ICYMI

In First Encyclical, Pope Leo Warns Against Unrestrained AI in Hands of Mega-Rich Few

“The pursuit of greater profits cannot justify choices that systematically sacrifice jobs, because the human person is an end, not a means.”


Pope Leo XIV attends the presentation of his first encyclical, “Magnifica Humanitas,” at The Vatican on May 25, 2026.
(Photo by Alberto Pizzoli/AFP via Getty Images)

Jake Johnson
May 25, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

Pope Leo XIV on Monday released a 42,000-word encyclical calling for government regulation of artificial intelligence and implored world leaders to ensure the burgeoning technology is used for the benefit of all humankind—not concentrated in the hands of a powerful, profit-seeking few.

Leo warned in the first major theological document of his papacy that unrestrained AI and its potentially far-reaching impacts—including mass job loss, environmental degradation, and increasingly catastrophic warfare—heightens the “risk of dehumanization,” subjugating much of humanity in the name of “greater efficiency” and technological advancement.

“As with every major technological shift, AI tends to amplify the power of those who already possess economic resources, expertise, and access to data,” Leo wrote in the document, titled Magnifica Humanitas. “In light of the common good and the universal destination of goods, this raises serious concerns, since small but highly influential groups can shape information and consumption patterns, influence democratic processes, and steer economic dynamics to their own advantage, undermining social justice and solidarity among peoples.”

Leo warned that eliminating jobs en masse by replacing human beings with robots—an aim of some of the most powerful companies in the world, including the e-commerce behemoth Amazon—without adequate protections and compensation for impacted workers would be morally obscene and calamitous to social order.

“A society that guarantees employment to only a small fraction of the population, despite having a high level of technical development, risks exposing many to forced inactivity, a lack of responsibility, and the absence of daily tasks and stimuli, resulting in human and cultural impoverishment,” the pope wrote. “This creates a paradox of material progress and anthropological regression that undermines the foundations of a just and stable social peace.”



Leo cautioned against the growing use of AI in military conflict, a warning delivered alongside the CEO of the artificial intelligence firm Anthropic, which was embroiled in a tense and public dispute with the Trump administration earlier this year over the use of the company’s technology for military purposes and mass surveillance. The pontiff has also clashed with the Trump administration, which has attacked Leo for publicly criticizing the US-Israeli war on Iran.

“No algorithm can make war morally acceptable,” reads the pope’s encyclical. “AI does not remove the intrinsic inhumanity of conflict; indeed it can only bring about conflict more quickly and render it more impersonal, lowering the threshold for resorting to violence, transforming defense into threat prediction and thus reducing victims to data. In this way, it will accustom us to the idea that violence is inevitable and needs only to be optimized.”

Leo, whose warnings about the implications of rapid advancements in AI technology echoed concerns expressed by progressive lawmakers in the US and around the world, made clear that he doesn’t view new technology, including AI, as inherently “antagonistic to humanity,” noting that “technological development has significantly improved the living conditions of humanity.”

“At the same time, each phase of progress has also revealed the ambiguity of tools that can cause harm when not oriented toward the good,” Leo wrote. “It is necessary to establish adequate regulatory tools capable of upholding justice and curbing the distorting effects of technological power.”

“Crucial questions impose themselves on our conscience,” he added, “and can no longer be avoided: Where are we going? Toward what goal do we wish to orient ourselves? What direction should we choose as a people and as a human community?”

Crypto, AI Industries Setting Up ‘Pop-Up Super PACs’ to Defeat Big Tech Critics in Dem Primaries

The goal of these political action committees, explained one journalist, is to make sure voters “never find out who is funding ads before a campaign happens.”


In this photo illustration the Bitcoin logo is shown on a mobile phone against the illustration of a world map on November 20, 2025.
(Photo by Dominika Zarzycka/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Brad Reed
May 22, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

Corporate interests are meddling in Democratic primaries by setting up what are being described as “pop-up super PACs” aimed at taking down candidates who are critical of Big Tech.

During a Friday episode of The Intercept Briefing podcast, political reporter Matt Sledge outlined how US campaign finance law allows for moneyed interests to swoop into political campaigns at the last minute and flood the airwaves with misleading ads about progressive candidates.

Bernie Sanders Leads Senators in Demand to End Super PACs in Democratic Primaries

Specifically, Sledge said that Big Tech-affiliated groups have figured out how to “game campaign finance deadlines and create super PACs, or political action committees, to funnel money to other super PACs so that reporting deadlines are missed.”

As a result, said Sledge, these “pop-up super PACs” can bombard voters with last-minute propaganda in the closing days of campaigns—and voters will “never find out who is funding ads before a campaign happens.”

“Some of these newer industries that are getting in on the campaign spending game, like crypto and artificial intelligence, are also setting up entire networks of super PACs,” Sledge added, “sometimes a mama or a papa super PAC, and then a Democratic-affiliated super PAC and a Republican-affiliated super PAC so that both donors can channel their money to one party affiliate and to make it a little harder for voters to track where all the money is coming from.”

