VOLUNTEERISM FAILS

Voluntary Pledges ‘Aren’t Working,’ Report Shows as Big Banks Continue to Sow Climate Chaos

“Banks keep telling us they’re committed to climate. Then they abandon their own policies the moment political pressure mounts. Voluntary pledges have had their chance. We need binding rules—not promises.”

Wrecked vehicles remain submerged in floodwaters as volunteers work to clean up and recover belongings on July 7, 2025, after a weekend flash flood devastated homes in Leander, Texas.
(Photo by Austin American-Statesman via Getty Images)

Julia Conley
Jun 09, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

Calls for an end to oil, gas, and coal extraction grew louder in 2025 as the impact of fossil-fueled planetary heating was starkly illustrated by devastating wildfires across the Los Angeles area, deadly flash floods in Texas, a European heatwave that was blamed for the deaths of more than 24,000 people, and cyclones and floods that killed thousands.

But as climate action groups demanded that governments and financial institutions end support for fossil fuel projects and companies last year, according to a report released Monday by several organizations, the world’s largest banks only committed more financing to projects like the Mountain Valley Pipeline, a planned liquefied natural gas (LNG) “boom” in the Philippines, and fracking in the Permian Basin.

Last year, according to Banking on Climate Chaos—released by groups including the Rainforest Action Network, Sierra Club, and Oil Change International—the world’s largest financial institutions committed $906 billion in financing to fossil fuel companies, representing an 8% increase over funding the previous year.

The groups emphasized that the banks financed pollution-causing oil, gas, and coal projects even as they made “voluntary commitments” to “aligning their lending, investment, and capital markets activities with net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050,” as a now-defunct United Nations-backed scheme called the Net-Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA) pledged.

More than a decade after countries agreed to the Paris climate accord and pledged to take action in a push to avert planetary heating over 1.5°C above pre-industrial temperatures, the report notes, “banks maintain and are expected to uphold climate policies independent of the NZBA.”

However, it continues, “the collapse of the NZBA—culminating in its cessation of operations in October 2025—freed banks to further unwind from climate targets and other elements of their climate strategies.”

“Notably, throughout 2025 and the first half of 2026, banks have further weakened their commitments to uphold 1.5˚C temperature rise limits, widened loopholes, and undercut sector policies for coal, oil, and gas energy or power supply primarily by removing or diluting exclusion criteria and commitments. Most policy changes in the past year were downgrades of existing policies rather than improvements,” reads the report.

“Voluntary commitments aren’t working. No major oil and gas company is doing anything even close to what is needed to hold global heating to 1.5°C, and voluntary banking sector pledges like the Net Zero Banking Alliance aren’t cutting their pipeline of cash.”

Diogo Silva, campaign lead for BankTrack and a co-author of the report, said: “Banks keep telling us they’re committed to climate. Then they abandon their own policies the moment political pressure mounts. Voluntary pledges have had their chance. We need binding rules—not promises.”

Banking on Climate Chaos highlights the banks that spent the most money investing in fossil fuel projects, with JPMorgan Chase named the leading financier of oil, coal, and gas. The Wall Street firm spent $58 billion in 2025, the same year it also “weakened” its own climate policy.

“Of the 15 North American banks in scope, 12 now have no meaningful fossil fuel commitments,” said Rainforest Action network. “JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs abandoned their coal and Arctic exclusions entirely, converting them into case-by-case due diligence standards.”

JPMorgan Chase is one of three US banks listed in the top five fossil fuel backers; Bank of America financed the second-largest amount of pollution-causing projects at $47 billion, while Citigroup poured more than $45 billion into fossil fuels. Two Japanese institutions, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group and Mizuho Financial, were also in the top five.

With President Donald Trump taking executive action last year aimed at pressuring companies to back fossil fuel interests and “disregard social or environmental considerations,” the report notes, US banks’ share of all global fossil fuel financing increased to 32%, representing “the single largest source of fossil capital in the world.” In 2021, US banks provided 28% of fossil fuel investment.

Trump has also aggressively pushed for more coal production since taking office for his second term in January 2025, and financing for coal mining expansion surged 77% in 2025, to $84 billion. Funding for coal power also grew by 40%, with companies pouring $81 billion into coal-fired plants.

Even when asked about the report’s findings, top banks pointed to their own voluntary commitments to finance renewable energy projects and “achieve net zero financed emissions by 2050,” as a spokesperson for Citigroup said to The Guardian.

The spokesperson said the bank “supports clients in the low‑carbon transition while recognizing the real need for secure, affordable and reliable energy today. We are committed to... advancing our $1 trillion sustainable finance goal, with a focus on balancing the transition with global energy resilience”.

David Tong, global industry campaign manager for Oil Change International and a co-author of the report, warned that “every dollar of finance for oil and gas helps an industry of war profiteers squeeze out short-term profits, further trapping communities into paying higher fossil fuel energy bills, fueling war and conflict, and burning all our futures.”

“Voluntary commitments aren’t working. No major oil and gas company is doing anything even close to what is needed to hold global heating to 1.5°C, and voluntary banking sector pledges like the Net Zero Banking Alliance aren’t cutting their pipeline of cash,” he said. “Instead, banks have injected over staggering $900 billion into fossil fuel financing in 2025 alone. Governments must step in and take urgent action to hold financial institutions and fossil fuel companies accountable for their role in the climate crisis.”

