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
NAACP Statement on President's Refusal to Attend Annual Convention
The NAACP issued the following statement after President Trump announced that he will not attend the NAACP's 108th Annual Convention in Baltimore, Maryland.
BALTIMORE
The NAACP issued the following statement after President Trump announced that he will not attend the NAACP's 108th Annual Convention in Baltimore, Maryland.
"It's extremely unfortunate that during these pressing and urgent times, the President has chosen to turn his back on the nation's oldest and largest civil rights organization--though I must admit, his refusal to attend our convention is not totally unexpected," said Leon Russell, Board Chairman of the NAACP. "As a nonpartisan civil rights organization, we've hosted President Obama, Clinton, Bush Jr., and Reagan, to name a few. This is a historic departure from past presidents' engagements with the Association.
"During his campaign, President Trump asked us 'what do you have to lose?' This is the second time President Trump has refused an offer to speak at our annual convention. We get the message loud and clear. The President's decision today underscores the harsh fact: we have lost--we've lost the will of the current Administration to listen to issues facing the Black community.
"The NAACP fights to make sure democracy is real for all communities. We fight to end racism, hatred and discrimination in the United States. Our branches fight for real issues like access to healthcare, a fair justice system, equal opportunity to education, an end to police brutality and the right to vote. When President Trump is ready to listen to us and the people we serve, we will be here. Until then, the NAACP will continue to strive for an America free from racism and continue to speak truth to power."
Founded Feb. 12. 1909, the NAACP is the nation's oldest, largest and most widely recognized grassroots-based civil rights organization. Its more than half-million members and supporters throughout the United States and the world are the premier advocates for civil rights in their communities, conducting voter mobilization and monitoring equal opportunity in the public and private sectors.
LATEST NEWS
While Slashing Food Aid and Healthcare, GOP Advances Trillion-Dollar Military Budget
“The money that Trump wants to burn on war should instead be spent on the needs of the American people, including restoring funding for healthcare, food, housing, and climate action,” said one critic.
Jun 12, 2026
Republicans in both houses of Congress voted Thursday to advance President Donald Trump's request for record-high US military funding for 2027, prompting rebuke from Democrats and consumer advocates who decried the GOP's deep cuts to social safety net programs amid an ongoing affordability crisis.
The Senate Armed Services Committee voted 18-9 to advance the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for fiscal year 2027. Meanwhile, the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee advanced the Fiscal Year 2027 Defense Appropriations Bill during a closed-door markup. The House bill provides $1.072 trillion for the Pentagon and other military-related activities, a $234 billion increase from this year's enacted level.
The Trump administration's broader national security proposal requests nearly $1.5 trillion in total defense-related spending for 2027, which includes $350 billion in supplemental funding for munitions production, shipbuilding, missile defense, drones, artificial intelligence, and other long-term military programs. Trump wants Congress to use the budget reconciliation process to secure the additional funding. However, GOP lawmakers are wary to do so for a third time; just this week, Republicans used reconciliation to pass $70 billion in new funding for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection.
"This year, the majority has written a Defense Appropriations Act that provides the department with over a trillion dollars—an unprecedented sum. But this level of defense spending comes at the cost of cuts to domestic investments like education and workforce training, as well as international diplomacy," Defense Appropriations Subcommittee Ranking Member Betty McCollum (D-Minn.) said in a statement.
"President Trump said, ‘Jump,’ and Republicans in Congress said, ‘How high?’ Meanwhile, Republicans are proposing nearly $13 billion in cuts to domestic programs that provide relief for working families struggling to stay afloat as costs keep rising," the congresswoman added. "The American people are begging for relief from high prices, but the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress are deaf to their pleas."
In addition to increasing the national debt by an estimated $6.9 trillion over the next decade, Trump is seeking over $70 billion in proposed domestic cuts, including the elimination of the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, sharp cuts in student aid, ending the Job Corps, slashing medical research and public health programs and Federal Emergency Management Agency assistance, reducing mental health and substance abuse programs, and halving Environmental Protection Agency funding.
These and other proposed reductions follow the enactment of the biggest cuts to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program in the programs' histories under the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act signed by Trump last July. The OBBBA cuts were made to help fund trillions of dollars in tax reductions that disproportionately benefit the wealthiest Americans.
Robert Weisman, co-president of the consumer advocacy watchdog Public Citizen, noted significant opposition to Trump's proposed $234 billion increase in Pentagon spending for 2027.
“There is a rising tide of Democratic and Republican opposition to Trump’s illegal Iran war and massive proposed increases to the Pentagon budget," Weissman said Thursday, pointing to the "dozens" of lawmakers who voted against the additional spending during committee sessions, and the "bipartisan majority of the House" that "voted in support of the war powers resolution that directs Trump to end his war on Iran."
“Trump has repeatedly stated that he doesn’t care about childcare, inflation, or addressing the needs of the American people," Weissman continued. "Instead, he is seeking an overall $600 billion annual increase in Pentagon spending that would raise the total Pentagon budget to over $1.5 trillion."
“The American people are demanding Congress block Trump’s attempts to increase the Pentagon budget," he said. "This means voting against his National Defense Authorization Act, rejecting any Iran war supplemental funding bill, and blocking his proposed third reconciliation bill."
"The money that Trump wants to burn on war should instead be spent on the needs of the American people, including restoring funding for healthcare, food, housing, and climate action," Weissman added.
Keep ReadingShow Less
'He's Scared... and He Should Be,' Platner Says of Trump Calling Him Worst Person to Ever Run for Office
"Donald Trump and all of his depraved billionaire friends who think that they can get away with disgusting acts... that they're above the law, they're about to find out that they're not," said the Maine Democrat.
