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Oh Canada: We Will Neither Cower Nor Bend
More insane idiocy from the petty huckster clown king whose idea of governance is threatening lawsuits, trade wars, buildings that won't put his name on them; bungling war and peace; flaunting Nazi loyalty queries and sadistic images of black men in chains; and distracting from it all with the dumbass geographic circlejerk of inventing “LAKe AMeRiCA.” The Internet was born for this: Cue Donald Ducks, the Straits of Our Moose, Lake Dead Pedo Bestie, Lake Superior President Obama, and Lake Stupid Fucking Moron.
Last week, after God killed the wrong 80-year-old in the 784th year of a presidency that feels like "being in middle school when there's a substitute teacher and a student has a medical emergency," yet more banal slop issued from a needy racist sociopath so stupid he once seemingly conflated the Very Hard words "transistor" and "transgender" to claim Biden's CHIPS Act offered billions to domestic tech companies but "if you weren't transgender, (you) didn't qualify." Jesus. No wonder, à propos of nothing, the widely deemed "worst president in U.S. history" took time out from his busy mob boss schedule to declare himself the bestest - take that Honest Abe - after his faithful Human Printer dug up a similar 1948 Life Magazine chart, which is "exactly the kind of thing a healthy, high-functioning person shares."
Other things he did, abetted by a confederacy of dunces, stooges, techno-fascists, warmongers, crypto dorks, "unfuckable hate nerds" and "an actual Jewish Nazi": Having hit the six-month mark of his Iran debacle, he giddily proclaimed, "Mission Accomplished!" despite a. the only thing achieved is handing a newly empowered Iran control of the Strait of Hormuz as U.S. gas prices skyrocket and the economy implodes, b. he evidently missed the part where George W's 2003 banner aboard an aircraft carrier became a queasy punchline, c. he did so amidst reports his and Kegsbreath's said debacle has pushed the US military into a "beyond critical" shortage of money and missile interceptors in the case of an enemy attack, forcing them to shift funds around "in imaginative ways" - because everything he touches dies and we probably will too.
A fragile child, he demands fealty to even his ceaseless clusterfucks. Thus the latest inane authoritarian hokum from a Department of Homeland (sic) Security that alas hasn’t lost any of its fascist fervor since the brutal puppy-killing days of ICE Barbie. Its new, dystopian, “genuinely deranged” missive: A glowering image of Dear Dumb Leader with the dark challenge, “Did you remain loyal?”, which chillingly fails to consider just what atrocities they’re demanding allegiance to. The answer came in a post that swiftly followed: Sadistic footage of shackled Haitian immigrants, targeted after losing Temporary Protected Status for no reason but mindless, racist cruelty, being shuffled onto planes in pouring rain to the sneering tune of a Creole song about returning home - complete with fawning close-ups of the chains on their feet. Well done, sick fucks.
Meanwhile, the trail of destruction goes on apace. In D.C., after the East Wing and reflecting pool - we like the meme of him studying it with, "All I see is scum" and a lackey saying, "Well, it is a reflecting pool, sir" - we've reached the mobsters' "offer-they- can't-refuse" phase on the besieged Kennedy Center. Having repeatedly lost in court, the regime now threatens to demolish the not-long-ago-flourishing Center unless a tantrum-throwing 10-year-old gets his name "prominently added" to its exterior with "appropriate respect" of his efforts to "save” it from a fictional "death spiral" that's rendered it "dilapidated, outdated, decrepit and embarrassing to the Nation’s Capital," which is some pot/kettle. If they can't plaster his ghastly name over it - inscription, plaza et al - they'll replace it with "an outdoor amphitheater," aka a lawn.
They're also pushing to sell off part of Yosemite National Park, like everything else, to the highest bidder, though the seller is such an imbecile he still cringingly says "Yo, Semites!" He's such a petty dolt he's also skipping this year's 9/11 remembrance at Ground Zero because he wasn't allowed to give a Nazi speech there, opting to give it at the Pentagon before rushing off to the Irish Open at his crappy golf course, 'cause priorities. Having trashed jobs, health insurance, food aid, the environment and most of our global alliances, he blew up trade talks with Canada, calling its endlessly nice residents "nasty people," and holding a clownish Oval Office event to sign an idiotic executive order renaming Lake Ontario to “LAKe AMeRiCA,” which he's "been thinking about for a long time" with what's left of his tiny brain. (Here he is on trade: The stupid, it burns.)
"All it takes is a good pen and some intelligence,” he said, only batting one for two in a pretend-name-changing event labeled, "Making the Great Lakes Even Greater.” Then - what a feckin’ playacting infant - he drew a line through the doomed lake and intoned, “We have notified various people who needed to be notified...This is official.” He said he’d instructed craven lickspittle and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to "take all appropriate actions." Burgum slavishly wrote, “We’re on it, Mr. President!”, thus becoming the only person on Planet Earth to take this puerile claptrap seriously, evidently unaware an executive order is not a law and every ship entering the Great Lakes has to go through Canada's Welland Canal, including $26 billion in U.S. trade, and it would be a shame if Canada up and supersized their tolls, and thank you for your attention to this matter.
Uncle Bernie and most of America promptly responded they'd rather have affordable health care, thanks, also housing, food, education and cancer research. Nova Scotia's Conservative premier Tim Houston, "not exactly a firebrand," opined, “We’re into some real foolishness now. It’s Lake Ontario, buddy." Canada's newly combative Prime Minister Mark Carney, out of fucks to give, noted that long before Europeans came the lake was named by Native Americans using the Huron word "Ontari’io," for, "The lake is beautiful, the lake is big." "The name is more than 400 years old," he said. "Canadians know that naming reality means calling it Lake Ontario - then, now and always." The Canadian Resistance Army, who earlier defended penguins, also chimed in, declaring, "We're going to trade war/Beavers and moose won't take it any more."
Above all, it was agreed, “LAKe AMeRiCA" is what God invented the Internet for. The names spooled out in a gleeful torrent.
Lake Release the Epstein Files. Lake Gulf of Mexico. Lake Are We Doing This Again. Lake Micropenis. Lake Natalie. Lake Huron Thin Ice with Melania. Lake Universal Healthcare. Lake Eerily Overweight Pres Dick J. McRectum. Lake Felon. Lake Not Eerie. Lake Oh Canada. Lake Small Dick Energy. Many chose Lake Obama. Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers created the politically incorrect Lake Retard: "See, I can sign napkins that say things too." One decided to "just keep calling it Lake Epstein, like the Founders wanted." Mapquest, unlike cowering Google, not only declined to change the lake's name but invited viewers to "spread some geographic joy" and "name it whatever you want." One result: Lake Who Uses Mapquest Anymore.
Many noted the traditional Great Lakes litany of "H.O.M.E.S" had entirely logically become "S.H.A.M.E." People renamed their toilet bowl to Lake Trump. The White House to Home of Diaper Butt. Mar-a-Lago to Poopy Pants Palace. The United States of America to the Epstein States of Pedophiles, or just South Canada. President Trump to President Dickhead. California to Amerifornia. Strait of Hormuz to Strait of Our Moose. People mocked his thieving choice of one of the smallest and dirtiest Great Lakes. They noted, "Nobody in Ontario gives a single solitary fuck what Assclown McCrappy-Pants says about anything." They griped the name change "really screws with the lyrics of Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald."
