Super Bowl Ad for Ring Cameras Touted AI Surveillance Network


Ring’s AI-powered network is likely to be used in its partnerships with law enforcement and agencies like ICE.

By Sharon Zhang ,

Truthout

February 9, 2026

Ring security cameras are displayed on a shelf at a Best Buy store on June 1, 2023 in San Rafael, California.Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

In an ad during the Super Bowl on Sunday night, Amazon’s Ring touted the establishment of an AI-powered surveillance network through their camera systems, which the company whitewashed under a feel-good narrative about finding lost dogs.

The ad for Ring’s free “Search Party” program urges users to “be a hero” by using their surveillance cameras to help identify lost dogs in their neighborhood. It aired to millions of viewers during Super Bowl LX on Sunday night.

“Pets are family, but every year, 10 million go missing,” narrated Ring founder Jamie Siminoff, over uncanny, seemingly AI-generated clips of lost dog posters adhered to poles. A huge proportion of the ads during the Super Bowl were for or featured AI, frustrating many viewers.

“Search Party from Ring uses AI to help families find lost dogs,” he said, while the video showed Ring camera footage in which the software detects a dog in the frame. The company’s website says that the Search Party app can also be used by non-Ring camera owners.

Amazon’s website also touts Ring’s goal of equipping over 4,000 animal shelters across the U.S. with Ring camera systems, a $1 million initiative, claiming this will further help locate lost pets.


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However, the attempt at telling a heartwarming story of reuniting dogs with their owners masks Ring’s true intentions of creating a nationwide surveillance system, analysts noted.

“It starts with searching for a ‘brown dog’ but means the tech is there for license plate reading, face recognition, searching for suspects by description, etc,” wrote surveillance and policing expert and scholar Matthew Guariglia on social media. “We already know they have a form cops can fill out to get access to footage without warrant or permission in an ‘emergency’ as determined by them. What will this mean for new features?”

Guariglia noted that Ring would likely make the AI-powered features on by default, requiring users to manually search their settings to turn it off.

Indeed, Ring has come under intense scrutiny for its collaboration with the criminal legal system, especially through its partnerships directly with police and with surveillance companies Flock and Axon, which grant law enforcement access to an enormous amount of information, including tracking of individuals, license plate recognition, and more.

Flock’s dragnet has been used by federal immigration agents to track immigrants and search for a person who received an abortion. It has also helped corporations make watch lists, following in the history of corporate blacklists of labor and social movement organizers.

While Flock’s hardware is largely in use in public locations, Ring cameras are ubiquitous in neighborhoods today. According to Consumer Reports, 30 percent of U.S. households have a video doorbell camera, with Ring being one of the most popular brands. Access to that network gives Flock and law enforcement eyes in neighborhoods across the U.S., with the ability to track millions of Americans.

A feature that the ad didn’t mention, for instance, is Ring’s “Familiar Faces” program. According to the company’s website, this beta feature “uses Ring Artificial Intelligence (AI) to recognize people.” Users help train the AI system to recognize particular faces over time, it says, so they can then receive a “personalized notification” when that particular person is at the door. The feature also “works with 24/7 Continuous Recording,” the website says, referring to their cameras’ ability to record audio and video at all times.

Inside the Right-Wing Movement Pushing Alberta to Secede From Canada


Trump officials have repeatedly met with secessionist leaders from the province, which has large oil and gas deposits.

By Nora Loreto , 

Truthout

PublishedFebruary 9, 2026

A member of the public wears a "Make Alberta Great Again" hat during the Help Us Make Sovereignty for Alberta Happen event organized by the Alberta Prosperity Project in Sherwood Park, Alberta, Canada, on March 16, 2025.

Artur Widak / NurPhoto via Getty Images


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Aseparation movement in the Canadian province of Alberta claims to be gaining steam, and its leaders say they now have a meeting booked with U.S. Treasury Department officials. They will be asking for a line of credit worth $500 billion in U.S. currency to help transition Alberta from a Canadian province into a U.S. state.

Led by businessman Mitch Sylvestre, the Alberta Prosperity Project has launched a petition through a campaign called Stay Free Alberta to build support for a referendum to separate from Canada. The group has no official support from any of the elected parties in Alberta.

Behind its rallying cry of faith, family, and freedom, the Alberta Prosperity Project wants a new constitution for Albertans — one “that recognizes the Supremacy of God as foundational to Civil Society and the Rule of Law.”

