To donate by check, phone, or other method, see our More Ways to Give page.

×
SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER

Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.

* indicates required
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
Shahid Beheshti University in Tehran

Iran Says Trump Will Go Down as a 'Supreme War Criminal' If He Follows Through With Threat

Opinion
Climate
Economy
Politics
Rights & Justice
War & Peace
Protesters dressed as prisoners wearing masks of Benjamin
Opinion

Trump and Netanyahu: Two Madmen Playing God

Opinion

This Is Not Just a War on Iran. It Is a War on American Democracy.

Opinion

While Distancing from AIPAC, Most 2028 Democratic Hopefuls Are Still Embracing Israel

Opinion

The Political Opportunity of a Lifetime—Don't Blow It

Opinion

Cheap Drones and the Iran War Blowback Threat

Opinion

Standing Witness to University Complicity in Criminal Wars of Aggression

The former East Wing
Further

Staircase to Nowhere: MAGA's Crowning Achievement

In a perhaps unprecedented dark time for America and the world, let us take solace in our indomitable Dear Stable Genius, who remains unwaveringly focused on taking care of shiny business: Gold social security cards like Elvis, a $400 million, lopsided shed/ballroom with gaudy columns but no main entrance, and of course gold toilets - which all keeps him so busy he hardly has time to threaten Iran with war crimes. What a time to be alive, barely.

In actual good news, No Kings Day 3.0 drew between 8 and 12 million people, thus hovering tantalizingly close to the 3.5% of a nation's populace historically required to overthrow an authoritarian regime. So good work, patriots. The over 3,000 protests, aka per Mike Johnson "Hate America rallies," ranged from Alaska's Utqiaġvik, the country's northernmost city (7 people) to Ele'ele, Kaua'i, the westernmost, from over 100,000 in New York City to nine stalwarts on Maine's Monhegan Island. Thousands of Trump's neighbors in Palm Beach turned out, ending with a twilight march to Mar-A-Lago, or as close as they could get.

Their signs were brutal: "Elect A Rapist, Expect To Get Fucked. How Many Deaths For the Epstein War? Worst President Since Trump. Criminals Belong Behind Bars, Free Balls for Members of Congress Who Lost Them, Trump Rapes Kids, Impeach Pedolf Shitler, Putin's Bitch, The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived. According to The Borowitz Report, Trump, furious about the large protests, argued they'd be much smaller if you subtract all Elon Musk's kids there because they hate him: "People are saying their number (was) much higher than 400, thousands, maybe millions. You take away Elon’s kids and almost no one was there."

There were also "half-dozens to dozens of Americans" at One King co unter-protests, reports The Fucking News, who put the number at "many-ish...Organizers say there were barely any organizers," with attendees ranging from "a tiny number of young people to a die-hard faction of dying people." In Palm Beach, one man carried a heavy sign that read, "Deport the white liberals"; masked to protect himself "against the vindictive left," he said he left soon after he was "attacked" by a woman who denied touching him; her comrades said the guy just dropped his sign "because he was too weak to carry it."

Their small numbers did face competition from "the incredible shrinking CPAC," also meeting that day in Grapevine, Texas with a turnout of "barely thousands." Once a MAGA "center of political gravity," this year's event drew neither Trumps nor presidential candidates. One possible ick factor: MC was (still) CPAC chair Matt Schlapp, who in 2024 settled a pricey sexual misconduct lawsuit from a guy working on Hershel Walker’s (LOL) Senate campaign, who charged Schlapp groped him. The event did boast Todd Chrisley, a reality TV star doing 12 years in prison for massive fraud till Trump pardoned him. Here’s his welcome.

There was also a big contingent of South Korean “stop the steal” activists and supporters of former president Yoon Suk Yeol, impeached last year and now serving life in prison for insurrection. Still, the whole thing was a bit of a slog. Organizers tried to jazz up session subjects - a panel titled "Fraud" became “Ilhan Omar ‘Family’ Values"; Mercedes Schlapp beseeched factions not to "divide from within," which is how you divide; and when Schlapp asked them, the clueless CPAC "crowdette" mistakenly, hilariously cheered the prospect of impeachment proceedings by what could be a newly-Democratic-controlled House. SAD!