"What are they trying to distract us from this time?" they asked. Response: "The previous distraction." Some coddled the needy child-king: "Good for you, li'l fella." Some railed: "Jesus Christ, can somebody just get him a coloring book already?" Some were still baffled by how low we've gone: "Wait, this is real?" Some refused to go there: "Nope." Some summoned the great Talking Heads: "As things fell apart/Nobody paid much attention." And some fought back against the incessant bullying. After the Center for American Progress released a report finding billions spent on ICE thugs and National Guard swarms had no real effect on reducing violent crime, Trump threatened a $5 billion lawsuit if they didn't retract it. The center stood firm against "a transparent attempt to silence us." "We will neither cower nor bend in the face of it," they said. And, still and all, we will snark away.
Update: Talk about "Do not obey in advance": After defying the petty madness, usage of Mapquest has surged to about 50 times its usual rate, leapfrogging past Google and Apple Maps to become the most-downloaded mapping app, and the fourth most popular of all apps excluding games in the US. Along with their "spread some geographic joy" invite, they posted a mocking, all-caps retort: "OUR MAPS ARE BIG AND BEAUTIFUL. PEOPLE COME UP TO US AND SAY WE'LL GET THEM PLACES. AND WE DO!!" Lol.
Canada vs. the Epstein Statesof AmericaImage from Bluesky
Study Suggests Climate Crisis Is Supercharging 'Godzilla' El Niños
As the flooding disaster in Tibet and Nepal demonstrates the deadly consequences of the climate emergency, experts wrote Thursday in the journal Science that fossil fuel-driven global heating has intensified the warm phase of a key pattern in the Pacific Ocean.
The El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) has a warm phase, called El Niño, as well as a neutral phase and a cold one, La Niña. In June, scientists declared the start of a warm event nicknamed "Godzilla," which helped push last month's average global ocean surface temperature to the hottest ever recorded in July.
The current event is expected to become not only a super El Niño, but the most intense one on record—and it could contribute to 2027 possibly being the hottest year humanity has ever endured.
While ENSO is a naturally occurring phenomenon, the scientists behind the new paper studied coral skeletons from the Galápagos Islands and concluded that global warming—tied to humans continuing to burn fossil fuels—has intensified El Niño phases.
"Our findings suggest El Niño can supercharge global warming, but also global warming can supercharge El Niño—that is what we are seeing," said lead author Julia Cole, who chairs the University of Michigan's Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences.
The scientist also spoke with Inside Climate News, which noted that "the first documented super El Niño in 1982-83 killed about 95% of the shallow-water corals around the Galápagos Islands, right around the time Cole began her research career."
Based on the team's analysis, "after the El Niño in 1982, we start seeing much more variability; it's a lot more extreme and looks like nothing in the previous 1,000 years," Cole told The Guardian. "What surprised me was how consistent it was. There is just such a large, distinct difference between what has been happening in the last 40 years compared to preindustrial times."
As Inside Climate News reported:
When Cole visited the islands in 1989, many of the large mapped corals that could have served as sample material were gone, wiped out by the El Niño early in the decade and then decomposed quickly by organisms in the biologically active waters. But in 2006, her team discovered fossil coral remnants, often perched as boulders near remote east-facing coastlines, tossed inland by large waves or tsunamis.
Cole said the signal of El Niños intensified by human-caused warming would have been even stronger if the study had included the most recent occurrences. All the events categorized as super El Niños have occurred since the 1980s and have triggered flooding in East Africa, led to disease outbreaks, and intensified tropical storms. This year’s El Niño is intensifying drought in Indonesia, fueling widespread fires that are sending smoke and hazardous air pollution across Southeast Asia, Cole said. Her team is currently analyzing corals to show the changes from the El Niños in 2015-16 and 2023-24, she added.
"We are seeing a trend of stronger El Niños, and the one we have now is consistent with that trend—it's not a fluke. We are seeing a shift where El Niño doesn't look like what it did prior to industrial times," Cole said. "That is bad news for climate hazards and for people, particularly those who are badly impacted and yet have done little to cause climate change."
According to the United States' National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, consequences of El Niño include "increased rainfall across the southern tier of the US and in Peru, which has caused destructive flooding, and drought in the West Pacific, sometimes associated with devastating brush fires in Australia."
Dalhousie University marine scientist Boris Worm wasn't involved with the new study but told The Associated Press on Thursday that "El Niño is the most violent aspect of climate variability worldwide, with effects ranging from local fisheries collapse, to widespread coral die-offs to severe droughts, and food shortages around the world."
Experts are already worried about the latest El Niño's impact on food security and prices, with the United Nations World Food Program projecting earlier this month that almost 50 million more people worldwide face the prospect of acute hunger.
Pointing to late climate scientist Wallace Broecker's warning that "the climate system is an angry beast and we are poking it with sticks," Worm said that "human emissions are the stick, and El Niño is [one] of the 'angry' outbursts that can be so threatening to our collective safety."
Watchdog Denounces 'Staggering and Disgusting' Hypocrisy of AI Industry Giants
Government watchdog Public Citizen on Thursday hit back at the artificial intelligence industry for warning about the dire threats posed by its own technology after it spent years trying to block any government regulations that could have curtailed dangerous AI behavior that experts and progressive lawmakers have warned about for years.
In an open letter sent on Thursday, dozens of tech companies—including OpenAI, Anthropic, Amazon Web Services, and Microsoft—claimed that there is a "limited window" to defend against AI-executed cyberattacks, which they said "will become far more widespread and sophisticated as models around the world become increasingly capable."
If nothing is done, the companies said, then crucial facilities "from hospitals to water treatment plants to the infrastructure that powers the internet" will be at risk.
The companies said that thwarting such AI cyberattacks would require a "global response" where governments will need to "fund cyber defense" and "give hospitals, water utilities, and local governments access to capable defensive AI, authorized testing, and hands-on support through trusted security providers and partners."
JB Branch, director of federal AI governance and technology policy at Public Citizen, urged lawmakers to be deeply skeptical of Big Tech’s messaging on the issue and the industry's proposed plan of action, which he said would further enrich Silicon Valley without providing any safeguards for the public when it comes to AI development.
"Big Tech does not get to unleash powerful AI systems, fight tooth and nail against meaningful regulation," said Branch, "and then cry for help when the dangers they helped create come knocking."
Branch noted that the tech industry has insisted for years that there should be no government intervention into developing technology, supposedly because it would put the US at risk of "losing" the AI race to China.
Now, Branch said, they are running to the government and demanding fast action to help solve a problem they created.
"That hypocrisy is equal parts staggering and disgusting," Branch said. "If the threat is serious enough to demand urgent action from the government, then it is serious enough to demand binding rules, independent oversight, and accountability from the companies creating it."
The AI firms' open letter comes as the tech industry appears acutely concerned about public backlash to its products. The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that Big Tech firms who gave heavily to President Donald Trump have been scrambling to donate to Democratic candidates ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
In particular, according to the reporting, many tech companies who donated to Trump's ballroom and other vanity projects fear that a Democratic majority will start subpoenaing them for records that could lead to criminal investigations.
Cooper Teboe, a Silicon Valley donor adviser and Democratic strategist, has told Trump-funding tech companies that they will pay a big price unless they repair their relationships with Democrats whom they've alienated by going all-in on MAGA.
"You’re going to be totally fucked next year or you’re going to figure it out this year and you’re going to make amends," Teboe said, "and amends are going to be much more costly than they were previously."
