November, 03 2021, 12:01pm EDT
Stand Up America's Sean Eldridge Arrested Alongside King Family, Civil Rights Leaders While Calling on Biden, Senate to End Filibuster & Protect Freedom to Vote
Eldridge: "It is an honor to stand in solidarity with the King family and all the civil rights leaders who put their bodies on the line today to demand action to protect the precious right to vote."
WASHINGTON
Today, civil rights leaders and activists joined family members of Martin Luther King Jr. in front of the White House to call on President Biden to publicly demand that the Senate end the Jim Crow filibuster and pass federal voting rights legislation, including the Freedom to Vote Act and the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, the latter of which will be considered by the Senate today.
Stand Up America Founder & President Sean Eldridge commented on today's action outside the White House, where he was arrested alongside the King family and other leaders who participated in civil disobedience to force President Biden to hear their calls for his leadership on voting rights:
"It is an honor to stand in solidarity with the King family and all of the civil rights leaders who put their bodies on the line today to demand action to protect the precious right to vote.
"President Biden has said that we're facing the 'most significant test of our democracy since the Civil War'--it's time to act like it. We don't need more handwringing, more delays, or more excuses. We need action on voting rights now. It's time for President Biden to loudly call on the Senate to end the Jim Crow filibuster and protect the freedom to vote.
"Today, the Senate will consider the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, urgently needed legislation that would prevent future voting discrimination and ensure every eligible voter can make their voice heard. But, in spite of this bill's broad bipartisan support among Americans, Senate Republicans are expected to filibuster voting rights for the third time and prevent the Senate from even debating this bill. We have had moments of bipartisanship on voting rights in our nation's history, but sadly, this is not one of them. The only way to protect the freedom to vote is to end the filibuster.
"The King family and civil rights leaders from across the country came to the White House today because President Biden has the largest soapbox on the planet, and we're asking him to use it to protect voting rights before it's too late."
Stand Up America is a progressive advocacy organization with over two million community members across the country. Focused on grassroots advocacy to strengthen our democracy and oppose Trump's corrupt agenda, Stand Up America has driven over 600,000 phone calls to Congress and mobilized tens of thousands of protestors across the country.
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TMZ Confronts Hegseth Over Whether He's on a 'Power Trip' When Ordering 'Extreme Level of Violence'
"I’ve never seen the corporate media hacks even dream of having the courage to ask something like this," said one journalist.
Apr 24, 2026
At the latest press briefing at the Pentagon on Friday, in addition to issuing his latest threat to journalists who publish classified information obtained from sources, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth peppered his comments with the violent rhetoric that's become commonplace in his public remarks.
The US military will "shoot and kill" if Iranian boats are found trying to disrupt passage through the Strait of Hormuz, which remains closed following the extension of a ceasefire this week, said Hegseth.
He added, "We will shoot to destroy, no hesitation, just like the drug boats in the Caribbean"—a reference to strikes that have killed at least 180 people the US has accused of trafficking drugs, in an operation that has been widely condemned as one of extrajudicial killings or murder.
"The War Department stands ready for what comes next, locked and loaded," said the secretary, who has also denigrated what he refers to as "stupid" rules of engagement meant to protect civilians. "We'll use up to and including lethal force if necessary."
Amid Hegseth's escalating efforts to control the media's coverage of his department, including the Pentagon's firing on Thursday of the ombudsman of the military newspaper Stars and Stripes and his demand that journalists agree to a policy prohibiting coverage that the department has not approved, an outlet that's new to Capitol Hill made its way into the press briefing room Friday—and asked the top military official a question that hadn't previously come up about the deadly attacks he's ordered in recent months.
“I’ve heard you talk a lot about bombing people and places," said Jacob Wasserman of the celebrity news outlet TMZ, which has recently expanded its political coverage by opening an office in the nation's capital. "And when you give these orders to carry out this extreme level of violence, what’s going through your mind and your body? Do you have, like, an adrenaline rush? Are you scared? Do you feel like you’re on a power trip?"
WATCH: @TMZ’s first question at a Pentagon briefing...@jacob_wass: “I’ve heard you talk a lot about bombing people in places. And when you give these orders to carry out this extreme level of violence, what’s going through your mind and your body? Do you have, like, an… pic.twitter.com/94IHsMHP1D
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) April 24, 2026
Hegseth appeared perplexed before smirking and dismissing the query as "a very TMZ question." He quickly denied that a "power trip" plays into his decisions to strike targets in places including Iran, where at least 3,375 people have been killed in US-Israeli strikes, including at least 200 children; the Caribbean Ocean and Pacific Ocean, where the boat bombing campaign is continuing; and Ecuador, where US troops launched a joint campaign with the nation's military last month, targeting suspected drug traffickers on land.