Unlike in the province of Quebec, where separatist leaders hold elected office, Alberta’s separatist movement has no formal foothold in its province’s politics. Quebec, an overwhelmingly French-speaking province, is the only jurisdiction in Canada with a sizable sovereignty movement. That province had referenda in 1980 and 1995 that asked whether or not Quebecers wanted to separate from Canada, the latter narrowly failing. The separatist political party, Parti Québécois, is expected to form the next provincial government, and has promised a referendum in its first mandate.

Officially, the governing United Conservative Party of Alberta (UCP) is not advocating for sovereignty. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says she wants Alberta to remain in Canada. However, the idea of sovereignty has been used by the UCP to try to push forward policies that the government of Alberta supports, especially related to oil and gas. On February 4, Smith issued a letter demanding that Alberta be given more say over judicial appointments. She also questioned why three judges of the nine on the nation’s Supreme Court came from Quebec (Quebec is governed under the Civil Code and not Common Law. As such, it has more representation at the Supreme Court for when Civil Code matters arise).


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Smith is using the sovereigntist movement to try to extract gains from Ottawa but is not formally supporting the movement. When pressed by journalists about members of her caucus having signed the pro-separation petition, Smith told the Canadian press that she doesn’t “police” members of her caucus and they’re free to sign whatever petitions they would like.

At the end of 2022, the UCP passed an act called the Alberta Sovereignty within a United Canada Act. It allows the Alberta government to challenge federal laws that it believes are an overreach into provincial jurisdiction (though the Canadian Constitution already allows for this). The UCP has also lowered the threshold of signatures required to trigger a referendum and extended the period of time to collect signatures. The separatists would need to have almost 178,000 signatures by May for a referendum to go ahead. There are 5 million people who live in the province.

The separatists would need to have almost 178,000 signatures by May for a referendum to go ahead.

Jeremy Appel, author of a forthcoming book about Smith, says there has been a sovereignty movement in Alberta going back to when the province first joined Canada in 1905. From the beginning, the movement was mostly concerned with fighting to maintain provincial control over Alberta’s resources. Then, the federal government created the National Energy Program in the 1980s, which gave Ottawa more control over oil and gas in Alberta, to the chagrin of many Albertans.

Appel believes that the sovereignty movement has its roots in this history but projects its discontent on the ruling status quo. “Canada’s state institutions have been completely hollowed out by neoliberalism and Smith is responding to this wave of anger and discontent stemming from that by … displacing the causes onto ‘woke’ liberals in Ottawa and Montreal,” he explained.

Separatist sentiment rises when Liberal Party politicians are elected in Ottawa, and they tend to be calmed when Conservative Party politicians are in office, he added.

While polls show that popular support for sovereignty in Alberta is on the rise, there is also considerable opposition. Former Progressive Conservative provincial representative for Alberta, Thomas Lukaszuk, recently filed a petition to remain part of Canada. His petition collected 438,568 signatures and was submitted to the legislative assembly on December 1, 2025, one month before the deadline. If it meets the deadline with the required number of signatures, the question about separatism will be put to Albertans in a referendum.

Alberta Prosperity Project leaders have met with U.S. State Department officials at least three times.

The Financial Times reports that Alberta Prosperity Project leaders have met with U.S. State Department officials at least three times.

Prime Minister Mark Carney reacted to the news that Trump officials had met with the sovereignty activists, saying, “I expect the U.S. administration to respect Canadian sovereignty.”

Appel points to the fact that it isn’t just separation activists who are meeting with U.S. officials. Premier Danielle Smith travelled to Mar-a-Lago in January 2025, 10 days before Donald Trump’s inauguration. Smith’s current Chief of Staff Rob Anderson is a former member of the province’s legislative assembly and an Albertan separatist who has an undergraduate degree from Brigham Young University in Utah. On social media, Anderson said the current movement to secede was triggered by Albertans’ hatred for former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

British Columbia Premier David Eby reacted to this news by saying this to CBC: “If you are crossing a border to seek the support of a foreign government to break up our country because you don’t have the support and the resources and the ability within our own country to advance that conversation, and you’re asking the Americans or any other government, I mean that is the definition of treason.”

Trump has consistently referred to Canada as the 51st state, and this group of separatist activists might give the president some of what he wants. With the U.S. administration already meddling in Venezuela over access to oil reserves, Alberta could serve a similar purpose for Trump, giving the United States access to another large deposit of oil and gas. Appel believes that this movement could easily serve as a toehold for the Trump administration to get into Canada.