As Branch put it, "Big Tech knows it has lost public support on AI, and the PR machine is now working overtime."
Despite industry efforts to control narratives and members of Congress, he said, the American people "aren’t going to forget the harms these companies unleashed, the regulations they fought, or their promises that AI could replace their jobs."
"Silicon Valley is the problem threatening our ways of life," Branch concluded. "It’s hard to take them seriously when they invented the problem in the first place.”
Postal Service Whistleblower Warns Trump Assault on Mail-In Voting Could ‘Derail the Midterm Elections’
An anonymous federal official warned in a whistleblower disclosure submitted to members of the US Congress that the Postal Service's haphazard implementation of President Donald Trump's executive order on mail-in voting could "derail the midterm elections" by preventing potentially millions of American voters from receiving ballots.
The disclosure was released in full on Tuesday by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), who included the document in a letter to Postmaster General David Steiner—Trump's pick to lead USPS. Blumenthal said the whistleblower's account provides "disturbing details about USPS’ seemingly illegal plot to interfere in November’s midterms."
The new disclosure raises "significant concerns" about the Postal Service's "secretive, rushed, chaotic, and fundamentally flawed process" for establishing "an entirely new and untested set of IT systems" in compliance with Trump's March executive order, which is at the center of high-stakes legal fights just weeks before the November midterms.
Trump's USPS directives have been blocked in federal court, but the administration is trying to get them reinstated ahead of the midterm contests—and the whistleblower complaint suggests the administration may be violating court orders by continuing to work on the new systems. Mail-in voting for the midterms is officially set to begin this week.
Described in the disclosure as the "Portal," the new Postal Service IT systems "will govern the delivery of ballots to voters as soon as the 2026 mid-term federal elections and beyond." The whistleblower raises "grave concerns" that the Trump administration has "hidden the high likelihood that the new ballot mail verification processes will result in major disruptions in mail ballots ever getting delivered to voters."
"As presently designed, if even one bar code on one single ballot in a bulk-mailing of 10,000 ballots fails to properly scan during the verification process, the entire batch is rejected and sent back to the state—effectively stopping the ballots from being mailed to voters," the disclosure states. "The whistleblower is particularly concerned that the Portal (where the bar codes are stored) will almost certainly have significant operating problems when released to the public, due to the rushed IT development; this will contribute to failures in the verification process."
The whistleblower filing notes warnings that the Portal system could "completely crash" during rollout and quoted descriptions from IT workers at the Postal Service who described the entire process as "a shit show."
Theme throughout Whistleblower disclosure is how USPS IT work is complete mess, likely to "completely crash."
"Workers have described the election ballot mail development process as 'a sh*t show."
Raises stakes enormously on any state officials thinking to go along with this. pic.twitter.com/e8GrLYxu1W
— Ryan Goodman (@rgoodlaw) September 1, 2026
Libby Liu, the CEO of Whistleblower Aid—a nonprofit representing the anonymous federal official—said in a statement that "the whistleblower’s service to our nation is warning the public that their ability to vote is in serious jeopardy."
"We are crossing the Rubicon of American elections," said Liu. “This dangerously defective mail-in ballot process could disenfranchise millions of voters, ensnaring ballots in red tape under the guise of solving a non-existent problem. People in states that rely heavily on vote-by-mail will have a more difficult time making their voices heard in our challenged democracy this November."
The USPS whistleblower also provided their account to the House Oversight Committee. Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), the top Democrat on the committee, said in a statement Tuesday morning that the official's account makes clear that "Trump's attack on vote-by-mail for the 2026 election is more serious than previously understood."
"This new secret tracking system at the US Postal Service is faulty, untested, and threatens to totally disrupt ballot delivery for millions of American citizens," said Garcia. "We are fighting in court to protect the right to vote by mail for all and will continue to investigate. This unconstitutional and dangerous power grab must be permanently and immediately blocked."
Health Aid Cuts in Secret Trump Deals Will Inflict 'Preventable' Death, Disease on Global South: Report
The US Congress has pushed back against President Donald Trump's efforts to slash foreign aid, which has long been supported by Democrats and Republicans alike—but a new report on more than a dozen Memoranda of Understanding that the White House has reached with countries that have long relied heavily on healthcare assistance shows that the administration is underspending "congressionally appropriated global health funds by potentially billions of dollars," as it pushes its "America First Global Health Strategy."
That's according to Public Citizen, which on Sunday joined Partners In Health in releasing an analysis of documents that the two nonprofits obtained after suing the Trump administration and filing a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.
The groups reviewed the MOUs that have been signed for 18 out of 34 countries whose agreements have been negotiated by the US State Department, including Rwanda, Liberia, Burundi, and Madagascar.
Although Congress has voted to keep foreign aid levels relatively constant—rejecting a budget that called to slash global health spending by $6.2 billion before approving one that proposed a $615 million decrease in spending—the report finds that the MOUs cut foreign health aid by about $2 billion by 2030, compared to 2024 levels.
“These documents suggest that the Trump administration is on course to underspend on global health by billions of dollars compared to what Congress has ordered, risking lives and allowing diseases to spread,” said Peter Maybarduk, director of the Access to Medicines program at Public Citizen. “The administration must answer how and when it intends to invest the missing billions for health.”
Overall, funding for programs that aim to prevent the spread of diseases including HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and Ebola—which is currently spreading in the Democratic Republic of Congo's fastest-spreading outbreak on record—is set to be reduced by 59% from historical spending, according to the MOUs viewed by Public Citizen and Partners in Health.
Some countries would see their health assistance from the US plummet even more, with Rwanda's MOU stipulating a 97% reduction in US health aid. Liberia is set to receive 84% less funding for health initiatives by 2030, and Burundi is set to lose 78% of its aid.
"Partners In Health provides direct care in Rwanda, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, along with seven other countries, and expects under-spending of these funds to impact patients’ access to care," said Public Citizen.
The MOUs also demand that the countries meet strict co-financing requirements to make up for their lost funding, and governments in poor countries across Africa could face penalties "which could worsen funding cuts" if they miss the co-financing targets.
"The planned decreases in US funding are larger for several countries than the funding increases from partner governments," reads the report. "For more than half of countries (11 out of 18), co-financing commitments fall short of the US government’s cuts over five years compared to baseline US government funding."
Countries are likely to struggle to meet the co-financing requirements in the MOUs, warned Public Citizen and Partners In Health.
Malawi would be required to secure new healthcare funding equal to 56% of the country's total health expenditure, the report found. With Uganda also facing co-financing requirements from international health organizations including the Global Fund and Gavi, the East African country would be required to mobilize funds equal to 44% of its total health budget.
"These funding cuts will cause death and disease that is preventable,” said Vincent Lin, associate director of health policy and advocacy for Partners In Health. “The State Department is setting up other countries for failure with the co-financing requirements outlined in these agreements, but it will be patients who will pay the ultimate price.”
Maybarduk told The Washington Post that Sierra Leone will be required under its MOU to fill a 71% health funding gap by 2030.
“It’s going to be very difficult, and if a country like that falls behind, and then is punished for that, then of course the health problems compound," said Maybarduk.
The State Department denied to the Post that the Trump administration will not spend all the foreign health assistance funds appropriated by Congress; it suggested that more of the money than usual may go to religious organizations as well as an "innovation fund" to support US technology that aims to fight disease.
Last week, Public Citizen sued the Trump administration under FOIA to obtain the rest of the MOUs that remain hidden from the public.
