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For Immediate Release
August, 15 2017, 02:15pm EDT
Contact:
Yasmina Dardari, 1 407-922-8149, yasmina@unbendablemedia.com
As CEOs Abandon Trump's Manufacturing Council Over Lackluster Repudiation of White Supremacists, Over 26,000 Demand Ford, GM, IBM, JPMorgan Chase and Other CEOs Follow Their Lead
SumOfUs Applauds Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier, Intel CEO Brian Krzanich, and Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank for Resigning from Trump’s American Manufacturing Council
WASHINGTON
Over 26,000 people have signed a petition by consumer watchdog group SumofUs, demanding CEOs on President Trump's business councils to resign from their posts advising the president. The petition comes after news yesterday that Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier, Intel CEO Brian Krzanich, and Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank announced their resignations from Trump's manufacturing council over Trump's failure to adequately repudiate white supremacist violence in Charlottesville, VA this past weekend.
VIEW THE PETITION HERE: https://actions.sumofus.org/a/it-s-time-for-ceos-to-step-off-of-trump-s-council/
In a statement, Frazier explained: "America's leaders must honor our fundamental values by clearly rejecting expressions of hatred, bigotry and group supremacy," adding, "as a matter of personal conscience, I feel a responsibility to take a stand against intolerance and extremism." In response to Frazier's resignation, Trump tweeted: "Now that Ken Frazier of Merck Pharma has resigned from President's Manufacturing Council, he will have more time to LOWER RIPOFF DRUG PRICES!"
Following Frazier, Krzanich, and Plank's decision to leave the council, SumOfUs, a global consumer group, is calling on other CEOs serving Trump's business and manufacturing councils to follow suit, and slamming the President for tweeting in retribution. SumOfUs campaign manager Nicole Carty explained:
"More and more we are seeing America's business leaders recognize that President Trump's brand of bigotry is bad for business. They know that working with a President who gives cover to white supremacist violence and terror is bad for America and they recognize that Trump's presidency is not business as usual, but represents a dangerous threat to pluralism and democratic values. Frazier, Plank, and Krzanich join the ranks of business leaders like Elon Musk and Bob Iger who took a stand by refusing to advise Trump and legitimize his destructive agenda--for that, we applaud them.
"To the CEOs who have remained on Trump's advisory councils, even after he has shown himself time and again as a racist, sexist warmonger who refuses to adequately condemn neo-nazis: Your complicity is noted. That is why over 26,000 SumOfUs members are urging Trump's remaining corporate advisors--including Ford's Mark Fields , GE's Jeff Immelt, JPMorgan Chase's Jamie Dimon, IBM's Ginni Rometty, Walmart's Doug McMillon, and Pepsi's Indra Nooyi --to follow the example of Frazier, Krzanich, and Plank by ending their collaboration with Trump's agenda of hate. "
FOR MORE INFORMATION: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/14/business/merck-ceo-trump-charlottesville.html?_r=0
SumOfUs is a community of people from around the world committed to curbing the growing power of corporations. We want to buy from, work for and invest in companies that respect the environment, treat their workers well and respect democracy. And we're not afraid to hold them to account when they don't. Barely a day goes by without a fresh corporate scandal making headlines. From polluting the environment to dodging taxes - when left unchecked, corporations don't let anything stand in the way of bigger profits. In an age of multinational companies that are bigger and richer than some countries, it can be easy to feel powerless. But there is a chink in their armor. The biggest corporations in the world rely on ordinary people to keep them in business. We are their customers, their employees, and often their investors. When we act together, we can be more powerful than they are. Together, our community of millions act as a global consumer watchdog - running and winning campaign
LATEST NEWS
'Worst of the Worst'? DOJ Figures Show 97.4% of 614 Detained Immigrants in Chicago Had No Criminal Record
Of 614 people on list who may have been unlawfully arrested and detained by federal officials, only 16 had a criminal record of any kind.
Nov 15, 2025
President Donald Trump and his administration have claimed repeatedly that the immigration raids that have terrorized communities nationwide this year are focused on getting the "worst of the worst" off the streets and out of the country, but new detention data filed by the Department of Justice on Friday shows that only a tiny fraction of the more than 600 people who remain in detention in the Chicago area from raids over recent months have any criminal record, bolstering anecdotal evidence that many of those targeted for by ICE and federal border agents are hard-working, law-abiding members of society.
According to the Chicago Tribune:
The Trump administration on Friday released the names of 614 people whose Chicago-area immigration arrests may have violated a 2022 consent decree, and only 16 of them have criminal histories that present a “high public safety risk.”
