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Lethal Petty Bigots 'R Us
As the country tumbles into fascism, we are consoled by tee vee host, sexual predator, inept alcoholic, definitely-not-gay serious person and Defense Secretary Whisky Pete Hegseth taking on the big issues of the day and hewing to his obsession with "warrior ethos" by ordering the Navy to strip the name of gay rights icon Harvey Milk from a U.S. Navy Ship - with a pointed, delectable twist of performative cruelty, during Pride Month yet. Whew: One less gay ship to worry about.
According to reports from Military.com and CBS, the scandal-plagued, staggeringly petty leader of the world's largest military force sent a memo to Navy Secretary John Phelan, the official with actual ship-naming power, ordering him to rename the oiler ship USNS Harvey Milk, a civilian-crewed ship typically used for transport and resupply vs. a military-crewed USS, United States Ship. In a statement, Phelan said Hegseth "is committed to ensuring that the names attached to all DOD installations and assets are reflective of the Commander-in-Chief’s priorities, our nation’s history, and the warrior ethos," never mind that five-time-deferred Private Bonespurs obviously knows zilch about the "warrior culture" except in his fever dreams. But sure: Go lethality!
It turns out Harvey Milk was far more a warrior than either TACO Man or Pete Kegsbreath. Part of a family with a history of naval service, Harvey served in the Korean War from 1951 to 1955 as a diving officer on a submarine rescue ship; he was forced to resign and accept an “other than honorable” discharge due to his homosexuality. He continued battling bigotry for the rest of his life: He became one of the country's first openly gay elected officials when he won a seat on San Francisco's Board of Supervisors in 1977, and had become an icon of the gay rights movement before he was assassinated at 48 after years of facing off against threats. "If a bullet should enter my brain," he once said, "let that bullet destroy every closet door.”
In 2009, President Obama posthumously awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In 2016, after a group of LGBTQ veterans spent years lobbying for it, the USNS Harvey Milk was christened; Obama's Navy Secretary Ray Mabus called the action not just the honoring of a veteran and gay hero but "the righting of a wrong." Harvey's ship is part of a class of oilers recognizing the late "Conscience of Congress" John Lewis, whose name is on the first one; they all aim to honor "great people that represented the best ideals of our country," now threatened:- RFK, Earl Warren, Sojourner Truth. Recommended future ones: Thurgood Marshall, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Harriet Tubman, Dolores Huerta, Lucy Stone, Cesar Chavez and Medgar Evers.
Any of these righteous warriors could be targeted next - despite naval tradition that renaming brings bad luck - by a white nationalist man-child intent on foisting MAGA's bigotry on us all by eliminating the evils of diversity, aka "that DEI woke shit," from pulling books about equality off military shelves to trashing/firing women officers to restoring Confederate names to military bases 'cause they were cancelled by libs but wait now he's cancelling gay icons, who are evidently worse. One critic calls Hegseth's "rampage" to eliminate anyone from U.S. history who is not a heterosexual White man "an affront to the LGBTQ community and decency itself...There have been gay members of the military since there was the first military, and to ignore or erase that is just bigoted and small-minded."
Stuart Milk, Harvey's nephew and chair of the Harvey Milk Foundation, decries the loss to members of the military of "a reminder that no barriers of race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity (will) restrain their human spirit.” Nancy Pelosi calls the offense to "our Harvey" a "shameful, vindictive erasure of those who fought to break down barriers for all to chase the American dream...His spiteful move does not strengthen our national security or the ‘warrior’ ethos...It is a surrender of a fundamental American value: to honor the legacy of those who worked to build a better country.” It's also childish, mean and impossibly dumb: Doesn't Mr. Combat Ready With the Make-Up Studio have anything more important to do than change the names of boats, like maybe stop all those $40 million planes from falling into the ocean?
On Reddit, people raged against Hegseth's hateful, homophobic, obsessive, manly-man, "bigoted punk" fascism: "What an asshole. What a snowflake. What a fucking thin-skinned loser. Ain't no hate quite like Christian love. Grandstanding and performative bullshit. History will not be kind to you." Projection is mulled: "At some point it's just gay to think about gay stuff all the time. Pete’s totally not gay." Questions abound: "Will Harvey turn other boats gay? Are ships manufactured gay out of the factory? Or do they choose to be gay after experimenting in ship college?" New names are offered: USS Jack Daniels, Tom of Finland, Stonewall Inn. Also: "Finally our long national nightmare is over" and, "What a fearless warfighter - he really showed that warship who's boss." And on our current, tawdry, spirit-draining timeline, "Too much, too stupid."
