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New Report Exposes Toyota’s Years-Long Effort to Fund Climate Deniers and Block Climate Action
With its allies entering power in the White House and Congress, Toyota is poised to help dismantle climate policy that threatens its backward-looking business model
By the end of the 2024 election cycle, Toyota Motor Corp. had donated to over four times as many climate change denying members of Congress as Ford Motor Company and nearly twice as many as General Motors, according to a new report released today by Public Citizen.
According to the report, over the last three electoral cycles, Toyota has emerged as the top auto industry financier of climate deniers, financing 207 of their congressional campaigns.
“The world’s largest automaker has quietly spent the past several years building a powerful U.S. influence operation in an effort to delay the transition to electric vehicles,” said Adam Zuckerman, senior clean vehicles campaigner with Public Citizen’s Climate Program, and author of the report. “Funding a small army of climate denying lawmakers, while lobbying aggressively against stronger emissions and fuel economy standards, is a volatile combination intended to roll back policies that protect our communities and planet.”
In the three congressional election cycles between 2020 and 2024, Toyota’s political action committee donated $808,500 to the campaigns of Congressional candidates that deny or question the existence of climate change.
Days after Donald Trump won his reelection bid, Toyota Motor North America COO Jack Hollis slammed clean air rules adopted by California and other states, effectively painting a target on the policies intended to clean up air and water. After the press conference, Hollis penned a Wall Street Journal op-ed entitled “Trump Can Get EVs Back on Track,” calling on the new administration to dismantle the Biden-era policies that encourage automakers to reduce emissions, complaining that “unrealistic regulations favor one carbon-reducing option over, and at the expense of, all others.”
“Toyota wants to continue to make dirty, polluting vehicles and align itself with climate deniers in a futile effort to hold onto internal combustion and fossil fuels,” said Zuckerman. “But EVs are the future of the automotive industry, and if it fails to evolve, Toyota risks becoming the next Kodak or Blockbuster, corporate giants that fought innovation and paid the price for it. It is a risky strategy that has left Toyota vulnerable to an influx of competitors who have leapfrogged the auto giant to build the next generation of vehicles.”
Public Citizen is a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization that champions the public interest in the halls of power. We defend democracy, resist corporate power and work to ensure that government works for the people - not for big corporations. Founded in 1971, we now have 500,000 members and supporters throughout the country.
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Vance Compares US Economy Under Trump to... 'Checks Notes'... the Titanic
"Let him talk," said one observer of the vice president. "He's his own iceberg."
Jan 22, 2026
US Vice President JD Vance left observers scratching their heads Thursday after he touted the Trump administration's economic policies by comparing them to the doomed ocean liner Titanic.
Speaking at an event in Toledo in his home state of Ohio under a banner reading, "Lower Prices, Bigger Paychecks," Vance addressed the worsening affordability crisis by once again blaming former Democratic President Joe Biden—who left office a year ago—for the problem.
“The Democrats talk a lot about the affordability crisis in the United States of America. And yes, there is an affordability crisis—one created by Joe Biden’s policies,” Vance said. “You don’t turn the Titanic around overnight. It takes time to fix what was broken.”
Responding to Vance's remarks, writer and activist Jordan Uhl said on X, "The Titanic, a ship that famously turned around."
Other social media users piled on Vance, with one Bluesky account posting: "Let him talk. He's his own iceberg."
Podcaster Brian Tyler Cohen asked on X, "Does he know what happened to the Titanic?"
One popular X account said, "At least he's admitting what ship we're on."
In an allusion to the Titanic's demise and the Trump administration's deadly Immigration and Customs Enforcement crackdown, another Bluesky user quipped, "Ice was the villain of that story too."
Puns aside, statistics and public sentiment show that Trump has utterly failed to tackle the affordability crisis. The high price of groceries—a central theme of Trump's 2024 campaign—keeps getting higher. And despite Trump's claim to have defeated inflation, a congressional report published this week revealed that the average American family paid $1,625 in higher overall costs last year amid tariff turmoil, soaring healthcare costs, and overall policies that favor the rich and corporations over working people.
