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Michigan/America Is Not For Sale
Wowza, rare glimmer of good news. We take a moment to honor the stunning Michigan victory of Abdul El-Sayed, who was outspent 12-1 by his opponent's millions from establishment Dems, Zionist PACS and corporations and still managed to win even though he is a progressive Muslim who calls genocide genocide and wants Medicare for all in a Trump state that isn't communist New York. Ha. What millions in dark money buys you these days: "Sweet fuck all, as it turns out."
El-Sayed's inspiring win came against a candidate, Haley Stevens, who was bankrolled by over $60 million from party leaders and outside money from a murky nesting doll of super-PACS and shell corporations but whose campaign still had the audacity to bill her as “the grassroots choice of Michigan working families.” Total spending on the race in a key swing state was about $80 million, most from fat cats, making it "the fattest cat in the history of primaries." El-Sayed reportedly got about $4.6 million in outside money; Stevens and Netanyahu got about $60 million, the plurality of it from AIPAC's United Democracy Project (sic) super PAC - the most they've dumped into a single race, making it what observers call AIPAC's biggest defeat. From I Fucking Love Australia: AIPAC shoved 30 million dollars up Michigan's arse, and Michigan shat it straight back out."
Born in Detroit in 1984, Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed was raised by his father Mohamed, an Egyptian immigrant, and his stepmother Jackie, whose Michigan roots go back to the 1800s. After graduating from the University of Michigan Phi Beta Kappa, he earned an MD from Columbia and a doctorate in public health from Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, worked as an epidemiologist and became the youngest health official in a major American city when he was appointed Director of Detroit's Health Department, gutted rwhen it was privatized during the city’s bankruptcy, at age 30. Rebuilding it, he went after corporate polluters, stripped lead out of schools, starting offering free glasses to kids in need, expanded Narcan access, and spearheaded a program cancelling up to $700 million in medical debt for 300,000 state residents.
Faced with that resume, AIPAC spent their millions on an ad blitz that managed not to mention any of his policies, or even Israel, though he won the first-ever political endorsement from Jewish Voice For Peace. Instead, they focused on the issues that really matter: They attacked El-Sayed for criticizing the Obamas, allegedly helping Trump win, and sitting for an interview with a streamer they don’t like, Hasan Piker. If he wins the general election against the GOP's carpetbagging empty suit Mike Rogers, he'd become the first Muslim in the Senate. His longtime message to Dems: Stop compromising, ban ICE, end sending arms to Israel, Medicare for All, no more forever wars, get dark money out of politics. On election night, at a podium reading, "MIchigan Is Not For Sale," he celebrated "the movement we were able to inspire," and "the idea that we could take our government back."
El-Sayed's victory, while slimmer than predicted, was seen as pivotal; noted Bernie Sanders, "This is an election between Abdul and the billionaire class.” And the candidate the establishment called "unelectable" won with the endorsement of the United Auto Workers, "the beating heart of Michigan labor." His win was the biggest but not the only news out of Michigan: Sunrise Movement co-founder and data center opponent William Lawrence also took the primary for Michigan’s 7th Congressional district. They join progressive wins elsewhere: Zohran Mamdani in New York. Katie Wilson in Seattle. Three Mamdani-backed candidates in New York primaries, two against longtime incumbents. Melat Kiros in Colorado. Troy Jackson in Maine. It's still a long tough road ahead. But take heart from spineless ghoul Mike Johnson: “The insurgent left is on the rise."
Aug 06, 2026
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Back a Windfall Profits Tax, Say Campaigners, After Trump Admits Oil Giants 'Making Too Much Money'
After President Donald Trump echoed climate campaigners' longtime condemnation of fossil fuel giants' massive profits—uttering "the only thing" the climate-denying president "has said about energy policy since taking office that makes any sense," according to one advocate, organizers on Tuesday urged him to put his money where his mouth is by backing a windfall profits tax for companies like Chevron and Exxon Mobil.
In the Oval Office on Monday, Trump called on those corporations and others to slash prices and give some of their record-breaking profits—specifically those made since the president joined Israel in waging an unprovoked war against Iran on Feb. 28—"back to the public.”
"They're making too much money, based on a shortage," said Trump, while noting that he is a "big free enterprise guy."
"I don't like it... Chevron, too much money. Exxon Mobil, too much money," he said. "When you look at one company, they made 12 times what they made the year before? Give some of that back to the public, and they'd better cut the retail price."
“Too much money.”
“Chevron too much money.”
“Exxon Mobil too much money.”
President Donald Trump attacked oil majors ExxonMobil and Chevron for earning windfall profits from energy shortages created by the U.S.-Iran war, demanding that both companies cut prices and return… pic.twitter.com/I3CfmmQlqv
— Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) August 3, 2026
With oil and consumer gas prices skyrocketing since Trump and Israel started the war, resulting in Iran's retaliatory measure of effectively closing the Strait of Hormuz, which a fifth of the world's oil supply ordinarily travels through, Exxon reported that its second-quarter profits more than doubled compared with last year. The company took in $14.5 billion, while Chevron reported profits of $12 billion compared with $2.5 billion in 2025—nearly a 400% increase.
BP also reported profits that were $2.35 billion higher than last year.
An analysis by the Guardian published Tuesday showed that eight of the world's largest oil companies made nearly $93 billion in profits in the three months following the invasion.
Chevron just announced its highest quarterly earnings ever. Shell clocked its second-highest quarterly profits. ExxonMobil doubled its earnings.Combined, the three companies raked in, on average, some $404 million in profits every day for the last three months.
[image or embed]
— Make Polluters Pay (@polluterspay.bsky.social) August 3, 2026 at 12:16 PM
The climate action group 350.org noted that the record profits of oil and gas giants come as "communities across the world endure record-breaking heatwaves, wildfires, and rising living costs"—and as governments from around the world prepare to resume negotiations on a United Nations Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation, where a "mandatory surtax on highly polluting industries is gaining support as part of that process."
Two Democratic lawmakers in the US, Rep. Ro Khanna of California and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, introduced the Big Oil Windfall Profits Tax Act in March.
“From Bordeaux to Phoenix to Mumbai, families are living through the cost of climate delay, while the companies most responsible bank blockbuster bonanzas," said Anna Jellema, executive director of 350.org. "That is not a coincidence; it is a business model. Governments meeting in New York this month have a genuine opportunity to change it. Calls are growing across the political spectrum for a proper global profits tax, so the industry that helped cause these disasters pays towards the recovery, the solutions and the protection people need. It’s simple fairness: Those who caused the damage and profited from it should pay to fix it.”
Candice Fortin, US campaign manager for 350.org, emphasized that the latest comments from Trump, whose Interior Department just moved to weaken restrictions on Arctic drilling, must be taken with a grain of salt.