The White House, said the group, "has kept the public in the dark about the full details of its plans for the future of US support for global health."
"The State Department has negotiated these bilateral agreements," the group said, "on rushed timelines with limited participation from civil society and affected communities."
'There Is Absolutely No Justification': Bessent, Rubio Urged to End Sanctions Impacting Iranian Students
A leading grassroots advocacy group for the rights of Iranian Americans called on the Trump administration Monday to rescind the recent message it sent when it announced new sanctions against ordinary Iranians—"that the US is at war with the Iranian people"—and to ensure that "humanitarian, educational, and cultural" entities are exempt from the sanctions.
The National Iranian American Council (NIAC) wrote to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, warning of the "escalating harm caused by the imminent suspension of long-standing general licenses that had enabled American universities, educational testing and assessment organizations, and other entities to provide educational opportunities to Iranian nationals."
The group appealed to Bessent and Rubio following reports that the Education Testing Service, which administers the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) and the Graduate Record Examination (GRE), has suspended testing in Iran following the sanctions. The Duolingo English Test, developed by the language course platform Duolingo, has also been made unavailable in Iran and for students with Iranian IDs.
Despite the fact that President Donald Trump's new sanctions, called "Operation Economic Outcast," are purported to target the Iranian government as it restricts access to the Strait of Hormuz in retaliation for the US-Israeli war against Iran, the policy changes have "no conceivable impact on the Iranian government," wrote NIAC president Jamal Abdi.
"Instead, it is already being felt by American entities and Iranian students," Abdi wrote. "Iranian students have been barred from taking key exams required for academic studies by US organizations."
Abdi called on the administration to immediately reinstate 31 CFR § 560.544, which authorizes "certain educational activities by US persons in third countries," and Iran General License G, which authorizes educational exchanges.
“The Trump administration would be wise to bolster the limited educational, humanitarian, and cultural channels that exist between ordinary Iranians and the United States, rather than send a message that the US is at war with the Iranian people.”
"For years, Iran was among the nations with the highest demand for TOEFL examinations," he wrote. "Regrettably, the severing of these key global educational testing platforms will create major hurdles for Iranian nationals pursuing international education."
The administration's policy changes leave Iranian students facing "overlapping barriers to studying in the United States: a travel ban preventing Iranians from securing US visas, alongside sanctions restricting access to English proficiency exams, educational services, and enrollment in US universities," said NIAC.
“There is no world in which the US preventing young Iranians from taking English proficiency tests leads to the opening of the Strait of Hormuz and yet that appears to be the rationale for this cruel new policy,” said Abdi in a statement. “The Trump administration would be wise to bolster the limited educational, humanitarian, and cultural channels that exist between ordinary Iranians and the United States, rather than send a message that the US is at war with the Iranian people.”
Abdi also urged Bessent and Rubio to reverse the suspension of licenses for Iranian Americans to send remittances to family members in Iran and those that allow sports matches between Iran and the US. The latter suspension, he wrote, "carries significant risk of complicating the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles and reflects poorly on the US as a host nation while yielding no discernible benefit."
The exemptions that have been suspended by the White House, said Abdi, "were first established over a decade ago to resolve harmful unintended consequences of US sanctions, such as cutting ordinary Iranians off from academic opportunities."
"Now, it appears that these have become very much intended consequences aimed at the Iranian people, which is a self-defeating message for the US to send to Iranians and the world,” Abdi continued. “There is absolutely no justification for this."
'Testament to the Power of the Progressive Movement': Ed Markey Beats Seth Moulton in Landslide
One Markey supporter called his victory "a rejection of the idea that generational change has to come at the expense of bold, progressive leadership."
Progressive US Sen. Ed Markey, a champion of Medicare for All and the Green New Deal, decisively fended off a Democratic primary challenge from his right on Tuesday, defeating Rep. Seth Moulton by nearly 30 percentage points in a contest that focused heavily on the incumbent senator's age.
Markey, 80, and his supporters—including prominent young Democrats such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY)—rejected the notion that "generational change" necessarily means electing the youngest candidate in the race. Markey said in his victory speech Tuesday night that "generational change isn’t about compromising to do the small things better—it’s about fighting to do the big things best."
“Tonight is a testament to the power of the progressive movement,” Markey added. “It is a progressive movement fueled by young people, demanding more from their leaders, and it’s your voices that are the ones we need to hear right now.”
Moulton, a 47-year-old member of the conservative New Democrat Coalition, attempted to capture momentum that has propelled other younger candidates to victory over entrenched incumbents by making Markey's age and lengthy tenure in Congress—rather than his policy agenda—a central focus of Tuesday's contest. In a recent interview with MS NOW, Moulton removed ideology and policy from the equation completely, lumping Markey in with Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and late Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) as well as elderly Democrats such as former President Joe Biden.
The Democratic representative, who opposes Medicare for All and attacked Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) from the right during his ill-fated 2020 presidential bid, also falsely claimed in a campaign ad that he and Markey "want the same things."
Moulton's age-centric message failed, according to Markey's backers, because voters in Massachusetts and elsewhere are hungry for progressive politics, not just younger politicians.
"We don’t want younger politicians with older politics,” Tyler Hack, the 21-year-old executive director of the Christopher Street Project, a trans rights group, said at a rally for Markey over the weekend.
Joseph Geevarghese, executive director of Our Revolution, said in a statement that "tonight's victory isn't just a win for Ed Markey or for our progressive movement. It's a rejection of the idea that generational change has to come at the expense of bold, progressive leadership."
"Massachusetts voters understood the difference between changing the age of our leaders and changing the politics of our country," said Geevarghese. "Ed Markey has never settled for the moderate Democratic establishment or accepted the status quo simply because Washington said change was impossible. From staking his political capital on the Green New Deal, to fighting for Medicare for All, abolishing ICE, and taking on corporations and billionaires rigging our economy, Ed has consistently been willing to go where the Democratic Party needs to go—often before the rest of Washington gets there."
"That's the lesson from Massachusetts tonight," he added. "The future doesn't belong to the youngest politician in the room. It belongs to the people with the courage to fight for it."
Markey, who is heavily favored to win the general election in November, has said a new six-year Senate term would be his last.
JD Vance Says If His Work With Trump 'Leads to the End Times' That Is 'OK'
"Show this clip to anyone who says Iran is run by religious lunatics," responded one podcaster.
Shortly before US President Donald Trump on Tuesday spurred fresh fears that he'll use nuclear weapons in his illegal war on Iran, Vice President JD Vance told a Christian podcaster that he's fine with the administration's work leading to the end times.
"Do I think that we're in the end times? I don't know," Vance told 22-year-old podcaster Bryce Crawford nearly an hour into a lengthy video interview released Monday. While admitting his fascination with the theories, the VP said that "I think that it's probably bad for me, spiritually, to focus too much on it."
As The New Republic's Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling explained: "The Christian end times refer to the religion's interpretations of the final days of humanity. That's detailed in the Bible as a period involving widespread turmoil and deception (such as wars, earthquakes, and a false prophet), a seven-year stretch of unprecedented hardship known as the Great Tribulation that will end in Armageddon, the emergence of the Antichrist and a cadre of their followers who reject Christ's teachings, and a final judgment by God."
As Vance sat beside a propped-up edition of his new book on his religious journey, including his conversion to Catholicism, he said that "I think that there are... things about the world that make me feel like not shocked if the Antichrist was walking among us, but again, I try not to focus too much on it."
