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Izzy Award to be Shared by Inside Climate News and Chicago Journalists Jamie Kalven and Brandon Smith; Amy Goodman Named to I.F. Stone Hall of Fame
In a year rich with exceptional journalism from non-corporate outlets, the Park Center for Independent Media (PCIM) at Ithaca College has announced the winners of the eighth annual Izzy Award . The honor will be shared by Inside Climate News for its series "Exxon: The Road Not Taken," and independent journalists Jamie Kalven and Brandon Smith for exposing the Chicago police cover-up of the killing of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald.
ITHACA, NY
In a year rich with exceptional journalism from non-corporate outlets, the Park Center for Independent Media (PCIM) at Ithaca College has announced the winners of the eighth annual Izzy Award . The honor will be shared by Inside Climate News for its series "Exxon: The Road Not Taken," and independent journalists Jamie Kalven and Brandon Smith for exposing the Chicago police cover-up of the killing of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald.
Simultaneously, the center will induct Democracy Now! host and executive producer Amy Goodman into its I.F. Stone Hall of Fame .
The Izzy Award, presented for outstanding achievement in independent media, is named in honor of the late I.F. "Izzy" Stone , the dissident journalist who launched I.F. Stone's Weekly in 1953 and challenged McCarthyism, the Vietnam War, racial injustice and government deceit.
Selection to the I.F. Stone Hall of Fame is an occasional honor reserved for those who have already won the annual Izzy Award and who continue to produce journalism that would earn them the award again and again.
The award ceremony and hall of fame induction will be held in Ithaca in the spring; details to be announced.
Inside Climate News (ICN)
A nonprofit news organization covering climate change, energy and the environment, ICN published the explosive series " Exxon: The Road Not Taken ." It exposed how in the 1970s and 1980s, long before the public knew about global warming, Exxon itself had conducted cutting-edge scientific research on "the greenhouse effect." Exxon's pioneering research on fossil fuels and CO2 stands in stark contrast to the anti-scientific denialism that Exxon supported and funded in the ensuing decades. The story was unearthed by ICN journalists Neela Banerjee, John H. Cushman Jr., David Hasemyer and Lisa Song through company documents and interviews with former employees.
"ICN's expose reflects independent media at its best -- a team of journalists digging deeper into a crucial global issue, unconstrained by corporate sponsorship or deadline pressures," said the Izzy Award judges.
The series -- supplemented by reporting in the L.A. Times -- sparked further news coverage, nationwide activism (including the Twitter hashtag #ExxonKnew) and official inquiries into whether Exxon broke the law. Democracy Now! interviewed ICN's Banerjee and a former Exxon scientist about the series.
Jamie Kalven and Brandon Smith
Working separately, these two independent journalists relentlessly challenged the official fiction about the killing of Laquan McDonald by Chicago police in October 2014. Kalven, director of the journalistic Invisible Institute production company on Chicago's South Side, and freelancer Smith spent months pursuing sources, witnesses and the documentary evidence that ultimately ended the cover-up.
In February 2015, after having earlier urged the city to " release all video footage of the incident ," Kalven meticulously analyzed the autopsy report on the teenager, which he'd obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request. Kalven was also interviewed by Democracy Now!
In August, when major news outlets had given up, Smith sued the Chicago Police Department over its refusal to release the police dash-cam video of the shooting, and wrote about it . In November, a judge ruled in Smith's favor ; after the video's release led to murder charges against the police officer, Smith was barred from the mayor's news conference that his suit had precipitated.
"The perseverance of Kalven and Smith in the face of official stonewalling, which is a hallmark of independent media, would make I.F. Stone proud," said the Izzy judges. At 29, Smith is the youngest journalist to earn an Izzy Award.