In the same Oval Office statement on Monday, said Fortin, "Trump criticized countries championing wind energy and supported more oil extraction in the North Sea."
"We don't just need to tax fossil fuels' windfall profits now, to be then forget about later," said Fortin. "We need to end our dependence on oil, gas, and coal—and we need a permanent mechanism to make the fossil fuel industry pay its fair share and redirect those revenues towards protecting people and communities from the climate and cost-of-living crises."
"If this is a genuine change of heart from a president whose budget bill included $18 billion in taxpayer handouts to Big Oil, we welcome it," added Fortin. "But talk is cheap, here's the real test: Will Trump throw his weight behind the Big Oil Windfall Profits Tax bill, which his party has been stonewalling in Congress since March?"
Aug 04, 2026
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Majority of Workers Say AI Will Make Jobs Harder and Only Benefit Those at the Top
Regardless of tech executives' promises that artificial intelligence will make people's workdays more efficient, more productive, and even happier, a new survey out Monday found that employees "are bracing for the impacts of AI rather than embracing them."
That was the interpretation of Elizabeth Pancotti, the vice president of policy, advocacy, and research at the progressive think tank Groundwork Collaborative, after the group joined research firm Ipsos in releasing the first results of a yearlong study of worker attitudes on AI.
Workers, said Pancotti, "expect the tech to deepen existing inequality in the workplace."
Just one-third of US workers expect the technology, whose expansion President Donald Trump has aggressively pushed, to improve their jobs, according to the poll.
The rest of the respondents rejected the idea that AI would automate tedious tasks at work and provide support, allowing them to complete more challenging responsibilities faster. Instead, two-thirds of workers said they expect their lives at work to get harder as AI eliminates jobs—theirs or their coworkers—and increases pressure at the workplace.
"This sentiment is consistent across race, gender, education, and income lines," reported Ipsos, while people with a college degree were more likely to believe that AI could improve their jobs. Only 1 in 5 people with a high school education or less said they expected their jobs to be improved by the technology.
Black workers (12%) were more likely than white respondents (4%) to feel that AI could eventually replace their jobs.
“Workers know bosses who say AI will make their jobs easier and allow them to be more productive are pulling a fast one."
More than a quarter of employed people said AI is already having a negative impact on their work, while 41% of unemployed people said the same.
As Jessica Grose wrote in The New York Times last month, AI has made it easy for companies to rapidly post job listings and give "the impression a business is thriving," without following up with many applicants, leaving job seekers in "purgatory."
More than half of the workers surveyed by Groundwork and Ipsos said they believe the widespread use of AI in workplaces will "only or mostly benefit business owners and executives."
"The benefits of AI in the workplace are not being split evenly," said Pancotti. "The workers who expect to reap the rewards of adoption are already high earners in white-collar jobs.”
Just 6% of respondents said workers will benefit, and about 14% said the technology will ultimately not benefit anyone.
About 40% of people making $100,000 per year or more expected their jobs to get better and easier due to AI—more than twice the percentage of people who make under $50,000.
“This is really just yet another class divide for the American public,” Alex Jacquez, senior vice president of policy, advocacy, and research at Groundwork Collaborative, told Semafor.
The poll comes as communities across the country have mobilized to stop AI data centers from being built, arguing that the facilities' massive water and electricity consumption, as well as the evidence that they could ultimately lead to job losses while creating little-to-no permanent work, makes them undesirable additions to their cities and towns.
“Workers know bosses who say AI will make their jobs easier and allow them to be more productive are pulling a fast one," said Pancotti. "Across the board, workers report AI putting more pressure on productivity rather than supporting workers as many AI proponents claim."
Aug 03, 2026
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'It’s Not Radical to Believe You Should Have Healthcare': El-Sayed Hits Back at Trump, GOP Attacks
Fresh off his victory in the Democratic primary race for US Senate in Michigan, progressive epidemiologist Abdul El-Sayed used television appearances on Sunday to respond to increasingly hysterical attacks by Republicans and President Donald Trump while offering a positive vision for the future, underscoring his support for Medicare for All and a humane foreign policy that doesn't fund genocide.
"It’s not radical to believe that people should be able to afford their groceries," El-Sayed, who is set to face Republican Mike Rogers in November, told NBC's Kristen Welker in response to the Senate GOP's first attack ad of the general election. "It’s not radical to believe that you should have healthcare in this country. It’s not radical to believe that you don’t think the president should be able to deny elections or make $2.2 billion off of his role in office. It’s not radical to believe that all of us should be able to breathe clean air and drink clean water. Those are the things that I’ve been fighting for."
Trump and congressional Republicans wasted no time launching unhinged and bigoted attacks on El-Sayed following his primary victory last week. In a Truth Social post on Saturday, Trump posted an image showing a photo of himself and First Lady Melania Trump alongside a photo of El-Sayed and his wife, psychiatrist Sarah Jukaku. The caption of the photo blared, "Two VERY DIFFERENT America's [sic]."
Asked by CNN's Jake Tapper to respond to the post, El-Sayed said Sunday that the caption is "right."
"One [America] in which your overlords are two people who don't like each other, but joint in the interest of making billions of dollars off of you, or two people who genuinely love each other, enjoyed some pancakes together, want to come together to build the kind of America where they can raise a family and know that that family is going to have the good things," said the Michigan Democrat.
"So, yes, you got two different visions of America. Donald Trump's vision is the one you're living in right now," he continued. "Can you afford your gas? Can you afford your groceries? Do you believe, when you look your kids in the eye, that they're going to have a better future than you did?"
Democratic Michigan Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed responds to President Trump posting a picture of his wife. pic.twitter.com/j8lGGwPET8
— State of the Union (@CNNSOTU) August 9, 2026
El-Sayed overcame more than $30 million in spending by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)—and over $60 million in total outside spending—to defeat Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.) in last week's primary contest. Throughout his primary campaign, El-Sayed criticized AIPAC as a destructive force in US politics and spoke out in support of ending American military aid to Israel—a stance that Trump and Republicans have sought to equate to antisemitism.
"He doesn’t love Israel. He doesn’t love Jewish people," Trump said of El-Sayed last week. "He hates them. He hates them with a passion that burns in his heart."
During his CNN appearance on Sunday, El-Sayed hit back at the president's smear, saying, "I love and revere Judaism and the Jewish people."
"They are not the same as AIPAC in Israel," he said. "I want our tax dollars spent to provide good schools, to pay for healthcare, to rebuild our roads here in Michigan, rather than it being sent abroad to subsidize foreign militaries. That’s not just Israel, by the way. That is also Egypt and Saudi Arabia and Jordan and Pakistan."
"So I believe in international law," El-Sayed continued. "I believe in equal rights to peace, dignity, and self-determination for all people. I believe in a process that allows a free Palestinian people and free Jewish Israeli people to come together around what they believe the ultimate peace should look like."
