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Trump Headlines Artificial Intelligence Affair to Raise Americans’ Energy Bills, Pollute Our Air, and Trample on Community Rights
At a summit at Carnegie Mellon University on Tuesday this week, President Donald Trump will gather Big Oil CEOs and the heads of several artificial intelligence giants in a nightmarish affair to discuss how to accelerate the use of fossil fuels to power AI. In response, Tyson Slocum, director of Public Citizen’s Energy Program, issued the following statement:
“Trump’s radical AI agenda entails abusing emergency authorities to usurp state and local laws to accommodate Big Oil and Big Tech’s profits at the expense of everyone else. While no public interest consumer or environmental groups are invited, the president and CEO of the American Petroleum Institute are slated to speak, along with EQT’s Toby Rice, and the CEOs of ExxonMobil (Darren Woods), Shell (Wael Sawan), Chevron (Mike Wirth), OpenAI (Sam Altman), Meta (Mark Zuckerberg), Microsoft (Satya Nadella) and Alphabet (Sundar Pichai) are on the guest list.
“Trump’s scheme is to abuse an array of emergency powers to force communities to host energy-gobbling AI data centers by designating such facilities and all associated energy infrastructure as national security assets, thereby crushing any state and local zoning laws and other public health and safety protections. Trump’s actions will promote dirty natural gas and coal as the fuel of choice, which will raise Americans’ energy bills while contaminating the environment. Trump’s agenda will put Big Tech in control of America’s AI policy, despite the industry’s widespread abuses. Trump’s radical AI plan is yet another example of the President siding with powerful corporations ahead of the American people.”
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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After Passage of GOP Medicaid Cuts, Congress Debates Nearly $1 Trillion Military Budget
In a closed-door session last week, senators advanced legislation that would authorize $925 billion in military spending for the coming fiscal year.
Jul 14, 2025
Fresh off the passage of a Republican budget measure that includes more than $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid over the next decade, Congress this week is set to consider legislation that would authorize close to that same amount for the U.S. military for the coming fiscal year.
The House Armed Services Committee, controlled by Republicans, will mark up its version of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) on Tuesday. In a closed-door session late last week, the Senate Armed Services Committee advanced its military spending authorization package, which has a topline of roughly $925 billion for Fiscal Year 2026—an increase of around $30 billion compared to the current fiscal year.
Unlike the GOP reconciliation package that President Donald Trump signed into law earlier this month, the NDAA is likely to clear Congress with bipartisan support. Just one Democrat on the Senate armed services panel—Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.)—voted against advancing the legislation out of committee last week.
Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, called the NDAA "a critical, bipartisan measure that ensures our military remains prepared to meet the growing and complex challenges of a dangerous world."
The $925 billion Senate NDAA topline does not include the more than $150 billion Pentagon boost that Republicans inserted in their partisan reconciliation package for fiscal year 2025, pushing the nation's approved military spending above $1 trillion for the year. Trump has openly bragged about his push for a $1 trillion military budget.
"This militarized MAGA agenda harms working families and our communities," Lindsay Koshgarian and Hanna Homestead of the National Priorities Project said following passage of the GOP reconciliation bill. "It will be paid for with cuts to programs that help people meet their basic needs and will disproportionately benefit private contractors, further enrich billionaires, and exacerbate waste, fraud, and abuse of taxpayer dollars."
Breaking Defense noted that the Senate NDAA proposes "an increase of Air Force F-35 procurement from 24 to 34 jets—a sum that, if enacted, would take the [Pentagon's] annual total to 57 jets." Watchdogs have long described the F-35 program as a ridiculous boondoggle.
Lawmakers are set to consider another increase in annual military spending following the release of a report estimating that more than half of the Pentagon's discretionary spending between 2020 and 2024 went to private contractors.
The report, released by the Costs of War Project and the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, notes that "the arms industry has used an array of tools of influence to create an atmosphere where a Pentagon budget that is $1 trillion per year is deemed 'not enough' by some members of Congress." Such tools include lobbying and sizable campaign contributions.
