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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."
Mitt "47%" Romney's Post-Career Call to Tax the Rich Met With Kudos and Criticism
In a leaked fundraiser footage from the 2012 US presidential campaign, Republican candidate Mitt Romney infamously claimed that 47% of Americans are people "who believe that they are victims, who believe that government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to healthcare, to food, to housing, to you name it." On Friday, the former US senator from Utah published a New York Times opinion piece titled, "Tax the Rich, Like Me."
"In 2012, political ads suggested that some of my policy proposals, if enacted, would amount to pushing grandma off a cliff. Actually, my proposals were intended to prevent that very thing from happening," Romney began the article, which was met with a range of reactions. "Today, all of us, including our grandmas, truly are headed for a cliff: If, as projected, the Social Security Trust Fund runs out in the 2034 fiscal year, benefits will be cut by about 23%."
"Typically, Democrats insist on higher taxes, and Republicans insist on lower spending. But given the magnitude of our national debt as well as the proximity of the cliff, both are necessary," he argued. "On the spending-cut front... Social Security and Medicare benefits for future retirees should be means-tested—need-based, that is to say—and the starting age for entitlement payments should be linked to American life expectancy."
"And on the tax front, it's time for rich people like me to pay more," wrote Romney, whose estimated net worth last year, when he announced his January 2025 retirement from the Senate, was $235 million. "I long opposed increasing the income level on which FICA employment taxes are applied (this year, the cap is $176,100). No longer; the consequences of the cliff have changed my mind."
"The largest source of additional tax revenues is also probably the most compelling for fairness and social stability. Some call it closing tax code loopholes, but the term 'loopholes' grossly understates their scale. 'Caverns' or 'caves' would be more fitting," he continued, calling for rewriting capital gains tax treatment rules for "mega-estates over $100 million."
"Sealing the real estate caverns would also raise more revenue," Romney noted. "There are more loopholes and caverns to be explored and sealed for the very wealthy, including state and local tax deductions, the tax rate on carried interest, and charity limits on the largest estates at death."
Some welcomed or even praised Romney's piece. Iowa state Rep. JD Scholten (D-1), a progressive who has previously run for both chambers of Congress, declared on social media: "Tax the rich! Welcome to the coalition, Mitt!"
US House Committee on the Budget Ranking Member Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.), who is part of the New Democrat Coalition, said: "I welcome this op-ed by Mitt Romney and encourage people to read it. As the next chair of the House Budget Committee, increasing revenue by closing loopholes exploited by the wealthiest Americans will be a top priority."
Progressive Saikat Chakrabarti, who is reportedly worth at least $167 million and is one of the candidates running to replace retiring former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), responded: "Even Mitt Romney now agrees that we need to tax the wealthiest. I call for a wealth tax on our billionaires and centimillionaires."
Michael Linden, a senior policy fellow at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, said: "Kudos to Mitt Romney for changing his mind and calling for higher taxes on the rich. I'm not going to nitpick his op-ed (though there are a few things I disagree with), because the gist of it is right: We need real tax reform to make the rich pay more."
Others pointed to Romney's record, including the impactful 47% remarks. The Lever's David Sirota wondered, "Why is it that powerful people typically wait until they have no power to take the right position and effectively admit they were wrong when they had more power to do something about it?"
According to Sirota:
The obvious news of the op-ed is that we've reached a point in which even American politics' very own Gordon Gekko—a private equity mogul-turned-Republican politician—is now admitting the tax system has been rigged for his fellow oligarchs.
And, hey, that's good. I believe in the politics of addition. I believe in welcoming converts to good causes in the spirit of "better late than never." I believe there should be space for people to change their views for the better. And I appreciate Romney offering at least some pro forma explanation about what allegedly changed his thinking (sidenote: I say "allegedly" because it's not like Romney only just now learned that the tax system was rigged—he was literally a co-founder of Bain Capital!).
"And yet, these kinds of reversals (without explicit apologies, of course) often come off as both long overdue but also vaguely inauthentic, or at least not as courageous and principled as they seem," Sirota continued, stressing that "when Romney had real power, he fortified the rigged tax system that he's only now criticizing from the sidelines."