Aug 10, 2026
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'Good Start': Meta Fine Now Nearly $1 Billion for Social Media Giant's Harm to Kids
A New Mexico court on Thursday ruled that Meta must pay an additional $567 million fine on top of the $375 million a jury fined the tech giant in March for harms caused to teens and children who use its Instagram and Facebook social media platforms.
First Judicial District Judge Bryan Biedscheid said in his 68-pager ruling that "significant numbers of people in New Mexico experience harm from Meta’s products due to risks of sexual exploitation, interference with education, and adverse mental health outcomes."
"The harm to the impacted New Mexicans is not doubtful, eventual, or contingent, but an immediate, temporally connected, and highly probable result of Meta’s actions," he continued.
"The youth mental health crisis has inflicted significant and widespread harm in New Mexico in terms of the number of youth suffering mental health harms, the profound suffering they and those in their families suffer, and the resulting interferences with the functioning of the schools, law enforcement, [and] healthcare systems in New Mexico," the judge added.
The case centered on allegations that Meta knowingly designed and operated Facebook and Instagram in ways that exposed children to harmful content, encouraged excessive use, and failed to adequately protect minors from exploitation. New Mexico officials argued that internal company knowledge and outside warnings showed Meta was aware of risks associated with its platforms but did not act sufficiently to address them.
Most of the new fine—$420 million—will go toward funding youth treatment services, while the rest is designated for awareness and prevention, screening services, and other costs.
Biedscheid's order also compels Meta to make changes to its platforms in New Mexico, including removing "like" counts and only showing them to minors with parental consent, and prohibiting overnight push notifications for users under age 18.
"Regardless of whether it is labeled as an 'addiction' or 'problematic use,' the evidence at trial proved that design elements, such as autoplay, infinite scroll, 'like counts,' and push notifications create a product that, particularly for adolescent users, is highly rewarding psychologically and neurochemically," he wrote. "As a result, for many, it is irresistibly compelling to start scrolling and very difficult to stop or abstain from its use."
"In addition," the judge added, "algorithmic content recommendations can create harmful feedback loops and 'rabbit hole' users. Within a similar vein, 'like counts'... can provide a potentially harmful focus for adolescent users."
Meta spokesperson Andy Stone said the company would appeal the ruling, claiming: “We work hard to keep people safe on our platforms and have been transparent about the challenges of identifying and removing bad actors and harmful content. We remain confident in our record of protecting teens online and will continue to defend ourselves against claims that misrepresent the facts."
New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez hailed the ruling, saying that “Meta built products it knew would fuel addiction, deepen a youth mental health crisis, and expose children to sexual exploitation, then lied to parents and policymakers about the danger. Today, it pays for that choice.”
At Fairplay—a children's advocacy group—executive director Josh Golin hailed the "landmark ruling" as "the clearest indication yet that the tide is turning when it comes to protecting kids from social media."
"For the first time, Meta is being compelled by a court to change its dangerous and harmful design," he continued. "And with so many states lined up to sue Meta and other social media companies, we should expect to see a lot more injunctive relief to make online platforms used by young people safer."
“This ruling also clearly indicates why families need the Kids Online Safety Act," Golin added, referring to a controversial bill advanced this week by the Senate Commerce Committee. "The judge said it was up to Congress to address the addictive features on Instagram and other social media platforms. KOSA’s duty of care against compulsive use is the key to ensuring that Meta and other social media companies stop designing for addiction, as addictive design is the root of all social media harms.”
Justin Mazzola, deputy director of research at Amnesty International USA, said in a statement: "This verdict is an important step towards creating safer social media for children and young people. For years, Amnesty International has warned that major social media platforms have been designed to maximize engagement and profit, while failing to adequately protect children’s rights."
“Crucially, the court went beyond imposing a financial penalty," he continued. "By ordering changes to platform features, including removing 'like' counts for people under 18 and restricting overnight notifications, the ruling recognizes that the harms children experience online are often the result of deliberate design choices."
“Amnesty has been calling for exactly this kind of action," Mazzola added. "Child safety must be built into platforms from the start, not added as an afterthought once harms are identified. This decision sends a clear message that social media companies cannot continue to prioritize engagement at the expense of children’s well-being and rights.”
Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) said on Bluesky: "This is good news. For far too long, Big Tech corporations have put their bottom lines ahead of the health and safety of kids on their platforms."
"Congress must continue to push for accountability and real guardrails for companies like Meta as tech giants continue to grow," added Jayapal, who was critical of the Kids Internet and Digital Safety Act approved by the House of Representatives in June.
US Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) also welcomed the ruling, posting on X that billionaire Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg's "greed is fueling a youth mental health crisis in America."
"Today, a judge ordered Meta to pay a $567 million fine for the damage it has done to our kids," Sanders added. "Good start. We cannot allow Meta to put its short-term profits above the emotional well-being of our kids."
Aug 07, 2026
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'Bay of Pigs Reloaded': New CIA Task Force to Further Destabilize Cuba Revealed
After months of President Donald Trump threatening a US takeover of Cuba and ramping up a decadeslong economic assault of the island, The New York Times revealed Wednesday that the Central Intelligence Agency created a related task force, "setting in motion plans for a more concerted campaign to pressure the Cuban government to make the economic, political, and leadership changes."
"In 1960, the CIA established an earlier Cuba task force, whose members oversaw the failed, agency-backed invasion of Cuba the next year known as the Bay of Pigs," the newspaper noted. "The people briefed on the new task force said its mandate is more limited: to create fissures among the Cuban political elite, in hope of pressuring the Cubans to replace perceived anti-American hard-liners with more practical leaders more amenable to Mr. Trump's demands."
Despite the anonymous sources' claims about the differences from over a half-century ago, Eva Golinger, an American lawyer who wrote multiple books about former Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, simply responded, "Bay of Pigs reloaded."
The Times article—on which the CIA declined to comment—came a day after Politico reported that "the US has increased its intelligence assets in Cuba in recent months as it pushes the country's communist regime to reform or fall from power, according to two people familiar with the Trump administration's plans for the island."
The agency also declined to comment on Politico's piece, which pointed out that "US military operations are often preceded by increased American intelligence activity. CIA efforts to track the whereabouts of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro reportedly played a critical role this January in the successful US operation to capture him."
Sharing Politico's coverage on social media, Andrés Pertierra, a Cuba historian at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said that it is "hard to say at this point to what degree this is theater aimed at rattling the cage in Havana or performing strength to Miami, on the one hand, or some kind of prelude to an actual escalation, on the other, given recent months of warnings of escalation that went nowhere."
Enrique "Ric" Prado, a Cuban exile who served in various posts at the CIA, "is convinced that Washington is preparing a definitive blow against the island regime," El País reported early Wednesday. He predicted, "Cuba is the next apple to fall from the tree."