Since the Paris climate agreement, the report says, banks have poured a staggering $8.7 trillion into the fossil fuel industry, with the “Dirty Dozen,” as the authors call the 12 largest fossil fuel financial backers, providing nearly 40% of all investment for coal, oil, and gas extraction.

The report makes demands of banks, calling on them to “exclude all finance for fossil fuel expansion immediately” and “require robust, 1.5°C-aligned transition plans from all existing fossil fuel clients”—but emphasizes that governments must compel financial institutions to end financing for oil, gas, and coal.

“After two consecutive years of fossil fuel finance increases by global banks—especially the increase in fossil fuel expansion finance and the continued backtracking from banks on their climate pledges—it is clear that the banking sector will not voluntarily take the necessary steps to transition out of fossil fuel finance at the pace and scale needed for the world to deliver on the Paris Agreement goals,” reads the report.

Instead, it says, governments must mandate transition planning by banks, private equity holders, insurers, and other companies; make polluters pay for climate damages; ensure public finance institutions are subject to transparent reporting and legal accountability to international standards, and rapidly wind down supply-side fossil fuel subsidies, tax exemptions, subsidies, guarantees or other public assistance for new oil, gas, and coal projects.

“A decade after Paris, just twelve banks now drive more than a third of the world’s fossil fuel financing—proof that this is no longer a problem of markets, but of a small set of decision-makers making active choices,” said Niko Lusiani, research director for Rainforest Action Network. “They are choosing to lock in an energy system that hands record profits to a few fossil firms while passing the costs onto the three of every four people on Earth who depend on imported fuel.”

“The good news is that what a handful of banks built,” said Lusiani, “governments and people worldwide have the power to change.”

As Mike Johnson Floats Social Security Cuts, Trustees Report Shows Harm of Trump Policies

“MAGA Mike Johnson won’t show the American people his secret plan to eliminate Social Security because he knows Republican policies are wildly unpopular.”



House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) speaks during a news conference on March 17, 2026.
(Photo by Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc. via Getty Images)

Jake Johnson
Jun 09, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

Social Security’s trustees said in their annual report released Tuesday that the New Deal program will be unable to pay out full benefits by the end of 2032—a quarter earlier than projected last year—in the absence of congressional action, a finding that advocates said underscores the destructive impact of President Donald Trump’s policy agenda and the need to make the rich finally pay their fair share into the system.

“This is the first Social Security trustees report that begins to take Donald Trump’s second term policies into account: A tax bill that largely benefited the wealthy, economy-wrecking tariffs, a needless war with Iran, and hostility to immigrants,” said Nancy Altman, the president of Social Security Works. “All of these have reduced the amount of money going into Social Security, weakening the system’s finances.”

The trustees report was released a day after House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) declared in a radio show appearance that “entitlement programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and things like Social Security” need to be “adjusted and fixed,” which critics say is euphemistic language for benefit cuts, given past GOP proposals such as raising the retirement age.

Johnson said the GOP intends to release a new Social Security plan “next year,” without providing any details.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), House Democrats’ campaign arm, immediately pressed Johnson, suggesting he’s delaying Republican plans for Social Security and Medicare until after the 2026 midterms to avoid consequences at the ballot box.

“MAGA Mike Johnson won’t show the American people his secret plan to eliminate Social Security because he knows Republican policies are wildly unpopular and will be resoundingly rejected by the American people in November,” said Justin Chermol, a DCCC spokesperson.

The new trustees report projects that Social Security’s Old-Age and Survivors Insurance will be able to pay out full benefits “until the fourth quarter of 2032, one quarter earlier than projected last year.”

“At that time, the fund’s reserves will become depleted and continuing program income will be sufficient to pay 78% of total scheduled benefits,” the trustees said.

Max Richtman, president and CEO of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare (NCPSSM), stressed that the new projection “does not mean that Social Security is going ‘bankrupt’ or ‘broke.’”

“Nor does the trustees report mean that benefits must be cut to maintain the program’s fiscal health,” said Richtman. “It would be grossly unfair to ask beneficiaries on fixed incomes to bear the cost of strengthening Social Security. While conservatives favor benefit cuts (such as raising the retirement age, means testing, or reduced COLAs), we advocate for revenue-side solutions where the wealthy pay their fair share.”

Specifically, NCPSSM and other progressive advocacy groups and lawmakers have called for raising the Social Security’s payroll tax cap, which currently exempts annual income above $184,500 from the program’s dedicated payroll levy.

Richtman said that lifting the payroll tax cap and “subjecting some of high earners’ investment income to Social Security taxes” would keep the program solvent “well beyond the 2030s.” He noted that Democratic lawmakers have introduced legislation to shore up Social Security’s finances by taxing the rich, but the bills have gone nowhere in the Republican-controlled Congress.

In a joint statement issued in response to the trustees report, Reps. John Larson (D-Conn.), Richard Neal (D-Mass.), and Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas) said that “instead of joining Democrats to protect and enhance” Medicare and Social Security, “Donald Trump and Republicans are busy sabotaging them.”

“After DOGE took a wrecking ball to the Social Security Administration under false pretenses, all Americans got were slashed customer service and their most personal data put at risk—without a penny saved,” the Democrats said. “Combined with their sole legislative achievement pricing millions out of coverage and putting Medicare on the chopping block, there is no greater threat to Americans’ wellbeing than Republican governance.”

Trump’s ‘I Love the Inflation’ Remark Seen as Latest Display of Contempt for Working Class

“There you have it: President Trump loves that you’re paying higher prices,” said Sen. Elizabeth Warren.