'Blatant Act of Retaliation': Trump Denies Colorado Request for Fire, Flooding Disaster Relief
Top Democratic officials in Colorado are among those condemning President Donald Trump's denial of two disaster relief requests from Gov. Jared Polis—his latest action in a state that critics say he is retaliating against for its prosecution of a former county clerk who was involved in election denial efforts in 2020.
After the White House denied the requests for Trump to declare major disasters in parts of Colorado that experienced the Lee and Elf fires in August and flooding in October—a move that would unlock Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) funding to help with recovery efforts—Polis joined other Democratic leaders in calling on Trump to reconsider and accusing him of playing "political games."
"One of the most amazing things to witness as governor has been the resilience of Coloradans following a natural disaster," said Polis. "Their courage, strength, and willingness to help one another is unmatched—values that President Trump seems to have forgotten. I call on the president’s better angels, and urge him to reconsider these requests. This is about the Coloradans who need this support, and we won’t stop fighting for them to get what they deserve. Colorado will be appealing this decision."
The governor was joined by Democratic Sens. Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper in speaking out against the denial.
Polis made the requests in late September and last month, noting in his first request that Rio Blanco County, which both fires ripped through, has an economy driven "largely by energy production" at the Piceance Basin.
"This local industry is powered by two local utility providers who have sustained over $24 million in damages to their infrastructure," his office said. "Without support to recover local utility infrastructure, stalled production risks the local economy, major rate increases on Coloradans, and local economic collapse."
In November, Polis noted that FEMA had confirmed $13.8 million in damages to public infrastructure from flooding in several western counties, with roads and bridges particularly affected.
Communities also have ongoing debris removal needs, sewer system failures, and damages to essential drinking water and wastewater infrastructure.
The Stafford Act authorizes the president to declare a major disaster in order to unlock additional federal funding to respond to floods and other emergencies.
Trump has sought to reduce federal funding that goes to states for emergency management—denying at least 12 requests from states between January-October, with Democratic-led states facing many of the denials.
He has overtly politicized disaster relief, announcing in August that any state or city that boycotts Israeli products in protest of its attacks on and policies in Palestinian territories would not receive funding they requested.
Despite this, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson told The Hill on Monday that "there is no politicization to the president’s decisions on disaster relief"—but Polis and other Democrats suggested the flooding and fire relief request denial was part of Trump's larger efforts to retaliate against the state of Colorado.
Last week, the president's top budget adviser, Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought, announced the administration was dismantling the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), a major climate research and meteorological facility in Boulder.
A number of critics said that move appeared to be in retaliation for the conviction in a state court of Tina Peters, a former county clerk who was found guilty of allowing someone access to secure voting system data as part of an effort to prove the baseless claim that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump.
Despite uncertainty about Trump's authority to pardon Peters, the president claimed recently that he will do so. He has directly attacked Polis for Peters' treatment by the state.
"When the people of Western Colorado need assistance the most—as recovery from the Elk and Lee fires continues—President Trump abandons them in a blatant act of retaliation against our state," said Rep. Joe Neguse (D-Colo.) on Sunday night of Trump's latest action toward Colorado. "Shameful."
'The Law Must Be Enforced': Epstein Survivors Speak Out Against Trump DOJ Cover-Up and Delay
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.
Israeli Cabinet Approves 19 New Apartheid Colonies in Occupied West Bank
Israel's Cabinet on Sunday finalized approval of 19 new Jewish-only settler colonies in the illegally occupied West Bank, a move the apartheid state's far-right finance minister said was aimed at thwarting Palestinian statehood.
Cabinet ministers approved the legalization of the previously unauthorized settler outposts throughout the occupied Palestinian territory, bringing the total number of new settlements in recent years to 69.
The move will bring the overall total number of exclusively or overwhelmingly Jewish settlements—which are illegal under international law—to more than 200, up from around 140 just three years ago.
Included in the new approval are two former settlements—Kadim and Ganim—that were evacuated in compliance with the now effectively repealed 2005 Disengagement Law, under which Israel dismantled all of its colonies in the Gaza Strip and four in the West Bank.
"This is righting a historic injustice of expulsion from 20 years ago," Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich—who is a settler—said on Sunday. "We are putting the brakes on the rise of a Palestinian terror state."
"We will continue to develop, build, and settle the inherited land of our ancestors, with faith in the righteousness of our path," Smotrich added.