Jun 04, 2025
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Youth Sue Over Trump Executive Orders That 'Escalate' Climate Crisis
Nearly two dozen American children and young adults sued U.S. President Donald Trump, leaders in his administration, and various agencies in federal court on Thursday over a trio of executive orders they argue "escalate" the climate emergency that imperils their futures.
Lighthiser v. Trump, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Montana, challenges executive orders (EOs) 14156, 14154, and 14261—which, respectively, declared a "national energy emergency," directed agencies to "unleash" American energy by accelerating fossil fuel development, and called for boosting the country's coal industry.
"Trump's fossil fuel orders are a death sentence for my generation," said named plaintiff Eva Lighthiser in a statement. "I'm not suing because I want to—I'm suing because I have to. My health, my future, and my right to speak the truth are all on the line. He's waging war on us with fossil fuels as his weapon, and we're fighting back with the Constitution."
Specifically, the complaint argues that "the EOs violate the Fifth Amendment substantive due process clause on their face by depriving plaintiffs of their fundamental rights to life and liberty." The filing also states that the orders are ultra vires—meaning they go beyond Trump's presidential authority "in assuming powers reserved to and exercised by Congress through Article I" of the U.S. Constitution.
"From day one of the current administration, President Trump has issued directives to increase fossil fuel use and production, and block an energy transition to wind, solar, battery storage, energy efficiency, and electric vehicles," the complaint reads. "President Trump's EOs falsely claim an energy emergency, while the true emergency is that fossil fuel pollution is destroying the foundation of plaintiffs' lives."
"These unconstitutional directives have the immediate effect of (a) slowing the buildout of U.S. energy infrastructure that eliminates planet-heating fossil fuel greenhouse gas pollution... and (b) increasing the use of fossil fuels that pollute the air, water, lands, and climate on which plaintiffs' lives depend," the filing stresses.
🚨 Youth from Montana and four other states are suing the Trump administration for violating their constitutional rights with executive orders that fast-track fossil fuel projects, worsen the climate crisis, and suppress climate science. PR: bit.ly/youthsuetrump-pr #YouthvGov
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— Our Children’s Trust (@youthvgov.bsky.social) May 29, 2025 at 10:11 AM
The youth are asking the district court to declare Trump's EOs and related executive actions "unlawful, unconstitutional, ultra vires, and invalid," and to issue a permanent injunction blocking the long list of defendants from implementing or enforcing them.
Lighthiser is a 19-year-old from Livingston, Montana. She and 24-year-old Rikki Held are among 10 of 22 plaintiffs in this case who were also part of Held v. State of Montana, in which a judge in 2023 agreed with young residents who argued that Montana violated their state constitutional rights by promoting fossil fuel extraction. The Montana Supreme Court upheld that decision last December.
Both groups of young plaintiffs are represented by Our Children's Trust, known for several youth climate lawsuits, including Juliana v. United States, the landmark constitutional case that the U.S. Supreme Court ended in March.
Lead attorney Julia Olson of Our Children's Trust said Thursday that "these executive orders are an overt abuse of power. The president is knowingly putting young people's lives in danger to serve fossil fuel interests, while silencing scientists and defying laws passed by Congress."
"These young plaintiffs refuse to be collateral damage in a fossil fuel war on their future," Olson continued. "They are demanding accountability where it still matters—in a court of law. The executive branch is not above the Constitution, and these young people are here to prove it."
For Lighthiser v. Trump, Our Children's Trust has partnered with Gregory Law Group, McGarvey Law, and Public Justice.
"The government's actions irreparably harm our nation's most important asset: our children," said Dan Snyder, director of the Environmental Enforcement Project for Public Justice. "The science is irrefutable that humans and their pollution are causing climate change, and that a changing climate will result in a growing list of injuries that are uniquely felt by America's youngest population."
"Our children enjoy the same constitutional rights to life and liberty as adults, yet have been tasked with shouldering the impact of a destabilized climate system without ever having a say in the matter," he added. "President Trump's executive orders are unlawful and intolerable, and these youth plaintiffs shall put an end to it."
