the security services that control smuggling, and hand the targeted nation a rallying point built on US malice," Sachs and Fares wrote.
They added that at a time when Iran's restrictions on travel through the Strait of Hormuz have spiked oil prices and sent shocks through the global economy, there is little incentive for the world to cut off Iran's oil exports as well.
"The US proposes to deepen a stagflationary shock already being borne by Europe, Japan, and its other allies, and orders those countries to enforce sanctions that will throttle their economies," they wrote.
And due to Trump's erratic policy, disregard for the United Nations Charter in launching a war of aggression, and the demonstration that his assurances are "unreliable," Sachs and Fares noted that countries are increasingly reaching agreements that rely less on US military guarantees and dollar-based trade.
"Pride goeth before the fall, and no government today is more arrogant than the US under Trump and his enforcer, Bessent," they wrote. "Governments around the world will not follow the US blindly into disaster."
100+ Civil Society Groups Condemn Trump Attack on Democratic Establishment Think Tank
"We stand with the Center for American Progress, not in agreement with every view they hold, but in steadfast support for their rights to voice those views freely and without political retribution."
A diverse coalition of around 150 organizations on Tuesday collectively spoke out against US President Donald Trump's recent attack on the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank with ties to the Democratic Party establishment.
The Republican president, through one of his lawyers, threatened to sue the center last month over its July report concluding that there was no evidence his deployment of the National Guard in Washington, DC did anything to reduce violent crime.
"Since our nation's founding, the rights to free speech, association, and the press have been the bedrock on which American democracy has thrived," begins the coalition's statement, spearheaded by Nonprofits Together. "We reaffirm, as has each generation before us, our unqualified commitment to the First Amendment and its foundational protections."
"In so doing, we stand in strong solidarity with the Center for American Progress (CAP), a nonpartisan think tank, and its right to publish expert analysis on the impact of the Trump administration's—or any administration's—policies," it continues. "The free exchange of ideas—including ideas that are inconvenient to those in power—is critical for Americans to understand the nature and impact of the actions of their government."
Trump's legal attack on CAP is just "the latest salvo in the administration's ongoing efforts to suppress the speech of organizations that challenge their policies, defend the rule of law, and protect civil rights and vulnerable communities," the coalition noted.
Other authoritarian attacks—as detailed last December in the Free Press report "Chokehold: Donald Trump's War on Free Speech & the Need for Systemic Resistance"—include the White House taking control of the presidential press pool, legal action such as Trump's lawsuit against Rupert Murdoch and the The Wall Street Journal over reporting on the president's ties to deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, and the administration working to deport foreign scholars and journalists who criticize US policy.
First it was law firms, then universities, and now Trump has threatened a research organization in an attempt to silence them.We're proud to join 150+ organizations standing up for @americanprogress.bsky.social and the First Amendment. Read the full statement: nptogether.org/press/cap-st...
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— American Oversight (@weareoversight.bsky.social) September 1, 2026 at 12:14 PM
Stressing that there are often disagreements "even within think tanks," the coalition warned Tuesday that attempting to silence sources of information "degrades our free exchange of ideas, and risks leaving only distortions in the public square."
"This is infinitely more damaging to our democratic ideals when done for purely political purposes," the groups argued. "There are few issues more fundamental to the First Amendment than the right of an independent organization to publish evidence-based analysis of a government policy and how it is or is not working."
"This is not about ideology or partisanship," the organizations continued. "This is true regardless of who is in power, and who is issuing public critiques of that power. We stand with the Center for American Progress, not in agreement with every view they hold, but in steadfast support for their rights to voice those views freely and without political retribution."
The signatories range from environmental, labor, and legal groups to those focused on faith, housing, immigration, LGBTQ+ rights, reproductive freedom, and more. They include the ACLU, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Drug Policy Alliance, Economic Policy Institute, Giffords, Greenpeace USA, Human Rights Campaign, Indivisible, National Education Association, Oxfam America, Public Citizen, and Union of Concerned Scientists.
“The free exchange of ideas—including ideas that are inconvenient to those in power—is critical for Americans to understand the nature and impact of the actions of their government.” CAC stands with @americanprogress.bsky.social: nptogether.org/press/cap-st...
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— CAC (@myconstitution.bsky.social) September 1, 2026 at 11:30 AM
CAP was founded in 2003 by John Podesta, who has served in various roles under former Democratic Presidents Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden. The center's current president, Neera Tanden, has also worked for key party leaders. In response to Trump's threat last month, she emphasized that the think tank "is an independent, nonpartisan research organization, and our work is grounded in rigorous, evidence-based research and analysis."