Following an earlier round of approval for the new settlements last week, Palestinian presidential spokesperson Nabil Abu Rudeineh said, “All Israeli settlement activity is illegal and constitutes a violation of international law and international legitimacy resolutions."
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres earlier this month denounced Israel's "relentless" settlement expansion.
Such colonization, said Guterres, "continues to fuel tensions, impede access by Palestinians to their land, and threaten the viability of a fully independent, democratic, contiguous, and sovereign Palestinian state."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli officials—some of whom, including Smotrich, deny the very existence of the Palestinian people—have vowed that such a state will not be established.
While Netanyahu—who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza—is under pressure from right-wing and far-right government officials, settlers, and others to annex all of the West Bank, US President Donald Trump recently said that "Israel would lose all of its support from the United States if that happened."
Some doubted Trump's threat, with Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN) executive director Sarah Leah Whitson reacting to the new settlements' approval by posting on X that "the ONLY reason Israel gets away with this naked thievery is US military and political support."
Israel seized and occupied the West Bank including East Jerusalem along with Gaza in 1967, ethnically cleansing around 300,000 Palestinians. Many of these forcibly displaced people were survivors of the Nakba, the Jewish terror and ethnic cleansing campaign that saw more than 750,000 Palestinians flee or be forced from Palestine during the foundation of the modern state of Israel.
Since 1967, Israel has steadily seized more and more Palestinian land in the West Bank while building and expanding colonies there. Settlement population has increased exponentially from around 1,500 colonists in 1970 to roughly 140,000 at the time of the Oslo Accords in 1993—under which Israel agreed to halt new settlement activity—to around 770,000 today.
Settlers often attack Palestinians and their property, including in deadly pogroms, in order to terrorize them into leaving so their land can be stolen. Israeli colonists have also attacked Israel Defense Forces soldiers they view as standing in the way of their expansion.
In July 2024, the International Court of Justice—where Israel is currently facing a genocide case related to the Gaza war—found the occupation of Palestine to be an illegal form of apartheid that must be ended as soon as possible. The ICJ also ruled that Israeli settler colonization of the West Bank amounts to annexation, also a crime under international law. Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention states that an “occupying power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.”
As the world's attention focused on Gaza during the past two years, Israeli soldiers and settlers have killed at least 1,039 Palestinians—at least 225 of them children—in the West Bank. This year, at least 233 Palestinians, including at least 52 children, have been killed so far, according to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East.
On Saturday, Israeli occupation forces shot and killed two Palestinians in the northern West Bank, including a 16-year-old boy, Rayan Abu Muallah, who the Israel Defense Forces said was shot after he threw an object at its troops.
Sanders Slams Private Equity Scrooges Ending Paid Holidays for Walgreens Workers
"While the rich get richer, workers are struggling, and your decision to cut workers' paid vacation is making the problem worse."
Independent US Sen. Bernie Sanders on Tuesday urged the private equity firm that recently acquired Walgreens to reverse its decision to strip hourly workers at the second-largest US pharmacy chain of paid days off on Christmas and other major holidays.
After Sycamore Partners finalized its $10 billion purchase of Walgreens in late August, the pharmacy chain—now headed by CEO Mike Motz—eliminated paid holidays for New Year's Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. Workers were notified of the move, which was first reported by Bloomberg, in October.
The move is typical of what private equity firms—sometimes called vulture capitalists—often do in order to maximize profits. In addition to slashing paid time off and benefits, they often reduce or freeze pay, fire workers, close locations, introduce aggressive sales targets, and reduce job security by replacing full-time positions with hourly or independently contracted workers. Walgreens announced last year that it planned on closing around 1,200 of its roughly 8,000 US stores, citing their struggling performance.
"This Thanksgiving, Walgreens' hourly workers faced the impossible choice between losing pay and spending the holiday with their loved ones," Sanders (Vt.)—who is the ranking member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee—wrote Tuesday in a letter to Sycamore Partners founder and managing director Stefan Kaluzny.
"Walgreens employs 220,000 employees, the vast majority of whom are hourly workers... Sycamore Partners' decision to cut paid holidays for these hourly workers is unfortunately not surprising," the senator continued. "The firm follows the private equity playbook of buying businesses and aggressively extracting profit while using and abusing workers."
"For example, just one year after Sycamore Partners purchased Staples, the firm extracted $1 billion from the company as it closed 100 stores and laid off 7,000 workers," Sanders noted. "That same year, Sycamore Partners drove Nine West into bankruptcy and was accused of siphoning off over $1 billion in funds."