Jun 12, 2026
Just a few days after winning Maine's Democratic primary for US Senate by over 52 points, Graham Platner on Friday shared a short video of his reaction to Republican President Donald Trump calling him a "thug" and "worse than any human being that's ever run for office, probably."
In the video posted on social media, Platner holds a laptop and watches 20 seconds of the president's comments, chuckling, before responding: "Wow! I got to say, being called a thug and the worst person to ever run for office by Donald Trump might be the highest compliment that I have ever received."
Since Trump's Wednesday attack on Platner in the wake of his decisive primary victory, critics have pointed out that the president has used his position to enrich himself and his family while gutting programs for working families and cutting taxes for the rich. He was also found guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, accused of sexual misconduct by more than two dozen women, and reportedly named over a million times in files related to his former friend, convicted sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein.
"He's also right: There might not be a lot of other people like me who've run for office," Platner said. "You know, people that actually serve their country, fought in this nation's wars, came home, started the business, lived down here in the real world, have spent years and years being involved at the local level in the community, and then one day decided to go run for US Senate."
When Platner launched his campaign last August, he named "the oligarchy"—the billionaires, and the politicians who do their bidding, including Maine's Republican Sen. Susan Collins—as "the enemy." The combat veteran and oyster farmer quickly won support from progressives such as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), and Mainers across the state, who have stood by him amid media and public scrutiny of his old Reddit posts, a tattoo resembling a Nazi symbol that he's now covered up, and his personal relationships.
Platner's primary challenger, Gov. Janet Mills, suspended her campaign in April, citing a lack of financial resources. The seat long held by Collins is a key target for Democrats, who aim to reclaim majorities in the Senate and House of Representatives, to continue fighting against Trump—and potentially impeach him for a historic third time.
According to Platner, the reason Trump is now attacking him personally, less than five months away from the general election, "is that he's scared... He knows that we're coming after him. He knows that when we win this election, when we take this kind of politics down to Washington, when we retake this seat for working-class Mainers, when we retake the Senate with fighting Democrats who actually want to hold Trump and his cronies and all their corruption accountable, he knows that's coming—and it's got him shaking in his boots."
"And he should be, because we are coming, because we're building something here in Maine the likes of which has not been seen before. We are really building a true, broad-based, working-class coalition, to build power the old-fashioned way, organizing people and taking it," he continued. "Taking it to fight for a better future."
"The Epstein class... Donald Trump and all of his depraved billionaire friends who think that they can get away with disgusting acts, think that because of their money and their power and their wealth and their influence that they're above the law, they're about to find out that they're not, and it's got them terrified," he added. "And they should be."
Platner's video came on the heels of The Maine Monitor publishing an analysis of campaign finance data showing that nearly 100 billionaires and their spouses have contributed to Collins' reelection bid so far, dumping nearly $10 million into her campaign committee and political action committees supporting her.
"While Susan Collins' campaign is backed by billionaire donors, our campaign is built on a movement funded by the people, with an average donation of $26," said Ben Chin, Platner's campaign manager. "The establishment can bring it on—they cannot defeat the will of working Mainers, 15,000+ volunteers, and a campaign powered by small-dollar donors from nearly every ZIP code in Maine."Keep ReadingShow Less
As Elon Musk Becomes a Trillionaire, Report Highlights 'Darker Realities' of His Texas SpaceX Fiefdom
"Mr. Musk’s bid for planetary reach is about to be turbocharged with billions of dollars of rocket fuel. Who will suffer the fallout if it all blows up?"
Jun 12, 2026
Elon Musk became the world's first trillionaire on Friday, as his private space exploration firm SpaceX became a publicly traded company with a market cap of $2 trillion despite reporting negative net income for two of the last three years.
To mark this occasion, The New York Times published an essay by journalist Amy Gamerman, who has spent the last several months documenting life in Starbase, Texas, a city built by Musk to house SpaceX employees.
Gamerman wrote that it's best to think of Starbase as a corporate fiefdom that has been granted extraordinary treatment by Texas' state government.
"One new Texas law makes interfering with Starbase’s operations potentially punishable with jail time," the journalist explained. "Another allows the company to shut down the highway into town and to the beach at the mayor’s discretion. Another shields SpaceX, and by extension Starbase, from lawsuits by neighbors over nuisance caused by its rockets."
While the community of nearly 600 people appears idyllic, Gamerman found there are several "darker realities" lying beneath the surface, with one resident who wished to remain anonymous saying that Starbase is "like living in a dictatorship" where people fear raising concerns will lead to retaliation by the company.
Another disturbing aspect outlined in Gamerman's essay is the way that Starbase seemingly operates outside the laws and norms of the rest of society.
For example, the city has now erected electronic gates on every single road leading to Starbase Village, the main center of the city where SpaceX employees live and that is cut off from other parts of the community.
"Those who live outside the gates of Starbase Village... often feel shut out," wrote Gamerman. "Amber Pompa said her father, Homer Pompa, a disabled veteran who lives near Starbase Village, has no access to the restaurants or any other buildings there. And as Starbase expands, new gates have gone up in other parts of town."
Gamerman also highlighted the story of Jose Luis Bautista Jr., a 25-year-old construction worker who died in an accident in Starbase last month. When the nearby city of Brownsville dispatched an ambulance to take Bautista to a hospital, Starbase officials denied it access and said their own emergency medical services were handling the situation.
The incident, noted Gamerman, is being investigated by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
Taking a look at the broader picture, Gamerman expressed concern that Musk becoming a trillionaire could allow him to expand his vision of billionaire-owned cities across the US.
"Mr. Musk’s bid for planetary reach is about to be turbocharged with billions of dollars of rocket fuel," the journalist concluded. "Who will suffer the fallout if it all blows up?"
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular