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'Fox Is Guarding the Hen House': ICE Agents Told FBI Will No Longer Investigate Confrontations
The reported change would grant "pure impunity for ICE to do horrible things," said one journalist.
Jul 19, 2026
New guidance distributed to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents across the country in recent days said that the FBI will no longer investigate confrontations that officers have with protesters or people who are subjected to immigration enforcement—leaving the agency to investigate its own violent encounters with the public following at least two recent killings by ICE agents.
The guidance pertained to claims of assault against Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officers, but FBI investigations have gathered evidence that implicated agents themselves after they claimed to have been attacked.
According to the message sent to ICE officers, Homeland Security Investigations, which operates under ICE, would begin examining incidents in which an agent claimed they were assaulted.
HSI does not have jurisdiction to investigate allegations of civil rights allegations, so in cases in which a confrontation escalates to a use of force by an officer, the unit would be unlikely to investigate whether the agent violated the victim's rights, The New York Times reported.
"The fox is guarding the hen house," said American Immigration Council senior fellow Aaron Reichlin-Melnick of the reported change.
Despite the guidance that was circulated to agents, the US Department of Justice, which oversees the FBI, released a joint statement with DHS denying that the change would take place.
“The relationship between DHS and DOJ in investigating assault on federal officer cases has not changed, and FBI will continue to investigate in accordance with agency policy,” the statement said. “This administration has been clear, anyone who assaults law enforcement will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
According to a New York Times investigation, the Trump administration filed charges against more than 550 people who it said assaulted federal immigration officers. More than 400 of the cases had been resolved, and in nearly half of them, charges of assault had been thrown out or withdrawn, or the defendants had been acquitted.
As it's filed such charges, the Trump administration has frequently repeated its assertion that federal agents are regularly facing violent attacks from the public—including in cases in which agents have killed US citizens and immigrants, including Renee Good, Alex Pretti, and earlier this month, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo.
The reported change was also made public less than a week after an ICE agent fatally shot Johan Sebastián Guerrero in Biddeford, Maine.
Journalist Sam Stein said the guidance that was given to federal agents could grant "pure impunity for ICE to do horrible things."
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The FIFA World Cup: Private Jet Pollution Spikes
A new private jet emissions tracker shows 136 kilotonnes of additional emissions before the final match.
Jul 19, 2026
As fans gather for the FIFA World Cup final match, pitting Spain against defending champion Argentina, New York City has been engulfed in a shroud of wildfire smoke.
At the same time, thousands of wealthy fans are arriving in luxury private jets, the most carbon-emissions polluting form of transportation. This seems an appropriate image for what may prove to be the most polluting sports tournament in world history, thanks in part to private jet excess.
The wildfire smoke, from several hundred uncontrolled blazes across Ontario and northern Minnesota, have contributing to air quality emergencies across the northern U.S. On Thursday, the city of Detroit registered a whopping 724 on the Air Quality Index. Index ratings over 300 are considered a health emergency for all living things.
Scientists are often cautious about attributing blame to climate change, but there is little doubt these wildfires are supercharged by global climate change, as forests dry out and atmospheric rain cycles are disrupted.
On Saturday, the air quality in East Rutherford, New Jersey registered 157, an “unhealthy” level. The pollution index is anticipated to improve for the Finals, with weather shifts and a thunderstorm scrubbing the air. This may bring the pollutant index to 100, considered “moderate” but posing risks for sensitive groups including older adults, children, and those with lung or heart disease.
Compounding the injustice, ordinary fans, taxpayers, and the flying public subsidize the pollution spewing activity of the high-flying private jet class. Private jets don’t chip in their fair share of the cost of airspace, let alone their environmental impact. And last year, the U.S. Congress slathered on more tax breaks for private jets and their ultra-wealthy users.
These tax breaks don’t even address the biggest subsidy: the ability of private jets to avoid any responsibility for the health and environmental costs of their pollution impacts.
With an assist from our new IPS Private Jet Emission Tracker, designed to assess the impact of special events, we know that thousands of private jets have already attended the first 102 matches of the FIFA World Cup. Prior to the final match, the private jets attending the tournament have spewed an estimated 136 kt of additional carbon pollution into the atmosphere, the equivalent of driving 31,723 gasoline powered cars for a year. The Tracker looks at private jet activity in match-host cities over five years and documents the spike in activity.
In our assessment, Red Card for Private Jets at the FIFA World Cup, we document the excessive emissions and the costs to everyone else. We call on FIFA to ban private jets at matches and live up to their pledge to be carbon neutral by 2040.
FIFA should also stop designing tournaments that span continents and cater to the ultra-wealthy private jet class and not ordinary fans. The 2030 FIFA World Cup will be played in six different countries, with most matches in Morocco, Portugal, and Spain. But in honor of the 100th anniversary of the World Cup, the opening matches will be played in the South American nations of Uruguay, Argentina and Paraguay.
FIFA is clearly competing to produce the world’s most polluting sport competition. They must do more to protect the players, the fans, and our planet. The World Cup belongs to everyone, not just the private jet class.
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Rallying in Michigan, Sanders Says Primary Race Is Between Abdul El-Sayed 'and the Billionaire Class'
"When the stakes are so high," said Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, "is the answer to our problems to turn to the same playbook over and over again?"
Jul 19, 2026
Ahead of early voting in Michigan's Democratic US Senate primary, candidate and Medicare for All advocate Abdul El-Sayed was joined in Detroit Saturday evening by progressive leaders, including Sen. Bernie Sanders and Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib, for a rally titled: "The People vs. The Powerful."
The senator declared to 1,600 attendees that the choice in the primary is not simply between El-Sayed and his opponent, Rep. Haley Stevens.
"In all due respect to Congresswoman Stevens, everyone knows that this is not an election between her and Abdul El-Sayed," said the Vermont Independent senator. "This is an election between Abdul and the billionaire class."
Sanders: In all due respect to Congresswoman Stevens, everyone knows that this is not an election between her and Abdul El-Sayed. This is an election between Abdul and the billionaire class. That is what this election is about.
A billionaire class which has already—and there are… pic.twitter.com/BPZ9NSar4d
— Acyn (@Acyn) July 18, 2026
The final weeks of the primary, in which Michigan voters will go to the polls on August 4, have been marked by reports of massive outside spending in favor of Stevens and against El-Sayed, who has made the refrain, "Money out of politics, money in your pocket, and Medicare for All" the central message of his campaign.
As Common Dreams reported last week, El-Sayed led the way in fundraising in the second quarter of 2026, bringing in $4.6 million while Stevens raised $2.2 million.
But Federal Election Commission (FEC) campaign finance filings showed that outside spending by people and groups supporting Stevens has soared to an estimated $50 million, according to an analysis by Punchbowl News.
"More than half of the total ($28.4 million) is coming from United Democracy Project (UDP)," said congressional reporter Ally Mutnick, referring to the super political action committee (PAC) affiliated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which has also backed the vehemently pro-Israel Stevens in the past.
UDP acknowledged last week that it had spent nearly $15 million on the Michigan Senate primary race so far, including $9.3 million in support of Stevens and $5.7 million against El-Sayed.
El-Sayed is a strong supporter of Palestinian rights and—like a growing majority of Democratic voters after more than two years of Israel's assault on Gaza—has called for the US to end military aid to Israel.
In recent weeks he has responded to reporters' frequent questions on his views about whether Israel has a "right to exist," by asking whether Palestine has a right to exist and, in a Sunday interview with CNN's Jake Tapper, saying that a more pertinent question for American voters is whether Israel has "a right to our tax dollars."
Does Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed think there’s room in the Democratic Party for both supporters and opponents of Israel?
EL-SAYED: “There's always room in the tent for folks. And I'm for human rights. I'm for equal rights to peace, dignity, and self-determination.… pic.twitter.com/Amfvsnmx6J
— State of the Union (@CNNSOTU) July 19, 2026
At the rally on Saturday night, Sanders said that AIPAC's focus on funding Stevens' campaign "has everything to do with the fact that they understand that Abdul and I, and the vast majority of the American people, want a foreign policy that is based on morality and decency."
"This is an election that will show the nation whether AIPAC and other billionaire-funded super PACs can spend tens and tens and tens of millions of dollars to buy a US Senate seat, or whether, within a corrupt campaign finance system, the voices of ordinary Americans—the people of Michigan—can prevail," said Sanders. "That is what this campaign is all about. It is about democracy versus oligarchy, and we are on the side of democracy."
Sanders: Why is the whole country looking at this election? In fact, people all over the world are watching what’s going on here in Michigan.
And the answer is that this is an election that will show the nation whether AIPAC and other billionaire-funded super PACs can spend tens… pic.twitter.com/ALMk10YzJu
— Acyn (@Acyn) July 18, 2026
Ocasio-Cortez noted that the contest between El-Sayed and Stevens comes as Americans are struggling to afford groceries, gas, and other essentials while President Donald Trump continues his war against Iran, dismisses working families' financial struggles, and insists the federal government cannot afford to provide universal public services.
"When the stakes are so high, when more people than ever are living so close to the bone, eventually we have to ask ourselves: Is the answer to our problems to turn to the same playbook over and over again?" said Ocasio-Cortez. "A playbook that says, in order to win, Democrats must rely on the same dark money—$50 million and counting—from the same people who backed 35 election deniers to Congress who voted to overturn the 2020 election?"
"I believe Michiganders—Democrats, Republicans, and independents—believe that good leadership swings for the fences," said the congresswoman, who has been named as a potential presidential or US Senate candidate in 2028. "Good leadership gets big money out of our system. It takes on the corruption that blocks commonsense solutions that lift working people. And, by the way, it helps not to take their money in the first place."
AOC: When the stakes are so high, when more people than ever are living so close to the bone, eventually we have to ask ourselves:
Is the answer to our problems to turn to the same playbook over and over again? A playbook that says, in order to win, Democrats must rely on the… pic.twitter.com/oqIaQzSQfH
— Acyn (@Acyn) July 18, 2026
"We can choose to reward the $50 million in dark money by voting their way—which, by the way Michigan—do you think that $50 million is for free?" continued Ocasio-Cortez. "Do you think it’s an act of charity? We know how this works. There’s $50 million in this race because they’re expecting a return. It’s an investment... So we can choose that or we can choose Dr. Abdul El-Sayed for the United States Senate."
On Sunday, as El-Sayed and his high-profile supporters in Congress prepared to rally more voters in Grand Rapids and Lansing, CNN reported that House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) and Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY) had confronted Sanders in a phone call, complaining about his "meddling" in primary elections.
"The candidates we are supporting are candidates who are representing working people, and I think it's a long time overdue for the Democratic Party to stop worrying about their wealthy campaign funders and start worrying about the needs of working people," Sanders told CNN.
CNN correspondent Seung Min Kim suggested that Stevens is seen by Democratic leaders as a safer bet to win the general election in Michigan in a crucial election year. But recent polls have shown her views on Israel and her support from AIPAC, as well as her donations from the for-profit health insurance industry and her opposition to Medicare for All, could harm, not help, Stevens.
Along with big spending from the pro-Israel lobby, the primary race has been characterized in recent weeks by El-Sayed's call for social media users to refrain from mocking and making personal attacks against Stevens and to focus instead on the issues at the center of the campaign, as well as recent Islamophobic vitriol against El-Sayed, including from Sen. John Fetterman (D-Penn.).
Fetterman told Fox News Saturday that El-Sayed is "essentially, a pro-Hamas candidate that's been anti-American and deeply anti-Israel," adding that "44% of Muslims, you know, they have positive views of Hamas."
Journalist Prem Thakker of Zeteo News called on Stevens to "condemn this racist and Islamophobic rhetoric coming from your allies," as El-Sayed had earlier called for civility from his own supporters.
El-Sayed pointed to the recent attacks at the rally, saying his opponents "have taken to calling me 'dangerous.'"
"If you're a worker who wants our economy to work for you, I'm not dangerous," said El-Sayed. "If you're someone sitting in medical debt, wondering what your financial future is because you deigned to see a doctor in the richest, most powerful country in the world, if you're that person, I'm not dangerous."
El-Sayed: They’ve taken to calling me dangerous.
If you’re a worker who wants our economy to work for you, I’m not dangerous.
If you’re AIPAC and want to send our money abroad, you damn well better believe I’m dangerous.
If you’re Chuck Schumer and want to keep doling out… pic.twitter.com/S7HhzThsST
— Acyn (@Acyn) July 18, 2026
"But if you're Blue Cross Blue Shield shareholders, yep, I'm dangerous!" he added. "If you’re AIPAC and want to send our money abroad, you damn well better believe I’m dangerous. If you’re Chuck Schumer and want to keep doling out corporate money to elect people who are going to do your bidding, I am so damn dangerous!"
"If you're somebody who wants government to work for you," El-Sayed said, "I aim to be the best friend you ever had."
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'Working-Class Organizing Wins': Troy Jackson Pulls Ahead in Race to Replace Platner in Maine
"We're well on our way to getting the government that we deserve," said Jackson.
Jul 19, 2026
As Democratic US Senate candidate Troy Jackson pulled far ahead of his opponents in the race to replace Graham Platner as the party's nominee on Saturday, one commentator credited the former state Senate president's campaign with an "extremely impressive organizational feat"—one that was focused on nominating a working-class champion.
Eight of Maine's 16 counties held in-person and virtual delegate nominating meetings on Saturday, deciding on the first 319 of 500 total delegates who will vote for the Democratic nominee at next weekend's convention, which was rapidly organized after Platner dropped out of the race last week following rape allegations that he denied.
At least 290 of the delegates who were chosen in the first eight counties backed Jackson, the Bangor Daily News reported. The former logger, who previously ran for governor, has deep union ties, and has been endorsed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), won at least 148 of the 149 delegates in Cumberland County, all 44 delegates in Penobscot, and 22 of 23 in Hancock, dominating in several other counties as well.
The rest of the state's counties will vote on delegates at similar meetings on Sunday, but as one election watcher said, "Troy Jackson will almost certainly be the next Democratic nominee for Maine's 2026 US Senate election."
Jackson appeared confident enough in Saturday's results to announce a celebratory tailgate planned for Sunday in York County as voters there would be selecting delegates. The Maine State Nurses Association also announced its endorsement of the candidate on Sunday morning.
After Saturday's county meetings, Jackson addressed some of his supporters virtually, giving his volunteer network credit for quickly organizing on his behalf after many had previously expected to be campaigning for Platner, who spent nearly a year mobilizing Mainers from across the political spectrum with a platform focused on taxing billionaires, ending US "forever wars" and military aid for Israel, and passing Medicare for All.
"I can't tell you how much I appreciate all the hard, hard work. I've been getting text messages all day about what a great job I did. I didn't do a goddamn thing, all of you just smoked it," said Jackson in a video posted on social media. "It's really, really incredible, so thank you so much. We're well on our way to getting the government that we fucking deserve, and that's what I'm excited about."
Organized volunteers attended some of the county conventions, some wearing "Jackson for Maine" t-shirts leftover from the candidate's gubernatorial run and passing out flyers with the names of the pro-Jackson delegate slate—supporters whom volunteers had spent the past week calling to secure their commitment to the progressive candidate.
The eight remaining counties will select 181 more delegates on Sunday. Another 101 Democratic state committee members have already been chosen to attend the statewide convention on July 25. Together they make up the 601 delegates who will vote for the party's nominee.
The party's nominee will face five-term Republican Sen. Susan Collins, whom Jackson has condemned in recent days for voting to fund US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which he has called to abolish. An ICE agent fatally shot 25-year-old Johan Sebastián Guerrero in Biddeford, Maine last week.
A poll by Wedgewood earlier this month found Jackson leading Collins in a hypothetical matchup, 48-43, with 9% of voters undecided.
Ahead of Saturday's meetings, Jackson addressed a crowd of about 100 supporters in Portland.
"I'm running for the logger in Allagash who does not think that anyone in Washington knows about them," said Jackson. "I'm running for the nurse that's working another double shift because their hospital is understaffed, and all the while billionaires and massive corporations are making record profits, buying influence in Washington, and telling the rest of us that there is just nothing that we can do."
“I’m asking for your vote, but I’m also asking for more than that,” he added. “I’m asking you to organize... I’m asking you to talk to your neighbors. I’m asking you to show up at your county meetings, make the calls, send the texts, and bring even more people into this movement.”
Writer Cole Sandick suggested that despite the excitement that Platner's campaign had generated, many of his supporters appeared to have quickly pivoted toward Jackson, also a Medicare for All supporter and opponent of military aid for Israel, in an effort to ensure progressive priorities are represented in the Senate.
"Working-class organizing wins," said one Maine-based writer.
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Trump’s Board Has Made Gaza the Most Dangerous Place on Earth to Be a Child
In Gaza, where “the essence of childhood has been destroyed,” even the smallest acts of humanity have become acts punishable by death.
Jul 19, 2026
Mohamed al-Wahidi, 57 years old, a husband, father and grandfather, spent his days doing what aid workers do in a place with almost nothing left: clearing rubble, reopening roads, repairing a leaking pipe, filling a community water tank, or building tents for families with nowhere else to go. In his spare time, he carried out a “perilous project” setting up screens and generators across Gaza so people could watch the World Cup. On the eve of Egypt's match against Argentina, Israel killed him along with the 33-year-old taxi driver as well as two young brothers, ages 8 and 10, walking nearby. Israel's military said it was investigating “the incident.”
As it almost always does, Israel commits murder first, then trumps up a pretext after the kill.
Al-Wahidi is one name in Gaza's daily killing rituals under the supposed ceasefire. Israel has murdered more than 1,100 Palestinians in the Strip since October 2025—265 of them children. Not a single Israeli civilian has been killed on the other side. This is the "peace" Trump's board is managing.
Nearly 1 million people remain trapped in tents through a Gaza summer where temperatures reach 35°C. Season after season, they are left exposed to the elements: first a freezing winter, then the merciless heat of summer. Families survive in tent cities or beneath dangling concrete slabs in destroyed buildings. Meanwhile, Israel continues to block shade nets and plastic sheeting at the border, just as it blocked warm blankets during the winter.
This is what the Board of Peace normalizes: an occupying power expanding while a one-sided truce remains in force, a starvation policy rebranded as a stabilization success.
Children bake in tents, while Israel keeps pushing the civilian population into smaller corridors. When the so-called Board of Peace was formed, Israel occupied 53% of Gaza. A month later, 60%. By late May, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the Israel Defense Forces to seize 70%, squeezing 2.3 million human beings into an ever-shrinking cage away from all the farming areas. Energy Minister Eli Cohen has said the quiet part out loud, telling Israeli radio that Israeli control will keep growing “until we reach 100%.” The next phase envisions corralling Palestinians into fenced “humanitarian shelters” near the ruins of Rafah as part of the ultimate ethnic cleansing program, cynically marketed as a “plan for free movement.”
Concentration camps built on the same mechanisms Nazi Germany used to cage Jews in World War II. A United Nations independent commission of inquiry released this summer found that Israel's killing of children in Gaza is not collateral damage of war but part of a strategy to destroy the biological continuity of Palestinian society. Acts that meet the legal definition for war crimes and the crime against humanity.
Israel has murdered or injured more than 10% of Gaza’s population since October 2023. At least 20,179 children, more than 5,000 under 5 years old, and another 44,143 injured. The number of murdered children is one-third of the total number of dead Palestinians in Gaza. The commission documented children shot by snipers and quadcopter-mounted rifles with a precision that ruled out accidents and cited Israeli soldiers' own testimonies where soldiers celebrate and congratulate each other after murdering civilians. The commission called Gaza the most dangerous place on Earth to be a child.
In June, a father named Bahaa Abu Al-Ajeen watched an Israeli soldier kneel and shoot his 3-year-old son in the head as the boy cried in his arms near Deir al-Balah. In April, 9-year-old Ritaj Rihan was shot through the mouth while standing in a classroom tent waiting for her teacher. These are not outliers under a ceasefire. They are the continuation of an Israeli genocide under the shadow of the ceasefire.
When Israel and the US launched their war against Iran at the end of February, Israel closed every crossing into Gaza outright. Not because there is any connection, but because of Israel’s malevolent nature and because it can get away with it under the fog of war. Weekly truck deliveries collapsed from an average of roughly 4,200 down to just 590. Kerem Shalom and Zikim remain the only crossings still functioning, and even now, roughly half the trucks arriving from Egypt are turned away rather than unloaded.
As of now, aid volumes have never recovered to where they stood before the Iran war, let alone reached the minimum the UN says Gaza needs. Four UN agencies have already warned that the famine the ceasefire was supposed to end could return without sustained access. Sixty-eight percent of Gaza's population is now burning garbage to cook because there isn't enough gas. Not one of Gaza's 37 hospitals is fully operational; only 19 are even partially running. Nearly half of essential medicines are out of stock, and Israel is delaying the surgical equipment needed to treat the more than 43,000 people left with life-changing injuries. More than 40,000 people who will likely become permanently disabled for lack of treatment are another phase of Israel's silent genocide.
The Board of Peace's own six-month progress report claims aid distribution rose 70% and that basic food needs have been “stabilized” for the first time since 2023. In the art of euphemism, 70% of zero is zero, and basic food has “stabilized,” meaning shipments are entering regularly, but not that it is adequate. Conspicuously absent from the report is any mention that aid truck deliveries have never returned to their pre-Iran war levels and remain well below the minimum the UN itself considers necessary.
The board's own biannual report to the Security Council spends its pages blaming the Palestinian resistance, with no mention of an occupying army that has pushed past the ceasefire's demarcated line, nor Israel’s order to aid groups like Doctors Without Borders, the Norwegian Refugee Council, and Oxfam to choose between handing over staff names to a government that targets humanitarian workers, or ceasing operations in Gaza entirely.
Even how to count the murdered journalists is contested. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) was pressured to redefine who qualifies as a “Palestinian” journalist. The move was intended to give Israel a license to kill Palestinian reporters with impunity. A CPJ board member who objected to considering Israel's request was removed within days of protesting publicly. The board ultimately kept its definition intact, but only after stripping 20 murdered Palestinian journalists from the count.
This is what the Board of Peace normalizes: an occupying power expanding while a one-sided truce remains in force, a starvation policy rebranded as a stabilization success, concentration camps as a housing plan, ethnic cleansing as free movement, and a licensed death toll that keeps climbing with impunity.
A grandfather who wanted nothing more than to give displaced families an hour of joy watching a soccer match instead became another name on the ever-growing list of genocide victims. In Gaza, where “the essence of childhood has been destroyed,” even the smallest acts of humanity have become acts punishable by death.
Peace was never the board’s plan. Genocide management was.
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Restoring Our Nation’s Soul From Mass Delusions
The present leadership in Washington has moved aggressively and efficiently—and with venality and myopia—to lay waste to our noble aspirations and our natural endowments. What can we do about it?
Jul 19, 2026
Has mass delusion overtaken America’s collective consciousness and eaten into its soul? Rather than “America the Beautiful," are we becoming “America the Delusional”? The question sprang from speculating that many of my fellow citizens might agree with statements that expertise and evidence have clearly undercut. Would a majority think there was truth in them?
After reading these statements, ask yourself if my concern is warranted.
- Technology will protect us from the ill effects of climate disruption.
- Next generation Americans will be able to maintain the standard of living they have now.
- The Earth will provide sufficient food and shelter for a population exceeding 8.3 billion.
- Vigorous enforcement of national borders and deportation of illegal migrants will stem mass migration in the US and across the globe.
- Fatal shootings in America will decrease as guns become more widely available.
- The US dollar will remain the world’s dominant currency.
- Black people and other minorities are narrowing the economic gap with white people.
- The US President is the world’s most powerful government leader.
- American universities and research centers will continue to be regarded as the best in the world.
- The American diet is comparatively as healthy as that of other developed nations.
Having enumerated them, I pondered the toxic effect of such delusions on the soul of our nation. That Washington has mounted a ceaseless campaign of disinformation, on everything from the Iran War to voting integrity to the Reflecting Pool, only adds potency to the poison.
A nation’s soul, writes Gary Kowalski, is its “capacity for valor and visionary change.” Valor springs from confronting fear or pain with firmness and a realistic sense of one’s challenges. Visioning similarly involves the courage and wisdom to chart one’s future course with both creativity and a realistic take on present circumstances.
Nourishing the soul of this nation for 250 years has been its idealistic aspirations and its remarkable natural endowment. Mount Rushmore is a fit representation. All four leaders depicted there exhibited valor and vision on behalf of America’s unique assets, both prior to and during their presidency.
In contrast, the present leadership in Washington has moved aggressively and efficiently—and with venality and myopia—to lay waste to our noble aspirations and our natural endowments.
Our soul is on “life support.” Democratic self-governance and equality of economic opportunity, two pillars of national aspiration, are evaporating month by month. Calculated governmental action—and inaction—are accelerating the arrival of climate-related disasters and diminishing our natural capital.
Despite a grim present, future restoration of the nation’s soul is possible. It begins with each of us accepting in large part the unreality of the contentions listed above and helping leaders and their constituents chart a course within that frame. Whatever form our civic engagement takes, seeing ourselves as unabashed truth seekers is essential. Valorous action and visionary change derive from a firm grasp on what is real, not what is fanciful.
Motivated and supported by allies, we can make a difference. All it would require is each of us focusing on a delusion or two, and through writing, advocacy, or group action, promoting clear-eyed resilience over wishful thinking. Project Soul Restoration begins individually, takes root locally, then spreads regionally and nationally.
Break the mold. Take on the mantle of “influencer” on behalf of the nation’s soul!
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What the Nation Can Learn From Seattle's Fresh Bucks Program
After more than a decade of implementation, Fresh Bucks offers evidence that targeted investments in healthy food can improve food security, increase fruit and vegetable consumption, and help reduce nutritional inequality.
Jul 19, 2026
As rising food prices continue to strain household budgets and food insecurity remains a persistent challenge, a successful Seattle program is attracting national attention. For over a decade, the city’s Fresh Bucks initiative has helped lower-income families afford fresh fruits and vegetables through targeted food assistance. Now, Congress is considering whether to test that success at the national level.
Seattle launched Fresh Bucks in 2012. The initiative seeks to “eliminate disparities in healthy food access for communities most burdened by food insecurity, economic hardship, and environmental injustices,” according to the program website. Specifically, according to city data, Black and Hispanic households in Seattle are twice as likely to experience food insecurity—which is defined as “limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods, or limited or uncertain ability to acquire acceptable foods in socially acceptable ways” by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA).
Today, Seattle’s Fresh Bucks initiative serves approximately 17,000 income-qualified households each month with benefits dedicated to purchasing fruits and vegetables. Research suggests the investment is paying off. A 2025 study by the University of Washington found that participating households experienced a 31% higher rate of food security than comparable households without the benefit. Additionally, the City of Seattle’s food insecurity dashboard shows aggregate declining insecurity rates since 2018.
The Fresh Bucks program also improves diet quality—not simply by increasing the quantity of food families can buy, but by making nutritious food more affordable. According to the same UW study, Fresh Bucks participants were 37% more likely than households on the program’s waitlist to consume at least three daily servings of fruits and vegetables.
A nationwide Fresh Bucks program would not reverse recent cuts to federal nutrition assistance, but it offers a practical, evidence-based way to reduce hunger while addressing one of inequality’s most basic dimensions: whether families can afford healthy food.
Those gains matter because access to healthy food remains deeply unequal. A 2017 study published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health found that healthier diets rich in fruits and vegetables often cost significantly more than heavily processed alternatives, which creates a financial barrier that affects lower-income households most. When income determines access to nutritious food, it reinforces broader inequalities in health and well-being.
Community leaders in neighborhoods served by Fresh Bucks say they see those challenges firsthand.
“In White Center and historically underinvested communities across King County, we see every day how rising grocery costs continue to strain working families, seniors, immigrants, and households already navigating increasing housing and living expenses,” Aaron Garcia, executive director of the White Center Community Development Association, said in a press release on new legislation to expand the program. “Access to healthy, culturally relevant food should not be determined by income—it should not be considered a luxury,” Garcia said.
White Center illustrates why programs like Fresh Bucks matter. One of the Seattle area’s most diverse communities, more than 61% of its residents are people of color and 27% were born outside the US. The neighborhood was historically targeted for redlining, which continues to shape poverty rates and income inequality across the Seattle region.
Census data show White Center has below-average household and per capita incomes and a poverty rate higher than the Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue metropolitan average. Residents of South Seattle, including White Center, face disproportionately limited access to grocery stores offering fresh, nutritious produce. Some advocates describe these neighborhoods not as food deserts, but as examples of “food apartheid”: the racial, geographic, and economic inequities that stratify society and dictate who has access to healthy food and who is relegated to nutritionally deficient diets.
Fresh Bucks was designed to confront those disparities in Seattle by making healthy food more affordable for families who have historically faced the greatest barriers to accessing it.
On the national level, Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), whose congressional district includes Seattle, argued that the city’s local innovation can become a model to address broader food insecurity.
“[…] Seattle is once again leading the way with the Fresh Bucks program, which is successfully keeping people fed with nutritious food and reducing hunger,” Jayapal said. “We must pass this legislation to expand the program nationwide and get families in every corner of the country healthy produce they can afford.”
Jayapal introduced the Fresh Bucks for Fresh Produce Act on July 2. Modeled on Seattle’s program, the legislation would establish a pilot program within the US Department of Agriculture, providing households earning 80% or less of their area’s median income with $60 each month to purchase fresh fruits and vegetables.
The proposal comes as federal food assistance is moving in the opposite direction. Recent analysis from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found that participation in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) has fallen by more than 4 million people after Trump’s budget reconciliation bill passed last June—roughly a 10% decline. Meanwhile, the Trump administration recently eliminated roughly $1 billion in food purchases for schools and food banks by ending the Local Food Purchasing Assistance Program.
Other federal policies have also increased food costs. As The New York Times reported in May, executive tariffs on imported steel have driven up the cost of canned fruits and vegetables, because packaging accounts for roughly one-third of wholesale prices. Those increases disproportionately affect households that depend on affordable pantry staples such as canned corn and beans.
Public opinion indicates opposition to these trends. A 2025 Data for Progress survey found broad bipartisan support for SNAP and other efforts to help families afford food. A nationwide Fresh Bucks program would not reverse recent cuts to federal nutrition assistance, but it offers a practical, evidence-based way to reduce hunger while addressing one of inequality’s most basic dimensions: whether families can afford healthy food.
The proposed federal pilot would allow policymakers to test whether Seattle’s results can be replicated elsewhere. After more than a decade of implementation, Fresh Bucks offers evidence that targeted investments in healthy food can improve food security, increase fruit and vegetable consumption, and help reduce nutritional inequality.
That evidence is especially valuable as the USDA has suspended its annual report tracking food insecurity, making it more difficult to measure the full scope of hunger nationwide. Seattle’s experience suggests that local governments can serve as laboratories for policies that address inequality—and that successful municipal innovations may provide models for broader adoption.
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From Fracking to Data Centers—Hamster Wheels and That Same Old Song and Dance
The current system is set up to protect industry, capitalism, and the profits of a few, not the people and environment.
Jul 19, 2026
As a community organizer and environmental activist for over 15 years, I’ve often used the metaphor that “we are spinning on a hamster wheel.” That phrase gets mixed reactions. Some nod in agreement, and some get angry. The truth is not always easy to hear. I understand that from my own experiences.
In 2012, I learned that fracking for natural gas and oil was happening in my community. I started researching fracking, and found out about air pollution, toxic chemicals being injected underground, threats to water, farmland being bought up at an unprecedented pace, and tax incentives subsidizing all this. And in the end, the community wouldn’t even have lower energy costs.
The fracking boom was hitting communities all over Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Colorado—anywhere the fossil fuel industry sniffed out profits—and people were angry. So my neighbors and I tried to use the tools we had been taught we have in our supposed democracy.
We went to local and state officials, regulatory agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency and Health Department, and environmental organizations. With help from the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF), we passed a citizen initiative to ban fracking. The people voted for it—but then two drilling companies sued to have our democratically enacted law overturned for violating their corporate “rights.” The court agreed with them and overturned our law.
Maybe we can work together in community to build grassroots power, take direct action, disrupt unjust systems, and resist corporate encroachment.
Afterwards, I convinced myself that it was our fault. I believed that if more communities took action like we had, positive change would come. So, I started organizing with other communities across Ohio and in other states that found themselves in the same position. But the same cycle of corporate power overriding the people was repeated over and over. The people in these communities had no legal authority to stop fracking.
Some communities, like New York, banned fracking. However, they didn’t ban the use of fracked gas, so my community and many others were sacrificed to make sure Times Square stayed lit up. No offense to New Yorkers, but that’s the hard truth. It is how the system is set up to work.
Other communities turned to regulations. People convinced themselves that if frackers had to have further setbacks from schools and homes, we’d be protected from toxic water injections, airborne chemicals from waste pits and hundreds of trucks, and water depletion due to the between 1.5 and 16 million gallons of water used for each frack well. Communities enacted stricter regulations, but the harm continued.
It became all too clear that we the people were indeed like hamsters spinning in a wheel. All the tools that we grew up believing would protect us and our communities didn’t work. They were just diversions to keep us occupied as the government and the fracking industry drilled well after well.
Now it’s 2026, and communities are up in arms again over an issue that causes many of the same harms as fracking: data centers. I get calls and emails every week from communities all over the country with people sharing concerns—farmland being purchased at unprecedented rates, massive water withdrawals, air pollution and toxification, astronomical energy usage, skyrocketing power rates, and tax subsidies for mega tech corporations. Sound familiar?
It reminds me of the Aerosmith song, "Same Old Song and Dance." The song is about how the “justice system” does not apply equally to all. The band wasn't singing about fracking or data centers, but it may as well have been. Whether we use metaphors like spinning in a hamster wheel or cliches like “same old song and dance,” this is how the system is set up to work: It protects industry, capitalism and the profits of a few, not the people and environment. Folks fighting mining, toxic waste, big agriculture, industrial energy of any kind, clear cutting of forests, plastic pollution, etc. are all trapped in the hamster wheel.
We must jump out. This will take facing hard truths, like the fact that holding up signs in front of public meetings, writing letters, and giving testimony to regulatory agencies won’t protect you and your community. Once we can begin reckoning with these truths, maybe we can turn toward each other and turn away from the existing system. Maybe we can free our imaginations and creativity to experiment with new ideas. Maybe we can work together in community to build grassroots power, take direct action, disrupt unjust systems, and resist corporate encroachment rather than jumping back into the hamster wheel. Maybe we can start being effective.
My colleagues and I at CELDF have some ideas and would love to talk with you to share our experience and to listen to yours. If nothing else, we can be here to soften your landing when you finally decide to jump off that hamster wheel.
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Have You Even Heard of RASCOM? A Command for America's Robot Army
Lawmakers are pushing for a new combatant command they say will speed up the military’s uptake of robotic and autonomous systems. Experts warn they are ignoring serious flaws with this approach.
Jul 19, 2026
Even as the Pentagon mulls culling its combatant commands to reduce its bureaucratic bloat, lawmakers are itching to prop up another one — based on robots and AI.
Combatant commands like CENTCOM (Central Command) and AFRICOM (Africa Command) — sprawling military headquarters which oversee operations and activities across their assigned region or function — are notorious for their high operational costs and continued pushes for more responsibilities, including entanglements abroad.
The Department of Defense has weighed paring the commands back in response, floating restructuring plans last December that would reduce their number from 11 to 8. But lawmakers are going in the opposite direction, pushing for a new combatant command they say will speed up the military’s uptake of robotic and autonomous systems.
As experts tell RS, the new command is poised to create more redundancy, waste, and inefficiency — and the mission creep that comes with it — while stifling efforts to deploy such technologies in practice.
Embracing the future of warfare?
Tucked into the Senate Armed Services Committee’s (SASC) version of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for FY 2027, a provision called section 917 would allow for the creation of a Robotic and Autonomous Systems Command (RASCOM).
By centralizing oversight over autonomous systems, lawmakers hope RASCOM will help the military adopt them as quickly as possible. In particular, they aim to overcome difficulties that have plagued previous procurement efforts.
In a press release, SASC chairman Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) hailed the prospective combatant command as a means to help the military “embrace 21st century warfare.”
RASCOM “would standardize the way the entire armed services use unmanned systems in combat,” Wicker wrote, The armed service branches would be able to set up offices within RASCOM, “ensuring that [they all] adopt the latest systems.”
Runaway bureaucratic bloat
But another combatant command would be at odds with the Pentagon's stated goal of reducing its sprawling bureaucratic overhead.
DoD Secretary Pete Hegseth “has righteously complained about bloat in the GOFO [General and Flag Officers] corps, saying he wants to cut the number of [four-star generals] by 20%," Justin Logan, director of defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute, told RS. "Another place to park a four-star and his buddies flies in the face of that.”
A new combatant command would also take up work the Pentagon is already doing through its deployment of uncrewed systems across its operation. And, as Jennifer Kavanagh, Defense Priorities’ director of military analysis, tells RS, the administrative structure needed for a new combatant command will “duplicate functions provided elsewhere, including at the leadership level.”
What’s more, combatant commands rarely remain limited to their original missions. Instead, they often push for greater budgets, more responsibilities, and more sway over the direction of U.S. military policy.
“If RASCOM is created, it will face the same institutional incentives to expand its mission,” Gary Sampson, a national security strategist and retired U.S. Marine Corps intelligence and international affairs officer, told RS.
“Just like the Navy pushes for Naval spending and CENTCOM pushes for wars in the Middle East, RASCOM would act as a sales team for robotics and autonomous systems,” Logan predicted, referencing CENTCOM officials’ persistent support for continued U.S. military engagement in the Middle East. “That is the job of companies who manufacture autonomous systems, not the U.S. government.”
Standing up and maintaining another command would also be costly. “This is the last thing the Pentagon needs given its already massive budget,” Kavanagh said.
And, once established, RASCOM may prove difficult to get rid of. As Dan Grazier, who directs the Stimson Center’s National Security reform program, tells RS, “there would be entrenched interests that... have a stake in seeing it continue.”
“Even if the [command’s] headquarters is stood down later, many functions, personnel, and institutional interests tend to persist and migrate elsewhere,” Sampson said.
Throwing a wrench at military preparedness
Beyond concerns over bureaucratic bloat and mission creep, experts observe that RASCOM’s proposed organizational structure could create other operational problems.
For example, most existing combatant commands are organized around geographic missions, or by function. In contrast, RASCOM would be structured around a class of tools.
Brandon Carr, a senior studies associate at the Quincy Institute, tells RS this “logic is well-intentioned” but “likely to be counterproductive.”
“So many future robotic and autonomous systems will become part of an individual service member’s personal equipment,” Carr said. The “technology does not lend itself to a unified command with centralized control.”
To best promote innovation, he said, “robotic and autonomous systems should be integrated and deployed down to the lowest levels of each service.”
Others contend RASCOM’s centralized approach could hinder autonomous systems' use on the battlefield.
David Deptula, the dean of the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, wrote last month that a combatant command “would risk centralizing control in a way that makes [autonomous] capabilities less responsive to the commanders who need them most.”
That could create a “seam in command and control” that adversaries would exploit in combat, Deptula wrote. (The Mitchell Institute is financially supported by weapons contractors.)
More broadly, Grazier cautioned against an over-reliance on autonomous systems, warning that adversaries will inevitably look for and leverage their weaknesses.
“We’re spending a crazy amount of money building this robot army. When it’s disrupted [by enemy combatants], our skills to operate without it will have atrophied,” Grazier warned. “We’re actually building in the means of our own defeat.”
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The Pentagon Is Stealing From the Working Poor to Pay for War and Enrich Contractors
The average US taxpayer in 2025 had over $4,000 taken out of their paychecks to fund the Pentagon; in the coming years, that amount is set to rise as Congress considers a $1.5 trillion war budget for 2027.
Jul 19, 2026
In an era of high prices for fuel, food, and housing, an extra $4,000 could make a lifesaving difference for many families. But instead, that’s what the average household had to shell out for the Pentagon last year.
That’s right: The average US taxpayer in 2025 had over $4,000 taken out of their paychecks to fund the Pentagon, according to the National Priorities Project at the Institute for Policy Studies. In the coming years, that amount is set to rise as Congress considers a $1.5 trillion war budget for 2027.
For the growing number of working poor in the United States, that money can mean the difference between making rent or falling behind, or between being able to afford an emergency trip to the doctor or going without care.
Money directed to the Pentagon represents nothing but betrayal for many Americans. A large majority oppose our wars, especially the latest conflict in Iran. And roughly half of the Pentagon’s budget flows to for-profit contractors, fueling the billionaire (and now even trillionaire) class.
The person who lost SNAP and the farmer who lost their income alike will be asked to foot the bill for the $1.5 trillion war budget.
Take SpaceX, one of many companies built on government contracts funded by taxpayer dollars. Elon Musk’s company would not exist without US taxpayers. As early Tesla investor Ross Gerber put it, “There would not be (Tesla and SpaceX) if it weren’t for the government.”
Early investments and contracts from the US government helped propel SpaceX to success, while continued awards from the Pentagon provided the stable revenue that made the government one of Musk’s largest customers. The company is now valued at more than $1 trillion. Private investors alone did not make Musk a trillionaire—taxpayers across the United States did.
But Musk isn’t the only person who made himself rich off the backs of American workers.
Lockheed Martin receives over 70% of its revenue from US government contracts. The numbers for Raytheon and General Dynamics are similar. These military contractors simply would not exist without the taxpayers—and a new $1.5 trillion budget would send hundreds of billions of dollars more to people who already have more than most Americans could even conceptualize.
At the same time, while taxpayers are subsidizing the military-industrial complex, the jobs those industries are allegedly providing are in decline, with the war industry creating over 2 million fewer jobs than it did 40 years ago.
Worse still, under the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” Republicans passed a year ago, the money for these ever-rising Pentagon budgets comes directly from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Medicaid, and other programs that help Americans make ends meet.
Under those cuts, millions of Americans—including children—have lost SNAP benefits already. And that’s impacting not just families but the farmers who helped feed them.
SNAP benefits were “guaranteed money in the pockets of farmers,” said Reese Amxy, a policy organizer at the Illinois Stewardship Alliance. But 150,000 people in the state have already lost eligibility.
It’s not just Illinois. Arizona has seen the steepest decline, with 50% of recipients—nearly half a million—already losing benefits. Louisiana (21%), Florida (20%), Oklahoma (16%), Virginia (16%), Texas (14%), Wyoming (13%), and Arkansas (12%) round out the rest of the hardest hit states so far.
Yet the person who lost SNAP and the farmer who lost their income alike will be asked to foot the bill for the $1.5 trillion war budget. This is Robin Hood in reverse. Worse still, the weapons those taxes buy are often to use to kill children like ours in Gaza and Iran.
The weapons and tech CEOs that would benefit from the massive war budget, and the politicians bought off by them, seek to keep this cycle going next year at an even grander scale. Americans need to demand their lawmakers say no more Pentagon spending—and invest in the things that actually keep our communities safe instead.
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Mamdani Says He Is Examining Whether His Government Can Arrest Netanyahu During NYC Visit
The mayor said he is in "an active conversation with our legal department" on the matter.
Jul 18, 2026
In a wide-ranging interview with The New York Times Saturday, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani made clear that he plans to take any action available to him to ensure the city complies with the International Criminal Court's warrant for the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if the opportunity arises.
Netanyahu, said Mamdani, "belongs in The Hague," and he is currently examining whether his government has the authority to arrest the prime minister if he visits the city for the United Nations General Assembly in September.
"He’s a war criminal who has been charged by the International Criminal Court," said the mayor. "I will follow the laws that we have here in New York City because I believe that there is an importance in following the law as a leader who presides over our city."
He then clarified that "whatever the law allows me to do in New York City, that’s what we will do, but we won’t be writing our own laws to that end."
WATCH: NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani said he is in "an active conversation" with the city's Law Department about whether he has the authority to order the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he visits New York for the U.N. General Assembly.
"I believe that Prime… pic.twitter.com/GZJAfbvWGU
— Clash Report (@clashreport) July 18, 2026
The mayor told Lulu Garcia-Navarro, host of the newspaper's "The Interview," that he is having "an active conversation with our legal department" to determine the scope of Mamdani's authority on the matter.
In November 2024, the ICC issued a warrant for Netanyahu, former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and Hamas leader Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri, who was killed by Israeli forces. Netanyahu was accused of crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza, where Israel began a relentless assault in 2023 in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack.
Israel and its top military funder, the US government, have insisted that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have been targeting Hamas in attacks that are still continuing in Gaza despite a ceasefire that was reached last October.
But evidence has steadily mounted that children, aid workers, refugee camps, schools, and hospitals have been attacked, and experts found last year that Israel was intentionally starving Palestinians in Gaza as a method of warfare.
More than 73,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, and more than 173,000 people have been wounded. Israeli attacks have made Gaza home to the largest number of child amputees in the world, and have decimated over 90% of housing units in the exclave.
Garcia-Navarro questioned Mamdani on the "political weight" he gives to the issue of Israel and Palestine, which has seen a marked shift in US public opinion since Israel began its latest US-backed assault on Gaza. More than half of Democratic voters and nearly a third of all voters told The Associated Press last month that they viewed the war in Gaza as a genocide against Palestinians.
Three-quarters of respondents to a New York Times poll in May said they opposed continuing to send military aid to Israel, compared to 45% three years ago.
"It’s hard to explain to a New Yorker why their needs are not even being discussed, and yet we have billions of dollars to kill civilians halfway across the world," said Mamdani, who has been laser-focused during his term and his campaign last year on lowering the cost of living for New Yorkers and passing universal public programs.
"I think what we have seen from New Yorkers, what we’ve seen from Americans, when we talk about this hunger for a new kind of politics, it’s a hunger to move beyond the bankruptcy that characterizes a lot of politics today," said Mamdani. "And it is hard to find a more bankrupt policy approach than what our country has done to Gaza and to Palestine and how it hasn’t been specific to any one party. It’s been, again and again, an insistence to tell New Yorkers, and to tell Americans, that what they are seeing is not something they should in fact either be concerned by or believe in. It is hard to then turn to another issue and say, Believe me here."
Israel's ambassador to the United Nations said Saturday that Netanyahu will be at the UN meeting in New York City in September, despite Mamdani's threats—which date back to his mayoral campaign—while the prime minister said on a radio show this week that the mayor "hates America" and champions Hamas.
Journalist Mehdi Hasan said it was "pretty amazing to hear" Mamdani repeat his earlier conviction that Netanyahu should be arrested under the ICC warrant, given that he first publicly remarked on the issue "when he was polling at 1% in the Democratic primary polls and no one expected him to actually be mayor."
Netanyahu has thus far evaded arrest when traveling to countries that recognize the ICC's authority under the Rome Statute. The court opened an inquiry into Hungary last year when it failed to detain the prime minister when he visited. France also said it would not execute the warrant for Netanyahu because Israel is not a party to the Rome Statute.
UN Ambassador Michael Waltz responded to Mamdani's interview on Saturday, saying the US is also not party to the Rome Statute.
Journalist Zaid Jilani said that although the mayor of New York likely lacks the authority to arrest Netanyahu, "he can certainly troll him."
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