"Meanwhile, from 2016-22, companies owned by Sycamore Partners racked up over $3 million in labor violations, including wage-and-hour and workplace safety and health violations," he added.
During the holiday season, we all want to spend time with our loved ones. And yet, just two months after buying Walgreens for $10 billion, the private equity firm Sycamore Partners stripped hourly workers of paid vacation, including Christmas and New Year’s Day. Shameful.
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— Senator Bernie Sanders (@sanders.senate.gov) December 23, 2025 at 9:41 AM
Sanders contrasted a reality in which "60% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck" with the fact that "more private equity managers make over $100 million annually than investment bankers, top financial executives, and professional athletes combined."
"While the rich get richer, workers are struggling, and your decision to cut workers' paid vacation leave is making the problem worse," he stressed. "Some Walgreens workers make as little as $15 an hour. Cutting their paid leave will make it even more difficult for these workers to pay for housing, childcare, healthcare, and groceries."
"In short," Sanders concluded, "Sycamore Partners is forcing workers to sacrifice their basic needs for private equity profit."
'Dangerous and Cruel': Trump VA Quietly Bans Abortion Even for Rape and Health Risks
"This decision endangers the health, lives, and futures of the people who have served our country—and it proves what we've long warned: Trump and his allies won't stop until they've imposed a national abortion ban."
Defenders of reproductive rights on Tuesday responded with alarm after President Donald Trump's administration quietly imposed an abortion ban at the US Department of Veterans Affairs following a legal opinion penned by a deputy assistant attorney general.
After the 2022 Roe v. Wade reversal, the Biden administration allowed the VA to provide abortion counseling and care for service members and beneficiaries in cases of rape, incest, or if the pregnancy threatened the health of the patient. Once Trump returned to power, the department proposed a rule that would end those exceptions—though the VA would continue treating ectopic pregnancies and miscarriages, and allow abortions "when a physician certifies that the life of the mother would be endangered if the fetus were carried to term."
Although that rule hasn't taken effect, the US Department of Justice last week issued a memo in which Joshua Craddock of the Office of Legal Counsel concludes that the 2022 policy wasn't legally valid. The VA on Monday issued its own internal memo—obtained by the legal group Democracy Forward and reported by MS NOW—announcing immediate compliance with the DOJ's opinion, effectively implementing the proposed rule without finishing the formal process for doing so.
"DOJ's opinion states that VA is not legally authorized to provide abortions, and VA is complying with it immediately," Pete Kasperowicz, press secretary for the VA, confirmed to MS NOW, without answering further questions. "DOJ's opinion is consistent with VA's proposed rule, which continues to work its way through the regulatory process."
Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, said in a statement that "denying veterans essential healthcare and abortion access—even in cases of rape or serious health risk—after they have sacrificed so much for our country is callous and inhumane."
Democracy Forward represented Minority Veterans of America in submitting a comment opposing the proposed rule, and Perryman pledged that "we will continue to fight its implementation now that it has been finalized."
"This abortion ban makes it clear that the Trump administration will always choose its dangerous political agenda, even if the cost is veterans and their families' access to essential care."
Minority Veterans of America co-founder and executive director Lindsay Church also denounced the "dangerous and cruel" policy shift.
"Veterans face unique challenges that make it critical for us to be able to access abortion care, including possible exposure to toxic chemicals, waiting to start a family until after our service, and experiencing sexual assault," she said. "Abortion should not be a political issue—it is necessary, life-saving medical care, and denying this care will put veterans and their loved ones' lives in danger."
Fatima Goss Graves, president and CEO of the National Women's Law Center, warned that "the Trump administration is confirming what we've always known: its promise to leave abortion to the states was a lie. No one is safe from their anti-abortion crusade, not even our nation's veterans."
Goss Graves called on federal lawmakers to "pass legislation to reverse this harmful new policy and reinstate abortion access to all veterans and their loved ones who depend on the VA for care," though such a bill is unlikely to advance in the current Republican-controlled Congress.
Reproductive Freedom for All president and CEO Mini Timmaraju similarly declared that "this decision endangers the health, lives, and futures of the people who have served our country—and it proves what we've long warned: Trump and his allies won't stop until they've imposed a national abortion ban."