Trump has consistently referred to Canada as the 51st state, and this group of separatist activists might give the president some of what he wants.

Canada and the United States have a deeply intertwined energy market. In 2023, 21 percent of all Canadian hydrocarbon exports went to the United States, worth some $163 billion in Canadian currency. Of the crude oil that the United States imported, nearly 60 percent came from Canada and almost 100 percent of the natural gas came from Canada.

Alberta produces around 84 percent of Canada’s crude oil. More than any other province, Alberta relies on the United States to purchase its oil.
First Nations leaders have been outspoken against the Alberta sovereignty movement. At a press conference, Trevor Mercredi, grand chief of Treaty 8 First Nations of Alberta, said: “Our treaties are with the imperial crown, not with the province of Alberta. Alberta has never been party to the treaties and has no jurisdiction over our lands.”

“I’m calling on all international nations and communities to support the First Nations movement in Alberta, to tell the Alberta government that what they are doing is unconstitutional, and that the foreign interference has to stop,” said Chief Allan Adam from the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation.

This article is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), and you are free to share and republish under the terms of the license.

Nora Loreto is a writer and activist based in Quebec City. She is also the president of the Canadian Freelance Union.

'Atrocious': Trump 'in trouble' with Republicans thanks to slumping economy

CNN's Harry Enten (Photo: Screen capture)

Sarah K. Burris

February 09, 2026  

ALTERNET

CNN data analyst Harry Enten ran the numbers on Republican supporters of President Donald Trump, focusing specifically on the economy. It showed that one year into his presidency, he's at the worst point ever.

Speaking Monday to host John Berman, Enten said that around this time in Trump's first term, he was doing well, but now Enten characterized it as "staggering."

Flapping his arms, Enten said, "You know, the economy used to be the wind beneath Donald Trump's presidency wings. And now it's his Titanic. Because what are we talking about here? Well, let's just take a look here. Trump's economic net approval one year in term one. Hey! Yeah! Plus side of the ledger plus eight points. It was his best issue, arguably, but now it's one of his worst. Look at that. Way, way down in the basement, 18 points below water. What is that? A 26-point switcheroo in the wrong direction. This is the type of number that Democratic midterm dreams are made of, and Republican nightmares are also made of."

The voters are putting the blame squarely on the Trump administration.

"The Trump admin has made the economy worse or better? You go back to January of 2018, term number one, the plurality winner there was better at 40 percent, just 22 percent said worse. Look at this side of the screen. The exact opposite story. What a switcheroo. My goodness gracious, 52 percent of Americans say the Trump admin. policies had made the economy worse," Enten explained.

But the real staggering number comes from Republican supporters who typically give Trump his high marks regardless of the issue. Recently, only 57 percent of Republicans agree with Trump's work on the economy.

"This — this more than anything else — it is what is driving Donald Trump's approval rating overall down. It is the economy. It's the number one issue. And the American people believe that Donald Trump is failing on the key number one issue," Enten said.

"But this is the number that absolutely blew my mind," Enten continued. "Oh my goodness gracious. Trump's economic net approval one year in among independents in term one. He was ten points above water. Look at where he is today. Whoa, 43 points below. That's a 53-point switcheroo. You can't win elections when on the number one issue, you are 43 points below water among independents. This is just absolutely atrocious."

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

Trump admin escalates its war on young voters

Carl Gibson

February 09, 2026 

ALTERNET


President Donald Trump's administration is now aiming to make the voting process harder for college-age young adults ahead of November's midterm elections.

That's according to a Monday op-ed by MS NOW's Ja'han Jones, who wrote that the Trump administration's Department of Education may be exploring a way to curb young voter turnout with a newly announced investigation into Tufts University. The Education Department announced its new probe in a recent press release, saying the Boston, Massachusetts-based school may have been "illegally sharing college students’ data with third parties to influence elections."

The investigation is centered on Tufts' National Study of Learning, Voting, and Engagement (NSLVE). Tufts describes the NSLVE as "a service to over 1,000 U.S. colleges and universities that can use it to understand and improve their student voting rates." However, the Trump administration is saying the program could have potentially violated the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.

"American colleges and universities should be focused on teaching, learning, and research — not influencing elections," Education Secretary Linda McMahon stated. "The Biden Administration, with little to no regard for student privacy laws, openly encouraged institutions to share and utilize student data in order to target certain populations."