- YouTube www.youtube.com

Poor deplorable MAGA. Maybe they're disheartened by Trump's well-deserved plunging approval rating, now at barely 33%. Maybe it's because their regime is such a half-assed shitshow and their people are such self-serving, hypocritical dickwads. As in: Amidst a government shutdown that's seen TSA agents (starting salary $34,454) compelled to work without pay as Congress takes a two-week recess (pay over $170,000) on the taxpayers' dime, TMZ urged readers to send in photos of vacationing pols, and here comes Lindsey Graham at Disney World, “The Most Magical Place On Earth," gaily twirling a Little Mermaid bubble wand yet. America and Megyn Kelly: WTF.

Or maybe it's because Commander-In-Chief Private Bonespurs started another forever quagmire without legal or political justification, and it turns out wars in the Middle East are hard and complex and above his pay grade - like health care! - to solve, and now with no good options he's spewing up only staggering incoherence for strategy, like hailing "great progress" in imaginary "serious discussions" while pivoting to rabidly threatening to "conclude our lovely 'stay’ in Iran" by "obliterating" their civilian infrastructure, electricity, energy and drinking water, which is a war crime. But talks are going “unbelievably well."

Serious discussions with Iran Serious discussions with IranImage from Australia's The Shovel

Anyway, his true passion is turning every crass, stupid thing he or Elvis can think of fake gold like the Oval bordello and even Social Security cards, and slathering his repulsive name on structures, coins, currency, and building trashy, illegal monuments to himself like an obscene, unapproved, un-permitted, $400 million ballroom twice the size of the White House, because, "They’ve always wanted a ballroom," except now it's suddenly, "essentially a shed for what goes under it," a massive military complex, presumably a bunker where, as merciful history would have it, he'll finally free us of him, "and we're doing it very well."

He's so ballroom-enraptured that on Air Force One he just pulled out a swath of drawings to show reporters, explaining, "I thought I’d do this now because it’s easier. I’m so busy...fighting wars and other things." Quick mindless pivot to "hand-carved, beautiful, Corinthian columns" - "Corinthian wut" - he's also reportedly re-imagining for the White House facade, a change deemed "at odds with universally held historic preservation standards." Same, experts say of "barely scrutinized" ballroom plans, "riddled with design flaws" - disproportionate, pillars block windows, grand staircase to nowhere. WH lackey on "the best builder in the world": "The American people can rest well knowing this project is in his hands.” We feel better already.

Trump's "plan" for his oversized shed/ballroom Trump's "plan" for his oversized shed/ballroomImages from New York Times


And then there's his new gold toilet, mounted on a 10-foot throne near the Lincoln Memorial. The new masterwork of Secret Handshake (Best Friends Forever), it celebrates the renovation of the White House Lincoln Bedroom bathroom, all in gold, and "what this President has actually accomplished." The toilet's plaque reads, “In a time of unprecedented division, escalating conflict, and economic turmoil, President Trump focused on what truly mattered: remodeling the Lincoln Bathroom....This, his crowning achievement, is a bold reminder that (he) isn’t just a businessman, he’s taking care of business. It stands as a tribute to an unwavering visionary who looked down, saw a problem, and painted it gold.”

A Throne Fit For a King. A Throne Fit For a King. Photo from Secret Handshake

Further
SEE ALL
Gas Prices Rocket as US and Israel Attacks Iran
News

As Trump Pushes 'Polluters First Agenda,' 2027 Budget Blasted as 'Bloody New Deal'

News

Experts Alarmed by ‘Way-Off-the-Scale Warmth’ as Snow Drought Hits Western US

News

Coalition Sues Trump EPA for Torching Air Pollution Standards

News

'We Lost Everything': Hawaii Swamped by Worst Flooding in 20 Years

News

Hidden 'Beneath the Surface,' Freshwater Fish Migrations Collapsing Worldwide

President Trump And EPA Administrator Zeldin Make An Announcement From The White House
News

'Game Over Zeldin': 160+ Climate and Health Groups Say EPA Chief Must Go

A month after President Donald Trump and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin announced what they celebrated as the "single largest deregulatory action in US history," a coalition of over 160 civil rights, environmental, faith, health, and labor groups came together Tuesday to call for the EPA chief's ouster.