"One of the things that I think that Catholics are very focused on, that I think is very good for me, is this idea that... we don't know when God is coming, but we're commanded to try to, as much as possible, try to make the world the kind of world that God wants it to be," the vice president continued.
"While I wouldn't be shocked if we are living in the end times," he added, "what I'm trying to focus on is doing as much of God's work as possible right now, and if that leads to the end times, OK, and if that leads to, you know, us building a better world that thrives and survives for a very long time after I'm gone, that's great, too."
Those remarks—from a man expected to compete with figures such as Donald Trump Jr. and Secretary of State Marco Rubio for the GOP's 2028 presidential nomination, if the president doesn't try for an unconstitutional third term—were met with alarm.
Critics wrote that "this should concern us all" and wondered: "WTF does that mean? Is he OK with using nuclear weapons?"
Sharing a clip of Vance's comments on social media, Iranian-American writer Alex Shams noted that "these guys are trying to convince you Iran is ruled by a crazed messianic theocracy."
Podcaster and writer Katie Halper said, "Show this clip to anyone who says Iran is run by religious lunatics."
As Vance's video interview began circulating on Monday, over six months into the Iran War, a reporter in the Oval Office asked Trump if he's ruled out using a nuclear weapon against the Mideast country.
While suggesting he has ruled out nuclear war, Trump also said: "What a stupid question that is, actually. Here they are, they're totally defeated militarily, so now I defeat them, and now I should use a nuclear weapon on top of them?"
Just a day later, Trump triggered speculation that he'll pursue a nuclear attack. On Tuesday, while bombing alleged Iranian military targets, he wrote on his Truth Social platform, "If the failed Nation of Iran retaliates for this very justified attack, they will be hit again at a much harder and higher level, but it will not be the biggest attack of them all, that is waiting in the wings and, when it is over, there will be very little left of the Islamic Republic of Iran!"
'Declare a Worldwide Climate Emergency': Death Toll in Nepal-Tibet Floods Tops 1,000
"The glacial collapse and deluge," one scientist said, "was the structural failure of a mountain itself, nature's latest commentary on the deadly consequences of human-caused planetary warming."
With more than 1,000 people dead as of Tuesday and rescue teams still searching for the thousands missing after a glacial collapse in the Himalayas that created a flooding crisis in Nepal and Tibet last week, campaigners, politicians, and scientists reiterated the need for global climate action.
China confirmed at least 16 people are dead and 546 are missing in Tibet, including 261 foreign nationals, while Nepal reported 1,003 deaths and 3,916 more unaccounted for, including 583 foreigners, according to The Associated Press. Among those missing in Nepal are about 900 workers from a dozen hydropower projects, 500 of whom are believed to be trapped in tunnels.
Thousands have been rescued since last Wednesday, and as the AP noted, "authorities in Nepal have been burying bodies in temporary graves until they can be identified. They are preserving DNA samples, photographing distinguishing facial features, and recording other identifying details. Each body is assigned a reference number to help families identify and claim the remains later."
Nepali Prime Minister Balendra Shah has emphasized in recent days that "the flood in the Bhote Koshi River in Rasuwa was not an ordinary flood," and "it is now time for us to strongly raise with the international community the issue of the disasters we are experiencing as a result of climate change."
In a Monday interview with The New York Times, Maheshwar Dhakal from Nepal's Ministry of Agriculture, Forest, and Environment also linked the disaster to human-caused climate change and said that "those who have contributed the least are suffering the most."
Dhakal estimated the recovery cost at $5 billion, and shared his government's letter to the United Nations' fund for such disasters, which says in part that "early action in Nepal would send a signal that the fund is capable of responding with humanity, speed, flexibility, and solidarity when climate-vulnerable countries face losses and damages beyond their capacity to address alone."
Declare a world-wide #climate emergency www.nytimes.com/live/2026/08... #nepal #floods #flooding
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— Nikolas Kozloff (@nikolaskozloff.bsky.social) August 27, 2026 at 4:29 PM
Stefan Rahmstorf, a scientist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, highlighted on social media Tuesday that experts have long warned about the kinds of disasters seen in the Himalayas over the past week.
"Why are climate scientists not surprised about mountains being destabilized by glacier melt and permafrost thaw?" he asked. "Because they have long predicted that as a result of global heating."
Bill McGuire, professor emeritus of geophysical and climate hazards at University College London, wrote in a Tuesday column for The Guardian that "the increasingly temperamental behavior of the Earth beneath our feet teaches us that global heating is all-pervasive. It will intrude into every aspect of our lives and livelihoods, and leave no part of the planet untouched. As the world processes the horror of the events in Nepal and Tibet, it is a lesson that we ignore at our peril."
Also writing for the British newspaper on Tuesday, Michael Mann, a renowned climate scientist at the University of Pennsylvania, similarly stressed that "the glacial collapse and deluge in Nepal and Tibet was not a freak weather event; it was the structural failure of a mountain itself, nature's latest commentary on the deadly consequences of human-caused planetary warming. And it was the exclamation point on a summer of extremes, illustrating with a sole unnatural disaster the apocalyptic future that lies in store if we fail to take dramatic climate action."
Mann pointed to the lack of such action in the United States—the world's largest historical climate polluter—where President Donald Trump openly courted Big Oil on the campaign trail and has served the climate-wrecking fossil fuel industry's interests since returning to the White House last year, from declaring a national energy emergency and ditching the Paris Agreement, again, to waging a war on renewable power projects.
"Trump and enabling congressional Republicans continue to double down on policies favoring fossil fuel extraction and dependence at the very time we need to be moving even more quickly away from fossil fuels toward clean energy," Mann wrote. "These extreme events underscore the urgency of taking action now, and—while there are many things we can do—one of the greatest opportunities Americans will have to affect climate policy is the upcoming midterm election. You can make support for urgent and dramatic climate action a litmus test issue as you go to the voting booth."
Highlighting that dozens of Americans are among those still missing in Asia, the US-based watchdog group Public Citizen argued on social media Tuesday that "this isn't just a climate change catastrophe. It's a crime. For decades, Big Oil knew fossil fuels would lead to disasters like this. Big Oil must be held accountable."
In 2024, the group published a legal memo detailing how local or state prosecutors in the United States could bring criminal charges against Big Oil for deaths from extreme heat made more likely by the fossil fuel-driven climate emergency. With rapidly advancing attribution science, the approach could also be applied to other disasters linked to the human-caused crisis.
Greenpeace International also demanded accountability for the industry on Tuesday, saying that "it makes us SICK to think of people losing their homes, their livelihoods, and the people they love to fires, floods, and storms, while fossil fuel companies make billions. A FRACTION of those obscene profits could help communities rebuild. MAKE POLLUTERS PAY."
"Make oil, coal, and gas corporations pay their fair share for the damage they cause," the advocacy group added. "Introduce new taxes or fines on them to help communities at home and around the world rebuild from climate disasters and invest in climate solutions."
Federal Panel Halts What Would Be First Data Center on Public Lands
"The Trump administration is pulling out all the stops to let tech companies build massive data centers on our public lands. This tremendous victory proves communities have the power to fight back and win.”
Environmental groups are celebrating on Tuesday after a federal panel halted construction of what would be the first artificial intelligence data center to be built on US public lands.
The Interior Board of Land Appeals, an appellate body within the US Department of the Interior, put a temporary stay on the Bureau of Land Management's (BLM) approval of the proposed 80-acre Townsite Data Center near Boulder City, Nevada, which environmental groups warned would jack up electricity demand and water usage and threaten local species.
