Why Is the U.S. Department of Labor Posting White Nationalist Propaganda?

This weekend, the agency posted a phrase similar to one that appeared on Hitler propaganda posters.

By Sharon Zhang ,

Truthout

January 12, 2026

Birds fly past a giant banner with the image of President Donald Trump hanging on the outside of the U.S. Department of Labor on January 5, 2026 in Washington, D.C.Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

The Trump administration’s Department of Labor sparked outcry this weekend after using language on social media that many observers pointed out echoes a phrase commonly used in Nazi propaganda — following months of post after post from the agency espousing white nationalist sentiments.

On Saturday, the Labor Department wrote on social media: “One Homeland. One People. One Heritage. Remember who you are, American.” Accompanying the text was a short video showing what appears to be a statue of President George Washington overlaid on a series of war-themed historic American paintings and propaganda posters.

Other accounts were quick to point out the strong similarity to Nazi propaganda that proclaimed “Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer,” translating roughly to “One People, One Nation, One Leader.” One historic poster shows a portrait of Adolf Hitler standing proudly with a Nazi armband, and that phrase underneath.

“We are governed by proud Neo-Nazis,” said Zeteo editor-in-chief Mehdi Hasan in response to the post.

The post is one of many recent posts by accounts within the administration that nod to neo-Nazis or outright white nationalist messaging, serving the administration’s goal for an all-of-government approach to its fascist immigration crackdown.

The Department of Labor has posted repeatedly about supporting Americans — specifically U.S.-born Americans.

In December, the account posted numerous times touting a claim that 100 percent of net job growth in the U.S. during the first year of Trump’s second term went to American-born citizens. At one point, it posted a screenshot of a headline from Breitbart that boasted: “ALL NET JOB GROWTH GOING TO AMERICANS AS FOREIGN-BORN EMPLOYMENT KEEPS DECLINING”, implying, among other things, that immigrants who weren’t born in the U.S. aren’t American.

The jobs claim — which is at best misleading — reflects an alarming priority for immigrants to be pushed out of employment by the agency that’s supposed to help manage and protect the American workforce.

Other posts have also reflected a commitment to white and Christian nationalism, with the department posting a Bible verse on Christmas Eve, and repeatedly calling for patriotism over globalism.

The administration has used the Department of Labor in its anti-immigrant crackdown, using the agency for a campaign to restrict H-1B visas last year. H1-B visas allow job-seekers from other countries to work in specialty occupations in the U.S.

These restrictions have been touted by the administration as a way to protect American workers, but H-1B visas are already only granted to workers representing specialties not typically present in the U.S. workforce.

The Department of Homeland Security has also been posting white nationalist propaganda on social media. The Southern Poverty Law Center found in an analysis that it “utilizes white nationalist and anti-immigrant images and slogans in recruitment materials.” The agency’s recruitment materials “feature white people almost exclusively,” while it also “disproportionately posts images of Black and Brown people accused of violating federal immigration laws” on social media.

“In some cases, the images and language appear to come directly from antisemitic and neo-Nazi publications and a white Christian nationalist website,” the group found.

Trump's foreign and domestic policies are merging — and their purpose isn't complicated

Robert Reich

January 12, 2026

At the same time agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Patrol are swarming into Minnesota and other states and cities, Trump is planning bombing raids on other countries.

Domestically and internationally, he is putting America on a war footing.

ICE is reportedly investing $100 million on what it calls “wartime recruitment” of 10,000 new agents, in addition to the 20,000 already employed. Its recruitment is targeting gun and military enthusiasts, people who listen to right-wing radio, who have gone to Ultimate Fighting Championship fights or shopped for guns and tactical gear, live near military bases, and attend NASCAR races. It’s calling for recruits willing to perform their “sacred duty” and “defend the homeland” by repelling “foreign invaders.”

Meanwhile, Trump has announced that he’ll ask Congress for a $1.5 trillion defense budget for the next fiscal year — a 66 percent increase over the 2026 defense budget Congress just authorized.

There’s coming to be no difference between Trump’s foreign and domestic policies.

Both are based on the same eight maniacal ideas: (1) Might makes right. (2) Law is irrelevant. (3) America is at war with the world’s “radical left,” who are defined chiefly by their opposition to Trump. (4) Fear and force are better weapons in this war than hope and compromise. (5) The U.S. stock market is the best measure of Trump’s success. (6) Personal enrichment by Trump and other officials is justified in pursuit of victory. (7) So are lies, cover-ups, and the illegal use of force. (8) Trump is invincible and omnipotent.

These ideas are at such fundamental odds with the norms most of us share about what America is all about and how a president should think and behave that it’s difficult to accept that Trump believes them or that his White House thugs eagerly endorse them. But he does, and they do.

Rather than some “doctrine” or set of principles, they’re more like guttural discharges. Trump is not rational, and the people around him trying to give him a patina of rationality — his White House assistants and spokespeople — surely know it.

The media tries to confer on Trump a coherence that evaporates almost as soon as it’s stated. The New York Times’s breathless coverage of its recent Oval Office interview with Trump — describing his “many faces” — is a model of such a vapidity.

According to the Times, Trump “took unpredictable turns” during the interview. But instead of seeing this unpredictability as a symptom of Trump’s diminishing capacities and ever-shorter attention span, the Times reported it as “a tactic he embraces as president, particularly on the world stage. If no one knows what you might do, they often do what you want them to do.”

Attempts to show inconsistencies or hypocrisies in Trump’s domestic or foreign policies are fruitless because they have no consistency or truthfulness to begin with.

Nor is it possible for the media to describe a “big picture” of America and the world under Trump because there is nothing to picture other than his malignant, impulsive, unbridled grandiosity all the way up and all the way down.