Jones pointed out that the Trump administration's claims are false on their face, as Tufts' program uses publicly available data to conduct its research while maintaining students' confidentiality according to its website. Jones instead asserted that this probe was "little more than yet another gambit to prevent young voters from mobilizing and acting on their potential political power" ahead of what is shaping up to be a Democratic wave election in November.

As the MS NOW columnist wrote, Trump ally Cleta Mitchell — who represented Trump's 2020 campaign and frequently made baseless allegations of election fraud in swing states Trump lost — gave a presentation to Republican donors in 2023 warning about the "young people effort" to vote. Mitchell warned that polling places were too close to college dormitories, allowing students to "roll out of bed, vote and go back to bed."

The investigation comes not long after the Trump administration conducted a raid of an elections facility in Fulton County, Georgia, and a cryptic announcement from an FBI official inviting state election officials to a conference call to discuss the 2026 election.

‘Operation Dildo Blitz’ Anti-ICE Protest in Minneapolis Ends With 50+ Arrests

One demonstrator said they attended the phallic protest, at which people pelted federal agents’ vehicles with sex toys, “because ICE likes to bend over for Daddy Trump.”


A demonstrator gathers sex toys thrown by “Operation Dildo Blitz” protesters outside the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building in Minneapolis on February 7, 2026 in Minneapolis.
(Photo by Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)

Brett Wilkins
Feb 08, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

Demonstrators hurled insults and sex toys at federal agents outside a Minneapolis government building on Saturday to protest the Trump administration’s deadly Immigration and Customs Enforcement crackdown on undocumented immigrants and their supporters, with state and local police arresting more than 50 people.

Dubbed “Operation Dildo Blitz,” the protest outside the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building saw demonstrators place sex toys in a chain link fence while others handed out rubber phalluses to protesters who threw them at passing federal and local law enforcement vehicles.

Demonstrators shouted “Eat a dick!” and “Fuck ICE!” as they pelted the vehicles with dildos. A local sheriff’s deputy was reportedly struck upside the head.

Activist Russell Ellis, who posted video of the demonstration on Instagram, said the protesters “showed real balls.”

“Dildos coming your way! Dildos! Dildos!” Ellis barked as the toys rained down on vehicles, landing with rubbery thwunks. “It’s raining dicks!”

Anti-ICE activist William Kelly—who was arrested last month after taking part in a protest inside a St. Paul church—said at Saturday’s demonstration: “The community here at Whipple today is, you know, doing the right thing and handing out the dicks. People are able to do whatever they want with the dicks, it’s their choice.”

One protester told VisuNews that they were attending the demonstration “because ICE likes to bend over for Daddy Trump.”

Asked what inspired her to show up with a literal “bag of dicks,” another protester said she was motivated by last month’s fatal shooting of legal observer Renee Good by ICE agent Jonathan Ross in Minneapolis. The protest marked one month since Good’s killing.

“The number one thing that you need to do right now is build community,” the woman said. “You need to talk to your neighbors. You need to start organizing. The local police are not going to help you. They are not your friend... so we rely upon each other.”

Later in the afternoon, police declared the protest an unlawful assembly before rushing in to arrest 54 demonstrators.



Far-right influencer and pardoned January 6, 2021 insurrectionist Jake Lang—who was arrested the previous day and charged with vandalizing an anti-ICE sculpture—crashed Saturday’s demonstration. Limitless Media reported that Lang and others arrived in a U-Haul truck carrying a wooden cross and firing pepper balls and chemical agents at anti-ICE protesters before leaving the scene.

Hundreds of people also showed up for an Indigenous-led Saturday gathering in Powderhorn Park in Minneapolis to remember Good and Alex Pretti, who was also shot dead by federal immigration enforcers last month in the Minnesota city.

“This is a generational burden that we carry, and we’re seeing that burden again today,” said Gaby Strong, vice president of the NDN Collective, who called Good “the example of what it means to be a good relative, to be a good neighbor, to stand up for people beside you.”

‘Everything Is for Sale’: Trump Exploits 250th Anniversary of US Independence for Yet Another Grift

“Donald Trump and his henchmen have sabotaged what should be a unifying moment and appear intent on instead creating a highly divisive, corporate-funded, ideologically extremist exercise.”