He said his "only thought process is to ensure that our war fighters have everything they need to be successful, defeat and destroy the enemy," before adding some more of the violent rhetoric Wasserman had alluded to about bringing "maximum violence to the enemy."
Some scoffed at Wasserman's question, but others, including Drop Site News journalist Julian Andreone, applauded the reporter for publicly suggesting and confronting Hegseth about the possibility that he enjoys ordering US troops to kill people in foreign countries, including many civilians, in operations that legal experts say violate international law.
"I’ve never seen the corporate media hacks even dream of having the courage to ask something like this, yet they continue to shove the fancy name of their organization in everybody’s faces while looking down their noses at TMZ," said Andreone.
Wasserman's colleague, Charlie Cotton, followed up with a question about whether Hegseth, who has claimed the Department of Defense has been renamed the Department of War—although congressional approval would be needed for such a change—would consider again rechristening the agency as the Department of Peace, "since that's what we're all after."
The question prompted Hegseth, moments after demanding "maximum violence," to remark that "the one institution that should win the Nobel Peace Prize every single year is the United States military, because we are the guarantor of the safety and security, not just of our country, but of a lot of people in this world."
TMZ's first appearance in the briefing room and its arrival in Washington, DC come at a time when the corporate media's coverage of the Iran war and other military operations has been compared to the drumbeating tone in the national press ahead of the George W. Bush administration's invasion of Iraq in 2003, and as some have called for more adversarial coverage of the White House and the political establishment.
The outlet, which is more accustomed to publishing celebrity gossip, spent recent weeks publishing photos of federal lawmakers vacationing during the partial government shutdown, with TMZ founder Harvey Levin interviewing one Transportation Security Administration worker who had been reporting to work for weeks without pay on the company's weekday show, "TMZ Live."
Levin urged viewers to who saw members of Congress on vacation during the shutdown to "take a picture and send it to us at TMZ. We will post that picture on our website, on our social media, and we will put it on our television shows. We want to show what they are doing at your expense.”
Levin told The Hollywood Reporter earlier this month that TMZ's presence in Washington will “sometimes be fun, sometimes intensely serious."
The headline the outlet chose for its brief write-up of Wasserman's question to Hegseth on Friday was, "TMZ DC to Pete Hegseth: Do You Get Off on Dropping Bombs???"
Journalist Krystal Ball of the online news show "Breaking Points" said that if Wasserman's question to Hegseth was a "'TMZ question,' I’m excited to see more of what TMZ will bring to the table."
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Maine Gov. Mills Ripped for Veto of Landmark AI Data Center Moratorium
One critic said Mills “demonstrated a shocking disconnect with the people of Maine, their elected legislators, and a large and growing national movement against the reckless explosion of this highly problematic industry.”
Apr 24, 2026
Maine's Democratic Gov. Janet Mills is facing criticism from lawmakers and environmental groups after vetoing a bill that would have enacted the nation's first statewide moratorium on artificial intelligence data centers.
The bill, LD 307, which passed both chambers of Maine's Legislature with bipartisan support earlier this month, would have stopped state and local governments from issuing permits for data centers with electric loads of 20 megawatts or more until November 2027, giving the state time to study their effects.
Mills opted to veto the bill after lawmakers voted down an amendment that would have carved out an exception for a proposed data center project in the town of Jay.
“A moratorium is appropriate given the impacts of massive data centers in other states on the environment and on electricity rates," Mills wrote to the Legislature on Friday. "But the final version of this bill fails to allow for a specific project in the Town of Jay that enjoys strong local support from its host community and region."
While there has not been much organized opposition to the Jay project, proposals in other towns, like Lewiston and Wiscasset, have been met with furious resistance from locals who fear sharp rises in utility costs.
The moratorium's sponsor, Rep. Melanie Sachs (D-48), said that by vetoing the bill, Mills was “resisting the will of a majority of Maine people."
“While a veto might protect the proposed data center project in Jay, it poses significant potential consequences for all ratepayers, our electric grid, our environment, and our shared energy future,” she told the Portland Press Herald. “This decision is simply wrong.”
Maureen Drouin, the executive director for Maine Conservation Voters, said that Mills had "sided with large-scale data center developers over safeguards for Maine people and the environment, leaving communities at risk to higher energy prices and more pollution."