Trump has unleashed violence on America’s streets for much the same reason he has unleashed violence on Latin America and is planning to unleash it elsewhere: to display his own strength. His motive is to gain more power and, along the way, more wealth. (On Sunday, he even posted an image referring to himself as the “Acting President of Venezuela.”)

“Policy” implies thought. But under Trump, there is no domestic or foreign policy because it is all thoughtless. It is not even improvised. It is just Trump’s ego — as interpreted by the toadies around him (Miller, Vought, Vance, Kennedy, Rubio, Noem) trying to guess what his ego craves or detests, or fulfilling their own fanatical goals by manipulating it.

We must stop trying to make rational sense out of what Trump is doing. He is a ruthless dictator, plan and simple.

All analyses of what is happening — all reporting, all efforts to understand, all attempts at strategizing — are doomed. The only reality is that an increasingly dangerous and irrational sociopath is now exercising brutal and unconstrained power over America and, hence, the world.

Trump is putting America on a war footing because war is good for him as it is for all dictators. War confers emergency powers. It justifies ignoring the niceties of elections. It allows dictators to imprison and intimidate opponents and enemies. It enables them to create their own personal slush funds. It distracts the public from other things (remember Jeffrey Epstein?).

War gives dictators like Trump more power and more wealth. Period.

Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/.

5 reasons to impeach 'degenerate criminal' Trump: analysis

U.S. President Donald Trump attends a cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., August 26, 2025. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

Carl Gibson

January 10, 2026

ALTERNET

Any effort to impeach President Donald Trump while Republicans control Congress is unlikely to succeed. But one columnist is arguing that Democrats should "do it anyway."

In a Saturday article for The New Republic, the outlet's Jason Linkins laid out why Democrats stand to benefit significantly by aggressively pursuing a third impeachment of Trump, who endured two impeachment trials during his first term. First, Linkins asserted that Trump had committed numerous "impeachable offenses" that would have subjected any other president to the process.

"Trumpism isn’t working, ordinary people are being crushed under the wheels of elite impunity, the cost of everything is going up, the administration either has no answers for it or doesn’t care and the president is deteriorating before our eyes, dogged by obvious health concerns and the slow-rolling Jeffrey Epstein affair," he wrote. "And as the year drew to a close, it looked for all the world that the president—an inveterate telegrapher of his own punches — was about to launch a regime-change war in Venezuela."

Second, Linkins pointed out that the recent fatal shooting of U.S. citizen Renee Good in Minneapolis, Minnesota was part and parcel of the president's pattern of "tearing a hole in the heart of the American civic fabric while funneling wealth to his plutocratic masters." He referred to Trump's style of leadership as a "vertically integrated autocracy."

"The context of this crime cannot be shorn from all the other aforementioned ones," he wrote. "Everything is connected: Trump’s war machine is seizing territory for his mass deportation scheme (that was another goal in Venezuela); his goons plunder the country’s mineral resources with one hand while abducting our friends and neighbors off the streets with the other (some of them to be sent to Venezuela, presumably)."

Linkins then posited that pursuing a third impeachment of Trump was necessary to uphold the rule of law in the United States. He argued that "doing the right thing isn’t to merely experience the catharsis of success" but to "acknowledge the existence of moral authority and answer its call for redress courageously."

"This being an election year, Democrats are in need of some simple ideas on which to anchor a national campaign," the New Republic editor wrote. “'The president is a degenerate criminal, and if you send enough of us to Washington we will bring the madness to an end' is a message Democrats should be sending."

Fourth, Linkins noted that Democrats are in a "content-creation war with the Trump regime" and that impeachment proceedings would satiate the media's "thirst for conflict and controversy." He predicted a "feeding frenzy" from reporters that would provide a huge electoral boon for the anti-Trump opposition in this fall's midterm elections.

"Frankly, the fact that this is never getting to the Senate for a trial should free Democrats from having to strictly tether a case to statutory realities or tailor it to the austere sensibilities of doddering senators," he wrote. "There’s no reason an impeachment effort can’t be a kaleidoscopic panoply of Trumpian misdeeds presented with an eye toward capturing tabloid headlines."

Finally, Linkins concluded that impeaching Trump could serve as "a thorough indictment of the president, the dismantling of his credibility and the exposure of his every misdeed" that could pay actual dividends should Democrats retake at least one chamber of Congress in the midterms. He opined: "Criminality is the Rosetta Stone that translates the Trump presidency."

"So let the prosecution of the president begin today," he wrote. "And if the Democrats, bolstered by that message, win back the House in the November midterms, then they can impeach him in earnest next year. Even Trump himself wouldn’t expect anything less."

Click here to read Linkins' full article in the New Republic (subscription required).

UN Security council fills 'leadership vacuum' after Laura Loomer sidelined Trump pick

Laura Loomer in Des Moines, Iowa on January 10, 2024 (Gage Skidmore/Flickr)

Thomas Kika 

January 12, 2026 | ALTERNET

The National Security Agency (NSA) has ended "months of ongoing leadership vacuums" with the appointment of a new deputy director after Laura Loomer, a far-right activist seen by many as a "Trump whisperer," managed to get a previous nominee thrown out.

Government Executive reported that Tom Kosiba, who has prior experience with both the NSA and the FBI, had been named deputy director at the NSA, filling the agency's second-highest-ranked leadership position. As the outlet noted, he "will likely have to contend with declining morale inside the spy agency, as well as significant workforce cuts that were influenced by Trump 2.0 efforts to reduce government bloat and spending waste."

Kosiba's appointment also comes after significant interference in filling the position from Loomer. Joe Francescon, who was on the National Security Council during Donald Trump’s first term as president, was previously set to be nominated to the position, but Loomer voiced opposition to his appointment due to past donations to a Democratic candidate who was involved in one of Trump's impeachment trials. She also alleged that Francescon's wife had ties to China.

"FEC records reveal that Francescon donated to an anti-Trump Democrat Congressman named [Jason Crow of Wisconsin]," Loomer posted to X in August. "During his first term in Congress, Crow was an impeachment manager for President Donald Trump's first impeachment trial. Concerning."