The Washington Monument is illuminated with a projection of US President Donald Trump’s “Freedom 250” initiative during the New Year’s Eve show at the National Mall in Washington, DC on December 31, 2025.
(Photo by Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)

Jake Johnson
Feb 09, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

Allies of the Trump administration, in partnership with the White House, are reportedly using the upcoming 250th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence as another opportunity to solicit deep-pocketed donors, enticing them with promises of access to the president and other rewards.

The New York Times reported Sunday that donors who give at least $1 million to Freedom 250—a group announced by President Donald Trump in December—have been promised a path to “gain access to, and seek favor with, a president who has maintained a keen interest in fundraising, and a willingness to use the levers of government power to reward financial supporters,” including through his crypto scam and ballroom project.



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Trump has described Freedom 250 as a “public-private partnership” dedicated to organizing “a celebration of America like no other” later this year. Listed as official corporate sponsors of the initiative are prominent corporate names, including ExxonMobil, Mastercard, and Palantir.

The Times obtained a donor solicitation document circulated by Meredith O’Rourke, Trump’s top fundraiser. Donors who give at least $1 million to Freedom 250 “will receive prominent logo placement at Freedom 250 events,” which are expected to include UFC fights and an IndyCar race.

Freedom 250 appears to have been created to dodge oversight that applies to America250, a bipartisan congressional commission formed to plan official celebrations of the nation’s semiquincentennial.

“American history is being subordinated to Trump’s cult of personality,” Dan Friedman and Amanda Moore wrote in Mother Jones last week. “The president’s face is suddenly ­everywhere—next to George Washington on America250-themed National Parks passes; alongside Abraham Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt on giant banners hanging from federal buildings; on a $1 coin under consideration by the US Treasury.”

“Faced with sporadic pushback from a congressional commission overseeing America250 and from career officials at various agencies, Trump is now seeking to evade even these modest constraints,” they added, pointing to the launch of Freedom 250.



Public Citizen demanded a congressional probe of Freedom 250’s activities, which the watchdog organization’s co-presidents described as a “potential diversion of taxpayer funds for highly partisan purposes.” According to the Times, roughly $10 million in taxpayer funds has “already been redirected to Freedom 250 from America250 for a fleet of six mobile museums called ‘Freedom Trucks’ that rolled out last month.”

“ Donald Trump and his henchmen have sabotaged what should be a unifying moment and appear intent on instead creating a highly divisive, corporate-funded, ideologically extremist exercise,” said Public Citizen’s Lisa Gilbert. “Once again, nothing is sacred in the Trump administration, not even the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Everything is for sale to corporate and potentially foreign interests.”

Leaked DHS Document: Tiny Fraction of Immigrants Detained Under Trump Have Violent Criminal Records

The DHS report shows only 14% of immigrants taken into custody by ICE in 2025 had either been charged with or convicted of violent criminal offenses.


Federal agents detain a person after attending a court hearing at immigration court at the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building in New York City, New York, on July 1, 2025.
(Photo by Mostafa Bassim/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Brad Reed
Feb 09, 2026

COMMON DREAMS


A leaked document obtained by CBS News reveals that only a tiny fraction of immigrants detained by the Trump administration last year have violent criminal records.

According to CBS News, the internal US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) document shows that just 14% of immigrants taken into custody by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in 2025 had either been charged with or convicted of violent criminal offenses.

The DHS report also shows 40% of immigrants detained last year have no criminal record at all except for civil immigration law violations, such as living unlawfully in the US or overstaying a visa, which CBS News noted “are typically adjudicated by Justice Department immigration judges in civil—not criminal—proceedings.”

The internal document undermines President Donald Trump’s past claims that his administration is focused primarily on deporting “the worst of the worst” undocumented immigrants, such as those belonging to criminal gangs. In reality, the document shows, less than 2% of immigrants detained last year had any sort of gang affiliation.

As noted last month by Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, ICE during Trump’s second term has grown more aggressive in detaining people with no prior criminal offenses save for civil immigration law violations.

In January 2024, for example, immigrants with no prior criminal record accounted for just 6% of ICE detainees. By January 2025, that percentage surged to 43%.

ICE has drastically ramped up its arrests of immigrants in the last year, as White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller has demanded that the agency hit arrest quotas of at least 3,000 per day.

While ICE has not yet reached that goal, they did make an estimated 393,000 arrests during Trump’s first year back in the White House, an average of more than 1,000 per day.

