AFTER ELIMINATING USAID,ANOTHER...

‘Stunning Abdication of Basic Human Decency’: Trump Ripped for Expanding Global Gag Rule

“President Trump and his anti-abortion administration would rather let people starve to death in the wake of famine and war than let anyone in the world get an abortion—or even receive information about it.”



Nurse Matild Zainab Kamara shows different contraceptive methods during a family planning counseling session on November 12, 2025 at the Planned Parenthood Sexual Reproductive Health Clinic in Freetown, Sierra Leone, where abortion is illegal.
(Photo by Saidu Bah/AFP via Getty Images)

Jessica Corbett
Jan 23, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

As US Vice President JD Vance on Friday addressed anti-abortion activists at the March for Life, public health and reproductive rights advocates decried the Trump administration’s expansion of the Mexico City Policy, which critics call the global gag rule.

Since the Reagan administration, Democrats have repealed and Republicans have reimposed the policy, which bans nongovernmental organizations that perform or promote abortion from receiving federal funding. While President Donald Trump reinstated it as expected after returning to office last year, multiple media outlets revealed the expansion plans on Thursday.

A spokesperson confirmed to NBC News on Friday that the US Department of State will release three final rules expanding the foreign assistance prohibition to include “gender ideology,” and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), or what the administration is calling “discriminatory equity ideology,” in line with various other Trump policies.

“President Trump and his anti-abortion administration would rather let people starve to death in the wake of famine and war than let anyone in the world get an abortion—or even receive information about it,” Rachana Desai Martin, chief US program officer at the Center for Reproductive Rights, said in a Friday statement.

“People are already dying because of this administration’s slashing of foreign assistance,” she noted. “Now, they’re making it harder for doctors and aid workers to provide food, water, and lifesaving medical care. This isn’t about saving lives—it’s a stunning abdication of basic human decency.”

Guttmacher Institute director of federal policy Amy Friedrich-Karnik similarly called out not only the new “supercharged global gag rule” but also the second Trump administration’s “unprecedented actions like the dismantling of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and rescission of US foreign assistance for family planning services around the world.”

“Guttmacher research estimates that almost 50 million women and girls have already been denied contraceptive care in low- and middle-income countries due to these draconian actions,” she explained. “This new radical policy threatens to aggravate the cumulative harms of earlier administration actions, undermining decades of bipartisan investment in global health and gender equality, and stripping resources from the world’s most vulnerable populations, including LGBTQ+ communities around the world.”



Amnesty International’s senior director for research, advocacy, policy, and campaigns, Erika Guevara-Rosas, blasted the expansion as “an assault on human rights” that will be “disastrous and deadly.”

“It strangles healthcare systems, censors information, and violates the rights to health, information, and free expression,” she stressed. “It forces frontline providers and many struggling organizations that depend on US funding into an impossible choice: limit essential healthcare for the most vulnerable populations or shut their doors.”

“Doubling down on this policy is cruel, reckless, and ideologically driven,” she continued. “Expanding it to international and US-based organizations will impact the poorest and marginalized first and hardest, denying people the chance to live full, healthy, autonomous lives where they are able to access rights and services. It is further proof of this US administration’s blatant disregard for international law, universal rights, and the rules-based international order.”

Dr. Anu Kumar, president and CEO of Ipas, which works to increase access to abortion and contraception around the world, declared that “this radically expanded global gag rule is nothing short of a regressive, harmful policy that puts the United States even further out of step with our global counterparts.”

“Bullying individual countries’ governments into complying with anti-rights and extremist ideology held by the current US administration is despicable and unacceptable,” Kumar asserted. “It will wreak havoc on global efforts to improve health, uphold human rights, and achieve gender equality.”



The broadening of the global gag rule comes as survivors and US lawmakers continue to fight for the release of files from the federal trafficking investigation into deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, a former friend of Trump. Mina Barling, the International Planned Parenthood Federation‘s global director of external relations, said that “in an age of Epstein scandals and hocus-pocus designed to undermine science and medicine, the Trump administration has read the room.”

“He knows his obsession with women’s bodies is viewed cynically, so he has utilized the man-made panic funded by the fossil fuel industry to shift the focus of his policy against trans people,” Barling said of the president. “The global gag rule is hate-bait designed to keep his donors happy and export more division to countries reliant on US aid, in the absence of economic justice.”

“We stand in solidarity with women and trans people in all their diversity,” she added. “We demand debt relief, and we support national sovereignty. We want to see a new global health architecture that is less susceptible to the whims of American politicians.”

The VA is Ripping Away Abortion Care for Veterans... Again

This isn’t just a rollback. It’s a deliberate erasure of rights that we fought for in the wake of deeply personal and collective loss.