Brad Reed
Jun 11, 2026

COMMON DREAMS

US President Donald Trump’s remarks Wednesday expressing “love” for new inflation figures were seen as yet another callous dismissal of the economic pain facing the nation’s working class as price hikes driven by the Iran war erase wage gains and make it harder for Americans to afford basic needs.

“You know who doesn’t love inflation, Mr. President?” asked Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) rhetorically. “Working families struggling to afford gas, groceries, and other necessities because of your disastrous actions.”




‘Betrayal of the Working Class’: Trump War of Choice in Iran Pushes Inflation to New 3-Year High



Inflation Jumps to 3-Year High as Critics Say Trump Economic Promises Have Turned to Dust

Asked about the new inflation numbers in the Oval Office on Wednesday, Trump said, “I love it, the numbers were great.”

“I love the inflation,” the billionaire president continued, celebrating figures showing that the Consumer Price Index hit a new three-year high last month.



Much of May’s inflation was driven by increases in the cost of fuel, which is a direct result of Trump starting an illegal war of choice with Iran in February.

An analysis published by Ben Zipperer, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, found that the price increases caused by the Iran war have been so large that they’ve wiped out any prior gains in real wages during Trump’s second term.

Zipperer also warned that “as long as the war continues, there is a heightened threat that price increases will spill over to the broader economy, triggering a more permanent increase in the cost of living and further reductions in real earnings.”

Fresh data released Thursday by the BLS signals that inflation isn’t slowing down anytime soon. According to the BLS’ latest Producer Price Index (PPI) report, wholesale prices in May posted a yearly increase of 6.5%, the fastest rate since November 2022.

Because PPI measures input costs paid by businesses, it is usually predictive of future increases in consumer, as companies pass the cost increases off to consumers.

Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) was among the lawmakers highlighting and condemning the president’s remarks.

“Trump just said ‘I love the inflation,’” Beyer wrote. “I guess he doesn’t care if you’re being squeezed by higher costs as long as he and his cronies get richer.”

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) wrote on social media, “So there you have it: President Trump loves that you’re paying higher prices.”

Andrew Mamo, a Democratic campaign adviser, said in an interview with The Hill that “every day the president says he loves something Americans clearly hate is a good day for Democrats.”

In interviews with The New York Post published on Wednesday, multiple Republican strategists expressed concern not only about the rise in inflation, but Trump’s apparently blasé attitude about the impact it’s having on Americans’ pocketbooks. The president’s latest remarks came weeks after he confessed, on camera, that he doesn’t “think about Americans’ financial situation” as he wages war on Iran.

One former Trump campaign adviser told the Post that comments about “loving” inflation “are simply not productive unless he’s looking forward to the impeachments from the Democrats in 2027.”

Another GOP strategist told the Post that the clip of Trump saying he loved inflation would be “the centerpiece of a lot of effective ads” targeting Republicans this fall.

GOP strategist John Feehery went on the record to tell the Post that Trump needed to wrap up his war with Iran by early next month or “independents are going to swing hard against the Republicans in the election.”

Florida Man’s Wrongful Arrest Suit Highlights Dangers of AI Facial Recognition in Policing

“Over a year later, I’m still picking up the pieces of my life, all because the police relied on this dangerous technology instead of doing their jobs and actually investigating,” said Robert Dillon.

A lawsuit filed in Florida on June 10, 2026 shows how police reliance on facial recognition tools can lead to wrongful arrests.
(Image by monsitj/Getty Images)

Jessica Corbett
Jun 10, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

A federal lawsuit filed Wednesday in the Middle District of Florida by a Fort Myers resident wrongfully arrested nearly two years ago highlights the risks of police agencies relying on facial recognition tools.

“This case is about what happens when police let an error-prone artificial intelligence (AI) system stand in for an investigation,” explains the complaint, filed by attorneys with the state and national ACLU as well as the firm Hoguet Newman Regal & Kenney. “A facial recognition algorithm flagged Robert Dillon as the man who tried to lure or entice a child under 12 years old at a Jacksonville Beach McDonald’s. It was wrong.

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The 52-year-old “lives more than 300 miles from” and “had never set foot in Jacksonville Beach,” the complaint continues. “But rather than test the machine’s answer against the evidence that would have cleared him, the officers built a case to confirm it. Mr. Dillon was arrested and prosecuted for one of the most stigmatizing crimes a person can face.”

Dillon—one of at least 15 people wrongfully arrested in the United States due to police reliance on incorrect facial recognition results—is suing the city of Jacksonville Beach as well as law enforcement officers from the Jacksonville Beach Police Department, Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office (JSO), and Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office.

Reporting on the case Wednesday, Wired noted that while the Pinellas agency did not respond to a request for comment, a JSO spokesperson simply said that “due to pending litigation, we would be unable to comment further on the incident.”

The actual suspect allegedly approached a girl at the McDonald’s shortly before midnight on November 2, 2023. The following month, Dillon was flagged as a possible match by the Face Analysis Comparison and Examination System (FACES)—which “has been operated by the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office since 2001, making it one of the oldest police face-recognition systems in the country,” according to Wired. “At its peak in 2021, its tens of millions of Florida mug shots and driver’s license photos were accessible to more than 260 agencies.”

After denying any involvement in the case in December, Dillon was arrested at his home in front of his wife the next August, “held overnight in jail, forced to borrow money and pledge the title to his truck to post bond, subjected to months of criminal prosecution, and publicly branded with a mugshot that remains accessible online, long after the charges were dropped,” the complaint states. “Community members still approach him in public to ask about the case. He no longer feels comfortable being friendly to children.”