Blasting the threatened lawsuit as "baseless" and "a transparent attempt to silence us," Tanden pledged that "we will neither cower nor bend in the face of it."
"In America, profound disagreements over public policy are resolved through robust public debate, not through threats or intimidation," she added. "Independent data, evidence, and analysis are essential to that debate. Efforts to silence independent research because its findings are unwelcome by an administration or president should alarm every American."
Jewish Artists Condemn Corporate 'Smear Campaign' Against Mark Ruffalo for Israel Criticism
"The time is over for spurious charges of antisemitism to be trotted out, this time in the defense of war, oligarchy, and AI domination."
A group of over 170 Jewish figures, including many who work in the entertainment industry, have come to the defense of actor Mark Ruffalo as he faces antisemitism accusations from executives at Paramount for criticizing the Israeli government and its ties to powerful corporations.
In a letter released Tuesday, prominent Jewish figures—including filmmaker Joel Coen, director and author Miranda July, actress Debra Winger, actress and director Ilana Glazer, actress and comedian Hannah Einbinder, and playwright Tony Kushner—accused Paramount of waging a "smear campaign" to shield corporate interests from legitimate criticism.
"Enough with the false and dangerous weaponization of charges of antisemitism," the letter states, "against those who are brave enough to point out the obvious: that the assault on the Palestinian people and the assault on our liberties at home are deeply interconnected, and there is nothing antisemitic about recognizing that fact."
Ruffalo was accused of being an antisemite after he cited the work of Oracle founder Larry Ellison, father of Paramount CEO David Ellison, in helping the Israeli military carry out a years-long assault on Gaza that has left an estimated 73,500 Palestinians dead.
The actor specifically said that Oracle was powering "an apartheid system of oppression" in the Middle East, which he warned could be exported everywhere if "merged into one of the largest media conglomerates in the world," a reference to the proposed $110 billion megamerger between Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery.
However, the Jewish figures' letter points out that there is nothing at all antisemitic about expressing concerns about corporate megamergers that could fuse the power of mass media with the power of a technology giant.
In particular, the letter says that the Paramount-Warner Bros. merger is part of "a larger project of tech-driven domination, a project Larry Ellison and his partners have never been shy about trumpeting—and one they themselves have explicitly linked to their support for the ongoing depredations being visited on the people of Palestine and their silencing of critics of those horrors."
The letter also slams Ellison for trying to create an "Orwellian world" as he "consolidates control over what we watch and how we watch it, knowing that as we watch he and his corrupt cohort will always be watching us."
"The time is over for spurious charges of antisemitism to be trotted out, this time in the defense of war, oligarchy, and [artificial intellignece] domination," the letter concludes. "That tired playbook has run its course. We stand proudly with Mark Ruffalo, and with all decent people who are bravely rising and speaking truth to power."
Wendell Berry, Writer and Activist Who Fought Corporate Takeover of US Farming, Dies at 92
“I was taught that taking care of land was one of the primary human responsibilities,” Berry said in 2009.
The death of poet, activist, and conservationist Wendell Berry on Monday was called by one labor organizer "a loss of morality and clarity and compassion," as admirers of Berry's lifelong crusade to defend the environment honored his memory by sharing favorite poems and other works.
Berry died at the age of 92 at his home in Port Royal, Kentucky, where he spent decades writing about his farming the land, teaching, and writing about the need to fight "the concentration of farmland into larger and larger holdings and fewer and fewer hands," as he wrote in one of his best-known works, The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture.
"The true measure of agriculture is not the sophistication of its equipment, the size of its income, or even the statistics of its productivity, but the good health of the land," wrote Berry in the essay collection, published in 1977.
He stressed that the "increase in overhead, debt, and dependence on machines" in the agricultural sector "is a matter of complex significance, and its agricultural significance cannot be disentangled from its cultural significance."
The Unsettling of America was one of more than 50 works published by Berry, whose commitment to interdependent community-building, small farms, and the protection of nature was woven into his fiction, poems, and essays alike.
In America magazine in 2021, Jon Sweeney wrote in a review of What I Stand On, a collection of Berry's writing, that "he writes about what he has experienced, what he has learned, and always with humility for what he does not know."