Zeldin was confirmed by Senate Republicans and a trio of Democrats just over a week after Trump returned to power in January 2025. The "Game Over Zeldin" coalition, led by the Climate Action Campaign (CAC) and Moms Clean Air Force, argued in an open letter that no other EPA administrator "in history—Democratic or Republican—has so brazenly betrayed the agency's core mission" to "protect human health and the environment."

"Zeldin has dismantled protections that keep our kids, families, and climate safe, and our air and water clean," the letter notes. "He slashed vital funding, gutted agency staff, and has rigged the system to put corporate polluters first, at the expense of our health. Zeldin's EPA has rejected science and health data—and is refusing to count the value of human lives and health—in order to erode commonsense public health safeguards. He has decimated environmental justice programs and hard-fought progress—entirely eliminating the Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights."

Dominique Browning, director and co-founder of Moms Clean Air Force, pointed out in a Tuesday statement that "in just the past few months, he has supported the Trump administration in using taxpayer money to prop up the coal industry; he has made it easier for polluters to spew mercury—a potent neurotoxin that damages the developing brains of babies—into our air and waterways; and he has rolled back the endangerment finding in an attempt to sabotage EPA's ability to cut climate pollution."

The 2009 endangerment finding underpins all federal climate policy. David Arkush of the watchdog Public Citizen—which is also part of the diverse coalition behind the new letter—warned at the time that if allowed to stand, the repeal "will hamstring the government's ability to combat the most terrible environmental threat in human history, harming Americans and the world for decades to come."

Young Americans and a coalition of environmental and public health organizations swiftly filed a pair of lawsuits over the rollback. Another group of 24 states, joined by various US cities and counties, sued last week. The most recent filing is expected to be consolidated with the first coalition's case, according to The New York Times, "making for one of the largest legal challenges to date against the Trump administration's unraveling of federal climate policy."

The new letter stresses the consequences of that unraveling, stating that "because of Zeldin's directives, we will suffer more health-damaging air pollution and be exposed to more toxic chemicals in our homes, in our food, in our products, and in our water. Zeldin's rollbacks will lead to more carbon dioxide and methane pollution that will contribute to worsening climate disasters."

"Families across the country, whether rural or urban, are already struggling with the consequences of Zeldin's actions," the letter adds. "The damage he is doing will span generations. Zeldin is deepening environmental injustices and will leave a terrible legacy for our children and grandchildren."

We refuse to stay silent while Lee Zeldin treats our lives like a line item to be deleted. The EPA is for the people, not polluters. His time is up; Lee Zeldin must go. #GameOverZeldin www.gameoverzeldin.com

[image or embed]
— Physicians for Social Responsibility - National (@psr.org) March 24, 2026 at 12:12 PM

CAC director Margie Alt declared Tuesday that "the wreckage of Lee Zeldin's EPA will be measured in lives lost, jobs destroyed, the costs of illnesses that could have been prevented, and communities devastated. We will be paying the price for decades to come."

"Zeldin ignored science as well as the legal and moral precedent," she said. "Instead, he looked at the numbers and made a choice: He decided that corporate bottom lines matter more than our lives. He decided you and your family are expendable. After a year on the job, it is clear that Zeldin is either unable or unwilling to uphold his oath of office or the EPA's fundamental mission. So let us be clear: Our lives are not expendable. Our health is not expendable. Our climate is not expendable. Lee Zeldin must go."