The board sided with the Sierra Club, the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD), and the local government of Boulder City, which argued that the BLM had not conducted the legally required review of the plan's environmental impacts.
The BLM had approved the site based on a review of a proposed solar power plant, but had not reevaluated the impacts of a data center.
The board said that the environmental groups were "likely to prevail" in their case that the BLM had acted illegally "because the two projects are not ‘substantially the same.’” It also ruled that continuing the project without a proper review was likely to cause "irreparable harm" to the landscape—including soil disruption, habitat loss for species like the Mojave desert tortoise, and construction activities that pollute the air.
The temporary stay blocks the data center project from continuing while the board considers the environmental groups' appeal.
While it was not a final ruling on whether the project will be built at all, Patrick Donnelly, Great Basin director at the CBD, said the group was "thrilled that this data center has been stopped dead in its tracks."
Townsite has been described as a test case as BLM considers approving other data center proposals on federal lands, including in Nevada, where 80% of the land is federally managed.
Building data centers on federal lands is a major priority of the Trump administration's "AI Action Plan," which was published by the White House in 2025 and directs US agencies to identify public lands “well-situated for large-scale data centers."
Under the plan, the US Department of Energy announced in July 2025 that it had identified at least four other sites around the country for potential development, including the Idaho National Laboratory, the Oak Ridge Reservation in Tennessee, the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Kentucky, and the Savannah River Site in South Carolina.
Donnelly said Tuesday's ruling had shown BLM would not be able to approve these and other sites without conducting the appropriate environmental reviews.
"The Trump administration is pulling out all the stops to let tech companies build massive data centers on our public lands," he said. "This tremendous victory proves communities have the power to fight back and win.”
Boulder City is one of many locales around the country where plans for large data centers have received public backlash. For months, the project faced protests at City Hall from residents who raised concerns about energy and water use, light pollution, and impacts on the local desert habitat.
Public anger ultimately led the Boulder City Planning Commission to turn against the project, voting in May against adding data centers to the city's land management process. To bypass the city, BLM approved the same project on adjacent federal lands. Boulder City responded by joining environmental groups' appeal against the project.
“The BLM essentially, sweepingly, approved a new land use without following processes in federal law, which include a meaningful engagement process with the city," City Attorney Brittany Walker told the Nevada Current in July, after the City Council unanimously voted to appeal.
Olivia Tanager, director of the Sierra Club Toiyabe chapter, called Tuesday's ruling "a victory for democracy, public participation, and the principle that our public lands should serve the public."
"The people of Boulder City have made clear that they do not want a data center on public lands, and this ruling gives their voices the weight they deserve," she said. "Data centers do not belong on public lands, and we will continue to fight unfettered data center development.”
Townsite is just one of several data center proposals being considered on federal lands in Nevada. In June, BLM officials told local leaders that it had received four applications for data centers on public lands around Silver Springs, a small community east of Reno in Lyon County, which has eight facilities planned in total, according to the US Data Center Map.
The sudden explosion of data center planning in the area has led many residents to push for a moratorium on new data center approvals.
Brynn deLorimier, a Boulder City resident who joined the appeal, said she hopes her city's victory will help to protect neighboring communities from unaccountable data center growth.
“We love our community and our desert, and we’re so grateful to our friends and neighbors for working hard to protect both,” she said. “We’re also grateful to the Interior Board of Land Appeals for recognizing that this case matters far beyond Boulder City and could set an important precedent for public lands in Nevada and across the country.”
Trump Issues New Mass Murder Threat, Warning Iran of 'Biggest Attack of Them All'
The president's threat came just a day after he appeared to rule out using nuclear weapons.
President Donald Trump on Tuesday issued yet another unhinged threat to commit mass murder as the US military restarted its illegal bombing campaign against Iran.
In a Truth Social post, the president warned Iran against striking back at the US shortly after American forces began bombing Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) targets in the country.
"If the failed Nation of Iran retaliates for this very justified attack, they will be hit again at a much harder and higher level," Trump wrote, then ominously added that "it will not be the biggest attack of them all, that is waiting in the wings and, when it is over, there will be very little left of the Islamic Republic of Iran!"
Iran appeared undeterred by Trump's saber-rattling, however, as The Associated Press reported on Tuesday that the country retaliated by launching missiles and drones shortly after the US attack.
On Monday, a reporter in the Oval Office asked the president if he would consider using nuclear weapons against Iran, and he appeared to rule it out.
"There's no reason for it," Trump said. "What a stupid question that is, actually. Here they are, they're totally defeated militarily, so now I defeat them and now I should use a nuclear weapon on top of them?"
"Have you ruled out using a nuclear weapon against Iran?"@POTUS: "They're totally defeated militarily — so I defeat them and now I should use a nuclear weapon on top of them? What a stupid question." pic.twitter.com/Gv9dXAJ9Zu
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) August 31, 2026
In April, Trump issued a similarly unhinged threat to commit mass murder in Iran, warning that "a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again" unless Iran surrendered to the US. Trump backed down from that threat hours later and agreed to a since-expired ceasefire agreement with Iran.
Brett Erickson, managing partner at Obsidian Risk Advisors, warned in a Tuesday social media post that the president's threats should not be dismissed simply because he hasn't followed through on them in the past.
"Throughout this entire war, I have been incredibly skeptical of any claims that President Trump is so much as DISCUSSING the use of nuclear weapons," Erickson wrote. "This reads to me clear as day that they are on the table now."
Nearly 2.5 Million Children Have Lost Medicaid and CHIP—So Far—During Trump’s Second Term
The drop in children covered by Medicaid comes before the most draconian changes to the program made by Republicans' 2025 budget law are set to take effect next year.
Nearly 2.5 million children living in the US have lost access to Medicaid or Children's Health Insurance Program coverage during President Donald Trump's second term, according to data published on Monday by the Georgetown University Center for Children and Families.
In total, five states have seen children's enrollment in Medicaid and CHIP fall by 10% or higher since January 2025, with Indiana seeing a drop in enrollment in those programs of more than 23%.
Colorado and Hawaii were the only two states to see a net increase in children in Medicaid or CHIP over that same period.
Joan Alker, executive director of the Center for Children and Families, described the drop in children enrolled in the programs as "a lot," and said it was important to track because "when Medicaid child enrollment declines, the number of uninsured kids typically goes up."
President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans cut spending on Medicaid by an estimated $900 billion over a 10-year period when they enacted the One Big Beautiful Bill Act in 2025. The Congressional Budget Office projects these cuts will leave more than 10 million fewer people enrolled in the program by 2034.
One way the GOP budget law is projected to kick people off Medicaid has been to add extra administrative burdens and paperwork for people who qualify for the program.
As explained by a Scripps News report published last week, Medicaid starting next year will make beneficiaries enroll twice a year instead of just once, while also mandating adults who "earn above a typical income cutoff and do not have children... work or volunteer at least 80 hours a month, or enroll in school."
Eileen Appelbaum, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, told Scripps News that this will result in many people not receiving Medicaid coverage despite being qualified for it.
"The best guesses from the experts are that two-thirds of the people that will be disqualified will actually be eligible, but they just couldn't handle the paperwork," Appelbaum explained.
