Billionaires Are ‘Becoming a Problem for the Economy,’ Declares Wall Street Journal Report

“Debate about how much tax billionaires pay is likely to grow as America’s fiscal situation deteriorates and its wealth gap widens.”


Amazon and Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos, Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Tesla CEO Elon Musk attend the inauguration of President Donald Trump on January 20, 2025 in Washington, DC.
(Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Brad Reed
Feb 18, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

A report published Wednesday by the Rupert Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal outlined how billionaires’ tax evasion schemes are causing problems for the US economy.

The report, written by London-based columnist Carol Ryan, began by noting how completely the US economy has come to depend on the spending habits of its richest households, whose wealth is primarily tied to the fortunes of the stock market, which “could mean the entire economy pays a steep price in the next market correction.”



‘Billionaires Are Waging War Against the Rest of Us’: James Talarico Responds to Class Warfare Accusations

Ryan then walked through some of the plusses and minuses of the wealth tax being debated in the state of California, which has more billionaires than any state in the nation.

Even while personally finding flaws with the California proposal, Ryan said that plans to extract wealth from the super-rich aren’t going away, even if the California tax plan is ultimately defeated.

“Debate about how much tax billionaires pay is likely to grow as America’s fiscal situation deteriorates and its wealth gap widens,” Ryan wrote. “Data from the Federal Reserve shows that only the richest 1% of households have grown their share of overall US wealth since 1990.”

Ryan also broke down how the very richest Americans have tax evasion options that mere multimillionaires don’t have.

“A common strategy is to avoid salaries, which are heavily taxed,” she wrote. “Billionaires prefer to be paid in shares, which are subject to capital-gains taxes when sold. But they don’t need to sell to fund their lifestyles. Billionaires use borrowed money for living expenses, pledging their shares or other assets as collateral.”

Ryan added that “the interest on the debt is much lower than a capital-gains tax bill would be,” and billionaires compound this wealth by passing it off to their children as part of a “buy borrow die” tax avoidance plan.

Boston College law professor Ray Madoff told Ryan that the wealth at the very top has grown so concentrated that even “very well-off Americans with high incomes” are now aligned “much more with the middle class” than in the past.

Ryan’s report isn’t the only one published by the Journal in recent weeks to warn of dangerous levels of US wealth inequality.

Chief Wall Street Journal economics commentator Greg Ip last week posted data showing that corporate profits’ share of gross domestic income is now the highest it has been in more than 40 years, while the share of income paid out in workers’ wages is at the lowest.

“Profits have soared since the pandemic, and the market value attached to those profits even more,” wrote Ip. “The result: Capital, which includes businesses, shareholders, and superstar employees, is triumphant, while the average worker ekes out marginal gains.”

Ip also said that this problem could grow worse if artificial intelligence lives up to its creators’ hype and starts replacing human workers on a mass scale.

In such a scenario, wrote Ip, the “biggest winners” of the economy would be shareholders who, as Ryan explained in her piece, have ample tools to avoid paying taxes.

Sanders to Oligarchs Opposing California Billionaire Tax: ‘You’re Treading on Very, Very Thin Ice’

“Starting right here in California, these billionaires are going to learn that we are still living in a democratic society where the people have some power,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders.


US Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) speaks at the Billionaire Tax Now rally on February 18, 2026 in Los Angeles, California.
(Photo by Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

Jake Johnson
Feb 19, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

US Sen. Bernie Sanders used his appearance at a rally in Los Angeles on Wednesday to call out—in some cases by name—the billionaires using tiny slices of their fortunes to fight a proposed wealth tax in California.

“What I can tell the oligarchs is that the American people are sick and tired of their greed,” Sanders (I-Vt.) told an enthusiastic audience gathered at The Wiltern theater, with members of the crowd donning “Tax the Billionaires” T-shirts. “They are sick and tired of people like Sergey Brin, the co-founder of Google, who is spending $20 million to defeat this tax on billionaires.”

“It’s not just Mr. Brin,” the senator continued. “Mark Zuckerberg is the wealthiest man in California and the fourth-wealthiest person in the world, worth $226 billion. And for Mr. Zuckerberg, it is apparently not good enough to own one yacht. He had to buy three yachts worth $530 million. He had to buy 11 homes in Palo Alto to make a family compound. Mr. Zuckerberg, you can afford to pay your fair share of taxes so that people have healthcare.”

The senator also condemned billionaires’ fearmongering about the supposed negative impacts of wealth taxes and threats to flee the state if the levy proposed in California is enacted.

“I would say to these oligarchs: Be careful, because you are treading on very, very thin ice,” said Sanders. “At a time when the very rich are becoming phenomenally richer, when the very rich have been given a massive tax break by Donald Trump, when millions of people in this state are struggling to be able to afford healthcare, maybe billionaires should start paying their fair share of taxes.”



Sanders’s remarks came as California organizers, led by Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West (SEIU-UHW), continued their efforts to collect the roughly 875,000 signatures necessary to get the billionaire wealth tax proposal on the November ballot. Supporters of the proposal are facing opposition from some of the most powerful forces in California, including Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom.

If approved, the measure would impose a one-time 5% tax on billionaires living in California as of the start of 2026, with the revenue aimed at offsetting the impacts of federal Medicaid cuts on the state’s healthcare system.

“Massive federal healthcare cuts could force many of our local hospitals and emergency rooms to close their doors forever—all because billionaires insist on paying lower tax rates than the rest of us,” Suzanne Jimenez, chief of staff for SEIU-UHW, said at Wednesday’s rally. “If we don’t act, hospitals and ERs across California will close, and patients will suffer.”

“If we don’t act, millions of people will lose access to the healthcare services they rely on,” Jimenez continued. “If we don’t act, our neighbors, our patients, and our loved ones will have to drive twice as far, and wait twice as long, to receive emergency care. And for what? So billionaires can have another yacht? I don’t think so!”

Sanders to Rally for Billionaire Tax in California as Crypto Industry Joins Newsom in Opposition

“While US billionaires became $1.5 trillion richer last year, the average worker in America has just $955 in retirement savings,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders. “That’s why I’ll be in LA this week fighting for a wealth tax on billionaires.”


US Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt) speaks at a rally in Folsom, California on April 15, 2025.
(Photo by Paul Kuroda for The Washington Post via Getty Images)

Jake Johnson
Feb 18, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

US Sen. Bernie Sanders is set to rally in California on Wednesday with frontline healthcare workers and other supporters of a proposed ballot measure that would impose a one-time 5% tax on the wealth of the roughly 200 billionaires who reside in the Golden State.

Sanders (I-Vt.), a longtime champion of efforts to redress massive income and wealth inequality nationwide, said in a statement ahead of Wednesday’s rally that he “strongly” supports the proposed wealth tax in California, which is home to more billionaires than any other state in the US.




“While US billionaires became $1.5 trillion richer last year, the average worker in America has just $955 in retirement savings and 21% of seniors are trying to survive on less than $15,000 a year,” Sanders wrote in a social media post earlier this week. “That’s why I’ll be in LA this week fighting for a wealth tax on billionaires.”

Sanders’ appearance at Wednesday’s rally in Los Angeles, which is set to begin at 5 pm local time, comes as organizers behind the California wealth tax push are working to collect the roughly 875,000 signatures required to get the proposal on the November ballot.

“Union leaders believe the visit by Mr. Sanders will energize their campaign, which has already trained more than 1,000 volunteers and doubled the amount per signature that it is paying petition circulators,” the New York Times reported on Tuesday.

“We are very grateful for the support of US Sen. Sanders, who for years has been telling the truth about the threat that income inequality poses to our nation—and to working people.”

The Times also reported that “an opposition campaign committee with ties to the crypto industry, called Golden State Promise, officially formed on Friday” and “was expected to report this week $10 million in donations, including $5 million from Chris Larsen, a founder of the cryptocurrency company Ripple.”

The proposal has also drawn opposition from Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has close ties to Silicon Valley elites—some of the most vocal opponents of the state wealth tax plan. (Notably, the billionaire CEO of the most valuable company in the world, Nvidia, said earlier this year that he is “perfectly fine” with the proposal as others in his class pumped millions into the effort to defeat it.)

Newsom, widely seen as a possible 2028 presidential candidate, has publicly vowed to defeat the proposed wealth tax, which is aimed at raising funds to prevent a looming healthcare crisis spurred by federal Medicaid cuts that US President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans approved last summer.

“This will be defeated—there’s no question in my mind,” Newsom said in January. “I’ll do what I have to do to protect the state.”

Proponents of the tax estimate that it would raise around $100 billion in revenue—much of which would be placed in a “Billionaire Tax Health Account” designed to help shore up the state’s healthcare system.

Mayra Castaneda, an Ultrasound Technologist at St. Francis Medical Center in Lynwood, said that “we are very grateful for the support of US Sen. Sanders, who for years has been telling the truth about the threat that income inequality poses to our nation—and to working people.”

“If we let these healthcare cuts stand, my patients will suffer. Hospitals and ERs will close, others will be strained by taking on more patients, and people will lose access to life-saving care,” said Castaneda. “This is all avoidable if billionaires just pay their fair share in California, so I’m going to do whatever is in my power to see this proposal pass in November. I’ll be telling my story alongside Sen. Sanders and urging my fellow Californians to take action to save lives.”

Meta Drops $65 Million on Super PACs to Back Pro-AI Candidates Against Big Tech Critics

“We can’t afford more corrupt politicians bought by Big Tech,” said one Democratic US House candidate.



Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg shows a prototype of computer glasses that can display digital objects in transparent lenses at the Meta Connect developers conference in Menlo Park, California on September 25, 2024.
(Photo: Andrej Sokolow/picture alliance via Getty Images)



Brad Reed
Feb 18, 2026
COMMON DREAMS


Meta, the parent company of social media giants Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, is spending big bucks to ensure that government regulations don’t interfere with its ambitions in artificial intelligence.

The New York Times reported on Wednesday that Meta is planning to spend $65 million on this year’s midterm elections, with one super political action committee (PAC) dedicated to electing AI-friendly Democrats, and another dedicated to electing AI-friendly Republicans.



‘What Oligarchy Looks Like’: AI Giants Pledge to Pump $100 Million Into 2026 Midterms



‘What a Surprise’: Sanders Undeterred by Bezos-Owned Washington Post’s Dismissal of AI Data Center Pause

The pro-Democratic super PAC, called Making Our Tomorrow, will work to influence congressional races in Illinois, while the pro-GOP PAC, called Forge the Future Project, will be focusing on congressional races in Texas.

The Times noted that Meta has in the past been “cautious about campaign engagements, making small donations out of a corporate political action committee and contributing to presidential inaugurations,” but it has decided to ramp up its spending to defend its AI business from governmental interference.

Meta’s spending splurge to elect pro-AI candidates is just one of many efforts by the AI industry to ensure a friendly regulatory environment.

CNN reported last week that Leading the Future—a super PAC backed by venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale, and other AI heavyweights—is pledging to spend at least $100 million to influence the 2026 midterm election.

The goal of the PAC will be to elect lawmakers who will pass legislation to set a single set of AI regulations that will take effect throughout the US, overriding any restrictions placed on the technology by state governments.

The PACs’ big spending comes as a nationwide backlash to Big Tech has been forming across the US, as many communities are fighting against the construction of energy-devouring AI data centers that are raising electricity prices and have been accused of degrading the quality of local water supplies.

Reed Showalter, a Democratic US House of Representatives candidate running in Illinois’ 7th Congressional District, said the report of Meta’s big spending showed the importance of ensuring that voters elect leaders who will hold the major tech companies accountable.

“We deserve representatives who are going to take an honest look at AI and regulate it accordingly,” he wrote in a social media post. “We can’t afford more corrupt politicians bought by Big Tech.”

Democratic New York congressional candidate Alex Bores, who is running on a platform of regulating AI, said during an interview with CNN on Wednesday that the tech companies’ actions show they are “terrified” of being held accountable by elected officials.