Other organizations that signed on to the letter include Beyond Plastics, Cherokee Concerned Citizens, Clean Air Council, Clean Water Action, Climate Hawks Vote, Earthjustice, Environmental Working Group, Environmental Protection Network, GreenLatinos, Indivisible Action Coalition, Physicians for Social Responsibility, Service Employees International Union, Sierra Club, Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), and more.

"Administrator Zeldin's established pattern of placing polluter profits above the health and safety of people across the country cannot stand," said UCS president and CEO Gretchen Goldman. "The science establishing harm to human health and the environment from global warming emissions is undeniable. The unprecedented, climate-fueled heatwave a large swath of the United States has been experiencing is only the latest example."

"The public deserves an EPA administrator who will face the challenge of the climate crisis and fossil fuel and toxics pollution head on with proven policy solutions," she argued, "not actively serve as an agent of destruction beholden to the whims of oil, gas, and chemical industry executives and an authoritarian, anti-science US president."

News Climate
SEE ALL
No Kings Rally in Minnesota
News

No, Says Economist, March US Jobs Report 'Is Not Good'

News

Ocasio-Cortez Vindicated—Again—After Amazon HQ2 Added No Jobs in Virginia Last Year

News

US-Israeli War on Iran Fuels Higher Global Food Prices, Mideast Poverty: UN Agencies

News

Americans Spent $8.4 Billion More on Gas in the First Month of Trump's Iran War: Report

News

Sanders Declares AI 'A Threat to Everything the American People Hold Dear'

News

Patient Advocates Warn Trump Pharma Tariffs Could 'Drive Up Costs and Create More Uncertainty'

Seven Mile Beach, Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands
News

‘A System Rigged’: Untaxed Wealth of Richest 0.1% Is More Than Assets of World’s Poorest Half

The richest 0.1% of people on Earth are hiding more than $2.8 trillion in offshore accounts to avoid taxes. That money alone is more wealth than is owned by the entire bottom half of humanity, more than 4.1 billion people.

These findings were published in a report released Thursday by Oxfam International on the 10th anniversary of the 2016 Panama Papers, which provided an unprecedented look at how the world's most powerful capitalists, financiers, political leaders, celebrities, and criminals exploited offshore tax havens to stash their money.

"Ten years on, the superrich are still sequestering oceans of wealth in offshore vaults,” said Christian Hallum, Oxfam International’s tax lead.

The percentage of untaxed wealth in offshore accounts has dropped in the past 10 years, in large part due to global reforms like the adoption of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's Automatic Exchange of Information framework (AEOI), which allows revenue authorities around the world to easily share information and crack down on cheats.

However, many nations in the Global South are excluded from this system, even though they need the tax revenue the most.

Oxfam found that a staggering $3.5 trillion, more than 3.2% of the global gross domestic product, still remains in untaxed accounts. That's more than the entire GDP of France and is more than twice the combined wealth of the world's 44 poorest nations.

And while the percentage of untaxed wealth is shrinking, that doesn't mean inequality has shrunk.

On the contrary, the December 2025 "World Inequality Report" found that the richest 0.001% of humanity—fewer than 60,000 multimillionaires and billionaires—now have three times as much wealth as the poorest half of the world’s population combined.

Inequality has surged around the world in part due to taxation policies and pandemic recovery packages that overwhelmingly favor the rich. The most glaring was adopted in the world's financial hub, the United States, last year.

The megabudget passed by Republicans and signed into law by President Donald Trump handed a $1 trillion tax cut to America's wealthiest 1% while slashing more than $1 trillion in spending from Medicaid, food assistance, and other safety net programs. It has been described by some economists as the largest upward transfer of wealth in US history.

While the global top 0.1% holds about 80% of untaxed offshore wealth, an even smaller group of uber-wealthy individuals does most of the cheating. The world's richest 0.01%, who hold at least $50 million apiece, control about half of all money in global tax shelters—$1.7 trillion.

