

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
To donate by check, phone, or other method, see our More Ways to Give page.


Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.

Following Earth Day weekend rallies, where tens of thousands of Americans called on all levels of government to act on climate, care, green jobs, and justice, the Green New Deal Network will launch digital and mobile billboard ads demanding that President Biden and Congress invest in a just transition to clean and reliable energy to protect our planet and people from the climate crisis.
"There's no better time for Congress to deliver an investment to tackle climate change and create millions of good-paying union jobs across our care economy," said Mary Kay Henry, International President of SEIU. "Both could not be more urgent. Our population is aging rapidly, requiring more caregiving, and weather-related disasters are becoming more frequent and severe, upending communities, especially Black, brown and immigrant communities that also make up the caregiving workforce. By investing in care and climate, we can make our nation more resilient and lift entire communities out of poverty and harm's way."
Watch video testimonials of activists and community members across the country sharing why they rallied for Earth Day weekend 2022 here.
On Earth Day weekend, tens of thousands of Americans in 40 cities, including Washington, D.C., rallied to call for climate justice and green jobs. In D.C., over a thousand people rallied outside the White House to hold the Biden administration and Congress accountable for their promises to act on climate, care, jobs, and justice. Building on this momentum, the Green New Deal Network will place ads in D.C. specifically targeting the Senate and President Biden to deliver on their promises to protect communities from climate, economic, and racial injustices as they return from recess.
"Fighting for our future is more than just a slogan. It's about demanding that those who we elected actually show up to represent our best interests. It is vital that we invest in our planet and people so that we can ensure justice for our communities," said Angelica Zamora, AZ Green New Deal Network Political Manager. "There is a small window of opportunity to reverse the damage of the climate crisis and provide vital resources that families in Arizona, and across the country, need to thrive. We need public officials to not waste this moment, but join us in rallying for the security of our future."
"Congress must invest in climate, care, jobs, and justice. People are being evicted, living paycheck to paycheck, struggling to afford child or elderly care, and unable to find liveable wage jobs," said Robin Lockett, Regional Director at Florida Rising. "These issues will further be amplified by climate change for frontline communities. Our brothers, sisters, and neighbors can't wait!"
"Poor infrastructure and dire climate conditions have impacted cities and towns all over the country, with communities of color, and low-income and rural communities bearing the worst of the burden," said Alycia Bacon, Mothers Out Front, Capital Region New York Organizer. "To meet these challenges we must adequately implement climate laws that mitigate these risks.The CLCPA is the most progressive climate legislation passed in the country, serving as the state precedent for the federal "Justice 40," which delivers 40% of the benefits of federal climate change-related investments to disadvantaged communities. It is crucial that we invest in local climate action and put strong environmental justice protections into place both state-wide and nationally. It is time for our lawmakers to put money where their mouth is and invest in our communities and future."
Photos and videos of the D.C. rally are available here and pictures from events across the country are available here. View previews of the advertisements here.
The Green New Deal Network is a 50-state campaign with a national table of 15 organizations: Center for Popular Democracy, Climate Justice Alliance, Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, Greenpeace, Indigenous Environmental Network, Indivisible, Movement for Black Lives, MoveOn, People's Action, Right To The City Alliance, Service Employees International Union, Sierra Club, Sunrise Movement, US Climate Action Network, and the Working Families Party.
“Jeff Bezos is spending $200 billion on AI and robotics. Jeff Bezos is replacing hundreds of thousands of his workers at Amazon with robots. Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post.”
The Washington Post editorial board went to the trouble of marking what it called "Bernie Sanders' worst idea yet" on Wednesday, but the progressive US senator shrugged at the label and didn't appear likely to end his push for a moratorium on the construction of new artificial intelligence data centers.
The conservative-leaning editors wrote glowingly of the "mind-blowing amounts of information" that AI data centers can process and dismissively said that businesses that have invested billions of dollars in AI have erroneously been cast as the "villain in the socialist imagination."
They decried "AI doomerism" by politicians and accused lawmakers like Sanders (I-Vt.) of "fearmongering" about the data centers' water consumption and environmental harms—but neglected to mention that the rapid expansion of the massive centers has sparked grassroots outrage, with communities in states including Michigan and Wisconsin demanding that tech giants stay out of their towns, fearing skyrocketing electricity bills among other impacts.
Sanders emphasized that the Post and its owner, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, have a vested interest in dismissing efforts to stop the AI build-out that President Donald Trump has demanded with his executive order aimed at stopping states from regulating the industry.
Bezos, one of the richest people on the planet, created an AI startup last year with $6.2 billion in funding, some of it from his personal fortune, and Amazon—where Bezos is still the primary shareholder—has announced plans to invest $200 billion in AI and robotics.
"What a surprise," said Sanders sardonically. "The Washington Post doesn't want a moratorium on AI data centers."
Ben Inskeep, a program director for Citizens Action Coalition in Indiana, suggested the editorial board couldn't express its opposition to Sanders' proposal for a moratorium without including "an admission that it is a paid attack dog for Jeff Bezos," pointing to its required disclosure that Bezos' company is in fact investing billions of dollars in AI.
On social media, Sanders followed his response to the Post's attack with a video in which he doubled down on his objections to AI, despite the editorial board's accusation that he and others "grandstand" on the issue and its insistence that he should "be ecstatic about how much AI can help workers."
Sanders said in the video that "AI and robotics are a huge threat to the working class of this country."
"We have got to be prepared to say as loud and clear as we can that this technology is not just going to benefit the billionaires who own it," he said, "but it's going to work for the working families of our country."
"This court has all it needs to conclude that defendants have trampled on Senator Kelly's First Amendment freedoms."
A federal judge delivered a scathing ruling against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's effort to punish a Democratic US senator for warning members of the military against following unlawful orders.
US District Judge Richard Leon on Thursday granted a preliminary injunction that at least temporarily blocked Hegseth from punishing Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), a retired US Navy captain who was one of several Democratic lawmakers to take part in a video that advised military service members that they had a duty to disobey President Donald Trump if he gave them unlawful orders.
In his ruling, Leon eviscerated Hegseth's efforts to reduce Kelly's retirement rank and pay simply for exercising his First Amendment rights.
While Leon acknowledged that active US service members do have certain restrictions on their freedom of speech, he said that these restrictions have never been applied to retired members of the US armed services.
"This court has all it needs to conclude that defendants have trampled on Senator Kelly's First Amendment freedoms and threatened the constitutional liberties of millions of military retirees," wrote Leon. "To say the least, our retired veterans deserve more respect from their government, and our constitution demands they receive it!"
The judge said he would be granting Kelly's request for an injunction because claims that his First Amendment rights were being violated were "likely to succeed on the merits," further noting that the senator has shown "irreparable harm" being done by Hegseth's efforts to censure him.
Leon concluded his ruling by imploring Hegseth to stop "trying to shrink the First Amendment liberties of retired service members," and instead "reflect and be grateful for the wisdom and expertise that retired service members have brought to public discussions and debate on military matters in our nation over the past 250 years."
Shortly after Leon's ruling, Kelly posted a video on social media in which he highlighted the threats posed by the Trump administration's efforts to silence dissent.
"Today, a federal court made clear that Pete Hegseth violated the Constitution when he tried to punish me for something I said," Kelly remarked. "But this case was never just about me. This administration was sending a message to millions of retired veterans that they too can be censured or demoted just for speaking out. That's why I couldn't let this stand."
Kelly went on to accuse the Trump administration of "cracking down on our rights and trying to make examples out of everyone they can."
Today a federal court made clear Pete Hegseth violated the Constitution when he tried to punish me for something I said.
This is a critical moment to show this administration they can't keep undermining Americans' rights.
I also know this might not be over yet, because Trump… pic.twitter.com/9dRe9pmeCd
— Senator Mark Kelly (@SenMarkKelly) February 12, 2026
Leon's ruling came less than two days after it was reported that Jeanine Pirro, a former Fox News host who is now serving as US attorney for the District of Columbia, tried to get Kelly and five other Democratic lawmakers criminally indicted on undisclosed charges before getting rejected by a DC grand jury.
According to a Wednesday report from NBC News, none of the grand jurors who heard evidence against the Democrats believed prosecutors had done enough to establish probable cause that the Democrats had committed a crime, leading to a rare unanimous rejection of an attempted federal prosecution.
Their boss, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, has said that videotaping officers on the job is a form of "doxing" and "violence."
The US Department of Homeland Security has claimed for months that filming immigration agents on the job constitutes a criminal offense. But under oath during a Senate Homeland Security Committee oversight hearing on Thursday, the leaders of immigration agencies under the department’s umbrella admitted this is not true.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), the chair of the committee, interrogated Todd Lyons, the acting head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE); Rodney Scott, the commissioner of Customs and Border Protection (CBP); and Joseph Edlow, the director of US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) about the recent surge of agents in Minnesota, which has resulted in the killing of two US citizens since January.
He zeroed in on the case of Alex Pretti, the 37-year-old intensive care unit nurse who was shot by a pair of immigration agents on January 24, showing footage of the incident leading up to Pretti's killing, which DHS claimed was justified prior to any investigation taking place.
"So what we see is the beginning of the encounter with Alexander Pretti. He's filming in the middle of the street," Paul explained after rolling the tape.
The senator then asked Scott and Lyons, "Is filming of ICE or Border Patrol either an assault or a crime in any way?"
They both responded flatly, "No."
Courts have generally affirmed that filming law enforcement agents is protected by the First Amendment. But this admission by Lyons and Scott is a major deviation from what their parent agency has claimed.
Their boss, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, stated during a July press briefing that “violence” against DHS agents includes “doxing them” and “videotaping them where they’re at when they’re out on operations.”
Even in the wake of last month's shootings, DHS has held to this line, with spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin claiming that “videoing our officers in an effort to dox them and reveal their identities is a federal crime and a felony.”
Agents have been directed to treat those who film ICE as criminals—a DHS bulletin from June described filming at protests as "unlawful civil unrest" tactics and "threats."
Several videos out of Minnesota, Maine, and other places flooded by ICE have documented federal agents telling bystanders to stop recording and issuing threats against them or detaining them.
In one case, a bystander was told that because she was filming, she was going to be put in a "nice little database" and was now "considered a domestic terrorist."
Last month, a federal judge sided with a group of journalists in California who cited the June bulletin to argue that Noem had "established, sanctioned, and ratified an agency policy of treating video recording of DHS agents in public as a threat that may be responded to with force and addressed as a crime," in violation of the First Amendment.