He also noted that being attacked by the Leading the Future super PAC has ironically helped his candidacy.

“The fact that they’re being so aggressive with it, I think, has been redounding to my benefit,” he told host Dana Bash. “I’ve had a lot of constituents who have reached out and said, ‘I hadn’t even heard of you until all these text messages [from the AI super PAC].”

Watchdog social media account @OilPACTracker predicted that Meta’s major political spending could turn into a liability if voters are made aware of its machinations.

“We would make sure the electorate knows about it,” the watchdog wrote. “Big Tech money is toxic.”

CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY

Warning of ‘Lasting Risk to Civilians,’ Groups Urge Congress to Block Purchase of Israeli Cluster Bombs

“The Trump administration’s decision to purchase cluster munitions shows that the Pentagon no longer considers protecting civilians a priority,” said one critic.



US soldiers carry a cluster munition in this undated Pentagon photo.
(Photo by US Department of Defense)

Brett Wilkins
Feb 18, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

A coalition of advocacy groups is imploring US lawmakers to stop the purchase of next-generation cluster bombs from an Israeli state arms maker, citing “severe, foreseeable dangers” that the internationally banned weapons pose to civilians.

Responsible Statecraft said Wednesday that the 36 human rights, peace, and faith groups shared an open letter they sent to lawmakers urging them to cancel a $210 million no-bid contract with Tomer to produce weapons, including a new generation of US 155-millimeter cluster munition shells for land-based artillery.

The letter’s signatories—who include Amnesty International USA, Arms Control Association, Centers for Civilians in Conflict, Center for International Policy, Human Rights Watch, the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, RootsAction, and United Methodist Church—note that these weapons are “dramatically out of step with civilian protection practices” because they “disperse submunitions across broad areas, making it exceedingly difficult to confine their impact to lawful military targets.”

“We urge members of Congress to take immediate action to oppose this purchase and prevent the transfer of cluster munitions, which pose well-documented and lasting risks to civilian populations,” the letter states.

Congressional efforts to ban the transfer of cluster bombs have failed, most recently in late 2023, when House lawmakers voted down a proposed amendment to the 2024 military spending bill a week after then-President Joe Biden said the US would send some of its stockpiled cluster munitions to Ukraine to help defend against Russia’s invasion.

Last year, a group of congressional Democrats led by Reps. Delia Ramirez (Ill.), Sara Jacobs (Calif.), Pramila Jayapal (Wash.), and Mark Pocan (Wis.) introduced the Block the Bombs Act, stalled legislation that would withhold the transfer of offensive weapons to Israel as it wages a genocidal war on Gaza. The bill is backed by the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

Cluster bombs are no longer manufactured domestically. However, the United States has not joined the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions, which has been ratified by more than 111 nations but not some of the world’s biggest military powers, including China, Russia, India, and Israel. Last year, Lithuania became the first country to withdraw from the treaty, citing threats from Russia.

According to the Intercept, which first reported the proposed new sale:
Known as the XM1208 munition, America’s new cluster shells are designed to have a dud rate—or risk of failure to explode—of less than 1%. They rely on more complex fuses and self-destruct features to reduce long-term danger to civilians, according to army procurement documents and weapons experts. But researchers say those low failure rates in testing do not reflect real-world performance, and advocates argue that cluster weapons’ battlefield effectiveness cannot justify their humanitarian costs.

“These weapons’ humanitarian impacts vastly outweigh any possible tactical benefit that they provide,” Ursala Knudsen-Latta of the Friends Committee on National Legislation, which signed the letter, told Responsible Statecraft. “Unfortunately, it is really sowing seeds of terror for generations to come anywhere they are used.”

A 2025 report published by the governance board of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines and the Cluster Munition Coalition revealed that 100% of reported cluster bomb casualties in 2024 were civilians, and 42% were children.

Unexploded cluster bomblets are often found by children, who sometimes mistake them for toys. Unexploded ordnance (UXO) including cluster munitions have killed and maimed at least tens of thousands of people since the US stopped dropping them on countries like Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and Iraq.

“They are inherently indiscriminate,” Brian Castner, an Amnesty International weapons investigator and former US Air Force explosive ordnance disposal officer, said of cluster bombs in an interview with the Intercept earlier this month. “There’s not a way to use them responsibly, in that you can’t control where they land, and with this high dud rate you can’t control the effect on the civilian population afterwards.”

Rights groups have been sounding the alarm on the Trump administration’s systematic erosion of policies meant to minimize civilian harm and uphold international law. For example, last year Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth lifted restrictions on US use of antipersonnel landmines, which killed or wounded more than 6,000 people worldwide in 2024, according to Landmine Monitor.

“The US government’s revival of indiscriminate weapons that the world has worked to ban puts civilian lives at risk,” Sarah Yager, Washington director at Human Rights Watch, said Tuesday. “The Trump administration is simply disregarding foreseeable harm to civilians, from children who pick up unexploded bomblets to communities forced to live with unmarked minefields long after a conflict ends.”

“The Trump administration’s decision to purchase cluster munitions shows that the Pentagon no longer considers protecting civilians a priority,” Yager added.

Don’t Call 1 Study a ‘Bombshell’: Microplastics Science Is Doing Exactly What It Should

The biggest threat isn’t scientific uncertainty, since there’s a considerable amount of scientific consensus that there is plastic in us. The biggest threat is weaponized uncertainty used to delay regulations.


A biologist looks at microplastics found in sea species at the Hellenic Centre for Marine Research near Athens, Greece on November 26, 2019.
(Photo by Louisa Gouliamaki/ AFP via Getty Images)

Lisa Erdle

Marcus Eriksen
Feb 18, 2026

Common Dreams

“Microplastics are everywhere, and they’re harming us.”

“Actually, maybe not.”



Lancet Study Warns Plastics Could Cost Humanity 83 Million Years of Healthy Life


“Hold on, that study might be flawed.”

“Bombshell… the whole field is in doubt.”

The headline isn’t “microplastics in people might be wrong,” but rather “quantifying microplastics in human samples is challenging, and the science is evolving in the right direction.”

