SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
For Immediate Release
March, 03 2017, 11:00am EDT
Contact:
Email:,coord(at)jubileeusa.org
Puerto Rico Requests Continued Debt Lawsuit Protection
Puerto Rico's Governor is asking Congress to extend protections against debt lawsuits as the island charts a path for economic recovery. Governor Ricardo Rossello submitted a fiscal plan to Puerto Rico's "control" board requesting the board ask Congress to continue debt lawsuit protection beyond May to the end of 2017.
WASHINGTON
Puerto Rico's Governor is asking Congress to extend protections against debt lawsuits as the island charts a path for economic recovery. Governor Ricardo Rossello submitted a fiscal plan to Puerto Rico's "control" board requesting the board ask Congress to continue debt lawsuit protection beyond May to the end of 2017.
"There should really be a moratorium on debt payments until the debt is restructured," noted Eric LeCompte, Executive Director of the religious development organization Jubilee USA. LeCompte, a global debt expert, testified before Puerto Rico's oversight board last November. "No matter what, Puerto Rico needs continued protection and more breathing space until this debt crisis is resolved."
Congress included the original stay in the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management and Economic Stability Act, passed last summer to address Puerto Rico's debt crisis. The board then extended the stay from February 15 to May 1 but congressional action is required to extend it further.
Read the governor's fiscal plan
Read more about the fiscal plan
Jubilee USA Network is an interfaith, non-profit alliance of religious, development and advocacy organizations. We are 75 U.S. institutions and more than 750 faith groups working across the United States and around the globe. We address the structural causes of poverty and inequality in our communities and countries around the world.
(202) 783-3566LATEST NEWS
Trump Gets Testy With Reporter Over Epstein Case as House Dems Demand Answers From DOJ
"Stop protecting your boss... publicly release all documents in the Epstein files that mention or reference Donald Trump," wrote House Democrats to Attorney General Pam Bondi.
Jul 08, 2025
President Donald Trump responded heatedly to a White House reporter on Tuesday after they asked Attorney General Pam Bondi questions about the late billionaire sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.
During a cabinet meeting, Bondi was asked if she had any information about whether Epstein was an asset who had been used by American intelligence agencies to compromise powerful people.
Bondi began to respond to the question but Trump quickly interrupted.
"Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein?" the president demanded to know. "This guy's been talked about for years! We have Texas, we have this, we have all of the things, and are people still talking about this guy, this creep? That is unbelievable... I mean, I can't believe that you're asking a question about Epstein at a time like this where we're having some of the greatest success and also tragedy with what happened in Texas. It just seems like a desecration."
Trump: Are you still talking about Epstein?!? This guy has been talked about for years. Are people still talking about this creep? I can’t believe you’re asking a question about Epstein… pic.twitter.com/cYRuR1XHwr
— Acyn (@Acyn) July 8, 2025
Epstein, whose 2019 death while in prison was ruled a suicide, cultivated relationships with several high-profile public figures, including former President Bill Clinton, former Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz, the Duke of York Prince Andrew, and Trump himself.
It had long been rumored that Epstein had a "client" list of powerful men to whom he had trafficked underaged girls and that he'd kept videos of their encounters to be used as blackmail material. However, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) this week asserted that there was never an Epstein client list, that there was "no credible evidence... that Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals," and that there was no evidence that "could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties."
The DOJ and FBI's new report on Epstein caused a political firestorm that upset even some of Trump's right-wing media allies such as conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, and now The Guardian is reporting that Democrats in the House of Representatives are also demanding answers.
Specifically, The Guardian writes that House Judiciary Committee ranking member Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) and 15 other House Democrats have sent a letter to Bondi demanding that the DOJ hand over information from the Epstein case files related to the president.
"Stop protecting your boss and former client... publicly release all documents in the Epstein files that mention or reference Donald Trump,” the Democrats wrote.
Keep ReadingShow Less
'A Form of Torture': Detainees Allege Mistreatment at 'Alligator Alcatraz'
"We're human beings; we're not dogs," said one detainee. "We're like rats in an experiment."
