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A foreclosure settlement between five major banks guilty of "robo-signing" and the attorneys general of the 50 states is pending for Monday, February 6th; but it is still not clear if all the AGs will sign.
A foreclosure settlement between five major banks guilty of "robo-signing" and the attorneys general of the 50 states is pending for Monday, February 6th; but it is still not clear if all the AGs will sign. California was to get over half of the $25 billion in settlement money, and California AG Kamala Harris has withstood pressure to settle.
That is good. She and the other AGs should not sign until a thorough investigation has been conducted. The evidence to date suggests that "robo-signing" was not a mere technical default or sloppy business practice but was part and parcel of a much larger fraud, the fraud that brought down the whole economy in 2008. It is not just distressed homeowners but the entire economy that has paid the price, resulting in massive unemployment and a shrunken tax base, throwing state and local governments into insolvency and forcing austerity measures and cutbacks in government services across the nation.
The details of the robo-signing scam were spelled out in my last article, here. The robo-signing fraud and its implications are expanded on below.
Why All the Robo-signing?
Over half the homes in the country are now held in the name of an electronic database called MERS--Mortgage Electronic Registration Services. MERS is a smokescreen concealing the fact that these mortgages were sold to trusts that sold them to investors. The mortgages were chopped into pieces and sold as "mortgage-backed securities" (MBS), which traded in a supposedly liquid market. That meant the investors could sell them in the money market at any time on a day's notice. Yale economist Gary Gorton gives this example:
Suppose the institutional investor is Fidelity, and Fidelity has $500 million in cash that will be used to buy securities, but not right now. Right now Fidelity wants a safe place to earn interest, but such that the money is available in case the opportunity for buying securities arises. Fidelity goes to Bear Stearns and "deposits" the $500 million overnight for interest. What makes this deposit safe? The safety comes from the collateral that Bear Stearns provides. Bear Stearns holds some asset-backed securities [with] a market value of $500 millions. These bonds are provided to Fidelity as collateral. Fidelity takes physical possession of these bonds. Since the transaction is overnight, Fidelity can get its money back the next morning, or it can agree to "roll" the trade. Fidelity earns, say, 3 percent.
That is where the robo-signing came in. Foreclosure defense attorneys armed with the tools of discovery have discovered that robo-signing -- involving falsified signatures assigning mortgages back to the trusts allegedly owning them -- occurred not just occasionally or randomly but in virtually every case. Why? Because the mortgages had to be left free to be bought and sold on a daily basis in the money market by investors. The investors are not interested in making 30 year loans. They want something short-term with immediate rights of withdrawal like a deposit account.
The Hazards of Borrowing Short to Lend Long
The problem is that when panicked investors all exercise that right at once, there is no cheap funding available to back the 30 year mortgage loans, rendering the banks insolvent. And that is what happened on September 15, 2008, when Lehman Brothers, a major investment bank like Bear Stearns, went bankrupt.
According to Representative Paul Kanjorski, speaking on C-SPAN in January 2009, the collapse of Lehman Brothers precipitated a $550 billion run on the money market funds. A report by the Joint Economic Committee pointed to the fact that the $62 billion Reserve Primary Fund had "broken the buck" (fallen below a stable $1 per share) due to its Lehman investments. The massive bank run that followed was the dire news that Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson presented to Congress behind closed doors, prompting Congressional approval of Paulson's $700 billion bank bailout despite deep misgivings.
The sleight of hand that brought the banking system down was that the mortgages backing the money market were supposedly held by trusts that had lent money to homeowners for 15 years or 30 years. It was the classic "borrowing short to lend long," a form of shell game in which banks have engaged for hundreds of years, routinely precipitating bank panics and bank runs when the depositors or the investors all pull their short-term money out at the same time.
The Shadow Banking System Is Still Unregulated
Periodic bank panics were averted in the conventional banking system only when the government agreed to insure the deposits of individual depositors in 1933. But FDIC insurance covered only $100,000 (now $250,000), and large institutional investors had far more than that to invest. The shadow banking system, in which deposits were "insured" with mortgage-backed securities, developed in response. But the shadow banking system is unregulated and is just as prone to another collapse today as it was in 2008. The Dodd-Frank banking "reforms" barely touched it. As noted in an article titled "Risky Debt Use on Repo Market Hits 2008 Levels" in Friday's Financial Times:
In the repo market, banks pledge their securities as collateral for short-term loans from money managers and other investors. The market played a key role in the build-up to the 2008 financial crisis. Banks used toxic assets, such as repackaged subprime loans, to secure trillions of dollars worth of cheap funding.
