Hours after he launched yet another “direct attack” on workers by canceling a modest pay raise for around two million federal employees, President Donald Trump told Bloomberg on Thursday that he is considering a regressive and possibly illegal plan to use his executive power to hand the rich another $100 billion in tax cuts by indexing capital gains to inflation. Continue reading
Amid reports of the “devastating” impact U.S. President Donald Trump’s newly reimposed sanctions are having on ordinary Iranians’ ability to afford basic necessities and life-saving medicines, Iran accused the U.S. of “naked economic aggression” before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on Monday and called on the United Nations body to order the suspension of the penalties. Continue reading
During a closed-door and off-the-record meeting last week, top Facebook executive Campbell Brown reportedly warned news publishers that refusal to cooperate with the tech behemoth’s efforts to “revitalize journalism” will leave media outlets dying “like in a hospice.” Continue reading
In a huge win for everyone concerned about the devastating effects corporate consolidation has on local media outlets and independent journalism, Tribune Media announced on Thursday that it is terminating its proposed $3.9 billion merger with Sinclair Broadcast Group and suing the right-wing media giant for “breach of contract.” Continue reading
If the billionaire Koch brothers really want to undermine the economic case for Medicare for All, they have a funny way of showing it. Continue reading
With the help of 139 Democrats, the House of Representatives on Thursday easily rammed through the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which—if it passes the Senate—will hand President Donald Trump $717 billion in military spending. Continue reading
As part of its broad and relentless effort to roll back longstanding workplace safety regulations that have drastically reduced on-the-job injuries and deaths over the past several decades, President Donald Trump’s Department of Labor (DOL) has officially sent the White House a proposal to allow teenagers to “spend full days operating chainsaws and meat slicers and working in other dangerous occupations.” Continue reading
Israel’s right-wing government has apparently decided that the best way to stop global criticism of its flagrant human rights violations against the Palestinian people is not to stop committing them, but to silence and punish anyone who attempts to document its crimes. Continue reading
As corporate media outlets predictably trumpeted the right-wing narrative that Social Security is in dire financial straits after the Social Security Trustees’ annual report was released on Tuesday, advocacy groups and experts were quick to denounce the fearmongering and correct the record, arguing that the new analysis shows the program is “stronger than ever.” Continue reading
People have long known these kinds of conversations take place, but rarely is the regular voter allowed to hear exactly how it goes down. Continue reading
According to the newly leaked transcript of a New York Times staff meeting last year, editorial page editor James Bennet wants his employees and the public to believe that the paper of record is dedicated to open debate, not committed to any particular ideology, and opposed to “simply assert[ing] that we know what the right answers are.” Oh, except when it comes to one small matter: capitalism. Continue reading
Arguing that only a positive and truly transformative economic agenda will be sufficient to overcome the Republican congressional majority and President Donald Trump, scores of progressive leaders this week endorsed a bold 11-point platform that calls for Medicare for All, tough Wall Street regulation, and a ban on corporate money in elections. Continue reading
Just 24 hours after denouncing President Donald Trump’s newly-unveiled budget as “morally bankrupt,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) took full advantage of his chance to grill Trump budget chief Mick Mulvaney directly during a Senate hearing on Tuesday, calling the White House’s 2019 blueprint “the budget of the Koch brothers” and arguing thousands would die if the plan became law. Continue reading
Even while riding the high of his party’s dead-of-night tax victory, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) still wouldn’t call the GOP’s $1.5 trillion “gift to the rich” the crowning achievement of his career. That honor, McConnell told Bloomberg in an interview, remains with “Neil Gorsuch and the changes we’re making in the circuit courts.” Continue reading
A Trump-appointed federal judge delivered a “blow to American consumers” on Tuesday by denying Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) deputy director Leandra English’s request for a temporary restraining order, which would have prevented Trump budget chief Mick Mulvaney from becoming the CFPB’s acting director. Continue reading
In an effort to combat the “mountain of lies” FCC chair Ajit Pai has deployed to justify his newly released plan to kill net neutrality, Democratic FCC commissioner Mignon Clyburn unveiled a fact sheet (pdf) on Wednesday aimed at helping Americans understand that Pai’s proposals are “worse than one could imagine” and highlighting their life-or-death implications for the open The fact sheet, an easily digestible two pages in length, runs through a series of commonly asked and frequently confusing questions surrounding net neutrality: what it is, why it’s important, and how Pai’s plan would affect the web. Continue reading
In the United States, the 400 richest individuals now own more wealth than the bottom 64 percent of the population and the three richest own more wealth than the bottom 50 percent, while pervasive poverty means one in five households have zero or negative net worth. Continue reading
Experts are issuing urgent warnings of a possible radiation leak following the collapse of a tunnel at North Korea’s Punggye-ri nuclear test site, an accident that reportedly killed at least 200 people. Continue reading
In an under-discussed push to “reshape the courts in Donald Trump’s image for decades to come,” the Senate this week is quietly gearing up to confirm a slew of federal judges who critics say have records littered with “breathtaking hostility toward civil rights and equal justice.” Continue reading
Amid growing outrage over the “astonishingly corrupt” $300 million no-bid contract given to Whitefish Energy to rebuild Puerto Rico’s electrical grid, the Trump White House on Friday denied that the federal government had “any role” in crafting the agreement and placed all responsibility for the deal on shoulders of local Puerto Rican officials—despite language in the contract saying the Federal Emergency Management Agency “reviewed and approved” the agreement. Continue reading
As President Donald Trump continues to ratchet up tensions between the United States and North Korea through saber-rattling on Twitter and in television interviews, the U.S. has quietly begun preparing to put nuclear-armed B-52 bombers on “24-hour ready alert,” a status not seen since the end of the Cold War. Continue reading
Rehashing a notorious Republican Party trope that accuses some Americans of cheating safety net programs, President Donald Trump on Monday said his administration is looking “very, very strongly” at “welfare reform.” Continue reading
In a new study aimed at collecting and analyzing all of the relevant facts surrounding President Donald Trump’s legally questionable conduct in office—particularly his firing of former FBI director James Comey—three lawyers conclude it is “likely” that Trump has obstructed justice, and that whether he is held accountable for his actions “will have significant consequences for the functioning of our democracy.” Continue reading
In what critics are describing as a move to prioritize exports over public health, the Trump administration is quietly planning to transfer work on international food safety standards from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) health arm to its brand new trade arm, which is supervised by former animal-drug industry executive Ted McKinney. Continue reading
Texas’s minority and low-income communities have been disproportionately harmed by Hurricane Harvey, but you wouldn’t know it from following the coverage of America’s mainstream media outlets. Continue reading
As the catastrophic flooding brought about by Hurricane Harvey continues to devastate Texas, reports of “unbearable” smells are beginning to emerge from the state, sparking growing concerns of the long-term health effects that could result from toxic waste and fumes being spewed from temporarily closed oil refineries. Continue reading
His party is publicly rebuking him, corporate executives are rushing to distance themselves from his administration to safeguard their own reputations, and rumors of more White House departures are swirling after Chief Strategist Steve Bannon’s ouster. But it appears that President Donald Trump can still count on one bedrock of stability: major right-wing donors. Continue reading
As President Donald Trump continues to behave bizarrely and erratically—attacking his own attorney general, launching into a political tirade during a speech to Boy Scouts, bringing his 11-year-old son into the burgeoning Russia controversy—a professional association of psychoanalysts is telling its members to drop the so-called Goldwater rule and comment publicly on the president’s state of mind if they find reason to do so. Continue reading
White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told reporters in an off-camera briefing on Friday that President Donald Trump remains “committed” to protecting recipients of Medicaid, a program he repeatedly vowed not to cut during his presidential campaign. Continue reading
In what is being called the “biggest protest crackdown since the Civil Rights Era,” Republicans in at least 20 states have put forward or passed laws with the intention of making protest more difficult and the punishment for expressing dissent more draconian since President Donald Trump’s inauguration in January. Continue reading
While the Trump administration remains embroiled in scandals of its own making and continues to blunder forward seemingly without direction, Republicans have their collective gaze fixed on a prize they have coveted for years: complete domination of the judiciary. Continue reading
Displaying what one commentator called “sheer 19th century bloodlust and thirst for empire,” Erik Prince, founder of the private mercenary firm Blackwater, argued in The Wall Street Journal this week that the United States should deploy an “East India Company approach” in Afghanistan. Continue reading
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