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We'll Make Our Home In the American Land
Exciting news, patriots! After cancelling his OG concert, Dear Leader will now celebrate our 250th birthday with "the Greatest Rally, EVER!" featuring the "fabulous" 83-year-old Lee Greenwood and “a fine and highly dignified gentleman," himself. Also, for some reason, "prune-face" Bruce Springsteen and a gazillion A-list performers are holding two concerts to honor America's "songs that shaped us." Reviews call it "a rare gift" in music history, but they're all losers and lunatics.
Taking time off from nodding off (again) in a meeting, Trump as predicted has finally cancelled his much-hyped “Freedom 250 concert of has-beens and never-weres after almost all nine acts bailed; poor Vanilla Ice, reportedly the only, desperate act still ready to go on. The concerts were set to kick off his equally-fab-sounding Great American State Fair, a "once in a generation...State Fair like no other" - "Dive into the fun and feel the energy" - hosting carnival rides, "hands-on partner activations" from each state, and daily workshops with titles like Land & Prosperity, Family Life and Community Support, Everyday Health and Well Being with MAHA Monday, and Faith, Values, and Inspiration.
Trump was his usual chivalrous self in defeat after the concert went down in tacky flames. "We don't want singers with no talent, but big fees to put you to sleep," he wrote. "We’ve told them all to stay home." Instead, he giddily announced “a Rally to end all Rallies!" in "magnificent Washington D.C, now totally beautified." Because, "All we want is you, me, a few speakers, and the Greatest Music ever played, the same Music you have listened to for years!" it will feature die-hard Lee Greenwood (again), with "one of the Greatest Hits of All Time," his 1984 God Bless the U.S.A, after which he will introduce "a fine and highly dignified gentleman known as President DONALD J. TRUMP!”
There's more: The "amazing" opera singer Christopher Macchio, who has just 571 listeners on Spotify, will join in. "Not since the legendary Luciano Pavarotti has there been such a voice!” bragged Trump, though Pavarotti’s family has protested his use of the opera great's songs by arguing, "The values of brotherhood and solidarity which Luciano Pavarotti expressed throughout (his) artistic career are entirely incompatible with the worldview offered by Trump.” Also, the U.S. Army Band, Armed Forces Choir and "The President’s Own United States Marine Band" will perform “all your favorite Hits." Observers say the gig "sounds lame as fuck," but MAGA fans who go to every rally "like Deadheads with less weed and more racism" will probs love it.
Amidst other glad fails - even UFC fighters have trashed him with Star Wars rants of "Darth Vader gonna get took (sic) down" - many deem a more apt celebration of America's birthday the June 4 and 5 concerts in New Jersey by Springsteen and many fellow musicians. The guest list is so vast and illustrious - among them, Bon Jovi, Jackson Browne, Rosanne Cash, Kenny Chesney, Tom Morello, Gary Clark Jr., Dion, Dropkick Murphys, Shemekia Copeland, Keb’ Mo’, Nils Lofgren, Valerie June, Darlene Love, Public Enemy, David Sancious, Tony Trischka, Sister Sadie, Mavis Staples, Trombone Shorty, Steve Van Zandt, Jimmie Vaughan, the New Breed Brass Band - it's assumed Bruce called in favors: "They were beckoned, and graciously agreed."
Springsteen and the E Street Band just wrapped their Land of Hope and Dreams Tour - "No Kings" plastered below - in Philadelphia. Celebrating "hope over fear," it featured his most fiery political songs: Born in the USA, Death To My Hometown, No Surrender, Darkness On the Edge of Town, Streets of Minneapolis, Dylan's Chimes of Freedom. The two new concerts, titled Music America: The Songs that Shaped Us, are likewise unabashedly rabble-rousing. Held in Springsteen's Jersey backyard at Monmouth University, they will also launch the new Bruce Springsteen Center for American Music, which aims to preserve the Boss' legacy and offer "a journey through American music history" with ongoing exhibitions, archives and workshops.