The list was produced as part of an ongoing lawsuit alleging immigration agents have repeatedly violated the terms of the in-court settlement, mostly during “Operation Midway Blitz,” that puts a high bar on making so-called warrantless arrests without a prior warrant or probable cause.
The newspaper reports that of the 16 people arrested with criminal histories—representing just 2.6% of the total listed in the filing— "five involved domestic battery, two were related to drunken driving, and one allegedly had an unidentified criminal history in another country." None had criminal backgrounds that included worst-of-the-worst offenses like rape or murder.
Earlier this week, U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Cummings ordered the government to provide more information about the more than 600 people being held in detention and suggested that he would order their release if compelling reasons for public safety were not presented. While ordering the immediate release of 13 people he deemed were arrested unlawfully, Cummings gave the government until Friday to release the additional information on those being held.
The Chicago Sun-Times reports that the list of 614 detainees comes from a longer list of roughly 1,800 individuals arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the Chicago area between June 11 and October 7, of which "only about 750 of them remain in the country." Most of the others were deported, and their criminal histories were not presented in Friday's disclosure.
The consent decree at issue, known as the Castañon-Nava settlement agreement, restricts the ability of ICE agents or others working with them to make warrantless arrests in the state of Illinois.
“Communities throughout the Chicago area have been traumatized by ICE and other federal agents’ chaotic and violent actions in our neighborhoods in recent months, and potentially hundreds of families already have been permanently separated as a result of unlawful arrests and rapid deportations without due process," said Mark Fleming, associate director of litigation for the National Immigration Justice Center (NIJC), who is backing the legal case against the unlawful arrests and detentions in Chicago, after the order issued by Cummings on Wednesday.
"NIJC and our partners will continue to demand justice for our communities and accountability for the lawless administration we all are facing.”
During Wednesday's hearing, the judge suggested many of those who remain in detention likely have no history of criminal conduct and were targeted by federal agents simply for fitting a specific profile. As the Sun-Times reports:
Cummings said that 54 of those people were arrested at work, including 20 landscapers and four ride-share or taxi drivers. Twenty were arrested commuting to or from work, he added, and nine were arrested at a Home Depot or Menards, “presumably either seeking work or to pick up supplies.”
Seven were also arrested at an “immigration-related hearing,” Cummings said, while 11 were arrested in public places like a park, gas station or even a Dunkin’ Donuts drive-thru.
“It seems highly likely to me that at least some of those individuals are among the 615 detainees who are not subject to mandatory detention,” Cummings said. He also found them unlikely to be members of gangs, “assorted other ne’er-do-wells” or the “worst of the worst.”
Community members living in Chicago and its outlying suburbs, including Broadview, have expressed anger at Trump's ICE operations in the region, which have seen school teachers, childcare providers, day laborers, and other neighbors targeted and arrested.
On Friday, 21 people were arrested outside the immigration detention center in Broadview following a morning demonstration outside the facility.
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With US 'Paying the Price for Trump's Mistakes,' He Ends Tariffs for Bananas, Beef, Coffee, and More
The administration is "now acknowledging what economists and business leaders have told us from the beginning: that tariffs are driving up prices," said one journalist.
Nov 14, 2025
Although President Donald Trump didn't actually confess that his global trade war is driving up the cost of groceries for Americans, he did finally drop his dubiously named "reciprocal" tariffs on key imports on Friday.
According to a White House fact sheet, Trump's new executive order ends his tariffs on beef; cocoa and spices; coffee and tea; bananas, oranges, and tomatoes; other tropical fruits and fruit juices; and fertilizers.
The New York Times had reported Thursday that "the Trump administration is preparing broad exemptions to certain tariffs in an effort to ease elevated food prices that have provoked anxiety for American consumers."
The reporting drew critiques of the administration's economic policies, including from members of Congress such as Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), who said that "Trump just admitted it: Americans are footing the bill for his disastrous tariffs."
"While this move may alleviate some of the cost increases Trump caused, it will not stop the larger problems of rising inflation, business uncertainty, and economic damage done by Trump's crazy tariff scheme."
Also responding to the Times reporting, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) wrote on social media Friday: "After months of increasing grocery prices, Donald Trump is finally admitting he was wrong. Americans are literally paying the price for Trump's mistakes."
More lawmakers and other critics piled on after Trump issued the order. CNN's Jim Sciutto said: "Trump administration now acknowledging what economists and business leaders have told us from the beginning: that tariffs are driving up prices."