"The natural world is his primary teacher: its rhythms, its largesse, its mysteries,” Sweeney wrote. “And in the essays, the natural world often reflects how change in humans is also natural, inexplicable, and possible. I think this is what many who love his writing appreciate most about Berry, whether they realize it or not."
Berry traveled and taught briefly at New York University as a young man before returning to his Kentucky roots, remaining there for six decades. He told The New York Times in 2018 that writing and working in rural Kentucky "made a permanent connection between me and my native place, and with its landscape. The landscape was there to check me if I was wrong. I could never go away and make up stuff at cocktail parties about the backwoods of Kentucky. I worked with people here in all walks of life and learned from them."
In his 1969 essay "The Long-Legged House," named for the two-room cabin his ancestors had lived in, to which Berry returned to write his books and other works, he offered an early warning about the harm humans and their industries—agribusiness and fossil fuels—were doing to the Earth.
“We have lived our lives by the assumption that what was good for us would be good for the world," wrote Berry. "We have been wrong. We must change our lives so that it will be possible to live by the contrary assumption, that what is good for the world will be good for us. And that requires that we make the effort to know the world and learn what is good for it.”
The writer Joyce Carol Oates said on social media on Monday that "long before it became a more familiar subject, Wendell Berry was conscious of the endangered natural environment; indeed, Berry helped to raise this consciousness."
In addition to making his views on the environment and corporate control over the natural world known through his writing, Berry took part in direct actions to protest mining, war, and capital punishment.
He rallied against the US war in Vietnam, saying, "Peace is more important than victory," and was arrested in 1979 for protesting the Marble Hill Nuclear Power Plant in Madison, Indiana. Thirty years later he was one of thousands who marched on Washington against the Capitol Power Plant, and two years after that, in 2011, Berry spent the night at a sit-in in the Kentucky governor's office to protest mountaintop removal mining.
In 2009 he also withdrew his writings from the collection of University of Kentucky, his alma mater, to express opposition to the university's $7 million donation from a coal producer; the school then named a dormitory Wildcat Coal Lodge.
“I was taught that taking care of land was one of the primary human responsibilities,” Berry told the student newspaper, the Kentucky Kernel, at the time. “In the long run, the top soil, the forests, and the woodland of this state will be more valuable than the coal deposits.”
Silas House, another writer who hailed from Kentucky, said that with Berry's death, "another great light" had gone out.
House described the writer as "complex. Brilliant. Revolutionary."
Iran War Has Cost the Average American More Than $1,200 Over Six Months, Economist Estimates
One columnist said it’s impossible to know the true extent to which the war has hit Americans’ pocketbooks, but “this figure should be understood as a rough sketch that conveys the magnitude of Trump’s folly.”
As President Donald Trump's war with Iran crosses the six-month mark without an end in sight, a new analysis calculates that it has cost the average American household at least $1,200 more than they would have paid if it had never started.
That is according to Mark Zandi, the chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, who was quoted by New Yorker columnist John Cassidy on Monday as he sought to look beyond military costs to determine the true extent to which the war has impacted Americans' pocketbooks.
Cassidy wrote that the task of reaching a solid number is "far from straightforward," especially since, in his assessment, the Pentagon has been "less than forthright about many aspects of the conflict," including the cost.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told the Senate Appropriations Committee in July that the conflict had cost roughly $37.5 billion.
But prior to that, NBC News reported on internal Pentagon estimates that put the cost of the conflict between $80 billion and $100 billion when accounting for the cost to repair damage to US military bases, which has occurred on a level that, according to former Marine Col. Mark Cancian, has not been seen since World War II.
These costs do not include the additional $73 billion that House Republicans have approved for defense and intelligence related to the war, which will come up for a Senate vote in September.
"Whatever the true figure is, it’s a considerable sum that comes on top of the bloated trillion-dollar Pentagon budget that has already been approved for 2026, and it is money that could, in theory, be used for other purposes," Cassidy wrote.
He cited a recent analysis by the Center for American Progress (CAP), which found that the $73 billion could “provide full Medicaid coverage for 5 million more people, with $33 billion left over."
Some of those remaining funds could be used to provide free school lunch for every child in America, provide free childcare for 1 million children, or extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits that Republicans allowed to expire last year, which would reduce premiums for around 20 million Americans.
Trump has explicitly emphasized that funding the war is coming at the expense of other priorities.
“We’re fighting wars. We can’t take care of daycare. You gotta let a state take care of daycare, and they should pay for it too,” he said in April. “It’s not possible for us to take care of daycare, Medicaid, Medicare, all these individual things.”