This week's reporting followed the July release of a "McCarthyite" US Department of State document that was widely decried as an "attack on Americans' constitutional rights to free speech and assembly," as well as an attempt to justify an invasion of Cuba, where the Trump administration has fueled a humanitarian crisis.
"For nearly seven decades, the Cuban regime has waged a sustained campaign of subversion against the United States," the department's report begins, "that has infiltrated the highest reaches of the US government, recruited and cultivated generations of American activists, backed an unprecedented wave of left-wing terrorism on American soil, and carried out one of the most durable and damaging foreign intelligence penetrations in American history."
Promoting the publication on social media, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio—the son of Cuban immigrants and a longtime advocate of regime change on the island—claimed his department was "exposing the full history of Cuban espionage and subversion in our country."
During a Sunday interview with Fox News host Lara Trump, the president’s daughter-in-law, Rubio repeated claims from the report and called the island nation, about 90 miles south of Florida and home to roughly 10 million people, "an influence and espionage superpower." His comments drew criticism from Democrats in Congress, the Cuban foreign minister, and other experts.
Aug 05, 2026
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Trump Order Rooted in Debunked Vaccine-Autism Link 'Will Get Kids Killed,' Warns Critic
Protect Our Care called the president's decree on the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine "a wildly dangerous escalation of the administration’s deadly anti-vax agenda."
Aug 10, 2026
US President Donald Trump on Monday signed an executive order overhauling federal childhood vaccine recommendations, reviving a discredited theory that vaccines may contribute to autism and prompting condemnation from public health advocates and even rebuke from a Republican senator.
Trump's order, “Delivering Gold Standard Childhood Vaccine Recommendations for Americans,” calls for separating the combined measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccination into three individual shots "once such products are domestically available." The directive also recommends administering childhood immunizations during separate medical visits, "to the maximum extent feasible."
At a press conference, Trump explained that the recommendations in his order concern "many subjects, but including autism in particular."
"Decades ago, children received only a small fraction of the vaccines required today," the president said. "In those times, people were much healthier and, of course, the high rates of autism now observed did not exist. So, there's a reason for such epidemic rates of autism. And we're going to bring it back to much closer to where it was."
"While we do not know exactly what the cause is with respect to autism, it is essential to our research efforts that we have the very best vaccine recommendations in the entire world," he added. "So we're reducing them, we're changing it to visits over the period of a year, a year and a half, so they get 20% of what they would have gotten in one big shot."
Decades of rigorous research have failed to produce any credible scientific link between vaccines and autism. That has not stopped influential figures, including Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., from claiming such a link. Trump and Kennedy also alarmed experts by claiming last year that acetaminophen, commonly known by the brand name Tylenol, is linked to autism spectrum disorders in developing fetuses when taken during pregnancy.
While anti-vaccine and vaccine skeptic voices applauded Trump’s order, public health experts said the directive will prove deadly.
Trump also claimed that inoculating children with all three components of the MMR vaccine could possibly be "quite lethal," but when asked by a reporter for evidence supporting that claim, the president could offer none.
I put together these two parts of Trump’s event on vaccines.
Trump claims there is a possibility that the MMR vaccine could be “quite lethal.” But later, when asked if he has any evidence to back up his claims, he says no pic.twitter.com/AwuW9IiYNl
— Acyn (@Acyn) August 10, 2026
The Affordable Care Act advocacy group Protect Our Care warned that Trump's executive order on the "nonexistent autism-vaccine link will get kids killed" and "is a wildly dangerous escalation of the administration’s deadly anti-vax agenda."
“Pushing parents to spread out these lifesaving vaccines over time is guaranteed to increase kids’ exposure to these very harmful diseases, including the simple reality that follow-up appointments will be missed," Protect Our Care senior adviserc Anne Shoup said in a statement. "If Trump’s baseless, science-free decree is followed, the end result will not be fewer children with autism, but far more in the ER or even the morgue."
"Whether or not state health departments follow Trump’s ignorant guidance, this official proclamation from the highest level of power will have a further chilling effect on vaccination rates across the board," Shoup added. "All Trump is doing is fanning more unfounded fear, pressuring a further drop in vaccination rates, and welcoming a resurgence of preventable diseases once thought eradicated. For the anti-vaxxer-in-chief, the current record-breaking measles crisis is apparently not on a grand enough scale.”
Dr. Robert Steinbrook, health research group director at the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, said that "the Trump administration is continuing a mindless anti-scientific assault on the childhood vaccine schedule and falsely tying vaccines to autism."
"There is no medical reason for the MMR vaccine to be split into three separate single-disease shots that would be administered at separate office visits, changes that would only decrease vaccine coverage and increase healthcare costs," he continued. "Under the draft executive order, mandatory vaccine requirements for children to attend school would be also put at further risk. These and other directives are the exact opposite of ‘Gold Standard Childhood Vaccine Recommendations’ during the worst year for measles cases in decades."
The resurgence in measles is directly linked to vaccine refusal and hesitancy stoked by influential figures and fora like Kennedy and the Children's Health Defense nonprofit group he formerly chaired.
Trump will sign an executive order proposing reducing childhood vaccines, and separating the MMR vaccine into 3 individual shots.This reckless move will decrease vaccine uptake further at a time where measles cases are at a 35-year high, and the US is set to lose its measles elimination status.
— Dr. Lucky Tran (@luckytran.com) August 10, 2026 at 12:24 PM
“Senate confirmation of Dr. Erica Schwartz as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) should have restored sanity to the federal government’s vaccine policies," Steinbrook added. "Regrettably, within days of Schwartz’s confirmation, the Trump administration has offered only more irrational nonsense.”
Trump and Kennedy have pursued a broad rollback of federal vaccine policy, including by purging the CDC's entire vaccine advisory committee and replacing its members with controversial figures; reducing or eliminating universal recommendations for several vaccines, including Covid-19, flu, hepatitis B, and some childhood vaccines; canceling hundreds of millions of dollars in mRNA-vaccine development funding; and pushing individual decision-making.
Physicians serving in Congress from both parties also decried Trump's order.
“Donald Trump and RFK Jr. have gambled with American lives and seem determined to turn the clock back on decades of medical and scientific progress," said Congresswoman Kelly Morrison (D-Minn.), an OB-GYN. "Communities across the country continue to face outbreaks of preventable diseases, and Trump and RFK Jr. are doubling down on their dangerous disinformation."
"Meanwhile, working families continue to see their healthcare and prescription drug costs skyrocket—all so Trump can pay for tax handouts for billionaires," she added, referring to the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill signed by the president in July 2025. "Families shouldn’t have to worry that Trump and RFK Jr. will stand in the way of protecting themselves and their loved ones from serious illnesses.”
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), a gastroenterologist who voted to confirm Kennedy, wrote on X: "I’m a doctor. This executive order is wrong. The president does not have the expertise to make these changes."