The Charles Wilson Veterans Affairs clinic in Lufkin, named after Former US Congressman Charlie Wilson
(Photo by Karen Warren/Houston Chronicle via Getty Images)

Lindsay Church
Jan 25, 2026

Common Dreams

In 2022, my wife and I lost our first child. We named them June. They were deeply wanted and fiercely loved. In one fateful appointment, our entire worlds changed. We learned that June had a severe fetal bladder abnormality and was unable to produce amniotic fluid. Without it, their lungs would never develop. They would not survive.

We made the impossible decision to end the pregnancy—an act of compassion, love, and medical necessity.



Citing ‘Astronomical’ Cost in US, Graham Platner and Wife Head to Norway for Affordable IVF Treatment



Wyoming Supreme Court Strikes Down First US State Ban on Abortion Pills

At the time, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) had a total ban on abortion care and counseling.

No exceptions for rape. No exceptions for incest. Not even to save a veteran’s life.

Veterans and our families deserve futures built on compassion, justice, and love—not fear.

After our loss, the only way I felt I could keep breathing was to turn that grief into meaning. I shared our story with lawmakers to help reverse this dangerous policy so that veterans and their families could turn to the VA—no matter the circumstance or where they lived. That fall, the VA finally took steps to reverse the ban, signaling a long-overdue shift toward care, autonomy, and dignity.

But that progress was short-lived.

The VA just finalized a new abortion ban policy that, once again, excludes exceptions for rape or incest and offers only vague assurances that it will intervene if our lives are at risk. They initially implemented this enormous change in secret without telling veterans or their families.

In effect, it returns the VA to what was once the most extreme abortion ban in the country—an outright prohibition on care and counseling that applies to every VA facility nationwide, regardless of state law.

This isn’t just a rollback. It’s a deliberate erasure of rights that we fought for in the wake of deeply personal and collective loss.

And it is not happening in isolation. The same administration driving this ban is also working diligently to eliminate gender-affirming care, defund programs for minority and underrepresented veterans, and strip inclusive language and data collection from federal policy. The message is unmistakable: Some veterans count. Others don’t.

Veterans are not a monolith. We are a diverse community—LGBTQIA+, people of color, disabled, parents, caregivers, survivors, and yes, women too. Our community exists at every intersection of identity and experience, and our families serve alongside us. Our care cannot be conditional. Our humanity is not negotiable.

Policy is never just about one issue. It is intersectional—because our lives are intersectional.

Reproductive care cannot be separated from gender-affirming care, from disability access and mental health, from racial justice, or maternal health. Our needs don’t exist in silos, and neither do we. When one right is taken away, the loss reverberates across all the others.

I’ve seen what’s possible when we refuse to stay silent—how lived experience can reshape policy and expand care that has never existed before. And I know exactly what is at stake when care is denied. Pregnancy can change on a dime.

June’s life, though brief, transformed mine. Through their memory, I found purpose. I found a voice. And in their honor, I will continue working to ensure that no veteran or family ever has to face what we faced alone.

We should be building systems rooted in care, equity, and truth. We should be honoring the fullness of who veterans are, how we serve, and how we build our families. Instead, our fundamental rights are being stripped away—one policy memo at a time—and once again, we are being asked to fight for the right to make personal decisions about our health, our futures, and our families.

I will not allow June’s legacy to become another casualty of politics. Their life will be a call to care.

This moment demands more than endurance. It demands action.

The policies we pass—within the VA and beyond—shape the futures of veterans and the people who love us. Had my wife not been able to access critical care in her time of need—had we not been given the chance to make the most compassionate choice amid impossible circumstances—we might never have known the joy of raising our child today, a joy born from grief and shaped by love.

Veterans and our families deserve futures built on compassion, justice, and love—not fear.

Because in the end, we are all only human.

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


Lindsay Church
Lindsay Church is the executive director and founder of Minority Veterans of America
Full Bio >

ANTI-D.E.I. IS WHITE SUPREMACY

Philadelphia Sues Over Trump’s Removal of Slavery Exhibits From George Washington’s Home

“The message is clear. American history no longer includes all Americans.”


Tourists inspect a display entitled ‘The Dirty Business of Slavery’ at the President’s House on August 9, 2025, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
(Photo by Matthew Hatcher/Getty Images)

Stephen Prager
Jan 23, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

The city of Philadelphia has sued the US Department of the Interior and the National Park Service after officials were filmed dismantling exhibits on slavery at the President’s House historical site at Independence Park on Thursday.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court by the office of Mayor Cherelle Parker, says “the National Park Service has removed artwork and informational displays” from the site, where George Washington lived as president from 1790 until 1797, in order to follow an executive order signed by President Donald Trump in March, which requires national parks, museums, and monuments to portray an “uplifting” message about American history.

The President’s House monument, unveiled in 2010, contained information about nine enslaved people whom Washington brought with him to the nation’s “first White House,” and Washington’s history as a slaveowner. By the time of his death in 1799, there were more than 300 enslaved people at his estate in Mount Vernon, Virginia.