Loomer has been widely noted for her close access to the president and influence over his decision-making, especially as it concerns appointments. Following her criticisms of National Security Adviser Mike Waltz and his deputies, he was gone from the office. Government Executive also previously reported that she was believed to have been involved in the firing of former NSA and Cyber Command leader Gen. Timothy Haugh, taking a meeting with Trump at the White House shortly before he was fired. An anonymous source told the outlet that the timing "couldn’t be coincidental."

Sources inside the Trump administration have expressed frustration over her continued influence over Trump, with some alleging that she has become motivated by outside interests as opposed to MAGA loyalty.

"She used to pretty much just amplify the MAGA line, but now it’s pretty clear that she has her own agenda," one source told the Free Press.

“There is widespread understanding here that she’s not guided entirely by loyalties to the president, but external business interests," another source added.

Loss for Trump as federal judge rules budget chief broke the law to punish blue states

Russell Vought with Donald Trump in 2019 (Creative Commons)

Carl Gibson

January 12, 2026 

ALTERNET

In the fall of 2025, President Donald Trump's administration revoked billions of dollars in in renewable energy projects — all in states that 2024 Democratic nominee Kamala Harris won. Now, one federal judge is ruling that those cuts violated the U.S. Constitution.

NOTUS reported Monday that U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta (who was appointed by former President Barack Obama) ruled that the Trump administration will now have to revive seven of the cuts made by Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought in 2025. Judge Mehta found that the targeting of blue states was a violation of the Equal Protection clause in the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution.

"The terminated grants had one glaring commonality: all the awardees (but one) were based in states whose majority of citizens casting votes did not support President Trump in the 2024 election," Mehta wrote in his 17-page ruling.

Mehta's decision came about in response to a lawsuit filed by the City of Minneapolis, Minnesota in conjunction with several environmental groups. The projects that were cancelled included solar energy infrastructure, electric vehicle charging stations and reduction of methane emissions. Plaintiffs accused Vought and the Trump administration's Department of Energy of making the cuts based solely on politics.

The U.S. Department of Energy countered in several filings made in response to the lawsuit that the cancellations were only made to implement the administration's energy priorities, and pointed to multiple cuts that were not made. However, Mehta disagreed, writing that the administration made "no plausible rational connection" between cancelling projects in blue states and advancing the president's agenda.

"There is no reason to believe that terminating an award to a recipient located in a state whose citizens tend to vote for Democratic candidates — and, particularly, voted against President Trump — furthers the agency’s energy priorities any more than terminating a similar grant of a recipient in a state whose citizens tend to vote for Republican candidates or voted for President Trump," Mehta's opinion read.

Vought initially announced the cuts in an October post to his official X account, writing: "Nearly $8 billion in Green New Scam funding to fuel the Left's climate agenda is being cancelled. The projects are in the following states: CA, CO, CT, DE, HI, IL, MD, MA, MN, NH, NJ, NM, NY, OR, VT, WA."

Click here to read NOTUS' report in full.

Largest Nurses Strike in NYC History as Nearly 15,000 Healthcare Workers Hit the Picket Line

“No nurse should be asked to accept less pay, fewer benefits, or less dignity for doing lifesaving work,” said New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.


Members of the New York State Nurses Association strike at the Mount Sinai West hospital in New York City on January 12, 2026.
(Photo via New York State Nurses Association/Twitter)

Brad Reed
Jan 12, 2026

COMMON DREAMS
Thousands of nurses are hitting the picket lines in what will be the largest nurses strike in the history of New York City.

The New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA) on Monday announced that nearly 15,000 nurses at Mount Sinai Hospital, Mount Sinai Morningside and West, Montefiore, and NewYork-Presbyterian are going on strike after “greedy hospital management at these wealthy private hospitals have given frontline nurses no other choice.”

The NYSNA posted a long list of sticking points on contract negotiations, including “safe staffing for our patients, protections from workplace violence, and healthcare for frontline nurses.”

NYSNA president Nancy Hagans said that any patients in need of care at these hospitals should enter them, emphasizing that “going into the hospital to get the care you need is not crossing our strike line.” She also encouraged patients to join the picket line with the nurses after receiving care.

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani spoke out in solidarity with the striking nurses, while also emphasizing the importance of “ensuring New Yorkers have the care they need... especially during flu season.”

“No New Yorker should have to fear losing access to healthcare,” Mamdani wrote in a social media post. “And no nurse should be asked to accept less pay, fewer benefits, or less dignity for doing lifesaving work. Our nurses have kept this city alive through its hardest moments. Their value is not negotiable.”

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) also expressed support for the striking nurses, while denouncing “NewYork-Presbyterian, Montefiore, and Mount Sinai hospitals for being willing to spend millions on replacement nurses rather than bargain for a fair contract.”

The NYSNA also got a boost from 1199SEIU, which is the largest union of healthcare workers in New York.

“At this time of unprecedented cuts to Medicaid and other healthcare programs by Republican leaders in Washington, DC healthcare workers should not bear the brunt of funding shortfalls,” said 1199SEIU president Yvonne Armstrong. “More than ever, we need stability in our healthcare system, which means investing in the type of good healthcare jobs which are fundamental to the wellbeing of caregivers and the communities they serve.”

Armstrong also called on the hospitals to “bargain in good faith with NYSNA, refrain from committing unfair labor practices, and sign fair contracts that honor nurses’ contributions.”

Big Data Is a Bad Idea: Why AI Factory Farms Will Not Save Rural America

AI data centers have been added to the limited menu for economic development in marginalized US communities, but people in those communities have good reason to oppose them.


A sign on a rural Michigan road opposes a planned $7 billion data center on southeast Michigan farm land in Saline, Michigan on December 1, 2025.
(Photo by Jim West/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

John Peck
Jan 12, 2026

Common Dreams


One word—plastics. That was the golden grail that Dustin Hoffman learned about from some well-wisher in the movie The Graduate. I remember watching the film as a farm kid and thinking about the updated version I was being told by my guidance counselors—one word: computers. We are now in the midst of the “Fourth Industrial Revolution” and the latest mantra is: artificial intelligence. Such free advice, though, could really be a costly warning in disguise.

Granted, there is a lot of poverty in the “richest” nation on Earth, and marginalized US communities often have few choices for economic (mal) development. It becomes a twisted game of pick your own poison: supermax prison, toxic waste dump, ethanol facility, tar sands pipeline… Now, AI data centers have been added to the limited menu. Someone recently shared a map of looming AI data centers across the world. It reminded me of how a tumor spreads and Edward Abbey’s quote that “growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.”



Big Tech Ramps Up Propaganda Blitz As AI Data Centers Become Toxic With Voters



US Electric Grid Heading Toward ‘Crisis’ Thanks to AI Data Centers

The fact that Big Data has targeted Rural America for its latest mastitis should be no surprise. We have lots of available land to grab, thanks to the legacy of settler colonialism and family-farm foreclosure. Back in August I remember driving past Beaver Dam, Wisconsin and watching bulldozers flattening over 800 acres along Hwy 151 and my first hunch was: data center. Sure enough, the secretive $1 billion deal with Meta was finally revealed in a November press release. Just north of Madison in the town of DeForest, Blackstone subsidiary QTS Realty Trust is aiming to build another $12 billion data center on close to 1,600 acres. And if we need to free up more land for AI, we quaint rural folks could just abandon growing real Xmas trees and force people to buy plastic ones instead, as one Fox News “expert” suggested over the holidays. Former President Joe Biden visited Mt. Pleasant, Wisconsin in May 2024 to promote Microsoft’s new $3.3 billion 300+ acre AI campus on the former site of flat screen maker, Foxconn, that welcomed President Donald Trump for its groundbreaking back in 2018. Foxconn abandoned that $10 billion project and its 13,000 job promise, after getting millions in state subsidies and local tax deferrals.

The Microsoft AI complex in Mt. Pleasant will also require over 8 million gallons of water per year from Lake Michigan. We still have some clean water, though that may not last long thanks to agrochemical monocultures, CAFO manure dumping, and PFAS-laden sludge spreading. And AI certainly is thirsty—the Alliance for the Great Lakes noted in its August 2025 report that a hyperscale AI data center needs up to 365 million gallons of water to keep itself cool—that is as much water as is needed by 12,000 people! A recent investigative report by Bloomberg News found that over two-thirds of the AI data centers built since 2022 are in parts of the country already facing water stress. And it is really hard to drink data.

But is all the AI hype just another bubble about to burst? Rural communities (and public taxpayers) have been offered many “amazing” schemes in the past that ended up being just a “bait and switch”—another hollow promise.

In the Midwest we also have potential access to vast electricity (fracked natural gas, wind and solar farms, methane digesters), and relatively under-stressed high voltage grids (unlike California or Texas), though the loss of “cheaper” imported Canadian hydropower with the latest trade war could be a serious challenge. In 2023 the US had over a $2 billion electricity trade deficit vis-a-vis Canada. According to a recent Clean Wisconsin report, just two of our proposed AI data centers will require 3.9 gigawatts—1.5 times the current power demand of all 4.3 million homes in the state.

But, no worry, there are dilapidated US nuclear reactors with massive waste dumps that could be put back online such as Palisades in Michigan, despite opposition from environmental activists and family farmers. The Trump administration also just announced a $1 billion low-interest loan to reanimate Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania for the sake of AI. Until all that happens, though, regular ratepayers can expect a huge hike in their energy bills as Big Data has the market clout to siphon off what it needs first, especially as it colludes with utility monopolies. Many people in Wisconsin are already paying for $1+ billion in stranded assets—mostly defunct coal plants, as well as nuclear waste storage facilities—while utility investors continue to receive guaranteed dividends of 9-10%.

But is all the AI hype just another bubble about to burst? Rural communities (and public taxpayers) have been offered many “amazing” schemes in the past that ended up being just a “bait and switch”—another hollow promise. If we subsidize a massive data center, will the projected “market” for increasing algorithms actually come? Many within the AI industry don’t think so, and are now invoking the lessons we should have learned from the Enron scandal decades ago or the even worse sequel in the subprime mortgage-fueled financial meltdown. Corporate cheerleaders can be quite clever when it comes to inflating prices (and stocks) for goods and services that may not even exist, while hiding their massive debt obligations in a whole cascading series of shadowy shell subsidiaries and dishonest accounting shenanigans.

Many industry insiders are ringing alarm bells. “These models are being hyped up, and we’re investing more than we should,” said Daron Acemoglu, who won the 2024 Nobel Economics Prize, quoted in a recent NPR story about the current AI boom or bubble. OpenAI says it will spend $1.4 trillion on data centers over the next eight years, while Amazon, Google, Meta, and Microsoft are going to throw in another $400 billion. Meanwhile, just 3% of people who use AI now pay for it, and many are frantically trying to figure out how to turn off AI mode on their internet searches and to reject AI eavesdropping on their Zoom calls. Where is the real revenue going to come from to pay for all this AI speculation? The same NPR story notes that such a flood of leveraged capital is equal to every iPhone user on Earth forking over $250 to “enjoy” the benefits of AI—and “that’s not going to happen,” adds Paul Kedrosky, a venture capitalist who is now a research fellow at MIT’s Institute for the Digital Economy. Morgan Stanley estimates AI companies will shell out $3 trillion by 2028 for this data center buildout—but less than 50% of that money will come from them. Hmmm...

Special purpose vehicle (SPV) may sound like a fancy name for a retrofitted tractor, but that is how Big Data is creating a Potemkin Village to hide their Ponzi Scheme. Here is one example from Richland Parish, Louisiana where Meta is now building its Hyperion Data Center—a massive $27 billion project. A Wall Street outfit, Blue Owl, borrows $27 billion, using Meta’s future rent payments for a data center to back up its loan. Meta’s 20% “mortgage” on the facility gives them 100% control of the purported data crunching from the facility. This debt never shows up on Meta’s books and remains hidden from carefree investors and shallow analysts, but, like other synthetic financial instruments such as the now infamous mortgage backed security (MBS), the reality only comes home to roost when the house of cards collapses and Meta has to eventually pay off Blue Owl.

In the meantime, as the Louisiana Illuminator reports, the residents of Richland Parish (where 25% live below the poverty level) are bearing the brunt of all the real costs of having an AI factory farm. Dozens of crashes involving construction vehicles; damage to local roads; and massive future energy demands (three times that required for the entire city of New Orleans), which will entail new natural gas power plants to be built (subsidized by existing ratepayers even as fossil fuel-induced climate change floods the Louisiana delta). Beyond the initial building flurry, AI data centers are ultimately job poor. It just doesn’t take that many people to tend computers once they are built. As Meta’s VP, Brad Smith, admitted, the 250,000 square foot Hyperion data center may need 1,500 workers to build but barely 50 to operate. Beyond all the ballyhoo, the main reason a particular community is chosen to “host” one seems to be based upon the bought duplicity of elected officials and the excessive generosity of local taxpayers. Not a good cost-benefit analysis—unless you are Big Data.

And then there are the questionable kickback schemes between the suppliers of the technology and those owning the data centers. If you are maker of computer chips, would you not be tempted to fork over capital to a major buyer of your own products to ensure future demand? Nvidia just announced a $100 billion stake in OpenAI to help bankroll the data centers. In turn OpenAI signed a $300 billion deal with Oracle to actually build the AI data centers that will require Nvidia’s graphics processing units (GPUs). OpenAI also signed a separate $6+ billion deal with former BitCoin miner, CoreWeave, which rents out internet cloud access (using Nvidia’s chips once again). This type of incestuous circular financing should raise eyebrows to anyone who studies business ethics—and perhaps remind others of how a toilet operates.

What is all this AI doing? Promoters will point to many innovations—faster screening for cancer cells, closer connection to far-flung relatives, precision application of fertilizers and pesticides, elimination of drudgery in the workplace through automation. A bright future indeed—or perhaps not?

The real issue is whether or not AI data centers are economically viable, socially appropriate, environmentally sustainable, and actually serve the public interest.

In August 2025, ProPublica reported that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had lost 20% of its staff devoted to food safety thanks to DOGE cuts. Inspection of food import facilities is now at a historic low even as our dependence on the rest of the world to feed us grows. But not to worry, the FDA announced in May that AI was coming to the rescue thanks to a large language model (LLM)—dubbed Elsa—that would be deployed alongside what’s left of its human staff to expedite their oversight work. Hopefully, Elsa knows melamine when it sees it. AI chatbots are also growing in popularity and available 24-7 to “talk or advise” people on all sorts of pressing issues—how to win more friends, how to cheat on this exam, how to make up fake legal opinions, even encouraging a teenager to commit suicide and suggesting to someone else that they murder their own parents.

But there is an even dirtier AI underbelly. Some have dubbed these AI slop, AI smut, and AI stazi—three 21st-century horsemen of the digital apocalypse. What is this all about? Well, a lot of these accelerating AI algorithms are actually devoted to selling “products” that many people do not want and would find objectionable, as well as providing “services” that undermine our basic freedoms. Slop (Merriam Webster’s word of 2025) is used to describe when AI generates internet content that is only meant to make money through advertising. Right now there are thousands of wannabe internet “creatives” all over the globe, watching “how-to videos” to manufacture AI social media to grab the eyeballs of US consumers. That cute puppy video you see on Instagram or that shocking “news” story you read on Facebook is not by accident—the goal is to monetize clicks per thousand (cost per mille, or CPM) where advertisers pay for how much their ad is viewed online. This is also why online content is often overly long (where is the actual recipe in this cooking blog?), since that increases ad scrolling. The average US consumer is now subject to between 6,000 and 10,000 ads per day—70% of which are online. For more on AI slop, visit: https://www.visibrain.com/blog/ai-slop-social-media.

An even worse virtual commodity is AI smut—literally algorithms creating pornography. This perverted version of AI scraps the internet for images (high school yearbooks, red carpet fashion shows, popular music concerts, street cam footage, etc.) and then uses “face swap” programs to create personalized hardcore rubbish. There is little if any accountability for this theft of public images and violation of personal privacy—at best those involved are “shamed” into taking down their AI sites after being exposed due to fears of liability and prosecution for child abuse. But that has hardly stopped this seedy AI subsector. Can you imagine your face or image being put into such a lucrative sexploitative scenario without your permission? At this point, there are hardly any internet police walking the beat in the virtual AI world. We don’t even have the right to be forgotten on the internet.

Which brings us to AI stazi—the updated version of the Cold War-era East German secret police. University of Wisconsin Madison just announced the creation of a College of Computing and Artificial Intelligence (CAI), in part thanks to a $140 million donation from Cisco. Few Bucky Badger fans know that 30 years ago they were used as guinea pigs while cheering at Camp Randall Stadium to help create facial recognition technology through a UW-Madison grant from the Department of Defense Applied Research Agency (DARPA). Visitors to the UW campus today will no doubt “enjoy” the automated license plate readers (ALRPs) owned by Flock Safety. According to an August 2025 Wisconsin Examiner expose, there are hundreds of Flock cameras across the state in use by law enforcement agencies, including Wisconsin county sheriff departments with active 287(g) cooperation agreements with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. No warrant is needed for law enforcement agencies to browse the national Flock database. In fact, agents have used Flock to track peaceful protesters, spy on spouses, or just stalk people they don’t like. To see where Flock cameras are near you, visit: www.deflock.me. Of course, Flock Security has outsourced its AI programming to cheaper (and more secure?) Filipino contractors. Similar AI spying networks such as Pegasus have been widely exposed and have become “bread and butter” for authoritarian regimes from Israel to Saudi Arabia. China and Russia have their own versions (Skynet, SORM, etc.). Thanks to the cozy relationship between Trump and Peter Thiel, the US-based AI mercenary outfit, Palantir, is now being redeployed for domestic surveillance—first revealed by Edward Snowden back in 2017.

The latest executive bluster from Trump is that states’ rights are out the window when it comes to regulating AI data centers—such federal preemption of local democratic control is part of the larger neoliberal “race to the bottom” forced-trade agenda. But the cat is already out of the bag as dozens of communities have successfully blocked AI data center projects and others are poised to do the same based upon their winning strategies. Better yet, this is a bipartisan grassroots organizing issue!

What is the best way to keep out an AI factory farm? No non-disclosure agreements (NDAs)! These are massive development schemes that could not exist without the approval and support of elected officials, so any agreement should not be secret. They can hardly claim to be providing a public good if they are not subject to transparency and oversight. No sweetheart deals! Big Data is among the wealthiest sectors of our current economy and does not need or deserve subsidies, discounted electric rates, tax increment financing, property tax holidays, or other incentives. It is a classic move of crony capitalism to privatize the benefits and socialize the costs. No regulatory loopholes! Given their huge demands for land, water, and energy, Big Data should not be allowed to cut legal corners and needs to follow all the rules of any other normal enterprise—full liability coverage, no special economic zones, consideration of cumulative impacts, protections for ratepayers, no unregulated toxic pollution or illegal water transfer in violation of the Clean Water Act or the Great Lakes Compact, etc. How much water your data center demands is hardly a “trade secret.”

And most important, don’t let Big Data boosters belittle your legitimate concerns as “neo-Luddite!” Everyone uses technology—even the Amish. The real issue is whether or not AI data centers are economically viable, socially appropriate, environmentally sustainable, and actually serve the public interest. People have good reasons to be wary and oppose them on all those fronts.

For more info, checkout: Big Tech Unchecked: A Toolkit for Community Action

As well as the North Star Data Center Policy Toolkit


Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.


John Peck
John E. Peck is the executive director of Family Farm Defenders.

Warren Warns Democrats Against Letting Billionaires Dictate Their Economic Agenda

“If Democrats want to win elections, they need to read the room—or I should say, they need to read literally any room anywhere in America that isn’t filled with big donors.”

WALL ST. DEMS ARE THE NEW GOP

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) holds a discussion at the National Press Building on January 12, 2026 in Washington, DC.
(Photo by Heather Diehl/Getty Images)

Brad Reed
Jan 12, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Monday warned the Democratic Party against reshaping its economic agenda in the hopes of winning over billionaire donors.

In a speech delivered before the National Press Club in Washington, DC, Warren (D-Mass.) argued that watering down a progressive economic agenda to appeal to big-money donors made little sense at a time when the richest in America are taking ever greater shares of wealth and US families are struggling to keep their heads above water.


Warren Warns ‘Trump Could Be Setting the Stage’ for Next Financial Crash

Warren pointed to many US elites maintaining friendly relationships with the late billionaire sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, even after he pleaded guilty to soliciting a minor, as evidence of a broken system.

“Over the past generation, the wealthy have avoided accountability time and again,” she argued. “Regular Americans must play by every rule or face real consequences. You don’t need to read every news article about Jeffrey Epstein and his good buddies like [former Treasury Secretary] Larry Summers and [President] Donald Trump to understand how consistently rich and powerful insiders protect each other, regardless of politics and regardless of how obscene the situation has become.”


Warren acknowledged that Democrats needed to broaden their appeal to more voters given that they lost the popular vote to Trump for the first time in 2024, but she argued that targeting wealthy donors would not accomplish that goal.

“There are two visions for what a big tent means,” she said. “One vision says that we should shape our agenda and temper our rhetoric to flatter any fabulously rich person looking for a political party that will entrench their own economic interests. The other vision says we must acknowledge the economic failures of the current rigged system, aggressively challenge the status quo, and chart a clear path for big, structural change.”

Warren also criticized the “abundance” agenda that has been promoted by New York Times columnist Ezra Klein over the last several months as a way to fix Democrats’ electoral woes.

The senator began her critique by touting what she said were good points that Klein and Abundance co-author Derek Thompson make about government needing to work more simply and efficiently to deliver benefits.

However, Warren said that what their analysis of government failures has often missed is that there are powerful interests that are working to keep these inefficiencies from being addressed.



“For years, I’ve fought for a simple, free government tax filing system so no one has to pay a couple of hundred bucks just to file their taxes,” she explained. “Every step of the way, the giant tax prep companies have thrown up roadblocks to stop it. And when the [Internal Revenue Service] finally built a free—and wildly popular—filing option for American taxpayers, the tax prep companies swooped in to kill it the minute Donald Trump took office.”

Warren also said that many major Democratic donors, including LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, have been latching onto “abundance” in order to drive the conversation in the party away from US wealth inequality.

“We are now in a new election cycle, and according to Axios, Reid Hoffman is sending everyone he knows a copy of Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson’s book on Abundance and backing pro-abundance candidates,” Warren explained. “On his podcast, Hoffman has used the framework to argue against regulations that slow down data center construction. That’s right—when families are already getting crushed by rising costs and a data center boom means even higher utility costs... Hoffman wants Democratic candidates to stand with the billionaires for higher costs.”