If you’ve been hearing about microplastics recently, you may have been getting whiplash from the headlines. But you shouldn’t be.

Because this is what science looks like when it’s working: Researchers test new ideas and challenge each other’s methods. This helps refine what we know. What isn’t supposed to happen is a normal, healthy, scientific process getting manipulated into a dramatic storyline about a fictional scandal—a story that can leave the public confused.
The Myth Machine: How a Story We Tell Can Become a Trap

For over two decades, we’ve studied plastic pollution in the ocean. Scientists started describing the accumulation zones of plastic in the subtropical gyres, the places where wind and water currents concentrate floating debris. The research pointed to a truth that was complicated but clear: Most of the pieces are tiny, fragmented plastic—microplastics—along with some larger marine debris, like fishing gear.

But the media put a spin on it, and gave the world a simpler picture: a floating island of trash, “twice the size of Texas.” Some even called this a “garbage patch” you could supposedly walk on. People cried, “Why can’t I see it on Google Maps?” Some wondered if the US should plant a flag, and a handful of naive entrepreneurs fabricated fantastic ocean cleanup contraptions.

It was dramatic. Word spread. But eventually, it backfired.

All those who went looking for an island, didn’t find one. Instead they concluded, “It’s more like smog than a landfill,” and some pointed out, “Maybe it was exaggerated and the world had been duped.”

The pattern—one that goes oversimplify, sensationalize, backlash, dismissal—can drain urgency from a real crisis. Misinformation gets the headline. This gets repeated, as we’ve seen before in other environmental debates, such as the hole in the ozone layer, or climate change. The same thing is unfolding now with microplastics and human health.
What the “Bombshell” Reporting Gets Wrong

The recent article in The Guardian that sparked this debate focuses on a real issue. In our research studying microplastics in the environment and animal studies, measuring micro- and nanoplastics in human tissue is incredibly hard. It is particularly difficult when researchers are looking for very small particle sizes, where laboratory contamination from airborne sources becomes harder to rule out. This is especially the case in human tissue.

Microplastics are not like other contaminants, such as lead in water, where you can measure parts per billion, and lean on decades of standardized instruments and test methods. Plastics come in many polymers, sizes, and shapes. Nanoplastics behave differently than microplastics. And plastic is everywhere, meaning background contamination is always a risk. This is sometimes called the “pig pen effect”—it is a challenge to study a material that is so widespread.

The Guardian article is not a devastating blow. It’s a scientific debate around specific methods in a research field that is rapidly improving.

What’s the Real Headline?

The headline isn’t “microplastics in people might be wrong,” but rather “quantifying microplastics in human samples is challenging, and the science is evolving in the right direction.”

That difference matters. If the public hears “doubt cast,” then it translates it as “maybe plastic pollution isn’t really there or not that bad.” The question is, does it hold up across methods, across labs, across time?

So what has science taught us?Yes, we do have microplastics in our bodies. A number of peer-reviewed research shows that plastics, or plastic-associated signals, are present in human samples. Some findings claims will hold up better with time. That’s normal.
Scientists criticize each other’s studies. This is how science becomes more reliable over time. How methods get stress tested. By challenging assumptions, doing repeated studies, etc. weak studies get corrected or critiqued. In rare cases retracted. This isn’t chaos. It’s science.

Some headlines are hype. Microplastics science is new enough that every new study can feel like a “first,” which incentivizes media toward shock value. But, when scientific findings revise our understanding, the correction isn’t “nothing to see here.” The correction should be that science is a self-improving enterprise.
Scientists have been, and will continue revising the numbers. For example, early reporting suggested we each eat a “credit card” of plastic each week (subsequent studies estimated much less). Is that a bombshell? No, not really. And if it’s widely seen as such, it might suggest we should wait before we act (e.g., until every uncertainty is resolved). But, that’s not how public health works. We make decisions based on the best available science, and assess risk with limited data.
Weaponized Uncertainty

The biggest threat here isn’t scientific uncertainty, since there’s a considerable amount of scientific consensus that there is plastic in us. The biggest threat is weaponized uncertainty.

Environmental health has a predictable plot—when evidence starts piling up that a pollutant is harmful, a well-funded countermovement doesn’t always try to prove it’s safe. On the contrary, it tries to prove that the science is messy, uncertain, and “we need more data.”.

We’re not asking journalists to avoid urgency. Plastic pollution is urgent. Certain phrases, however, may signal that you’re being pulled into a pattern of mythmaking.

The industry has a playbook with favorite phrases, such as: “not conclusive,” “uncertain,” “scientists disagree,” “lack of consensus.” Disagreement in science is healthy. However, this (very routine) component of science can also become a winning political strategy used against science and public policy. Casting doubt can delay regulation.

Naomi Oreskes writes in Merchants of Doubt, “The industry had realized you could create the impression of controversy simply by asking questions.” That’s why our concern isn’t that researchers are debating methods. Our concern is that sensational headlines can warp debate, and give merchants of doubt an opportunity to skew public perception.
Red-Flag Language—It Should Make You Pause

We’re not asking journalists to avoid urgency. Plastic pollution is urgent. Certain phrases, however, may signal that you’re being pulled into a pattern of mythmaking, such as “bombshell,” or “debunked,” when what’s really happening is refinement. Those phrases shock and entertain, but do little to foster understanding.

What we actually need next is for the microplastics field to keep growing. Researchers across the board—from those that think studies are exaggerated to those that stand behind their research findings—are making calls for better lab protocols, contamination controls, reporting requirements, and inter-lab studies to validate results. These are unglamorous, but they’re what solidify early research findings into trusted science. A first-of-its-kind finding of plastic somewhere in the human body shouldn’t be framed like the final truth. It should be heralded as the beginning of a more complete picture.