According to the Tax Justice Network's Corporate Tax Haven Index, Caribbean islands under UK ownership, including the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, and Bermuda, are among the worst offenders. Other notable tax havens include Switzerland, Singapore, Hong Kong, Ireland, and the Netherlands.

A February Oxfam report on Elon Musk, who is well on his way to becoming the world's first trillionaire, found that his company, Tesla—which managed to pay zero dollars on its $2.3 billion income in 2024—has not published a country-by-country report on its taxes and that it has subsidiaries in many countries considered to be tax havens.

Big Pharma companies, including AbbVie and Merck, also used tax shelters to lower their total tax expense in 2025 by more than $1 billion, according to a report released earlier this month by the Financial Accountability & Corporate Transparency Coalition.

"This isn’t just about clever accounting—it’s about power and impunity," Hallum said. "When millionaires and billionaires stash trillions of dollars in offshore tax havens, they place themselves above the obligations that bind the rest of society."

"The consequences are as predictable as they are devastating," he continued. "We see our public hospitals and schools starved of funds, our social fabric shredded by rising inequality, and ordinary people forced to shoulder the costs of a system rigged to enrich a tiny few.”

Even a fraction of the money currently stashed away by the world's wealthiest could alleviate untold amounts of suffering.

In November, the United Nations' World Food Program estimated that extreme hunger, which currently affects more than 318 million people around the world, could be eradicated by 2030 with investments of about $93 billion per year, but that global hunger programs instead remain “slow, fragmented, and underfunded."

According to a 2021 UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) report, investments of around $114 billion per year would similarly be enough to ensure that everyone on Earth has access to safe drinking water and sanitation.

Oxfam called on governments around the world to increase coordination to prevent the wealthy from hiding their riches from tax authorities. It also urged them to adopt more aggressive policies to tax the 1%'s wealth at home, including taxes on income and on extreme wealth.

News Economy
SEE ALL
Ro Khanna
News

Message to Senate Dems: No Confirmation of New AG Without Commitment on Epstein Files Release

News

'A Moral Obscenity': Trump Budget Pairs Record Military Boost With Billions in Cuts to Social Programs

News

'Good Riddance,' Say Democrats as Trump Fires Attorney General Pam Bondi

News

Hungry to End DHS Shutdown, Johnson Eats 'Crap Sandwich' Deal He Rejected Last Week

News

Thousands of Layoffs at California Hospitals Underscore Calls for Billionaire Tax

News

Leading in Primary by 38 Points, Platner Takes Aim at Collins' Wall Street Cash and Iran War Support

DHS Secretary Kristi Noem Briefs On Vast Winter Storm Impacting The US
News

'America Deserves Better': Top Trump FEMA Official Continues to Claim He's Being Teleported By God

The man appointed by President Donald Trump to lead America's disaster recovery will not stop talking about teleportation. It's leading many people to question whether he's fit for the job.

Even before this past week, many concerns had already been raised about Gregg Phillips, who Trump tapped as associate administrator for the Office of Response and Recovery at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in December.

Phillips had no formal experience in disaster management prior to being given a senior role overseeing billions of dollars to help victims of floods, hurricanes, and wildfires.

But he did have qualifications that are evidently more important to the second Trump administration: a long history of echoing the president's baseless claims about election fraud, including that millions of noncitizens illegally voted in 2016 and that an elaborate operation involving ballot stuffing “mules” helped former President Joe Biden beat Trump in 2020.

Because Phillips was a presidential appointee, Congress was not given the opportunity to scrutinize these statements or others he's made, including his description of himself as a "very vocal opponent of FEMA," the very agency he was chosen to help lead. Nor did it have the opportunity to examine accusations that he directed millions in government contracts to his own personal businesses and associates while working in the Texas and Mississippi governments.

But months into his tenure, Phillips is finally getting some attention for comments he made on multiple podcasts, in which he claimed to have been involuntarily "teleported," including to a Waffle House in Georgia.