Information about the President’s House site and its ties to slavery still remains online. It states:
Washington brought some of his enslaved Africans to this site and they lived and toiled with other members of his household during the years that our first president was guiding the experimental development of the young nation toward modern, republican government...

The president’s house in the 1790s was a mirror of the young republic, reflecting both the ideals and contradictions of the new nation. The house stood in the shadow of Independence Hall, where the words “All men are created equal” and “We the People” were adopted, but they did not apply to all who lived in the new United States of America.

A monument acknowledging this history, however, appears to have run afoul of the portion of Trump’s order requiring the Interior Secretary to see that sites “do not contain descriptions, depictions, or other content that inappropriately disparage Americans past or living.”



As BillyPenn.com reported:
Starting after 3 pm, placards were ripped from the wall around the site with crowbars as people walked by, some heading to the Liberty Bell Center. Signs were unbolted from the poles overlooking the dig site where America’s first “White House” had stood until 1832. They were stacked together alongside a wall, and then taken away around 4:30 pm in a park service truck. No indication was provided where the signs and exhibition parts will go

One of the employees, who did not give his name, told the Philadelphia Inquirer that his supervisor had instructed him to take down the monuments earlier that day.

“I’m just following my orders,” the employee repeatedly said.

In a statement to the Washington Post, Interior Department spokesperson Elizabeth Peace later confirmed that the placards were indeed removed in accordance with the order.

“The president has directed federal agencies to review interpretive materials to ensure accuracy, honesty, and alignment with shared national values,” she said. “Following completion of the required review, the National Park Service is now taking action to remove or revise interpretive materials in accordance with the order.”

The city of Philadelphia says it was not given notice about the placards being removed. The lawsuit says their removal was “arbitrary and capricious” and says the “defendants have provided no explanation at all for their removal of the historical, educational displays at the President’s House site, let alone a reasoned one.”

In a Facebook post, criminal defense attorney Michael Coard, who pushed for the monument’s creation for nearly a decade, called its destruction “historically outrageous and blatantly racist.”



It is the latest example of Trump’s order being used to justify the removal of monuments related to slavery and Black history in the United States.

The infamous 1863 “Scourged Back” image—a picture of an enslaved man’s back with severe whip scars that was used to promote the end of slavery during the Civil War—was removed from the Fort Pulaski National Monument in Georgia in September, along with other information about slavery.

The administration has also removed more than 20 displays at the Smithsonian Museum of American History, some of which dealt with slavery, civil rights, and race relations, a move that came after Trump lamented that the museum put so much focus on “how bad Slavery was.”

The National Park Service also deleted information about abolitionist activist Harriet Tubman and many references to slavery from its webpage about the Underground Railroad for months last year, before restoring it following public backlash.

Pages on the Arlington Cemetery website that recognize the contributions of Black and Hispanic soldiers have also been removed.

The order has also led to the removal or alteration of numerous monuments, museum exhibits, and web pages recognizing the achievements or struggles of other racial minority groups, women, LGBTQ+ people, and Native Americans.

In a statement to NBC News, Philadelphia City Council President Kenyatta Johnson said, “Removing the exhibits is an effort to whitewash American history.”

“History cannot be erased simply because it is uncomfortable,” he added. “Removing items from the President’s House merely changes the landscape, not the historical record.”

Daniel Pearson, a columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer, said: “The message is clear. American history no longer includes all Americans.”

Despite Authoritarian Warnings, 149 House Democrats Vote to Hand Trump $840 Billion for Military

“If an opposition party votes like this, it’s not in opposition. It may not even be a party.”


Activists gather to protest against US President Donald Trump’s recent action in Venezuela on January 6, 2026 in Pasadena, California, calling on Congress for an immediate end to military action, accountability for President Trump’s actions and diplomacy over war.
(Photo by Frederic J. Brown / AFP via Getty Images)

Jon Queally
Jan 23, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

Despite months of warnings from party members up and down the caucus that President Donald Trump has been “lawless,” “destructive, and ”authoritarian“ in his wielding of power both domestically and abroad, 149 Democratic members of the US House of Representatives on Thursday night joined with 192 Republicans to pass a sweeping military spending bill—a vote that progressive critics say exposes the fecklessness and hypocrisy of what claims to be an opposition party.

The 341-88 passage of the $828.7 billion fiscal 2026 military spending bill came over the objections of progressives who warned that the bill—now headed to the US Senate for final passage as soon as next week—is a tacit endorsement of the president’s policies, even as he has ordered federal agents to terrorize US cities, deployed US soldiers on domestic soil in the face of lawful protests, threatened to annex Greenland and other nations by force, and conducted overseas military operations—including overt acts of war over the last year against both Iran and Venezuela—without congressional notification, authorization, or oversight.

“If an opposition party votes like this, it’s not in opposition. It may not even be a party,” said Stephen Semler, a senior non-resident fellow at the Center for International Policy, a foreign policy think tank in Washington, DC.




Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), ranking member of the House Rules Committee who voted naye on the appropriations bill, said ahead of the vote that he looked “at the defense appropriations bill as maybe the last opportunity to prevent this administration from doing something crazy in Greenland or attacking NATO or doing something that we all know is a bad thing to do.”

Earlier on Thursday, the Republican-controlled committee blocked an attempt by Democrats to secure a vote on an amendment to the military spending bill that would have explicitly prohibited the invasion of a NATO ally.

Passage of the military spending bill followed an early House vote on funding for the Department of Homeland Security, in which seven Democrats joined Republicans to get it over the line.

While 149 Democrats voted for the $840 military spending bill, 64 Democrats voted against it.

“Republicans want money for unchecked, unaccountable, unconstitutional military action around the world,” said Rep. Delia C. Ramirez (D-Il), explaining her vote against the bill. “And over half of the Pentagon budget goes to corporations that profit from pain, war, and genocide.”

“You know how they get this done?” Ramirez continued. “By using working families’ needs as a bargaining chip, tying the minimum funding working families need to survive to the maximum funding they can give their billionaire friends.”

“As long as we are funding imperialism and authoritarianism while working people can’t afford the high cost of living,” she said, “I will stand opposed.”

Insurance CEO Testimony ‘Made Case for Medicare for All Better Than Almost Anyone’

“Under Medicare for All, these insurance vultures who profit from the suffering of everyday Americans would all be out of a job—bringing down costs across the health system—which should be reason enough to support it,” said one advocate.


Insurance company CEOs testify at a House hearing on January 22, 2026.
(Photo by Alex Wroblewski/AFP via Getty Images)


Jake Johnson
Jan 23, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

If you want a compelling case for Medicare for All, just listen to the ultra-rich CEOs of the insurance companies profiting off the United States’ disastrous for-profit status quo.

That was Public Citizen healthcare policy advocate Eagan Kemp’s takeaway from congressional testimony delivered Thursday by the top executives of UnitedHealth Group, Cigna, Aetna owner CVS Health, Elevance, and Ascendiun, some of the largest beneficiaries of a system under which millions of Americans face massive costs, care denials, and labyrinthine administrative hurdles.

“In both of today’s House hearings, health insurance executives’ devil-may-care attitude towards Americans’ health made the case for Medicare for All better than almost anyone I have ever seen,” Kemp said in a statement following the hearings held by the House Ways and Means Committee and the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s healthcare panel.

“Rarely has there been a more feckless, uncaring, and unsympathetic group of paper pushers,” said Kemp. “Under Medicare for All, these insurance vultures who profit from the suffering of everyday Americans would all be out of a job—bringing down costs across the health system—which should be reason enough to support it. We need Medicare for All to finally put us on par with every other comparably wealthy country by guaranteeing everyone in the U.S. can get the health care they need, throughout their lives.”

The executives faced angry grilling from both Democrats and Republicans during Thursday’s hearings, which came as health insurance premiums are skyrocketing due to the GOP’s refusal to extend Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies that lapsed at the end of 2025.

“Do you understand why the American people are not a fan of UnitedHealthcare and big healthcare companies?” Rep. Nanette Barragán (D-Calif.) asked UnitedHealth Group CEO Stephen Hemsley, telling the story of a 3-year-old girl whose family was forced to take on more than $1 million in medical debt and declare bankruptcy because the insurance giant would not cover doctors’ recommended treatment for a tumor in her bladder.

Rep. Greg Murphy (R-NC), who recently underwent brain surgery, told the insurance executives that he faced eight care denials for necessary medication.

“You have put profits above patients, and you have put profits above those who care for patients,” said Murphy, a physician. “If it were up to me, I would throw out all for-profit systems in this country and turn everybody into nonprofit. It has gotten that bad.”

“If I had my way, I’d turn all of you guys into dust,” he added. “We’d start back from scratch.”



The insurance executives attempted to shift the blame for high costs and other systemic issues onto hospitals, doctors, and pharmaceutical companies, while offering Band-Aid solutions.

UnitedHealth Group’s CEO pledged during his testimony to return its 2026 Affordable Care Act profits to consumers in the form of rebates.

“If you’re feeling a little misty-eyed about this sudden burst of corporate altruism, let me save you the trouble. This isn’t a moral awakening. It’s a PR maneuver and narrative control being implemented in real-time,” said Wendell Potter, a former health insurance executive who now supports Medicare for All, which would virtually eliminate private insurance and provide comprehensive health coverage for everyone in the US for free at the point of service, for a lower overall cost than the for-profit status quo.

“UnitedHealth’s pledge is just a long, desperate PR pass into the end zone, praying lawmakers and reporters will focus on the gesture instead of the business model that allows them to gobble up those dollars in the first place,” Potter added. “This isn’t a gift. It’s a distraction.”

Kemp of Public Citizen said Thursday that “in the short term, the Senate must pass a clean three-year extension of the enhanced ACA premium tax credits to address runaway premium increases for millions of Americans.”

“In the long run,” he added, “we must continue building the movement that will pass Medicare for All and make it the law of the land.”

Press Freedom Coalition Urges Congress to Probe FBI Raid of WaPo Journalist’s Home

“We look to you to defend our First Amendment freedoms against executive overreach and abuse.”


Federal Bureau of Investigation agents leave the office of John Bolton, former national security adviser to President Donald Trump, with several boxes and other materials on August 22, 2025 in Washington, DC.
(Photo by Andrew Leyden/Getty Images)

Jessica Corbett
Jan 23, 2026
COMMON DREAMS


Over a dozen press freedom groups on Friday urged congressional leaders to examine the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s recent raid of Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson’s Virginia home and the seizure of her electronic devices as part of a probe into a government contractor accused of illegally possessing classified documents.

Their letter came after US Magistrate Judge William B. Porter—who authorized the FBI’s search of Natanson’s home in Alexandria—ruled Wednesday that prosecutors “must preserve but must not review” data on the journalist’s phone, computers, and smart watch.

Judge Blocks Trump Admin From Searching Data Seized During Raid on Reporter’s Home

Noting that the US Department of Justice (DOJ) may have obtained the search warrant “under false pretenses and potentially in violation of the Privacy Protection Act of 1980,” 17 groups argued that “congressional intervention is necessary because the FBI’s January 14, 2026 raid of Natanson’s home represents a perilous escalation in the executive branch’s use of law enforcement powers against the free press and a citizenry that depends on fearless newsgathering.”

“The available facts suggest... the weaponization of legal process to engage in a fishing expedition into more than 1,000 confidential sources cultivated by Natanson inside the federal workforce,” the coalition wrote to top Republicans and Democrats on four relevant committees.

“By raiding Hannah Natanson’s home and seizing her devices, the government threatened bedrock principles of our Constitution and a free society.”

Specifically, the letter explains, given that the criminal complaint doesn’t accuse contractor Aurelio Perez-Lugones of disseminating classified information, and he and his devices were already in custody when Natanson’s house was searched, there is a “grim possibility” that the raid “was a pretextual attempt to threaten the press, to uncover whistleblowers, and to chill newsgathering unflattering to the government.”

The Privacy Protection Act “allows law enforcement to conduct searches and seizures of journalists’ work product materials only under narrow exceptions, such as where the journalist is alleged to be involved in a crime,” notes the letter. “But again, the government has not accused Natanson of any wrongdoing.”

“Congress has an independent and co-equal duty to oversee the Department of Justice,” the missive stresses. “If the Department of Justice has nothing about its own conduct to hide from Congress and the public, this administration should welcome the opportunity to prove the necessity of its actions.”

“If, however, federal officials have misled a judge in order to expose the identities of whistleblowers and to intimidate the press, Congress must know immediately,” the coalition concluded. “We look to you to defend our First Amendment freedoms against executive overreach and abuse.”

Since returning to office a year ago, President Donald Trump has waged a “war on free speech,” as the group Free Press detailed in a report last month. Highlighted actions include taking control of the presidential press pool, Trump’s alarming speech to the DOJ, blocking the Associated Press from the Oval Office for using the term Gulf of Mexico, an executive order to defund National Public Radio and Public Broadcasting Service, suing over Wall Street Journal reporting on the president’s ties to deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, threatening to sue over the BBC‘s documentary about January 6, 2021, the Pentagon’s new press policy, and getting late-night host Jimmy Kimmel suspended.

Those actions are part of a broader crackdown on dissent targeting Trump critics, government employees who worked on accountability for January 6, and protesters—including people in the streets over the administration’s anti-immigrant operations.

Emily Peterson-Cassin, policy director at Demand Progress, one of the organizations behind the new letter, said in a statement that “by raiding Hannah Natanson’s home and seizing her devices, the government threatened bedrock principles of our Constitution and a free society... Congress has a responsibility to investigate whether the government is undermining the First Amendment and a free press by targeting and threatening a reporter like this.”

The other signatories are the American Society of Journalists and Authors, Amnesty International USA, Association of Foreign Press Correspondents in the USA, Defending Rights and Dissent, Democratic Messaging Project, Freedom of the Press Foundation, Journalism and Women Symposium, Media and Democracy Project, National Press Photographers Association, PEN America, People for the American Way, Public Citizen, Radio Television Digital News Association, Reporters Without Borders, and Society of Professional Journalists.