Nancy Northup, president and CEO at the Center for Reproductive Rights, argued that "everyone should be appalled by this heartless policy. President Trump said he would leave abortion to the states, but he continues to seize new opportunities to restrict it nationally."
This means the VA won't cover abortions EVEN in the case of rape, incest, or serious threat to the health of the patient. The DOJ memo was authored by Josh Craddock, one of the chief legal advocates for fetal personhood, i.e. imposing a nationwide abortion ban through the courts.
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— Mark Joseph Stern (@mjsdc.bsky.social) December 23, 2025 at 2:18 PM
Planned Parenthood Federation of America highlighted that "this ban goes into effect as the Trump administration and its allies in Congress continue a full-scale attack on access to sexual and reproductive health: stripping veterans of essential healthcare, slashing Medicaid, and 'defunding' Planned Parenthood."
Alexis McGill Johnson, the group's president and CEO, said that "this abortion ban makes it clear that the Trump administration will always choose its dangerous political agenda, even if the cost is veterans and their families' access to essential care."
Earlier this year, House Committee on Veterans' Affairs Ranking Member Mark Takano (D-Calif.) and Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs Ranking Member Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) led over 230 of their colleagues in submitting a public comment against the Trump administration's proposed rule. Takano and other members of the House panel also spoke out on Tuesday.
"As a country, we made a solemn promise to honor veterans' service and ensure they receive the healthcare they have earned. Veterans should be able to trust that promise and know they can walk into a VA medical center and receive the care they need," said Takano. "Instead of trusting veterans to make the healthcare decisions that are best for them, VA is allowing political opinion to supplant its duty to veterans."
"Instead of allowing veterans to discuss all their healthcare options openly and honestly with their providers, VA has decided that the government should be in charge of making healthcare decisions, even in matters of life and death," he continued. "And instead of fulfilling its duty to provide needed healthcare to veterans, VA has refused to acknowledge the unique and complex healthcare needs of veterans who are more likely to have complex health conditions that can increase the risks associated with pregnancy. Veterans fought for our rights. Now it's our responsibility to fight for theirs."
Progressive Jews Decry ADL 'Mamdani Monitor' for Conflating Israel Criticism With Antisemitism
The head of one group decried the ADL's "disproportionate attention on left-of-center activists’ views on Israel while failing to apply the same scrutiny to the Trump administration."
The heads of three left-leaning US Jewish groups on Monday admonished the Anti-Defamation League after the controversial watchdog once again conflated criticism of Israel with antisemitism in its latest report on New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani and his transition team.
The Anti-Defamation League noted approvingly in its updated "Mamdani Monitor" that "at least 25 individuals" in the democratic socialist's transition team "have a past relationship with the ADL or partner organizations, or a history of supporting the Jewish community."
The group also appreciated that "Mamdani's team can and will respond appropriately" to actual incidents of antisemitism, pointing to last week's resignation of Catherine Almonte Da Costa, Mamdani's former director of appointments, following the revelation of antisemitic social media posts she published in the early 2010s.
However, the ADL said it remains "deeply concerned" by Mamdani's statements and actions, highlighting what the group claimed were "many examples of individuals who have engaged in some type of antisemitic, anti-Zionist, or anti-Israel activities and/or have ties to groups that engage in such activities" among the mayor-elect's transition team appointees.
"These activities include spreading classic antisemitic tropes, vilifying those who support Jewish self-determination in their ancestral homeland, seeking to undermine the legitimacy and security of the Jewish state, and more," the ADL said, adding that "at least a dozen transition committee appointees expressed support for the anti-Israel campus encampments in the spring of 2024."
The Mamdani Monitor also noted that "at least 20% of the 400-plus appointees have ties to anti-Zionist groups such as Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), which openly glorifies Hamas’ October 7 attack... Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), a fringe group that advocates for the eradication of Zionism and demonizes Zionists; Within Our Lifetime (WOL), a New York-based radical anti-Zionist organization... and others."
Asked about the report during a Monday press conference, Mamdani said, "We must distinguish between antisemitism and criticism of the Israeli government."
“The ADL’s report oftentimes ignores this distinction, and in doing so it draws attention away from the very real crisis of antisemitism we see not only just in our city but in the country at large,” he continued. “When we’re thinking about critiques of Zionism and different forms of political expression, as much of what this report focuses on, there’s a wide variety of political opinion, even within our own 400-plus transition committee.”