Phillips discussed the supernatural experience in a January 2025 episode of the podcast Onward, hosted by fellow election conspiracy theorist Catherine Engelbrecht. CNN first reported on the conversation earlier this month:

"I was with my boys one time and I was telling them I was gonna go to Waffle House and get Waffle House. And I ended up at a Waffle House—this was in Georgia—and I end up at a Waffle House like 50 miles away from where I was,” Phillips said...

"And they said, ‘Where are you?’ and I said, ‘A Waffle House.’ And, 'A Waffle House where?’ And I said, ‘Waffle House in Rome, Georgia.’ And they said, ‘That’s not possible, you just left here a moment ago.’ But it was possible. It was real.”

“Teleporting is no fun,” Phillips added. “It’s no fun because you don’t really know what you’re doing. You don’t really understand it, it’s scary, but yet um—but so real. And you know it’s happening but you can’t do anything about it, and so you just go, you just go with the ride. And wow, what, just an incredible adventure it all was.”

Phillips said this was not the only time he'd been teleported. In another case, he described his car being “lifted up” and dropped in a ditch outside a church in Albany, Georgia.

CNN reported on other controversial and violent statements made by Phillips as well, including one on the same podcast in which he said he'd like to "punch [Biden] in the mouth" and that he "deserves to die." In a 2024 Truth Social post, Phillips also urged listeners to learn how to shoot firearms and warned them that migrants were "coming here to kill you."

But it's his tales of teleportation that have drawn the greatest ridicule. And Phillips has only continued to double down, according to a report out Wednesday from CNN's KFile.

“Haters gonna hate,” Phillips wrote on Truth Social in a post that now appears to be deleted.

"I know what I’ve experienced, I know Who I serve," he continued, in a reply to one of his detractors on the right-wing social media site owned by Trump.

To another, he said: “I have no regrets for my words nor my faith in my Savior, Jesus Christ. The Bible has many examples of the power of God."

Given the enormity of FEMA's responsibility, especially with the climate crisis increasing the number of billion-dollar disasters in the US in recent years, Phillips' tenuous grasp on the fabric of reality has led some to worry that the agency is in suboptimal hands.

“With over 340 million people in this country, you’d think we could find people grounded in reality to run our government programs," said Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii). ”And yet, here’s another powerful official who exists on lies and conspiracy theories. America deserves better.“

News Politics
SEE ALL
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and protester interaction, Minneapolis, January 2026
News

'The Agents Were Lying': ICE Exposed Yet Again by Video of Minneapolis Shooting

News

3-Year-Old Abused While Waiting Months to Be Released From Detention Under Trump Restrictions, Says Family

News

Univ. of Washington Removes Mideast Center Director Who Criticized US-Israeli War on Iran

News

Palestine Defenders Decry 'Intolerable' Arrest of French Politician Rima Hassan

News

Rights Groups Demand EU Suspend Trade Deal With Israel Over 'Appalling' Death Penalty Law

News

Democrats File Sweeping Lawsuit to Stop 'Unlawful' Trump Attack on Mail-In Voting

Nurul Amin Shah Alam, 56, was dropped miles from his hom
News

Death of Nearly Blind Man Abandoned in Freezing Temps by Trump Border Agents Ruled 'Homicide'

The Trump administration's response was swift following the news that the death of a nearly blind New York man who was left by US Border Patrol agents in the freezing cold was ruled a homicide—and it made clear that the Department of Homeland Security has no intention of taking accountability for the agents' actions that preceded the 56-year-old's death.

But state Attorney General Letitia James warned that despite the deflections of the administration, her office would continue to review "the circumstances and treatment that led" to the death of Nurul Amin Shah Alam, a Rohingya refugee, in February.

"Mr. Shah Alam fled genocide to build a life in this country," James said. “Instead, he was abandoned and left to suffer alone in his final hours. No New Yorker should be treated this way.”

As Common Dreams reported, Shah Alam was found dead on a Buffalo, New York street five days after Border Patrol agents dropped him off at a closed coffee shop. They had not informed Shah Alam's family or lawyer where he was, making it impossible for him to find his way home as extreme winter weather hit Buffalo. In addition to being visually impaired, Shah Alam was unable to speak or read English.