May 29, 2025
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Pentagon and Immigration Spending in GOP Bill Could Instead Protect Medicaid Coverage
With the House GOP's Medicaid-slashing reconciliation bill now headed to the Republican-controlled Senate, a trio of groups on Thursday highlighted that the tens of billions the reconciliation legislation allocates for the Pentagon and the Trump administration's immigration crackdown efforts could instead be used to protect and expand health insurance access for millions.
House Republicans' reconciliation bill includes $163 billion for the Pentagon and for mass deportation and border-related expenses that U.S. President Donald Trump has requested be allocated in fiscal year 2026. Those dollars could instead go toward providing 31 million adults with Medicaid, or providing 71 million people with Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, according to a report titled Trading Life for Death: What the Reconciliation Bill Puts at Stake in Your State.
The report is a joint publication from the progressive watchdog Public Citizen, the progressive policy research organization the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), and the National Priorities Project (NPP), which is a federal budget research organization and a project of IPS.
In a statement on Thursday, Lindsay Koshgarian, program director at NPP and one of the authors of the report, framed the reconciliation package as a "direct redistribution of resources from struggling Americans to the Pentagon and militarization."
The reconciliation bill, which passed 215-214 in the House of Representatives on Thursday, includes tax cuts tilted toward the wealthy that would add $3.8 trillion to the national debt, a roll back in clean energy tax credits, sweeping cuts to Medicaid and SNAP to the tune of nearly $1 trillion, and an increase in the maximum payment available through the child tax credit until 2028—though the bill is designed so that it would block an estimated 4.5 million children from accessing the credit, according to the Center for Migration Studies.
Under the legislation, an estimated 8.6 million people would lose Medicaid coverage over the next 10 years, according to a May 11 analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimates that 11 million people would be at risk of losing at least some of their food assistance under the changes to SNAP.
Millions more could lose their healthcare due to Obamacare decisions/provisions.
Per the report, the militarized spending increases for 2026 would more than enough to fund Medicaid for the millions who are at risk of losing their health insurance under the bill, and the millions at risk of losing their SNAP benefits.
In addition to highlighting that the bill includes a huge cash injection for the U.S. Department of Defense, the report argues the Pentagon does not need more money. "The United States is already the world's largest military spender, allocating more taxpayer dollars to the Pentagon than the next nine countries combined," according to the report, which also notes that the department has never passed an audit.
The three groups also quantify the tradeoffs between defense spending and healthcare at a more granular level.
For example, the bill includes a $25 billion initial investment in Trump's "Golden Dome" project, a multilayered defense system that Trump has said will be capable of "intercepting missiles even if they are launched from other sides of the world and even if they are launched from space," according to CBS News.
In just one congressional district, Tennessee's 2nd District, taxpayer funds going toward the investment in the Golden Dome could instead be used to put 12,310 people on Medicaid, according to the report. In Texas' 21st District, taxpayers' funds redirected to support the Golden Dome could provide Medicaid to 13,589 people.
"If implemented, this budget would rip the rug out from under everyday Americans relying on Medicaid and SNAP to survive, just to further enrich Pentagon contractors," said Savannah Wooten, People Over Pentagon advocate at Public Citizen and report co-author, in a statement on Thursday. "Stealing money away from life-sustaining programs to fund war, weapons, and death should be an immediate nonstarter for every member of Congress."
May 23, 2025
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Warren Report: Musk Leveraged Government Access for Personal Gain
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the Democrat from Massachusetts, on Tuesday released a report chronicling over 100 examples of "unethical or potentially corrupt actions" that either benefit billionaire Elon Musk or one of his companies and which took place while Musk played a key role in the Trump administration.
According to the report, the past few months have been very profitable for Musk, who officially departed the White House last week. "Since Election Day, Musk's staggering net worth has increased by over $100 billion," the report states.
After spending some $290 million to help elect U.S. President Donald Trump and other Republicans last fall, Musk was tapped by Trump to lead the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, a body tasked with slashing government personnel and spending. DOGE's sweep of government has led, for example, to the hollowing out of the U.S. Agency for International Development and contract cuts at many other agencies.
Last week, Musk announced that he is departing the White House, just ahead of an official May 30 deadline for his departure as a special government employee. That designation allowed the world's richest man to play a key role in the Trump White House without facing Senate confirmation.
During that time, Musk "maintained extensive financial conflicts of interest through his ownership or stake" in several companies, including the electric vehicle company Tesla and his aerospace firm SpaceX, per the report, which was first written up by Rolling Stone.