This week's concerts, says Robert Santelli, "reflect everything the Center stands for" - the power of "a rich and diverse treasury of American music (to) bring people together (and) the inspiration to think about our shared history in divisive times." Casting a wide and joyful net, artists perform landmark songs from American music - blues, bluegrass, Native, rock, hip-hop, folk, jazz, country, gospel. Tickets are reasonably priced for an intimate venue, and brief narration before each performance offers context to the artist, song, and genre. Thursday night reviews praised "a magical, once-in-a-lifetime moment in music history" and a nod to "how powerful music is in telling our nation’s story." Both concerts sold out.
Bruce and the Dropkick Murphys' rousing rendition of American Land, based on a 19th-century poem by an immigrant steelworker, which asks and celebrates those "who will make his home in the American Land." In brief, all of us.
The McNicholases, the Posalskis, the Smiths, Zerillis, too
The Blacks, the Irish, Italians, the Germans and the Jews
They come across the water a thousand miles from home
With nothing in their bellies but the fire down below.
Jun 05, 2026
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‘Profits Over Safety’: Chemical Disasters Under Trump Pile Up as More Safety Cuts Loom
Two recent high-profile chemical plant disasters are putting a spotlight on the Trump administration's aggressive deregulation of the industry, with even more cuts to chemical safety regulations expected in the coming months.
The disasters—one at a paper mill in Washington state that killed 11 people and the other in an aerospace plastics facility in California that forced tens of thousands of people to evacuate their homes—came after months of warnings from experts and labor unions about the impact of the administration's deregulatory agenda.
In late March, for instance, members of United Steelworkers (USW) rallied in Washington, DC to protest against a US Environmental Protection Agency plan to scrap regulations enacted under former President Joe Biden, which included "new safeguards such as identifying safer technologies and chemical alternatives, requiring implementation of safeguard measures in certain cases, more thorough incident investigations, and third-party auditing."
USW Local 13-228 process safety specialist Phil Stagg at the time warned that scrapping the rule would put "profits over safety" by prioritizing cost cutting over worker safety.
Following last week's twin disasters, the Coalition to Prevent Chemical Disasters also pointed to plans to weaken Biden-era safety regulations as a grave mistake that will put American workers at greater risk.
"The fatal and shocking incidents communities have faced in recent days demonstrate the urgent need to implement and build on existing regulatory safeguards so communities near chemical facilities are protected from chemical disasters," the group said. "But, instead of protecting workers and families from death, injury, and illness, Trump’s EPA is putting communities at greater risk of harm by weakening the nation’s primary defense against chemical facility incidents."
The administration has also been targeting the Chemical Safety Board (CSB), an independent federal watchdog charged with investigating the root causes of industrial chemical accidents.
As The New York Times reported last month, Trump's proposed budget all but eliminates the CSB by cutting its funding down to $0 while arguing that the watchdog merely duplicates work already done by the EPA.
Rep. Marie Glusenkamp Perez (D-Wash.) said in a Sunday social media post that the CSB did essential work in preventing future accidents, and she vowed to fight the administration's plans to zero out its budget.
"I’ll be making it my priority ensuring [CSB] has the resources they need for a through, unbiased investigation," Perez said. "They also have three vacancies currently on that board of directors, and my hope is that we're able to work with the administration to ensure that people with real trades experience are appointed to that board."
The horrifying loss of life in Longview last week demands a thorough impartial investigation conducted by the independent watchdog Chemical Safety Board.
Unfortunately the presidents proposed budget has zeroed out the CSB budget.
Next week, I’ll be making it my priority to… pic.twitter.com/3SqbDSASWJ
— Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (@RepMGP) May 31, 2026
Jordan Barab, a former deputy assistant secretary at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), explained in an interview published by Mountain State Spotlight last week that CSB produces invaluable work about chemical disasters' root causes, whereas the EPA's work focuses on whether disasters were caused by violating federal regulations.
In particular, Barab noted that CSB can "look at other problems, other causes that aren’t necessarily covered by regulations or standards," and added that "a lot of the ways the industry has modernized to improve safety are based on recommendations that came out of the CSB."