“He had no connection to the McDonald’s, to the child who was targeted, or to anyone involved in the crime. He became a suspect for one reason: a facial recognition algorithm included him in a list of possible matches to a suspect captured on grainy surveillance footage at the restaurant,” the document emphasizes. “The investigating officer treated that algorithmic output as a near-certain identification, omitted critical exculpatory evidence from his arrest warrant application, and failed to pursue routine investigative steps that would have immediately excluded Mr. Dillon as a suspect.”

“The arrest warrant that deprived Mr. Dillon of his liberty was the product of a cascade of investigative failures by the lead investigator, Jacksonville Beach Police Department officer (now corporal) Scott O’Connell,” according to the filing. Among them was the officer’s “complete failure to consider that the suspect was alleged to have been a ‘regular’ customer.”

The complaint also notes that “O’Connell is an officer with a documented history of volatility and poor judgment, having previously been terminated from the St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office for threatening to ‘blow up’ the agency, later reinstated, then arrested for domestic battery before resigning under the weight of those charges. Jacksonville Beach PD hired him anyway, assigned him as lead investigator on a sensitive child-luring case, and later promoted him to corporal after his investigation resulted in the wrongful arrest and prosecution of an innocent man.”

Dillon said in a Wednesday statement that “the night I spent in jail after they arrested me for a crime I did not commit still haunts me to this day. I will never get over how terrified and worried I was, wondering if I’d ever go home to my wife and daughter again.”

“Over a year later, I’m still picking up the pieces of my life, all because the police relied on this dangerous technology instead of doing their jobs and actually investigating,” Dillon added. “Florida police must implement safeguards and ensure this never happens to anyone else, because until they do, nobody is safe.”

Nate Freed Wessler, deputy director of the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, stressed that “no one should lose their freedom or be scared to leave their house because an algorithm got it wrong.”

“These Florida police departments owe it to Mr. Dillon to make amends and to take serious steps to make sure this doesn’t happen to anyone else,” he argued. “Police across the country are on notice: Unreliable face recognition technology is hurting people, and we will keep fighting to hold them accountable for these abuses.”

The ACLU has previously sounded the alarm over other cases, including those of Robert Williams, a Black man wrongfully arrested in 2020 after software owned by Michigan State Police misidentified him as a shoplifting suspect, and Randal Reid, who spent nearly a week in jail in 2022 after he was falsely identified as a luxury purse thief by Louisiana authorities.

The legal group on Wednesday also pointed to the reported role of FACES in the 2025 wrongful arrest of New Smyrna Beach resident Beau Burgess, as well as another case involving the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office: Jalil Richardson told Action News Jax earlier this month that after being misidentified as a vehicle thief, he “sat in there for over 50 days, in the most worst jail ever.”

“There was no proper investigation done... to even reach out to me or to see if I was even in Florida,” said Richardson, whose charges were dropped after he provided time sheets showing that he was at work in North Carolina when the vehicle was stolen.

In his case, JSO provided a lengthy statement, saying in part that “facial recognition software is just one tool in a large toolbox for investigators,” and “calling the arrest the result ‘police AI misidentification’ is a catchy headline but does not provide accurate context,” including that “the victim chose Mr. Richardson out of a photographic lineup to include other potential suspects.”

Nicholas Warren, staff attorney at the ACLU of Florida, said Wednesday that “one wrongful arrest is one too many.”

“Florida’s growing reliance on facial recognition technology threatens us all,” he warned. “We must stop this dangerous pattern before it traps more innocent people. No one should have their freedom taken away because the police rely on faulty technology.”

Watchdog’s Online Tracker Shows Which Candidates Are Being Showered With AI Industry’s Dark Money

“With AI Money Watch, Americans can see which candidates the biggest AI Super PAC is buying, who they are trying to stop, and how much they are spending.”


Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) arrives for a press conference on August 18, 2025 in New York City.
(Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

Stephen Prager
Jun 10, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

The artificial intelligence industry’s super political action committees are dumping a heap of dark money into electing candidates from both parties to protect their interests on Capitol Hill amid growing public skepticism and backlash.

On Wednesday, the progressive advocacy group Demand Progress unveiled a new tool to help voters keep track of which midterm candidates are on the take.

The website, known as “AI Money Watch,” is using Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings to track spending by the largest AI super PAC, Leading the Future (LTF), which has raised $125 million for into this year’s midterms after being created last August to oust critics of the industry and protect allies.

“AI chatbots have been accused of flirting with children, discouraging people in distress from seeking help, and even offering instructions on how to plan a mass shooting—and billionaire AI CEOs are doling out millions to kill any safeguards that would stop this,” said Demand Progress Action’s AI policy adviser, Colin McGlynn, in a statement announcing the tracker. “With AI Money Watch, Americans can see which candidates the biggest AI Super PAC is buying, who they are trying to stop, and how much they are spending.”

The tracker allows users to view all 21 races in which LTF has spent money through its affiliated Democratic and Republican PACs and the 13 candidates it has endorsed.



While LTF has said it supports common-sense AI regulations to protect children and improve privacy, its affiliated nonprofit, Build American AI, has voiced opposition to state-level regulations and urged Congress to adopt a White House framework unveiled in March that calls for the federal government to preempt state AI laws.

Among LTF’s principal backers are top MAGA donors, including OpenAI president and co-founder Greg Brockman, the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, as well as Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale and CEO Alex Karp.