"Vaccines are overwhelmingly safe. Vaccines are effective. Vaccines DO NOT cause autism," he continued. "Breaking up vaccines will mean children have to get more shots to get the same protection, not fewer shots. It will increase hesitancy and make children less safe."
"Parents should listen to their child’s pediatrician about vaccines rather than listening to an inaccurate executive order," Cassidy added. "This is so wrong."
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Omar Demands Answers After ICE Agent in Car With Mismatched Plates Spotted Outside Her Town Hall Event
"Trump is continuing to use ICE and DHS to intimidate Americans who disagree with him."
Aug 10, 2026
Rep. Ilhan Omar is demanding the US Department of Homeland Security explain why a federal immigration enforcement officer was stationed outside one of her monthly town hall gatherings in Richfield, Minnesota.
In a letter sent last week to Michael McCarthy, interim special agent in charge of the St. Paul Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) field office, Omar (D-Minn.) explained that local law enforcement officials on Thursday spotted a woman sitting in a Ford Explorer who appeared to be monitoring the building where her town hall was taking place.
A Richfield Police officer scanned the woman's license plates and found they were registered to a different vehicle. As noted in a Monday report from HuffPost, it is illegal under Minnesota state law for federal immigration agents to drive in vehicles with mismatched plates.
The officer then approached the car and asked the woman to identify herself, and she said she was an agent for HSI, which is an agency within US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Although the agent left the property without incident, Omar nonetheless said that HSI "put an entire community at risk" by improperly deploying personnel there.
"Instead of monitoring the area for those who might wish harm to me and my constituents," Omar wrote, "Richfield Police were required to devote time to investigating why an HSI agent was outside of a congressional event in a vehicle with mismatched plates."
Omar then linked the HSI agent's presence with "many Americans' growing concern that the Trump administration uses ICE to surveil political opponents and interfere with our democracy."
The Minnesota Democrat demanded to know more details about the agent's deployment, including why she was stationed outside of Omar's town hall event, an overview of the agent's training, and the coordination that HSI is supposed to have with local law enforcement before engaging in such an operation.
In a separate social media post, Omar said that President Donald Trump "is continuing to use ICE and DHS to intimidate Americans who disagree with him," although she offered no specific evidence that this HSI agent was sent as part of an intimidation campaign.
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'Devastating to Watch': Texas Democrats Condemn Destruction of Big Bend for Trump Border Wall
"State leadership should be stopping this purely political stunt destroying Big Bend," said one lawmaker of Republican officials. "They don’t have the courage to stand up to Trump."
Aug 10, 2026
The arrival of bulldozers at Big Bend National Park along the US-Mexico border in Texas to clear native vegetation for an access road for President Donald Trump's border wall was more than enough to send outrage through the state Democratic Party and advocacy groups last week—but on Monday one lawmaker directed her ire at Republican officials who have done nothing to stop the destruction of one of Texas' most prized landmarks.
"This is devastating to watch. State leadership should be stopping this purely political stunt destroying Big Bend. They don’t have the courage to stand up to Trump," said state Rep. Vikki Goodwin (D-47), who is running for lieutenant governor.
She demanded to know whether Republican Gov. Greg Abbott and his government are "fine" with the plan to build 175 miles of the border wall across Big Bend and the Black Gap Wildlife Management Area as well as over 200 miles of patrol roads in the region, following the US Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) unprecedented waiving of dozens of environmental laws earlier this year.
"If not, stop it from continuing," said Goodwin.
The state representative was joined by US Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-Texas) in calling out Republicans in the state who have taken no action to stop the bulldozing of a national park which supports thousands of jobs, generated $63.7 million in total economic output in 2024, and is not even a region where a border wall would fulfill Trump's stated goal: stopping unauthorized crossings from Mexico.
"Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general, could sue the federal government to stop this," said Escobar on Sunday. "Greg Abbott, the Texas governor, could fight the federal government to stop this. But neither one is truly willing to fight for the people of Texas."
The state AG is running for US Senate, while the governor is seeking another term. Escobar said that Paxton and Abbott's Democratic opponents in the November elections—state Reps. James Talarico (D-50) and Gina Hinojosa (D-49)—would take action to stop the construction of the border wall.
"When I’m governor, I will defend our sovereignty, our land, and our inheritance," said Hinojosa last week. "Gov. Abbott is either too weak to defend Texas and stop this, or he just doesn’t care."
As the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) noted last week, the Big Bend Sector covers more than a quarter of the US-Mexico border, but no unauthorized vehicle crossings have ever been documented in the mountainous region. In 2025, 1.3% of all border apprehensions took place in the area, and in the national park itself, apprehensions accounted for 0.045% of the national total.
"This absurd project is despised by everyone in West Texas," said Laiken Jordahl, a southwest conservation advocate for CBD, on Saturday. "When will Texas leadership step in?"
All five sheriffs in the Big Bend border region oppose the building of the border well, while county judges in all 14 of the state's border counties have spoken out against the project and seven former superintendents of the national park wrote to DHS in June, asking them reject waivers of laws including the National Park Service Organic Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the National Wild and Scenic Rivers Act.
As Common Dreams reported in June, the environmental laws were waived as planning documents showed miles of planned barriers to stop vehicles from crossing the border at Big Bend, as well as patrol roads cutting through the park. For some of the construction, such as in remote areas like Mariscal Mountain, extensive dynamite blasting will be required, according to CBD.
In May, DHS awarded a $1.7 billion contract to Southwest Valley Constructors, a subsidiary of Kiewit, as well as contracts to North Dakota-based Fisher Sand & Gravel and Montana-based Barnard Construction.
The chairman of the latter company, Tim Barnard, has contributed millions of dollars to Republican candidates, including $1 million to Trump, High Country News reported in June. Barnard's largest contract was awarded without competitive bidding.
"We don't need to give billions of our tax dollars to out-of-state vendors," said Talarico on Sunday. "We don't need to desecrate this sacred land. We don't need this useless, disgraceful, corrupt Big Bend border wall."
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Scale of Trump's Raid on National Parks Funds for White House 'Vanity Projects' Revealed
"The National Park Service is being used as a piggy bank," said one critic.
Aug 10, 2026
Internal documents from the US National Park Service reportedly show that massive sums of money have been diverted to fund assorted projects commissioned by President Donald Trump.
According to a Sunday report from journalist Scott MacFarlane, NPS records show that $323 million has been rerouted to fund projects on the White House grounds this year alone, representing an increase of nearly 5,000% from the amount spend on such projects in 2024.
Additionally, the documents show NPS allotted nearly $100 million for projects on the Washington National Mall, a tenfold increase on the amount spent two years ago.
At the same time, the records show "multimillion-dollar reductions" in funding for several famous national parks, including Yellowstone, Yosemite, and Grand Canyon.