According to the report, "not every action listed below represents a violation of federal law. In many cases, Musk has violated norms at an astonishing pace." However, "in other cases, Musk has engaged in action that may have violated the statutory prohibition regarding federal employees; participation in particular matters in which a government official has a financial interest, laws against bribery and gratuities, or the regulations prohibiting use of one's government position for private gain."
The report, titled Special Interests Over the Public Interest: Elon Musk's 130 Days in the Trump Administration, sorts the listed actions into 15 main categories, such as "official government time and resources [that] have been spent promoting Musk's businesses." In that first category, the report gives the example of the time that Trump turned the White House lawn into a Tesla showroom.
In a category titled "Musk's parochial interests over the public interest," the report highlights how Musk has appeared to influence Trump's actions toward South Africa, Musk's country of birth.
Musk has been critical of a law passed in South Africa earlier this year, which allows the government to seize land under set circumstances. The law is meant to help rectify the economic exclusion that Black South Africans faced during apartheid. In February, Trump issued an executive order freezing aid to South Africa over the law.
The report also details federal government contracts that Musk's various ventures have either secured or are being considered for. For example, in February, NASA chose SpaceX to provide launch services for a space telescope, a contract worth $100 million. SpaceX is also reportedly being considered to construct part of Trump's "Golden Dome" missile defense shield.
Warren's report also gives instances in which "largely guided by Musk's DOGE, the Trump administration has hamstrung the agencies overseeing Musk's companies, gutting their staff, throwing sand in the gears of their operations, and embedding DOGE staff loyal to Musk." The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in particular has been a target of DOGE.
Jun 03, 2025
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Trump Order to Hospitals on Emergency Abortions 'Means Women Will Die,' Warn Advocates
Ensuring unequivocally that hospitals must provide abortion care to patients whose pregnancies have placed them in life-threatening medical emergencies is not "the policy of this administration," said the nation's top health agency on Tuesday—making clear, said one Democratic senator, that Trump administration officials "don't care how many women die or are forced into health crises to advance their anti-abortion agenda."
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released a policy statement saying that guidance regarding emergency abortion care introduced in July 2022 by the Biden administration—just after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that people in the U.S. don't have the constitutional right to abortion care—was being rescinded.
Former President Joe Biden made clear to hospitals in 2022 that under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA), they were obligated to provide abortion care if it was medically necessary, even in states that ban abortions. Medical emergencies that required abortion care included "ectopic pregnancy, complications of pregnancy loss, or emergent hypertensive disorders, such as preeclampsia with severe features," according to Biden's guidance.
The 1986 law requires hospitals that receive federal funding to treat or stabilize patients experiencing medical emergencies even if they lack health insurance or cannot pay for health services, or to transfer them to another facility for care. EMTALA has been interpreted to include abortion care by both Republican and Democratic administrations going back to former President George W. Bush, but the CMS statement suggested President Donald Trump will not require hospitals to protect women's health or lives by providing abortions.
While rescinding Biden's guidance, CMS said it would continue to enforce EMTALA, "including for identified emergency medical conditions that place the health of a pregnant woman or her unborn child in serious jeopardy."
"CMS will work to rectify any perceived legal confusion and instability created by the former administration's actions," the agency added—an apparent reference to a lawsuit filed by the Biden administration against Idaho, which claimed its near-total abortion ban superseded EMTALA.
That case went to the Supreme Court in 2024 and was dismissed, leaving in tact a federal court ruling that required Idaho hospitals to provide emergency abortion care.
Fatima Goss Graves, president and CEO of the National Women's Law Center, emphasized that the CMS action "doesn't change hospitals' legal obligations, but it does add to the fear, confusion, and dangerous delays patients and providers have faced since the fall of Roe v. Wade."
"Stripping away federal guidance affirming what the law requires will put lives at risk," said Goss Graves. "At the same time, this administration claims it is considering ways to support 'population growth,' but it is actively dismantling the systems that protect pregnant people's health and lives. The hypocrisy is staggering. No matter what political games the administration wants to play, we will continue to stand with the patients, doctors, and hospitals fighting every day to do what is right."
Mary Ziegler, a professor at University of California, Davis, toldThe New York Times that the CMS guidance creates "a lot of unanswered questions about what hospitals are supposed to do going forward. So more confusion means more risk."
"We've already seen since the overturn of Roe that uncertainty and confusion tends to mean physicians are unwilling to intervene, and the more unwilling physicians are to intervene, the more risk there is in pregnancy," said Ziegler.
