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A Petty, Vicious Wall Of Shame
The awful keeps spewing. The latest proof there is truly, repulsively no bottom: The most broken, powerful human being on the planet has added to his crappy, gaudy, reality-show "Presidential Walk of Fame" bronze plaques below the photos denoting a boorish, revisionist "history" of each president. Inevitably, he lobs the crudest insults at his direct predecessors - "divisive" Obama, "crooked" Biden - while praising his own supreme reign. America on the fucking, endless, childish ugly of it: "This is so exhausting."
As always, there are of course more substantive horrors underway. Pam Bondi has told the FBI to create a list of domestic terrorist groups - the non-existent Antifa and anyone else who espouses “radical gender ideology, anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism or anti-Christianity” - and establish a “cash reward system” to encourage them to snitch on each other. Because what climate change/it still snows doesn't it?, Trump is also dismantling Colorado's National Center for Atmospheric Research, home to the largest federal research lab on climate change and natural disasters.
In addition, because what science?, anti-vax crackpot RFK Jr's Health and Human Services (sic) Department has terminated seven multi-million-dollar grants to the American Academy of Pediatrics, which is now suing said crackpot for his COVID vaccine changes. The initiatives were aimed at reducing sudden infant death, improving adolescent health, preventing fetal alcohol syndrome, identifying autism early and other worthy goals; officials said they were cancelled because the group used "identity-based language," including "racial disparities" and "pregnant people." Really.
Finally, Pee Wee German Stephen Miller issued a fascist mission statement in support of our pointless, upcoming war against Venezulela, arguing the U.S. has long "operated as a 'reverse empire'" that enriched foreign nations and sacrificed our wealth and security while "all we got in return were migrants." "No more," he raves. "America's might will secure America's rights...For Americans, first and always." By which, many clarified, he means, "rich white people. Everyone else to the camps." Other comments: "Sounds like Chap. 15 in Mein Kampf," "Sounds better in the original German," and, "Miller is a grotesque, shrill, squirrel of a thing."
All of these efforts, lest we forget, have been undertaken to please a small, sick, empty shell of a man who Avatar director James Cameron calls "the most narcissistic asshole in history since fucking Nero." Now, in a particularly infuriating (for those of us who cherish facts) and petty move, he's now installed "a tantrum cast in bronze," a wall of grievance-oozing plaques added to the photos along his cheesy, race-to-the-bottom "Presidential Walk of Fame" outside the West Wing "as a tribute to past Presidents, good, bad and somewhere in the middle." And "as a student of history" (sic), Press Barbie hilariously brags, Trump himself authored "many of its eloquently written descriptions" - evidently what he's been doing when not golfing. One patriot: "Well done, dumbass."
They are, of course, crude, juvenile, self-serving garbage. Reagan's plaque boasts he was "a fan" of Trump. Bill Clinton's notes "his wife Hillary" lost to Trump. The plaque for "Barack Hussein Obama" acknowledges him as our first Black President before calling him "one of the most divisive political figures in American history." He allegedly "passed the highly ineffective Unaffordable Care Act," caused the spread of ISIS (no mention of W's contributions), weaponized federal bureaucracies against opponents, spied on Trump's 2016 campaign and created "the Russia Russia Russia hoax, the worst political scandal in American history." Sigh.
Biden, already trolled with the image of an autopen - the eloquent author is 12 - gets worse. "Sleepy Joe Biden was, by far, the worst President in American History." He "took office (in) the most corrupt Election ever seen" and "oversaw a series of unprecedented disasters that brought our nation to the brink of destruction" - pot/kettle - with high inflation, weaponized law enforcement, Green New Scam, "abolishing" the Southern Border, insane asylums, "Afghanistan Disaster." His "devastating weakness" made Russia invade Ukraine and Hamas attack Israel. He issued "blanket pardons to Radical Democrat thugs" and "the Biden crime family." Sigh redux.
But "despite it all" - trumpets please - the manchild king triumphed in a landslide to "SAVE AMERICA!" Now he's "delivered" on his promise to "usher in the Golden Age of America," and "THE BEST IS YET TO COME!" Some beg to differ. They suggest his plaque should read, "Pedophile, Narcissist, Rapist, and Convicted Felon." They marvel, "Damn, his dick really is that tiny." They exclaim, "This is insane," "What the actual fuck," "God I hate this man," "This is embarrassing," and, "I am at my wit's end." In all, notes Canadian pundit Dean Blundell, "The United States of America is going through some things right now."
