June, 23 2021, 01:04pm EDT
Supreme Court Rules to Protect Students' Full Free Speech Rights
WASHINGTON
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Mahanoy Area School District v B.L. today in a decision that reaffirmed the importance of free speech rights of young people and students across the country. The court ruled that school authorities must respect students' rights to express themselves outside of school, including their right to express dissenting or unpopular views. The court recognized that schools do not have the same authority to punish students for speech outside of school as they do in school contexts. The court also recognized that parents, not schools, exercise primary responsibility for their children's speech.
The court wrote: "[T]he school itself has an interest in protecting a student's unpopular expression, especially when the expression takes place off campus. America's public schools are the nurseries of democracy."
The court affirmed that the student speech at issue was protected by the First Amendment. The case involved Brandi Levy, who was removed from the junior varisty cheerleading team at Mahanoy Area High School in 2017 after she posted a "snap" on Snapchat with a photo of her and a friend with their middle fingers extended accompanied by the text "fuck school fuck softball fuck cheer fuck everything." The snap was created and posted on a Saturday while the two friends were at a local convenience store. The school district in this case was asking the court to grant the same authority schools currently have to curb and punish speech within school buildings to students' off-campus speech.
In its ruling, the court affirmed that the student's snap was protected speech under the First Amendment, as it was posted off of school grounds and not at a school-related activity, and the school violated the First Amendment by punishing her for her speech.
"Protecting young people's free speech rights when they are outside of school is vital, and this is a huge victory for the free speech rights of millions of students who attend our nation's public schools," said David Cole, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union. "The school in this case asked the court to allow it to punish speech that it considered 'disruptive,' regardless of where it occurs. If the court had accepted that argument, it would have put in peril all manner of young people's speech, including their expression on politics, school operations, and general teen frustrations. The message from this ruling is clear -- free speech is for everyone, and that includes public school students."
The incident in this case occurred in May 2017, when Brandi Levy was in ninth grade. She graduated in 2020 and is now a freshman in college.
"The school went too far, and I'm glad that the Supreme Court agrees," said Brandi Levy. "I was frustrated, I was 14 years old, and I expressed my frustration the way teenagers do today. Young people need to have the ability to express themselves without worrying about being punished when they get to school. I never could have imagined that one simple snap would turn into a Supreme Court case, but I'm proud that my family and I advocated for the rights of millions of public school students."
"When we received the Levys' complaint, we thought this situation would be resolved quickly and that the school would accept our guidance, but obviously that didn't happen," said Witold Walczak, legal director of the ACLU of Pennsylvania. "I am proud of our team at the ACLU, who effectively argued before three courts that public school students should not be monitored 24-7 by school officials. I am especially proud of Brandi and her family, who stood up for one of the most fundamental rights that we cherish in this country, the right to speak freely without government interference."
"In this ruling, the Supreme Court has affirmed what we've said all along -- students have greater free speech rights out of school and on their own time," said Reggie Shuford, executive director of the ACLU of Pennsylvania. "The school district asked for vast powers to monitor and punish students' speech at all times, no matter where or when it occurs. We are grateful that the court understood how dangerous that argument was and rejected it."
The American Civil Liberties Union was founded in 1920 and is our nation's guardian of liberty. The ACLU works in the courts, legislatures and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to all people in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States.
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Judge Rules the Trump Admin Can't Deport International Students for Free Speech
"A federal judge just ruled that the Trump admin's use of immigration law to deport me and other noncitizen students for pro-Palestinian speech is unconstitutional. No one should fear speaking up for Palestine," Mahmoud Khalil said.
Aug 29, 2026
The Trump administration violated the Constitution when it moved to deport or rescind visas from international students who spoke up for Palestinian rights and criticized Israel's genocide in Gaza, a federal judge ruled on Friday.
Northern District of California Judge Noël Wise, who was appointed by former President Joe Biden, said that the administration's actions violated both the First Amendment of the Constitution protecting free speech and the Fifth Amendment ensuring due process.
"Stated plainly, in the United States, freedom of speech belongs to the people. It is not the government’s to take," Wise wrote.
Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University student who was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement early in the second Trump administration despite holding a green card, celebrated the ruling on Saturday.
"A federal judge just ruled that the Trump admin's use of immigration law to deport me and other noncitizen students for pro-Palestinian speech is unconstitutional. No one should fear speaking up for Palestine," Khalil wrote on social media.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations also welcomed the decision in a statement on Saturday:
This ruling reaffirms a fundamental American principle that the government cannot deport people simply because it dislikes their political views. Students do not surrender their constitutional rights at the classroom door, and international students do not surrender their freedom of expression when they come to study in the United States. Criticizing the policies of a foreign government, including the genocidal government of Israel, is protected political speech.
The lawsuit was brought by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) in August 2025 on behalf of The Stanford Daily, Stanford University's student newspaper, and an anonymous female plaintiff. The newspaper argued that student reporters on visas refrained from covering pro-Palestinian protests on campus out of fear of being deported, while the Jane Doe was a noncitizen who had spoken out on behalf of Palestine and now was worried about government retaliation.
"The reporters in our newsroom shouldn’t have to fear that writing a story will result in their deportation. Today’s victory means they won’t have to," the paper's editor-in-chief George Porteous wrote on social media on Friday.
In particular, the lawsuit challenged two provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act that Secretary of State Marco Rubio used to justify seeking the deportations of Khalil, Columbia student Moshen Mahdawi, and Tufts University student Rümeysa Öztürk. The first allows the secretary of state to deport a noncitizen for speech if the secretary “personally determines” the speech “compromises a compelling foreign policy interest.” The second allows the secretary to revoke visas entirely at their own discretion.
Wise agreed that the provisions violated the Constitution and offered a rousing defense of free speech.
“In the United States, free speech, including the freedom to criticize the government and its leaders, is not a sign of our democracy’s fragility. It is evidence of its strength," she wrote. "That strength is diminished when members of our society—citizens and noncitizens alike—must self-censor and ‘behave’ or suffer the government’s retaliation.”
FIRE said the decision was the "first in the country to squarely rule on the constitutionality of these statutes" and that it would "reverberate in similar proceedings around the country."
“In America, free speech doesn’t just belong to the people who say things the government agrees with,” FIRE attorney Conor Fitzpatrick said in a statement Friday. “Today’s ruling proves that free speech isn’t a privilege, but the inalienable right of every man, woman, and child.”
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'One Big Military Theft': Trump Announces Deal for US Control of Venezuelan Oil Fields
"This is proof Trump put our service members at risk to get Venezuelan oil for his billionaire buddies," one Democratic senator said. "Putting our soldiers’ lives on the line for private profit is a gross dereliction of his constitutional duty."
Aug 29, 2026
President Donald Trump announced on Truth Social on Friday that his government had "secured majority US control" of Venezuelan oil reserves containing 65 billion barrels of oil.
The announcement followed on reporting from Axios that a deal was in the works, prompting criticisms that such a move would be "colonial" and calls for Congress to reject any such proposal.
"Let's be clear: This isn't a win," Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) wrote on social media in response to the announcement. "This is proof Trump put our service members at risk to get Venezuelan oil for his billionaire buddies. Putting our soldiers’ lives on the line for private profit is a gross dereliction of his constitutional duty."
When US forces invaded Caracas and kidnapped Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife First Combatant Cilia Fores on January 3, Trump's own words following the invasion confirmed suspicions that he acted largely to gain access to the country's oil.
"These are some of the largest crimes of our lifetimes."
“We’re going to get the oil flowing the way it should be,” he said in a press conference following the attack.
Friday's deal, which seems like an attempt to make good on that promise, was also announced by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and acting Venezuelan President Delcy Rodriguez, who provided more details.
According to Venezuelanalysis:
Rodríguez stated that the deal will involve private corporations developing 17 “strategic fields” with 65 billion barrels of proven reserves. She echoed Rubio’s $100 billion investment claim and pledged that the projects would yield $209 billion in tax revenues. According to the acting president, the announced agreement “ushers in a new era of growth and prosperity.”
However, economist Francisco Rodríguez, a senior research fellow at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, argued that the agreement was actually a bad deal for Venezuelans.
"President: According to your figures, this agreement will generate tax revenues of just $3.22 per barrel of Venezuelan oil. This represents 4.7% of the current price, and less than half of the royalty rate contemplated in concessions granted by Juan Vicente Gómez," he wrote on social media, addressing the current Venezuelan leader and referring to a Venezuelan dictator from the early 20th century.
Joseph Bouchard, a journalist and researcher who focuses on Latin America, agreed with Rodriguez's criticism of the deal, writing on social media that "Trump [was] 'generously' buying billions of barrels of Venezuelan oil at less than 5% its market price. He's stealing their oil for his own family and cronies' profit. Guessing this may be used as a chip to manipulate the midterms. These are some of the largest crimes of our lifetimes."
Francisco Rodriguez had earlier pointed out that the deal violated the Venezuelan Constitution, which holds that all minerals and hydrocarbons are “inalienable public domain," according to Venezuelanalysis. For the deal to go through, therefore, Venezula would have to alter its Constitution.
Former head of Human Rights Watch Kenneth Roth noted on social media that "senior Venezuelan officials, all fearing arrest, are hardly in a position to negotiate vigorously, making the whole thing seems like one big military theft."
On the plus side, no one has to argue whether the United States is imperialist anymore. https://t.co/nsb87JUARw
— Dean Baker (@DeanBaker13) August 29, 2026
Trump is under pressure to lower gas prices that have spiked due to the fallout of his war on Iran, which entered its sixth month on Friday, and promised in his announcement, "This Historic Transaction MORE THAN DOUBLES American Oil Reserves, greatly increases our Oil Supply, and will substantially lower Gas Prices for all Americans, long into the future."
However, The Associated Press pointed out: "A significant drop in US gas prices tied to the agreement should not be expected immediately. Experts have repeatedly warned that a substantial boost in Venezuelan oil production will not happen quickly as repairing and expanding infrastructure takes years and requires billions of dollars."
Exploiting Venezuela's oil reserves would also exacerbate the climate crisis, which just this summer intensified a deadly heatwave in Europe and is supercharging an El Niño that could contribute to a significant increase in food prices in 2026 and 2027.
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'Break Up Big Medicine': Taking On Healthcare Industry Greed Could Save US Families $6,000+ a Year
One expert said the options are to "watch the US healthcare system spiral into profit-driven chaos or finally treat the Big Medicine disease to create a healthcare system that puts patients and clinicians in control of care."
Aug 28, 2026
As millions of working-class Americans suffer from President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans' cuts to the already dysfunctional US healthcare system, a leading anti-monopoly group this week released a report with recommendations to restore "affordability and control to patients, clinicians, and communities across the country."
"The healthcare crisis didn’t happen by accident, it is the direct result of decades of neoliberal policy choices that handed more power to corporate healthcare giants while families paid the price," said Morgan Harper, director of policy and advocacy at the American Economic Liberties Project (AELP).
"The choice now is clear: Continue to watch the US healthcare system spiral into profit-driven chaos or finally treat the Big Medicine disease to create a healthcare system that puts patients and clinicians in control of care," she explained. "This agenda presents a roadmap for how to do it."
Harper and Emma Freer, AELP's senior policy analyst for healthcare, co-authored the new report, "Break Up Big Medicine," with contributions from a trio of other experts. One of them is Dr. Will Flanary, an independent ophthalmologist in Portland, Oregon.
"The US healthcare system, once made up of mostly independent practices like mine, is now dominated by Big Medicine behemoths—including private insurance conglomerates, Big Pharma manufacturers, pharmaceutical middlemen, megahospitals, and private equity-backed practices—whose only fiduciary duty is to executives and investors," he wrote in the foreword. "This makes it increasingly difficult to keep my practice afloat and uphold my oath, resulting in moral injury."
"So, I now have a second career as an advocate," who goes by "Dr. Glaucomflecken" on social media. "What my patients need most is bold policy reforms to break up Big Medicine and build a better healthcare system, one where they can access affordable, high-quality care and independent physicians like me can thrive."
The report notes that "between 2005 and 2025, the annual cost of employer-sponsored family coverage nearly tripled, from $12,214 to $35,119," US patients pay nearly three times as much for prescription drug prices as people in other countries, and "the United States spends more than $15,000 per person on healthcare each year—roughly one-fifth of our entire economy, and more than twice what peer nations spend, in return for worse patient outcomes on a variety of metrics."
Costs continue to rise, with The Wall Street Journal reporting last week that, according to benefits consulting giant Aon, US workers with employer-sponsored insurance are expected to spend an average of $5,297 on healthcare this year, or $388 more than last year. Another consultant, WTW, found that US employers expect their healthcare costs will rise 11.1% next year.
Meanwhile, six "corporate behemoths" in the sector—Cardinal Health, Cencora, Cigna, CVS Health, McKesson, and UnitedHealth Group—"now rank among the Fortune 15, making nearly $34 billion in annual profit," collectively, as AELP detailed Thursday. "Big Medicine now employs more than four in five US doctors," and practices must spend time completing, "on average, 40 prior authorizations per physician per week, time that would be better spent on patient care."
"Our current healthcare crisis is the result of several decades of federal policymaking by both political parties based on the flawed premise that empowering private insurers to ration access to healthcare, rather than addressing the underlying root causes of high prices, would effectively contain costs," the AELP report says.
The publication lays out a four-part "treatment plan" to save Americans $795 billion annually, or more than $6,000 per household: break up Big Medicine, bring down healthcare prices, build capacity, and bolster enforcement of existing laws.
The first section highlights how some solutions already exist in Congress, pointing to various bills, including Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Josh Hawley's (R-Mo.) Break Up Big Medicine Act, their Patients Before Monopolies Act with Reps. Diana Harshbarger (R-Tenn.) and Jake Auchincloss (D-Mass.), Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and Rep. Val Hoyle's (D-Ore.) Patients Over Profits Act, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon's (D-Pa.) Take Back Our Hospitals Act, and the Corporate Crimes Against Health Care Act, introduced by Rep. Maggie Goodlander (D-NH) and Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Peter Welch (D-Vt.), Merkley, and Warren.
The second section calls for standardizing and capping "healthcare prices across public and private payers using traditional Medicare reimbursement rates for inpatient and outpatient services and negotiated drug prices as benchmarks." It urges a ban on prior authorization, an end to patient cost-sharing obligations, investments "in public options that eliminate Big Medicine administrative waste," and passage of Rep. Rashida Tlaib's (D-Mich.) Medicines for the People Act.
The third section calls for investments in the US prescription drug manufacturing base as well as in providers, "especially safety-net hospitals in rural and low-income metro areas, independent medical and dental practices, community pharmacies, and primary care physicians."
The final section calls on Congress to "close loopholes that allow anti-competitive business practices, which Big Medicine uses to drive up prescription drug costs," specifically promoting the repeal of the 1987 safe harbor for pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) and other pharmaceutical middlemen, and the prohibition of "price discrimination, spread pricing, self-preferencing, network discrimination, and sole-source or exclusive contracting terms across all payers." It further advocates for an increase in funding for antitrust enforcers at the Federal Trade Commission and the US Department of Justice.
"For decades, healthcare reform has focused on expanding private coverage and putting more money into a broken system while allowing corporate giants to consolidate power and drive up costs," said Freer. "Working families have paid more only to receive lower-quality care.
"Americans need a new policy paradigm that actually takes on the root causes of the crisis: consolidation, corporate control, and lack of competition," she argued. "This agenda is about moving beyond the status quo to build a healthcare system where patients come first, clinicians can thrive, and every American can afford the care they need."
The report comes amid renewed scrutiny of the president's "most favored nation" deals with Big Pharma, with Peter Maybarduk, access to medicines director for the watchdog Public Citizen, saying last week that "Trump has three kinds of drug pricing policy: fake, exaggerated, and not-real-yet, probably-won't-happen."
After pointing out on social media Wednesday that Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in April agreed to publicize the deals for medicines listed on the direct-to-consumer website TrumpRx, and "months later, still crickets," Warren wondered, "Why should Americans believe this isn't just another Trump handout to fatten Big Pharma's pockets?"
Additionally, as Americans have started contending with the Medicaid cuts in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act passed by Republicans in Congress and signed by Trump last year, as well as the GOP's refusal to extend Affordable Care Act subsidies, which has caused premiums to skyrocket, there have also been renewed calls for shifting the United States to a universal healthcare system.
A study published earlier this month by researchers at Yale University suggests the Medicare for All Act that's been repeatedly introduced by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) would save more than $1 trillion and over 114,000 lives annually.
"At a time when 15 million Americans are being thrown off the healthcare they have and 20 million Americans have already seen their premiums double, on average, as a result of Trump’s so-called ‘Big Beautiful Bill,’ we need Medicare for All now more than ever," Sanders said in response to the study. "The time is now to end the greed of the big insurance and drug companies and pass Medicare for All."
David Dayen, executive editor of The American Prospect and the author of books including Monopolized: Life in the Age of Corporate Power, noted in his Thursday coverage of AELP's report that "while it's complementary to a Medicare for All approach, single-payer insurance is not mentioned."
"In tandem with moving toward a Medicare for All system, we have to address consolidation that is the cause of healthcare being so expensive, with degraded quality, and the squeezing of healthcare professionals," Freer told Dayen. "Otherwise we end up with something like Medicare Advantage for All, which would be disastrous."
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US Diplomat Who Resigned Over Gaza Condemns Biden Officials Who Defended Genocide—And Now Claim to Regret It
"They actually had the power to stop unconditional arms assistance to Israel," said Hala Rharrit. "They enabled it 100%."
Aug 28, 2026
Recent expressions of regret by top Biden administration officials who vehemently defended the United States' billions of dollars in military aid to Israel as it was bombarding Gaza have not gone far with former diplomat Hala Rharrit, who was retaliated against for speaking out about the US policy before she ultimately resigned, and who condemned her former colleagues recent "PR game" this week.
In an interview with Middle East Eye, Rharrit said the former officials who have mused that they would now support withholding weapons from Israel, or that they should have backed such a move while serving under President Joe Biden, are "just so despicable."
"They're so disgusting," Rharrit said. "Those individuals, particularly [National Security Adviser] Jake Sullivan and a handful of others, actually had the power to save human lives. They actually had the power to stop unconditional arms assistance to Israel, right? The Israelis were not killing the Palestinians by themselves. The Israelis were killing the Palestinians with American bombs, with American jets, with American everything. We enabled it 100%. They enabled it 100%."
"They’re so disgusting."
Former US diplomat Hala Rharrit, who resigned in 2024 over Gaza, responds to the Biden officials who’ve recently claimed they should have done more on Gaza.
Watch early by joining MEE's YouTube membership ➡ https://t.co/kSRg1sVXCo pic.twitter.com/szijxYjczk
— Middle East Eye (@MiddleEastEye) August 27, 2026
Rharrit, who resigned as the Arabic language spokesperson for the US State Department in April 2024, six months into Israel's US-backed assault—which has been called a genocide by leading human rights organizations and Holocaust experts—spoke to MEE months after former Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the US should have called for a ceasefire earlier than it did, "such that the suffering the people endured, the loss of the children, so many others, could have been averted.”
Sullivan last year said—weeks before a ceasefire was finally agreed to—that he'd had a change of heart regarding providing Israel with weapons, and that he would no longer support the policy.
In November, Sullivan added in an interview with The Dartmouth that "it’s fair to say that there were a lot of objections from a lot of parts of the international community about the US continuing to support Israel over the course of last year—2024—and over the course of this year in 2025. I think a lot about what we could have done differently."
Rharrit told MEE that "it's despicable that now they're trying to make themselves look like, 'Oh we should have done better and we're so sorry.'"
The former diplomat emphasized that the apology tour has taken place as it's become increasingly clear that "America has changed" in terms of its views on Israel, Palestine, and the United States' decadeslong, unconditional support for the Israeli military—despite US statutes like the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 and Leahy Laws, which bar the government from providing military aid to countries that block humanitarian assistance and that are accused of human rights abuses.
A poll released this week showed that large majorities of Democratic voters in the first six states that will vote in the 2028 presidential primaries support cutting off weapons aid to Israel, and another survey by Hart Research Associates and Public Opinion Strategies in March found that just 32% of Americans viewed Israel positively, compared with 47% in 2023.
"America is forever changed," said Rharrit. "Americans no longer support these forever wars, they no longer support unconditional arms assistance to Israel. They no longer agree with US policy in the Middle East. And so now... they're doing a PR game. This is just pure PR."
Rharrit and other officials who resigned over the US policy on Israel and Gaza "were vindicated," she said. "Of course we were right the whole time, because it's international law. It's US law. I abided by my oath to the Constitution... That is exactly what I did. That is exactly why I resigned."
Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, said Rharrit is one of "a rare breed" of diplomats.
"During this genocide I've met courageous diplomats and officials who denounced it at real personal cost," said Albanese, whom the Trump administration targeted with sanctions earlier this year. "Imagine foreign policy built by more of them. Because the problem is never one unfit minister/head of state: It's whole spineless cohorts around them."
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After Supreme Court Ruling, 4th Circuit Tosses Verdict Against US Company for Abu Ghraib Torture
"History will show that it was the Supreme Court that denied us justice," said Salah Al-Ejaili, one of the Iraqi plaintiffs.
Aug 28, 2026
The US Supreme Court recently delivered a "lethal blow" to lawsuits filed under an 18th-century law, including a case brought by Iraqis tortured at Abu Ghraib as part of the George W. Bush administration's invasion of Iraq, whose landmark verdict was struck down on Friday by a federal appellate court.
The Iraqis' case against US military contractor CACI Premier Technology was first filed in 2008, and eventually led to a trial and retrial in 2024. That November, a federal jury found the company liable for torture at the notorious prison in Iraq, and ordered it to pay the three prisoners a total of $42 million.
After unsuccessfully seeking another trial at the US District Court for the District of Virginia, CACI turned to the US Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, which this past March upheld the historic verdict in favor of the three tortured men: middle school principal Suhail Al Shimari, fruit vendor Asa'ad Zuba'e, and journalist Salah Al-Ejaili.
Then came the Supreme Court's June decision in Cisco Systems v. Doe, which effectively reversed the high court's 2004 ruling on the Alien Tort Statute (ATS), nullifying "a vital law that could check corporate abuses and provide an essential remedy to those whose rights have been violated," as University of California, Berkeley law professor Erwin Chemerinsky wrote earlier this week.
As legal experts feared, the 4th Circuit reconsidered the CACI verdict in the wake of the June decision, and determined that "just as the court concluded that the Cisco plaintiffs' ATS claims—including aiding and abetting torture—must be dismissed, so too must we dismiss plaintiffs' claims here—conspiracy to commit torture" and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment.
Baher Azmy, legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, which represented the Iraqis alongside other law firms, responded with a Friday statement calling out both the Supreme Court and CACI.
"As radical and regressive as the Supreme Court's decision in Cisco is," Azmy said, "it will never change this fundamental truth: A jury heard voluminous testimony and unanimously concluded CACI was responsible for the torture and abuse of dozens of Iraqis at Abu Ghraib, including these plaintiffs, rendering CACI, in the words of a foundational ATS-human rights case, 'hostis humani generis'—an 'enemy of all mankind.'"
"We remain in awe of the bravery and dedication of our clients, who fought for 18 years for justice for themselves, their families, and other survivors of horrific human rights abuses," Azmy added. "This Supreme Court may continue to do great damage to human rights cases, but it cannot take the courage and dignity away from our clients' historic achievement."
One of the plaintiffs in the case, Al-Ejaili, also took aim at the country's highest court, which is dominated by right-wing justices.
"What we did in pursuing accountability for 18 years for the torture we suffered at Abu Ghraib was a big thing. We trusted a US jury with our stories, and they believed us and sided with us—this is the most important part of the case," he said Friday. "History will show that it was the Supreme Court that denied us justice."
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Iran War Trump Said Would Be Quick Has Now Lasted 6 Months With 'No End In Sight'
Trump has "lost the Iran War in every way possible in less than six months," said one critic.
Aug 28, 2026
The illegal war with Iran that President Donald Trump said would be over in a matter of weeks entered its sixth month on Friday, and there is little sign of it wrapping up in the near future.
A Friday report in The Washington Post marking the six-month anniversary of the illegal war noted that Trump's ability to decisively win the conflict declined markedly "after Iranian leaders discovered that they could withstand intense bombardment and slowly degrade the world’s most powerful military with a cheap combination of mines and drones."
The biggest weapon in Iran's arsenal has been its ability to shut down the Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping lane for petroleum. Since the strait's closure, oil and gas prices have soared, costing US consumers an estimated $71.5 billion more to fill up their cars than they otherwise would have paid.
Trump this week has tried to claim that the strait has actually been reopened, but the Post found that the president's proclamations do not match reality.
"More than 100 ships traversed the Strait of Hormuz on average every day before the war," the Post wrote. "Just five went through on one day this week, according to Kpler, a commodities and shipping tracker."
A Friday report in The Associated Press focused on the White House's announcements this week of new measures to put economic pressure on Iran, which are a sign that the administration no longer thinks it can use military force to force Tehran's hand.
"The turn to using sanctions as the cudgel of choice," wrote the AP, "comes as the administration weighs diminished munitions stockpiles after months of war, sparking concerns that the prolonged conflict could undermine US military readiness in other parts of the globe."
The AP also flagged a shift in rhetoric from Trump, who once promised the war would end quickly but now says he's "not in a hurry" to end the campaign.
Harrison Mann, a former US Defense Intelligence Agency officer, wrote in an analysis published by Zeteo on Thursday that Trump has "lost the Iran War in every way possible in less than six months," which he said would mark "the arrogant, violent end of American dominance in the Middle East."
In fact, Mann argued that Trump lost the Iran War three different ways: The first in his failed attempt to force regime change in Tehran, the second in an aborted campaign to incite an Iranian Kurdish uprising, and finally in his desperate efforts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
All of these failures have combined to put Iran in a decisively stronger position than it was in before the war began, Mann wrote.
"After another four months of Trump threats, half-hearted bombing runs, and not one but two US blockades of Iran, Tehran’s military exercises formal authority over at least a third of the ships transiting the strait," he wrote. "Plus, it now regularly shoots at 'unauthorized' ships with impunity."
US Rep. Don Breyer (D-Va.) summed up the failure of Trump's war in a Friday social media post.
"When Trump began his illegal, unpopular war with Iran, he said it would last a week," Breyer wrote. "SIX MONTHS later: The administration has lied about our casualties and the deaths of civilians, the stated objectives haven't been met, Iran has a new economic weapon in the Strait of Hormuz, the region is less stable, our prices are higher, our allies are angry, our adversaries are emboldened, and there's no end in sight."
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'Yet Another Trump Grift': Congress Called to Stop US Takeover of Venezuelan Oil Fields
"Handing over Venezuela's oil wealth to the US contravenes the Constitution and is not in the interest of the Venezuelan people—much more when it is done at gunpoint," said one analyst.
Aug 28, 2026
Trump administration officials are claiming that talks between US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the Venezuelan government regarding control of the country's oil fields will ultimately secure "America's energy future for generations to come"—but analysts on Friday called on lawmakers to halt President Donald Trump's "colonial" push to take over the reserves.
As Axios reported, officials including Rubio and Deputy White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller have been involved in talks with Venezuelan acting President Delcy Rodriguez about taking an ownership stake in more than a dozen oil fields in the Orinoco Belt and Lake Maracaibo regions, which have about 90 billion barrels of oil reserves. In all, Venezuela's vast reserves—the world's largest—contain about 300 billion barrels.
The deal would double US oil reserves at a time when Americans have seen gas prices skyrocket and oil firms reap profits as a result of Trump's war on Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz—events to which countries that have expanded renewable energy sources have proven far more resilient, according to data from JP Morgan Commodities research.
Despite that resilience, the Trump administration has reportedly approached the talks as a way to lock the US into generations of continued reliance on planet-heating oil extraction. According to Bloomberg, one deal under consideration is a 100-year lease on the oil fields.
Axios reported that in return for giving the US an ownership stake—something Trump began privately discussing before US forces invaded Venezuela and abducted President Nicolás Maduro in January—Venezuela "would benefit from private companies, including American firms, developing the fields and returning more oil revenue" to the South American country.
Tyler Slocum, director of Public Citizen's energy program, said that if the deal is finalized, "Trump will likely transfer operational control to US oil companies," which donated heavily to his campaign.
The proposed deal would open "the door to Trump’s typical bilateral transactional corruption" and bestow "lucrative opportunities for the oil companies he chooses to reward," said Slocum.
“In the nearly eight months since Trump’s illegal January 2026 Venezuelan invasion, the Trump administration has managed a $13 billion slush fund gleaned from its control over Venezuelan oil sales, with zero transparency, and little to no public oversight or accounting," Slocum continued. "The president has no authority to negotiate a deal where the federal government takes control over foreign oil production facilities, and Congress must intervene and put an end to Trump’s oil-fueled imperialism."
One opposition leader in Venezuela, where Energy Secretary Chris Wright is expected to travel next week to discuss increasing oil production by US companies, said the deals currently being discussed amount to "a land grab—a massive land grab."
Francisco Rodríguez, a senior research fellow at the Center for Economic and Policy Research and author of The Collapse of Venezuela, said the country's National Assembly "should deny authorization for this predatory deal."
Following Trump's invasion of Venezuela in January, energy historian and Eurasia Group analyst Gregory Brew told The Guardian, "US dominance over Venezuelan oil reserves allows the US to regard Venezuelan reserves as its own reserves: a source of oil from which the United States can draw and that nobody else has access to."
"I think that’s how the administration is conceiving of this—excluding China, excluding Russia, but I think also excluding other potential customers for Venezuelan oil,” Brew said. “It sounds colonial, because it is.”
The president's "effort to establish a South American kleptocracy is an outrage," said Slocum. "There’s been no improvement in human rights in Venezuela, so Trump’s move is further evidence that his illegal actions in Venezuela are all about controlling oil with no public accounting, transparency, or oversight. This is yet another Trump gift for Big Oil.”
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Destruction of East India Company Gives US Lawmakers a Blueprint for Confronting Big Tech: Historian
The instruments to take apart entrenched corporate power "still exist," but current governments are "lacking... the political nerve to use them," said historian William Dalrymple.
Aug 28, 2026
A historian who has written four books about the British East India Company is warning that big technology companies in the US are amassing similar levels of unchecked power and will need to be reined in.
In a New York Times op-ed published on Friday, William Dalrymple described how the British government eventually realized that it had allowed the East India Company—key to the British Empire's rise in the 18th and 19th centuries—to become too powerful and decided to finally clamp down.
The situation faced by the British Parliament in the 19th Century was strikingly similar to the situation faced by US lawmakers today, Dalrymple explained, as the East India Company had spent decades spending money to capture influence within the government.