‘Groundbreaking’: Michigan Sues Big Oil ‘Cartel’ for Conspiracy to Block Renewable Energy

The case accuses “four of the largest energy companies in the world” of conspiring “to forestall meaningful competition from renewable energy and maintain their dominance in the energy market.”

(Photo by Bill Pugliano/Getty Images)

Jessica Corbett
Jan 23, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

While several US states and municipalities have sued fossil fuel companies by citing consumer protection and public nuisance laws, Michigan on Friday launched an antitrust lawsuit against four industry giants and their trade association, accusing them of operating as a “cartel” to impede a transition to clean power and transportation.

Twenty months after state Attorney General Dana Nessel announced that she was seeking proposals from lawyers and firms “to pursue litigation related to the climate change impacts caused by the fossil fuel industry,” the Democrat sued BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell, and the American Petroleum Institute (API) in the US District Court for the Western District of Michigan.

Offshore Wind Developers Fight ‘Unlawful’ Trump Admin Attacks in Court


“Michigan is facing an energy affordability crisis as our home energy costs skyrocket, and consumers are left without affordable options for transportation. Whether you own a home, a small business, or run a large corporation, rising energy and transportation costs harm everyone,” Nessel said in a statement.

“These out-of-control costs are not the result of natural economic inflation, but due to the greed of these corporations who prioritized their own profit and marketplace dominance over competition and consumer savings,” she continued.



As the complaint says: “Defendants are four of the largest energy companies in the world and their industry’s largest trade association. The fossil fuel defendants produce fossil fuels and have at times invested in clean energy products and related technologies, such as solar power and batteries, that could provide energy to power buildings, infrastructure, and cars as an alternative to fossil fuels.”

“But for decades, defendants have conspired with each other to forestall meaningful competition from renewable energy and maintain their dominance in the energy market,” the filing continues. “They have done so as a cartel, agreeing to reduce the production and distribution of electricity from renewable sources and to restrain the emergence of electric vehicles (EV) and renewable primary energy technologies in the United States.”

“To achieve this end,” the document details, “they have abandoned renewable energy projects, used patent litigation to hinder rivals, suppressed information concerning the hidden costs of fossil fuels and viability of alternatives, infiltrated and knowingly misdirected information-producing institutions, surveilled and intimidated watchdogs and public officials, and used trade associations to coordinate market-wide efforts to divert capital expenditures away from renewable energy—all to further one of the most successful antitrust conspiracies in United States history.”

Lumping in this case with others previously filed against fossil fuel companies and API, Ryan Meyers, senior vice president and general counsel for the trade group, said in a statement to the Detroit News that “these baseless lawsuits are a coordinated campaign against an industry that powers everyday life, drives America’s economy, and is actively reducing emissions.”

While Shell declined to comment to Reuters, and BP and Exxon did not respond, a lawyer for Chevron, Theodore Boutrous Jr., similarly called the suit “baseless as demonstrated by multiple related court dismissals,” and told the news agency that it “ignores the fact that Michigan is highly dependent on oil and gas to support the state’s automakers and workers.”

According to Nessel’s complaint: “In the world that would have existed but for defendants’ conspiracy, EVs would not be a fringe technology or a luxury alternative. They would be a common sight in every neighborhood—rolling off assembly lines in Flint, parked in driveways in Dearborn, charging outside grocery stores in Grand Rapids, and running quietly down Woodward Avenue.”

“Reliable and fast chargers would be integrated into new development and ubiquitous at highway rest stops and converted gas stations,” it states. “A family needing a car would have dozens of affordable electric options, and the renewable energy needed to power EVs efficiently would be supplied at scale—integrated into the grid or delivered through a dedicated 100% renewable network—spurred by public and private investment responding to competitive market signals.”

“Michiganders would also have additional, renewable energy options for providing primary energy to their homes and businesses, such as solar, wind, hydropower, and geothermal; these options would improve reliability, reduce costs to Michiganders, and reduce reliance on natural gas, fuel oil, and propane,” the document adds.



Tim Minotas, legislative and political director for Sierra Club Michigan, welcomed the filing. He said in a statement that “at a time when the federal government is rolling back critical environmental protections and families are facing an energy affordability crisis, we commend Attorney General Nessel for standing up for Michiganders and holding major fossil fuel companies accountable.”

“In Michigan, these companies have used their outsized political influence to preserve the status quo and pave the way for a wave of energy-intensive data center projects across the state, even as renewable energy remains the cheapest source of new power and what Michiganders deserve,” he noted. “For far too long, fossil fuel and utility companies have polluted Michigan’s air, water, and land while driving up energy costs for families. This action sends a clear message: Michigan families and communities must come before corporate profits.”

Richard Wiles, president of the Center for Climate Integrity, also celebrated the development: “Michigan’s groundbreaking case reveals how the Big Oil cartel conspired to deny Americans cleaner and cheaper energy choices and make life less affordable by keeping consumers hooked on their dirty fossil fuel products. Eleven states and dozens of municipalities are now fighting to put Big Oil companies on trial for their climate lies and make them pay for the harm they’ve caused.”