MeidasTouch and its editor in chief, Ron Filipkowski, also called out the president on social media, with the outlet sarcastically noting, "But Trump said his tariffs don't raise prices."
OR, Trump Admits His Tariffs Caused Grocery Prices to Rise.
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— Ron Filipkowski (@ronfilipkowski.bsky.social) November 14, 2025 at 5:52 PM
Congressman Don Beyer (D-Va), who serves on the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Trade, said in a Friday statement that "President Trump is finally admitting what we always knew: His tariffs are raising prices for the American people."
"After getting drubbed in recent elections because of voters' fury that Trump has broken his promises to fix inflation, the White House is trying to cast this tariff retreat as a 'pivot to affordability,'" Beyer said, referencing Democrats who won key races last week, from more moderate Mikie Sherrill and Abigail Spanberger, the incoming governors of New Jersey and Virginia, to democratic socialist Mayors-elect Zohran Mamdani of New York City and Katie Wilson of Seattle.
In addition to those electoral victories for Democrats, last week featured a debate over Trump's trade war at the US Supreme Court. According to Beyer: "The simple truth is that Republicans want credit for something they think the Supreme Court will force them to do anyway, after oral arguments before the court on Trump's illegal abuses of trade authorities went badly for the administration. Trump is still keeping the vast majority of his tariffs in place, and his administration is also planning new tariffs in anticipation of a Supreme Court loss."
"The same logic—that Trump's tariffs are driving up prices on coffee, fruit, and other comestibles—is equally true for the thousands of other goods on which his tariffs remain," he continued. "While this move may alleviate some of the cost increases Trump caused, it will not stop the larger problems of rising inflation, business uncertainty, and economic damage done by Trump's crazy tariff scheme."
"Only Congress can do that, by reclaiming its legal responsibility under the Constitution to regulate trade, and permanently ending Trump's trade war chaos," he stressed. "All but a handful of Republicans in Congress are still refusing to stand up to Trump, stop his tariffs, and lower costs for the American people, and unless they find a backbone, our economy will continue to suffer."
Huh. Trump dropped the tariffs on coffee, beef, and tropical fruit to LOWER PRICES. I thought other countries paid for those?
— Angry (@angrystaffer.bsky.social) November 14, 2025 at 5:50 PM
As the Associated Press noted Friday, "The president signed the executive order after announcing that the U.S. had reached framework agreements with Ecuador, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Argentina designed to ease import levies on agricultural products produced in those countries."
Trump's order also came just a day after Democrats on the congressional Joint Economic Committee released a report showing that US families are paying roughly $700 more each month for basic items since Trump returned to office in January—with households in some states, such as Alaska and California, facing an average of over $1,000 monthly.
The president has floated sending Americans a $2,000 check, purportedly funded by revenue collected from his tariffs, but as Common Dreams reported Wednesday, economist Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research crunched the numbers and found that the proposed "dividend" doesn't add up.
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As Israel Keeps Killing Palestinians, Tlaib Leads Bill Recognizing War on Gaza as Genocide
"After over two years of slaughter, forced starvation, and mass atrocities in Gaza, the global consensus is clear: The Israeli government has committed genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza."
Nov 14, 2025
Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib and 20 Democratic colleagues on Friday introduced legislation that would officially recognize Israel's 25-month war on Gaza as a genocide, a move that came as Israeli forces continued killing Palestinians in the coastal strip and violating a tenuous ceasefire with Hamas.
Tlaib (D-Mich.)—the only Palestinian American in Congress—introduced H.Res. 876, which, if passed, would "officially recognize that the state of Israel has committed the crime of genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza" and affirm that it is official US policy to "prevent and punish the crime of genocide, wherever it occurs."
“The Israeli government’s genocide in Gaza has not ended, and it will not end until we act," Tlaib said in a statement Friday. "Since the so-called ‘ceasefire’ was announced, Israeli forces haven’t stopped killing Palestinians."
According to Gaza's Government Media Office (GMO), Israel has violated the ceasefire agreement 282 times as of November 10, 2025—exactly one month after the US-brokered truce took effect. Alleged violations include airstrikes resulting in massacres, shootings of civilians, property demolitions, and raids beyond the ceasefire's "yellow line" buffer zones.
GMO says Israeli forces have killed least 242 Palestinians and injured more than 620 others during the truce.