Jul 08, 2025
Detainees at the "Alligator Alcatraz" concentration camp in the Florida Everglades say they are enduring inhumane conditions, including inadequate and maggot-infested food, inability to bathe, flooding, and denial of religious practice, CBS News Miami reported Tuesday.
Officially known as Krome Detention Center, the 5,000-bed Department of Homeland Security (DHS) immigration detention facility located on the grounds of a rarely used municipal airport approximately 20 miles west of Miami last week began receiving people arrested during the Trump administration's mass deportation campaign. While U.S. President Donald Trump and other proponents of the prison have sadistically joked about alligators eating escaping prisoners, the biggest dangers faced by detainees are found inside the facility's walls.
"A lot of us have our residency documents and we don't understand why we're here."
"They're not respecting our human rights," one detainee told CBS News Miami during a phone interview. "We're human beings; we're not dogs. We're like rats in an experiment."
"I don't know their motive for doing this, if it's a form of torture," he added. "A lot of us have our residency documents and we don't understand why we're here."
Another inmate, the Cuban reggaeton artist Leamsy La Figura, said guards "only brought a meal once a day and it had maggots."
"They never take off the lights for 24 hours," he claimed. "The mosquitoes are as big as elephants," and "there's no water to take a bath, it's been four days since I've taken a bath."
A Colombian detainee said his mental health is breaking down.
"I'm on the edge of losing my mind. I've gone three days without taking my medicine," he said. "It's impossible to sleep with this white light that's on all day."
"They took the Bible I had and they said here there is no right to religion," the detainee added. "And my Bible is the one thing that keeps my faith, and now I'm losing my faith."
DHS officials have not yet responded to the detainees' allegations.
On Monday, Florida state Sen. Carlos Guillermo Smith (D-17) confirmed that "several immigrants who aren't facing any criminal charges" were nevertheless sent from the Orange County Jail in Orlando to Alligator Alcatraz.
This, after Democratic state lawmakers were denied entry to the facility last week. The Florida Division of Emergency Management claimed that "the legal authority cited by the legislators does not extend to this facility in the manner requested."
"Florida statute grants inspection authority to a legislative committee, not to individual legislators engaging in political theater," the agency added.
Meanwhile, Alligator Alcatraz merchandise offered at the Florida Republican Party's online store has been "selling like hotcakes," according to Evan Power, the state GOP chair.
Responding to this, Congressman Maxwell Alejandro Frost (D-Fla.) told The Guardian that "cruelty was always the point."
"Selling hats and merchandise for a place that is about to become a hell on Earth for thousands of people who are going to be subjected to some of the worst conditions and human rights abuses you could think of is disgusting," he added.
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Dangerous for Democracy': Trump IRS Says Nonprofit Churches Can Make Political Endorsements
"Holy shit, a real masks-off moment," said one professor. "The divide between church and state is already falling. The divide between church and political group will disappear."
Jul 08, 2025
"This is another dark day for our democracy."
That's what American Humanist Association (AHA) executive director Fish Stark said in a Tuesday statement responding to a move from U.S. President Donald Trump's administration to allow houses of worship to endorse political candidates.
When former President Lyndon B. Johnson was a senator, he introduced a provision of the U.S. tax code that bans organizations from participating or intervening in campaigns for public office as a condition for keeping their nonprofit, tax-exempt status.
The National Religious Broadcasters and Intercessors for America and two Christian churches—Sand Springs Church and First Baptist Church Waskom—wanted a federal court in Texas to strike down the Johnson Amendment. Instead, according to a Monday filing from the plaintiffs and Internal Revenue Service intended to settle the case, the IRS created a formal exception for houses of worship.
Noting the definitions of participate and intervene, the filing states that "bona fide communications internal to a house of worship, between the house of worship and its congregation, in connection with religious services, do neither of those things, any more than does a family discussion concerning candidates."
"Thus, communications from a house of worship to its congregation in connection with religious services through its usual channels of communication on matters of faith do not run afoul of the Johnson Amendment as properly interpreted," the document continues.
R.I.P. The Johnson Amendment, 1954-2025
[image or embed]
— Robert Downen (@robertdownen.bsky.social) July 8, 2025 at 12:16 PM
While the court could reject the plan laid out by the Trump IRS and plaintiffs in this case, observers responded to the settlement document by declaring the 1954 Johnson Amendment "essentially overturned" and "effectively DEAD."
Like many critics of the decision, the court filing acknowledges that its new interpretation "is in keeping with the IRS' treatment of the Johnson Amendment in practice," as the agency "generally has not enforced the Johnson Amendment against houses of worship for speech concerning electoral politics in the context of worship services."
Also highlighting that "it's been clear that many churches were both collecting tax deductions while engaging in partisan politics, so this merely formalizes the practice," Don Moynihan, a professor of public policy at the University of Michigan, wrote on social media, "Holy shit, a real masks-off moment."
"There is already a problem of political operations pretending to be churches," he added, citing 2022 ProPublica reporting. "The divide between church and state is already falling. The divide between church and political group will disappear."
Christa Brown—whose memoir Baptistland tells the story of abuse she endured in her Texas childhood church—said that "churches were already doing this but now it's going to get a lot worse. Bad for the country, dangerous for democracy, and terrible for the separation of church and state. Inevitably, heaps of dark money will now get funneled through churches to influence elections."
AHA's Stark issued a similar warning, saying that "the Johnson Amendment, though weakened over the years by lax enforcement, is the small but mighty dam standing in the way of a torrent of dark money influencing our elections. Now that the Trump administration has opened the door to pastors and houses of worship explicitly backing candidates for office, all bets are off."
"There will be little to stop billionaires from funneling money through churches to buy our elections—and they will get a tax write-off for doing it, all subsidized by American taxpayers," Stark continued. "Weakening the Johnson Amendment to consolidate political power has long been a priority for Christian nationalists—and now they have the megaphone they've been waiting for for decades."
Americans United for Separation of Church and State president and CEO Rachel Laser said Tuesday that "the Trump administration's radical reinterpretation of the Johnson Amendment is a brazen attack on church-state separation that threatens our democracy by favoring houses of worship over other nonprofits and inserting them into partisan politics. It's President Trump and his Christian nationalist allies' signature move: exploiting religion to boost their own political power."
"For more than 70 years, the Johnson Amendment has reflected the will of the American people, the majority of whom want to protect the integrity of our elections and shield our houses of worship from the corrupting influences of partisan politicking," Laser added, urging the court "to reject the administration's latest gambit to rewrite the law through the judicial system."
Trump’s IRS just declared churches can endorse political candidates from the pulpit.This move upends a core protection for church-state separation, AND erodes the freedom and independence of churches.www.nytimes.com/2025/07/07/u...
[image or embed]
— Guthrie Graves-Fitzsimmons (@guthriegf.bsky.social) July 7, 2025 at 9:16 PM
Diane Yentel, president and CEO of the National Council of Nonprofits, also criticized the "deeply concerning" court filing for "furthering an assault on the bedrock principle that charitable organizations must remain nonpartisan in law, fact, and purpose in order to serve their missions and communities."
"This action—long sought by President Trump—is not about religion or free speech, but about radically altering campaign finance laws," Yentel argued. "The decree could open the floodgates for political operatives to funnel money to their preferred candidates while receiving generous tax breaks at the expense of taxpayers who may not share those views."
Some political leaders also weighed in. Congressman Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) said that "this is really bad. The merger of tax-exempt conservative churches with the MAGA Republican Party is complete. It started with endless rightwing attacks on the IRS, leading to partisan political operations like Family Research Council posing as 'churches,' and now this. American taxpayers are now subsidizing both partisan (mainly GOP) politics and religion."
California state Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez (D-25) concluded that "if churches can make political endorsements and make political donations, they can pay taxes."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular