SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
trump administration
'Has Trump’s Invasion of Greenland Already Begun?': Experts Fearful as MAGA-Linked Oil Company Prepares Unauthorized Drilling
"Let nobody think Trump has given up on taking Greenland," warned one professor of European politics.
Aug 08, 2026
After appearing to back off earlier this year, President Donald Trump this week renewed his threats to seize Greenland. A Saturday report that a Texas oil company with ties to Trump had begun preparing to drill in the Arctic territory without permission has raised fresh concerns that his push for control of the island may already be moving beyond rhetoric.
As The Guardian reported, Greenland’s government issued a “strong warning” last week after learning that a Texas oil company called Greenland Energy had begun making unauthorized preparations for oil extraction in Jameson Land, a remote area of eastern Greenland, including bringing drilling materials ashore.
The company, founded last year, has claimed that Jameson Land may contain $1 trillion worth of crude oil and announced plans to drill two wells there—a project that requires approval from Greenland’s government.
The company also has ties to several Trump allies and associates. According to The Guardian:
Greenland Energy has retained Phil McGraw, better known as Dr. Phil, a prominent right-wing former chatshow host who served on Trump’s religious freedom commission, to make a documentary series that will “capture the mission of these modern-day wildcatters.”
It has also appointed as a director a US Navy veteran who is working on Golden Dome, the missile defense plan for which Trump says controlling Greenland is “vital.”
Larry Swets, Greenland Energy’s chair and a big shareholder, appears to enjoy access to Trump’s circle. He has said the oil project is “not related to American annexation.”
A Greenland Energy representative falsely claimed in June that the company had permission to place equipment on Jameson Land, before later saying there had been confusion.
But the following month, residents saw a barge arrive with drilling equipment. A Danish outlet confirmed that the delivery was intended for Greenland Energy.
Following the delivery, Greenland’s government said on July 30 that the company "did not have the necessary approvals from the mineral resources authority" and would receive a warning that "all future logistical matters must be advised and approved by the mineral resources authority—before they are carried out."
Two days later, Trump posted an ominious digitally altered image to Truth Social depicting himself as a giant looming over a Greenlandic town, captioned "Hello, Greenland!"
A day earlier, Trump had appeared on the right-wing network Real America’s Voice, where host Steve Gruber reminded him that he had predicted Greenland would be under US control by the time he leaves office in 2029.
“You’ll be right," Trump replied. "Greenland is important. Not from their standpoint, from our standpoint. You should make that bet.”
Before this week’s comments, Trump had spoken far less publicly about Greenland since January, when he threatened to use military force to take over the island if Denmark did not cede it. To pressure NATO allies, Trump threatened steep tariffs on several European countries, but backed off after Europe pledged retaliatory tariffs, causing panic in the financial markets.
"Let nobody think Trump has given up on taking Greenland," said John O’Brennan, professor of European politics at Maynooth University in Ireland. He added that Greenland Energy’s unauthorized activity "is the latest act of lawlessness his acolytes are engaged in."
Kenneth Roth, the former executive director of Human Rights Watch, responded to the story by asking, "Has Trump’s invasion of Greenland already begun?"
Historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat suggested it was possible. "Invasions," she said, "often start with 'technical' projects that justify the presence of operatives and 'technical experts' who are also doing recon and advance prep."
The Greenlandic government ultimately said it “would not be proportionate” to order Greenland Energy to remove the drilling equipment, a decision that The Guardian said underscored the difficult position facing its officials.
"They could grant permission for oil drilling, even though the planned wells appear to fall within a conservation area protected by the Ramsar convention on wetlands," the report explained. "Or they could refuse and, some worry, give Trump a pretext to advance his imperialist agenda."
Although the project has not been approved, a Greenland Energy representative said a vessel carrying additional drilling equipment would depart Canada in September, with drilling set to begin in October.
Jessica Berlin, a senior fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis, warned that allowing the equipment to remain would signal weakness that Trump could exploit.
"Don’t even think about allowing this," she wrote in a post directed to the Greenlandic and Danish governments. "If you give them an inch, they’ll take 100 miles. Kick them out now or accept that you just opened the floodgates."
"Like Putin, you can’t negotiate with Trump," she added. "Showing weakness will just guarantee the next outrage."
As part of the Kingdom of Denmark, Greenland is covered by NATO’s Article 5 collective-defense clause, which obligates member nations to defend one another from armed attack. But NATO has no precedent for how Article 5 would apply if one member—the US—attacked another.
O'Brennan warned, "Europe—you are about to be seriously tested."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Trump Admin Faces Legal Challenge in Hemispheric Court Over ICE Protest Crackdown
This is the first challenge against the Trump administration on protest crackdowns by an international court, and one of the first legal challenges generally.
Aug 08, 2026
Tuesday, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, or IACHR, at the Organization of American States, a body historically committed to investigating crimes against humanity committed by governments in the Americas, held a hearing in Washington, DC against the Trump administration for its treatment of protests held against Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, crackdowns in the US.
The delegation, represented by Thomas Becker and Nicholas Rodelo, for the University Network for Human Rights, presented evidence of attacks of rights to free assembly and free expression by the Trump administration.
Becker has previously successfully prosecuted a civil lawsuit against former Bolivian President and US ally, Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, over 2003 crackdowns and extrajudicial killings of protesters.
This is the first challenge against the Trump administration on protest crackdowns by an international court, and one of the first legal challenges generally. Speakers included Antonio Romanucci, the attorney representing the family of Renee Good, and former counsel of George Floyd; Reverend David Black, who was struck in the head by federal agents at the Broadview Detention Facility; and Naureen Shah, the director of government affairs at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
Speakers and observers at the hearing argued that the commission must be empowered to investigate fully and act decisively, warning that the region is entering a new era of authoritarianism even as many of its democracies remain young and fragile.
During the hearing, video evidence and testimony were presented documenting the alleged abuses, prompting a response from State Department lawyers who argued that the incidents represented isolated cases still under investigation, that the United States has rights the commission should respect, and that the IACHR ought to focus its attention elsewhere in the hemisphere, a suggestion that drew scrutiny given that the US has faced far fewer cases before the commission than many other member states.
State Department representatives further contended that federal agents operating under significant stress could not be expected to act "perfectly," and maintained that any agents found to have violated standards would face penalties, though they were unable to answer specific questions from commissioners about ongoing cases or offer evidence of any such penalties actually being imposed, saying only that they would "write down" the questions and respond later.
The commission and the civil society delegation renewed a request—thus far denied by Washington—for an IACHR delegation to visit the United States, likely Chicago, to assess conditions on the ground.
Petitioners also singled out National Security Presidential Memorandum-7 (NSPM-7) as a central mechanism of the crackdown, arguing it chills freedom of expression by recasting protesters and dissidents, including anti-capitalist, "anti-Christian," and anti-fascist activists, as "terrorists." Blacklists of prominent leftist actors have also been compiled, with state resources used to prosecute them. "This is the new McCarthyism," the delegation added.
They pointed out that resources once dedicated to investigating internal abuse by immigration enforcement agents have instead been slashed, citing an internal FBI memo halting investigations into Department of Homeland Security officers, and that officials tasked with oversight are now regarded within the agencies as "internal adversaries" rather than watchdogs.
"These are the exact same tactics used by Latin American dictatorships from the 1970s," said Becker. "These tactics have been propped up by the US for decades, and are now coming back here, to be used against Americans," he added. The commission was created in the wake of the rise of military dictatorships in Latin America, backed by the US during the Cold War, including Augusto Pinochet in Chile, Rafael Videla in Argentina, and Hugo Banzer in Bolivia.
Becker also argued, "This is not the first time that agents backed by the US government target priests," alluding to the past abuses and killings of religious opposition leaders in Central America.
Speaking to Drop Site News, Dr. James Cavallaro, former president of IACHR and law faculty at Columbia, Stanford, and Harvard, added that "there is a conviction from those in power that they can suppress dissent" and rule through power and violence to "impose their ideology," where "opposition must be crushed."
This is the first time the commission has held any hearing of this type concerning domestic repression against the US government, which was the main force behind the founding and funding of the IACHR and the Organization of American States (OAS). “For years, the commission has heard testimony about attacks on protesters carried out by some of the region’s most repressive dictatorships. Now, it is the United States that will be called to answer for these abuses,” said Cavallaro.
The US government, including figures in the current administration like Secretary of State Marco Rubio, has historically been supportive of the IACHR and the OAS, but may see the IACHR as a new target, as it continues its campaign against international legal organizations including the International Criminal Court.
Locke Bowman, attorney for Reverend David Black, shared, "What happened to Rev. Black was emblematic of the physical abuse that ICE and CBP [Customs and Border Patrol] officers directed at conscientious folks in Chicago, Minneapolis, Portland, and elsewhere around the country who bore witness to the Trump administration's cruel immigration policies with their voices, their prayers, and their cellphone cameras."
He added: "There has been no accountability whatsoever for the officers responsible for the pervasive violations of free speech and human dignity. We turn to the Inter-American Commission to ask that the commission join us in demanding accountability."
At the hearing, the University Network for Human Rights also published a detailed report, submitted as part of its formal petition to the commission, laying out documented instances of excessive force, free expression violations, and lack of accountability tied to the crackdown on ICE protests.
The commission is now expected to weigh whether the evidence and testimony presented warrant further inquiry, including a possible on-the-ground visit to the United States, before issuing findings or referring the matter further within the inter-American human rights system.
The last hearing against the US government, sponsored by the ACLU, was held in the context of dozens of extrajudicial killings by US forces in the Caribbean and Pacific, against "drug boats," which experts say violate US and international law, violate local sovereignty, and kill civilians without due process, all without helping to solve the drug crisis. Previously, the IACHR had held proceedings in the context of detainee treatment at Guantánamo Bay, among other cases.
Speakers and observers at the hearing argued that the commission must be empowered to investigate fully and act decisively, warning that the region is entering a new era of authoritarianism even as many of its democracies remain young and fragile. Crime and migration are increasingly being used as pretexts to suspend democratic norms, enabling interference in elections; extrajudicial killings; bans on opposition parties; declared states of exception; suspended protest rights; the jailing of dissidents; militarized policing; and the dismantling of checks on military, intelligence, and presidential power.
This is the most serious test facing democracy in Latin America since the Cold War, with echoes of the Reagan-era doctrine that once propped up authoritarian allies across the region. Now, the United States is again playing that role, installing, arming, backing, and protecting governments that suppress dissent, and reaching for sanctions, tariffs, and even support for coups to keep them in power.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Renewables Surge Despite Trump Cuts, With Solar as Top May Power Source in 2 States
"Wind plus solar is on a tear right now," said one expert.
Aug 07, 2026
Despite the Trump administration's staunch support for the climate-wrecking fossil fuel industry and equally aggressive attacks on renewable energy, the US is generating more power from the sun and wind than ever, according to the latest figures on the matter.
Updated state-level data confirmed this week that solar generation eclipsed every other source of electricity in Utah for the first time in its history, with photovoltaic panels producing nearly 1 terawatt-hour in May. That's enough to power roughly 90,000 homes for an entire year, according to the US Department of Energy.
That amount represented nearly one-third of all electricity generated in Utah that month, according to data from the global energy think tank Ember. Natural gas generated 32% of Utah's electricity in May, while coal produced 28%, and wind 2%.
“The trend of more and more solar in Utah is wonderful news for air quality, it’s wonderful news for the climate, and it’s wonderful news for jobs and the economy,” Dan Schroeder, a physics professor at Weber State University in Ogden, told Grist in an article published on Thursday.
Meanwhile, California achieved an even more significant milestone. Solar was already the largest source of electricity generation in the Golden State. In May, solar produced 51% of California's electricity, the first time a renewable energy source generated more than half of a state's power for an entire month. Solar also outproduced natural gas in every month of 2026 through May, the last month confirmed.
Also in May, solar supplied more of the nation's electricity than coal for the first time, and solar and wind combined generated the majority of electricity in seven states and more than 30% of power in 20 states.
Good morning with good news: Solar & wind generated more than 50% of electricity in 7 US states & more than 30% in 20 states in May 2026! Top 10 S&W states:IA 67%SD 64%NM 63%CA 58.9%KS 58.3%MA 56.9%CO 51.8%VT 49%OK 48.6%ME 45.7%S&W generated 24.2% of US power in May.#energysky
[image or embed]
— John Hanger (@jrfhanger.bsky.social) August 7, 2026 at 4:42 AM
“We’re going to see milestones like this increasingly happen,” Logan Mitchell, a climate scientist and energy analyst with Utah Clean Energy, told Grist.
According to the US Energy Information Administration, approximately 51% of new utility-scale electricity generation in the United States is projected to come from the sun this year, as the nation is expected to add another 43.4 gigawatts of solar, compared to 6.3 gigawatts of natural gas generation and no new coal.
More broadly, the US produced nearly three times as much solar, wind, and geothermal power in 2025 than it did in 2016, with renewables accounting for more than 20% of the nation's power production, as shown by the recently launched State of Renewable Energy online dashboard published by Environment America Research & Policy Center and Frontier Group.
Renewables accounted for 21.4% of national retail electricity sales in 2025, up from just 8% in 2016. South Dakota led the nation by generating the equivalent of 95% of its retail electricity from wind, solar, or geothermal.
“In 2026, America is getting more power from the sun and wind than ever,” Wendy Wendlandt, president and chairwoman of Environment America Research & Policy Center, said in May. “Renewable energy is reliable, resilient, and shows up for free every day. When we replace polluting energy sources with solar and wind, it delivers a cleaner, healthier future for all Americans.”
The surge in renewables comes amid efforts by the administration of President Donald Trump—who ran on a "drill, baby, drill" energy platform during a 2024 presidential campaign generously supported by the fossil fuel industry—to boost oil, gas, and coal and roll back clean power initiatives.
At times, the Trump administration's animus toward renewables has been downright inane, like when Interior Secretary Doug Burgum—a billionaire who has personally profited from an oil lease on family land—infamously trashed solar by saying that "when the sun goes down, you have a catastrophic failure called sunset and there’s no solar energy produced," prompting some observers to question whether he's aware of batteries or how they work.
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act signed into law by Trump last year includes billions of dollars in handouts for the fossil fuel industry, boosts drilling on millions of acres of public lands, mandates oil and gas lease sales, and imposes new fees on renewable development. A report published last month by BlueGreen Alliance revealed that "23 manufacturing, clean energy, and industrial projects are already facing cancellations and delays representing at least $82.8 billion in capital investment, which could cost 111,765 jobs."
Last month, Common Dreams reported that Trump's rollback of clean energy policies will cost American consumers $650 billion in additional energy bills by 2040, based on figures from the San Francisco-based energy and climate policy think tank Energy Innovations.
Trump has also twice withdrawn the US from the Paris Agreement, rolled back Environmental Protection Agency rules, signed pro-fossil fuel executive orders—including one declaring what critics say is a "phony" energy emergency—resumed and accelerated approvals for new natural gas export terminals following a moratorium enacted during the Biden administration, and paid billions of taxpayer dollars to kill clean energy projects around the world.
The “energy emergency” has been invoked to fast-track fossil fuel permits, including for extraction projects on public lands. This, despite overwhelming evidence that burning fossil fuels is the leading driver of the climate emergency.
Still, clean energy advocates are buoyed by recent reports of rising renewables.
"Wind plus solar is on a tear right now," said Mitchell. "We may have achieved liftoff."
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Each President Is a Temporary Tenant': DC Appeals Court Orders Halt to Trump Ballroom Construction
"The president has no... constitutionally assigned authority over that property."
Aug 07, 2026
A federal court on Friday ruled that President Donald Trump must halt most construction of his $400 million White House ballroom project, siding with a lower court that said it must be authorized by Congress.
“Each president is a temporary tenant, not the owner, of the White House and its executive residence,” wrote judges Patricia Millett and Bradley Garcia in a 2-1 decision for the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. "The president has no—and claims no—constitutionally assigned authority over that property."
Friday’s ruling only affects the above-ground portions of the project. The construction of a fortified underground bunker and other “national security facilities” beneath the site is allowed to continue.
Trump has already demolished the East Wing of the White House to make room for the project, which he has said will be entirely privately funded, mostly by corporate donors, many of whom had business before the executive branch. However, reporting from The Washington Post in June revealed that he had secretly planned to dip into $300 million worth of taxpayer dollars for the project.
At Trump's urging, Republicans have attempted to add $1 billion in taxpayer money to the federal budget to pay for the project's security features, but the proposal to pass it through budget reconciliation without approval from Democrats was rejected by the Senate parliamentarian.
The court's majority said it’s ruling “has nothing at all to do with whether the proposed ballroom is desirable, or not, as a matter of policy… What it does mean is that the defendants may not do so during the district court’s expeditious litigation without securing Congress’s authorization, as the Constitution and laws require.”
Brent Leggs, the CEO of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which sued to block the ballroom’s construction in December, said Friday was “a great day for our country and for the American people’s right to voice their opinions about the historic places they cherish, including the White House.”
"The White House, a global landmark that symbolizes American identity and the ideals of democracy, belongs to the American people," he said.
Trump reacted with predictable fury on Truth Social.
"We will be immediately appealing to the United States Supreme Court," he wrote. "The Military and Secret Service are viewing this horrendous, politically motivated, and unlawful ruling as a National Security threat to our Nation in that the entire Complex is being built for the protection of our Country and, additionally, all future Presidents."
The ruling is the second blow to one of Trump’s vanity projects this week. A report by the National Park Service recently found that his planned “Arc de Trump” near the National Mall could compromise the historical significance and "integrity" of dozens of other historic landmarks.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Ansari Calls for Miller to Be ‘Investigated and Prosecuted’ for Illegal Push to End Birthright Citizenship
"You can crack down on visa fraud," said one observer. "You cannot have Stephen Miller stand beside the Resolute Desk and turn the 14th Amendment into a hotel checkout policy."
Aug 07, 2026
Stephen Miller, President Donald Trump's deputy White House chief of staff and the architect of much of his anti-immigration agenda over the past decade, has been fixated for years on ending birthright citizenship in the US—and one Democratic congresswoman said Thursday that his latest attempt should be the last straw.
"Stephen Miller architected the entirety of Trump’s racist and fascist mass deportation agenda, and he’s the one pushing relentlessly to end birthright citizenship—which is illegal," said Rep. Yassamin Ansari (D-Ariz.) after Trump and Miller announced two new executive orders related to the issue. "He needs to be investigated and prosecuted for the crimes he’s actively committing."
Weeks after the US Supreme Court—where three of the justices who make up the right-wing majority were appointed by Trump—ruled that the president's previous effort to end birthright citizenship for undocumented immigrants was unconstitutional, Trump signaled a new tactic focusing on terminating the right for the children of specific groups of people.
The first order would end automatic citizenship for children born to parents who work for foreign governments at embassies or organizations in the US, parents who "engaged in fraudulent activity to obtain citizenship," and parents who are part of designated terrorist groups or an "alien enemy."
Stephen Miller: The president is using his authority as commander in chief, to sign first an executive order using the new rule in the Supreme Court issued to expand the definitions of people who are ineligible for birthright citizenship
That includes, for example, alien enemies… pic.twitter.com/TtpWe0QYe1
— Acyn (@Acyn) August 6, 2026
The restriction would also pertain to babies who are "born in a territory or territorial waters of the United States where citizenship is not conferred by federal statute"—but eliminating birthright citizenship for children born in US territories would require congressional action, according to The New York Times.
The second order aims to crack down on what Trump called "birth tourism," with more restrictions on visitors to the US who give birth while in the country and try to obtain visas.
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, said the new executive action, like the order Trump signed to end birthright citizenship shortly after he took office last year, "seemingly violates the Constitution."
In the Oval Office at the White House late Thursday, the president cited no evidence as he claimed foreigners have obtained citizenship for their children, who numbered in the dozens.
“You have one man came in with a family... said he had 56 children," said Trump. "Another one came in. They said they had 98 children. This was not what it was for. This was meant for the babies of slaves. It was, it was right after one week or two weeks after the Civil War ended.”
Miller also emphasized that the 14th Amendment, which guarantees birthright citizenship, due process, and equal protection under the law, was meant to confer citizenship only to the children of people who had been enslaved before the Civil War ended.
But the origin of the law did not stop the Supreme Court from ruling in June that birthright citizenship is the law of the land under the US Constitution.
The president claimed "hundreds of thousands" of people in the US have benefited from birthright citizenship due to tourists giving birth in the country and the other scenarios described in the executive orders, but a study by Pennsylvania State University recently found that fewer than 0.3% of babies born in the US are born to tourists in any year.
Miller spoke during the Oval Office event, speaking out against people who "come here pretending to be a tourist... but the real reason they're here is to have a child."
Lying on a visa application in order to give birth in the US has long been illegal, Reichlin-Melnick pointed out.
Miller claimed that Section 215A of the Immigration and Nationality Act gives Trump the authority to enact the new restrictions on birthright citizenship, but even a Department of Homeland Security official who spoke anonymously to the Times said no new enforcement would come out of the birth tourism order.
The deputy chief of staff, who has also taken a leading role in orchestrating Trump's mass deportation campaign, claimed that the birth tourism order was "especially historic."
The word "historic," said writer Mike Young, was "doing a lot of work."
"You can crack down on visa fraud. You cannot have Stephen Miller stand beside the Resolute Desk and turn the 14th Amendment into a hotel checkout policy," said Young. "Birthright citizenship is not a loophole. It is the Constitution."
Immigration attorney Cyrus Mehta noted that even so-called "birth tourism" was covered in the Supreme Court's recent ruling, with Justice Samuel Alito noting that fact in his dissent.
"I expect a court to hold that most of Trump's new executive order is blatantly unconstitutional," said Mehta. "Trump is a small and petty man with a venal mind, and will be historically remembered as such down the ages, along with his henchman and collaborator Stephen Miller, who love to attack newborn children!"
Keep ReadingShow Less
Democrats’ Affordability Message Misses a Key Expense—Student Debt
The largest bill increase any single person may get this year is a student loan bill, so why have Dems left it out of their messaging?
Aug 07, 2026
With just 100 days left until the midterms, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries appeared on CNN to deliver Democrats’ closing message. “Life in this country is far too expensive,” said Jeffries, rolling out a new "Fighting for an Affordable America" tagline. Americans do not have “enough food on the table, not enough gas in the tank,” and they’re “unable to actually regularly and consistently afford to pay the rent or pay the mortgage.” Jeffries blamed President Donald Trump’s costly war of choice in Iran, tariffs that have cost everyday Americans thousands of dollars per year, and the largest cut to Medicaid in American history.
Later that afternoon, in a steel workers union hall in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, Jeffries joined Gov. Josh Shapiro at a joint campaign event for Bob Brooks, a LeHigh Valley firefighter running for Congress in Pennsylvania’s seventh Congressional District. Together, the three Democrats pointed to both the corruption plaguing our national politics and the high financial cost Americans have been forced to bear since Trump took office as causes of the affordability crisis. They implored voters in the “swingiest swing state in the country” to shift the tides of Washington, DC by voting against Republicans’ cost-raising policies and for Democrats’ cost-lowering solutions in November.
Democrats are right to highlight the impacts of giant cuts to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, along with the rising cost of gas and utilities fueled by wars abroad and billionaire-backed corruption schemes at home. Uniting a broad electorate around an “affordability” agenda, akin to the messaging and policy success of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, will bode well for Democrats around the nation going into an intense midterm election where the winds of Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s terror, mobilization against AI data centers, and widespread opposition to war is at the left’s back.
But mysteriously missing from Democrats' messaging about costs that have gone up as a result of Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act is a key expense that 40 million Americans are battling in the shadows—student loans. For many student debtors, the increase in their monthly student loan bill will be their largest bill increase of the year by a significant margin. This leaves a massive hole in Democrats’ messaging cadence that must be filled immediately. A successful affordability message requires engaging with the true reality of Americans’ purses, and holds a mirror to the specific financial burdens that working people lose sleep over each night.
A willingness to ignore such a massive systemic cost increase reveals that Democrats, at least in this moment, are not taking their own "affordability" messaging seriously—posing grave electoral problems.
Take a typical student debtor in a family of four who earns a median US household income of $81,000. Under former President Joe Biden’s SAVE plan, their monthly student debt payment was $36. Under Trump’s Repayment Assistance Plan (RAP) plan, that payment would increase to $440—well over 1,000% more than under SAVE. In an internal Debt Collective survey of more than 1,500 student debtors on the SAVE plan, 50% of student debtors reported an average expected payment increase of $500 a month—just a few bucks shy of the average monthly payment for a newly used car. Yet despite this grave expense, of which Trump and his Republican allies are solely to blame, student loan bill increases have seldom made it to Democrats’ November stump speeches. Except for a few sparing moments of attention—Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has used his platform to showcase the absurdity of rising student debt for seniors—student loan bills have largely fallen off the radar for congressional Democrats. But for the millions on the receiving end of the Department of Education’s confusing and frightening emails, student loans dominate workers’ ability to make financial decisions.
Massive errors have rendered the student debt system dysfunctional at an unprecedented level. Millions of debtors have payments gone uncounted by their servicer, inaccurate balances, are awaiting cancellation for relief programs they’ve been eligible for, or are in limbo to simply enroll in a repayment plan that works for them. Weeks ago, Secretary Linda McMahon’s Department of Education admitted to a massive glitch in which thousands of student debtors were wrongfully told their monthly payment would be $50 a month, only to find out weeks later that the plan they’re now stuck in requires a monthly payment hundreds of dollars more. In recent days, debtors serviced by MOHELA were wrongfully sent delinquency notices asserting that they owed back-payments for the months in which courts have legally paused their payments. Separate ongoing litigation moving its way through a DC district court has called out a “shadow repeal” of the REPAYE plan, asserting that the Trump administration's refusal to allow student debtors to enroll in a repayment plan that may be their best option is illegal. Today, no member of Congress has called on the Trump administration to reopen the plan.
Worse than remaining quiet on student debt, some Democrats have seemingly regressed on the issue. In July, a dangerous student debt bill that would exempt—yes, exempt—state-based lenders from transparency laws passed in the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. If the vote advances further, the new law of the land could give schools a financial incentive to push predatory loan products onto desperate students seeking to use private loans to pay for school. Nine out of 11 Democrats sided with Republicans on this measure, ensuring bipartisan support for deepening the student debt crisis and worsening the lending system.
Democrats' silence on the rising costs of student debt will fall flat with voters in November, many of whom are already dejected from the Biden administration’s botched attempt to cancel student debt broadly and the Supreme Court’s decision to side against debtors. A willingness to ignore such a massive systemic cost increase reveals that Democrats, at least in this moment, are not taking their own "affordability" messaging seriously—posing grave electoral problems.
The Debt Collective—the nation’s first union of debtors whom I organize with—is calling on Congressional Democrats to step up to the plate. At this moment, Democrats could call for an immediate pause on student debt payments—which Trump was the first to administer through executive authority in 2020—amid significant administrative errors, a costly rise in payments amid a worsening economy, and ongoing litigation. Without mentioning the one monthly bill that, for millions of Americans, rivals their mortgage, the blue wave Democrats will need to take back the House may resemble something more like a small splash.
Keep ReadingShow Less
As More People Die In Their Custody, ICE Is Working Hard To Hide Its Abuses
By rescinding policies that mandate accountability and oversight, while simultaneously purchasing privately held detention centers, the Trump administration is working to hide the abuses, death, and violence occurring at their facilities.
Aug 07, 2026
On August 1, Edwin Lopez-Cornejo, a Salvadorian migrant imprisoned at the Delaney Hall Detention Facility in Newark, died.
While Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) insists that Lopez-Cornejo “received proper medical care and was seen by medical professionals” while in custody, there are reasons to be doubtful. In May, 300 detainees launched a labor and hunger strike protesting medical neglect, being fed spoiled and rotten food, and other “torturous” conditions.
In June, Gothamist reported that more than 70 detainees at Delaney Hall had filed federal lawsuits alleging medical neglect. That includes 30 who claim they were denied prescribed medications for chronic conditions such as asthma, epilepsy, diabetes, and cancer.
Lopez-Cornejo likely experienced the same. Rep. Rob Menendez (D-NJ) said he spoke with ICE officials who told him Lopez-Cornejo had expressed feeling dizzy and fatigued earlier that day. Menendez further added, “We asked certain medical questions, which ICE couldn’t give us answers to.”
Detention centers have always been deadly. Under Trump, ICE is doing everything it can to make them even more dangerous.
Lopez-Cornejo had been prescribed medication for diabetes, high blood pressure, and seizures—conditions that, if not properly treated, can lead to those symptoms as well as death. In an interview, his mother, Maria Cornejo, explained, “That is one of the reasons that I believe caused the death of my son, the negligence—that he wasn't given his medication that he had to take.”
Lopez-Cornejo is at least the 23rd person to die in ICE custody this year. In 2025, at least 33 people died in detention centers—the highest total in more than two decades according to the National Immigration Project.
Importantly, those numbers only represent the deaths that ICE has reported. During his visit to Delaney Hall on August 3, Menendez learned that another detainee had died at the detention center last month. That death was not reported because ICE agents had granted him a “discretionary release” in the middle of his medical emergency.
In June, ICE rescinded a Biden-era policy that required them to report on the deaths of detainees that occurred within 30 days of their release. ICE is now exploiting this change to obscure their death count.
And this is just the tip of the iceberg. In July, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) purchased the Otay Mesa Detention Center and the California City Detention Facility for $1.5 billion from the private prison company CoreCivic.
According to an ICE spokesperson, these purchases were necessary because “the state’s sanctuary politicians continue to push legislation to outlaw or make private prisons financially infeasible.” Shifting ownership from CoreCivic to the federal government circumvents these measures, thereby allowing ICE to retain “crucial” detention capacity.
This, however, is not all it does. In 2025, California passed legislation that granted its Department of Justice (DOJ) oversight to regularly inspect and report on the conditions of “county, local, or private locked detention facilities in which noncitizens are being housed or detained for purposes of civil immigration proceedings.” In June 2026, the California DOJ found that conditions at Otay Mesa were overcrowded and dirty. Medical recordkeeping was “disorganized and violated PBNDS [Performance-Based National Detention Standards] requirements” which resulted in “lapses in basic care.” At California City, the department found that detainees spent “unnecessarily long periods locked down in their cells” and experienced “extremely cold temperatures, with leaks during rainy periods.” California DOJ reported that healthcare infrastructure and systems at the center were “inadequate,” including “crisis-level health care understaffing.”
By taking ownership of those detention centers, the Trump administration is placing them beyond the reach of state inspections. As Alexa Van Brunt, the Director of the Illinois office at the McArthur Justice Center, explains, inspection reports are crucial in lawsuits alleging constitutional violations. Without them, it is far more difficult to obtain evidence of ICE’s wrongdoings. “To that point,” she remarks, “it will make it more onerous to hold DHS liable.”
It is also worth emphasizing that while ownership is being transferred, CoreCivic will remain in charge of managing those facilities. Same management, same abuses, but now with less oversight—the perfect recipe for more unaccounted detainee deaths.
In July, CBS News reported that only 15 of the 45 detention centers holding 500 or more people had been inspected by ICE’s Office of Detention Oversight in the last 12 months. This follows a shift in ICE’s policies whereby dedicated facilities, which exclusively hold ICE detainees, are now inspected once a year rather than twice; and non-dedicated facilities, such as county jails, are inspected every other year.
Notably, ICE’s detention center purchases extend beyond sanctuary cities. On August 5, CoreCivic announced that ICE had purchased the Prairie Correctional Facility in Minnesota and the Midwest Regional Reception Center in Kansas for a total of $734 million. Both facilities were previously shut down—the former in 2010; and the latter in 2021 as the Biden administration shifted away from private prison contracts. CoreCivic had been struggling since last year to reopen Midwest Regional amid protest from local residents—in a famously pro-prison town that Trump won with more than 60% of the vote in 2024—and legal challenges from city officials. Now it will, despite their objections and with possibly fewer guardrails.
Officials with CoreCivic and The Geo Group—which owns Delaney Hall—have reportedly discussed selling several more sites to the Trump administration.
By rescinding policies that mandate accountability and oversight, while simultaneously purchasing privately held detention centers, the Trump administration is working to hide the abuses, death, and violence occurring at their facilities. At the same time, these purchases have been a major windfall for CoreCivic, which has used our taxpayer dollars to pay down its $600 million debt.
Detention centers have always been deadly. Under Trump, ICE is doing everything it can to make them even more dangerous. Before it's too late, Congress must act immediately to not only abolish ICE, but punish everyone involved in enacting their campaign of domestic terrorism and death.
Keep ReadingShow Less
2 Men Were Killed by ICE on Their Way to Work; Every Employer Now Has to Pick a Side
A movement that spent years avoiding a labor identity can't afford that caution anymore.
Aug 07, 2026
Last month Immigration and Customs Enforcement killed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a father and Houston construction worker, on the way to a job site. Just six days later another ICE agent fatally shot Johan Sebastián Guerrero on his way to work, who left behind a partner and 3-year-old daughter.
When I helped organize the fight for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), we put young people in caps and gowns and asked the country to see them as exceptional, college bound, English speaking, worthy of protection in a way that set them apart from the majority of undocumented people, who were not students but workers. It was a strategy built for a specific moment, and it won us what respectability politics ever can: temporary inclusion that separated us from the rest of our community. Many of us also shied away from the economic argument on principle, even though mainstream organizations were already making it, because it had become associated with more middle-of-the-road groups. We narrowed our own lane instead of widening it.
That caution has run its course. Two men were killed on their way to work within a week of each other. No amount of careful language changes it.
What's needed now is to say plainly that this happened to people doing exactly what all workers do every day, and that everyone who depends on immigrant labor, starting with employers and extending through the broader labor movement, has to decide what they owe them.
Employers, unions, and labor organizations cannot afford to look away while businesses that have relied on workers like Lorenzo and Johan for years stay quiet as their own workforce is targeted by the government.
None of this is about making immigrants prove they deserve safety by pointing to what they contribute. Nobody should have to justify their right to exist with a paycheck.
But there's a difference between demanding immigrants justify their worth and simply describing how this economy runs. Construction, hospitality, agriculture, food delivery, garment production, whole industries in this country would not function without an estimated 10 million undocumented workers, most without any union protection at all. That labor isn't a contribution to the American economy. It is the American economy.
My mother came to this country to work, and to build something for her family, and so did the workers I've spent my career organizing alongside. That desire, to work hard and provide rather than be given something, isn't unique to immigrants.
Every night, at kitchen tables across this country, whether the family is undocumented or not, people are asking each other, "How was work?"
Wanting to work and provide for the people you love is one of the most ordinary parts of being human, and there is real pride in the work itself. That labor is an identity, not just the exploitative relationship it's so often reduced to, one that wouldn't change even if our immigration status did.
I organized car wash workers in Los Angeles, in shops where owners stole wages and denied bathroom breaks because workers had no path to citizenship and no union behind them. A boss who can threaten to call ICE on one worker has leverage over the whole shop floor, and in plenty of workplaces that threat is the boss' whole labor strategy, cheaper and more effective at stopping organizing than firing people or hiring anti-union law firms ever was.
Employers have a different kind of leverage too, not the threat they can hold over a worker, but the influence of being a major employer, the kind that gets a phone call to the White House answered, or makes silence too costly to just sit on.
Last year, farmers raised alarms about the raids loudly enough that President Donald Trump's own agriculture secretary carried the message to the White House, and enforcement paused, for four days, before Stephen Miller pushed to reverse it and the raids resumed.
In Minneapolis this year, more than 60 CEOs signed a joint letter calling for "de-escalation" after federal agents killed two residents. The letter didn’t name ICE, and it didn’t ask for anything specific. The letter added to the scrutiny that was already mounting against ICE and Border Patrol after the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. Within a day, the Border Patrol commander was pulled from the city. Within two days, Trump himself was using the language of de-escalation. A vague joint statement helped move that. Imagine what an actual one could do.
The choice to speak up for workers, clearly and specifically, should be harder to dodge in the days since the killings of Lorenzo and Johan.
Rather than address why agents opened fire on unarmed men on their way to work, the administration's border czar, Tom Homan, went on Fox News and warned that there would be more "bloodshed" unless Democrats who criticize ICE stop talking. Homan is trying to make silence about these ICE killings the price of safety, and to put the blame for these two deaths anywhere but on the agents who pulled the trigger.
Every employer, every union, every business owner who has ever depended on an immigrant showing up to work now has to pick a side. Either stand with the workers whose labor built their businesses and industries, or fall in line behind a White House that is driving a white nationalist agenda. There is no third option where staying silent counts as staying out of it.
The administration isn't waiting to see whether employers choose workers or fall in line. The same crackdown that's killing and deporting workers who are already here is also causing real labor shortages in construction, agriculture, and dairy, and the administration has an answer for that shortage that has nothing to do with accountability.
This year alone, it has added 65,000 new H-2B guest worker visas and, for the first time, opened dairy farms to guest workers under a program where a worker's legal status, housing, and wages all depend on the same employer. Advocates have documented what that leads to for years: wage theft, confiscated passports, and workers threatened into silence because there is nowhere else for them to go.
Formerly enslaved people fought for this same principle a century and a half ago, insisting that only full citizenship, not tolerated presence, guaranteed they wouldn't be treated as less than fully human. This summer, the Supreme Court reaffirmed that exact principle when it struck down Trump's attempt to strip citizenship from children born to undocumented parents.
If the labor and immigrant rights movements don’t make the case ourselves, loudly and now, that immigrant workers deserve full rights and not just a job, that’s the model we’ll be handed. The alternative gets built for us either way, one where people are welcome only as controllable labor and for exactly as long as an employer finds them useful.
Employers, unions, and labor organizations cannot afford to look away while businesses that have relied on workers like Lorenzo and Johan for years stay quiet as their own workforce is targeted by the government. Unions and labor advocates also have a responsibility to clearly say that worker safety does not end at the shop door. Workers have the right to get to a job and get home without risking their lives.
Two men are dead because they went to work, and the mistake the immigrant rights movement cannot afford right now is forgetting that it is also a labor movement.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Palantir: Surveillance State Profiteer Making Billions in Profits, But With an Effective US Tax Rate of... Zero
"The likes of Palantir need to stump up what's due," said one expert. "Tech giants raking off billions in profit can’t be free to pay what they please."
Aug 06, 2026
Palantir Technologies, one of the world's most influential—and controversial—surveillance tech companies, enjoyed an effective tax rate of just 1.4% globally last year while paying no US federal income tax despite recording substantial profits, an analysis released on Wednesday revealed.
The study, Who Pays for the Surveillance State?, was written by the Center for International Corporate Tax Accountability and Research (CICTAR) in partnership with the European Federation of Public Services Unions. The report "examines how Palantir is capturing ever-larger government contracts while paying no US federal corporate income tax and shifting much of its foreign profits back to the US, avoiding taxes in Europe."
"In 2025 the company reported $1.657 billion in pre-tax profit, booked $22.7 million [in] corporate tax paid globally, and paid $0 in US federal income tax, resulting in an effective tax rate of just 1.4% globally," CICTAR found.
"The report's core claim of profit-shifting is based on the gap between revenue and profit location: 26% of Palantir's revenue came from outside the US, but 96% of pre-tax profit was booked in the US," the analysis states.
"The Trump administration has not only been granting record amounts in new contracts to Palantir but is running a global protection racket to help it—along with larger US tech giants—avoid paying tax both in the US and globally," the report contends.
"In Europe, the report finds a pattern of subsidiaries providing services to the US parent on cost-plus terms, leaving low taxable margins locally while related-party payments move value back to the US," CICTAR added.
Palantir maintains that it complies with applicable tax laws in every jurisdiction where it operates. Company representatives have said that transfer pricing arrangements and other accounting practices cited by critics are standard among multinational corporations and comply with existing regulations.
The Palo Alto, California-based company's soaring revenues are partly driven by government contracts, with the US Department of Defense being the data analytics specialist's biggest client. Palantir is also integral to the Trump administration's deadly anti-immigrant crackdown, selling technology used by Department of Homeland Security agencies—including Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)—to identify, track, and target people for arrest and deportation and manage their cases.
Palantir has also drawn scrutiny from Democratic US lawmakers, including Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon and New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who demanded answers following reporting last year that the company was "amassing troves of data on Americans to create a government-wide, searchable ‘mega-database’ containing the sensitive taxpayer data of American citizens.”
Palestine defenders have also denounced Palantir and other tech giants for selling technology to the Israeli government and military despite findings by rights groups, scholars, national governments, and a United Nations commission of inquiry that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
Alex Karp, the billionaire co-founder and CEO of Palantir, told CNBC last month: “I am the most publicly supportive CEO of Israel. I think Israel is on the side of good.”
In Europe, advocacy groups have raised concerns about Palantir's contracts involving sensitive medical records, immigration systems, and predictive analytics. Campaigners argue that centralized data platforms create attractive targets for misuse, unauthorized access, or mission creep beyond their original purposes.
CICTAR's report concludes that "European public authorities should be able to exclude companies that take public money while shifting profits away from the national tax base that funds public services, and provide the basis for national security that Palantir claims to defend."
Responding to the report, Andrea Egan, general secretary of UNISON, the largest trade union in the United Kingdom, said that "a big multinational aggressively avoiding tax and dodging its responsibility to pay a fair share is probably no surprise. But the fact the UK and other countries are rewarding Palantir with massive government contracts is what beggars belief."
“Systems that enable tax to be shirked on an industrial scale clearly have to change," she added. "The likes of Palantir need to stump up what's due. Tech giants raking off billions in profit can’t be free to pay what they please. Ministers shouldn’t award contracts to run public services to firms that are starving them of cash.”
Keep ReadingShow Less
Legal Challenge Promised After GOP-Controlled FCC Lifts TV Ownership Limits, Allowing Trump Allies to 'Swallow Up Stations'
"Media consolidation and deal approvals are now explicitly a way for President Trump to further consolidate his dictatorial power," said a filing by Free Press, which is suing the FCC.
Aug 06, 2026
A press freedom group says it plans to take the GOP-controlled Federal Communications Commission to court after it voted along party lines on Thursday to enact a rule that could allow a small number of media conglomerates to consolidate even more control over local news stations.
In a 2-1 vote, the FCC eliminated a 22-year-old rule that prohibited a single company from owning stations that reach more than 39% of American households, replacing it with a rule allowing the FCC to make decisions on a case-by-case basis.
FCC chair Brendan Carr said the move was necessary to "restore balance to the broadcast airwaves" and "allow local broadcasters to remain competitive with national ones."
The FCC's lone Democrat and dissenting vote, Anna Gomez, argued that the move would not benefit local broadcasters so much as it would benefit the national conglomerates seeking to buy them up.
“The large station groups positioned to grow even larger under this decision are not local broadcasters; they are national companies that own local stations and increasingly dictate what airs on them," Gomez said. "Trading a squeeze from Big Tech for a squeeze from Big Media does nothing to protect the communities this cap was designed to serve.”
In a statement after the ruling, Reporters Without Borders said the FCC had "just abandoned one of the last significant safeguards against excessive concentration of media ownership."
The change is a big win for media conglomerates like Nexstar Media Group, which is seeking a merger with rival TV company Tegna to reach about 80% of households nationwide. The merger was approved earlier this year by the FCC, but blocked by a federal judge.
It would also allow the Sinclair Broadcast Group, a conglomerate known for forcing "must-run" segments with right-wing talking points into local news coverage from its corporate headquarters, the ability to continue gobbling up local news stations around the country.
Free Press, a media and technology watchdog, said it planned to appeal the FCC's decision in court, arguing that Carr had exceeded his power by overriding the 39% threshold, which was enshrined in federal law by the 2004 Consolidated Appropriations Act.
"His goal is to spur more media consolidation involving companies Donald Trump views as ideological allies and corporate cronies," said Matt Wood, the group's vice president of policy and general counsel.
Carr, a Trump appointee, has previously sought to use the FCC to crack down on the use of the airwaves by Trump's ideological enemies and consolidate control for his allies.
He has threatened the broadcast licenses of networks that criticize Trump, most infamously pressuring ABC to briefly pull late-night host Jimmy Kimmel off the air last year. He's also used the FCC's approval of the Paramount-Skydance merger to enforce ideological conformity at CBS News, which has dramatically altered its coverage and personnel to be more favorable to the administration.
Carr has argued that the FCC has the power to alter the consolidation cap because Congress technically directed the FCC to modify its own regulations to enact the 39% limit.
Gomez has disputed this, noting that when the FCC previously tried to move the cap, Congress "stepped in within months... and made clear the FCC did not have the authority to change it."
"Changing this limit requires congressional action, but Carr doesn’t care," Wood said. "He’ll do whatever it takes to clear the way for Trump-aligned billionaires to swallow up stations wherever and whenever they please."
John Bergmayer, legal director at the public interest group Public Knowledge, argued that removing the cap was not only illegal but "also bad policy."
"Consolidation does not serve local broadcast audiences or give them more local news and information," Bergmayer said. "It gives distant corporate headquarters more control of what is aired, and it creates pressure to cut local reporters and air the same programming across many markets."
Free Press' filing argues that Carr is not just violating the law but seeking to help Trump "use the commission’s licensing authority to exert total control over the media.”
"Media consolidation and deal approvals," the filing continues, "are now explicitly a way for President Trump to further consolidate his dictatorial power, through explicit loyalty tests and pledges to use the public airwaves as a propaganda tool against the American public."
Keep ReadingShow Less
See More
Most Popular
To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good.
News & Opinion
Trending
Common Dreams, Inc. Founded 1997. Registered 501(c3) Non-Profit
Privacy Policy