The "manner of death," said the county medical examiner's office, "was homicide."

The medical examiner emphasized that on death certificates, "homicide" refers to "death resulting from the volitional act of another, which may include negligent acts or omissions," and does not imply the intent to cause someone's death.

The designation does "not indicate criminality, which is the purview of the judicial system," said the office.

Dr. Gale Burstein, the Erie County Department of Health commissioner, announced Wednesday that Shah Alam's death had been directly caused by complications from a perforated ulcer that had formed when hypothermia decreased blood flow and weakened the lining of his intestines.

Shah Alam experienced “severe stress” and that “stress was felt to be hypothermia, being in very cold temperatures, and dehydration, so no access to liquids," said Burstein.

The perforated ulcer doubtlessly caused "severe pain," the health commissioner added at a news conference.

“If that is not repaired in a short period of time, it can cause death, which is what we have, we felt we’ve seen in this instance,” said Burstein. “It’s a medical emergency.”

On Thursday morning, hours after the officials announced the homicide determination and described the health crisis Shah Alam experienced in his last days as he walked through the streets of Buffalo in subfreezing temperatures, DHS said on social media that the account of Shah Alam's death was "another hoax being peddled by the media and sanctuary politicians to demonize our law enforcement."

“This death had NOTHING to do with Border Patrol. Mr. Shah Alam passed almost A WEEK AFTER he was released by Border Patrol," said the agency before listing a number of allegations regarding the man's "serial violent criminal rap sheet."

The charges DHS referred to were related to an incident in February 2025, when Shah Alam was detained after getting lost on the way home from a store where he had purchased two curtain rods to use as walking sticks. He ended up on the porch of a woman who called the police, who later accused him of swinging a rod “in a menacing manner," which his lawyer denies.

Police body camera footage shows him saying, “OK” and dropping one end of the curtain rod when an officer told him to put it on the ground.

Shah Alam was charged with assault, trespassing, and possession of a weapon and taken to Erie County Holding Center, where he was held for a year.

He was released in late February after his family posted bail. The local police alerted Border Patrol, which sent two agents to pick Shah Alam up from jail. His son was waiting outside the jail to take him home, The New York Times reported, but the agents took him to a closed Tim Hortons location instead and left him there, describing their actions as giving Shah Alam a "courtesy ride."

The agency claimed after Shah Alam's death was reported in February that he had shown “no signs of distress, mobility issues, or disabilities requiring special assistance."

After officials announced their findings regarding Shah Alam's death on Wednesday, his son, Mohamad Faisal Nurul Amin, told The Guardian: “When I got the call from the medical examiner, my body went into shock. I felt like I was going to throw up. I couldn’t move. Someone told my mother, and she was devastated. I am still depressed.”

Jeremy Konyndyk, president of Refugees International, said Shah Alam's fate amounted to "death-by-policy."

"In Minnesota, DHS often released detainees in secluded areas in freezing evening conditions with no alert to family. It seemed calculated to endanger people. Very similar to what they did here," he said.

Afaf Nasher, executive director of the New York chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said the medical examiner's ruling confirms what Shah Alam's "family and community feared from the beginning: This was not a tragic accident, but a preventable and deeply disturbing loss of life."

“We call for an immediate, independent criminal investigation into the actions of the US Border Patrol agents who abandoned a nearly blind refugee miles away from his home in freezing conditions," said Nasher. "No one, regardless of immigration status, should ever be treated with such disregard for their safety and basic human dignity.”

The Erie County district attorney's office told The Guardian it had requested the autopsy report regarding Shah Alam's death.

“We are committed to seeking the truth and upholding justice,” the office said.

Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, said in a statement that "the cruelty and inhumanity" of the actions that preceded Shah Alam's death "should shock the conscience of every American."