CBS News notes that the internal DHS document “does not include arrests by Border Patrol agents, who the Trump administration has deployed to places far away from the US-Mexico border, like Los Angeles, Chicago, and Minneapolis,” where they “have undertaken aggressive and sweeping arrest operations, targeting day laborers at Home Depot parking lots and stopping people, including US citizens, to question them about their immigration status.”

Faith Groups Sue Over Trump’s Christian Nationalist ‘Religious Liberty Commission’

“The Religious Liberty Commission isn’t about protecting religious liberty for all; it’s about rejecting our nation’s religious diversity and prioritizing one narrow set of conservative ‘Judeo-Christian’ beliefs,” said one critic.


Pastor Paula White bows her head in prayer with Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, US Attorney General Pam Bondi, and President Donald Trump at the Museum of the Bible on September 8, 2025 in Washington, DC, where Trump addressed his Religious Liberty Commission.
(Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Jessica Corbett
Feb 09, 2026
COMMON DREAMS


“Religious freedom for some is religious freedom for none.”

That’s what Rev. Paul Brandeis Raushenbush, president and CEO of Interfaith Alliance, said in a Monday statement as faith groups filed a federal lawsuit in the Southern District of New York over President Donald Trump’s so-called Religious Liberty Commission.

Since Trump launched the commission last year, critics have warned that its true intent is to advance a Christian nationalist agenda. Brandeis Raushenbush, his alliance, Hindus for Human Rights, Muslims for Progressive Values, and the Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund renewed that argument in the complaint, which names Trump, US Attorney General Pam Bondi, the Department of Justice, the commission, and its leader, Mary Margaret Bush, as defendants.

“The government has no right to pick and choose which religious beliefs to promote, and which to marginalize,” said Brandeis Raushenbush. “The Trump administration has failed to uphold our country’s proud religious freedom tradition, and we will hold them accountable. Today’s lawsuit is our recommitment to fight for religious liberty for all with every tool available to us.”

The complaint argues that “the composition and operations of the commission violate the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA),” which Congress enacted in 1972 “to curb the executive branch’s reliance on superfluous, secretive, and biased ‘advisory committees.’” Under the law, “every advisory committee must meet public transparency requirements, be in the public interest, be fairly balanced among competing points of view, and be structured to avoid inappropriate influence by special interests.”

“While this body is ostensibly designed to defend ‘religious liberty for all Americans’ and celebrate ‘religious pluralism’ it actually represents only a single ‘Judeo-Christian’ viewpoint,” the complaint states. “It held its first three meetings at the Museum of the Bible and has closed its meetings with a Christian prayer ‘in Jesus’ name.’”

“Only one of its members is not Christian, and the Christian members do not represent the full diversity of the Christian faith,” the filing continues. “The commission’s meetings have repeatedly referenced the belief that the United States was founded as a ‘Judeo-Christian nation’ and the membership reflects that viewpoint. All members of the commission advocate for increased religiosity, and specifically their brand of ‘Judeo-Christian’ religiosity, in public life.”

“The commission’s members have promoted the primacy of a Judeo-Christian worldview in the public sphere, advocated for discrimination against minority groups under the guise of ‘religious liberty,’ and otherwise supported policies that threaten religious freedom for all those who do not conform to their particular worldview,” the document details.

Ria Chakrabarty, senior policy director of Hindus for Human Rights, said Monday that “by stacking this Religious Liberty Commission with a narrow set of voices and hiding the commission’s work from the public eye, the Trump administration is evading the transparency and balance that federal law requires.”

“Hindus for Human Rights is proud to stand with our multifaith partners to defend a pluralistic democracy where Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Jews, Christians, Buddhists, and nonreligious people all belong as equals,” she added.



Ani Zonneveld, president and founder of Muslims for Progressive Values, noted that “as a Muslim American organization, we have seen firsthand how elevating a singular religion above others, especially in a country as religiously diverse as the United States, leads to the oppression and possible persecution of minority faiths.”

The plaintiffs are represented by Democracy Forward, which has filed over 150 lawsuits against the Trump administration since the president returned to power last year, and the decades-old Americans United for Separation of Church and State—whose president and CEO, Rachel Laser, stressed that “the Religious Liberty Commission isn’t about protecting religious liberty for all; it’s about rejecting our nation’s religious diversity and prioritizing one narrow set of conservative ‘Judeo-Christian’ beliefs.”

Blasting the commission’s public meetings as “a vivid example of this favoritism,” Laser added that its “true purpose and operations can’t be squared with America’s constitutional promise of church-state separation.”

Specifically, Laser’s group and other advocates of church-state separation have long pointed to the establishment clause of the First Amendment to the US Constitution, which bars government from making any “law respecting an establishment of religion.”

“Since the nation’s founding, the values of religious liberty and pluralism have been central to the American identity. These values are now under accelerated attack,” declared Perryman, who’s also on the Interfaith Alliance board. “The fatally flawed way this commission was assembled makes clear that the outcome isn’t just un-American, it’s against the law.”

THE NEW GOP

‘One More Billionaire Front Group’: Centrist Dems Mocked Over New Initiative Led by Corporate Lobbyist

Next American Era will be headed by Cheri Bustos, former chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee who has lobbied for powerful corporations.


Then-Rep. Cheri Bustos (D-Ill.) spoke with Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) spoke in the US Capitol 
(Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Jake Johnson
Feb 09, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

Centrist Democrats led by Cheri Bustos, a corporate lobbyist who previously headed her party’s campaign arm in the US House, are launching a policy and advocacy organization aimed at pressuring Democrats to embrace the kind of “pro-growth” deregulatory agenda associated with the so-called “abundance” movement.

The new organization, named Next American Era, was formed “with an eye toward 2028” as Democrats work to recover from their crushing defeat to President Donald Trump in the 2024 elections, Axios reported Sunday, noting that the group describes itself as a “hub for center-left policy and advocacy.”

Bustos, whose lobbying client list in 2025 included OpenAI and Larry Ellison’s Oracle, said Next American Era plans to “air issue-focused ads during the midterm elections and the 2028 presidential campaign, but it won’t endorse candidates,” Axios reported.

Bustos said the founders of Next American Era share “many of the same principles as the Abundance movement,” a loose assortment of organizations and individuals—including large corporations and prominent billionaires—broadly supporting views expressed by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson in their 2025 book Abundance.

“She said cutting red tape, streamlining regulations, and supporting workforce training are among the top policy goals of her group, which is structured as a 501(c)(4) political nonprofit,” Axios reported.

Lindsay Owens, executive director of the Groundwork Collaborative, a progressive think tank, called those proposed objectives “some of the weakest economic policies we’ve polled in the last 18 months.”

“Not sure why you’d want to put ads out on these for candidates unless it’s an opp,” Owens added.



Abundance takes aim at what Klein and Thompson characterize as an overly burdensome regulatory approach that is purportedly hindering progress toward more affordable housing, public transportation systems, and a renewable energy revolution. Critics, such as antitrust advocate Zephyr Teachout, have criticized the so-called abundance agenda as far too ambiguous.

“I still can’t tell after reading Abundance whether Klein and Thompson are seeking something fairly small-bore and correct (we need zoning reform) or nontrivial and deeply regressive (we need deregulation) or whether there is room within abundance for anti-monopoly politics and a more full-throated unleashing of American potential,” Teachout wrote in her review of the book for Washington Monthly.

Critics have also noted the enthusiasm with which corporations and billionaires have glommed onto the abundance narrative.

“The ambiguity of the abundance agenda’s policy proposals, strategic or otherwise, allows private interests to leverage ‘abundance’ as a Trojan Horse for their preferences,” the Revolving Door Project observed last year. “The growing abundance movement has institutional support from fossil fuel and Big Tech affiliates, including the sprawling Koch network and crypto and AI industry players.”

Axios observed that Next American Era is one of “several center-left groups” that “have popped up or expanded in the past 18 months, including the think tank Searchlight Institute, Majority Democrats, and WelcomePAC.”

“Just one more billionaire front group. Just one more neoliberal policy shop,” reporter and political analyst Austin Ahlman wrote mockingly on social media in response to the launch of Next American Era. “Just one more polling outfit cooking the numbers on behalf of corporate interests and we’ll win bro, I promise.”

‘Statistics Are Human Beings With the Tears Wiped Away’: Silicosis, Dead Workers, and Corporate Greed

The counter-top manufacturing industry doesn’t want to protect workers from harm; it wants protection from the workers it harms.