A Thursday report from Politico documented how a mysterious super PAC called Lead Left has been been spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to benefit Maureen Galindo, a Democratic candidate for US Congress in Texas who has been broadly condemned for comments about transforming a local immigration detention facility into a “prison for American Zionists.”

Democrats have accused GOP-backed interests of funding Lead Left, which they say is misleadingly posing as a progressive organization, to boost the prospects of fringe candidates such as Galindo.

In a video posted to social media on Friday, House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) noted that members of his caucus from across the ideological spectrum had condemned Galindo, and said that “Republicans must immediately stop boosting her candidacy.”

“This candidate is being propped up by a Republican shadowy super PAC to elevate her in the primary,” Jeffries said, “because they know she’ll be an incredibly weak general election candidate.”



According to Politico, such operations have been occurring throughout the country.

“Shady PACs have become a staple of the cycle, and modern campaigns generally,” Politico reported. “In two House special elections last year in Virginia and Arizona, pop-up PACs spent on ads and avoided having to disclose who was behind them until after primary contests were complete. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee has used shell PACs to shield its involvement in some races this year. Another group, Real Change PAC, started spending in New Jersey’s 7th District on Wednesday.”

Last week, the Campaign Legal Center filed a complaint with the Federal Elections Commission, accusing Lead Left of both “strategically gaming federal reporting deadlines to avoid disclosing the sources of its election spending,” while also violating “federal campaign finance laws requiring full transparency about the recipients of that spending” in a scheme to conceal “crucial information about how it is spending its money.”

Israel Denounced for ‘Killing Spree’ of Rescue Workers in Lebanon

“Israel’s wanton killing of rescue workers and targeting of medical infrastructure in Lebanon has been one of this war’s most brazen features,” Drop Site News noted.


Lebanese paramedic Mohammed Suleiman squats by the grave of colleague Ali Jaber, 22, who was killed in March by an Israeli strike while on the job, in Nabatiyeh, Lebanon, on April 28, 2026.
(Photo by Scott Peterson/Getty Images)

Brett Wilkins
May 22, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

Israeli attacks killed at least seven rescue workers in southern Lebanon on Thursday and Friday in violation of a US-brokered ceasefire, part of what critics say is a pattern of deliberate targeted murders of first responders that mirror the genocidal massacres committed in Gaza.

On Friday, paramedics from the al-Risala Association rushed to the site of an Israeli strike in Deir Qanun al-Nah, Tyre district, that reportedly killed a young girl and the village barber, identified by L’Orient Today as Ali Allameh. As they arrived on the scene, the paramedics were hit by a so-called “double-tap” strike—a follow-up bombing meant to eliminate survivors and first responders—that killed would-be rescuers Ali Abboud, Hussein Kassir, and Ahmad Hariri.

Hariri was also a well-known photojournalist who earlier this week documented an Israeli massacre of 14 people—including four children and 11 members of one family—in Deir Qanun al-Nah.



L’Orient Today reported that Israeli forces bombed two Islamic Health Committee centers in Hanouiyeh overnight Thursday, killing four rescue workers and wounding two others. Earlier on Thursday, an Israeli airstrike near the Tebnine Hospital reportedly killed two people and injured another while damaging all three floors of the facility.

Lebanon’s Ministry of Public Health said more than 3,100 people have been killed by Israeli attacks since March 2, in addition to the more than 4,000 people, including nearly 800 women and over 300 children, slain in Israel’s 2023-25 attacks on its northern neighbor, where the militant resistance group Hezbollah is based. The dead from the current round of Israeli attacks include nearly 300 women, more than 210 children, and 123 medical and healthcare workers.

The Committee to Protect Journalists says 15 media professionals have also been killed in Lebanon since October 2023. One of them, Al-Akhbar correspondent Amal Khalil, was wounded last month by an Israeli strike while reporting on a previous bombing. Khalil was trapped under rubble, and as Red Cross workers attempted to extricate her, Israeli forces dropped a stun grenade on them as a warning to disperse. They were unable to rescue Khalil, who later died.



As in Gaza—where Israeli forces have killed or wounded more than 250,000 Palestinians since the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023—attacks by Israel have devastated Lebanon’s healthcare infrastructure.

Israel’s continued slaughter of Lebanese first responders comes as World Health Organization (WHO) member states gathered this week in Geneva, where they overwhelmingly backed a declaration of alarm over “the impact of the ongoing war on the Lebanese health systems, including attacks on health facilities and health workers, and the closure of dozens of primary healthcare centers and hospitals.”

The measure, which also called on the WHO to “scale up” support for Lebanon’s health system, passed by a vote of 95-2—with Israel and Honduras against—and 18 abstentions.