More came In Wednesday night's "prime time unraveling." His racist, dementetd, drug-addled, "nothingburger" of a meltdown, in which "basically nothing he is saying is true," was brutally summarized as, "Old man yells at country," "WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?", his "Pettysburg Address," "a 19-minute nervous breakdown," his "Norma Desmond imitation," "what presidential panic looks like," "Stop talking about Epstein," "lie harder and louder," "the Worst Wing," "Nazis On Drugs,'" "authoritarian fantasy at its finest" - colossal invasion! drug prices down 600% in magic math! the first peace in the Middle East in 3,000 years!", "This wasn't confidence. This was agitation." From MAGA: "Why is he yelling at us?" "He's talking so fast he sounds panicked," "the most pointless presidential address (in) American history." From Newsom: 100 "Me Me Me Me Me's." From us: For God's and our sanity's sake, once and for all, fucking quiet Piggy.
Trump 'Taking a Sledgehammer' to One of World's Most Vital Climate Research Center, Scientists Warn
One US House Democrat pledged Tuesday night that Colorado officials will fight the Trump administration's latest attack on science "with every legal tool that we have" after top White House budget adviser Russell Vought announced a decision to break up a crucial climate research center in Boulder.
Rep. Joe Neguse (D-Colo.) called the decision to dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) "a deeply dangerous" action.
"NCAR is one of the most renowned scientific facilities in the WORLD—where scientists perform cutting-edge research every day," said Neguse. "We will fight this reckless directive."
Vought, the director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) said the National Science Foundation (NSF), which contracts the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) to run NCAR, "will be breaking up" the center and has begun a "comprehensive review," with "vital activities such as weather research" being moved to another entity.
He added that NCAR is "one of the largest sources of climate alarmism in the country.”
But scientists pointed to the center's 65-year history of making major advances in climate research and developing systems that scientists use regularly.
NCAR developed GPS dropsondes, which are dropped from the center's aircraft into the eye of hurricanes to gather crucial data and improve forecasts, as well as severe weather warnings and analyses of the economic impacts that weather can bring, Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California, told USA Today, which first reported on the plan to dismantle the facility.
Neguse also called the decision to shutter NCAR "blatantly retaliatory." The breakup of the center was announced days after President Donald Trump announced his plan to pardon Tina Peters, despite uncertainty over his authority to do so. The former county clerk was convicted in Colorado court on felony charges of allowing someone to access secure voting system data—part of an effort to prove the baseless conspiracy theory pushed by Trump that the 2020 election had been stolen from him.
Trump attacked Colorado's Democratic governor, Jared Polis, over the Peters case last week, calling him "incompetent" and "pathetic."
Also on Tuesday, the administration announced it was canceling $109 million in environmental transportation grants for Colorado that were aimed at boosting investment in electric vehicles, rail improvements, and other research.
Writer Benjamin Kunkel said the dismantling of NCAR is evidently "what happens to a state whose leading officials do accept climate science... and don't accept that Trump won the 2020 election."
Polis said Tuesday that his government had not received any communication from the White House about the NCAR review and dismantling, but "if true, public safety is at risk and science is being attacked."
"Climate change is real, but the work of NCAR goes far beyond climate science," he said. "NCAR delivers data around severe weather events like fires and floods that help our country save lives and property, and prevent devastation for families.”
The White House Tuesday said it objected to UCAR's "woke direction," including its efforts to "make the sciences more welcoming, inclusive, and justice-centered" via the Rising Voices Center for Indigenous and Earth Sciences and wind turbine research that aims to "better understand and predict the impact of weather conditions and changing climate on offshore wind production.”
The administration also said the review of NCAR will eliminate "green new scam research activities"—green energy research completed by many of the center's 830 employees.
Climate scientist Katherine Hayhoe warned that the dismantling of NCAR was an attack on "quite literally our global mothership."
"NCAR supports the scientists who fly into hurricanes, the meteorologists who develop new radar technology, the physicists who envision and code new weather models, and yes—the largest community climate model in the world," said Hayhoe. "Dismantling NCAR is like taking a sledgehammer to the keystone holding up our scientific understanding of the planet."