But its top three beneficiaries are all Democrats. The group has spent more than $982,000 on advertising through its Democratic affiliate Think Big in support of Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY), a centrist facing a progressive primary challenger, Michael Blake, in his Bronx district. Torres, whom LTF has endorsed, has been one of the most active legislators in the realm of AI, introducing a regulatory bill last year aimed at “unleashing AI innovation” that was described by critics as too industry-friendly.

LTF also threw over $1.1 million behind former Rep. Melissa Bean, an ex-investment banker, who won the Democratic primary for the open seat in Illinois’ 8th congressional district with additional help from cryptocurrency and pro-Israel groups, which gave her the edge over her Justice Democrats-backed opponent Junaid Ahmed.

The group poured even more money, $1.4 million, into backing former Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr.—the son of the late civil rights icon—as he attempted a comeback after nearly 14 years out of Congress. The Democrat had said he wanted Illinois’ economically marginalized 2nd District to be on the ground floor of the AI economic revolution.



By far the super PAC’s biggest target has been New York State Assemblymember Alex Bores (D-73), whom it has bombarded with $5.7 million worth of negative ads to fight off his run in the state’s 12th congressional district.

Bores, a former Palantir employee, has run proudly on his role in helping to enact one of the strongest state-level AI regulation frameworks in the country and made himself a target for LTF’s benefactors. Think Big has described his legislation as “ideological and politically motivated” while Lonsdale has degraded him as a “random legislator in New York state” seeking to “harass and slow us down, and make us lose to China.”

LTF has also backed two pro-AI Republicans for US Senate through its GOP PAC American Mission—the hawkish Sen. Lindsey Graham, who fought off an anti-interventionist primary challenger in South Carolina, and Rep. Andy Barr, who is gunning for the Kentucky seat long held by Sen. Mitch McConnell after comfortably winning his primary.



In a similar fashion to the cryptocurrency industry’s $245 million push to put its allies in Congress and the White House in 2024, the AI industry’s titanic effort to influence the midterms comes as its unchecked growth has left voters feeling increasingly uneasy and angry.

As Ryan Cooper explained on Wednesday for The American Prospect, “any messaging the PAC produces will almost certainly be dishonest.”
AI as a business is quite unpopular, with 56% negative sentiment and just 38% approval in a recent NBC News poll. The data centers AI requires are even more unpopular, with a recent Heatmap News poll finding that Americans oppose them by a 71-21 margin—a 49-point swing in just one year.

When something is this unpopular, its associated PACs tend to carefully avoid mentioning what they actually care about. Instead, they run pretextual ads that raise unrelated pseudo-objections against their enemies. That’s how crypto took down Sen. [Sherrod] Brown (D-Ohio), and it’s how the Israel lobby took down Reps. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY), Cori Bush (D-Mo.), and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.). So, when some ad campaign is talking about housing, jobs, or whatever, and it’s funded by LTF, it will be vitally important to point out what is really going on.


McGlynn told Cooper that it’s especially important to keep an eye on candidates like Torres, who claim to be in favor of some regulation but are receiving massive support from an industry that wants none.

“If you are going to take the money from the people that say, ‘No, don’t regulate anything,’ then you’ve lost credibility,” said McGlynn.

‘Voters Are Seeing Through the Bullshit’: Progressives Take Down Corporate Dems Nationwide

“If the Democratic Party wants to beat Republicans and win back a majority in November, they need to listen to their voters and usher in a new generation of fighters.”


California insurance commissioner candidate Jane Kim delivers remarks during the California Democratic Party convention in San Francisco on February 21, 2026.
(Photo by Yalonda M. James/San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)

Jake Johnson
Jun 10, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

Progressive candidates have swept to victory against establishment opponents in Democratic primary races across the US, including on Tuesday, as voters turn out in support of working-class champions who have spurned corporate money and vowed to pursue transformative change at the national, state, and local levels.

The Working Families Party (WFP) celebrated a five-for-five sweep for the US House candidates it backed in California primaries, as Mai Vang, Connie Chan, Aisha Wahab, Randy Villegas, and Angela Gonzales-Torres each advanced to the November general election. As Common Dreams reported, Villegas—who is running to unseat incumbent Rep. David Valadao (R-Calif.)—advanced despite the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s intervention in support of his opponent Jasmeet Bains, a corporate Democrat.

WFP noted that the wins in California followed upset victories by Chris Rabb in Pennsylvania’s 3rd Congressional District and Analilia Mejia in New Jersey’s 11th District.

“Voters are seeing through the bullshit and voting for candidates who aren’t in the pocket of billionaires and corporate interests,” Ravi Mangla, WFP’s national press secretary, said in a statement. “In New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and now California, WFP candidates have defied the odds and won shock victories over do-nothing corporate Democrats. We’re electing a new generation of leaders who won’t put up with being pushed around by billionaire elites.”

WFP, along with US Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and other progressives, also backed Graham Platner in Maine, where he won a landslide victory over Democratic Gov. Janet Mills on Tuesday.

Politico reported that other Sanders-backed candidates in US congressional races “include Adam Hamawy and Analilia Mejia in New Jersey, Sam Forstag in Montana, Brian Poindexter in Ohio, and Bob Brooks in a key Pennsylvania swing district.”

“The senator’s support has been instrumental in powering unknown candidates to major wins this cycle, a demonstration of just how much political influence the 84-year-old progressive leader still commands,” Politico noted.



Justice Democrats, the grassroots group working to replace corporate Democrats with progressives across the country, is celebrating primary wins by Jane Kim, who is running to serve as California’s insurance commissioner, and Mai Vang, who is vying to represent California’s 7th Congressional District in the US House.