When the US housing bubble burst, the banks' trading partners refused to accept such securities as collateral and the repo market rapidly contracted.
However, a study by Fitch Ratings says the proportion of bundled debt being used as security in repo transactions has returned to pre-crisis levels.
Using the repackaged loans can increase risk in the repo market, the rating agency says. This is because the securities may be prone to sudden pullbacks such as the one experienced in 2008.
We could be looking at another banking collapse at any time; and to fix the problem, we first need to know what is going on. The AGs should not agree to drop the curtain on the robo-signing scandal until all the evidence is on the table. It is not just a matter of punishing the guilty; it is a matter of a banking scheme based on fraud, one that ultimately does not work and has jeopardized the homes, savings and investments of the public not just recently but for hundreds of years.
The Way Out
There is another way to design a banking system. The deposits of large institutional investors do not need to be backed by sliced and diced pieces of our homes to be "safe" (something that has proven not to be safe at all). The large institutional investors seeking safety are largely "us" - the pension funds and mutual funds in which we have stored our savings and on which we rely for support when we can no longer work. Hundreds of years of history have demonstrated that the only reliable guarantor is the government itself.
Our pension funds and mutual funds need a government guarantee just as much as our individual deposits do. But we don't want to be guaranteeing the gambling and derivatives schemes of too-big-to-fail, for-profit Wall Street banks playing fast and loose with our money. Banking and credit need to be public utilities, operated for the benefit of the public in plain sight of the public.
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A foreclosure settlement between five major banks guilty of "robo-signing" and the attorneys general of the 50 states is pending for Monday, February 6th; but it is still not clear if all the AGs will sign. California was to get over half of the $25 billion in settlement money, and California AG Kamala Harris has withstood pressure to settle.
That is good. She and the other AGs should not sign until a thorough investigation has been conducted. The evidence to date suggests that "robo-signing" was not a mere technical default or sloppy business practice but was part and parcel of a much larger fraud, the fraud that brought down the whole economy in 2008. It is not just distressed homeowners but the entire economy that has paid the price, resulting in massive unemployment and a shrunken tax base, throwing state and local governments into insolvency and forcing austerity measures and cutbacks in government services across the nation.
The details of the robo-signing scam were spelled out in my last article, here. The robo-signing fraud and its implications are expanded on below.
Why All the Robo-signing?
Over half the homes in the country are now held in the name of an electronic database called MERS--Mortgage Electronic Registration Services. MERS is a smokescreen concealing the fact that these mortgages were sold to trusts that sold them to investors. The mortgages were chopped into pieces and sold as "mortgage-backed securities" (MBS), which traded in a supposedly liquid market. That meant the investors could sell them in the money market at any time on a day's notice. Yale economist Gary Gorton gives this example:
Suppose the institutional investor is Fidelity, and Fidelity has $500 million in cash that will be used to buy securities, but not right now. Right now Fidelity wants a safe place to earn interest, but such that the money is available in case the opportunity for buying securities arises. Fidelity goes to Bear Stearns and "deposits" the $500 million overnight for interest. What makes this deposit safe? The safety comes from the collateral that Bear Stearns provides. Bear Stearns holds some asset-backed securities [with] a market value of $500 millions. These bonds are provided to Fidelity as collateral. Fidelity takes physical possession of these bonds. Since the transaction is overnight, Fidelity can get its money back the next morning, or it can agree to "roll" the trade. Fidelity earns, say, 3 percent.
That is where the robo-signing came in. Foreclosure defense attorneys armed with the tools of discovery have discovered that robo-signing -- involving falsified signatures assigning mortgages back to the trusts allegedly owning them -- occurred not just occasionally or randomly but in virtually every case. Why? Because the mortgages had to be left free to be bought and sold on a daily basis in the money market by investors. The investors are not interested in making 30 year loans. They want something short-term with immediate rights of withdrawal like a deposit account.
The Hazards of Borrowing Short to Lend Long
The problem is that when panicked investors all exercise that right at once, there is no cheap funding available to back the 30 year mortgage loans, rendering the banks insolvent. And that is what happened on September 15, 2008, when Lehman Brothers, a major investment bank like Bear Stearns, went bankrupt.
According to Representative Paul Kanjorski, speaking on C-SPAN in January 2009, the collapse of Lehman Brothers precipitated a $550 billion run on the money market funds. A report by the Joint Economic Committee pointed to the fact that the $62 billion Reserve Primary Fund had "broken the buck" (fallen below a stable $1 per share) due to its Lehman investments. The massive bank run that followed was the dire news that Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson presented to Congress behind closed doors, prompting Congressional approval of Paulson's $700 billion bank bailout despite deep misgivings.
The sleight of hand that brought the banking system down was that the mortgages backing the money market were supposedly held by trusts that had lent money to homeowners for 15 years or 30 years. It was the classic "borrowing short to lend long," a form of shell game in which banks have engaged for hundreds of years, routinely precipitating bank panics and bank runs when the depositors or the investors all pull their short-term money out at the same time.
The Shadow Banking System Is Still Unregulated
Periodic bank panics were averted in the conventional banking system only when the government agreed to insure the deposits of individual depositors in 1933. But FDIC insurance covered only $100,000 (now $250,000), and large institutional investors had far more than that to invest. The shadow banking system, in which deposits were "insured" with mortgage-backed securities, developed in response. But the shadow banking system is unregulated and is just as prone to another collapse today as it was in 2008. The Dodd-Frank banking "reforms" barely touched it. As noted in an article titled "Risky Debt Use on Repo Market Hits 2008 Levels" in Friday's Financial Times:
In the repo market, banks pledge their securities as collateral for short-term loans from money managers and other investors. The market played a key role in the build-up to the 2008 financial crisis. Banks used toxic assets, such as repackaged subprime loans, to secure trillions of dollars worth of cheap funding.
When the US housing bubble burst, the banks' trading partners refused to accept such securities as collateral and the repo market rapidly contracted.
However, a study by Fitch Ratings says the proportion of bundled debt being used as security in repo transactions has returned to pre-crisis levels.
Using the repackaged loans can increase risk in the repo market, the rating agency says. This is because the securities may be prone to sudden pullbacks such as the one experienced in 2008.
We could be looking at another banking collapse at any time; and to fix the problem, we first need to know what is going on. The AGs should not agree to drop the curtain on the robo-signing scandal until all the evidence is on the table. It is not just a matter of punishing the guilty; it is a matter of a banking scheme based on fraud, one that ultimately does not work and has jeopardized the homes, savings and investments of the public not just recently but for hundreds of years.
The Way Out
There is another way to design a banking system. The deposits of large institutional investors do not need to be backed by sliced and diced pieces of our homes to be "safe" (something that has proven not to be safe at all). The large institutional investors seeking safety are largely "us" - the pension funds and mutual funds in which we have stored our savings and on which we rely for support when we can no longer work. Hundreds of years of history have demonstrated that the only reliable guarantor is the government itself.
Our pension funds and mutual funds need a government guarantee just as much as our individual deposits do. But we don't want to be guaranteeing the gambling and derivatives schemes of too-big-to-fail, for-profit Wall Street banks playing fast and loose with our money. Banking and credit need to be public utilities, operated for the benefit of the public in plain sight of the public.
A foreclosure settlement between five major banks guilty of "robo-signing" and the attorneys general of the 50 states is pending for Monday, February 6th; but it is still not clear if all the AGs will sign. California was to get over half of the $25 billion in settlement money, and California AG Kamala Harris has withstood pressure to settle.
That is good. She and the other AGs should not sign until a thorough investigation has been conducted. The evidence to date suggests that "robo-signing" was not a mere technical default or sloppy business practice but was part and parcel of a much larger fraud, the fraud that brought down the whole economy in 2008. It is not just distressed homeowners but the entire economy that has paid the price, resulting in massive unemployment and a shrunken tax base, throwing state and local governments into insolvency and forcing austerity measures and cutbacks in government services across the nation.
The details of the robo-signing scam were spelled out in my last article, here. The robo-signing fraud and its implications are expanded on below.
Why All the Robo-signing?
Over half the homes in the country are now held in the name of an electronic database called MERS--Mortgage Electronic Registration Services. MERS is a smokescreen concealing the fact that these mortgages were sold to trusts that sold them to investors. The mortgages were chopped into pieces and sold as "mortgage-backed securities" (MBS), which traded in a supposedly liquid market. That meant the investors could sell them in the money market at any time on a day's notice. Yale economist Gary Gorton gives this example:
Suppose the institutional investor is Fidelity, and Fidelity has $500 million in cash that will be used to buy securities, but not right now. Right now Fidelity wants a safe place to earn interest, but such that the money is available in case the opportunity for buying securities arises. Fidelity goes to Bear Stearns and "deposits" the $500 million overnight for interest. What makes this deposit safe? The safety comes from the collateral that Bear Stearns provides. Bear Stearns holds some asset-backed securities [with] a market value of $500 millions. These bonds are provided to Fidelity as collateral. Fidelity takes physical possession of these bonds. Since the transaction is overnight, Fidelity can get its money back the next morning, or it can agree to "roll" the trade. Fidelity earns, say, 3 percent.
That is where the robo-signing came in. Foreclosure defense attorneys armed with the tools of discovery have discovered that robo-signing -- involving falsified signatures assigning mortgages back to the trusts allegedly owning them -- occurred not just occasionally or randomly but in virtually every case. Why? Because the mortgages had to be left free to be bought and sold on a daily basis in the money market by investors. The investors are not interested in making 30 year loans. They want something short-term with immediate rights of withdrawal like a deposit account.
The Hazards of Borrowing Short to Lend Long
The problem is that when panicked investors all exercise that right at once, there is no cheap funding available to back the 30 year mortgage loans, rendering the banks insolvent. And that is what happened on September 15, 2008, when Lehman Brothers, a major investment bank like Bear Stearns, went bankrupt.
According to Representative Paul Kanjorski, speaking on C-SPAN in January 2009, the collapse of Lehman Brothers precipitated a $550 billion run on the money market funds. A report by the Joint Economic Committee pointed to the fact that the $62 billion Reserve Primary Fund had "broken the buck" (fallen below a stable $1 per share) due to its Lehman investments. The massive bank run that followed was the dire news that Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson presented to Congress behind closed doors, prompting Congressional approval of Paulson's $700 billion bank bailout despite deep misgivings.
The sleight of hand that brought the banking system down was that the mortgages backing the money market were supposedly held by trusts that had lent money to homeowners for 15 years or 30 years. It was the classic "borrowing short to lend long," a form of shell game in which banks have engaged for hundreds of years, routinely precipitating bank panics and bank runs when the depositors or the investors all pull their short-term money out at the same time.
The Shadow Banking System Is Still Unregulated
Periodic bank panics were averted in the conventional banking system only when the government agreed to insure the deposits of individual depositors in 1933. But FDIC insurance covered only $100,000 (now $250,000), and large institutional investors had far more than that to invest. The shadow banking system, in which deposits were "insured" with mortgage-backed securities, developed in response. But the shadow banking system is unregulated and is just as prone to another collapse today as it was in 2008. The Dodd-Frank banking "reforms" barely touched it. As noted in an article titled "Risky Debt Use on Repo Market Hits 2008 Levels" in Friday's Financial Times:
In the repo market, banks pledge their securities as collateral for short-term loans from money managers and other investors. The market played a key role in the build-up to the 2008 financial crisis. Banks used toxic assets, such as repackaged subprime loans, to secure trillions of dollars worth of cheap funding.
When the US housing bubble burst, the banks' trading partners refused to accept such securities as collateral and the repo market rapidly contracted.
However, a study by Fitch Ratings says the proportion of bundled debt being used as security in repo transactions has returned to pre-crisis levels.
Using the repackaged loans can increase risk in the repo market, the rating agency says. This is because the securities may be prone to sudden pullbacks such as the one experienced in 2008.
We could be looking at another banking collapse at any time; and to fix the problem, we first need to know what is going on. The AGs should not agree to drop the curtain on the robo-signing scandal until all the evidence is on the table. It is not just a matter of punishing the guilty; it is a matter of a banking scheme based on fraud, one that ultimately does not work and has jeopardized the homes, savings and investments of the public not just recently but for hundreds of years.
The Way Out
There is another way to design a banking system. The deposits of large institutional investors do not need to be backed by sliced and diced pieces of our homes to be "safe" (something that has proven not to be safe at all). The large institutional investors seeking safety are largely "us" - the pension funds and mutual funds in which we have stored our savings and on which we rely for support when we can no longer work. Hundreds of years of history have demonstrated that the only reliable guarantor is the government itself.
Our pension funds and mutual funds need a government guarantee just as much as our individual deposits do. But we don't want to be guaranteeing the gambling and derivatives schemes of too-big-to-fail, for-profit Wall Street banks playing fast and loose with our money. Banking and credit need to be public utilities, operated for the benefit of the public in plain sight of the public.
"What is it going to take for Senate Republicans to oppose this unfit nominee? Every Republican senator who votes to confirm Bove will be complicit in undermining the rule of law and judicial independence."
After a second whistleblower came forward claiming that Emil Bove III instructed attorneys at the U.S. Department of Justice to ignore federal court orders, his critics on Friday renewed calls for the Senate to reject the DOJ official's appointment as an appellate judge.
"Evidence is growing that Emil Bove urged Department of Justice lawyers to ignore federal court orders. That alone should disqualify him from a lifetime appointment to one of the most powerful courts in our country," said Sean Eldridge, president and founder of the progressive advocacy group Stand Up America, in a statement.
U.S. President Donald Trump announced in late May that he would nominate Bove, his former personal attorney, to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit. Then, last month, a whistleblower complaint was filed by Erez Reuveni, who was fired from the DOJ's Office of Immigration Litigation in April after expressing concerns about the Kilmar Ábrego García case.
On Friday, as the Republican-controlled Senate was moving toward confirming Bove, the group Whistleblower Aid announced that another former Justice Department lawyer, whose name is not being disclosed, "has lawfully disclosed evidence to the DOJ's Office of the Inspector General that corroborates the thrust of the whistleblower claims" from Reuveni.
"Loyalty to one individual must never outweigh supporting and protecting the fundamental rights of those living in the United States."
"What we're seeing here is something I never thought would be possible on such a wide scale: federal prosecutors appointed by the Trump administration intentionally presenting dubious if not outright false evidence to a court of jurisdiction in cases that impact a person's fundamental rights not only under our Constitution, but their natural rights as humans," said Whistleblower Aid chief legal counsel Andrew Bakaj in a statement.
"What this means is that federal career attorneys who swore an oath to uphold the Constitution are now being pressured to abdicate that promise in favor of fealty to a single person, specifically Donald Trump. Loyalty to one individual must never outweigh supporting and protecting the fundamental rights of those living in the United States," Bakaj added. "Our client and Mr. Reuveni are true patriots—prioritizing their commitment to democracy over advancing their careers."
Bove has also faced mounting opposition—including from dozens of former judges—due to his embrace of the so-called "unitary executive theory" as well as his positions on a potential third Trump term and the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol by the president's supporters.
The Senate on Thursday voted 50-48 to proceed with the consideration of Bove's nomination. Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Susan Collins (Maine) joined all Democrats in opposition. Responding in a statement, Demand Justice interim executive director Maggie Jo Buchanan warned that "Bove will be a stain on the judiciary if confirmed."
"Voting to confirm Trump's judicial nominees to lifetime seats on the federal bench, as he wages a war on the very idea of judicial independence, is an unacceptable choice for any senator who believes in our democracy and the importance of individual rights," said Buchanan, who also blasted the Senate's Tuesday confirmation of Joshua Divine to be a U.S. district judge for the Eastern and Western Districts of Missouri.
"Trump and his MAGA allies are helping him consolidate power in the executive branch, attacking judges who dare to rule against his interests, and targeting Trump's perceived political enemies—all while seemingly unconcerned about the future this sets up for our nation," she stressed. "Every senator will have to decide where they stand when it comes to this assault on our country's values—and that choice will not be forgotten."
After news of the second whistleblower complaint broke on Friday, Stand Up America's Eldridge declared that "again and again, Bove has proven he lacks the temperament, integrity, and independence to serve on the federal bench. He's nothing more than a political foot soldier doing Trump's bidding."
"What is it going to take for Senate Republicans to oppose this unfit nominee?" he added. "Every Republican senator who votes to confirm Bove will be complicit in undermining the rule of law and judicial independence."
"This administration deserves no credit for just barely averting a crisis they themselves set in motion," said one Democratic senator.
While welcoming reporting that the Trump administration will release more than $5 billion in federal funding for schools that it has been withholding for nearly a month, U.S. educators and others said Friday that the funds should never have been held up in the first place and warned that the attempt to do so was just one part of an ongoing campaign to undermine public education.
The Trump administration placed nearly $7 billion in federal education funding for K-12 public schools under review last month, then released $1.3 billion of it last week amid legal action and widespread backlash. An administration official speaking on condition of anonymity told The Washington Post that all reviews of remaining funding are now over.
"There is no good reason for the chaos and stress this president has inflicted on students, teachers, and parents across America for the last month, and it shouldn't take widespread blowback for this administration to do its job and simply get the funding out the door that Congress has delivered to help students," U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee Vice Chair Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said Friday.
"This administration deserves no credit for just barely averting a crisis they themselves set in motion," Murray added. "You don't thank a burglar for returning your cash after you've spent a month figuring out if you'd have to sell your house to make up the difference."
🚨After unlawfully withholding billions in education funding for schools, the Trump Admin. has reversed course.This is a massive victory for students, educators, & families who depend on these essential resources.And it's a testament to public pressure & relentless organizing.
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— Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (@pressley.house.gov) July 25, 2025 at 1:42 PM
Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward—which represents plaintiffs in a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration's funding freeze—said Friday that "if these reports are true, this is a major victory for public education and the communities it serves."
"This news following our legal challenge is a direct result of collective action by educators, families, and advocates across the country," Perryman asserted. "These funds are critical to keeping teachers in classrooms, supporting students in vulnerable conditions, and ensuring schools can offer the programs and services that every child deserves."
"While this development shows that legal and public pressure can make a difference, school districts, parents, and educators should not have to take the administration to court to secure funds for their students," she added. "Our promise to the people remains: We will go to court to protect the rights and well-being of all people living in America."
Democratic Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes—a plaintiff in a separate lawsuit challenging the withholding—attributed the administration's backpedaling to litigatory pressure, arguing that the funding "should never have been withheld in the first place."
They released the 7 B IN SCHOOL FUNDS!! This is a huge win. It means fighting back matters. Fighting for what kids & communities need is always the right thing to do! www.washingtonpost.com/education/20...
[image or embed]
— Randi Weingarten (@rweingarten.bsky.social) July 25, 2025 at 11:46 AM
Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association—the largest U.S. labor union—said in a statement: "Playing games with students' futures has real-world consequences. School districts in every state have been scrambling to figure out how they will continue to meet student needs without this vital federal funding, and many students in parts of the country have already headed back to school. These reckless funding delays have undermined planning, staffing, and support services at a time when schools should be focused on preparing students for success."
"Sadly, this is part of a broader pattern by this administration of undermining public education—starving it of resources, sowing distrust, and pushing privatization at the expense of the nation's most vulnerable students," Pringle added. "And they are doing this at the same time Congress has passed a budget bill that will devastate our students, schools, and communities by slashing funds meant for public education, healthcare, and keeping students from their school meals—all to finance massive tax breaks for billionaires."
While expanding support for private education, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act signed by President Donald Trump earlier this month weakens public school programs including before- and after-school initiatives and services for English language learners.
"Sadly, this is part of a broader pattern by this administration of undermining public education."
Trump also signed an executive order in March directing Education Secretary Linda McMahon to begin the process of shutting down the Department of Education—a longtime goal of Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation-led roadmap for a far-right takeover and gutting of the federal government closely linked to Trump, despite his unconvincing efforts to distance himself from the highly controversial and unpopular plan.
Earlier this week, the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office determined that the U.S. Health and Human Services Department illegally impounded crucial funds from the Head Start program, which provides comprehensive early childhood education, health, nutrition, and other services to low-income families.
"Instead of spending the last many weeks figuring out how to improve after-school options and get our kids' reading and math scores up, because of President Trump, communities across the country have been forced to spend their time cutting back on tutoring options and sorting out how many teachers they will have to lay off," Murray noted.
"It's time for President Trump, Secretary McMahon, and [Office of Management and Budget Director] Russ Vought to stop playing games with students' futures and families' livelihoods—and end their illegal assault on our students and their schools," the senator added.
"You want history books to not record you as an evil genocide supporter?" said one organizer. "You need to actually make an impact, NOW."
U.S. college students are still facing punishment for protesting Israel's U.S.-backed bombardment of Gaza and its starvation of more than 2 million Palestinians there, with Columbia University announcing this week the suspension and expulsion of dozens of students who spoke out over the past year.
But a number of observers have pointed to a shift in the rhetoric of some of the student organizers' biggest detractors in recent days, with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton notably saying Thursday that "thousands of children in Gaza are at risk of starvation while trucks full of food sit waiting across the border" and calling for "the full flow of humanitarian assistance" to be restored.
Clinton didn't mention the Israeli blockade that has kept food from reaching Palestinians, more than 120 of whom have now died of starvation, or the at least $12.5 billion in military aid the U.S. has provided to Israel since the blockade first began in October 2023—in violation of U.S. laws prohibiting the government from giving military aid to countries that block humanitarian aid.
The former Democratic presidential nominee also didn't acknowledge the remarks she made in May 2024 about the campus protests that were spreading across the country, with students demanding that their schools divest from companies that work with the Israeli government and that the country end its support for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
At the time, Clinton said students who oppose Israel's policies in Gaza and the West Bank "don't know very much" about the conflict there. Clinton and other politicians from both the Democratic and Republican parties have repeated the familiar phrase, "Israel has a right to defend itself" as the IDF has attacked so-called "safe zones," hospitals, and refugee camps.
Some suggested her comments on Thursday appeared to be those of an influential political figure who's come to a realization about the situation that both the Biden and Trump administrations, with bipartisan support from Congress, have helped to bring about in Gaza.
"Seems mostly like all the recent photos of starving children are responsible for this shift, though humanitarian aid groups have been warning about this for months and months," said Washington Post reporter Jeff Stein.
One observer said Clinton and a number of European leaders are speaking out now because Israel has already "carried out their final solution."
As Common Dreams reported this week, Integrated Food Security Phase Classification has said that 85% of people in Gaza are now in Phase 5 of famine, defined at "an extreme deprivation of food."
New York Times columnist Megan Stack said she welcomed anyone who is "[waking] up" to the reality of man-made mass starvation made possible by U.S. support, but called it "an absolute indictment of the center-left, such as it is, that it took pictures of dying, skeletal babies with trash bags for diapers to muster this pale response."
"Subtext: We can stomach mass bombings, but starvation is a bridge too far," said Stack.
The comments from Clinton coincided with a shift in the corporate media's coverage of Gaza, with major outlets focusing heavily on the impact of starvation.
Organizer and attorney Aaron Regunberg said that instead of simply doing "reputational damage control by speaking up in these very last moments," powerful political leaders must "shut shit down."
"You want history books to not record you as an evil genocide supporter?" said Regunberg. "One speech now—after countless speeches condemning those who have been speaking out—ain't gonna cut it... You need to go to Gaza. You need to actually make an impact, NOW."
Progressive organizer Lindsey Boylan wondered whether establishment leaders "will ever admit that smearing all protests to stop the genocide actually contributed to the genocide."
"Few people could have played a more pivotal role in shaping the democratic response to prevent genocide," said Boylan of Clinton's comments. "Now here we are. Watching mass death of kids."
On Friday, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who has consistently demanded that the Biden and Trump administrations stop funding Israel's assault on Gaza and warned of the impact mass starvation would have, issued his latest call for U.S. support to end immediately.
"American taxpayer dollars are being used to starve children, bomb civilians, and support the cruelty of [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu and his criminal ministers," said Sanders. "Enough is enough. The White House and Congress must immediately act to end this war using the full scope of American influence. No more military aid to the Netanyahu government. History will condemn those who fail to act in the face of this horror."