"Around one in 20 members of Parliament sat on the East India Company’s board," the historian wrote, "and more than a fifth of the company’s directors sat in Parliament at some point; about 40% of members of Parliament were shareholders."
In the contemporary context, the executives of the nation's largest tech firms are spending lavishly to curry favor with lawmakers and government officials of both major parties
Writing in The Nation last month, investigative journalist David Moore detailed the massive political spending of major tech firms in the 2026 midterms, noting that "Super PACs working on behalf of crypto, AI, and AIPAC donors are the highest-spending groups on independent expenditures to influence voters this cycle—combining to spend more than $180 million so far, according to a review of Federal Election Commission records."
In addition to political clout, the East India Company in its day also had the power to raise its own army, which at its peak topped 200,000 soldiers, twice the size of England's own armed services.
Dalrymple pointed out that this is one power that today's Big Tech firms do not have, although he argued that they have been increasingly integrating themselves into the US military-industrial complex.
"In June 2025 the US Army commissioned the chief technology officers of Palantir and Meta and OpenAI’s chief product officer as lieutenant colonels in a new Reserve unit," he noted. "The new dispensation puts tech executives straight into a position of federal power, which in one way puts them ahead of their 18th-century counterparts."
The government finally dropped the hammer on the East India Company, Dalrymple said, after the bloody Indian Rebellion of 1857, as they feared the firm's "greed and self-interest" would cause the British Empire to lose what it considered its most valuable colony.
"The company’s navy was disbanded and its army passed to the Crown," wrote Dalrymple. "In 1858 the governor general of India announced that the company’s Indian possessions would be nationalized and pass into the control of the British Crown."
Less than two decades later, what was once the most powerful private corporation in world history shut down after the expiration of its charter.
What this shows, concluded Dalrymple, is that "states can master corporations," even if those corporations have their own private armies.
However, he said that while the instruments to take apart entrenched corporate power "still exist," it appears our current governments are "lacking... the political nerve to use them."
Dalrymple's op-ed was echoed thematically by a Friday op-ed written by SFGATE travel editor Silas Valentino, who argued that the city of San Francisco has not gotten any benefit from the current artificial intelligence boom, despite being the home of OpenAI and Anthropic, the world's two biggest AI firms.
In particular, Valentino argued that the AI firms have done nothing to give back to the city and alleviate its affordable housing crisis. In fact, Valentino found that the AI firms' initiatives in the city appear to be mostly self-serving.
"OpenAI says it has invested in our community, but so far, that’s meant less than a million dollars in 'SF civic contributions,'" Valentino wrote. "And worst of all, some of that is for things like AI training programs... That’s not improving the city; it’s OpenAI trying to make more money."
Valentino also noted that Anthropic last year teamed with the Tipping Point Community nonprofit group, which was founded by current San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie, to provide free training on the company's Claude chatbot.
"In the years since language models like ChatGPT and Claude proliferated to usher in the AI boom," the travel editor wrote, "I’m only counting negatives for nearly everyone trying to figure out a way to live here."
Valentino concluded by warning that if Lurie and his administration "don’t demand these companies start giving back and enhance our city for the better, they’ll continue ruining our city without pause."
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'America Is For Sale': Trump Reportedly Trying to Hand Private Developer Part of Yosemite
"Government of the people, by the people, but for friends and donors of the president above everyone else."
Aug 28, 2026
Even while repeatedly serving the interests of destructive industries, President Donald Trump and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum have claimed they are committed to protecting US national parks—but the Republican administration is now working to give a private developer a piece of Yosemite, NOTUS reported on Friday.
Specifically, according to unnamed sources and government documents, federal staffers are working on a potential land exchange to give a quarter-mile strip of land in California's Yosemite National Park "to a company that, through a web of limited liability companies, is operated by real-estate developer and investment firm Kingsbarn Realty Capital."
The developers own 83 acres west of the park, and Kingsbarn CEO Jeff Pori—whose company did not respond to a request for comment—aims "to build a short road connecting the property to one of Yosemite's central thoroughfares," providing "the land exceptionally rare private access to a park that is otherwise almost entirely buffered by national forests," NOTUS detailed.
The sources told NOTUS that political leaders at the US Department of the Interior "want us to be responsive to the property owner and their lobbyists or people, and they want us to work with these folks," and that "the political pressure being brought to bear is very unusual."
The National Park Service, which is part of the department, said that "no final decisions have been made," but any proposals "would be subject to all applicable federal laws, regulations, and departmental policies, including required environmental review and public notification processes."
The revelation—which came during National Park Week—was met with outrage.
Ripping the possible "secretive, backroom deal," as "an attack on the American people that own this national park," Mark Rose, the National Parks Conservation Association's Sierra Nevada program manager, told NOTUS that "it would also be unlawful, and a court previously rejected a road development proposal."
We are opposed to private developers building driveways and special access into our parks. The ultra wealthy can wait in line and go through the gate just like everyone else. www.notus.org/agencies/tru...
[image or embed]
— AltYellostoneNatPar (@altyellonatpark.org) August 28, 2026 at 9:00 AM
Sierra Club executive director Loren Blackford said in a statement that "Yosemite is not Donald Trump's to give away. This secretive deal betrays the purpose of our national parks and the promise our government has kept since Abraham Lincoln to protect Yosemite for the public and for generations to come."