Sun Valley, CA - October 31: Stone countertop fabricators wear masks to help protect against airborne particles which can contribute to silicosis at a shop on Tuesday, Oct. 31, 2023 in Sun Valley, CA.
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

Les Leopold
Feb 09, 2026

Common Dreams

Those who cut our artificial stone countertops are breathing in silica dust and dying. Not just a few. In fact, so many that in Australia they’ve banned the product and adopted safer substitutes. In the US, however, the industry wants to ban workers from suing the manufacturers and Republicans are doing their bidding, introducing H.R. 5437, The Protection of Lawful Commerce in Stone Slab Products Act.

Dr. David Michaels, the former head of OSHA, points us to California’s tearless Silicosis Surveillance Dashboard: 511 cases of silicosis have been diagnosed among these workers; 29 have died (average age 46); 54 underwent lung transplants; and 98 percent of these workers are Latino.

In 2021, there were only two diagnosed silicosis cases in California. In 2025 there were 214. “The number of cases is rising rapidly,” Dr. Michaels wrote to me, “That’s the important point.”

Here’s the more tearful description form Dr. Michaels during testimony last month before the House:
The hallmarks of the disease: shortness of breath and diminished exercise capacity that progresses to an inability to climb even one flight of stairs. A short walk that should take just 20 minutes can take an hour. Working is difficult or impossible. People cough incessantly. They can’t sleep because it is difficult to breathe and they are kept awake coughing. Over time, people with more advanced silicosis require supplemental oxygen and can’t leave home without an oxygen tank. And they are at increased risk of dying from lung cancer.

The crime behind this slaughter is that safer, profitable substitutes are available. As Michaels testified:
There are substitute products that are comparable in use and cost, but which do not kill workers. Many substitutes are made from amorphous silica—a different and a safer material than crystalline silica. Since Australia banned countertops containing crystalline silica, countertops are fabricated from alternative products that look and cost the same but are safer for workers.

But switching to safer products involves costs that the manufacturers would prefer to avoid. Why lose any profits at all? Why go through the disruptions involved in producing new products? Better to be shielded by your political allies.

The countertop manufacturing industry doesn’t want to protect workers from harm; it wants protection from the workers it harms. It worries this could become another asbestos epidemic that has cost asbestos manufacturers billions of dollars in payments to the victims. This time around, the industry is in position to nip it in the bud, given that the Republicans are in full control of all three branches of government.

What the industry dreads are third-party suits. Workers are not permitted, in nearly all circumstances, to sue their own employers for illnesses and exposures at work. Those claims are covered by state workers’ compensation programs. But harmed workers can and do sue manufacturers of equipment or substances that cause them harm. And if the harm can be proved to a jury, the compensation can be steep. It doesn’t make up for the damage to the exposed workers, but it provides some support to their families and pressures the industry to find safer substitutes for its harmful products.

The solution preferred by the countertop industry is simple: get a free pass, which is what this killer legislation would do. It would shield the entire industry from “persons who claim personal injuries as a result of exposure to silica dust produced during the alteration of such products in the course of their employment by third-party fabricators.”

Nice. No change needed, no interruption of profitable production, no switching to new products. No nothing except a few political donations to grease the skids. And at least some of that corporate-funded grease comes from millionaire Marty Davis, the CEO of Cambria, a large counter manufacturer, who has donated more than $800,000 to Republicans, and encouraged Trump to challenged the outcome of the 2020 election.

On this piece of legislation, the Democrats are saying the right things. Rep. Henry C. “Hank” Johnson (D-Ga.), the ranking Democrat on the House Courts, Intellectual Property, Artificial Intelligence and the Internet Subcommittee committee, which is pushing this legislation, said it as clearly as could be said:
The bill behind today’s hearing would give blanket immunity to artificial stone manufacturers and suppliers, preventing injured workers from seeking justice in court. It would dismiss the hundreds of cases pending against these manufacturers.

…Our courts determine liability all the time. People petition the court, have their grievances heard, a judge and jury consider the evidence, and a judgment is rendered.

Manufacturers are asking for a different scenario – one where the deep pockets go to Congress, Congress makes a snap judgment, and the big businesses never have to go to court again. That’s not how our justice system is supposed to work, and I condemn the blatant misuse of this committee to shield corporations at the expense of the American worker.

If only more Democrats would speak like this more often, millions of working people might hear them.


The quote in the headline of this article is attributed to journalist Paul Brodeur, author of “Expendable Americans.”

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


Les Leopold is the executive director of the Labor Institute and author of the new book, “Wall Street’s War on Workers: How Mass Layoffs and Greed Are Destroying the Working Class and What to Do About It." (2024). Read more of his work on his substack here.
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