As of this writing, Vang has received more votes in the jungle primary than incumbent Rep. Doris Matsui (D-Calif.).

“Sacramento is ready to move on from the corporate dynasty that has represented it for 50 years and elect a true working class champion to fight for their families in Washington,” said Alexandra Rojas, the executive director of Justice Democrats. “Mai represents the Sacramento being left behind by Doris Matsui and the promise of representation that fights the corporations raising our prices and ICE contractors enabling our communities to be terrorized—instead of cashing their checks.”

“If the Democratic Party wants to beat Republicans and win back a majority in November,” Rojas added, “they need to listen to their voters and usher in a new generation of fighters like Mai, to excite our base and lead this party forward.”

After Landslide Primary Win, Graham Platner Vows to Defeat ‘Spineless and Corrupt’ Susan Collins

“The truth is, Susan Collins doesn’t serve us, she serves Donald Trump,” said Platner. “She serves her corporate donors and the corrupt political system that has rigged the economy against us.”


Democratic US Senate candidate Graham Platner speaks at his election night event on June 9, 2026 in Blue Hill, Maine.
(Photo by CJ Gunther/Getty Images)

Jake Johnson
Jun 10, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

Graham Platner, a veteran and oyster farmer vowing to champion the working class against what he’s called the “spineless and corrupt” political establishment, officially became the Democratic Party’s nominee in the critical race to unseat five-term Republican Sen. Susan Collins, winning more than 70% of the vote in Tuesday’s closely watched primary.

“I love every single one of you, everyone who has shown up at a town hall, who has knocked on a door, who cast their vote—not for me, but for a vision of a life in Maine that you can afford, a life of dignity, and a government that actually serves its people,” Platner said in his victory speech. “The truth is, Susan Collins doesn’t serve us, she serves Donald Trump. She serves the Epstein class. She serves her corporate donors and the corrupt political system that has rigged the economy against us. She does not serve us, and so we will defeat Susan Collins.

Platner’s main primary opponent, Democratic Gov. Janet Mills, suspended her campaign in late April as the progressive political newcomer trounced her in polling, fundraising, and enthusiasm. But in the days leading up to Tuesday’s contest, Mills reminded Maine voters that she was still on the ballot amid reporting about Platner’s past relationships.

Last week, The New York Times published a story in which a Republican operative who dated Platner more than a decade ago accused him of physical abuse—an allegation that the candidate denied categorically.

With more than 80% of ballots tallied in Tuesday’s race, Mills has received around 35,100 votes—over 94,000 fewer than Platner.

During his speech late Tuesday in Blue Hill, Maine, Platner accused “national pundits and the political establishment” of “looking for that one story, that one headline, that one moment in my life that they can define the campaign by.”

“But in trying so hard to understand me, they fail to understand that this is not about me at all,” he said. “This is a movement about us, about the far too many working far too hard in struggling far too much at the hands of the ruling class.”



Platner then turned his attention to Collins, the incumbent Republican senator who is widely characterized as a “moderate” despite her role in destroying Roe v. Wade and advancing President Donald Trump’s deeply unpopular agenda. Collins’ reelection bid has been backed by a flood of dark money and billionaire donations that are expected to grow in the months ahead.

“Susan Collins may have started her career decades ago in Washington with good intentions, but she has become just as spineless and corrupt as the establishment she now serves,” said Platner. “If you are an independent voice, why do you vote with Donald Trump 95% of the time? If you’re so bipartisan, why are you the deciding vote to put Brett Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court? The deciding vote to defund our healthcare and our hospitals? Why did you rubber stamp the greatest redistribution of wealth from the working class from the working class to the ruling class in the history of our nation?”

“Susan Collins is only bipartisan when it doesn’t matter,” Platner added.

Progressive supporters of Platner’s campaign applauded his victory in Tuesday’s primary, with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)—the first prominent lawmaker to back Platner’s Senate bid—declaring that “together, we will defeat oligarchy and create an economy that works for all, not just the few.”

Ezra Levin, co-executive director of Indivisible, an advocacy group that endorsed Platner last month, said that Maine voters “have made their voices heard, and they are looking to fight back against special interests and push for new leadership this November.”

“This result shows the momentum of voters who are choosing a different path and are looking for new leadership—one that will fight for them, not against them,” said Levin. “As we look toward November, we are excited to flip this Senate seat, oust Sen. Susan Collins, and help Graham Platner bring meaningful representation to Maine.”

With Straight Face, Trump Says Platner ‘Worse Than Any Human Being That’s Ever Run for Office, Probably’

The president has been convicted of 34 felony counts of falsifying documents as well as being found guilty of fraud, sexual abuse, and defamation. While in office he’s given massive tax giveaways to billionaires, opened the gates for corporate polluters, and made enriching himself and his family a top priority.

US Senate candidate from Maine Graham Platner speaks to attendees during a campaign event at the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 6859 on May 17, 2026 in Portland, Maine.
(Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Julia Conley
Jun 10, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

Four months after President Donald Trump’s name reportedly appeared over a million times in long-hidden files related to his former friend, convicted sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein, and weeks after one analysis warned that his foreign aid cuts will likely kill 9 million people by the end of the decade, the president announced Wednesday that he’d identified the politician who is “probably” the worst person to ever run for public office.