“Israeli military action has had unacceptable impacts on civilians and medical care,” the United Kingdom said in an explanation of its vote in favor of the declaration. “The conflict has led to the displacement of over 1 million people and the closure of several hospitals and health facilities. The WHO has reported over 150 verified attacks against healthcare, with over 100 healthcare workers killed.”

As Drop Site News reported Friday:
Israel’s wanton killing of rescue workers and targeting of medical infrastructure in Lebanon has been one of this war’s most brazen features. For the past five weeks, the relentless Israeli aerial and ground assault has continued despite a nominal ceasefire being announced by President Donald Trump on April 16. Last week, Israel and Lebanon agreed to a 45-day extension of the “ceasefire” after holding their third round of direct talks in Washington, of which Hezbollah is not a part. The declaration of a ceasefire has not stopped the Israeli military from continuing its bombardment of Lebanon, mostly in the south and the eastern Bekka Valley.

Rescue teams describe a pattern of repeated Israeli attacks directly targeting their members, often in double—or triple-tap strikes—where after a site is struck, it is struck a second or even third time as emergency crews arrive on the scene.

“We try to be careful and take safety precautions before interventions, like waiting 10 minutes to avoid the double taps,” Abdullah Halal, who leads a Civil Defense rescue team in Nabatiyeh, told Drop Site News.

“But,” the outlet noted, “even those precautions have not always been enough. Last week, Halal lost two of his two colleagues in a double-tap strike.”

Ali Saad, who is with the Lebanese Red Cross, told UN News on Wednesday that his colleagues share coordinates with Israeli forces and other belligerents, but rescue workers are still being targeted.

“This is why the Red Cross volunteers hug each other and say goodbye before every mission,” he said.

Palestinian UN Ambassador Drops Bid for VP of General Assembly Following US Threats

“A Palestinian vice presidency at the General Assembly would not change power realities on the ground, but it would normalize Palestinian statehood claims... That is precisely what the United States is attempting to block.”


Permanent observer for the state of Palestine Riyad H. Mansour speaks during a United Nations Security Council meeting on February 18, 2026.
(Photo by Lev Radin/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Stephen Prager
May 22, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

The Palestinian ambassador to the United Nations withdrew his bid to become a vice president of the UN General Assembly on Thursday following threats from the Trump administration to strip the visas of the entire Palestinian delegation, according to NPR.

The Palestinian envoy, Riyad Mansour, has been an outspoken critic of Israel’s actions toward Palestinians, particularly since the beginning of the genocidal war in Gaza, which he said has entailed “the collective punishment of over two million Palestinians.”

He has been Palestine’s permanent UN observer for more than two decades and had earlier this year planned to run for president of the General Assembly, though he bowed out following US pressure.

The Guardian reported that on Tuesday, the US State Department sent a diplomatic cable to the US embassy in Jerusalem instructing it to pressure the Palestinian Authority (PA)—the governing body of the occupied West Bank—to withdraw its bid for one of the 21 vice presidencies of the General Assembly as well.

General Assembly vice presidents have a role in setting the body’s agenda and filling in when the president is absent. The UN is scheduled to hold elections amongst Assembly members on June 2.




The US cable said Mansour “has a history of accusing Israel of genocide”—as leading human rights groups and experts have—and that his presence would “undermine” the objectives of President Donald Trump’s so-called “Board of Peace” in Gaza, which a recent Human Rights Watch report said has fallen fall short of its promises to provide aid to Palestinians and has allowed Israeli forces to continue killing them with little pushback despite a ceasefire.

The cable said, “We will hold the PA responsible if the Palestinian delegation does not withdraw its [vice presidential] candidacy” by Friday, “and consequences will follow.”

The cable threatened to revoke the US visas of all Palestinian officials. The US already revoked most of them back in August, but rolled back the ban on those who were visiting as part of the annual UN summit. “It would be unfortunate to have to revisit any available options,” the cable said.

It also threatened that Israel would continue to withhold tax revenue that it owes to the Palestinian Authority, which was blocked by Israel’s far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, at the beginning of the war in October 2023. The money being withheld by Israel accounts for 60% of the PA’s revenue.

A person familiar with the matter told NPR that Mansour specifically would refrain from running for the position for the next two years, which was interpreted as a reference to the end of Trump’s term as president.

The US is prohibited from blocking UN officials from visiting the body’s New York headquarters under a 1947 agreement. However, the US has blocked visas for officials from enemy countries, including Russia and Iran, as well as the former leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Yasser Arafat.

Hady Amr, who served as a senior State Department official on Palestinian affairs under the Obama and Biden administrations, told NPR that expelling diplomats is extremely rare outside of “extreme situations like Russian espionage or election interference.”

Amr said, “Generally, it’s counterproductive because you need diplomats to work out problems between countries, and by expelling diplomats, you’re undermining not only their ability to solve problems, but the abilities of the United States as well.”