“Big Oil is desperate to keep the evidence of their climate lies from juries in cases like Michigan’s, and that’s why the fossil fuel industry is now lobbying Congress for a get-out-of-jail-free card,” Wiles added, pointing to a push for a so-called liability shield. “Congress must protect the right of the people of Michigan and every state to hold Big Oil accountable for the harm their climate lies have caused.”

‘Confirming Everything We Knew Already’: Docs Show Trump Admin Targeted Gaza Activists for Their Opinions

Unsealed internal documents affirmed that the administration arrested and sought to deport pro-Palestine activists “solely on protected expression,” as one rights group put it.


Demonstrators protest the Gaza genocide at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts on April 25, 2025.
(Photo by Joseph Prezioso/AFP via Getty Images)

Brett Wilkins
Jan 23, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

A federal judge on Thursday unsealed documents showing that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio personally approved the deportation of university students after receiving memos highlighting their involvement in constitutionally protected campus protests against Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

Massachusetts-based Senior Judge William G. Young—an appointee of former President Ronald Reagan—unsealed 105 pages of documents he initially kept under wraps because they contained details regarding federal investigations. Young granted a request by media outlets including the New York Times to unseal the files as a matter of public interest.



Report Details Trump’s Rapid Escalation Toward Authoritarianism in First Year of Second Term



With Global Attention on Venezuela, Israel Intensifies Assault on Gaza, Lebanon

Last year, Young ruled that the Trump administration broke the law by targeting pro-Palestine student activists in a bid to “unconstitutionally... chill freedom of speech.”

The unsealed documents include Department of Homeland Security (DHS) memos recommending that five student activists who were legally in the United States—Yunseo Chung, Mahmoud Khalil, Mohsen Mahdawi, Badar Khan Suri, and Rümeysa Öztürk—be deported, despite there being no evidence of wrongdoing.

“There are few things more un-American than masked agents throwing dissenters in the back of a van because the government doesn’t like what they have to say,” Conor Fitzpatrick, supervising senior attorney at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE)—which sued the administration over the unconstitutionality of its efforts—said Friday in a statement.

“But these documents prove that it was the students’ opinions alone, and not any criminal activity, that led to handcuffs and deportation proceedings,” Fitzpatrick added. “The First Amendment means the government cannot punish speakers for their opinions, but that is exactly what the government is doing.”



As the Times reported Friday:
The documents indicate that in nearly all instances, the arrests of the students were recommended based on their involvement in campus protests and public writings, activities that the Trump administration routinely equated to antisemitic hate speech and support for terrorist organizations. They also show that officials privately anticipated the possibility that the deportations might not hold up in court because much of the conduct highlighted could be seen as protected speech.

“Given the potential that a court may consider his actions inextricably tied to speech protected under the First Amendment, it is likely that courts will scrutinize the basis for this determination,” stated one memo on Madhawi, a Columbia University student and permanent US resident.

In another document, Trump administration officials admitted there were no grounds for deporting the students, but noted the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, which empowers the secretary of state to expel noncitizens whose presence in the United States is deemed detrimental to US foreign policy interests.

Rubio cited the law to target pro-Palestine students for deportation, a stance that was rebuked in a June 2025 ruling from US District Judge Michael Farbiarz, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, who found that Khalil’s “career and reputation are being damaged and his speech is being chilled” by the Trump administration’s actions.

In May 2025, US District Judge William Sessions III—who was appointed by former President Bill Clinton—ordered the release of Öztürk. The Turkish PhD student at Tufts University was illegally snatched off a Massachusetts street in March 2025 and taken to a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) lockup in Louisiana after she published an opinion piece in a student newspaper advocating divestment from apartheid Israel.

“There has been no evidence that has been introduced by the government other than the op-ed,” Sessions wrote in his ruling.

One of the newly unsealed State Department documents states that DHS and ICE have “not provided any evidence showing that Öztürk has engaged in any antisemitic activity or made any public statements indicating support for a terrorist organization or antisemitism generally.”



Fitzpatrick stressed that “this can’t happen in a free society.”

“It can’t happen in a free America,” he added. “We’ll continue to fight this egregious violation of the Constitution every step of the way.”

Bringing Gaza Home to Middle America

Can eight jurors be made to understand why four activists blocked the entrance to a senator’s office to protest the Gaza genocide?


From left: Steve Masternak, Mike Ferner, Nancy Larson, and Al Compaan block the entrance to US Sen. John Husted’s Toledo office on October 3, 2025.
(Photo by Sean Nestor)

Mike Ferner
Jan 25, 2026

Common Dreams

Will a jury in Middle America’s flyover country care enough about the genocide in Gaza to acquit four protesters arrested for nonviolent civil resistance? Will it matter once they’ve seen “Bringing Gaza Home?”