The senator then said that “if Democrats want to win elections, they need to read the room—or I should say, they need to read literally any room anywhere in America that isn’t filled with big donors.”

As 2026 Begins, the Pendulum Is Swinging Toward War and Oppression

Even though many things are currently moving in the wrong direction, there are also reasons for hope and prospects for positive developments.


A Border Patrol Tactical Unit agent sprays pepper spray into the face of a protester attempting to block an immigration officer vehicle from leaving the scene where a woman was shot and killed by a federal agent earlier, in Minneapolis, Minnesota on Wednesday, January 7, 2026.
(Photo by Alex Kormann/The Minnesota Star Tribune via Getty Images)

Klaus Moegling
Jan 12, 2026

Common Dreams

The beginning of 2026 falls into a period of increasing global social destruction. Multilateral institutions such as the United Nations and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe OSCE are being systematically destroyed. Countries such as the US and Russia are withdrawing from these institutions or attempting to obstruct them through blocking behavior.

Rich and Undemocratic ‘elites’ Are Appropriating the State

US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin are political leaders who are dismantling or destroying the remnants of democracy in their countries, increasing repressive pressure on their populations, and acting aggressively toward the outside world. They find international law rather annoying, ignore it, and develop a right-wing and authoritarian nationalism, within the framework of which the ruling circles in the US and Russia enrich themselves excessively and disregard everything that previous values in terms of decency and justice demand.



IRC Warns of ‘Surging Crises and Shrinking Support’ as Sudan, Palestine Top 2026 Watchlist



Ex-Presidents, What More Do You Need to See Before Calling for Trump’s Impeachment?

This goes hand in hand with a publicly declared shift in the definition of terrorism. People who demonstrate by peaceful and legitimate means against the excesses of the system and the policies of the corrupt and enriching class are not seen as opposition figures with a legitimate claim, but are increasingly classified as terrorists and criminals. This is the case, for example, in the US, Russia, and Turkey. The aim is to intimidate people and, once they are caught, to lock them up without a fair trial.

The self-enrichment of people who are already rich, multimillionaires and billionaires, goes hand in hand with the widening of the social divide in the countries affected. The lower social classes are deprived of what the super rich acquire. The USA is one example among many: Taxes have been drastically reduced for the rich, while at the same time the government is trying to withdraw healthcare support from millions of people.

The World Does Not Consist Only of the West

Certainly, only a few selected aspects can be addressed here.

The Global South is trying to organize itself and is pushing for a say in decision-making and an end to unfair economic exchange relationships. However, huge Western corporations continue to seek contact with regional despots and corrupt African leaders in order to gain access to Africa’s mineral resources. South America is also affected by the eco-imperialist encroachments of the US. The US government even openly admits that its aggression in Venezuela, for example, is motivated by a desire to secure and exploit the world’s largest oil reserves there.

Even if the pendulum has swung in the wrong direction so far, only gradual and internationally coordinated disarmament could enable an effective peace dividend that could be used to combat world hunger and the climate catastrophe.

China’s role in the world is not yet clear. The People’s Republic of China is attempting to gain economic access to the global economy and is particularly focused on its own interests in this regard. Step by step, internal social surveillance and repression are also being intensified. Ultimately, the assessment of China will be decided by the development of the Taiwan issue and China’s behavior in Southeast Asia, particularly with regard to territorial issues in the South China Sea with other Southeast Asian neighboring countries.

Israel’s government, which is in part right-wing extremist, has reacted completely disproportionately to the terrible attack by Hamas. Approximately 60,000 Palestinians, half of them women and children, were killed and the Gaza Strip was almost completely destroyed. It will take generations to overcome the hatred resulting from these murders and killings.

In Sudan, a civil war supported by foreign powers is raging, with mass rape and killings. Over 10 million people are fleeing Sudan.

Massive Armament Programs Promise a Deceptive Sense of Security

The eco-imperialist and geostrategic wars instigated by right-wing nationalist governments are also coming closer and closer to the center of Europe. Concerns about being drawn into a war over Russia’s attack on Ukraine are spreading there as well. At the same time, almost all European countries are arming themselves militarily, incurring massive debt, and wasting the resources of future generations on the destructive production of increasingly dangerous weapons.

This leads to substantial returns for the owners and shareholders of the arms industry. The political-military-industrial complex is functioning and is becoming increasingly accepted by society through media influence, growing fear of war, and the creation of jobs.

The new weapons systems below the nuclear threshold are becoming increasingly dangerous. Hypersonic missiles in particular pose a major threat, as they are capable of carrying out “decapitation strikes” that are difficult to intercept due to their high speed and maneuverability. The planned deployment of hypersonic missiles and cruise missiles under US command in Germany in 2026 is a provocation that the peace movement is trying to resist.

The ever-evolving drones with increasingly dangerous warheads are also changing the war situation not only on the front lines, but also for civil societies at home. No one is safe from the drones lurking in war zones anymore. Drone operators, hidden in the hinterland, can kill and destroy with relatively little risk.

Nuclear weapons systems are currently being modernized in all nuclear states with huge investments and developed to be increasingly dangerous. These states hope that the deterrent effect will provide security and also enable them to assert their geostrategic interests with the conventional weapons systems of a nuclear power. There are now also calls for a nuclear protective shield for Europe. But the security promise of a nuclear protective shield is an illusion. No country in the world is capable of reliably defending itself against attacking hybrid weapon systems, which also include hypersonic missiles with nuclear warheads.

But even without the use of nuclear weapons, modern society is extremely vulnerable. Drone and hacker attacks on critical infrastructure cannot be defended against in their entirety. They can lead to chaos in a society and the collapse of the social organization of life, combined with social unrest, violence, and looting.