The Center for Reproductive Rights said that "confusion is the point" of the new policy statement.
"The Trump administration would rather women die in emergency rooms than receive lifesaving abortions," said Nancy Northup, the group's president and CEO.
The deaths of at least five women as the result of abortion bans in Texas and Georgia have been reported since Roe v. Wade was overturned, with doctors avoiding providing abortion care even in cases of nonviable pregnancies, for fear of being prosecuted.
Mini Timmaraju, president and CEO of Reproductive Freedom for All, said in a statement that rescinding Biden's guidance "means women will die."
"The Trump administration is clearly refusing to protect pregnant people in crisis," said Timmaraju. "It's another calculated step in Trump's war on reproductive freedom—siding with extremists who want to punish doctors and abandon patients. No one should be denied emergency care, and we'll hold every official who enables this cruelty accountable."
Alexa Kolbi-Molinas, deputy director of the ACLU's Reproductive Freedom Project, said the organization "will use every lever we have to keep President Trump and his administration from endangering our health and lives."
"The Trump administration cannot simply erase four decades of law protecting patients' lives with the stroke of a pen," said Kolbi-Molinas. "Regardless of where they live, pregnant patients have a right to emergency abortion care that will save their health or lives. By rescinding this guidance, the Trump administration has sent a clear signal that it is siding not with the majority, but with its anti-abortion allies—and that will come at the expense of women's lives."
U.S. Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) also sought to provide clarification.
"Once again, the Trump administration is sending a clear message that they do not care about women's lives," said Murray. "Make no mistake: EMTALA is still the law, and Trump rescinding this guidance does not change the fact that pregnant women who need emergency abortion care to save their life or health are still legally entitled to this care."
Jun 04, 2025
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International Red Cross Chief Says Gaza Conditions 'Worse' Than 'Hell on Earth'
The president of one of the world's top humanitarian groups said in an interview Wednesday that nearly 20 months after Israel began its relentless assault on Gaza, the international community is watching "a type of warfare... that deprives civilians of their dignity entirely."
Jeremy Bowen, international editor for BBC News, asked International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) president Mirjana Spoljaric about comments she made last month when she visited Gaza, several weeks into Israel's total blockade on humanitarian aid, and declared that the enclave had been transformed into "hell on Earth."
"Has anything changed?" asked Bowen.
"It has become worse," replied Spoljaric. "Humanity is failing in Gaza... We cannot continue to watch what is happening. It's surpassing any acceptable legal, moral, and humane standard."
Spoljaric's latest remarks came a week after the U.S.- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) began its aid operations, with proponents claiming the private company staffed by U.S. security contractors would save the lives of Gaza residents who have faced increasing starvation and malnutrition since the current blockade began in March—while ensuring Hamas did not steal or divert the aid. The United Nations has said there is no evidence Hamas has systematically diverted relief from civilians.
Fears about the GHF's plan—expressed by aid organizations, the U.N., and the former executive director who resigned the day before operations began—have been proven correct since the group opened its distribution sites in southern Gaza last week. At least 27 Palestinians were killed Tuesday at one of the aid sites when the Israel Defense Forces opened fire—yet another incident of the IDF killing of people trying to obtain aid.
The ICRC said its field hospital in Rafah received "a mass casualty influx of 184 patients" early on Tuesday morning.
"This includes nineteen cases who were declared dead upon arrival and eight more who died due to their wounds shortly after," said the group. "The majority of cases suffered gunshot wounds. Again, all responsive patients said they were trying to reach an assistance distribution site."
Mohamed Zidan, the husband of a woman named Reem al-Akhras who was killed in Tuesday's mass shooting, said the GHF operation was "not humanitarian aid—it's a trap."
"She went to bring us some food, and this is what happened to her," her son Zain Zidan toldAl Jazeera.
Journalist Rania Khalek condemned corporate news outlets for their reports of "conflicting accounts" as Israel said that the IDF fired only at "several suspects moving toward them."
"Outrageous," said Khalek. "The Israelis are proven liars, their narrative should not be given any legitimacy. CNN continues to cover for genocide, shameful."
Israeli forces also opened fire at one of the sites on Sunday, killing 20 people and wounding hundreds who had walked an average of 9.3 miles to the distribution hub, hoping to carry home food boxes weighing about 44 pounds, with enough food to last about three days before they would need to make the trek—and avoid IDF soldiers stationed at the sites—again.