That’s the question eight jurors will decide in Toledo a few weeks from now when they hear from four activists arrested October 3 for blocking the entrance to the local office of US Sen. John Husted (R-Ohio). They, along with the local peace movement, had run out of patience with Husted because of his continuing support for Israel’s genocide.

The final straw was when Husted refused to even make a statement supporting our friend and fellow Toledoan, Phil Tottenham, a former Marine, who was abducted in international waters by Israel during last fall’s Sumud Flotilla. That simply demanded the strongest nonviolent response we could make. We simply could not sit in comfort here in Toledo and watch this obscenity and simply hold a sign on a street corner to protest. We had to do more.

The other three people arrested were Al Compaan, professor emeritus of physics, University of Toledo; Nancy Larson, retired counselor-social worker; and Steve Masternak, retired industrial engineer. Two others were arrested but have since pled guilty and paid fines.

Our hope at trial is that our fellow citizens and neighbors will be as horrified by what Gazans have suffered as we are and decide it’s time to stand and be counted.

Information we will show the jury is included in the extensively documented Veterans For Peace report, Bringing Gaza Home. The report is compiled from information published by international news outlets such as the Guardian, Al Jazeera and Anadolu Agency, reporting on the effects of two years of Israel’s US-funded genocide in Palestine.

What makes it local to Toledo, county seat of Lucas County, Ohio, is comparing the destruction in Gaza to what Lucas County would be like after similar bombardment. The methodology simply compares Gaza’s area and population to Lucas County’s and calculates the comparable numbers.

We will hold up large photos and show videos of human casualties and physical destruction in Gaza, and describe to jurors what the effect would be in our own neighborhoods. We will tell the jury, “If this sounds utterly impossible or like a horror movie script, it’s neither. But for the grace of God this could be us instead of Gaza.”27,292 county residents would be dead, including 350 medical personnel, 528 people seeking food aid from official sites, and 61 reporters and media workers;

93 people would have starved to death;
737 would be imprisoned without charges or trial;
450,170 tons of bombs would have been dropped on our county in two years—four times what was dropped on Dresden, Hamburg, London, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki combined in World War II;
Over 34,300 people would be wounded; over half women and children;
324,520 people (75% of the county population) would be infected with disease from polluted water and open sewers;
384,500 people (90% of the population) would have endured severe lack of food;
Over 90% of residential buildings would be destroyed and 92% of all schools would require complete reconstruction;
264,000 people (62% of the population) would have lost legal documentation for property ownership; and
Over 340,000 unexploded bombs would lie buried in Lucas County.

Our hope at trial is that our fellow citizens and neighbors will be as horrified by what Gazans have suffered as we are and decide it’s time to stand and be counted, that blocking the entrance to a senator’s office is a minimal response to a genocide.


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


Mike Ferner
Mike Ferner is national director of Veterans For Peace and a former member of Toledo City Council.
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'I lost friends there': Prince Harry uncorks scathing response to Trump's NATO comments

WHEN WILL TRUMP DEPORT HARRY?!

Nicole Charky-Chami
January 23, 2026 

RAW STORY




Britain's Prince Harry arrives to attend the start of the nine-week trial lawsuit against Associated Newspapers, publisher of the Daily Mail, which Britain's Prince Harry and others are suing over allegations of privacy breaches dating back 30 years, at the High Court in London, Britain on Jan. 19, 2026. REUTERS/Isabel Infantes

Prince Harry on Friday rebuked President Donald Trump's comments dismissing NATO allies and spoke out about sacrifices among those who fought alongside the United States.

The Duke of Sussex served in the British Army for a decade and did two tours in Afghanistan, among many of the service members who answered the call to serve after NATO invoked Article 5 under the mutual defense agreement following the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, NBC News reported.

“I served there. I made lifelong friends there. And I lost friends there. The United Kingdom alone had 457 service personnel killed,” he said. “Thousands of lives were changed forever. Mothers and fathers buried sons and daughters. Children were left without a parent. Families are left carrying the cost.”

“Those sacrifices deserve to be spoken about truthfully and with respect, as we all remain united and loyal to the defense of diplomacy and peace,” the Duke of Sussex said.

In an interview Thursday with Fox News from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Trump questioned NATO allies' reliability, and claimed the U.S. "never needed them" and that allies sent troops to Afghanistan but "stayed a little back, a little off the front lines." Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk also hit back at Trump's statement.

"The American officers who accompanied me then, told me that America would never forget the Polish heroes. Perhaps they will remind President Trump of that fact," Tusk wrote on X.

Several other European leaders have spoken out in response against Trump's comments, including UK Prime Minister Kier Starmer, who called the president's statements "insulting and frankly, appalling."