Critics say the ADL's claim in the update that it "has long distinguished between legitimate criticism of Israeli government policies and antisemitism" is belied by not only the Mamdani Monitor's language, but also its own significantly expanded definition of antisemitism and antisemitic incidents, which include protests against Israel’s US-backed genocidal war on Gaza.
Jamie Beran, CEO of the progressive group Bend the Arc: Jewish Action, said in an X thread that "we were disappointed but not surprised to see today’s ADL report continue their conflation of criticism of the Israeli government’s actions with antisemitism" and the group's "favoring of Trumpian tactics over bridge building and its prioritization of fearmongering over the safety of American Jews and our neighbors."
Beran continued:
The ADL of today seems to have three interests: keeping their right wing megadonors happy, protecting the current Israeli government’s violent far-right agenda by conflating criticism of Israel with antisemitism, and cozying up to [US President Donald] Trump to stay close to power.
None of this fights antisemitism. Their McCarthyist Mamdani Monitor is the first of its kind because the ADL chose not to deploy a similar tactic when their bedfellows offered Nazi salutes, hired and pardoned neo-Nazis, and continued to openly spread dangerous antisemitic conspiracy myths.
"If the ADL truly wanted to fight antisemitism—like we do every day—they would actually confront it at its roots and how it works alongside all forms of bigotry, not instrumentalize it for an unpopular political agenda that has nothing to do with Jewish safety," Beran added.
Jeremy Ben-Ami, president of the liberal Jewish group J Street, also rejected the ADL's "continued conflation."
“J Street continues to be deeply concerned by the ADL’s ongoing use of its so-called ‘Mamdani Monitor,’ which goes well beyond combating antisemitism and too often conflates legitimate political speech with hate," Ben-Ami said in a statement Monday.
Ben-Ami asserted that there is "something deeply wrong when major Jewish leaders and institutions focus disproportionate attention on left-of-center activists’ views on Israel while failing to apply the same scrutiny to the Trump administration and MAGA leaders, whose blatant antisemitism and ties to white nationalist movements pose a clear and dangerous threat to American Jews."
"Our communal institutions should fight antisemitism consistently and credibly, wherever it appears—not selectively, and not in ways that inflame fear or deepen division," he added.
Another liberal Jewish antisemitism watchdog, Nexus Project, also decried the ADL update, which it said "repeatedly blurs the line between antisemitism and anti-Zionism."
J Street among the groups supporting the Antisemitism Response and Prevention Act (ARPA), legislation introduced last week by US Reps. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), Becca Balint (D-Vt.), and Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) in the wake of the Sydney Hanukkah massacre.
According to Nadler's office, the bill "clearly states that it is against the policy of the United States to use antisemitism as grounds to pursue ulterior political agendas, including attacks on educational institutions, suppressing constitutionally protected speech, or any other enforcement of ideological conformity."
ARPA stands in stark contrast with the Antisemitism Awareness Act (ARA), which was introduced in 2023 by Reps. Mike Lawler (R-NY), Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ, Max Miller (R-Ohio), and Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) in the House of Representatives and Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) in the Senate.
The bill would require the Department of Education to consider the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) Working Definition of Antisemitism when determining whether alleged harassment is motivated by anti-Jewish animus.
The ADL has pushed a wide range of governments, institutions, and organizations to adopt the IRHA definition, which conflates legitimate criticism and condemnation of Israeli policies and practices with anti-Jewish bigotry, and forces people to accept the legitimacy of a settler-colonial apartheid state engaged in illegal occupation and colonization, ethnic cleansing, and genocide.
House lawmakers overwhelmingly approved the legislation last year; however, the bill remains stalled in the Senate.
Zionism—the settler-colonial movement for the reestablishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine—is being rejected by a growing number of Jewish Americans due to the racism, settler-colonialism, illegal occupation, ethnic cleansing, apartheid, and genocide perpetrated by Israel and rooted in claims of divine right and favor.
Jewish-led groups like JVP, IfNotNow, and Jews for Economic and Racial Justice (JERJ) have been at the forefront of pro-Palestine demonstrations since the start of Israel's war and siege on Gaza, which have left more than 250,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing; 2 million others displaced, starved, and sickened; and most of the coastal strip in ruins.