In fact, the total spending for projects at the White House and National Mall is larger than the combined spending at nine of the largest US national parks, MacFarlane found.
One anonymous federal employee who spoke with MacFarlane said that the spending shifts documented in internal records are "part of a pattern of the National Park Service being forced to prioritize Trump’s vanity projects over our own needs."
Tim Whitehouse, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, similarly argued that "the National Park Service is being used as a piggy bank for Trump’s vanity projects," which he said was "costing the American people."
Some Democratic critics of Trump pounced on the report, which they said was the latest example of the president corruptly wasting taxpayer dollars.
"Let’s ask the American people," wrote Democrats on the US House Ways and Means Committee in a social media post, "would you rather have your nearest national park preserved and protected or another monument to Trump?"
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), whose state has been hit by devastating wildfires this summer, accused the president of "raiding wildfire prevention funding to pay for his vanity projects."
Fred Wellman, a Democratic candidate for the US House of Representatives in Missouri, said that "Trump and his complicit Republican Congress have been robbing us to gild statues and build his private home without any oversight or approval."
"This is theft on a grand scale," Wellman added, "and all of us are paying for it."
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Amazon Says New Texas Data Center Won't Raise Utility Bills—But It Will Supercharge Pollution
"Instead of building a modern, clean energy source to power its increased AI-driven electricity demand, Amazon chose to invest in a massive natural gas power plant to fuel its giant Texas data center."
Aug 10, 2026
Amazon is boasting that the new data center it plans to build in Pecos County, Texas will be self-sustaining in its use of electricity, as the company has acquired permits to build a 7.65 gigawatt gas plant to power the massive facility, ensuring it won't raise electricity prices for households in the area.
But the savings on utility bills will likely come at a cost for the US at large and the planet, as well as locals in West Texas.
According to reporting from Cleanview Newsletter on Friday, the site acquired by Amazon, GW Ranch, has a permit from the state allowing the construction of a gas power plant that could emit 33 million tons of carbon pollution, which would make it by far the largest single source of pollution in the US.
The James H. Miller Jr. Power Plant, which burns coal in Quinton, Alabama, is currently the biggest emitter of carbon dioxide, sending about 16 million tons of pollution into the atmosphere each year.
Power plants generally emit less than the maximum amount of carbon permitted, but the unprecedented limit for the new plant, which is being developed for Amazon by Pacifico Energy and will have 35 natural gas turbines, means it is likely that the company's project will far exceed the pollution caused by the plant in Alabama.
The permits viewed by Cleanview, which tracks data centers and sustainable energy development, show that the power plant would be disconnected from the state's electricity grid, at least at first, and an Amazon spokesperson said the company "believes in paying the full costs of powering our operations" and would not "raise electricity costs for Texas families."
The on-site power generation will be "designed to transition to grid-connected service as interconnection timelines allow," the spokesperson added—suggesting the data center could ultimately raise household electricity costs as well as supercharging carbon pollution in the area.
The company further tried to allay fears of the impact of the new data center and its dedicated power plant by saying it plans to use brackish water that isn't safe for irrigation or consumption at GW Ranch; along with data centers' impact on utility costs, communities have protested against the facilities across the country due to their massive water consumption.
But the advocacy group Climate Action Campaign said Sunday that in its rush to join the nationwide artificial intelligence data center buildout as President Donald Trump has demanded, Amazon "chose dirty power over clean."
"Instead of building a modern, clean energy source to power its increased AI-driven electricity demand, Amazon chose to invest in a massive natural gas power plant to fuel its giant Texas data center," said Margie Alt, the group's director. "During this excessively hot and dry summer, riddled with forest fires and unbearable air pollution, a move like this is truly unacceptable."
With Amazon pledging to eliminate its pollution-causing emissions by 2040, the company's decision to join Meta, Microsoft, and Google in investing in its own power plant to build a data center was an example of "yet another major corporation dodging accountability," said Alt.
"This isn’t innovation," she said. "Despite its massive resources, Amazon is shirking its own responsibility and the industry’s promises of computing progress without the economic or health burdens to local communities. The result of that broken promise is that communities will pay the consequences with their health and their wallets."
According to Cleanview, Pacifico Energy has plans to eventually build up to 750 megawatts of solar generation and 1.8 gigawatts for battery storage capacity at GW Ranch.
As it potentially doubles the amount of planet-heating carbon emissions that are currently sent into the atmosphere by the James H. Miller Jr. Power Plant, the plant at the GW Ranch site could heighten the risk of developing heart disease, asthma, chronic respiratory illnesses, and other health problems for people living and working in the area.
"Progress shouldn’t come at the expense of the rest of us just to power billionaires’ ambitions," said Alt. "Shame on you, Amazon!”
The project, Kathryn Guerra, a campaign director at the watchdog group Public Citizen, told The New York Times, will "absolutely have a huge impact on the environment, and on public health."
The project was made public weeks after Trump insisted that "smart" communities want data centers to be built in their vicinity—but numerous polls have shown the facilities, which offer few long-term jobs as they raise costs for families, are sparking outcry from across the political spectrum.
About 70% of respondents to a Gallup poll in March said they would oppose the construction of a data center in their area. About half of those who expressed opposition said they were mostly concerned with the environmental impact associated with data centers, or the potential for resources to be gobbled up by the facilities.
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'It Is Not Too Late to Avoid Disaster': Sanders Calls for AI Development Pause
"Mr. Altman, Mr. Amodei, and Mr. Zuckerberg: In the interest of humanity, stand by your word."
Aug 10, 2026
As progressives on Monday urged US House Speaker Mike Johnson to haul artificial intelligence leaders before Congress to answer questions under oath about "the dangers posed by this technology," Sen. Bernie Sanders wrote directly to a trio of AI CEOs.
"Almost every day, there is a new story about how your companies are losing control of the AI technology you are developing, with potentially cataclysmic results," Sanders (I-Vt.) wrote to OpenAI's Sam Altman, Anthropic's Dario Amodei, and Meta's Mark Zuckerberg.
Citing a study published Thursday in the journal Science, he noted that "this week we learned, frighteningly, that AI has been used for the first time ever to create new viruses. As you know, this type of development, in the wrong hands, could lead to new bioweapons that result in the deaths of tens of millions of people."
That revelation came just weeks after "the world found out OpenAI lost control of an AI model," the senator continued. "The result? The model hacked into another company’s computers—a clear violation of federal law. After conducting internal reviews, Anthropic and Meta reported their models similarly escaped their control."
Pointing to recent calls for action from Yoshua Bengio, the most cited living scientist in the world, as well as top scientists at various AI companies, Sanders stressed that the international community wants "to create a safety mechanism—a pause button—to avoid catastrophe."