In an op-ed published by Stat on Monday, Brown University epidemiologists Abdullah Shihipar and Brandon DL Marshall highlighted how getting out of the new Medicaid work requirements by proving yourself "medically frail" is shaping up to be a "nightmare scenario for millions of Americans."
"Let’s say you are undergoing cancer treatment, but you don’t have the right paperwork for your renewal," Shihipar and Marshall wrote. "As a result, you’re disenrolled from Medicaid. You desperately try to fix the mistake, but you are faced with long wait times and no answers, so you cease treatment altogether... Paperwork here is not merely an annoyance, it is a matter of life or death for millions with Medicaid coverage."
'Blood Is On Their Hands': Haitian Student Dies In Apparent Suicide After Trump Ends Deportation Protections
"Because of the blatant cruelty and racism of Trump’s immigration policies, Pierre Damas Bel was denied the chance to fulfill his dreams."
Since President Donald Trump was running for office two years ago, Springfield, Ohio has been a central target of Trump and Vice President JD Vance's racist attacks and violent mass deportation operation, with the White House threatening the city's Haitian population with forced removal back to their unstable home country.
On Monday, Springfield became the site of a new tragedy that immigrant rights advocates said was directly caused by the Trump administration's xenophobic agenda, particularly its termination of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for 350,000 Haitian migrants, when 20-year-old Pierre Damas Bel was killed by a tractor trailer on Interstate 70—apparently dying by suicide after the loss of the protections pushed him into despair.
As The Washington Post reported Tuesday, college student and aspiring doctor Bel parked on the highway's shoulder Monday morning, got out of his car, and walked into westbound traffic. He was pronounced dead at the scene after being struck.
Ohio authorities are investigating, but Bel's family believes his death to be a suicide.
His family told the Post that Bel had become distressed in recent weeks after the US Supreme Court allowed Trump's termination of TPS for Haitians and Syrians.
Although he had a pending asylum case and a hearing scheduled for October, Bel was required to report to a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office after the Supreme Court ruled in favor of terminating TPS. Officers placed an electronic monitoring device on his ankle.
In late July, Bel wrote in an Instagram post: “I came to this country to pursue my education. I didn’t come here to commit a crime or hurt anyone. Yet now I’m walking through the streets of the United States with a GPS monitor on my leg, carrying a feeling of shame and humiliation that I never imagined I would experience.”
The Post reported that classmates bullied Bel over the bracelet, and he was unable to continue playing soccer as he had for years.
“He felt like he was treated like an animal,” his father, Pierres Ronal Bel, told the Post.
Last Friday, it appeared that Bel would not be able to continue in the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC) due to the Trump administration's monitoring of him as it pursued deportation. As the Post reported:
His JROTC class instructor handed students their uniforms, which resemble those of the US armed forces, but did not give one to Bel. His father said the college student concluded it was because of the device strapped around his ankle.
“He came home that day feeling very bad,” Pierres Ronal Bel said through a translator.
Bel "killed himself because of the Trump administration’s obsession with hurting Haitians and the humiliating shame of an ICE ankle monitor," said Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council. "His blood is on their hands."
The White House had threatened to flood Springfield with ICE agents earlier this year when it first announced it was ending TPS, which for 16 years has provided Haitians with deportation protections. During the 2024 election, Springfield ended up in Trump and Vance's crosshairs as the two Republicans spread baseless, racist lies that Haitian community members there were eating their neighbors' pets.
TPS was initially granted to Haitians after the 2010 earthquake that killed more than 300,000 in Haiti—one of the worst disasters in modern history and one that the country has struggled to fully recover from, as it's also faced soaring violence and unrest following the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in 2021. The US State Department warns Americans not to travel to Haiti for any reason due to gang violence, kidnappings, and an ongoing humanitarian crisis there.
Despite that, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin has gloated that "the T in TPS stands for TEMPORARY" and urged Haitians who have been legally living and working in the US for years to go back to "Home Sweet Haiti"—making such comments as at least 47 people were killed and 50 were kidnapped in a gang attack near the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince late last month.
Guerline Jozef of the Haitian Bridge Alliance told the Post that the Trump administration's policies "are what caused [Bel's] untimely death."
Bel came to the US in 2024 to reunite with his parents, who had left Haiti three years earlier. Reichlin-Melnick said that "he almost certainly flew here through the [Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans] parole program, entering legally after a background check and probably with his parents having sponsored him. He broke not a single law. Not one."
Rep. Jesús "Chuy" García (D-Ill.) said that "because of the blatant cruelty and racism of Trump’s immigration policies, Pierre Damas Bel was denied the chance to fulfill his dreams."
"This never should have happened," he said. "His blood, and the blood of all those who have died as a result of these policies, is in the hands of Trump and his top officials who have championed them."
The 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline—which offers 24/7, free, and confidential support—can be reached by calling or texting 988, or through chat at 988lifeline.org.
Iran Says Trump's New Attacks Show Americans 'Stuck in the Massive Error They’ve Made'
"We cannot accept any orders being dictated upon us," said the spokesperson for Iran's Foreign Ministry. "If they continue with this philosophy, they will not get any different result.”
As US President Donald Trump returns to bombing Iranian territory, Esmaeil Baghaei Hamaneh, the spokesperson for Iran's Foreign Ministry, said at a press conference on Tuesday that it's only a sign of the quagmire he's found himself in, and emphasized that the only way out will be negotiation rather than force.
"It has become clear they are now stuck in the massive error they’ve made, and it’s their usual habit to raise excessive demands," Baghaei said, noting that mediation efforts by Pakistan were continuing even as the Trump administration claims that Iran is refusing "meaningful negotiations."
When Trump launched the war in February, he predicted that Iran would be brought to its knees in a matter of weeks. Six months later, there is no sign that an end to the conflict is in sight as Trump rejects a return to the negotiating table.
Baghaei said it's clear that the US was once again falling into "a state of miscalculation." Iran, he said, had been adhering to the Memorandum of Understanding reached in June, while the US refused to abide by its terms of ending its economic blockade, unfreezing assets, and ending threats of aggression, as well as ending attacks by US ally Israel in Lebanon.
Baghaei said Iran was willing to reach another agreement to end the war. The problem, he said, was that Trump had shown himself unwilling to follow any deal that included concessions to Iran and was demanding its full capitulation.
"We cannot accept any orders being dictated upon us," Baghaei said. "If they continue with this philosophy, they will not get any different result.”
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian echoed Baghaei's position on Tuesday, saying that Iran would “immediately reciprocate” if Washington honored its commitments under the June interim agreement.
Failing to break Iran with military might, Trump tried to switch last month to a strategy of "economic warfare," imposing "the toughest sanctions in history" and pressuring other nations around the world to do the same in an effort to isolate Iran and fully topple its government.
Baghaei acknowledged that US sanctions were having a devastating effect on the people of Iran. According to Reuters, Iran's foreign trade is down by 35%, and inflation reached 66% in July, cranking up the pain felt by the civilian population.
But efforts to create the "greatest coordinated economic isolation in the history of the world," as Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent described it, have faced resistance, with Iran's major trading partners such as China and Pakistan refusing to cut ties.
"Six months of US bombing and naval blockade have produced no US victory, so the plan now is to starve Iran into capitulation," wrote Columbia University professor Jeffrey Sachs and UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network adviser Sybil Fares on Monday for Al Jazeera. "The new approach is illegal, cruel, and will fail for several reasons."