In the Oval Office, Trump declared Democratic US Senate candidate Graham Platner, whom Maine primary voters chose to run in the general election by more than a 52% margin, a “thug” and a “cheap, no-good person,” adding that he is “worse than any human being that’s ever run for office, probably.”

“Nobody’s ever had a record like that... This guy’s got a rap sheet, I’ve never seen anything like it,” said the president as he lied about Platner, who has no criminal record.

Trump, meanwhile, was convicted of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in 2024. A New York judge also ordered Trump to pay a $450 million civil penalty over financial fraud that year, and in 2023, a jury found him liable for sexually abusing and defaming columnist E. Jean Carroll. More than two dozen women have accused the president of sexual misconduct.

Trump, who has openly bragged about sexually assaulting women and reportedly committed adultery numerous times during his three marriages, was likely referring to controversies that made headlines after Platner, a combat veteran and oyster farmer, launched his campaign last year with a focus on taxing billionaires, expanding Medicare to the entire population, and ending US wars.

During his two terms in office, Trump has been rebuked for his allegiance to corporate interests, giving massive tax breaks to billionaires and powerful industries, undermining labor protections, launching wars of choice overseas, attacking public education, and gutting public health and environmental protection efforts.

Recently, a former campaign staffer told news outlets that Platner’s wife had confided in her about messages Platner sent to other women early in their marriage. The candidate’s former girlfriend, a right-wing operative, also accused him of being physically aggressive during their relationship. Earlier controversies centered on a tattoo that critics said resembled a Nazi symbol and posts he wrote on Reddit in the years after his military service.

Despite the months of criticism and news stories regarding Platner’s past, with 91% of votes reported as of Wednesday afternoon, he won the support of more than 71% of Democratic primary voters, with many saying they connected with his strong focus on issues affecting working people and that he had taken accountability for his previous actions.

While attacking Platner on Wednesday, Trump brought up the Epstein scandal, saying Democratic lawmakers “go crazy” over his association with the financier, who died in prison while awaiting a trial on sex-trafficking minors and who was convicted in 2008 of soliciting prostitution with a minor.

As Trump hurled insults at Platner, also calling him “an outright pig,” the Democratic candidate released an ad taking aim at “the Epstein class,” saying that “the only thing the DC establishment can agree on is a love of Jeffrey Epstein—and a hatred of me.”



Earlier, the Democratic candidate and so-called “thug” posted a video on social media of a volunteer activity he was taking part in on the morning after the election in Bar Harbor.

“This morning, I’m doing very important things, which is riding on the bike bus,” said Platner, evidently taking time off from being what Trump has also referred to as a “major sleaze bag.”

“The community gets together and helps ride with all of the kids who want to ride their bikes to school, and so it’s safe and fun,” he explained.



“Honestly, it’s exactly the thing that we need a lot more of in this country,” said Platner, “which is people coming together and realizing that their neighbors are good people, and everybody just wants to help each other out. It’s the message we need to take into our politics, which is why we won last night.”

Trump Sanctions on Cuba’s Oil Company Expected to Worsen Humanitarian Crisis

“The US regime’s secretary of state, driven by ambitions of conquest, presidential aspirations, and the vengeful sentiments of the elitist clique that propelled his political career, now further tightens the economic and energy stranglehold against Cuba,” said the island’s foreign minister.

Residents collect water from tanker trucks as power outages and rolling blackouts disrupt pumping systems, limiting access to running water, in Havana, Cuba, on June 4, 2026.
(Photo by Magdalena Chodownik/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Jessica Corbett
Jun 11, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

Amid mounting global calls for President Donald Trump to end his administration’s “economic genocide” in Cuba, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Thursday announced sanctions against the state-owned oil and gas company, a move expected to worsen the island’s fuel shortage and related humanitarian crisis.

Trump, in recent months, has repeatedly threatened to “take” Cuba and ramped up the 65-year US embargo against the country, including by imposing an oil blockade—disrupting food supplies, healthcare, education, transportation, and more—and issuing a May executive order that Rubio cited in his statement about the sanctions against Union Cuba-Petroleo (CUPET).

Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants and a longtime advocate of regime change on the island, claimed Thursday “that like every resource on the island, energy has long been weaponized by Cuba’s communist government as a tool of both repression and self-serving regime kleptocracy.”

“While the Cuban people have suffered fuel shortages and blackouts because of decades of under-investment in critical infrastructure,” Rubio continued, “Cuba’s communist leaders have diverted energy resources to line their own pockets: reselling countless barrels of scarce energy on the secondary market, hoarding energy supplies for its military, intelligence, and repressive forces, and rationing energy as a tool of social control.”

Warning of the new sanctions’ likely impact, William LeoGrande, a Cuba expert at American University in the United States, told The Associated Press: “It appears that they’re all in on strangling the Cuban economy... Their policy is a contradiction. They claim they don’t want to create a humanitarian crisis, although that’s exactly what they’re doing.”

As some Florida Republicans in Congress celebrated the secretary of state’s announcement, Cuban officials fired back, with Bruno Rodríguez, Cuba’s foreign affairs minister, taking aim at Rubio in a social media post.

“The US regime’s secretary of state, driven by ambitions of conquest, presidential aspirations, and the vengeful sentiments of the elitist clique that propelled his political career, now further tightens the economic and energy stranglehold against Cuba,” he wrote in Spanish. “To justify it, he does not resort to excuses prepared by his State Department, but to the usual crude lies, the most aggressive, uncouth, and rabid among Cuba’s enemies.”