Hurricane specialist Michael Lowry said the center is "crucial to cutting-edge meteorology and improvements in weather forecasting."
"It's far, far bigger than a 'climate' research lab," he said. "This is self-sabotage by a wildly ignorant and malicious administration cutting off their nose to spite their face."
The president this year has also pushed massive cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, where major climate and weather research takes place. The cuts have come as 2024 has been named the hottest year on record and scientists have warned that planetary heating has contributed to recent weather disasters.
“Any plans to dismantle NSF NCAR," UCAR president Antonio Busalacchi told the Washington Post, "would set back our nation’s ability to predict, prepare for, and respond to severe weather and other natural disasters."
Elon Musk Is Vowing Utopia Driven by AI and Robotics. Bernie Sanders Has a Few Questions
The world's richest man, Elon Musk, continues to insist that the artificial intelligence technology he profits from will create an economic utopia free from poverty, where work is optional and saving money is unnecessary.
But at a time of unprecedented wealth inequality that the Trump administration Musk supports has helped to accelerate, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) expressed incredulity about how Musk envisions such a future coming about.
Musk, the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, made his comments on his social media app X, in response to billionaire investor Ray Dalio, who'd announced that he and his wife were contributing to an initiative backed by the Trump administration to create savings accounts for children born between 2025 and 2028.
Dalio mentioned that the computer billionaire Michael Dell and his wife had also pledged $6.25 billion to the effort.
Unprompted, Musk responded: "It is certainly a nice gesture of the Dells, but there will be no poverty in the future, and so no need to save money. There will be universal high income."
It's a theory that Musk has proposed repeatedly of late. Last month, while on a podcast, he suggested that thanks to rapidly accelerating AI and robot technology, all labor will soon be automated, making the need for wages obsolete: "In less than 20 years, working will be optional. Working at all will be optional. Like a hobby."
Earlier this week, he postulated—in almost Marxian fashion—that automation would do away with the need for money as a store of value.
“I think money disappears as a concept, honestly,” he told another podcast. “It’s kind of strange, but in a future where anyone can have anything, you no longer need money as a database for labor allocation. If AI and robotics are big enough to satisfy all human needs, then money is no longer necessary. Its relevance declines dramatically.”
Social media users have had a field day with Musk's fanciful predictions. One noted that it was a bit strange that a person who believed money would soon lose all value recently strong-armed Tesla shareholders into giving him a nearly $1 trillion pay package, the biggest corporate compensation plan in history. Another simply asked, "Are you high on ketamine?"
But perhaps the most blistering reaction came from Sanders, one of Musk's most steadfast adversaries, who posted a sardonic response video on Thursday.
"I was delighted to hear that through the rapid advancement in artificial intelligence and robotics that you are funding, you will be bringing about utopia to the world," the senator said. "You have told us that poverty will be wiped out, work will be optional, there will be universal high income, and that everyone will have the best medical care, food, home, transport, and everything else. That is wonderful news."
"I just have a couple of questions. How will this utopia come about?" he continued. "If young people can't find the entry-level jobs that used to exist, and they are unemployed without income, when are they going to get the free housing you talk about? If manufacturing workers lose their jobs because robots take their place, when are they going to get the free healthcare you promise? If a young nurse with kids loses her job, how is she going to get the food she needs to feed her family?"
Sanders then turned his attention to the fact that Musk spent an unprecedented amount of more than $270 million to help elect President Donald Trump, who earlier this year enacted historic cuts to the social safety net to fund tax breaks that overwhelmingly benefit the rich, in what has been described as the greatest upward transfer of wealth in US history.
"I look forward to hearing about how you and your other oligarch friends are going to provide working people with a magnificent life that you promise," he continued. "Because let's not forget, Donald Trump, the guy you got elected, is kicking 15 million people off their healthcare, doubling insurance premiums for more than 20 million, and is making massive cuts to nutrition assistance and education for kids across the country."
Sanders concluded, "With that track record, I can't wait to hear how your plan to provide universal high income for every American is going to be implemented."
Trump's 9 New Prescription Drug Deals 'No Substitute' for Systemic Reform
"Starting next year, American drug prices will come down fast and furious and will soon be the lowest in the developed world," President Donald Trump claimed Friday as the White House announced agreements with nine pharmaceutical manufacturers.