Just taking the lower-bound $80 billion cost estimate would mean the average household has been forced to pay about $300 more as a result of the war, using the same methodology that the National Priorities Project used to estimate the cost to taxpayers in April. But this is only a fraction of the overall cost.
Average gasoline prices have shot up by more than $1 since the war began, while the price of diesel has risen by roughly half. Citing an energy-cost tracker maintained by the Climate Solutions Lab at Brown University’s Watson School of International and Public Affairs, Cassidy said these combined price hikes have cost Americans an additional $93 billion—more than an extra $700 per household.
Oil and fertilizer prices have also shot up, rippling through the economy and contributing to higher food prices. The overall rate of inflation has climbed to 3.4%, up from 2.4% in February. Cassidy notes that inflation has also hiked market interest rates, "raising the costs of mortgages, car loans, and other types of consumer credit."
Combining all these added costs, Zandi estimated that the average household had paid roughly an extra $1,200 in the six months since the war started, but emphasized that this was only a conservative estimate.
"Rather than being taken as a precise number," Cassidy added, "this figure should be understood as a rough sketch that conveys the magnitude of Trump’s folly."
As the midterms approach, Trump's approval rating has hit an all-time low of just 33% according to a poll out Monday from Reuters/Ipsos, which also found just 36% approval for the war.
Meanwhile, 71% of Americans, including 4 in 10 Republicans, said they disapprove of how Trump is handling the cost of living. This has caused the longstanding Republican advantage in the economy to evaporate, with 36% of registered voters saying in a poll last week they believe Democrats are better prepared to tackle the cost of living compared with 28% of Republicans.
"Absent a break in the war’s current stalemate between now and the November midterms," Cassidy said, "the president and his party may end up paying a higher political price. But the economic costs of the conflict can’t be reversed."
Bari Weiss Personally Involved in CBS News Hit Piece on Abdul El-Sayed: Report
"They took a small nugget of news, forced it into something much larger, and messed up," said one CBS News staffer.
A Tuesday report from Status claims that CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss was personally involved with a widely criticized story that linked Democratic US Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed to the September 11 terrorist attacks.
The CBS piece, which was published on Monday, drew criticism from Democratic lawmakers and progressive journalists for saying that El-Sayed "may be facing the risk of renewed scrutiny and fresh political attack" due to past innocuous statements he'd made about the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
According to Status' sources, Weiss "personally directed" that the story's headline be changed to "specifically mention that El-Sayed, who is vying to become the first Muslim American senator, had deleted tweets referencing" the attacks.
The two deleted posts highlighted in the story were far from scandalous, however. In the first post, El-Sayed called on Americans to unite in a common purpose to combat the Covid-19 pandemic just as they came together after the 2001 attacks, and in the second one he drew attention not just to the victims who died on 9/11, but to all the people who died afterward as a result of the US War on Terror.
Status also reported that Weiss "praised the story during the network's daily editorial meeting Monday, signaling her support for the piece to the entire network."
Weiss' endorsement of the El-Sayed story came despite the fact that senior staffers at CBS raised concerns about it with the network's standards department, Status added.
“They took a small nugget of news, forced it into something much larger, and messed up,” one staffer said.
Another staffer told Status that the story is "shameful" due to its "overt" racism.
One anonymous CBS News staffer similarly told Zeteo media columnist Justin Baragona on Monday that the Weiss-endorsed story was “trash” and “horribly Islamophobic.”
Weiss was installed as CBS editor-in-chief last year after David Ellison, the son of billionaire Oracle founder Larry Ellison, a megadonor to President Donald Trump, acquired network parent company Paramount.
In that time, CBS ratings have collapsed to record lows and Weiss has overseen a mass purge of reporters and staffers at the network's legendary news program "60 Minutes."
Veteran "60 Minutes" correspondent Scott Pelley, who was fired by CBS earlier this year, subsequently accused the Weiss-led management team of instructing him to "inject falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story."
'Far From the Last Word': Campaigners Urge Appeal After Judge Blocks New York Climate Superfund Law
“If allowed to stand, this wrongheaded ruling would shift $75 billion in planned climate-resilience funding from major fossil fuel polluters onto New York taxpayers,” said one advocate.
Climate advocates on Monday called on New York Attorney General Letitia James to appeal a ruling by a federal judge that found the state's superfund law, aimed at holding fossil fuel companies accountable for the weather disasters they cause, was unenforceable—"a bad decision," as campaigner Jamie Henn said, "based off a controversial ruling."