"And yet, at a moment when we have seen human loss of control and the creation of potentially dangerous viruses, your companies are still racing ahead—investing tens of billions of dollars into a technology that nobody can fully understand, predict, or control," he wrote. "That is absurd, irresponsible, and extremely dangerous. It is also a betrayal of your own stated commitments."
After outlining those commitments from the past few years, the former presidential candidate argued that "AI capabilities HAVE reached a critical threshold. There is a reason why the head of the CIA says that AI models are 'akin to digital nuclear weapons' and 'almost like a doomsday device.'"
"Mr. Altman, Mr. Amodei, and Mr. Zuckerberg: In the interest of humanity, stand by your word. Pause AI development. It is not too late to avoid disaster. Stop building machines that humans cannot control," he urged. "Let me be very clear: If you do not take appropriate action now, my colleagues and I in the US Senate will."
Sanders earlier this year proposed the American AI Sovereign Wealth Fund Act, which would give the public "a direct ownership stake" in the largest artificial intelligence companies in the country. The senators is also co-leading a data center moratorium bill.
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David Hearn's Lawyers Seek Documents to Show Misconduct by Trump DOJ in Reflecting Pool Case
"The government is continuing to attack an innocent man."
Aug 10, 2026
A federal judge last week dismissed felony charges against former US Olympic athlete David Hearn, who was arrested in July for allegedly vandalizing the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. But Hearn's lawyers are signaling that the case is far from over.
In an interview with The New Republic published Monday, attorney Norm Eisen said that he and other members of Hearn's legal team are demanding transcripts to show "whether prosecutors were candid with the grand jury" when seeking the indictment of their client.
The US Department of Justice (DOJ) late last month moved to drop charges against the 67-year-old Hearn after it determined that "hasty and botched work," which had been commissioned by President Donald Trump, was responsible for the damage to the pool.
Eisen said he wanted to know what prosecutors knew about the pool's condition before they decided to indict his client, arguing that "the notion that they did not know that there was a botched, rushed renovation... does not hold water."
In addition to seeking grand jury transcripts, Hearn's attorneys are also pressing to have his case dismissed with prejudice, which would bar the DOJ from reviving it at a future date.
Hearn's lawyers aren't the only ones demanding answers in the Reflecting Pool case, as Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), ranking member on the US House Judiciary Committee, also plans to demand documents related to the decision to prosecute the former Olympian.
In a statement given to The New Republic, Raskin said he and other Democrats on the committee "will investigate who lied, who buried the evidence, and who decided to threaten an American citizen with prison simply to protect Trump’s wounded feelings and continuing corruption."
Trump, who has repeatedly made baseless claims about vandals destroying the pool, is still demanding that Hearn face prosecution even though the DOJ has determined it lacks evidence to make any charges stick.
In a Sunday Truth Social post, the president insisted that "a highly credible witness" saw Hearn "in broad daylight vandalize the Reflecting Pool by ‘violently’ ripping and tugging at the Pool’s somewhat delicate coating."
This prompted Hearn's attorneys to fire back in a statement posted on social media.
"The government is continuing to attack an innocent man," the attorneys said. "Our first filing in the case on July 10 included photographic evidence from before Mr. Hearn touched the Reflecting Pool proving that he caused no damage. Our other filings provided even more proof."
"We are reviewing all legal remedies, including for this continued harassment," the attorneys added. "It is outrageous."
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'Racist and Bigoted': Trump Rebuked for Grotesque Attack on Abdul El-Sayed and Wife
President's smear of Michigan Democrat described as "not just an attack on American Muslims, but on the idea of America itself."
Aug 10, 2026
President Donald Trump, a notorious racist and serial liar, is being denounced once again for his hateful contributions to public discourse and American politics for an Islamophobic social media post over the weekend targeting Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee for US Senate in Michigan, and his wife, Dr. Sarah Jukaku—both of whom are practicing Muslims.
On Saturday evening, Trump posted side-by-side images with he and his wife, Melania Trump, wearing formal dinner attire, on the left and El-Sayed and his wife, who wears a Islamic hijab, both dressed casually in what appears to be a diner, on the right.
The heading above the photo posted by Trump declared, "Two VERY DIFFERENT Americas."
The overtly anti-Muslim message, now pervasive within the Republican Party, stirred immediate anger and harsh rebuke.
"America does not belong to any one race or religion, and President Trump does not get to decide who counts as an American," said Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).
"An American man of Egyptian descent is just as American as an American man of German descent, and an American woman wearing a hijab is just as American an American woman without one," Awad continued. "President Trump's racist and bigoted social media post was not just an attack on American Muslims, but on the idea of America itself."
As Zeteo's Mehdi Hasan wrote on Friday, El-Sayed's recent victory in the Michigan primary last week has unleashed a fresh wave of GOP-led attacks on Muslims, a strategy that is well-worn, that is only likely to intensify.
"We are about to witness an explosion of Islamophobia in America of the kind we have not seen for decades," warned Hasan. "Expect them to throw the whole bigoted kitchen sink at El-Sayed. This will be the anti-Zohran Mamdani campaign on anti-Muslim steroids."
Asked about Trump's racist attack by CNN on Sunday, El-Sayed turned the Islamophobic smear into an opportunity to explain what does distinguish people like the president and the First Lady from the kind of lawmaker the Michigan Democrat said he wants to be and the kind of relationship he and his wife have.
“Yeah, he’s right,” El-Sayed told CNN, when asked about the post on Sunday.
“One in which your overlords are two people who don’t like each other, but join in the interest of making billions of dollars off of you—or two people who genuinely love each other, enjoyed some pancakes together, want to come together to build the kind of America where they can raise a family and know that that family is going to have the good things.”
“Yes, you’ve got two different visions of America,” said El-Sayed. “Donald Trump’s vision is the one you’re living in right now. Can you afford your gas? Can you afford your groceries? Do you believe, when you look in your children's eyes, that they're going to have a better future than you did?”
Democratic Michigan Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed responds to President Trump posting a picture of his wife. pic.twitter.com/j8lGGwPET8
— State of the Union (@CNNSOTU) August 9, 2026
"Sarah and I are running," he continued, "because when we look our daughters in the eye, we want them to believe that they are every bit as able to have a better future than the one they could have had under the Trump administration—that they can live together with their sisters and brothers in America in a way that they lock arms to build the good things that they deserve together. Where they'll know they have the good healthcare that they need and good jobs, and know that there are kids who live 15 minutes away whose lives are very, very different from theirs because we've been okay for far too long with a level of inequality in this country."
For his daughters, El-Sayed added, "I want them to live in a country where they breath clean air and drink clean water. And actually, Sarah and I like each other. I don't know about about the First Lady and the president, but from what I've heard it's a bit of a rocky road."