“As more details of this case emerge, I want to be crystal clear: Every individual involved in the death of Mr. Shah Alam must be held fully accountable," said Hochul. "To ensure a fair and impartial investigation, the Erie County district attorney must continue his investigation and, if warranted by the evidence, prosecute to the fullest extent of the law.”

News Rights & Justice
SEE ALL
An infographic shows a map of Tehran, zooming in on the compound of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
News

Trump White House Pushes Satellite Firm to Withhold All Images of Iran War

News

'Stop This Lawless War,' Advocates Say as Trump Warns of Coming Power Plant, Bridge Attacks in Iran

News

As Search for US Airman Continues, Trump Issues Latest 'Countdown to Massive War Crimes'

News

Nuclear Plants 'Must Never Be Attacked,' Says Watchdog as Iran Reports US-Israeli Strike at Bushehr Facility

News

Iran Reportedly Shoots Down US Planes With Air Defense Trump Said Was 'Annihilated' Two Days Ago

News

'Singularly Unqualified' Hegseth Executes Purge of Top Military Brass as Iran War Spirals Out of Control

Pentagon Secretary Pete Hegseth
News

‘Grossly Irresponsible’: $1.5 Trillion Trump Military Budget Would Explode Debt by $7 Trillion

The budget document that President Donald Trump's White House is set to release Friday calls for $1.5 trillion in military spending for the coming fiscal year, an unprecedented sum that—if approved by Congress—would add nearly $7 trillion to the US national debt over the next decade.

The Wall Street Journal's editorial board, which got an early look at the president's fiscal year 2027 budget, reported that the plan includes roughly $1.15 trillion in baseline US military spending as well as $350 billion in supplemental funding "that Republicans could pass in a party-line budget reconciliation bill." The Journal doesn't specify the purpose of the proposed supplemental funding, but the Pentagon has asked Congress for at least $200 billion for the Iran war.

The budget, which would boost total US military spending by more than 40% compared to the current fiscal year, also reportedly calls for investments in Trump's so-called Golden Dome missile defense system, a project that critics have derided as an absurd boondoggle.

Earlier this week, Trump suggested the US federal government can't afford to fund childcare and other domestic social programs because it is "fighting wars."

William Hartung, a senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, wrote in an analysis of the budget proposal ahead of its official release that "whatever vehicles the administration chooses to promote this huge increase, it will be doubling down on a failed budgetary and national security strategy."

"If passed as requested, $1.5 trillion in Pentagon spending—in a single year–will make America weaker by underwriting a misguided strategy, funding outmoded weapons programs, and crowding out other essential public investments," Hartung argued. "The Pentagon doesn’t need more spending, it needs more spending discipline. Spending billions of dollars on a Golden Dome system that can never achieve the President’s dream of a leak-proof missile defense system is sheer waste, as is continuing to lavish funds on overpriced, underperforming combat aircraft like the F-35, or multi-billion dollar aircraft carriers that are vulnerable to modern high-speed missiles."

"The truth is, there are not enough factories, or skilled workers, or materials to effectively spend such a huge increase," he added. "It will be a recipe for waste, fraud, and abuse."

In anticipation of the White House proposal, a broad coalition of nearly 300 advocacy organizations sent a letter to members of Congress on Thursday demanding that they reject Trump's request and any other proposed budget increases for the Pentagon, which recently failed its eighth consecutive audit.

"We must invest in critical human needs programs in our communities. Instead, we have cut those programs massively," the groups wrote, pointing to the record Medicaid and nutrition assistance cuts that Trump and congressional Republicans approved last year.

"The Pentagon is unaccountable to American taxpayers, having never passed an audit, while more than half of its budget (54 percent) is paid to corporate military contractors, whose profits are rising. Further gigantic increases would be grossly irresponsible," the groups continued. "Funding an unaccountable Pentagon by more than $1 trillion while underfunding human needs programs undermines our security by preventing us from investing in the shared prosperity that comes from more housing, health care, climate and public health protections, ending hunger, and providing quality public education."

News War & Peace
SEE ALL