November, 15 2020, 11:00pm EDT
Trump's Controversial Anti-Public Lands Federal Reserve Pick to be Approved by Senate Tomorrow
Judy Shelton wants to sell off public lands to pay down trump’s historic deficit.
Helena, MT.
Tomorrow, the lame-duck Senate will likely vote to confirm Trump's controversial Federal Reserve nominee Judy Shelton. The move is seen as another desperate attempt by the Trump administration to shape the makeup of the board before leaving office. Shelton's views on economic policy so are outdated, controversial, and extreme that her nomination had been viewed as all but dead until Alaskan Senator Lisa Murkowski inexplicable flipped her position despite Shelton's suggestion that America's public assets, including our public lands, be sold off to pay down the national debt.
"Instead of helping Americans during the pandemic, the Trump administration and Mitch McConnell's lame-duck Senate are teaming up to appoint extremist nominees like Shelton before the clock strikes midnight. Not only does Judy Shelton hold controversial views that are out-of-touch when it comes to economic policy, but she's also an advocate of selling off America's public lands to pay down Trump's historic deficits," said Western Values Project director Jayson O'Neill. "Any senator that votes to confirm an extremist nominee that supports selling off our public lands is going to have some explaining to do."
Alaskan Senator Lisa Murkowski, a critical swing vote, surprisingly announced that she would be voting in favor of Shelton, likely giving Trump's controversial nominee the necessary votes to be confirmed. What influenced her decision to flip and side with the administration after President Trump made it a point that he would be campaigning against her in 2022 is unclear, but the administration has been pushing two major projects Murkowski has long desired - oil and gas drilling in ANWR and logging the Tongass.
The only republican senators that have committed to voting against Shelton are Utah Senator Mitt Romney and Maine Senator Susan Collins. Montana Senator Steve Daines' reelection campaign focused heavily on protecting America's public lands, yet the state's junior senator is expected to vote for Shelton. Montana's senior Senator Jon Tester slammed Shelton's radical privatization views and is expected to vote against her confirmation.
Western Values Project brings accountability to the national conversation about Western public lands and national parks conservation - a space too often dominated by industry lobbyists and their allies in government.
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Sanders Slams Private Equity Scrooges Ending Paid Holidays for Walgreens Workers
"While the rich get richer, workers are struggling, and your decision to cut workers' paid vacation is making the problem worse."
Dec 23, 2025
Independent US Sen. Bernie Sanders on Tuesday urged the private equity firm that recently acquired Walgreens to reverse its decision to strip hourly workers at the second-largest US pharmacy chain of paid days off on Christmas and other major holidays.
After Sycamore Partners finalized its $10 billion purchase of Walgreens in late August, the pharmacy chain—now headed by CEO Mike Motz—eliminated paid holidays for New Year's Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. Workers were notified of the move, which was first reported by Bloomberg, in October.
The move is typical of what private equity firms—sometimes called vulture capitalists—often do in order to maximize profits. In addition to slashing paid time off and benefits, they often reduce or freeze pay, fire workers, close locations, introduce aggressive sales targets, and reduce job security by replacing full-time positions with hourly or independently contracted workers. Walgreens announced last year that it planned on closing around 1,200 of its roughly 8,000 US stores, citing their struggling performance.
"This Thanksgiving, Walgreens' hourly workers faced the impossible choice between losing pay and spending the holiday with their loved ones," Sanders (Vt.)—who is the ranking member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee—wrote Tuesday in a letter to Sycamore Partners founder and managing director Stefan Kaluzny.
"Walgreens employs 220,000 employees, the vast majority of whom are hourly workers... Sycamore Partners' decision to cut paid holidays for these hourly workers is unfortunately not surprising," the senator continued. "The firm follows the private equity playbook of buying businesses and aggressively extracting profit while using and abusing workers."
"For example, just one year after Sycamore Partners purchased Staples, the firm extracted $1 billion from the company as it closed 100 stores and laid off 7,000 workers," Sanders noted. "That same year, Sycamore Partners drove Nine West into bankruptcy and was accused of siphoning off over $1 billion in funds."
"Meanwhile, from 2016-22, companies owned by Sycamore Partners racked up over $3 million in labor violations, including wage-and-hour and workplace safety and health violations," he added.
During the holiday season, we all want to spend time with our loved ones. And yet, just two months after buying Walgreens for $10 billion, the private equity firm Sycamore Partners stripped hourly workers of paid vacation, including Christmas and New Year’s Day. Shameful.