Ultimately, societies can only be protected from these dangers by reorganizing and restructuring their multilateral relations in a cooperative direction. Even if the pendulum has swung in the wrong direction so far, only gradual and internationally coordinated disarmament could enable an effective peace dividend that could be used to combat world hunger and the climate catastrophe. This can only be achieved through a significant reform of the United Nations. In particular, the right of aggressive states such as Russia and the US to block decisions in the highest bodies of the UN, especially the UN Security Council, must be abolished. Overall, the United Nations needs to be strengthened and democratized.

AI Can Have Positive but Also Dangerous Effects

The further development of artificial intelligence (AI) in connection with newer weapon systems means that humans are increasingly losing control over weapons. AI information is difficult to verify when decisions must be made within minutes about whether a nuclear attack is taking place and a counterattack should be launched. In such cases, decision-makers are ultimately at the mercy of AI, which transmits messages based on information from hundreds of sensors. Misinformation cannot be clarified. There is a risk of accidental nuclear war.

In this context, it is also important to warn very clearly about the danger of superintelligence developing on the internet, AI that becomes autonomous. Superintelligence achieves cognitive performance that far exceeds human capabilities and intelligence. Such AI could have a disruptive or even destructive effect on critical infrastructure and, in the worst case, gain uncontrolled access to nuclear weapons systems.

AI can be used positively in many ways, such as in skin cancer screening or language translation. However, there must be no unrestrained AI development in the hands of large, profit-oriented tech companies. Instead, development must be controlled by ethically guided international rules and strictly sanctioned in the event of violations.

The World Is Increasingly on the Run

Millions of people, especially in the Global South, are currently fleeing the consequences of the climate crisis and wars that are destroying their livelihoods. At the same time, the countries of the Global North are trying to shield themselves from these refugee movements. This is also being done in the defense against right-wing extremist political movements and parties, which exploit the flight of these people for their political propaganda. Nevertheless, even countries that still seriously pursue democratic goals are threatened by right-wing extremist takeovers of their governments.

That is how things currently stand. It would be wrong to look away or gloss over the situation.

And yet: Perspectives for Positive Developments

Especially in this difficult global situation, it is important to pay attention to social countermovements and successful examples of social organization and social resistance against the destruction of civilization.

The pendulum may well swing back when the civilian population and parts of the ruling classes realize that war is not a solution to global problems, but only costs livelihoods, human lives, financial resources, and destroys our shared world.

The influence of those parts of the global economy that compete with the political-military-industrial complex and depend on peace and the undisturbed global exchange of goods and services should not be underestimated. They will try to assert their influence.

People in a society will not put up with decades of oppression and exploitation.

The trillions of dollars that will be spent in the future on measures to prevent and mitigate the approaching climate catastrophe will also give large sections of society pause for thought. The climate catastrophe will occur earlier than expected due to emissions from wars and military operations. If, in addition, social resources are invested in wars and states go into debt for this purpose, they will lack the financial resources and social energy to even begin to address human-made climate change.

Even if the world’s largest fossil fuel dealers try to assert their interests by military means, their time will be up in the medium term. The development of technology based on renewable energy generation can no longer be stopped globally.

Furthermore, people in a society will not put up with decades of oppression and exploitation. They will reorganize themselves into civil society and begin to work together to bring about change, even in the face of pressure from authoritarian societies.

These are some weighty arguments as to why the current destruction can develop in a more constructive direction and the pendulum can swing back.

In addition to these economic, sociopolitical, and peace-ecological perspectives, there are other developments in which new ideas are already being tried out, new forms of community life and work are emerging, and civil society protest movements are evolving.

Thus, the new is already emerging from the old.

Even though many things are currently moving in the wrong direction, there are also reasons for hope and prospects for positive developments. I still believe that a peaceful and sustainably developed world is possible through a realignment of social conditions at the local, national, regional, and global levels.

But all those who see this and desire it must intensify and expand their efforts together. A social realignment can only come about if visions of social development based on precise analysis are thought through, then formulated in a way that is feasible and can be put into practice.


Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.


Klaus Moegling
Prof. Dr. Klaus Moegling is a political scientist, sociologist, and author of the book "Realignment. A peaceful and sustainably developed world is (still) possible." Which you can read here: https://www.klaus-moegling.de/international-edition/
Full Bio >

Judge shoots down Trump's 'national security' excuse to kill wind farm

Matthew Chapman
January 12, 2026 

RAW STORY


A federal judge on Monday rejected the Trump administration's latest rationale for blocking an offshore wind project under construction by a Danish company.

According to Bloomberg News, "The Revolution Wind project, intended to power hundreds of thousands of homes in Rhode Island and Connecticut, 'would be irreparably harmed' unless work was allowed to continue during the legal fight, US District Judge Royce C. Lamberth in Washington concluded Monday. The project is almost 90% complete."

Revolution Wind is being developed by Orsted A/S, an energy firm based in Denmark.

The Trump administration initially halted approval for the project last August. At the time, Lamberth granted a preliminary injunction against the order, allowing work to resume as Orsted argued the administration didn't have authority to cancel pre-existing approval for the project without explanation.

Trump's Department of the Interior subsequently issued a new order in December that paused the leases for Revolution Wind and four other offshore wind energy projects, "due to national security risks identified by the Department of War in recently completed classified reports" — the off-books name the Trump administration has declared for the Department of Defense — until such time as Pentagon officials assess mitigation for these unspecified risks.

Lamberth's new order blocks this decision for the time being, as the matter continues to be litigated on the merits. It comes a month after another federal court blocked the Trump administration's moratorium on new approvals for wind energy projects.

President Donald Trump has despised wind power ever since an array of turbines altered the view at one of his golf properties in Scotland. He frequently rants against wind turbines, which he calls "windmills," at his rallies and press functions, parroting wildly exaggerated Fox News claims that they pose a threat to birds and marine life.

His attacks on renewable energy have thrown a monkey wrench into bipartisan talks on permitting reform and have put additional pressure on energy prices as the growing buildout of artificial intelligence data centers already strains the power grid.