Henn, co-founder of 350.org and director of Fossil Free Media, said that "a cabal of Big Oil lawyers, Republican attorneys general, and Trump administration stooges just convinced a federal judge to strike down" the law, which was signed in 2024 by Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul and would require oil and gas companies in New York to contribute about $3 billion annually—$75 billion total—to a superfund starting in 2028.
That sum would be divided among the companies according to their greenhouse gas emissions, which cause planetary heating and the hurricanes, flooding, and other extreme weather disasters that are associated with it.
Companies that have been found responsible for at least 1 billion tons of fossil fuel emissions between 2000-18 would be required to contribute to the fund, which would be used to rebuild infrastructure and help communities adapt to more frequent extreme weather events.
Chief Judge Brenda Sannes of the US District Court for the Northern District of New York ruled that a federal appeals court's earlier decision in City of New York v. Chevron Corp., in which the city's lawsuit against oil companies for climate damages was thrown out, was relevant to the Climate Change Superfund Act.
Sannes, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama, also said in her ruling that the state law is not authorized by the Clean Air Act and is preempted by federal law.
Henn said that after 22 Republican states joined industry groups and the US Chamber of Commerce in suing over the law, the judge "fell for Big Oil's argument that because of a precedent set by a controversial ruling involving the City of New York, the superfund program was preempted by the Clean Air Act."
"But that's bogus," said Henn. "The superfund program does nothing to regulate future emissions, it's just asking polluters to pay for a small share of the damages caused by their past pollution."
A judge in Vermont is expected to rule soon on the state's superfund law, which was the first in the nation. Sixteen states in all have proposed similar laws.
"This is far from the last word on the legality of climate superfund bills," said Henn.
Maya Golden-Krasner, deputy director of the Climate Law Institute at the Center for Biological Diversity, urged other states to "move forward with fair legislation that makes polluters pay for their damage."
"With the Trump administration gutting climate protections," she said, the campaign for superfund laws in states including California "is gaining momentum every day" despite the legal setback.
“If allowed to stand, this wrongheaded ruling would shift $75 billion in planned climate-resilience funding from major fossil fuel polluters onto New York taxpayers,” said Golden-Krasner.
Henn also said that the push to hold fossil fuel giants accountable for the damages their emissions cause "isn't going away."
"Eighty percent of voters think the fossil fuel industry should pay their fair share of climate damages," said Henn. "As disasters increase (and oil profits keep skyrocketing), the call to make polluters pay will only grow louder."
Analyst Warns New Pentagon Plan for Iran Would Amount to 'Permanent State of War'
"Make no mistake," said Trita Parsi, "to periodically bomb a country is to fight a forever war."
The US Defense Department is reportedly considering a new strategy for Iran that would entail bombing the country "periodically" in an effort to keep ship traffic flowing through the Strait of Hormuz, a plan that one analyst said would amount to the kind of forever war that President Donald Trump once vowed to avoid.
"During previous administrations, Israel tried to sell war with Iran to the US and conceded that military strikes would not knock out Iran’s nuclear program, but would require 'periodic' return to kinetic action to keep the program in check," Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, wrote late Monday. "The US rejected the plan precisely because it didn’t want to be in a permanent state of war with Iran. Now, Trump’s secretary of war is pushing for it."
Parsi's comments came in response to new reporting by Axios indicating that Trump administration officials are weighing a plan under which US forces would "strike Iran periodically in order to keep moving dozens of oil tankers out of the Gulf relatively safely every day."
Pentagon Secretary Pete Hegseth supports the plan, unnamed US officials told the outlet.
Axios' reporting followed a Washington Post story detailing US military leaders' warning that "prolonging large-scale operations against Iran is unsustainable," increasing the likelihood of more limited strikes—though without a clearly defined timeline.
On Monday, Trump threatened to hit Iran "hard" in response to the country's retaliatory attacks on American military installations in Jordan and the United Arab Emirates. The Iranian attacks followed a US bombing campaign on Larak Island, marking the first military exchange in weeks as the costly and unpopular war—which Trump said would last just weeks—drags on with no end in sight.
Iran pledged to respond "dozens of times greater" to future US attacks, warning that "no target in the region is beyond Tehran’s reach."
"The invading US military has no choice but to leave the region," the general staff of Iran's armed forces said in a statement on Monday.