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— Senator Bernie Sanders (@sanders.senate.gov) December 23, 2025 at 9:41 AM
Sanders contrasted a reality in which "60% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck" with the fact that "more private equity managers make over $100 million annually than investment bankers, top financial executives, and professional athletes combined."
"While the rich get richer, workers are struggling, and your decision to cut workers' paid vacation leave is making the problem worse," he stressed. "Some Walgreens workers make as little as $15 an hour. Cutting their paid leave will make it even more difficult for these workers to pay for housing, childcare, healthcare, and groceries."
"In short," Sanders concluded, "Sycamore Partners is forcing workers to sacrifice their basic needs for private equity profit."
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'Dangerous and Cruel': Trump VA Quietly Bans Abortion Even for Rape and Health Risks
"This decision endangers the health, lives, and futures of the people who have served our country—and it proves what we've long warned: Trump and his allies won't stop until they've imposed a national abortion ban."
Dec 23, 2025
Defenders of reproductive rights on Tuesday responded with alarm after President Donald Trump's administration quietly imposed an abortion ban at the US Department of Veterans Affairs following a legal opinion penned by a deputy assistant attorney general.
After the 2022 Roe v. Wade reversal, the Biden administration allowed the VA to provide abortion counseling and care for service members and beneficiaries in cases of rape, incest, or if the pregnancy threatened the health of the patient. Once Trump returned to power, the department proposed a rule that would end those exceptions—though the VA would continue treating ectopic pregnancies and miscarriages, and allow abortions "when a physician certifies that the life of the mother would be endangered if the fetus were carried to term."
Although that rule hasn't taken effect, the US Department of Justice last week issued a memo in which Joshua Craddock of the Office of Legal Counsel concludes that the 2022 policy wasn't legally valid. The VA on Monday issued its own internal memo—obtained by the legal group Democracy Forward and reported by MS NOW—announcing immediate compliance with the DOJ's opinion, effectively implementing the proposed rule without finishing the formal process for doing so.
"DOJ's opinion states that VA is not legally authorized to provide abortions, and VA is complying with it immediately," Pete Kasperowicz, press secretary for the VA, confirmed to MS NOW, without answering further questions. "DOJ's opinion is consistent with VA's proposed rule, which continues to work its way through the regulatory process."
Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, said in a statement that "denying veterans essential healthcare and abortion access—even in cases of rape or serious health risk—after they have sacrificed so much for our country is callous and inhumane."
Democracy Forward represented Minority Veterans of America in submitting a comment opposing the proposed rule, and Perryman pledged that "we will continue to fight its implementation now that it has been finalized."
"This abortion ban makes it clear that the Trump administration will always choose its dangerous political agenda, even if the cost is veterans and their families' access to essential care."
Minority Veterans of America co-founder and executive director Lindsay Church also denounced the "dangerous and cruel" policy shift.
"Veterans face unique challenges that make it critical for us to be able to access abortion care, including possible exposure to toxic chemicals, waiting to start a family until after our service, and experiencing sexual assault," she said. "Abortion should not be a political issue—it is necessary, life-saving medical care, and denying this care will put veterans and their loved ones' lives in danger."
Fatima Goss Graves, president and CEO of the National Women's Law Center, warned that "the Trump administration is confirming what we've always known: its promise to leave abortion to the states was a lie. No one is safe from their anti-abortion crusade, not even our nation's veterans."
Goss Graves called on federal lawmakers to "pass legislation to reverse this harmful new policy and reinstate abortion access to all veterans and their loved ones who depend on the VA for care," though such a bill is unlikely to advance in the current Republican-controlled Congress.
Reproductive Freedom for All president and CEO Mini Timmaraju similarly declared that "this decision endangers the health, lives, and futures of the people who have served our country—and it proves what we've long warned: Trump and his allies won't stop until they've imposed a national abortion ban."
Nancy Northup, president and CEO at the Center for Reproductive Rights, argued that "everyone should be appalled by this heartless policy. President Trump said he would leave abortion to the states, but he continues to seize new opportunities to restrict it nationally."
This means the VA won't cover abortions EVEN in the case of rape, incest, or serious threat to the health of the patient. The DOJ memo was authored by Josh Craddock, one of the chief legal advocates for fetal personhood, i.e. imposing a nationwide abortion ban through the courts.