Jun 01, 2026
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'Sign of Madness': Critics Warn Trump DHS Plan Would Cause 'Apocalyptic' Chaos at Airports
US Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin on Thursday reiterated his threat to remove Customs and Border Protection agents from airports at so-called "sanctuary cities" that bar local police from cooperating with federal immigration enforcement operations.
During a Fox News interview, co-host Brian Kilmeade asked Mullin whether this plan would essentially halt all international flights to major US airports in travel hubs such as Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York.
Mullin responded by saying DHS wasn't "going to halt the flights," but rather "won't be able to process them because we won't have officers there."
The DHS secretary said that the CBP officers needed to be sent to protect DHS employees at the Delaney Hall migrant detention center in Newark, New Jersey, which has been targeted in recent days by protesters demanding humane treatment of immigrants.
"If things don't change, we're going to have to make this step pretty quick," Mullin emphasized. "I'm not going to put my employees and my [US Immigration and Customs Enforcement] agents at risk going to and from this [facility]."
Markwayne Mullin: "If CBP isn't there processing international flights, then those individuals when the airlines land won't be permitted into the United States. If things don't change, we're gonna have to make this step pretty quick." pic.twitter.com/flcAGL2TVG
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 28, 2026
Critics were quick to point out that Mullin's plan would lead to massive chaos at major international airports and would be a significant economic disruption at a time when Americans are already under financial pressure from the rising price of food and energy.
"This would be deliberately stabbing the US economy in the back," argued Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council. "It would cause enormous economic damage and disrupt air travel nationwide, as airlines would be forced to cancel flights en masse. That he’s even contemplating this publicly is a sign of madness."
Minneapolis-based attorney Will Stancil questioned whether Mullin had fully gamed out how his plan would play out politically for his boss, President Donald Trump, whom polls show is historically unpopular.
"If I’m sitting at 35% approval," Stancil mused, "the thing I definitely want to do is to cause apocalyptic levels of chaos at all of America’s largest airports."
Retired air traffic controller Vivian Lumbard similarly marveled at the self-destructive consequences that would come from enacting Mullin's plan.
"If customs isn't there processing international flights, US citizens won't be permitted to re-enter the United States either," she wrote. "Do any of these people have a working brain or understand how life works in the real world?"
Mullin's threats appear to be more than bluster, however. The Atlantic reported last week that the DHS chief recently "convened a small group of airline and travel-industry executives at DHS headquarters in Washington and told them he may reduce [CBP] staffing at major airports that serve sanctuary jurisdictions," including airports in New York, Washington, DC, and Portland, Oregon.
May 28, 2026
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'Unsettling' Accounts of HHS Leadership Fuel Calls for RFK Jr. to Resign
While public health advocates have sounded the alarm about Robert F. Kennedy Jr. since senators confirmed President Donald Trump's "profoundly unqualified" nominee to lead the US Department of Health and Human Services over a year ago, The New York Times' Sunday reporting on his job performance at HHS sparked fresh calls for his resignation.
HHS "affects the health of 340 million Americans and provides healthcare to 40% of the population through Medicare and Medicaid," explained the Times, which interviewed a dozen people who have had contact with Kennedy as secretary and other department employees. His nearly 16-month tenure has already featured a measles outbreak that killed two children in Texas last year, the recent hantavirus cases among cruise passengers, and the ongoing Ebola crisis in Africa.
As the newspaper detailed:
Mr. Kennedy has shown little interest in managing the details of work in his department, according to multiple colleagues. Instead, they say, he is single-mindedly focused on his top priorities, including food recommendations and pesticide exposures, and hunting for evidence to support his long-held beliefs that vaccines are harmful.
Deeply mistrustful of career civil officials, the secretary has surrounded himself with a close circle of handpicked advisers and stacked agencies with political appointees aligned with his views. While major posts have sat vacant and a wave of veteran health experts and scientists have departed, Mr. Kennedy has remained isolated from much of the department's top staff.
The paper highlighted the National Institutes of Health posts held by acting directors as well as the lack of a surgeon general (Trump's picks keep stalling in the GOP-controlled Senate), Food and Drug Administration commissioner (Marty Makary resigned in May, reportedly over a controversial vape policy sought by Big Tobacco), and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention chief (Kennedy fired CDC's Susan Monarez in August after they clashed on vaccine policy, which led other officials to step down). Courtney Spencer, the secretary's newly appointed top spokesperson, claimed that the department is "aggressively recruiting top talent to fill every remaining vacancy."
As for Kennedy's schedule when he's in Washington, DC, "he spends much of his day in closed-door meetings, according to those who work with him, and has little direct engagement with his staff," the Times reported. Sources pointed to his history of skipping gatherings with the leaders of the department's 13 operating divisions, and some described him as "checked out."
Alt headline: Kennedy's single-minded focus on undermining vaccines puts other HHS efforts in jeopardy.The piece is quite good but this NYT headline sure dances around the fact that Kennedy is a anti-vaccine quack who is not doing his job. www.nytimes.com/2026/06/07/u...
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— @NewsJennifer (Jennifer Schulze) (@newsjennifer.bsky.social) June 7, 2026 at 11:07 AM
White House spokesperson Kush Desai signaled support for the Trump appointee's performance so far, telling the Times that the department's "rapid and comprehensive response" to the Ebola outbreak proved that "under Secretary Kennedy’s leadership, HHS continues to safeguard the health and wellness of the American people."
However, Kayla Hancock, director of Protect Our Care's Public Health Project, said in a statement that "accounts from within the Trump HHS paint an unsettling picture of RFK Jr.'s absentee leadership amid public health crises both present and looming."
"Trump's health secretary hasn't stepped foot inside the CDC in nearly a year despite historic measles outbreaks inflamed by his own anti-vax propaganda," she stressed, summarizing the reporting. "When Kennedy does show up to the HHS office—typically for just six hours a day, which must be nice—he isolates himself from top staff and ignores lawmaker requests for months on end."
Hancock noted that "while Kennedy can't be bothered to involve himself in spiraling health threats like Ebola, he finds plenty of time to do a shirtless photo spread with Kid Rock, babble for hours on... his taxpayer-funded vanity podcast on topics like teen sperm, and orchestrate a wasteful department-wide fishing expedition for any data he can use to breathe life into his debunked anti-vax agenda."
"Worse, while RFK Jr. is unwilling to do his job, he's perpetuated a dangerous HHS leadership void for months, refusing to fill vital roles with actual competent, qualified people who would pick up his slack," she added. "Every day that goes by without Secretary Kennedy’s long overdue resignation is a day American lives are put further in harm's way."
#RFKJr is among the most unqualified, incompetent, ineffective and dangerous cabinet members in U.S. history... www.nytimes.com/2026/06/07/u...
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— Andy Ostroy (@andyostroy.bsky.social) June 7, 2026 at 8:45 AM
The reporting builds on warnings from experts since Kennedy took over HHS. Last September, nearly every living former director or acting director of CDC jointly argued in the Times that RFK Jr. "is endangering every American's health." The following month, six previous US surgeons general collectively wrote in The Washington Post that they had a duty to alert Americans that Kennedy is a danger to public health. In February, The Lancet, one of the world's most prestigious medical journals, marked his "one year of failure" with an editorial cataloging his broken promises and "destruction that... might take generations to repair."
Journalist Seth Abramson responded to the Times article with a new warning: "Do not doubt that if a major pandemic hits, millions of Americans will die because of this grotesque man. *Millions*. And not a single person in America better say that we didn't know it was coming. The alarm bells have been ringing nonstop that this sick buffoon is going to kill innocent people."
Jun 07, 2026
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Summer Lee Condemns Democrats' Silence After Anti-Muslim Attacks on Tlaib, Hamawy
Congresswoman Summer Lee spoke at length Thursday evening about recent anti-Muslim attacks that have been launched by Republicans as well as the corporate media against two progressive political leaders—reserving much of her condemnation for Democratic lawmakers who have remained silent as Rep. Rashida Tlaib and US House candidate Adam Hamawy have been both directly and indirectly accused of "terrorism" in recent days.