Tawfiq Al-Ghussein, a London-based researcher who specializes in modern Middle Eastern history and the displacement of Palestinians, said on social media that “the significance of this is not merely procedural.”

“Washington is effectively trying to prevent even symbolic Palestinian institutional visibility within the UN system because it understands that international legitimacy matters politically, legally, and diplomatically,” Al-Ghussein said. “A Palestinian vice presidency at the General Assembly would not change power realities on the ground, but it would normalize Palestinian statehood claims within the architecture of international governance itself. That is precisely what the United States is attempting to block.”

“The irony is extraordinary: The same power that lectures the world endlessly about democracy and international order is reportedly threatening visas and diplomatic consequences to stop Palestinians from holding a largely ceremonial UN role,” he continued. “It reveals once again that the issue was never ‘peace negotiations’ as such, but control over who is permitted institutional legitimacy in the international system.”

Charges Against Kilmar Ábrego García Thrown Out After Judge Finds Vindictive Prosecution

“Our client... is freed of these outrageous, vindictive charges,” said an attorney representing Ábrego García. “It’s a good day.”

A member of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus holds a picture of Kilmar Ábrego García during a news conference on April 9, 2025 in Washington, DC.
(Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Brad Reed
May 22, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

A federal judge on Friday dismissed criminal charges against Kilmar Ábrego García, the man whom the Trump administration unlawfully deported to El Salvador last year.

Judge Waverly Crenshaw of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee ruled that the US Department of Justice’s (DOJ) case against Ábrego García should be thrown out on grounds of selective and vindictive prosecution.

In his ruling, Crenshaw likened the President Donald Trump’s DOJ to a prosecutor who picked “the person first and the crime second” when it indicted Ábrego García on human smuggling charges last year.

Crenshaw, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, zeroed in on the fact that the DOJ reopened a three-year-old investigation into a Ábrego García mere days after the US Supreme Court unanimously ordered the Trump administration to facilitate his return to the US, arguing that the timing and other evidence established “likeliness of vindictiveness” of the government’s case.

While the government provided arguments attempting to rebut claims of vindictive prosecution, Crenshaw ultimately found them unpersuasive and argued that the “new evidence” the government used to justify reopening the case was something that prosecutors should have discovered before with due diligence.

After an examination of the government’s claims, Crenshaw found that its case against Ábrego García was reverse engineered to justify his unlawful removal to El Salvador—where he was imprisoned at the notorious Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT).

“The objective evidence here shows that, absent Ábrego’s successful lawsuit challenging his removal to El Salvador, the government would not have brought this prosecution,” Crenshaw wrote in his conclusion. “The executive branch closed its investigation on the November 2022 traffic stop. Only after Ábrego succeeded in vindicating his rights did the executive branch reopen that investigation.”

Sean Hecker, an attorney representing Ábrego García, celebrated the judge’s ruling shortly after it was issued.

“We are going to savor this one,” Hecker wrote in a social media post. “Our client, Kilmar Ábrego García, is freed of these outrageous, vindictive charges. It’s a good day.”

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, warned that Ábrego García is not yet out of the woods given that the Trump administration is still trying to deport him to Uganda even though he has said he would accept being deported to Costa Rica.

Reichlin-Melnick nevertheless said that this was a major victory against the Trump administration.

“It is extremely hard to win a vindictive prosecution motion,” he wrote, “but here the evidence was so strong that the judge had almost no choice but to grant it.”

New York University law professor Ryan Goodman described Crenshaw’s ruling as an “extraordinary rebuke” of the Trump DOJ, and noted that it highlighted the role played by acting US Attorney General Todd Blanche in the vindictive prosecution “nearly 30 times.”

Journalist Nathan Newman said that Ábrego García deserved praise for standing firm in the face of relentless pressure by the federal government and fighting back.

“When history is written,” wrote Newman, “the bravery and tenacity of Kilmar Ábrego García in defiance of the Trump administration will deserve a hefty credit for building the resistance to Trump’s evil. A good day.”

‘Absurd and Cruel’: Critics Decry Trump Rule Change for Green Card Applicants

The policy change means “we could have families separated for months or years,” said one expert.


Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller looks on as US President Donald Trump speaks to the press at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach, Florida, on January 3, 2026.
(Photo by Jim Watson / AFP via Getty Images)

Brad Reed
May 23, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

Critics are slamming the Trump administration for implementing a new rule that foreigners who apply for green cards must do so from abroad.

US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) on Friday announced that foreigners currently in the US who want to establish permanent legal residency must first return to their countries of origin to apply for a green card.

This announcement broke with decades of US immigration policy, which made it possible for immigrants in the US to obtain green cards without having to leave the country.

Doug Rand, a former senior advisor at USCIS under President Joe Biden, said in an interview with The Associated Press that “the goal of this policy is very explicit,” which is to block a path to citizenship “for as many people as possible.”