"To begin with, there is the historical record. Economic sanctions do not bring down governments determined to survive them. Yes, sanctions can impoverish populations, empower the security services that control smuggling, and hand the targeted nation a rallying point built on US malice," Sachs and Fares wrote.
They added that at a time when Iran's restrictions on travel through the Strait of Hormuz have spiked oil prices and sent shocks through the global economy, there is little incentive for the world to cut off Iran's oil exports as well.
"The US proposes to deepen a stagflationary shock already being borne by Europe, Japan, and its other allies, and orders those countries to enforce sanctions that will throttle their economies," they wrote.
And due to Trump's erratic policy, disregard for the United Nations Charter in launching a war of aggression, and the demonstration that his assurances are "unreliable," Sachs and Fares noted that countries are increasingly reaching agreements that rely less on US military guarantees and dollar-based trade.
"Pride goeth before the fall, and no government today is more arrogant than the US under Trump and his enforcer, Bessent," they wrote. "Governments around the world will not follow the US blindly into disaster."
'Wealthy Tax Cheats Reaping the Benefits': IRS Audit Revenue Plummets After Trump Purge
"While working families are expected to pay their fair share, Trump is making it easier for the rich to get away with not paying theirs."
A report published Monday by an independent federal watchdog shows that Internal Revenue Service audit revenue plummeted last fiscal year as the Trump administration gutted the chronically understaffed and underfunded tax agency's workforce, rolling back recent Democratic efforts to bolster enforcement.
The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) found that IRS audit revenue fell by 35% last year compared to fiscal year 2024, when enforcement revenue reached a historic high. The report notes that the audit revenue plunge followed the Trump administration's 27% cut to the agency's examination and collection staff, the effects of which "are likely to become more apparent over time." Among the gutted IRS units was one tasked with auditing billionaires and other super-rich individuals.
Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.), a member of the House's chief tax-writing committee, wrote in response to the new figures that "Trump gutted the IRS and wealthy tax cheats are reaping the benefits."
"While working families are expected to pay their fair share," Beyer wrote on social media, "Trump is making it easier for the rich to get away with not paying theirs."
The huge decline in audit revenue comes years after congressional Democrats and then-President Joe Biden approved nearly $80 billion in additional funding for the IRS, including more than $45 billion for enforcement.
But Biden and congressional Democrats subsequently cut a deal with Republicans that rescinded much of the funding boost, which the IRS had said could yield roughly $560 billion in federal revenue over a decade—largely from rich tax cheats and large corporations.
"We know who benefits the most when the IRS doesn't have enough staff to dedicate to audits," the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy said in response to the TIGTA report. "It's the richest Americans."
We know who benefits the most when the IRS doesn't have enough staff to dedicate to audits. It's the richest Americans. pic.twitter.com/bVvK23k1eU
— ITEP (@iteptweets) September 1, 2026
The IRS is currently headed by scandal-plagued former financial services executive Frank Bisignano, whom Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent picked to serve as the agency's first "CEO."
Bisignano has defended the Trump administration's massive IRS staffing cuts, insisting that there is "no staffing shortage here."
But the TIGTA report notes that "staffing reductions starting in January 2025 significantly reduced enforcement staffing," leaving the agency less equipped to audit the often complex returns of ultra-rich Americans and big corporations.
"An obvious fact: If you get rid of auditors, you raise less money from audits," Natasha Sarin, president of Yale University's Budget Lab, said Tuesday.
"Winners are tax cheats, losers are those who are playing by the rules," Sarin added.
100+ Civil Society Groups Condemn Trump Attack on Democratic Establishment Think Tank
"We stand with the Center for American Progress, not in agreement with every view they hold, but in steadfast support for their rights to voice those views freely and without political retribution."
A diverse coalition of around 150 organizations on Tuesday collectively spoke out against US President Donald Trump's recent attack on the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank with ties to the Democratic Party establishment.
The Republican president, through one of his lawyers, threatened to sue the center last month over its July report concluding that there was no evidence his deployment of the National Guard in Washington, DC did anything to reduce violent crime.
"Since our nation's founding, the rights to free speech, association, and the press have been the bedrock on which American democracy has thrived," begins the coalition's statement, spearheaded by Nonprofits Together. "We reaffirm, as has each generation before us, our unqualified commitment to the First Amendment and its foundational protections."
"In so doing, we stand in strong solidarity with the Center for American Progress (CAP), a nonpartisan think tank, and its right to publish expert analysis on the impact of the Trump administration's—or any administration's—policies," it continues. "The free exchange of ideas—including ideas that are inconvenient to those in power—is critical for Americans to understand the nature and impact of the actions of their government."
Trump's legal attack on CAP is just "the latest salvo in the administration's ongoing efforts to suppress the speech of organizations that challenge their policies, defend the rule of law, and protect civil rights and vulnerable communities," the coalition noted.
Other authoritarian attacks—as detailed last December in the Free Press report "Chokehold: Donald Trump's War on Free Speech & the Need for Systemic Resistance"—include the White House taking control of the presidential press pool, legal action such as Trump's lawsuit against Rupert Murdoch and the The Wall Street Journal over reporting on the president's ties to deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, and the administration working to deport foreign scholars and journalists who criticize US policy.
First it was law firms, then universities, and now Trump has threatened a research organization in an attempt to silence them.We're proud to join 150+ organizations standing up for @americanprogress.bsky.social and the First Amendment. Read the full statement: nptogether.org/press/cap-st...
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— American Oversight (@weareoversight.bsky.social) September 1, 2026 at 12:14 PM
Stressing that there are often disagreements "even within think tanks," the coalition warned Tuesday that attempting to silence sources of information "degrades our free exchange of ideas, and risks leaving only distortions in the public square."
"This is infinitely more damaging to our democratic ideals when done for purely political purposes," the groups argued. "There are few issues more fundamental to the First Amendment than the right of an independent organization to publish evidence-based analysis of a government policy and how it is or is not working."
"This is not about ideology or partisanship," the organizations continued. "This is true regardless of who is in power, and who is issuing public critiques of that power. We stand with the Center for American Progress, not in agreement with every view they hold, but in steadfast support for their rights to voice those views freely and without political retribution."
The signatories range from environmental, labor, and legal groups to those focused on faith, housing, immigration, LGBTQ+ rights, reproductive freedom, and more. They include the ACLU, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Drug Policy Alliance, Economic Policy Institute, Giffords, Greenpeace USA, Human Rights Campaign, Indivisible, National Education Association, Oxfam America, Public Citizen, and Union of Concerned Scientists.
“The free exchange of ideas—including ideas that are inconvenient to those in power—is critical for Americans to understand the nature and impact of the actions of their government.” CAC stands with @americanprogress.bsky.social: nptogether.org/press/cap-st...
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— CAC (@myconstitution.bsky.social) September 1, 2026 at 11:30 AM
CAP was founded in 2003 by John Podesta, who has served in various roles under former Democratic Presidents Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden. The center's current president, Neera Tanden, has also worked for key party leaders. In response to Trump's threat last month, she emphasized that the think tank "is an independent, nonpartisan research organization, and our work is grounded in rigorous, evidence-based research and analysis."
Blasting the threatened lawsuit as "baseless" and "a transparent attempt to silence us," Tanden pledged that "we will neither cower nor bend in the face of it."
"In America, profound disagreements over public policy are resolved through robust public debate, not through threats or intimidation," she added. "Independent data, evidence, and analysis are essential to that debate. Efforts to silence independent research because its findings are unwelcome by an administration or president should alarm every American."