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


Lisa Erdle
Lisa Erdle, PhD, is a biologist and ecotoxicologist and director of science and I inovation at The 5 Gyres Institute. As a biologist and ecotoxicologist, Lisa has published her work in leading scientific journals, including PLOS One, Marine Pollution Bulletin, and Environmental Science & Technology.
Full Bio >

Marcus Eriksen
Marcus Eriksen, PhD, is the co-founder and scientist at The 5 Gyres Institute. Marcus has led expeditions around the world to research plastic marine pollution, co-publishing the first global estimate and the discovery of plastic microbeads in the Great Lakes, which led to the federal Microbead-free Waters Act of 2015.
Full Bio >

P3; PUBLIC PENSIONS FUND PRIVATIZATION

Investing Public Pensions in Fossil Fuel and AI Companies Is More Than Amoral – It’s Bad Business

Corporations are using the hard-earned money of today’s workers to further their own goals—many of which are directly at odds with the goals, livelihoods, and futures of public employees.

Climate activists block an escalator and throw coal on the ground at the New York headquarters of the financial investment firm BlackRock on October 26, 2022 in New York City.
(Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Liz Perlman

Stephen Lerner
Feb 18, 2026

Common Dreams

Our country faces an affordability crisis amidst fundamental attacks on democracy. Public employee pension plans can either be part of the solution or part of the problem.

Late last year, New York City Comptroller Brad Lander recommended the city’s pension boards drop BlackRock and other portfolio managers that don’t have decarbonization plans up to the city’s standards. Lander’s initiative was blocked, and the editorial board of The Washington Post accused him of playing politics. But Lander argued that his recommendation was in line with the government’s fiduciary duty to protect the long-term value of pension funds, the retirement systems most public sector workers rely on—and have been paying into their entire careers. He’s right. In this critical moment in history, companies that are actively hastening climate change, threatening housing security, eliminating jobs and industries, and destabilizing our democracy and economy do not deserve our investment. Yes, they are acting immorally but they are also very bad investments with little promise of future returns for public sector workers. It’s not “playing politics” to refuse to fund their efforts to dismantle our society. That’s why we’re calling on pension boards across the country to take a hard look at their portfolios and make the smart business decision: stop investing in companies like this today.

The stakes could not be higher: pension funds account for $6.1 trillion in state and local defined-benefit funds alone. Every month, nearly 15 million workers across the country contribute part of their paycheck to ensure they have enough income to retire securely. This is a big pot of money and the companies that boards choose to invest it with matter. For public sector workers, pensions are not only retirement funds, but deferred current compensation. Workers are forsaking their hard-earned money today for the potential of a dignified future. Meanwhile, corporations are using that money today to further their own goals—many of which are directly at odds with the goals, livelihoods, and futures of public employees.

The interests of public workers and these companies dangerously diverge, but even the one area of alignment is fraught: secure return on investment.

Public pension systems across the country, including the California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTERS), California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) and New York City retirement funds, are heavily invested in Blackstone, the private equity company turning profits by hiking up rents during a housing affordability crisis. RealPage, the company sued last year by the DOJ for allegedly operating a nationwide rental price-fixing scheme, has investments from over a dozen pension funds through private equity funds. Public workers are watching their deferred compensation funnel into corporate exploitation while they fight to pay their own rent or mortgages.

Palantir, the data surveillance software company whose co-founder has stated his support for public hangings and apartheid, has multi-million dollar investments from The Teacher Retirement System of Texas, the Ohio Public Employees Retirement System, CalPERS, CalSTERS and other pension funds. Palantir’s tools have been used by the military to conduct destabilizing wars around the world, by DOGE to gather and merge data on millions of US residents, endangering the safety and security of us all, and by ICE to terrorize individuals and families across the country— threatening our democracy at home and abroad.

The interests of public workers and these companies dangerously diverge, but even the one area of alignment is fraught: secure return on investment. We are almost undeniably in the midst of an AI bubble, much larger than the dot com bubble that came before. With so many pension fund portfolios overly concentrated in the tech industry, funding new data centers built on speculative calculations and crypto companies propped up by hype—Palantir, Coinbase, VC firms like Andreessen Horowitz and others, NVIDIA and many more—a shift in the global appetite for new technology could empty the pockets of millions of workers. Short-term gains are not a good predictor of long-term returns for investors like public employees, who are stuck with the terms of their retirement funds and can’t pull out when markets turn. When the editorial board of the Washington Post writes that “the job of pension fund managers is to maximize returns for retirees who depend on them,” they should take these very real—and apolitical—risks into account.

Public pension funds are an enormous engine driving the economy today, and the investment choices that pension boards make are critical to the future of the country and the world. When boards invest workers’ money, they contribute to the specific visions and plans of companies and the people who run them. And when those plans include the destruction of our environment, our right to housing and fair work, and our democracy, it’s assisted suicide. Today we are urging pension boards to think beyond short-term gains and market bubbles. We’re calling on leaders to speak out and push for change as Former Comptroller Brad Lander did. Public worker retirement money must be invested responsibly in a secure future for us all.


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


Liz Perlman
Liz Perlman is the executive director of AFSCME 3299, the University of California’s first employee union — representing more than 40,000 Service workers (SX), Patient Care Technical workers (EX), Skilled Craft workers (K7), and more at UC’s 10 campuses, 5 medical centers, numerous clinics, research laboratories, and UC Hastings College of Law.
Full Bio >

Stephen Lerner
Stephen Lerner is a fellow at Georgetown University's Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor and is one of the architects of the Justice for Janitors Campaign.
Full Bio >

Honoring Jesse Jackson, Who Helped Create the America Trump Wants to Destroy

Jackson’s “rainbow coalition” helped open the doors for Blacks, Hispanics, Arab and Muslim Americans, and the LGBTQ community while sharing a powerful populist economic message at the height of Reaganism.


Democratic presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders (D-VT) waves to guests after being interviewed by Rev. Jesse Jackson at Operation Rainbow Push on March 12, 2016 in Chicago, Illinois.
(Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Dean Baker
Feb 18, 2026

Beat the Press

It would be hard to overstate Jesse Jackson’s importance in opening up American politics and society, not just to Black Americans, but also to Hispanics, and the LGTBQ community. It is probably difficult for younger people to imagine, and even old-timers like myself to remember, how bad discrimination was in the not very distant past.

When Jackson ran the first time in 1984, and even the second time in 1988, there was not a single Black governor in the United States. There had been no Black governors since the end of Reconstruction. There were also no Black senators.



Jesse Jackson, Civil Rights Leader Who Fought for Economic Justice, Dies at 84

The only Black person to serve in the Senate since Reconstruction was a Republican, Edward Brooke, who was elected in Massachusetts. When Carol Mosley Braun got elected to the Senate from Illinois in 1992, it was widely noted that she was first Black women to be elected to the Senate. She was also the first Black Democrat to be elected to the Senate.

It wasn’t just in politics; Blacks were largely excluded from the top reaches in most areas. I recall when I was a grad student at the University of Michigan in the 1980s. There we just two Black tenured professors in the whole university. There was a similar story in corporate America.

This was a period of serious upward redistribution and the losers, as in most people, were not happy campers. Jackson spoke to those people.

Jackson’s campaign didn’t turn things around by itself, but it certainly helped to spur momentum for larger changes. Back then people seriously debated whether a Black person could be elected president in the United States. Jackson’s campaign raised that question in a very serious way.

Barack Obama (the second Black Democrat to be elected to the Senate) answered that question definitively two decades later. While President Obama is obviously an enormously talented politician, without Jackson’s campaigns it is hard to envision Obama ever having been a serious presidential contender.

And Jackson was serious about a “rainbow coalition.” He also helped open the door for Hispanics, for Arab and Muslim Americans, and for the LGBTQ community. At a time when there were no openly gay or lesbian members of Congress, and even liberals were afraid to be associated with anyone who was openly gay, Jackson stood out in offering a welcome mat.

Jackson also pushed a powerful economic message. At a time when Ronald Reagan was busy cutting taxes for the rich and cutting back social programs, and trade was devastating large parts of the industrial Midwest, Jackson was advocating a populist agenda that focused on building up the poor and the working class. His message resonated with many white workers who felt abandoned by the mainstream of the Democratic Party, and even many farmers who were devastated by over-valued dollar in the early and mid-1980s.

There is a bizarre revisionism that has gained currency among people who pass for intellectuals that says the baby boomers grew up in Golden Age in the 1970s and 1980s. The unemployment rate averaged over 7% from 1974 to 1992. The median wage actually fell from 1973 to the mid-1990s. This was a period of serious upward redistribution and the losers, as in most people, were not happy campers. Jackson spoke to those people.

I had the opportunity to work in Jackson’s campaign in Michigan in 1988, and I still remember it as one of the high points of my life. Even though Jackson had vastly outperformed anyone’s expectations in the early primaries (probably even his own), he was not taken seriously in the Michigan race. Most of the pundits considered it a race between the frontrunner Michael Dukakis and Congressman Dick Gephardt, who had strong union support. As it turned out Jackson handily beat both, getting an absolute majority of the votes cast in the state.

In my own congressional district, which centered on Ann Arbor, all the party leaders lined up for Dukakis. The Jackson campaign was composed of a number of people who worked in less prestigious jobs, like salesclerks and custodians, and grad students like me. It really was a multiracial coalition.

We managed to totally outwork the party hacks. First, because it was a caucus and not a primary, it meant that people would not go to their regular precincts to cast their votes. We made sure that our supporters had a neatly coded map that told them where their voting site was.

Also, since it was a caucus and not a primary, the state’s usual rules on being registered 30 days ahead of an election did not apply. We had a deputy registrar at every voting site who would register people who had not previously registered.

We also made a point of having all our workers knocking on doors on election day and offering to drive people to the polls who needed a ride. The Dukakis people were all standing around the voting sites, handing out literature with their big Dukakis buttons, apparently not realizing that anyone who showed up had already decided how to vote.

I remember talking to a reporter late that night after the size of Jackson’s victory became clear. Up until that point, there had been numerous pieces in the media asking, “What does Jesse Jackson really want?” as though the idea that a Black person wanting to be president was absurd on its face.

I couldn’t resist having a little fun. I pointed out that with his big victory in Michigan, Jackson was now ahead in both votes cast and delegates. I said that I think we have to start asking what Michael Dukakis really wants.

Anyhow, the high didn’t last. The party closed ranks behind Dukakis, and he won the nomination. He then lost decisively to George Bush in the fall. His margin of defeat was larger than in any election since then.

All the gains of the last four decades are now on the line, as Donald Trump and his white supremacist gang look to turn back the clock. We have the battle of our lives on our hands right now.

But Jesse Jackson was a huge player in the changes that created the America that Donald Trump wants to destroy. He had serious flaws, like any great political leader, but for now we should remember the enormous impact he had in making this a better country.

Lashing Out at Starmer, Trump Says ‘It May Be Necessary’ to Use UK Bases to Attack Iran

Trump lambasted Britain for an agreement transferring sovereignty of the Chagos archipelago—which includes Diego Garcia, site of a major US-UK military base—to Mauritius.


US President Donald Trump and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer speak to reporters at Trump Turnberry Golf Courses in Turnberry, Scotland on July 28, 2025.
(Photo by Christopher Furlong/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)

Brett Wilkins
Feb 18, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

President Donald Trump on Wednesday suggested that the United States could launch attacks on Iran from British territory with or without the permission of the UK government.

Trump opened a characteristically rambling post on his Truth Social network by disparaging last year’s deal under which the UK is ceding sovereignty of the Chagos archipelago to Mauritius, with the exception of Diego Garcia, an island from which the Indigenous Chagossian people were forcibly expelled over half a century ago to make way for one of the world’s largest and most important US military bases, which is jointly operated by Britain.


Iran Vows to ‘Respond Like Never Before’ as Trump Ramps Up War Threats


“I have been telling [UK] Prime Minister Keir Starmer, of the United Kingdom, that Leases are no good when it comes to Countries, and that he is making a big mistake by entering a 100 Year Lease with whoever it is that is ‘claiming’ Right, Title, and Interest to Diego Garcia, strategically located in the Indian Ocean,” Trump wrote.