On Wednesday, the GHF said its four distribution sites would be closed for the day to improve "organization and efficiency," while the IDF warned Palestinians to stay away from the sites and the roads leading to them, saying they had been designated "combat zones."
U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres demanded an independent inquiry into the killing of Palestinians at food distribution sites.
"It is unacceptable that Palestinians are risking their lives for food," Guterres said.
Gaza's Health Ministry reported Wednesday that at least 94 Palestinians had been killed and 440 had been wounded in Israel's attacks across the enclave in the past 24 hours.
In her interview with the BBC, Spoljaric said that the destruction of more than 90% of Gaza's housing units, the risk of famine for the entire population, and the forced displacement of 90% of Palestinians in the enclave represent "a people being entirely stripped of its human dignity."
"There is no excuse for depriving children of their access to food, health, and security," said Spoljaric. "There are rules in the conduct of hostilities that every party to every conflict has to respect."
Spoljaric called on international leaders to take all available actions to stop "a type of warfare that shows utmost disrespect for civilians."
"Today we are in it," she said. "Today we can reverse it. We can save lives today."
Few U.S. officials have called for an end to the government's support for the IDF, and the U.S. continues to repeat Israel's claim that it is acting in self-defense and targeting Hamas rather than civilians.
Several European leaders in recent weeks have harshly criticized Israel's intensified military campaign in Gaza and its humanitarian aid blockade, with German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul suggesting the country could soon impose arms export sanctions.
"It's important to act now," said Spoljaric. "State leaders are under an obligation to act."
Jun 04, 2025
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Professors Express Outrage Over UMich's Use of Investigators to Surveil Gaza Student Protestors
"My university has no business doing this," wrote one professor at the University of Michigan Law School.
Jun 06, 2025
Multiple professors expressed outrage on Friday in response to reporting from The Guardian, which found that the University of Michigan is making use of undercover investigators to keep tabs on pro-Palestinian groups on campus.
"My university has no business doing this. I love the University of Michigan, and this is not how we should operate," said University of Michigan Law School professor Sam Bagenstos, writing from his personal Bluesky account.
The Guardian spoke to several unnamed students who said that they have been followed, recorded, or eavesdropped on private investigators. Students who spoke to the outlet tracked dozens of investigators who have trailed them around campus.
Students say they have confronted the investigators, and one student captured on video multiple interactions with a man who the student says has been following him. In one video, the man falsely accuses the student of attempting to rob him, and in another the man appears to fake being disabled.
When contacted by the outlet, the University of Michigan did not deny the surveillance, which The Guardian reported appears to be largely an intimidation tactic. The school said it had not received any complaints about the investigators.
"Any security measures in place are solely focused on maintaining a safe and secure campus environment and are never directed at individuals or groups based on their beliefs or affiliations," a spokesperson for the school said in an email.
One student who says she's been regularly followed is Katrina Keating, a student who is a part of Students Allied for Freedom and Equality, which is a local chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine. Keating told The Guardian that the surveillance has made her feel "on edge." Keating said she was first followed in November.
According to The Guardian, the investigators appear to work for the private security group City Shield. The university's governing body, the board of regents, paid at least $800,000 to City Shield's parent company from June 2023 to September 2024.
"Disgusting. University of Michigan pays around $800,000 to a private security firm to surveil pro-Palestinian students," wrote Marc Owen Jones, an associate professor at Northwestern University in Qatar.
Adil Haque, a professor at Rutgers Law School, wrote: "Outrageous. This is a public university."
Chris Geraldi, a journalist with New York Focus, wrote that "every paragraph of this story is bonkers."
In April, with the blessing of Democratic Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, law enforcement officers raided the homes of multiple student organizers connected to Palestine solidarity protests at the University of Michigan.
Students who spoke to The Guardian said the surveillance has increased in the wake of those raids.
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After Trump Deportation Attempt, Migrants and ICE Agents Stranded in Shipping Container in Djibouti
"This is a situation the government both created and can remedy if it so chooses," said a lawyer for the migrants.
Jun 06, 2025
The Trump administration could have sent eight migrants with deportation orders and the immigration agents who were escorting them to a facility in the U.S. after a federal judge recently barred officials from deporting them to war-torn South Sudan, where they could face persecution or torture.