Sarah Pierce, a former USCIS policy analyst, told The New York Times that the rule change could have particularly dire consequences to foreigners who are married to US citizens and will now have to apply for permanent residency from overseas.

“Our consular processing system through which they would have to apply is already overburdened,” Pierce explained. “So that means we could have families separated for months or years.”

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, similarly noted that the new policy “could force people to leave their jobs, homes, and families for weeks or months, all at their own expense” just to stay in a country where they have already established roots.

Reichlin-Melnick said that the full scope of the policy isn’t yet clear because there are several unknown details about how broadly it will be applied, but added that “in the meantime, hundreds of thousands of immigrants now have to worry about upending their lives to get a legal status that they are entitled to under our laws.”

Drop Site News reporter Ryan Grim argued that the new policy rips the mask off Trump administration claims that they aren’t opposed to all immigration, they simply want to reduce undocumented immigration.

“The talking point that we do want legal immigration, we just want people to get in line and follow the rules, is BS,” Grim commented. “This is an attempt to blow up the line, blow up the rules, and make it insanely difficult to immigrate legally.”

Rep. Chuy García (D-Ill.) echoed Grim’s comments by pointing out that the new policy shows the Trump administration’s disdain for immigration overall.

“This new policy will force thousands of LEGAL immigrants, including spouses of US citizens, to leave their homes, families, and jobs for weeks or even months to get their green card outside the US,” said García. “This is an absurd and cruel policy.”

Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-NY), chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, condemned the new policy for targeting “students, scientists, entrepreneurs, spouses of US citizens, and other individuals following legal immigration processes.”

“Aspiring lawful permanent residents are valued members of our communities, workforce, and economy,” Espaillat emphasized. “I will continue fighting to protect the rights of aspiring green card holders and immigrant families.”

‘Biggest Wealth Divide in Modern History’: Graphic Shows Shocking Reality of US Economy

Data released by the University of Michigan and Gallup this week showed US consumer sentiment cratering even as stock markets hit record highs.

New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) at Wall Street on January 12, 2021 in New York City.
(Photo by Angela Weiss / AFP via Getty Images)

Brad Reed
May 23, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

Multiple polls and surveys released in recent days have shown US consumer sentiment cratering—and all the while, the US stock market keeps hitting record highs.

The Kobeissi Letter, a financial newsletter, posted a graphic Saturday that matched consumer sentiment as measured by the University of Michigan’s Surveys of Consumers with the performance of the S&P 500 stock index over a 30-year span.

The graphic shows that, up until around 2020, consumer sentiment matched stock market performance closely, although there was a large divergence between the two leading up to the 2008 financial crisis, where stocks briefly outperformed consumer sentiment before crashing downward as the housing bubble burst.

But throughout the last six years, the graphic shows, the S&P 500 has produced an almost continuous upward surge even as consumer sentiment spirals downward.



“Absolutely incredible,” commented Kobeissi Letter. “Over the last six years, the S&P 500 has risen +130% while US Consumer Sentiment has collapsed by -55%, to its lowest since data began in 1952. We are witnessing the formation of the biggest wealth divide in modern history.”

Kobeissi Letter produced the graphic one day after the University of Michigan’s latest survey found consumer sentiment hitting the lowest level on record.

Joanne Hsu, director of the survey, observed that “the cost of living continues to be a first-order concern, with 57% of consumers spontaneously mentioning that high prices were eroding their personal finances, up from 50% last month.”

On the same day, Gallup published new data showing that Americans’ economic confidence has fallen to its lowest level since October 2022, with just 16% of Americans rating the economy as excellent or good, and nearly half describing it as poor.

Axios reported on Saturday that even Republicans have been growing sour on the US economy, citing a recent poll from The Associated Press showing GOP approval of President Donald Trump on the economy to be at around 60%, down from 80% just three months ago.

“The growing GOP gloom could hardly come at a worse time for Trump and the party,” Axios noted, “less than six months out from a midterm election that’s likely to turn on the economy.”

The gap between overall consumer sentiment and stock market performance also lines up with recent consumer spending trends. Data published by The Financial Times earlier this year showed that the top 10% of earners in the US now account for nearly half of all consumer spending, while the bottom 80% of earners now account for less than 40% of all consumer spending.

A February report from TD Economics economist Ksenia Bushmeneva noted that “the economic divide between America’s households at the top of the income spectrum and everyone else continued to widen last year,” as “upper-income households benefited from the still-robust wage growth, strong gains in equity markets, and better access to consumer credit.”

Report Exposes How Trump Administration Has ‘Mowed Down’ Regulators Overseeing Prediction Markets

The Trump administration last week sued Minnesota after it passed a law banning prediction markets from operating in the state.

In this photo illustration, a Polymarket logo seen displayed on a smartphone.
(Photo Illustration by Mateusz Slodkowski/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Brad Reed
May 24, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

A Sunday report in The New York Times revealed how the Trump administration is using a key government agency to shut down any efforts to regulate online betting markets such as Kalshi and Polymarket.

According to the Times, the administration has stacked the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) with industry insiders who have systematically “mowed down” staffers at the agency who have expressed interest in providing oversight on prediction markets.

Among other things, the report documented how multiple officials at CTFC have been put on leave simply for asking questions about the betting markets’ ties to members of President Donald Trump’s family or for having past experience enforcing regulations related to cryptocurrencies.

What’s more, the Times found that even being an industry insider isn’t enough to guarantee good standing in the agency. Brian Quintenz, who was tapped by Trump to lead CTFC last year, saw his nomination withdrawn after he drew the ire of Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss for refusing to support their cryptocurrency exchange’s complaint against the agency.

Revelations about industry insiders rolling over regulators at CTFC come as the Trump administration is fighting any attempts by states to regulate prediction markets.

As explained in a Thursday report from CNBC, the Trump administration is “fighting a multi-front battle to stop the state actions and assert its regulatory authority,” with CTFC arguing that it is “the only entity that can regulate” betting platforms.

16 different states are engaged in legal proceedings against the platforms, and Minnesota last week passed a law to ban them outright, which immediately drew a lawsuit from the administration.

The new Minnesota law, which is scheduled to take effect in August, bans prediction markets “from hosting, creating or advertising in the state,” according to ABC News.

In an interview with ABC, Minnesota state Rep. Emma Greenman (D-63B) said she authored the legislation because she has grown increasingly concerned about young people in the state seeing their finances drained from placing online bets.

“We’re seeing studies come out that say [the companies] are targeting 18- to 21-year-olds,” said Greenman, “and we are seeing gambling starting younger and younger.”

CFTC Chair Michael Selig last month warned states against trying to regulate prediction markets, which he said would “circumvent the clear directive of Congress.”

“Our message to Wisconsin is the same as to New York, Arizona, and others,” said Selig. “If you interfere with the operation of federal law in regulating financial markets, we will sue you.”

‘Hondurasgate’: A Symptom of Deeper Crises in Honduras and a Warning for Latin America

If no-holds-barred measures were deployed in the Honduran elections, they might be anticipated on a much bigger scale, again with little restraint, when the prizes could be Latin America’s biggest economies.

Former Honduras’ President Juan Orlando Hernandez speaks via video call during a press conference hosted by his wife Ana Garcia de Hernandez (unseen) in Tegucigalpa on April 8, 2026.
(Photo by Orlando Sierra / AFP via Getty Images)

John Perry

Roger D. Harris
May 25, 2026

Common Dreams


Governance in Honduras shifted sharply to the extreme right within months of National Party’s Nasry Asfura taking office on January 27, succeeding the Libre party’s progressive Xiomara Castro. In November 30 elections, the National Party was trailing a poor third before US President Donald Trump threatened to end all aid to Honduras unless Asfura won. Even then, Asfura had only a wafer-thin plurality, which might well have disappeared had the electoral council not broken its mandate by halting the count before all the votes had been tallied.

Compounding this blatant interference, Trump announced just two days before the election that he was pardoning former Honduran President and National Party stalwart, Juan Orlando Hernández, who had been extradited to the US and was serving a 45-year sentence for narco-trafficking. Corporate media treated Trump’s pardon as just a typically blatant political maneuver. Yet they have since largely ignored what appears to be a much bigger element of the same plot.

The Emerging Regional Offensive

The wider conspiracy has been revealed in a trove of leaked audio recordings, now dubbed “Hondurasgate.” The 37 recordings appear to show that Hernández—still in the US—is preparing a return to Honduran politics and, in league with Republican Party officials, is actively producing propaganda directed against progressive governments across Latin America.

Claims by Hondurasgate investigators that the recordings have been independently verified now appear to be at least partially substantiated by a separate investigation commissioned by Drop Site News. BBC Mundo recently interviewed Hernández and asked for his response to the controversy, but received no response.

The blatant US intervention exemplified by Hondurasgate may be an ominous foreshadowing of likely interference in the upcoming elections in Colombia (this month), Brazil (October), and Mexico (2030), all currently governed by progressives.

Shocking as the revelations are, Hondurasgate is symptomatic of a much more ambitious project to exploit Honduras and impose the “Donroe Doctrine” across the region. Whether or not the recordings are all genuine, the wider project is very much alive.

Power Consolidation Through Lawfare and Repression

Since taking office, Asfura wasted no time consolidating control over Honduran institutions. The elections left the Libre party with fewer than one-third of the seats in the National Congress, reverting to the historic pattern in Honduras in which the National and the Liberal parties—both neoliberal and subservient to Washington—swap power. This has enabled Asfura to move quickly against his enemies.

Marlon Ochoa, Libre’s representative on the electoral council and the first official to call out the electoral fraud, was impeached by Congress on fabricated charges, received death threats, and fled the country.

The sitting attorney general, also from Libre, was dismissed. The Supreme Court president was forced to resign, while other leading congressional members were impeached. Many of those kicked out of their jobs also had their US visas revoked.

“It is a political lawfare operation in which Honduran institutions are acting against the country’s own legal framework to eliminate political opponents,” wrote Diario RED. Carmen Haydeé López, Libre’s press officer, describes the moves as “state capture” by the ruling National Party.

Worse may follow: “If we have to kill people so we can have peace of mind, we’ll do it,” Hernández says in the Hondurasgate audios. Further, “If we have to resort to repression to control the country, we’ll do it.”

Far-right operative Roger Stone—a Trump associate said to have orchestrated Hernández’s pardon—even called for the US to kidnap Xiomara Castro and her husband, former president “Mel” Zelaya, “like they did with Maduro.”

Return to the Narco-State

These developments signal Honduras’ return to the corrupt and criminal neoliberal order that prevailed after the 2009 military coup and lasted until Xiomara Castro’s presidency in January 2022.

For most of this earlier period, Juan Orlando Hernández dominated politics, transforming Honduras into a “narco-state.” Over the years, he facilitated the trafficking to the US of at least 400 tons of cocaine, accepted huge bribes (including $1 million from Sinaloa cartel leader Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán), and ran a regime marked by extreme violence.

The leaked recordings show Hernández expects a reconfigured judiciary to clear him of outstanding charges in Honduras. This would pave the way for his return and even to make a run for president again in 2029.

Rolling Back Social Gains and Imposing Austerity

In the meantime, Asfura has moved rapidly to dismantle the Libre government’s modest achievements. Castro had begun to invest heavily in a public health service that fell apart during the Covid-19 pandemic. Asfura halted construction of three hospitals her administration had partially completed. He also withdrew a popular subsidy for electricity bills benefiting 600,000 low-income families.

In the last few weeks, Honduras has witnessed widespread protests against the weakening of workers’ rights, a march organized by 30 campesino movements against legislation that strengthens the hands of big landowners, and student demonstrations over cuts in university budgets.

Another worrying hint of a return to the narc-ostate has been a sharp increase in homicides, extortions, kidnappings, and femicides. Violence peaked on May 21, with 24 violent deaths in two incidents: 19 peasant farmers murdered in a land conflict and five people killed in a gang assault on a police vehicle.

Cuts in public spending and attacks on the rights of the 60% of Hondurans living in poverty constitute Asfura’s austerity program. But Asfura’s and Hernández’s aims are for a much wider transformation of the country.

One of Castro’s reforms was to declare illegal the private model cities or “ZEDEs,” which Hernández and his predecessor initiated in the face of community protests. Asfura has reversed her decisions, thus neutralizing huge pending lawsuits filed against Honduras by the libertarian investors in two ZEDEs, Próspera and Morazán. US investor and billionaire Trump adviser Peter Thiel is a key figure behind Próspera. The congress is now exploring how to promote more of these libertarian “states within a state” that ride roughshod over the rights of local communities.

Militarization and Reassertion of US Hegemony

Another payoff for Trump in return for Hernández’s pardon is the promise of a second US military base in Honduras. Because of its strategic position in Central America, the US already has the huge Soto Cano base, which Castro threatened to close. Soon, according to Marlon Ochoa, the US will install another base on the island of Roatán, further strengthening Washington’s naval domination of the Caribbean.

If built, it will be part of a wave of US militarization in the region, with a strengthened base in El Salvador and US troops newly deployed in Panama.

Another dramatic change is the restoration of close ties with Israel. During Castro’s presidency, Honduras (along with Colombia and Nicaragua) was one of Latin America’s fiercest critics of the Gaza genocide. Hernández, when president, had close links with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who (according to the Hondurasgate recordings) had “everything to do” with Hernández’s pardon.

This month, Israeli President Issac Herzog embarked on a diplomatic tour of Central America, stopping in Panama and attending the inauguration of Costa Rica’s new President, Laura Fernández. While in San Jose, Herzog met Chile’s new right-wing President José Antonio Kast and Honduras’s Nasry Asfura who, despite his Palestinian ancestry, identifies as a Christian Zionist. Asfura’s administration is part of a broader regional trend in which Trump-aligned governments (such as Bolivia’s) restore ties with Israel that were severed by their predecessors.

Asfura is reportedly planning legislation to encourage investment by US and Israeli AI firms. Honduras’s abundant water resources and renewable energy infrastructure would be central to such projects. Yet several of these developments have proven highly controversial with rural communities, including the notorious hydro project which led to the murder of Berta Cáceres.

Testing Ground for the “Donroe Doctrine”

Gerardo Torres Zelaya says that “Honduras is not an isolated case: It is a testing ground for a new offensive against our democracies.” Torres Zelaya, a former vice minister in Castro’s administration, believes that what is at stake is not just the outcome of an election, but progressive Latin American governments being subjected to offensives that “no longer operate according to traditional rules.”