In his analysis, Parsi called the shifting US strategy "quite stunning," noting that "only a week ago, [Treasury Secretary] Scott Bessent said sanctions would make military action unnecessary."
"Six days later, the US bombed Iran again," Parsi observed. "And now, Axios reveals that all along, the Pentagon was preparing a plan for 'periodic' bombings of Iran to prevent it from suppressing traffic in the Strait of Hormuz. What does this tell us? First, the administration is apparently giving up on solving the issue militarily, economically, or diplomatically. Instead, permanent warfare is needed to manage the problem."
"Make no mistake," Parsi continued, "to periodically bomb a country is to fight a forever war."
Trump Pharma Deals Called Distraction From 'Failed Plan to Lower US Drug Prices'
"Lasting relief requires transparent, enforceable measures that lower drug prices and hold big drug companies accountable," said one critic.
US President Donald Trump on Monday announced nine more agreements with pharmaceutical manufacturers intended to lower prescription drug prices nationwide, bringing the total to 26, but patient advocates responded skeptically.
The administration previously struck "most favored nation" (MFN) deals with 17 large drug manufacturers. The new ones with midsized companies—Alcon, Astellas Pharma, BeOne Medicines, BridgeBio, CSL, Kyowa Kirin, Sun Pharma, Teva Pharmaceuticals, and UCB—mean that 89% of the branded drug market is subject to an agreement, according to a White House fact sheet.
"It has been nearly a year since Trump announced his first secret MFN deal with Pfizer, and he has almost nothing to show for it," Peter Maybarduk, Access to Medicines director at the watchdog group Public Citizen, said in a Monday statement. "The new deals are a distraction from the administration's failed plan to lower US drug prices to the levels paid in other wealthy countries."
Earlier this month, Public Citizen released an analysis of Trump's policies to cut drug costs, including MFN deals. Maybarduk said at the time that "Trump has three kinds of drug pricing policy: fake, exaggerated, and not-real-yet, probably-won't-happen."
Following Monday's agreements, the campaigner argued that "a more serious approach would build international reference pricing into Medicare drug price negotiation. Instead, Trump is cozying up to Big Pharma and keeping American drug prices high."
"There still is no evidence that any pharma company has followed through on prior commitments to the Trump administration to launch new drugs at MFN price points," he explained. "Uptake of TrumpRx, which may cause consumers to overpay on medicines, has been lackluster."
TrumpRx is a government-operated website that helps patients find discounted prices and coupons for certain medications—and, as the Public Citizen analysis highlighted, the only part of the president's MFN program that is fully underway.
"The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has not announced any state participants in a pilot to test MFN-based prices in Medicaid," Maybarduk noted. "And CMS has failed to issue final rules to test MFN-pricing in Medicare, while simultaneously excluding almost all drug companies from these programs."
Public Citizen said it plans to immediately file a Freedom of Information Act request to obtain the texts of these "farce" deals—a pledge that came just days after US Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) highlighted that Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has failed to publicize initial 17 agreements, despite agreeing to do so during an April hearing.
Like Public Citizen, the advocacy group Patients for Affordable Drugs was critical of the new deals, with CEO Merith Basey pointing out that "for decades, drug companies have been charging Americans at least four times more for brand-name medicines than people in other high-income nations."
"Patients need systemic reforms that will lower drug prices, rather than short-term, voluntary agreements whose terms remain secret," she asserted. "The deals announced today focus on Medicaid, where steep discounts already exist, and even then, states can choose whether to participate. Lasting relief requires transparent, enforceable measures that lower drug prices and hold big drug companies accountable."
As the industry trade publication Fierce Pharma reported, the large companies behind the initial deals "made a combination of drug pricing commitments and domestic investment pledges to win temporary immunity from the Trump administration's drug import tariffs," and "individual company press releases Monday, like UCB's, suggest that tariff immunity is still very much part of the MFN equation."
Although Trump's tried taking credit for a recent drop in medication costs, with the White House X account claiming Monday that he's "leveled the playing field, and made prescription drugs more affordable than ever for the American people," as Common Dreams reported earlier this month, experts have cited the Biden administration's policy allowing Medicare to directly negotiate some prices.
As Trump has touted his MFN deals, critics of the United States' for-profit healthcare system have in recent months renewed calls for shifting to Medicare for All—which new research shows would save over 114,000 lives and $1 trillion each year—and other healthcare reforms, including breaking up industry giants, capping drug prices, strengthening antitrust enforcement, and expanding the sector's workforce.