The administration struck most favored nation (MFN) pricing deals with Amgen, Bristol Myers Squibb, Boehringer Ingelheim, Genentech, Gilead Sciences, GSK, Merck, Novartis, and Sanofi. The president—who has launched the related TrumpRx.gov—previously reached agreements with AstraZeneca, EMD Serono, Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk, and Pfizer.
"The White House said it has made MFN deals with 14 of the 17 biggest drug manufacturers in the world," CBS News noted Friday. "The three drugmakers that were not part of the announcement are AbbVie, Johnson & Johnson, and Regeneron, but the president said that deals involving the remaining three could be announced at another time."
However, as Trump and congressional Republicans move to kick millions of Americans off of Medicaid and potentially leave millions more uninsured because they can't afford skyrocketing premiums for Affordable Care Act (ACA) plans, some critics suggested that the new drug deals with Big Pharma are far from enough.
"When 47% of Americans are concerned they won't be able to afford a healthcare cost next year, steps to reduce drug prices for patients are welcomed, especially by patients who rely on one of the overpriced essential medicines named in today's announcement," said Merith Basey, CEO of Patients for Affordable Drugs Now, in a statement.
"But voluntary agreements with drug companies—especially when key details remain undisclosed—are no substitute for durable, system-wide reforms," Basey stressed. "Patients are overwhelmingly calling on Congress to do more to lower prescription drug prices by holding Big Pharma accountable and addressing the root causes of high drug prices, because drugs don't work if people can't afford them."
As the New York Times reported Friday:
Drugs that will be made available in this way include Amgen's Repatha, for lowering cholesterol, at $239 a month; GSK's asthma inhaler, Advair Diskus, at $89 a month; and Merck's diabetes medication Januvia, at $100 a month.
Many of these drugs are nearing the end of their patent protection, meaning that the arrival of low-cost generic competition would soon have prompted manufacturers to lower their prices.
In other cases, the direct-buy offerings are very expensive and out of reach for most Americans.
For example, Gilead will offer Epclusa, a three-month regimen of pills that cures hepatitis C, for $2,492 a month on the site. Most patients pay far less using insurance or with help from patient assistance programs. Gilead says on its website that "typically a person taking Epclusa pays between $0 and $5 per month" with commercial insurance or Medicare.
While medication prices are a concern for Americans who face rising costs for everything from groceries to utility bills, the outcome of the ongoing battle on Capitol Hill over ACA tax credits—which are set to expire at the end of the year—is expected to determine how many people can even afford to buy health insurance for next year.
The ACA subsidies fight—which Republicans in the US House of Representatives ignored in the bill they passed this week before leaving Capitol Hill early—has renewed calls for transitioning the United States from its current for-profit healthcare system to Medicare for All.
"At the heart of our healthcare crisis is one simple truth: Corporations have too much power over our lives," Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), former chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said on social media Friday. "Medicare for All is how we take our power back and build a system that puts people over profits."
Jayapal reintroduced the Medicare for All Act in April with Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) and Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee Ranking Member Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). The senator said Friday that some of his top priorities in 2026 will be campaign finance reform, income and wealth inequality, the rapid deployment of artificial intelligence, and Medicare for All.
Earlier this month, another backer of that bill, US Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), said: "We must stop tinkering around the edges of a broken healthcare system. Yes, let's extend the ACA tax credits to prevent a huge spike in healthcare costs for millions. Then, let's finally create a system that puts your health over corporate profits. We need Medicare for All."
It's not just progressives in Congress demanding that kind of transformation. According to Data for Progress polling results released late last month, 65% of likely US voters—including 78% of Democrats, 71% of Independents, and 49% of Republicans—either strongly or somewhat support "creating a national health insurance program, sometimes called 'Medicare for All.'"
Rights Groups Warn FBI Probe of Anti-ICE Activity Portends New Crackdown on Lawful Dissent
Rights groups are expressing alarm over new reporting about the FBI carrying out nationwide anti-terrorism probes against activists protesting against federal immigration enforcement officers.
The Guardian on Friday published a report detailing an internal FBI document that outlines "criminal and domestic terrorism investigations” into “threats against immigration enforcement activity” in 23 regions across the US.