“Our relationship with the United Kingdom is a strong and powerful one, and it has been for many years, but Prime Minister Starmer is losing control of this important Island by claims of entities never known of before,” the president continued. “In our opinion, they are fictitious in nature.”

“Should Iran decide not to make a Deal, it may be necessary for the United States to use Diego Garcia, and the Airfield located in Fairford, in order to eradicate a potential attack by a highly unstable and dangerous Regime—An attack that would potentially be made on the United Kingdom, as well as other friendly Countries,” Trump added, referring to the critical US Air Force forward operating base at RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire.

Trump’s post came as an advisor to the president said there is “a 90% chance” of a US attack on Iran in the coming weeks after nuclear talks end in Switzerland. Administration rhetoric and US movements suggest that Trump may soon resume bombing of Iran following last summer’s bombing and assassination campaign targeting the country’s nuclear scientists and infrastructure.

The president’s Truth Social post concluded: “Prime Minister Starmer should not lose control, for any reason, of Diego Garcia, by entering a tenuous, at best, 100 Year Lease. This land should not be taken away from the UK and, if it is allowed to be, it will be a blight on our Great Ally. We will always be ready, willing, and able to fight for the UK, but they have to remain strong in the face of Wokeism, and other problems put before them. DO NOT GIVE AWAY DIEGO GARCIA!”

Trump’s post stood in stark contrast the State Department, which said Tuesday that the US “supports the decision of the United Kingdom to proceed with its agreement with Mauritius concerning the Chagos archipelago”.



Under the UK-Mauritius deal, Mauritius authorities will facilitate Chagossians’ eventual resettlement of their archipelago, with the apparent glaring exception of Diego Garcia. While some Chagossians welcomed the agreement, others denounced it, largely due to the exclusion of the Chagossian community from the negotiations.

Diego Garcia was once home to around 1,500 Creole-speaking Chagossians and their beloved dogs. However, in the 1960s the US convinced Britain to grant it full control there and subsequently began to “sweep” and “sanitize” the atoll of its Indigenous population, in the words of one American official.

“We must surely be very tough about this,” a British official privately wrote, adding that “there will be no Indigenous population except seagulls.”

Many Chagossians were tricked or terrorized into leaving. US Marines told them they’d be bombed if they didn’t evacuate, and Chagossians’ dogs were gassed to death with fumes from military vehicles. The islanders were permitted to take just one suitcase with them. Most were shipped to Mauritius, where they were treated as second-class citizens and where many ended up living in poverty and heartbreak in the slums of the capital, Port Louis.

Meanwhile, the US and Britain used Diego Garcia as a base for attacks on countries including Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq during the so-called War on Terror, while despoiling the atoll’s water with human sewage.

Britain’s High Court of Justice twice ruled that the Chagossians’ removal was illegal. In 2019, the International Court of Justice in The Hague issued an advisory opinion that the UK was exercising “illegal” sovereignty over Diego Garcia and urged the British government to “decolonize” the atoll by handing sovereignty to Mauritius, whose government long contended it was forced to cede control in order to secure its own independence.

US to discuss base with Mauritius as UK returns islands


By AFP
February 17, 2026


The State Department said it would hold talks in the Mauritian capital Port Louis on the strategic base at Diego Garcia - Copyright DoD/AFP/File Handout

The United States said Tuesday it would hold talks with Mauritius on retaining its military presence on an Indian Ocean archipelago being returned by Britain in a deal earlier denounced by President Donald Trump.

The State Department said it would hold three days of talks next week in the Mauritian capital Port Louis on the strategic base at Diego Garcia.

The talks will discuss “effective implementation of security arrangements for the base to ensure its long-term, secure operation,” the State Department said in a statement.

It said it also was also holding discussions with Britain.

“The United States supports the decision of the United Kingdom to proceed with its agreement with Mauritius concerning the Chagos archipelago,” it said.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour government in May reached an agreement to return the Chagos Islands to Britain’s former colony Mauritius and to pay to lease the joint US-UK base for a century.

Britain had kept control of the Chagos Islands after Mauritius gained independence from Britain in the 1960s. Britain evicted thousands of people, who have since mounted legal challenges for compensation.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio initially welcomed the deal as “historic” but Trump later posted on social media that it was an “act of GREAT STUPIDITY” that showed why the United States should conquer Greenland from ally Denmark.

Trump later backtracked and said he accepted the deal after speaking to Starmer.

As Trump Marches US Toward Iran War, Critics Ask: Where’s the ‘Pushback’ From Dems and Media?

“It’s astonishing that we’re building up for a significant military clash, and Congress isn’t involved, no real case is being made to the public, and the average American has no clue.”


US Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), and US House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) depart a press conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on January 8, 2026.
(Photo by Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)


Stephen Prager
Feb 18, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

Amid reports that President Donald Trump is pushing the US toward a “massive” war in Iran, critics have found themselves shocked by the lack of “pushback” from top Democrats and mainstream media institutions.

Barak Ravid reported for Axios on Wednesday that, with a deal between the US and Iran appearing increasingly out of sight, “the Trump administration is closer to a major war in the Middle East than most Americans realize” and “It could begin very soon.”

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Sources told the outlet that “A US military operation in Iran would likely be a massive, weeks-long campaign that would look more like full-fledged war than last month’s pinpoint operation in Venezuela.”

“Such a war would have a dramatic influence on the entire region and major implications for the remaining three years of the Trump presidency,” Ravid wrote.

However, with Congress on recess and the media largely distracted by a whirlwind of other issues, he noted, “there is little public debate about what could be the most consequential US military intervention in the Middle East in at least a decade.”

As columnist Adam Johnson pointed out on social media, Trump’s sabre-rattling toward Iran was underway well before Congress left town.

Despite this, Johnson said, the “two most powerful Democrats in the country,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), “have once again not leveled a single word of substantive pushback,” as was the case when Trump conducted strikes against Iran over the summer.

He said the top Democrats have only acknowledged Trump’s threats “when asked by reporters” and have made only “process criticisms” rather than criticizing the merits of the war itself.