He adds that the region now faces hybrid warfare, strategically combining disinformation, economic coercion, criminal networks and, if required, military force. Trump’s intervention in Honduras raised the stakes further when compared with previous electoral interference. Yet even that was soon surpassed by the kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

In March, Trump assembled his regional allies in pursuing his “Donroe Doctrine” to create the “Shield of the Americas.” Nasry Asfura was there, of course, along with his opposite numbers in El Salvador, Costa Rica, and Panama.

The blatant US intervention exemplified by Hondurasgate may be an ominous foreshadowing of likely interference in the upcoming elections in Colombia (this month), Brazil (October), and Mexico (2030), all currently governed by progressives. If no-holds-barred measures were deployed in the Honduran elections, they might be anticipated on a much bigger scale, again with little restraint, when the prizes could be Latin America’s biggest economies. Hondurasgate signals that Trump will not act alone; his accomplices will be the 12 members of his “Shield of the Americas.”


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


John Perry
Nicaragua-based journalist John Perry writes for the London Review of Books, FAIR, Antiwar.com, and Covert Action.
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Roger D. Harris
Roger D. Harris is with the Task Force on the Americas and the US Peace Council.
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Guess Who Won’t See a Refund for Trump’s Illegal Tariffs? You

Consumers won’t see a dime from the refunded tariffs—and in all likelihood they’ll keep paying for them


A Trader Joe’s in Miami Beach, Florida advertises “French Classics.”
(Photo by Jeffrey Greenberg/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Alex Jacquez
May 25, 2026

OtherWords

The Trump administration collected $166 billion in tariff payments before the Supreme Court struck them down. Refunds have already started hitting the bank accounts of US importers—and more could be owed soon.

As more than 300,000 companies scramble to get their money back, one large group is getting stiffed: American consumers.


After President Donald Trump imposed sweeping, indiscriminate tariffs on so-called “Liberation Day” last year, companies moved swiftly to pass on their higher prices to consumers. Consumers, already facing an affordability crisis—and reporting historic dissatisfaction with the economy—paid those higher prices at the grocery store, hardware store, and clothing store.

Instead of focusing on strategic sectors where American manufacturers were being undercut or where we’re developing new technologies, Trump imposed tariffs seemingly on a whim—hitting inputs that drove up costs for manufacturers and goods (like bananas or coffee) that are not made in the mainland United States and never will be.

With corporate profits at record highs, Congress should step in to ensure that consumers see some relief.

The results were as expected.

New data from the Federal Reserve found that businesses were able to pass through tariffs almost completely, raising core goods inflation by 3.1%. The Harvard Pricing Lab finds that retail prices for imported goods are up 5.4% compared with pre-Liberation Day trends.

Furthermore, the shock and confusion of the Liberation Day tariffs and dozens of subsequent adjustments allowed companies to take advantage of the pricing environment, raising prices even if they were not directly affected. Some even bragged about it on calls with their investors.

Unsurprisingly, consumers think this arraignment is unfair.

Polling from my organization, Groundwork Collaborative, found that 44% of Americans think refunds should go to consumers—and 34% believe that refunds should go to consumers and businesses.

Just 7% say that only businesses should get their money back. But that’s what’s happening.

Consumers won’t see a dime from the refunded tariffs—and in all likelihood they’ll keep paying for them. Prices, as retail experts like to say, are like “rockets and feathers.” When they go up, they go up quickly. But when costs fall, prices come down slowly—if they come down at all.

Big corporations that were able to pass through the price increases will now get a windfall, with no plans to pass on those savings. Costco made news by announcing they planned to use their sizable refund to lower prices, but almost no other corporations have followed their lead.

In addition to hurting consumers, the benefits of tariff refunds are unequally distributed between big and large corporations. Some 56% of small businesses reported that tariffs negatively impacted their operations, and many have shared difficulties and confusion with navigating the tariff refund portal.

Larger companies have used their size and market power to negotiate with suppliers and push costs onto consumers, but many small businesses had to pay whopping bills or risk going under. Some even sold the rights to their future refunds to Wall Street for pennies on the dollar to get cash up front to weather the storm, and now companies like Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnik’s old firm are profiting.

Families are hurting in this economy. They’re facing rising prices at the pump—up 50% because of Trump’s war in Iran—along with runaway utility bills and further uncertainty as Trump’s latest round of tariffs wind their way through the courts.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration hasn’t lifted a finger to ensure that corporations pass their savings through to consumers. In fact, Trump has even asked businesses not to claim the refunds at all, telling them he’ll “remember” companies that opt out.

With corporate profits at record highs, Congress should step in to ensure that consumers see some relief. Americans already paid these tariffs once—they shouldn’t have to pay again while corporations cash the checks.


This column was distributed by OtherWords.


Alex Jacquez
Alex Jacquez is the chief of policy and advocacy at Groundwork Collaborative.
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