The FBI document, which was dated November 14, is a response to National Security Presidential Memorandum-7 (NSPM-7), a directive signed by President Donald Trump in late September that demanded a “national strategy to investigate and disrupt networks, entities, and organizations that foment political violence so that law enforcement can intervene in criminal conspiracies before they result in violent political acts."
The FBI report cites two violent attacks against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities in Texas to argue that there has been "an escalation in violence compared to past attacks, which primarily resulted in property damage."
Additionally, the FBI report directs agents to look for "indicators" that an anti-ICE activist may be planning to carry out an attack on immigration enforcement officials, including "stockpiling or distributing firearms," as well as using encrypted messaging apps and "conducting online research" about immigration agents' movements and locations.
The last two of these three "indicators" are raising red flags for rights groups, which are warning that they could be used as the pretext for mass infringement of constitutional rights to speak freely and protest peacefully.
Rachel Levinson-Waldman, director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, told the Guardian that the FBI appeared to be treating US citizens with suspicion for engaging in activities protected by the First Amendment.
"It is not illegal to do online research about the publicly available movements of government officers or to communicate through encrypted apps like Signal or WhatsApp," she said. "While the document refers to using encrypted communications to ‘discuss operational planning’, that term is undefined and ambiguous, leaving it open what kinds of conversations might draw FBI scrutiny."
Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU National Security Project, expressed concern to the Guardian that the FBI document is "infused with vague and over-broad language, which was exactly our concern about NSPM-7 in the first place."
"It invites law enforcement suspicion and investigation based on purely First Amendment-protected beliefs and activities," Shamsi explained. "People who are entirely innocent of any wrongdoing can be subjected to surveillance or investigation. That imposes stigma. It can wrongly immesh people in the criminal legal system."
Adam Goldstein, vice president of strategic initiatives at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), published an analysis on Thursday that criticized a recently unearthed memo from Attorney General Pam Bondi that fleshed out the concepts laid out in NSPM-7.
In particular, Goldstein argued that Bondi's memo risks using law enforcement to investigate people based on their political ideologies rather than on suspicion that they are engaging in criminal activity.
"People who conspire to engage in actual criminal behavior should be investigated, arrested, and prosecuted," Goldstein wrote. "But these memos aren’t narrowly focused on groups that exist for the purpose of ideologically motivated violence, which act to bring about violence; they broadly condemn particular viewpoints and lay a foundation for a government watchlist of American groups which share those viewpoints."
Israeli Forces Massacre 6 Palestinians Celebrating Wedding at Gaza School Shelter
Funerals were held Saturday in northern Gaza for six people, including children, massacred the previous day by Israeli tank fire during a wedding celebration at a school sheltering displaced people, as the number of Palestinians killed during the tenuous 10-week ceasefire rose to over 400.
On Friday, an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) tank blasted the second floor of the Gaza Martyrs School, which was housing Palestinians displaced by the two-year war on Gaza in the al-Tuffah neighborhood of Gaza City.
Al Jazeera and other news outlets reported that the attack occurred while people were celebrating a wedding.
Al-Shifa Hospital director Mohammed Abou Salmiya said those slain included a 4-month-old infant, a 14-year-old girl, and two women. At least five others were injured in the attack.
"It was a safe area and a safe school and suddenly... they began firing shells without warning, targeting women, children and civilians," Abdullah Al-Nader—who lost relatives including 4-month-old Ahmed Al-Nader in the attack—told Agence France-Presse.
Witnesses said IDF troops subsequently blocked first responders including ambulances and civil defense personnel from reaching the site for over two hours.
"We gathered the remains of children, elderly, infants, women, and young people," Nafiz al-Nader, another relative of the infant and others killed in Friday's attack, told reporters. "Unfortunately, we called the ambulance and the civil defense, but they couldn't get by the Israeli army."
The IDF said that “during operational activity in the area of the Yellow Line in the northern Gaza Strip, a number of suspicious individuals were identified in command structures," and that "troops fired at the suspicious individuals to eliminate the threat."
The Yellow Line is a demarcation boundary between areas of Gaza under active Israeli occupation—more than half of the strip's territory, including most agricultural and strategic lands—and those under the control of Hamas.
"The claim of casualties in the area is familiar; the incident is under investigation," the IDF said, adding that it "regrets any harm to uninvolved parties and acts as much as possible to minimize harm to them."