Last month, as Trump threatened to carry out massive strikes in retaliation for Iran’s brutalization of protesters, Schumer limited his criticism to the fact that Trump had not consulted Congress.

“It has to be debated by Congress. Something like that, the War Powers Act, the Constitution, requires a discussion in Congress. We’ve had no reach-out from the administration at this point,” he told reporters.

More recently, Jeffries—a member of Congress who is briefed on national security matters—was asked on CBS’s Face the Nation what he knew about the war plans or what he would want to know.

He did not answer that question, but vaguely lamented that Trump “has been slow to provide information... to the Gang of Eight members of Congress” and “hasn’t provided a significant amount of information to Congress in general.”

“When it comes to sanctions, perma-war, and bombings, we do not have an opposition party,” Johnson said. “We have sleepy AIPAC-funded hall monitors paid to get wedgies and vaguely object after the craters are smoking in the ground.”

New York Times columnist David French agreed: “It’s astonishing that we’re building up for a significant military clash, and Congress isn’t involved, no real case is being made to the public, and the average American has no clue. If this gets serious, it will be a shock for lots of people.”




There is little hunger in the American public for a war with Iran. A YouGov survey from early February found that 48% said they strongly or somewhat opposed military action in Iran, compared with just 28% who supported it and 24% who weren’t sure.

Trita Parsi, the executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, said in an interview with Democracy Now! on Wednesday that, despite the public’s broadly anti-interventionist attitudes, “their voices are more or less not being heard in the mainstream media.”

“We’re seeing exactly what we saw during the Iraq War, in which a large number of pro-intervention Iraqi voices were paraded through mainstream media in order to give the impression that not only is this something that is supported by the overwhelming majority of the Iraqi society, but also that this is the morally right thing to do,” Parsi said.

Drop Site News founder Ryan Grim said that when compared with the invasion of Iraq, which was built up over the course of more than a year through persistent propaganda to get the public on board, the Trump administration’s effort to sell a war with Iran is laughable.

“We don’t even get the respect of being lied into war anymore,” he said. “He’s just going to do it.”

Trump inches close to 'pulling the trigger' on 'full-fledged war': 'Could begin very soon'

Alexander Willis
February 18, 2026

RAW STORY


As a fleet of U.S. warships barrel toward Iran, the Trump administration appears poised to “pull the trigger” on a “full-fledged war” at any moment, and may do so sooner than “most Americans realize,” Axios reported Wednesday.

“Trump's military and rhetorical buildups make it hard for him to back down without major concessions from Iran on its nuclear program,” writes Axios’ Mike Allen in the outlet’s report Wednesday.

“It's not in Trump's nature, and his advisers don't view the deployment of all that hardware as a bluff. With Trump, anything can happen. But all signs point to him pulling the trigger if talks fail.”

The Trump administration met with Iranian officials in Geneva, Switzerland on Tuesday in the hopes of reaching a deal to avoid further escalations, but according to Vice President JD Vance, those talks stalled due to Iranian officials refusing to “acknowledge” some of President Donald Trump’s “red lines.”

Now, according to sources who spoke with Axios on the condition of anonymity, the United States could be engaged in “a major war in the Middle East,” and “very soon,” Axios reported.

Both the USS Gerald Ford and the USS Abraham Lincoln – two massive aircraft carriers that each carry dozens of aircraft and crews of up to 5,690 – are currently near Iran, BBC Verify and AntiWar.com have reported.

With the aircraft carriers are dozens of warships and hundreds of fighter jets. And, according to Axios, more than 150 military cargo flights have “moved weapons systems and ammunition” to the region. Within the past 24 hours as of Wednesday morning, the Trump administration has also moved 50 additional fighter jets to the region.

Trump's conspiratorial 2011 Iran warning resurfaces as war reports swirl

Robert Davis
February 18, 2026

 RAW STORY

U.S. President Donald Trump walks to deliver an address to the nation at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S. June 21, 2025, following U.S. strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities. REUTERS/Carlos Barria/Pool

One of President Donald Trump's old warnings about Iran resurfaced on Wednesday as reports indicate that he is pondering war with the country

In 2011, Trump claimed that then-President Barack Obama would strike Iran to ensure he was elected for a second term. The post at the time was quite controversial, as the former president was facing a stiff re-election campaign while the country was still recovering from the Great Recession.

That post was retweeted on Wednesday, at a time when Axios reported that Trump had deployed more than 150 cargo flights to move weapons and ammunition into the region. The U.S. military has also sent 50 fighter jets, including F-35s, F-22s, and F-16s, to the area.

Last year, the Trump administration conducted a secret strike against three of Iran's nuclear facilities. Trump claimed afterwards that the facilities were "totally destroyed," although some analysts disagreed with that claim.

People in Trump's orbit, like conservative talk show host Mark Levin, have been pushing the president to strike Iran again.

The president's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and special envoy Steve Witkoff held negotiations with Iranian representatives on Tuesday, Axios reported. U.S. officials told the outlet that they are unconvinced that the two countries can close the "gaps" that exist between them.

Far-right influencer melts down over Trump's push to war with Iran: 'Completely betrayed!'

Nicole Charky-Chami
February 18, 2026 

RAW STORY

Far-right white nationalist and Nazi sympathizer Nick Fuentes lost it on Wednesday amid growing national concern that America is moving closer to war with Iran.

Fuentes wrote on X about what he expected to happen if a war were to break out between the U.S. and Iran under President Donald Trump.

"If Trump brings us to war in Iran you can forget about 2026 and you can forget about a ticket with Vance or Rubio in 2028. This is literally Iraq 2.0. The GOP has utterly and completely betrayed America First," he wrote.

As military movement heightens in the Arabian Sea and more American air defense are repositioned closer to the Middle East, a Trump administration adviser reportedly told Axios, “I think there is 90% chance we see kinetic action."

MAGA has been divided over the Trump administration's international focus throughout the first year of Trump's second term. Fuentes' most recent comment signifies his growing disdain over the Trump administration's pivot to international security versus the MAGA coalition's central push for "America First" policies.