This, in addition to the at least 249,000 Palestinians who have been killed or wounded by Israeli forces since October 2023, including upward of 10,000 people who are missing and presumed dead and buried beneath the ruins of Gaza, which could take decades to clear. Around 2 million Palestinians have been starved, sickened, and forcibly displaced. Many others have been arbitrarily imprisoned, tortured, and allegedly subjected to rape and other sexual abuse.
"After over two years of slaughter, forced starvation, and mass atrocities in Gaza, the global consensus is clear: The Israeli government has committed genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza," Tlaib noted.
She continued:
Palestinians in Gaza have attested to this genocide for over two years and it has been concluded by the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry, the International Association of Genocide Scholars, and highly respected international, Palestinian, and Israeli human rights organizations such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Doctors Without Borders, Al-Haq, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, B’Tselem, Physicians for Human Rights Israel, the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention, Forensic Architecture, and the University Network for Human Rights.
The resolution calls for the United States to "respect its obligations under the Genocide Convention by employing all means reasonably available to it to prevent and punish the crime of genocide."
These include:
- cessation of relevant arms and equipment transfers;
- investigation and prosecution of individuals and corporations in the United States implicated in the crime of genocide;
- compliance with the orders of the International Court of Justice and the investigations of the International Criminal Court (ICC); and
- targeted, lawful sanctions with respect to the state of Israel and individuals or corporations involved in or facilitating the commission of genocide.
“Impunity only enables more atrocity," Tlaib warned. "As our government continues to send a blank check for war crimes and ethnic cleansing, Palestinian children’s smiles are extinguished by bombs and bullets that say made in the USA."
"To end this horror, we must reject genocide denial and follow our binding legal obligations under the Genocide Convention to take immediate action to pursue justice and accountability to prevent and punish the crime of genocide," she added. "We must hold individual perpetrators and complicit corporations to account. We must stop sending weapons to a genocidal military. We must follow international law and use all means available to us, including sanctions, to bring this genocide to an end.”
Despite existing laws prohibiting US assistance to foreign security forces that commit gross human rights violations, the United States—which grew into a world power in part via genocide of Indigenous Americans—has provided arms and diplomatic cover to the perpetrators of genocides in Paraguay, Guatemala, Bangladesh, East Timor, Kurdistan, and Gaza over the past half-century, while turning a blind eye to other genocides.
Under the Biden and Trump administrations, the US has provided Israel with more than $20 billion in armed aid while thwarting efforts to end the genocide by vetoing numerous United Nations Security Council ceasefire resolutions.
The Trump administration has also slapped sanctions on ICC judges after the tribunal issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, including murder and forced starvation.
Trump has also targeted individuals and nations who seek justice for Palestinians, acknowledge the Gaza genocide, or recognize Palestinian statehood.
Tlaib's resolution is co-sponsored by Democratic Reps. Becca Balint (Vt.), André Carson (Ind.), Greg Casar (Texas), Maxine Dexter (Ore.), Maxwell Alejandro Frost (Fla.), Jesús "Chuy" García (Ill.), Al Green (Texas), Pramila Jayapal (Wash.), “Hank” Johnson Jr. (Ga.), Ro Khanna (Calif.), Summer Lee (Pa.), Jim McGovern (Mass.), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY), Ilhan Omar (Minn.), Mark Pocan (Wis.), Ayanna Pressley (Mass.), Delia Ramirez (Ill.), Lateefah Simon (Calif.), Nydia Velázquez (NY), and Bonnie Watson Coleman (NJ).
The resolution—which is unlikely to get through the Republican-controlled Congress—is also endorsed by more than 100 organizations.
“This resolution is an important step towards recognizing Israel’s actions against Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip for what they are—genocide," Amnesty International Middle East and North Africa advocacy director Elizabeth Rghebi said in support of the measure.
"The US ratified the Genocide Convention which imposes a duty on states to prevent and punish the crime," Rghebi added. "Amnesty International calls on all members of Congress to urgently support this resolution and ensure the US begins taking the actions necessary to prevent and punish Israel’s genocide in Gaza."
Beth Miller, political director at Jewish Voice for Peace Action, said that “for over two years, the US has been a full partner in the Israeli government’s genocide against Palestinians. Presidents and members of Congress have denied and erased Israel’s ongoing atrocities in Gaza, shielded Israel from accountability in the international arena, and attempted to dehumanize Palestinians."
"Congresswoman Tlaib and the original co-sponsors joining her on this historic resolution are making clear that this complicity must come to an end," Miller added. "These representatives are heeding the call of the overwhelming majority of Americans who want to see an end to his genocide and a halt to US support for war crimes."
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