Since the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel, more than 250,000 Palestinians have been killed or wounded by Israeli forces, including approximately 9,500 people who are missing and presumed dead and buried beneath rubble. Classified IDF documents suggest that more than 80% of the Palestinians killed by Israeli forces were civilians.
Around 2 million Palestinians have also been displaced—on average, six times—starved, or sickened in the strip.
Gaza officials say at least 401 Palestinians have been killed since a US-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas took effect on October 10. Gaza's Government Media Office says Israel has violated the ceasefire at least 738 times.
"This isn't a truce, it's a bloodbath," Nafiz al-Nader told Agence France-Presse outside al-Shifa Hospital on Saturday.
Israel says Hamas broke the truce at least 32 times, with three IDF soldiers killed during the ceasefire.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, his former defense minister, are fugitives from the International Criminal Court in The Hague, where they are wanted for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, including murder and forced starvation.
Israel is also facing a genocide case filed by South Africa at the International Court of Justice, also in The Hague. A United Nations commission, world leaders, Israeli and international human rights groups, jurists, and scholars from around the world have called Israel's war on Gaza a genocide.
Friday's massacre came as Steve Witkoff, President Donald Trump's Mideast envoy, other senior US officials, and representatives of Egypt, Qatar, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates met in Miami to discuss the second phase of Trump's peace plan, which includes the deployment of an international stabilization force, disarming Hamas, the withdrawal of IDF troops from the strip, and the establishment of a new government there.
'Exactly What We Don't Need': Trump Bashed for Naming New Class of Warships After Himself
The reported move came just days after Trump added his name to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
The Wall Street Journal on Monday reported that President Donald Trump will announce that the US Navy is building a new class of warship that will be named after him.
According to the Journal, the president is expected to reveal that the Navy is building "a new 'Trump-class' battleship, which will become the centerpiece of the president’s vision for a new 'Golden Fleet.'"
The Journal noted that Trump in the past has complained about the aesthetic look of US warships, which he has described as "terrible-looking." Sources told the Journal that the new ship will "be an upgrade to the Navy’s Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, which are the workhorse of the current fleet and which Trump has compared unfavorably to rival navies."
Mark Montgomery, a retired rear admiral who currently serves as a senior director at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, dumped on Trump's "Golden Fleet" plans in an interview with the Journal, describing the ships as "exactly what we don’t need" and accusing Trump's underlings of being "focused on the president’s visual that a battleship is a cool-looking ship."
New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie echoed Montgomery's criticisms of the project, which he speculated was being done for entirely frivolous reasons.
"This just has me thinking about how so much of this government and the movement around it is purely a matter of aesthetics," he wrote on Bluesky. "Is there a strategic reason for produce a new warship? Maybe. But my hunch is that this is happening because the president thinks it will look cool."
CNBC's Carl Quintanilla observed that the Trump-branded warships were just the latest thing that the president has slapped his name on, as in recent months he has also announced the creation of the "TrumpRx" prescription drug website and the "Trump Gold Card," while also adding his name to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
Democratic political strategist Jim Manley reacted with horror to Trump naming American military equipment after himself.
"My God," he wrote on Bluesky. "Well, that seals the deal. If House and Senate appropriators agree to this—burn it all down."
Watchdog Celebrates Victory Over Instacart Pricing Scheme—But Says Broader Corporate Abuse Remains
"Instacart is far from the only corporation using AI technologies to determine exactly how much profit they can extract from their customers by overcharging them," said the executive director of Groundwork Action.
The watchdog group that exposed Instacart's artificial intelligence pricing scheme is rejoicing after the company announced on Monday that it was ending the controversial program.
Earlier this month, Consumer Reports joined the Groundwork Collaborative and More Perfect Union to report that the grocery shopping app—which calls itself the "largest online grocery marketplace in North America"—was using the AI pricing software Eversight to charge up to 23% more for some customers than others for the same items, subjecting users to a "pricing experiment" that could cost them as much as $1,200 extra each year.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) took notice of the report, saying it was "disturbed" by the findings, and launched an investigation on Thursday, which caused the company's stock price to plummet by about 7%. It also attracted attention from members of Congress, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who demanded government action on what he called "shakedown pricing."