Ernesto Soberón, Cuba’s permanent representative to the United Nations, accused Rubio of “peddling crude lies” while the US ambassador to the UN, Mike Waltz, “mindlessly parrots the claim that the blockade does not exist and is, therefore, not primarily responsible for the suffering of the Cuban people.”

“The cynicism of top US officials knows no bounds,” Soberón said. “Stop the collective punishment of the Cuban people.”




This week alone, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk, the International Association of Democratic Lawyers, and thousands of Italian medical professionals have spoken out against the US blockade of Cuba.

“The fuel restrictions imposed since early 2026 and recent tightening of extraterritorial sanctions, taken together, are directly harming Cubans, especially the most vulnerable,” said Türk. “Children are dying because doctors lack access to essential medical supplies and medicines. This is unacceptable. These sanctions must be lifted immediately.”

The Trump administration’s targeting of CUPET came a week after it sanctioned Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel, his wife, and three other individuals.

“We just want them to be a nicely run country,” Trump told journalists in the Oval Office last week, when asked whether those sanctions were meant to accelerate Cuba’s collapse. “The country is starving, and it’s got no energy, it’s got no oil, it’s got no money, it’s got nothing. It’s got a beautiful piece of land. You could have beautiful resorts.”

Trump said that Cuba had already “sort of collapsed” and “we’re going to handle that as soon as we’ve finished” military operations in Iran. He added, “I like to do one thing at a time.”

Earlier this week, Elena Gutiérrez, a Mexican American activist at Global Exchange, wrote for Foreign Policy In Focus about returning from three trips to the island this year “with my heart a little more broken, but also with a stronger conviction that we need to defend Cuba.”

“But can US citizens truly stop the madness their own empire imposes on them and on the rest of the world? Let us hope so, because only the people of the United States—and no one else—can carry out the transformations their own country needs,” according to Gutiérrez. “Only then will Cuba, the United States, Mexico, and the rest of the world be free.”

US Citizens Must Stop the Madness Their Empire Imposes on Them and the World

Today, the United States has the opportunity to prove to itself and to the world that the mistakes committed by its government do not reflect the desires of the US people.


Protesters demand that the Biden administration take immediate action to reverse the actions taken by the Trump administration to deepen the economic war against Cuba.
(Photo by Michael Siluk/Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Elena Gutiérrez
Jun 11, 2026

Foreign Policy In Focus

Since January 2026, when the intensification of US policies aimed at suffocating the Cuban people began, I have had the opportunity to travel to the island three times. Each time I return with my heart a little more broken, but also with a stronger conviction that we need to defend Cuba.

As a Mexican, I have received, on behalf of my compatriots, thousands of expressions of gratitude and hugs that the Cuban people send to the Mexican people. Every time I am there, I speak about the empathy and understanding we have toward Cuba, about the great efforts ordinary Mexicans make to bring a few kilos of rice to collection centers. And when I listen to Cubans, I learn a little more about the deep history that unites us.

Without a US-Iran Peace Deal, the World Is Headed for an Energy Crisis Apocalypse

But as a Mexican American and a binational activist, I also carry the weight of understanding the average US citizen. After many years of living in the United States, I continue to be surprised by how deeply the dream of democracy lives within people there, despite the fact that the country has been experiencing a deepening democratic crisis for years.

The deprivation imposed by Washington on the Cuban people for decades is now being reflected within the very core of the empire itself. It is suffered not only by migrants, Native Americans, Black communities, and the historically oppressed. Today, that same yoke has reached a white middle class that is beginning to feel the collapse of freedoms originally created for them.

Only the people of the United States—and no one else—can carry out the transformations their own country needs.

Fortunately, people in the United States can learn much here from Latin America—and Cuba in particular. They can learn from the region’s long history of struggle against Washington’s domination—and from the long construction of democratic processes from below that go far beyond just elections.

The resilience and social fabric the Cuban people have built are unique, just as unique as the oppression caused by the blockade the US government has maintained for all these decades. The United States needs public healthcare, free access to university education, and affordable housing. It needs to stop investing the billions it spends on war and instead invest that money in its own people. Cuba has done that.

The dream of democracy in any country is built beyond the ballot box alone, through projects that people themselves embrace and carry out. Today, the United States has the opportunity to prove to itself and to the world that the mistakes committed by its government do not reflect the desires of the US people. Today, as C. Wright Mills said 60 years ago, “Cuba’s voice must be heard in the United States, because the United States is too powerful and its responsibilities to the world and to itself are too great for its people not to hear the voices coming from the hungry world.”

The United States is preparing for another electoral cycle while its policies of war and interventionism throughout the Global South get reaffirmed.

At the same time, the island of 10 million inhabitants is preparing to continue resisting in the face of the possibility of an attack. In Cuba’s “Family Guide for Protection in Case of Military Aggression,” one can read recommendations for what to pack in a backpack: identification, a radio, candles, food, medicine, and toys to help distract children.

A recently published poll by the Center for Economic Policy Research (CEPR), a think tank based in Washington, DC, reveals that more than 60% of US citizens oppose a war with Cuba. At the same time, solidarity networks with Cuba in the United States—which have existed since the beginning of the blockade—are reactivating with renewed strength.

But can US citizens truly stop the madness their own empire imposes on them and on the rest of the world? Let us hope so, because only the people of the United States—and no one else—can carry out the transformations their own country needs. Only then will Cuba, the United States, Mexico, and the rest of the world be free.

© 2023 Foreign Policy In Focus


Elena Gutiérrez
Elena Gutiérrez is Global Exchange’s Mexico-US program director.
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