"The vast bulk of the arms industry's campaign contributions go to candidates for Congress," the report observes. "The industry favors incumbents, and concentrates much of its giving to members of the armed services committees and defense appropriations subcommittees in the House and Senate—the members with the strongest role in shaping the Pentagon budget."
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In Act of 'Brutal Sadism,' Israel Bans Gazans From Entering Sea Under Pain of Death
"This is not about security," said the head of Gaza's fishers' union. "It's economic, social, and psychological warfare, a weapon of slow, deliberate suffocation."
Jul 14, 2025
Israel has warned Gazans to stay out of the Mediterranean Sea or risk getting killed under wartime restrictions that critics say serve no security purpose and are meant to deprive Palestinians of a key source of sustenance—and respite from the horrific realities of 21 months of constant death and destruction.
"Strict security restrictions have been imposed in the maritime area adjacent to Gaza—entry to the sea is prohibited," Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Arabic language spokesperson Avichay Adraee wrote on the social media site X Saturday. "This is a call to fishermen, swimmers, and divers—refrain from entering the sea. Entering the beach and waters along the entire Gaza Strip endangers your lives."
While Israel has imposed a maritime blockade on Gaza since 2007 following Hamas' victory in legislative elections and subsequent takeover of the coastal enclave, restrictions were tightened after the October 7, 2023 attack as part of the "complete siege" that has caused deadly malnutrition throughout the strip, where Israel's 646-day U.S.-backed onslaught has left more than 211,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
However, the IDF appears to have not enforced the post-October 7 ban on entering the sea against swimmers and bathers. Only Palestinian fishers have been targeted, with more than 210 killed since October 2023, according to United Nations data.
"We live off the sea. If there's no fishing, we don't eat," Munthir Ayash, a 52-year-old fisher from Gaza City, told the Emirati newspaper The National Monday. "Me, my five sons, and their families—45 people in total—depend entirely on the sea. With it closed, we face starvation."
It is unclear why the IDF issued Saturday's warning, which came amid excessive heat warnings as temperatures rose to over 30°C (86°F). With Gaza's infrastructure obliterated by 21 months of Israeli onslaught and safe running water in severe shortage, the Mediterranean Sea provided a place to cool off and clean up.
"I used to go every day. The sea was where I bathed, where I relaxed, where I ran from the horror of war," Ibrahim Dawla, a 26-year-old Palestinian man forcibly displaced from Gaza City's Zaytun, told The National. "Now even that's gone."
Rajaa Qudeih, a 31-year-old mother of two from Deir al-Balah, told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz Sunday: "I'm literally dizzy from hunger, thirst, and the heat. Gaza is going through the worst famine, we haven't eaten, and we can't even find a piece of bread."
"The sea was the only outlet left. If they kill us for going there, maybe that would be easier than this slow death," she continued. "Still, I fear for my children. My oldest is 9. How can I convince him that swimming in the sea could get him killed?"
"We are camped by the sea," Qudeih added. "Where else can we go? Are they going to ban the air from us next?"
The IDF claims the maritime blockade is a security measure aimed at preventing weapons from being smuggled into Gaza.
However, Zakaria Bakr, head of the Palestinian Fishermen's Syndicate in Gaza, and many other residents of the embattled enclave believe there is another reason why Israel is prohibiting them from entering the sea.
"This is not about security. It's economic, social, and psychological warfare; a weapon of slow, deliberate suffocation," he told The National.
Dawla said that "people here die a million times every hour; we needed the sea just to feel human again, even if only for a few minutes. And they knew that. That's why they shut it down."
"We called it our last breathing space. We knew it was dangerous, but it was the only place we had left," he added. Now, "I haven't gone for two days. None of my friends have either. We're all afraid we'll be shot just for standing there."
Ayash said of Israel: "They want to take everything. They want to erase us."
"But the sea is ours," he added. "The land is ours. No matter how hard they try, it will stay ours."
Palestine defenders around the world also condemned the IDF policy.
"There can be no possible military or security reason for banning the people of Gaza from entering the sea—except to satisfy the brutal sadism of the IDF," argued Australian journalist and commentator Mike Carlton.
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DOJ Unit That Defends Trump Policies Sees Exodus of Lawyers
"No one wants to defend Trump's bullshit policies before the courts," said one critic of the president.
Jul 14, 2025
Reuters reported Monday that nearly two-thirds of attorneys in the section of the U.S. Department of Justice charged with defending President Donald Trump's policy have voluntarily left the unit or announced plans to resign since his November election.
The list of "69 of the roughly 110 lawyers in the Federal Programs Branch" who have ditched the unit or plan to leave was compiled by former DOJ attorneys. Reuters was able to confirm the departure of all but four names based on court records and LinkedIn accounts. The news agency also spoke with four former members of the unit and three others familiar with the resignations.
The sources—all granted anonymity by the news outlet—described the degree of turnover as highly unusual and said that some members of the unit "had grown demoralized and exhausted defending an onslaught of lawsuits against Trump's administration," Reuters detailed, summarizing their comments. They "cited a punishing workload and the need to defend policies that some felt were not legally justifiable," along with fears that "they would be pressured to misrepresent facts or legal issues in court."
According to the news agency, worries about retaliation grew after DOJ leadership fired Erez Reuveni, a former supervisor in the Office of Immigration Litigation, another Civil Division unit, over the Kilmar Ábrego García case. Reuveni then filed a whistleblower complaint that has generated concern about Emil Bove, now nominated by Trump to serve as a federal appellate judge.
"Many of these people came to work at Federal Programs to defend aspects of our constitutional system," one lawyer who left the unit during Trump's second term told Reuters. "How could they participate in the project of tearing it down?"
Mark Zaid, who has a long record of facing attorneys from the Federal Programs Branch in cases against the U.S. government, said on the social media platform Bluesky that they were "usually top-notch professional, nonpartisan lawyers. Shameful what has happened."
No one wants to defend Trump's bullshit policies before the courts. www.reuters.com/legal/litiga...
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— emptywheel (@emptywheel.bsky.social) July 14, 2025 at 7:31 AM
Also sharing the report on Bluesky, Mark Joseph Stern, who covers the courts for Slate, wrote: "Really good piece—but the numbers don't include those who left shortly BEFORE Trump's reelection, when it seemed alarmingly possible, to ensure that they never had to defend lawless, fascist policies in court, even for a day. I understand that group is not small."
"Lawyers who have remained at Federal Programs to continue defending Trump's policies are a disgrace to the legal profession and will carry the immense shame of complicity with authoritarianism for the rest of their lives," he added.
Jonathan Cohn, political director at the group Progressive Mass, similarly said on social media that "the others would resign too if they had any professional or personal ethics."
DOJ lawyers have had to defend Trump's anti-immigrant agenda—from mass deportations that led to hundreds of men, including Ábrego García, being sent to a Salvadoran megaprison to Trump's attack on birthright citizenship, which recently led to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that limits the power of federal judges. They also have had to defend the administration's attempts to slash government jobs and spending, and the president's targeting of major law firms, which, so far, courts have shot down.
The DOJ told Reuters that the department "will continue to defend the president's agenda" and is hiring to maintain staffing levels from the Biden administration, while a White House spokesperson, Harrison Fields, lashed out at critics of Trump. He said that "any sanctimonious career bureaucrat expressing faux outrage over the president's policies while sitting idly by during the rank weaponization by the previous administration has no grounds to stand on."
Since Trump-appointed Pam Bondi became attorney general, she has faced widespread accusations of "serious professional misconduct that threatens the rule of law and the administration of justice," as over 70 legal experts and three groups put it in a June ethics complaint sent to the Florida Bar.
"The gravamen of this complaint is that Ms. Bondi, personally and through her senior management, has sought to compel Department of Justice lawyers to violate their ethical obligations under the guise of 'zealous advocacy' as announced in her memorandum to all department employees, issued on her first day in office, threatening employees with discipline and possible termination for falling short," the filing states.
Bondi has also faced intense scrutiny in recent days over the DOJ's handling of documents related to the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Congressman Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) announced Saturday that this week he plans to introduce a measure "to force a vote demanding the FULL Epstein files be released to the public."
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