Instacart agreed that same day to pay the FTC $60 million in a settlement for what the commission said was "a variety of deceptive tactics that misled consumers and caused them to pay more in fees." These included falsely advertising "free delivery" to consumers on their first order, implying that customers would receive a full refund if they were dissatisfied with their delivery, and failing to disclose membership charges.
The settlement does not mention Instacart's use of AI pricing experiments, but on Monday, the company said it would hit the brakes on that as well, following customer backlash.
"Effective immediately, Instacart is ending all item price tests on our platform. Retailers will no longer be able to use Eversight technology to run item price tests on Instacart," the company said in a statement. "Now, if two families are shopping for the same items, at the same time, from the same store location on Instacart, they see the same prices—period."
While it acknowledged that the pricing scheme "missed the mark for some customers," the company maintains that it was not using "dynamic pricing or surveillance pricing" and that it was not changing prices "based on supply or demand, personal data, demographics, or individual shopping behavior."
Alex Jacquez, Groundwork's chief of policy and advocacy, celebrated on social media that "Instacart has ended all item pricing experiments on its platform," calling it a "big win for consumers."
Groundwork Action's executive director, Lindsay Owens, likewise took pride in the fact that "once we pulled back the curtain on Instacart’s hidden pricing experiments, the company had no choice but to close the lab," but also said "it shouldn’t take investigative research, public outcry, and the threat of FTC action to convince companies not to treat consumers like lab rats."
"Instacart is far from the only corporation using AI technologies to determine exactly how much profit they can extract from their customers by overcharging them," she added.
Though the investigation did not find evidence that Instacart was using these methods, other companies—including Amazon, Delta Air Lines, and Home Depot—have been accused of fluctuating prices for consumers based on ZIP code or income level.
Owens said, "It’s time for regulators to put a stop to corporate pricing schemes and take action to restore fair, predictable, and transparent pricing.”
'The Law Must Be Enforced': Epstein Survivors Speak Out Against Trump DOJ Cover-Up and Delay
"The Trump administration is failing to follow the law by not releasing countless files and failing to redact the identities of survivors," said Rep. Pramila Jayapal. "This is not justice."
Some victims of late billionaire sex offender Jeffrey Epstein are slamming the Trump administration for continuing to delay the full release of files related to the federal case.
In a statement released Monday, the Epstein survivors called out the US Department of Justice (DOJ) for releasing only "a fraction of the files" demanded by law, adding that many of the files released so far have been "riddled with abnormal and extreme redactions with no explanation."
The survivors noted that the DOJ's actions appear to violate a law passed by US Congress and signed by President Donald Trump last month mandating the department release "all unclassified records, documents, communications, and investigative materials in DOJ's possession that relate to the investigation and prosecution of Jeffrey Epstein" by December 19.
"Grand jury minutes, though approved by a federal judge for release, were fully blacked out," they said, "not the scattered redactions that might be expected to protect victim names, but 119 full pages blacked out. We are told that there are hundreds of thousands of pages of documents still unreleased. These are clear-cut violations of an unambiguous law."
The survivors also said that the DOJ had left them completely in the dark about the release of the files, claiming that "there has been no communication with survivors or our representatives as to what was withheld from release, or why hundreds of thousands of documents have not been disclosed by the legal deadline, or how DOJ will ensure that no more victim names are wrongly disclosed."
They then demanded that members of Congress, nearly all of whom voted in favor of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, engage in vigorous oversight of the DOJ's actions, "including hearings, formal demands for compliance, and legal action" to force the department to follow the law.
"Survivors deserve truth," they concluded. "Survivors whose identities are private deserve protection. The public deserves accountability. And the law must be enforced."
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) applauded the survivors for speaking up in the face of the Trump DOJ's disregard of the law.
"This statement from 18 Epstein survivors is spot on," she wrote in a social media post. "The Trump administration is failing to follow the law by not releasing countless files and failing to redact the identities of survivors. This is not justice."
Reps. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), the two lawmakers who led efforts to pass the Epstein Files Transparency Act this year, said on Sunday that they are looking into potentially holding US Attorney General Pam Bondi in contempt for her department's failure to release the Epstein files.
In an interview with the Washington Post, Khanna explained that holding Bondi in contempt would not require any action by the US Senate and would take effect just by passing with a simple majority in the House of Representatives. Khanna said that the House would likely give Bondi a 30-day grace period to comply with the law and would then hit her with fines for every day where the Epstein files remain under wraps.