"Democrats, we are way too quiet right now," said Lee (D-Pa.) in a three-minute video she posted on her official social media accounts. "This is a moral rot that we are dealing with, and I hope that we will not stand by and let this particular hatred grow and grow until it's out of our control."
Lee spoke up a day after Rep. Max Miller (R-Ohio) openly accused Tlaib, the only Palestinian-American member of Congress, of advocating "for terrorists on a daily basis" during a debate on a proposal she introduced to block US forces from taking part in Israel's invasion of Lebanon—a war powers resolution that ultimately failed to pass Thursday after House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) and more than 100 other Democrats joined the GOP in opposing it.
More than 3,500 Lebanese people have been killed and 1.2 million have been forcibly displaced since Israel began attacking Lebanon in March, in what it says is an effort to defeat Hezbollah. Israeli officials have said they are using the Israel Defense Forces' (IDF) decimation of Gaza as a "model" in Lebanon.
While Tlaib advocated on the House floor for Lebanese civilians, Miller characterized Hezbollah as “butchers that you like to hang out with to a certain extent,” addressing the progressive congresswoman—prompting her to demand that Miller's comments be stricken from the record and accusing him of a "direct attack on my character."
Rep. Brian Mast (R-Fla.), who volunteered to serve in the IDF in 2015, also said supporters of Tlaib's resolution were acting as "proxies for Hezbollah."
In her statement Thursday, Lee said, "Yesterday on the House floor, two different Republicans basically called my sister Rashida a terrorist for nothing more than being there, being Palestinian, being Muslim, being a woman."
She emphasized that the attacks on Tlaib followed similar remarks about congressional candidate Dr. Adam Hamawy, a retired US Army surgeon who volunteered to treat victims of Israel's assault on Gaza and saved the life of Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) after her helicopter was shot down in Iraq in 2004.
Before voters in New Jersey's 12th Congressional District went to the polls this week to vote in the primary the progressive Democrat won, opponents attacked him for his former association with Omar Abdel-Rahman, a cleric who was convicted of terrorism in 1995 and whom Hamawy said he met through the Egyptian-American community in New Jersey.
Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) said Hamawy was "not in line with our values," and The New York Times focused its subheadline on Abdel-Rahman in its report on Hamawy's primary victory, before editing the subhead.
"The anti-Muslim rhetoric is picking up," said Lee on Thursday. "And we don't often talk about how dangerous that is, and we also don't talk about how dangerous it is to our coalition. As the Democratic Party, we are supposed to be the ones that are the standard-setters, the ones who are fighting for justice and equal opportunity and liberation, and if we aren't able to speak up against this right now, then how can we continue to hold that particular mantle?"
"It's not just Republicans who are dealing in this," she added. "I've heard Democrats use and deal in some of the worst tropes and stereotypes of my Muslim colleagues."
Lee was applauded for speaking out about attacks that Democratic leaders had not directly addressed—and that Jeffries was accused of amplifying recently when he said he planned to speak to Hamawy about "his past affiliations."
"Incredibly brave stuff for Summer to explicitly name and condemn Democratic Islamophobia and do so on broad terms," said organizer and writer Cole Sandick. "I hope more elected progressives follow her lead."
Lee emphasized that "no marginalized person should have to deal with the abuse that they are dealing with daily from the White House on down, by themselves."
"So I just really hope that we can be as clear about anti-Muslim hate as we are about all the other forms of hatred that we're fighting back right now," she added, "and recognize that our liberation is tied together."
Jun 05, 2026
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Israeli Military Kills Palestinian Baby and Wounds Parents in West Bank
Gunfire from at least one Israeli soldier killed a 7-month-old Palestinian boy and injured his parents, who were traveling in their vehicle in the occupied West Bank on Friday, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
The Palestinian National Authority's WAFA reported that Sam Fahd Abu Haikal lived in Bethlehem with his mother and father, Fahd Abdul Aziz Abu Haikal, a lecturer at Bethlehem University. The family—which also included the baby's grandmother and 11-year-old sibling—intended to visit Hebron when they were struck by at least one bullet that left both parents with "moderate injuries" and ultimately killed the infant, who "succumbed on Friday evening to critical wounds."