CAIR's Awad called on Trump to "immediately remove this hateful post and to uphold his responsibility to represent all Americans, regardless of race, religion, or background." He also said that all members of Congress must "reject ongoing efforts to fuel anti-Muslim hatred and division" that has become so commonplace in recent decades, only intensifying under Trump's leadership.
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'It’s Not Radical to Believe You Should Have Healthcare': El-Sayed Hits Back at Trump, GOP Attacks
"Donald Trump's vision is the one you're living in right now," said the Democratic US Senate nominee. "Can you afford your gas? Can you afford your groceries?"
Aug 10, 2026
Fresh off his victory in the Democratic primary race for US Senate in Michigan, progressive epidemiologist Abdul El-Sayed used television appearances on Sunday to respond to increasingly hysterical attacks by Republicans and President Donald Trump while offering a positive vision for the future, underscoring his support for Medicare for All and a humane foreign policy that doesn't fund genocide.
"It’s not radical to believe that people should be able to afford their groceries," El-Sayed, who is set to face Republican Mike Rogers in November, told NBC's Kristen Welker in response to the Senate GOP's first attack ad of the general election. "It’s not radical to believe that you should have healthcare in this country. It’s not radical to believe that you don’t think the president should be able to deny elections or make $2.2 billion off of his role in office. It’s not radical to believe that all of us should be able to breathe clean air and drink clean water. Those are the things that I’ve been fighting for."
Trump and congressional Republicans wasted no time launching unhinged and bigoted attacks on El-Sayed following his primary victory last week. In a Truth Social post on Saturday, Trump posted an image showing a photo of himself and First Lady Melania Trump alongside a photo of El-Sayed and his wife, psychiatrist Sarah Jukaku. The caption of the photo blared, "Two VERY DIFFERENT America's [sic]."
Asked by CNN's Jake Tapper to respond to the post, El-Sayed said Sunday that the caption is "right."
"One [America] in which your overlords are two people who don't like each other, but joint in the interest of making billions of dollars off of you, or two people who genuinely love each other, enjoyed some pancakes together, want to come together to build the kind of America where they can raise a family and know that that family is going to have the good things," said the Michigan Democrat.
"So, yes, you got two different visions of America. Donald Trump's vision is the one you're living in right now," he continued. "Can you afford your gas? Can you afford your groceries? Do you believe, when you look your kids in the eye, that they're going to have a better future than you did?"
Democratic Michigan Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed responds to President Trump posting a picture of his wife. pic.twitter.com/j8lGGwPET8
— State of the Union (@CNNSOTU) August 9, 2026
El-Sayed overcame more than $30 million in spending by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)—and over $60 million in total outside spending—to defeat Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.) in last week's primary contest. Throughout his primary campaign, El-Sayed criticized AIPAC as a destructive force in US politics and spoke out in support of ending American military aid to Israel—a stance that Trump and Republicans have sought to equate to antisemitism.
"He doesn’t love Israel. He doesn’t love Jewish people," Trump said of El-Sayed last week. "He hates them. He hates them with a passion that burns in his heart."
During his CNN appearance on Sunday, El-Sayed hit back at the president's smear, saying, "I love and revere Judaism and the Jewish people."
"They are not the same as AIPAC in Israel," he said. "I want our tax dollars spent to provide good schools, to pay for healthcare, to rebuild our roads here in Michigan, rather than it being sent abroad to subsidize foreign militaries. That’s not just Israel, by the way. That is also Egypt and Saudi Arabia and Jordan and Pakistan."
"So I believe in international law," El-Sayed continued. "I believe in equal rights to peace, dignity, and self-determination for all people. I believe in a process that allows a free Palestinian people and free Jewish Israeli people to come together around what they believe the ultimate peace should look like."
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As Trump Shows 'Desperation,' Iran Says Strait of Hormuz Will Not Open 'Until America Corrects Its Behavior'
As it becomes clear that there is "no escalatory military path out of this war," Iran is demanding an even steeper toll for Trump to pull out.
Aug 09, 2026
President Donald Trump is now quietly conceding that he's willing to walk away from his Iran war without meeting all of his demands if they agree to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. But Iran won't let him back out of the quagmire without a steep price.
Iran is in the process of negotiating a limited reopening of the critical waterway with Oman. But Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, the secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, said on Saturday that "until America corrects its behavior, the Strait of Hormuz will not open.”
He outlined a list of demands on Saturday, even harsher than those Trump walked away from when he abandoned the "memorandum of understanding" negotiated in June.
Zolghadr said the US must permanently end its war and naval blockade against Iran, and withdraw military forces from the region. He also said the US must fully compensate Iran for damages from the war, lift sanctions, and unfreeze assets abroad.
This demand for an end to US "aggression" applies not just to Iran, but to its allies in the region: Zolghadr also demanded an end to Israel's attacks on Palestinians and a withdrawal of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon, as well as an end to US and Israeli attacks against the Houthis in Yemen.
The Trump administration, which is not known to be in direct talks with Iran, has not yet responded to the demands. Trump told Axios on Sunday that "We are low-keying it" and "only semi-negotiating with Iran," claiming that it was "in very bad shape" economically.
It's clear, however, that the Iranians believe they have enough of an upper hand to make Trump grovel, especially as news emerges that the US has burned through nearly all its available stocks of long-range precision weapons, making the war increasingly costly, though the administration has denied this.
Domestic concerns are also weighing on Trump. Over the past month, as the war heated up again, average gas prices in the US have shot back up above $4 a gallon, a major liability for Republicans heading into a midterm election cycle in which many voters say the cost of living is a top concern.
Approval of Trump among Americans has fallen to a new all-time low of 34% according to a YouGov poll late last month. And just 28% of Americans say they approve of his handling of the war, according to an Associated Press/NORC poll.
As the Wall Street Journal reported, Trump has privately signaled a willingness to declare victory if Iran opens the strait, even without getting any sort of nuclear agreement, which was purportedly the reason he launched the war in the first place.
Kenneth Roth, the former executive director of Human Rights Watch, said Trump was "showing his desperation for a deal before it is completed, so Iran predictably demand[ed] major new concessions," adding that it was a "masterclass in how not to negotiate."
"As time passes, Tehran appears increasingly confident that the pressure is shifting onto Washington," said the Israeli national security analyst Danny Citrinowicz. "Iranian leaders seem to believe that the United States is now more eager than Iran to bring the confrontation in the Strait of Hormuz to an end, and, crucially, that Washington has few attractive military options for changing that equation."
Trita Parsi, the executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, told CNN, "At this point, it is absolutely clear that there is no escalatory military path out of this war."
"It's been tried in several different variations, and it has not ended up particularly well," Parsi said. "In fact, the US's position has been weakened, in my view, by additional military action. And as a result, I think there needs to be a full dedication to the diplomatic pathway."
He added that for the Iranians, "the promise and the credibility of sanctions relief will carry far more weight than threats of further bombings."
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