A New York Times/Siena College poll released Thursday found that 49% of respondents believe the country is generally worse off today than it was when Biden left office a year ago, while only 32% said the nation is better off and 19% said things are about the same. A majority of respondents also said they disapprove of how Trump is handling the cost of living (64%) and the economy (58%).
"You know, a thing about a phrase like 'lower prices, bigger paychecks' is that you can't actually fool people into thinking that you've delivered these things if they can look at their own bank account and see it's not true," Current Affairs editor Nathan J. Robinson wrote on X.
"I know the Trump administration's standard strategy is to just make up an alternate reality and aggressively insist that anyone who doesn't believe in it is a domestic terrorist," Robinson added, "but personal finances are really an area where that doesn't work."
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‘Dark, Bizarre Stuff’: White House Posts Deepfake Image of Arrested ICE Protester Crying
"All of us are on full notice that this White House feels no compunction about concocting obvious lies, concedes nothing when its lies are exposed, and should be presumptively disbelieved in all matters."
Jan 22, 2026
Continuing its bizarre and often legally questionable use of social media to publicize law enforcement operations, the official White House account published an artificially generated deepfake image of a protester arrested on Thursday by the FBI.
Earlier that day, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem had posted about Nekima Levy Armstrong, one of three people who were arrested for disrupting a service last week at the Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota, where an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer and field office leader, David Easterwood, reportedly serves as a pastor.
Noem described Levy Armstrong, who leads a local civil rights organization known as the Racial Justice Network, as someone "who played a key role in orchestrating the Church Riots in St. Paul, Minnesota."
There is notably no evidence that the protesters engaged in or threatened violence, as implied by her use of the word "riot." Video shows protesters disrupting the service by chanting slogans like "ICE out" and demanding justice for Renee Good, who was fatally shot by an ICE officer in Minneapolis earlier this month.
Attorney General Pam Bondi said the protesters had been charged under the 1871 Ku Klux Klan Act, which makes illegal any conspiracy to "injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate," people from exercising "any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States."
In her post, Noem shared a photo of Levy Armstrong being led away by an agent, whose face is pixelated to hide his identity. In the photo, Levy Armstrong appears stone-faced and unfazed by the arrest.
Hours later, the official White House account shared the exact same image—accompanied by text describing her as a “far-left agitator”—but with one notable difference. Levy Armstrong's face was digitally altered to make it appear as if she was sobbing profusely while being led out by the agent. Nowhere did the account make clear that the image had been doctored.
"Did the White House digitally alter this image of Nekima Levy to make her cry???" asked Peter Rothpletz, a reporter for Zeteo, who described it as "bizarre, dark stuff."
Sure enough, CNN senior reporter Daniel Dale later said the White House had "confirmed its official X account posted a fake image of a woman arrested in Minnesota after interrupting a service at a church where an ICE official appears to be a pastor," and that "the White House image altered the actual photo to wrongly make it seem like the defendant was sobbing."
Asked for comment, Dale said the White House directed him to a social media post by Kaelan Dorr, the White House deputy communications director, who wrote: "Enforcement of the law will continue. The memes will continue."
Posting artificially generated images of their targets sobbing has become a house style of sorts for the White House account.
In March 2025, the account posted an image, altered to appear in the style of a Studio Ghibli film, of Virginia Basora-Gonzalez, an alleged undocumented immigrant and convicted fentanyl trafficker, crying while handcuffed during her ICE arrest in Philadelphia.
In July, the White House posted an AI-altered photograph of Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-Calif.) after he criticized an ICE raid in which agents arrested hundreds of farmworkers in Ventura County, California. They edited Gomez's congressional photo to make it appear as if he was crying, referring to him as "Cryin' Jimmy."
But the fake image of Levy Armstrong hardly appeared as a "meme." It was subtle enough that, without having seen the original, it was not immediately apparent that it had been altered, raising concerns about the White House's willingness to publish blatantly deceptive information pertaining to a criminal investigation.
Anna Bower, a senior editor at Lawfare, suggested that for the government to post a fake, degrading image of a criminal suspect could be considered a "prejudicial extrajudicial statement," which can undermine the case against Levy Armstrong.
The Trump administration has been caught in an untold number of lies, particularly about those arrested, brutalized, and killed by its law enforcement agencies. This includes Renee Good herself, whom members of the Trump administration tarred as a "domestic terrorist" within hours after her killing, without conducting an investigation and despite video evidence to the contrary.
Bulwark journalist Will Saletan said that with this deepfake post, "all of us are on full notice that this White House feels no compunction about concocting obvious lies, concedes nothing when its lies are exposed, and should be presumptively disbelieved in all matters. Nothing they say should be accepted without independent confirmation."
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Fury Over ICE Brutality and Lawlessness Fuels Push for Minnesota ‘General Strike’
Organizers hope to have "tens of thousands of workers in the street in the Twin Cities" for the day of action.
Jan 22, 2026
Momentum for a planned general strike-like event in Minnesota is building amid increasing outrage over the actions of federal immigration officials in the state.
Schools and businesses across Minnesota are planning to stay closed on Friday as part of the "ICE Out! Statewide Shutdown" day of protest.
The event was first announced last week by a broad coalition of local labor unions and faith leaders with the goal of forcing federal immigration agents to leave their cities and towns.
Bashir Garad, chairman of the Karmel Mall Business Association and the owner of a Minneapolis-based travel company, told the Minnesota Star-Tribune that the planned shutdown is gaining "momentum and support from a wide variety of communities."
"Already, thousands of businesses have declared that they will shut down this Friday," Garad added, "and tens of thousands of workers and students have pledged to march in the streets, rather than go to work or school."
Hundreds of Minnesota businesses have announced plans to shut their doors so far, according to running list posted by Bring Me the News, which also lists dozens of other businesses that are remaining open while vowing to donate at least a portion of sales on Friday to nonprofit groups such as the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota and the Immigrant Rapid Response Fund.
Keiran Knutson, president of Communications Workers of America Local 7520, told Payday Report that organizers are hoping to "have tens of thousands of workers in the street in the Twin Cities" protesting against the actions of US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
In addition to the events taking place in Minnesota, Payday Report has published a map showing solidarity strikes occurring in 120 different cities across the US.
The planned Friday strike is the culmination of weeks of resistance against federal agents carried out by Minnesota residents.
In a Wednesday thread posted on Bluesky, author Margaret Killjoy explained how people throughout Minneapolis have banded together to track the movements of ICE and CBP agents and to provide help to their immigrant neighbors.
"First thing this morning, I saw cars following an ICE vehicle down the street, honking at it," she wrote. "Later, we didn't drive more than three blocks before we found people defending a childcare facility... Half the street corners around here have people—from every walk of life, including Republicans—standing guard to watch for suspicious vehicles, which are reported to a robust and entirely decentralized network that tracks ICE vehicles and mobilizes responders."
Taken as a whole, Killjoy said that she had "never seen anything approaching this scale" of what activists have pulled off in Minneapolis.
Minneapolis-based attorney Will Stancil, who has become one of the most high-profile legal observers following and documenting actions by ICE and CBP agents, argued on Thursday that the Trump administration is committing deliberately cruel acts with the hope of inciting violence.
In particular, Stancil pointed to federal agents' decision to abduct a 5-year-old child and use him as bait to lure out and detain his immigrant father as a deliberately provocative action.
"They clearly believed that Minneapolis would riot after they killed one of us," Stancil wrote, in reference to Renee Good, a Minneapolis resident who was gunned down by an ICE agent earlier this month. "We didn’t, we organized. We followed them, we monitored them. We alerted our neighbors. We fought them in the courts. And now they’re desperate, so they’re brutalizing us, without a hint of legitimate government purpose."
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