"Across the country, the development of large-scale data centers has far outpaced the ability of policy and lawmakers to properly regulate them and establish sensible protections," she continued. "Maine had a chance to push pause and establish the right regulatory framework to protect its people, their wallets, and the environment from polluting, resource-hungry data centers."
Mitch Jones, the managing director of litigation for Food & Water Watch, which has backed proposals in several other states—including New York, Pennsylvania, California, and Michigan—agreed that Mills' veto "demonstrated a shocking disconnect with the people of Maine, their elected legislators, and a large and growing national movement against the reckless explosion of this highly problematic industry."
"Mainers and people across the country are becoming increasingly fed up with the skyrocketing electricity rates, false jobs promises, and harmful industrialization of small-town communities that hyperscale data centers bring wherever they land," he said.
Mills' veto comes as she is running for the Democratic nomination to challenge Republican US Sen. Susan Collins for her seat in November. The establishment-backed governor is facing increasingly long odds amid the insurgent progressive candidacy of the former Marine-turned-oyster farmer Graham Platner, who leads by wide margins in recent polls.
A leaked Zoom meeting last month showed that Mills was lambasted by voters over her decisions to veto other popular bills that would have strengthened gun control laws, protected tribal sovereignty, allowed farmworkers to unionize, and lowered prescription drug prices.
“It is no wonder that Janet Mills’s political career seems to be limping to a feeble conclusion," Jones said following her veto of the data center bill Friday. "The Maine Legislature must now do what Mills won’t: stand up for the best interests of Mainers and their communities, and override this foolish veto immediately.”
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As Trump Ravages Economy, US Consumer Sentiment Hits Record Low
A Democratic spokesperson said that "Americans are drowning under rising costs, flat wages, high unemployment, and historic layoffs—it's no wonder they're concerned about how they're going to make ends meet."
Apr 24, 2026
As President Donald Trump continues to push his economy-wrecking agenda of tariffs, mass deportations, and military aggression, US consumer sentiment hit an all-time low on Friday, according to the University of Michigan.
The final April figure from the university's Surveys of Consumers was 49.8—slightly higher than the preliminary 47.6 from earlier this month, and the 48 predicted by economists polled by Reuters, but still a record low, down from 53.3 in March.
"Decreases in sentiment were seen across political party, income, age, and education," noted Joanne Hsu, director of the Surveys of Consumers, in a statement. "Expected business conditions declined for both short and long time horizons, nearly matching year-ago readings when the reciprocal tariff regime was implemented."
"After the two-week ceasefire was announced and gas prices softened a touch, sentiment recovered a modest portion of its early-month losses," she continued. "The Iran conflict appears to influence consumer views primarily through shocks to gasoline and potentially other prices. In contrast, military and diplomatic developments that do not lift supply constraints or lower energy prices are unlikely to buoy consumers."
So, it's official: the UMich FINAL Consumer Sentiment reading for April holds at a record low, while stocks are at a record high.
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— Mike Zaccardi, CFA, CMT (@mikezaccardi.bsky.social) April 24, 2026 at 10:01 AM
As Common Dreams reported earlier Friday, as the national average price for a gallon of gasoline sits at $4.059, new Reuters/Ipsos polling shows that fuel costs "are a very big concern" for 78% of Americans, and 77% blame Trump for the recent spikes.
In a social media post about the new University of Michigan record, Groundwork Collaborative highlighted another poll: A Fox News survey found that 52% of US voters questioned April 17-20 believed Democrats would do a better job on the economy than Republicans.
The Fox News poll, released Wednesday, also found that 56% of Americans think Trump's policies are "hurting the economy," and majorities said gas, groceries, healthcare, and housing prices are a "major problem" for their family.
Democrats didn't waste time seizing on the new consumer sentiment finding. Kendall Witmer, rapid response director for the Democratic National Committee, declared that "Donald Trump has tanked the economy for working families."
"Everyday Americans were already struggling to afford rent, groceries, and prescription drugs, and then Trump decided to start a reckless war with Iran and push prices even higher—and for what?" Witmer continued, taking aim at both him and Vice President JD Vance, who has played a key role in negotiations with Iran.
"Americans are drowning under rising costs, flat wages, high unemployment, and historic layoffs—it's no wonder they're concerned about how they're going to make ends meet," Witmer added, "and Trump and JD Vance can't be bothered to make life more affordable for them."
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