Hall of Fame Inductee Amy Goodman
"Amy Goodman's tenacious reporting day after day and year after year has made her one of the premier journalists of our era," said Jeff Cohen, PCIM director and Izzy Award judge. "As the inspirational leader of Democracy Now! -- now celebrating its 20th year -- she is also peerless in showcasing the topnotch journalism of others." Goodman shared the first Izzy Award in 2009 with Glenn Greenwald.
The largest public media collaboration in the United States, Democracy Now! is a daily global news program that presents in-depth coverage of such critical issues as the poisoning of Flint's water , police brutality , the Black Lives Matter movement , Syria's wars and climate change , including on-the-scene coverage of the Paris COP21 summit.
"Amy Goodman gets to these major issues and movements before the mainstream media, and stays with them long after the big outlets lose interest," commented the judges.
Joining Cohen as the Izzy Award judges for all eight years are Linda Jue, executive director and editor of the San Francisco-based G.W. Williams Center for Independent Journalism, and University of Illinois communications professor and author Robert W. McChesney.
Other previous winners of the Izzy Award are Naomi Klein, David Sirota, John Carlos Frey, Nick Turse, Mother Jones, Sharif Abdel Kouddous, Center for Media and Democracy/"ALEC Exposed," Robert Scheer, and City Limits. Amy Goodman joins prior I.F. Stone Hall of Fame inductees Glenn Greenwald and Jeremy Scahill.
Based in the Roy H. Park School of Communications at Ithaca College, the Park Center for Independent Media was launched in 2008 as a national center for the study of media outlets that create and distribute content outside traditional corporate systems. For more information, visit www.ithaca.edu/indy/izzy .
The Park Center for Independent Media, launched in 2008, is a national center for the study of media outlets that create and distribute content outside traditional corporate systems and news organizations. Throughout history, technological and social upheaval have given rise to independent media voices. Today, independent media are growing amid crisis and conglomeration in mainstream journalism, and the rise of the Internet and new forms of media production and distribution. The Center's mission is to engage media producers and students in conversation about career paths in independent media, and financially viable ways to disseminate news and information. The center examines the impact of independent media institutions on journalism, democracy, and a participatory culture. Jeff Cohen is the foundi
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Trump’s Mass Deportation Agenda Could Kill 400,000 Direct Care Jobs in US: Report
A new analysis warns the president's assault on immigrants risks setting off "a cascading crisis in senior and disability care that will harm families across the economic spectrum."
Dec 15, 2025
An analysis released Monday provides a more focused look at the economic impacts of US President Donald Trump's lawless mass deportation agenda, estimating that his administration's policies could kill nearly 400,000 jobs in the direct care industry, which employs home health aides, nursing assistants, and others.
The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) analysis shows that if the Trump administration achieves its stated goal of deporting one million people per year over the next four years, "the direct care industry would lose close to 400,000 jobs—affecting 274,000 immigrant and 120,000 US-born workers."
"This dramatic reduction in trained care workers would compromise home-based care services, forcing family members to scramble for informal arrangements to support relatives who are older or have disabilities," wrote EPI's Ben Zipperer, the author of the new analysis.
The estimate builds on earlier EPI research warning that Trump's deportation policies could destroy nearly 6 million total jobs in the US, an economic impact that comes in addition to the pain and human rights abuses inflicted on families across the country.
So far, according to the Department of Homeland Security, the administration is on pace for fewer than 700,000 deportations by the end of 2025—well short of its goal.
But it's not for lack of trying: In recent months, masked agents have been rampaging through American cities and detaining people en masse, often targeting job sites. Immigration agents have reportedly been instructed to prioritize "quantity over quality," leading to the detention of mostly people with no criminal convictions.
"Rather than creating jobs for U.S.-born workers as proponents claim," he added, "mass deportations eliminate employment opportunities for citizens and immigrants alike."
Recent research indicates that Trump's mass deportations are harming local economies across the US. Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, noted in August that "the early warning signs show a growing labor shortage, rising prices, terrified employees, and employers left in the lurch without any tools to ensure workforce stability."
"Should these operations continue unabated over the next three and a half years," he continued, "the situation could become far worse for the nation as a whole."
Zipperer wrote Monday that the direct care sector is "highly vulnerable to these enforcement actions," as it "relies heavily on immigrant labor."
"The Trump administration’s deportation agenda threatens to trigger a cascading crisis in senior and disability care that will harm families across the economic spectrum," Zipperer warned. "If the direct care workforce contracts by nearly 400,000 workers due to deportations, millions of older adults and people with disabilities will be left without the professional assistance they need to remain safely in their homes."
"Rather than creating jobs for U.S.-born workers as proponents claim," he added, "mass deportations eliminate employment opportunities for citizens and immigrants alike while dismantling a care infrastructure that seniors, people with disabilities, and families depend on."
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'Vile and Un-American': Tuberville Blasted for Demanding Mass Expulsion of Muslims
Republican Senator from Alabama, said one critic, is "unfit for public office and should face censure and removal."
Dec 15, 2025
A Republican senator is getting blasted for a bigoted social media rant in which he declared that Islam is "not a religion" while advocating the mass expulsion of Muslims from the US.
In the wake of Sunday's horrific mass shooting at a Hanukkah celebration in Australia, which left 16 people dead and was carried out by two men with suspected ties to the terrorist organization ISIS, Tuberville lashed out at Muslims and promoted their mass deportation.
"Islam is not a religion," Tuberville, currently a Republican candidate for Alabama governor, wrote on X. "It's a cult. Islamists aren't here to assimilate. They're here to conquer. Stop worrying about offending the pearl clutchers. We've got to SEND THEM HOME NOW or we'll become the United Caliphate of America."
Tuberville neglected to note that a Muslim man named Ahmed al Ahmed, a Syrian refugee who gained his Australian citizenship in 2022, tackled and disarmed one of the alleged shooters before they could fire more shots at the Jewish people who had gathered on Bondi Beach to celebrate Hanukkah.
Corey Saylor, research and advocacy director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), said that Tuberville's comments on Muslims were akin to those made by former Alabama Gov. George Wallace, an infamous segregationist who fought the US federal government's efforts to racially integrate state schools.
"Senator Tuberville appears to have looked at footage of George Wallace standing in a schoolhouse door to keep Black students out and decided that was a model worth reviving—this time against Muslims,” Saylor said. “His rhetoric belongs to the same shameful chapter of American history, and it will be taught that way.”
Tuberville was also condemned by Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who hammered the Republican senator for using an attack on Jews in Australia to justify prejudice against Muslims in the US.
"An outrageous, disgusting display of islamophobia from Sen. Tuberville," wrote Schumer. "The answer to despicable antisemitism is not despicable islamophobia. This type of rhetoric is beneath a United States senator—or any good citizen for that matter."
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), meanwhile, described Tuberville's rant as "vile and un-American," and said that his "bigoted zealotry" against Muslims would have made America's founders "cringe."
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, said Tuberville's rhetoric was completely at odds with the US Constitution.
"This is a senator calling for religious purges in the United States," he wrote. "A country whose earliest colonists came fleeing religious persecution and whose Founders thought that protecting against state interference with religion was so important it was put into the First Amendment."
Dylan Williams, vice president for government affairs at the Center for International Policy, noted that Tuberville was far from alone in expressing open bigotry toward Muslims, as US Rep. Randy Fine (R-Fla.) and New York City Councilwoman Vickie Paladino had also made vicious anti-Muslim statements in recent days.
"A congressman says mainstream Muslims should be 'destroyed,'" he wrote. "A senator says Islam is not a religion and Muslims should be sent 'home.' A NYC councilwoman calls for the 'expulsion' and 'denaturalization' of Muslims. Fascist anti-Muslim bigotry is now explicit Republican policy."
Williams also said Tuberville was "unfit for public office and should face censure and removal."