Instead the administration sent them to U.S. Naval Base Camp Lemonnier in the East African country of Djibouti, where a court filing on Thursday said they face illness, the threat of rocket fire from nearby Yemen, temperatures that soar past 100°F daily, and rancid smoke from nearby burn pits where human waste and trash are incinerated.
Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, blamed U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy for "stranding" the 13 Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and eight detainees at the naval base, where they have been housed since late May in a metal shipping container converted into a conference room with just six bunk beds.
The administration has frequently attacked judges for issuing rulings that have interfered with President Donald Trump's ability to carry out his anti-immigration agenda.
But Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, pointed to court transcripts that showed the Trump administration had requested the migrants and agents be sent to Camp Lemonnier.
"No one asked them to do and no court order forces them to do it," said Reichlin-Melnick Thursday.
In a court transcript, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Drew Ensign told Murphy that "bringing them back would be a much broader remedy than necessary" and suggested the detainees could have a "reasonable fear interview where they are" in Djibouti to determine if they had a credible fear of persecution or torture if they were deported. Murphy had instructed officials to arrange reasonable fear interviews when he ruled in May that they could not be sent to South Sudan.
"The judge did NOT require that anyone be 'stranded' anywhere," said Reichlin-Melnick. "In fact, it was the Trump administration that asked the judge for permission to hold the men in Djibouti! ICE could literally bring the men to any other U.S. base (or back to the U.S.) at any time!"
Murphy's ruling in May interrupted a deportation flight carrying the migrants—who have been convicted of crimes and are from Cuba, Laos, Mexico, Myanmar, South Sudan, and Vietnam—to South Sudan.
The judge said the flight violated his previous order from April 18, which prohibited the administration from sending immigrants to third countries without providing them a chance to request humanitarian protections. That ruling was underpinned by the Convention Against Torture, which bars governments from deporting people to countries where they could be face torture.
"The judge gave the government a choice as to how to remedy the government's violation of the court's order—either return them and comply with the order in the United States or comply with the order overseas," Trina Realmuto, a lawyer for the immigrants, toldThe Intercept. "The government opted to comply overseas after telling the court that they had the ability to do so. This is a situation the government both created and can remedy if it so chooses."
The court filing on Thursday by Mellissa Harper of the Office of Refugee Resettlement described how within 72 hours of arriving at the makeshift detention facility in Djibouti, the agents and migrants began to suffer from symptoms for bacterial respiratory infections, including "coughing, difficulty breathing, fever, and achy joints."
The filing explained that they are unable to get tested to determine what the illness is, and there is only a small supply of inhalers, Tylenol, eye drops, and nasal spray to treat the symptoms.
Based on what was described, Politico's Kyle Cheney asked: "Why is the Trump administration forcing them to stay there?"
"ICE's claims of difficulties here are ENTIRELY self-inflicted," said Reichlin-Melnick. "THEY asked the judge for permission to hold the men in Djibouti. The plaintiffs wanted the men brought back here. I have sympathy for the low-level officers stuck there, but it's ALL their bosses' fault."
The administration has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to stay Murphy's order requiring screenings for the migrants, claiming that ruling violated officials' authority to deport immigrants to third countries if their home countries won't take them back.
But in the case of at least one of the migrants, Jesus Munoz Gutierrez, the government of his home country of Mexico was not informed that he had been sent to Djibouti.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum suggested last month that Gutierrez could be repatriated if U.S. followed protocols to send him back to Mexico.
Setareh Ghandehari, advocacy director for Detention Watch Network, toldNewsweek that the administration's insistence on detaining the migrants in a shipping container at Camp Lemonniere is "the latest move in Trump's shocking expansion of third country deportations."
"By expelling people out of sight and out of mind to remote prisons and war-torn, unstable countries," said Ghandehari, "the Trump regime is attempting to normalize the offshoring of immigration detention and third country deportations as a new and expanded model of incarceration and deportation."
Ghandehari added that "the use of shipping containers to detain people is heinous and enraging—and coupled with the extreme heat, disease, and threats of rocket attacks in Djibouti, can be deadly."
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70+ Legal Experts Accuse Pam Bondi of 'Serious Professional Misconduct'
"As Ms. Bondi and her senior staff are fond of saying, no one is above the law, and this includes Ms. Bondi," the document says.
Jun 06, 2025
Over 70 legal experts and a trio of organizations have sent the Florida Bar an ethics complaint calling for an investigation and "appropriate sanctions" against U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, accusing her of engaging in "serious professional misconduct that threatens the rule of law and the administration of justice."
The 23-page complaint, filed Thursday, is signed by Democracy Defenders Fund, Lawyers Defending American Democracy, Lawyers for the Rule of Law, and individual attorneys, law professors, and former judges. It was first reported by the Miami Herald.
"We file this complaint recognizing that Ms. Bondi currently serves as the attorney general of the United States, the highest-ranking lawyer in the United States government," the coalition wrote. "Indeed, we bring Ms. Bondi's misconduct to your attention precisely because Ms. Bondi holds this exalted position, with the attendant responsibilities for subordinate lawyers under her authority who carry out her directives, and because the complaint highlights for the entire legal profession the importance of ethical rules to our independent, self-regulating profession."
"Ms. Bondi, personally and through her senior management, has sought to compel Department of Justice lawyers to violate their ethical obligations under the guise of 'zealous advocacy.'"
After former Florida Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz withdrew from consideration to lead the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) last November, then-President-elect Donald Trump swiftly announced Bondi as his new pick. Senate Republicans and Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) confirmed her in February, despite various concerns, including her lobbyist work for corporate giants.
On Bondi's first day, she moved to dissolve teams that probed foreign lobbying and threats posed by corporate misconduct, revive enforcement of the federal death penalty, investigate DOJ officials who prosecuted Trump, defund sanctuary cities, and end diversity, equity, and inclusion policies and programs. She also issued a memorandum highlighted in the new complaint.
"The gravamen of this complaint is that Ms. Bondi, personally and through her senior management, has sought to compel Department of Justice lawyers to violate their ethical obligations under the guise of 'zealous advocacy' as announced in her memorandum to all Department employees, issued on her first day in office, threatening employees with discipline and possible termination for falling short," the filing states.
The complaint details "three glaring examples of department lawyers being terminated or forced to resign as a result of demands that they act unethically issued by Ms. Bondi or a member of her senior management, including Emil Bove, initially the acting deputy attorney general (the No. 2 position in the department) and now the principal associate deputy attorney general (the No. 3 position); Todd Blanche, the current deputy attorney general; and Edward Martin, then interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia and now chief of the Justice Department's 'Weaponization Working Group' and the department's pardon attorney."
"Through her 'zealous advocacy' memorandum and its application in these three cases, Ms. Bondi has sent a message to all Justice Department lawyers that they must disregard the applicable rules of professional conduct, fundamental ethical principles, and long-standing norms of the Department in order to zealously pursue the president's political objectives—and, if they fail to do so, they will be disciplined or fired," the filing adds. "However, as Ms. Bondi and her senior staff are fond of saying, no one is above the law, and this includes Ms. Bondi."
We have joined @democracydefendersaction.org, @normeisen.bsky.social & many others in filing this ethics complaint against Pam Bondi. "The Attorney General's assault on ethical standards threatens the rule of law throughout the country," LDAD's James W Conrad, Jr www.miamiherald.com/news/politic...
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— Lawyers Defending American Democracy (@ldadorg.bsky.social) June 5, 2025 at 12:33 PM
The Florida Bar confirmed receipt of the complaint to the Miami Herald but did not comment further. The coalition noted that "we file this complaint notwithstanding the Florida Bar's recent reply to two previous ethics complaints filed against Ms. Bondi that it 'does not investigate or prosecute sitting officers appointed under the U.S. Constitution while they are in office.'"
"The purported rationale for declining to investigate or prosecute is that such action 'could encroach on the authority of the federal government concerning these officials and the exercise of their duties,'" the coalition continued. "The Florida Bar's dismissal is unsupported by history or precedent."
Chad Mizelle, DOJ chief of staff, suggested in a statement to the Miami Herald that the new call for a probe of Bondi will be unsuccessful, like the previous submissions.
"The Florida Bar has twice rejected performative attempts by these out-of-state lawyers to weaponize the bar complaint process against AG Bondi," said Mizelle. "This third vexatious attempt will fail to do anything other than prove that the signatories have less intelligence—and independent thoughts—than sheep."
Meanwhile, Norm Eisen, executive chair of Democracy Defenders Fund, said in a statement that "since her first day on the job, Pam Bondi has made clear that she plans to use the Department of Justice for political pursuits, and she has done just that."
"Especially as the nation’s highest ranking legal officer," Eisen added, "she must be held to account for her actions that threaten the rule of law and the administration of justice."
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