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— Mark Joseph Stern (@mjsdc.bsky.social) December 23, 2025 at 2:18 PM
Planned Parenthood Federation of America highlighted that "this ban goes into effect as the Trump administration and its allies in Congress continue a full-scale attack on access to sexual and reproductive health: stripping veterans of essential healthcare, slashing Medicaid, and 'defunding' Planned Parenthood."
Alexis McGill Johnson, the group's president and CEO, said that "this abortion ban makes it clear that the Trump administration will always choose its dangerous political agenda, even if the cost is veterans and their families' access to essential care."
Earlier this year, House Committee on Veterans' Affairs Ranking Member Mark Takano (D-Calif.) and Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs Ranking Member Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) led over 230 of their colleagues in submitting a public comment against the Trump administration's proposed rule. Takano and other members of the House panel also spoke out on Tuesday.
"As a country, we made a solemn promise to honor veterans' service and ensure they receive the healthcare they have earned. Veterans should be able to trust that promise and know they can walk into a VA medical center and receive the care they need," said Takano. "Instead of trusting veterans to make the healthcare decisions that are best for them, VA is allowing political opinion to supplant its duty to veterans."
"Instead of allowing veterans to discuss all their healthcare options openly and honestly with their providers, VA has decided that the government should be in charge of making healthcare decisions, even in matters of life and death," he continued. "And instead of fulfilling its duty to provide needed healthcare to veterans, VA has refused to acknowledge the unique and complex healthcare needs of veterans who are more likely to have complex health conditions that can increase the risks associated with pregnancy. Veterans fought for our rights. Now it's our responsibility to fight for theirs."
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Supreme Court Deals Trump Major Loss on Illinois National Guard Deployment
"Trump is losing his grip on the dictatorial power he so covets," said one legal analyst.
Dec 23, 2025
The US Supreme Court on Tuesday dealt President Donald Trump a major loss by rejecting the administration's request to strike down a temporary restraining order that barred him from deploying the National Guard in Chicago.
In a 6-3 ruling that featured dissents from Justices Neil Gorsuch, Samuel Alito, and Clarence Thomas, the Supreme Court determined that the Trump administration had not met statutory requirements needed to justify deploying the National Guard in a state over the objections of its own government.
The court noted that the administration justified its Illinois deployment—pursued alongside a federal crackdown on undocumented immigrants in and around the state's largest city—by pointing to a law stating that the president may federalize the National Guard in the event that he is "unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States."
However, the court found that the "regular forces" referenced in the statute refers to the US military, not civilian law enforcement officials. This is relevant because the president faces significant restrictions on his ability to deploy the military domestically under the Posse Comitatus Act.
"Because the statute requires an assessment of the military’s ability to execute the laws, it likely applies only where the military could legally execute the laws," the justices wrote. "Such circumstances are exceptional: Under the Posse Comitatus Act, the military is prohibited from 'execut[ing] the laws' 'except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or act of Congress.'"
The justices further said that the Trump administration so far "has failed to identify a source of authority that would allow the military to execute the laws in Illinois" and has not invoked any statute that would provide an exception to the Posse Comitatus Act.
In conclusion, the court wrote that the federal government "has not carried its burden to show" that the law "permits the president to federalize the guard in the exercise of inherent authority to protect federal personnel and property in Illinois."
Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul, who had sued the Trump administration over the deployment, cheered the ruling and said that "the extremely limited circumstances under which the federal government can call up the militia over a state's objection do not exist in Illinois."
Raoul added that he was "pleased that the streets of Illinois will remain free of armed National Guard members as our litigation continues in the courts."
Glenn Kirschner, a former federal prosecutor, celebrated the Supreme Court's ruling as a victory for the rule of law.
"Trump is losing his grip on the dictatorial power he so covets," Kirschner commented on X.
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, said he was "genuinely shocked" by the court's ruling, and he credited an amicus brief written by Georgetown University Law Center professor Marty Lederman with swaying the court, as it centered the definition of "regular forces" in the statute as central to determining the legality of Trump's actions.
Lisa Gilbert, co-president of Public Citizen and co-chair of the Not Above the Law Coalition, hailed the court's ruling but warned that the danger posed by the Trump administration's authoritarian ambitions has not ended.
"With a lawful administration that understood the limits of executive power, this would be the end of the question," she said of the ruling. "Unfortunately, we are living under an authoritarian regime that persists in every possible effort to expand its power and override guardrails. With an administration that displays utter disregard for the Constitution, we must now watch diligently how it will respond to a decisive Supreme Court decision against its lawless power grab."
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