Fred Wellman, a Democratic candidate for US congress in Missouri, countered Tuberville with just two sentences: "Islam is a religion. Tommy Tuberville is an unrepentant racist."
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Apologist for Pinochet Dictatorship Will Be Next President of Chile
José Antonio Kast has described the dictator who ended democracy for nearly two decades and presided over the persecution of tens of thousands of dissidents as someone who brought "order" to Chile.
Dec 15, 2025
José Antonio Kast, a far-right former lawmaker, won over 58% of the vote in Chile's runoff elections on Sunday over Jeannette Jara, the labor minister under outgoing left-wing President Gabriel Boric, to become the nation's next president.
The win came despite Kast's open admiration for General Augusto Pinochet, who ended civilian rule in Chile after taking power through a coup d'etat in 1973, overthrowing its democratically elected socialist leader in a US Central Intelligence Agency-backed plot and implementing a radical program of economic austerity.
Until he was ousted by a democratic referendum in 1990, Pinochet governed Chile as a military dictatorship rife with human rights abuses, resulting in his indictment by a Spanish court in 1996 for crimes against humanity. His regime assassinated or "disappeared" nearly 3,200 people, while tens of thousands were tortured and more forced into exile.
Human rights groups have accused Kast and his family—the patriarch of which was a member of the Nazi Party who fled to Chile in 1950—of collaboration with the Pinochet regime's detention of opponents. The president-elect's brother was a minister for Pinochet during the dictatorship.
Kast will be the first president of Chile since its return to democracy to have campaigned for and voted “Yes” in the 1988 plebiscite for the dictator to stay in power for another eight years despite his reign of terror.
But rather than distance himself from Pinochet's legacy, Kast has described himself as his spiritual successor.
In 2017, during his first of three presidential campaigns, Kast told a local newspaper that “if he were alive,” Pinochet “would vote for me.” Kast later described Pinochet as someone who brought “order” to Chile, comments that the Buenos Aires Times wrote in 2021, “railed many who are still scarred by this dark period in the country’s history.”
But Kast's nostalgia for that period of repression was not enough to hobble him this time around. At a time when the right is making gains across Latin America, Kast's policy agenda sits at the nexus point between the free market fundamentalism of Argentina's Javier Milei and the police state ambitions of El Salvador's Nayib Bukele.
He has pledged an economic program in the same vein as Pinochet's and, later, Milei's "shock therapy," proposing an unprecedented cut of $21 billion in public spending over his term, paired with a reduction in taxes on the wealthy.
Kast has pledged that these cuts would only affect "waste" and "political" spending, but not impact social programs that benefit Chileans. But economic analysts, including Javiera Toro, Chile's social development minister, have argued that a cut of that size would inevitably cut into the social safety net, including its popular state pension program and others related to health, housing, and education.
Kast successfully martialed fear of high crime (even though it actually fell under Boric's tenure) into outrage toward the nation's undocumented migrants—mainly from Venezuela—whom he has pledged to deport en masse. As in the US, where President Donald Trump is also spearheading a mass deportation operation, immigrants in Chile commit crimes at lower rates than those born in the country.
Last year, Kast visited the sprawling prison complex where Bukele has used emergency powers to detain tens of thousands of people as part of his sweeping war on gangs, often in punishing conditions where they've faced torture. Amnesty International described it as a "state policy of massive and arbitrary deprivation of liberty." Kast said he'd like to implement a similar policy in Chile.
Kast immediately raised fears for the future of Chile's democracy in his victory speech, vowing to form an "emergency government" when he takes power in 2026. However, he will not command a majority in Chile's legislature, which may make the delivery of his agenda more challenging.
Jenny Pribble, professor of political science and global studies at the University of Richmond, told Al Jazeera: “It remains to be seen if Kast could or would pursue such an approach, but if Chile follows the Salvadoran model, it would constitute significant democratic backsliding.”
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