"For more than 150 years, each generation has carried forward the responsibility to protect this sacred landscape and pass it on intact," Blackford continued. "The Trump administration is betraying that legacy by trying to hand parts of Yosemite to a private developer. We will use every tool at our disposal to stop this corrupt giveaway."
While the looming land swap could move forward without any sign-off from Congress, House Natural Resources Committee Ranking Member Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) was among those who spoke out on social media Friday.
"Our parks belong to all of us," the congressman emphasized. "These places should be protected for every generation, not sold off to Trump's ultrawealthy friends to profit off of. I will fight this, both for Yosemite and for every treasured park that would be up for grabs if this domino falls."
Columnist and self-described "recovering attorney" Wajahat Ali declared, "America is for sale," and American Immigration Council senior fellow Aaron Reichlin-Melnick said, "Government of the people, by the people, but for friends and donors of the president above everyone else."
While other critics condemned the reported efforts as "disgusting," "sickening," and "shocking," journalist Chris D'Angelo commented, "I would say this is shocking, but things have been headed in this direction since Trump reentered office."
After Trump won a second term in 2024—having secured campaign funds from Big Oil, and run on a promise to "drill, baby, drill"— one of his early actions post-inauguration was declaring a "national energy emergency" intended to boost the climate-wrecking fossil fuel industry.
Since then, while cashing in on his second presidency—including via stock transactions made this year as fuel prices soared due to his illegal war with Iran—Trump has continued to push policies that help polluters and other rich allies. For example, last week the administration delivered a "one-two punch" to national forests, taking aim at a pair of rules intended to protect such lands.
The Center for Biological Diversity warned this week that the Trump administration's proposed repeal of the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule would "open pristine public lands to road construction, commercial logging, and industrial development," and, according to the group's analysis, put 400 species on an "extinction fast track."
"More roads mean more sediment in streams, more fragmentation of wildlife habitat, more human access to places wildlife depend on for refuge, and more wildfires in forests already facing unprecedented climate change-fueled risk," the center stressed. "The roadless rule has held that line for a generation. Without it the losses to wildlife, water, and the wild places that define the American landscape will be irreversible."
This article has been updated with comment from the Sierra Club.
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'Sadism': Trump DHS Boasts of Deportation Flight to Haiti in 'Propaganda' Video
"These are our neighbors and coworkers who were legally living and working here," said one advocate. "Stripping away their protections and then threatening them with deportation is cruel beyond words."
Aug 28, 2026
By releasing a video of Black men wearing handcuffs and prison uniforms being hauled onto a deportation flight, the US Department of Homeland Security appeared to be fulfilling a key objective of President Donald Trump's decision to terminate Temporary Protected Status for Haitian migrants, said one immigration policy expert on Thursday.
President Donald Trump "hates Haitians," said American Immigration Council senior fellow Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, "and the White House wanted videos of Black people in chains, so they stripped them all of status."
Reichlin-Melnick said the video, which also features a Haitian song and the text "Temporary Meant Temporary. Leave Now" on screen, was "propaganda for an audience of people that thrills to the sight of Black men being led in chains" and whom Trump's mass deportation agenda and racist attacks on Haitians, Somalis, and other refugee populations are aimed at satisfying.
The video was released a week after US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) sent a charter flight with 161 Haitians on board to Haiti, where gang violence, kidnappings, and humanitarian crises that have continued more than a decade after the 2010 earthquake have pushed the US State Department to maintain its highest "Do Not Travel" warning for Americans.
The administration said that flight would be the first of many, following the US Supreme Court ruling in June that allowed DHS to revoke Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for 350,000 Haitians and 6,000 Syrians.
The National Office of Migration in Haiti said last week that the Haitians aboard the ICE flight had not benefited from TPS, but were people who were facing removal proceedings due to criminal convictions or who had entered the US without authorization.
In the video—as in the Trump administration's persistent rhetoric about its mass deportation operation, which it claims is targeting "the worst of the worst" violent criminals—DHS suggested the Haitians who have been granted TPS for years pose a danger to the US public, despite the fact that criminal convictions make people ineligible for the protected status.
"TPS holders had been living and working legally and paying taxes," said Drop Site News—taxes, Reichlin-Melnick stressed, that do not permit them to benefit from federal assistance programs including the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, and Medicaid.
David Bier, the director of immigration studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, said the "sadism" depicted in the DHS video was "unrelenting."
The video was released as Archbishop Thomas Wenski of Miami called on the Trump administration to "rethink" its decision to end TPS for Haitians following an August 23 gang attack outside the country's capital of Port-au-Prince, in which at least 47 people were killed and at least 50 were kidnapped.
"The country is not safe, that Haiti is still a house on fire," Wenski told OSV News. "This should cause our administration to rethink its decision to send back into Haiti over 300,000 Haitians."
A bill introduced in the Senate by Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) would extend TPS for Haitians through early 2029, and "would pass very easily" if Trump "would voice his support," said Wenski.
Cory Archibald of the anti-Zionist group Track AIPAC called for prosecutions of top White House officials including Trump, Homeland Security Adviser Stephen Miller, and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, "all the way on down to the masked chuds joyriding in this video and loading these men onto planes."
"All of them are guilty," she said, "and all of them should be prosecuted."
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