As Reuters detailed:
The baby's grandmother said the family was driving near Checkpoint 17 when they saw Israeli military vehicles and soldiers in the distance and stopped the car. She said shots were then fired toward them, which they initially believed were warning shots.
"One bullet struck my grandson, traversed his face and crossed his head, striking his mother's cheek where it lodged," she said, adding that the bullet had also grazed the father's finger, and that the mother was in hospital.
A spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces told CBS News that soldiers "perceived a vehicle accelerating toward them" and responded by firing single shots, which injured three Palestinians who were evacuated for medical treatment. The spokesperson added that an initial inquiry "found that those injured were uninvolved civilians," and that the IDF "expresses deep sorrow for any harm caused to uninvolved individuals."
Fahd Abdul Aziz Abu Haikal told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz that "the soldier was about 10 meters away from me. He saw me, he saw my wife, and the children. The car windows were not dark, it was daylight, and everything was clear. You can't say he didn't see that it was a family."
The father added that "this case must not be closed without an investigation and without accountability. At least I don't intend to give up."
The baby's death sparked a fresh wave of criticism against the IDF, which is widely accused of committing genocide against Palestinians in the wake of the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack on Israel. The Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip has killed over 72,000 people.
Since October 2023, Israeli forces and settlers have also ramped up attacks in the illegally occupied West Bank, killing over 1,000 Palestinians, including at least 240 children, according to the United Nations.
In a Saturday statement, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization in the United States, condemned the baby's killing as well as a deadly Israeli attack on a wedding in Gaza.
"The murder of a 7-month-old baby by Israeli forces in the illegally occupied West Bank and an Israeli massacre at a wedding in Gaza are horrific crimes that should shock the conscience of every person," CAIR said. "No military force that repeatedly kills children, medical workers, journalists, and civilians—using American taxpayer-supplied weapons—should continue to enjoy impunity or the support of our own government."
"We call on our government and the international community to stop enabling these atrocities," the group said, "and to take concrete action to protect Palestinian civilians, end the occupation, and uphold international law."
This post was updated with a newly available photo and reporting from Haaretz.
Jun 06, 2026
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Trump Admin Waives Environmental Laws for Border Barrier Construction in National Park
“These horrific plans are an affront to the millions of Americans who treasure Big Bend,” said one conservationist. “Politicians who’ve never set foot here are signing a death warrant for this wild and beautiful place.”
Jun 08, 2026
The Trump administration's revised waiver of dozens of environmental laws to expedite the construction of border roads and barriers through Big Bend National Park in southern Texas is set to take effect Tuesday, over the objection of Indigenous, migrant rights, and environmental groups.
Last month, the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) initially published its determination that waivers from laws—including the National Park Service Organic Act, Endangered Species Act, and National Wild and Scenic Rivers Act—are needed "to ensure the expeditious construction of barriers and roads in the vicinity of the international land border in the state of Texas."
However, DHS said the project area description in its original notice of determination was "incorrect" and issued a revised notice with the correct geographical information, set to be published on Tuesday.
“The absolute disdain this administration has for our national parks is disgraceful, and now they’re targeting Texas’ most beloved national park,” Center for Biological Diversity national public lands advocate Laiken Jordahl said in a statement Monday.
“The only people benefiting from this destruction are the billionaire contractors set to pad their pockets while paving over our natural heritage and permanently locking a great American river behind hideous steel barriers," Jordahl added. "We won’t stop fighting for this crown-jewel national park and the Rio Grande.”
As CBD noted, DHS in May awarded $1.7 billion in contracts that include work on a "border wall through Big Bend.” Former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem personally approved two contracts for SLSCO Ltd., a Texas-based company also under contract for the infamous Alligator Alcatraz camp for immigrants in Florida. The company is a major Republican donor and is accused in court of trafficking people and weapons across the border.
Last week, DHS awarded another $2.6 billion contract—the biggest border deal to date—for the Lower Canyons stretch of the portion of the Rio Grande that has "Wild and Scenic River" protections, which is downstream from the national park.
While running for president in 2016 and during his first term, Trump repeatedly vowed that Mexico would pay for the wall, for which US taxpayers and private donors have footed the bill. Only a small fraction of the wall has been completed.
While much of the border barrier consists of a 30-foot reinforced steel-bollard wall, the 118-mile portion of the Rio Grande running through Big Bend National Park currently has mostly natural barriers like the rivers, deep riparian canyons, mountains, other steep terrain, and the unforgiving Chihuahuan Desert.
Planning documents and maps from earlier this year suggested substantial border wall construction in the broader Big Bend region. Amid public outcry and opposition from politicians from across the political spectrum, US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) published a map showing no planned 30-foot wall inside Big Bend National Park. However, the map shows miles of planned barriers meant to stop vehicles but not people on foot, new patrol roads cut through the park, and more surveillance technology.
"The move marks the first time in American history that the federal government has cast aside a broad slate of environmental laws... in a national park," CBD said Monday.
Considerable ambiguity remains over the precise nature of the border barrier through Big Bend National Park. In April, CBD filed a lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act "to obtain public records about construction plans in the area."
Indigenous peoples and their advocates have also opposed expanding the border barrier and have criticized DHS for waiving laws, including the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act and the Archaeological and Historic Preservation Act, to enable the administration's plans.
David Keller, a noted archaeologist in the region, warned in a February interview with Big Bend Reporter that what he called “the military industrialization of one of the last, great, unspoiled places remaining in the United States of America" threatens millennia of Indigenous history stored in the soil and etched on rock faces.
The Trump administration's work on other portions of the border wall has blasted and bulldozed sacred Indigenous sites.
Late last month, seven former Big Bend National Park superintendents wrote to DHS Secretary Marywayne Mullin, urging him to reject the waiver of federal laws. CBD and over 130 advocacy groups and business2es have also called on Congress to block federal funding for any further border wall construction in the region, including Big Bend National Park and Big Bend Ranch State Park.
"If a border wall—or other unnecessary and highly destructive border infrastructure—is built inside Big Bend National Park, it would be the most egregious assault on the integrity of the entire National Park System since the construction of a dam in the Hetchy Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park more than a century ago," the former superintendents asserted.
Texas Public Radio reported Sunday that construction on the border wall in the Big Bend area is set to begin "within weeks."
"Shipments of what appear to be steel bollards have begun arriving in the region, and at least one 'man camp' housing facility for workers is being developed," the outlet said.
As the No Big Bend Wall Coalition notes, while CBP's Big Bend Sector represents 26.5% of the US-Mexico border, only about 1.3% of all border apprehensions happened there last year, belying Trump administration claims of "high illegal activity" in the area.
"Historically, the Big Bend Sector is the quietest part of the entire US border," the coalition said. "While federal rhetoric has described a 'national emergency' to justify waiving environmental protections and seizing private land, their own CBP data tells a different story."
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Human Rights Watch Calls Out 'Troubling Conditions' in Trump Health Aid Agreements With Africa
“After the sudden and devastating pullback from US assistance in 2025, governments are now being pressured to accept agreements with contingencies that jeopardize human rights."
Jun 08, 2026
The Trump administration is requiring African nations to agree to a series of "troubling conditions" to restore lifesaving health aid, according to a Human Rights Watch report on Monday.
The administration's abrupt shuttering of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) last year shut off billions of dollars and caused havoc across Africa's healthcare system, resulting in what public health models project could be hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths.
But under what has been dubbed the “America First” Global Health Strategy, the administration has negotiated secretive agreements with dozens of these countries to restore some of the funding. Most of them have been kept under lock and key by the US.
Those that have been made public have come with terms that Human Rights Watch said "raise concerns that health aid is being inappropriately leveraged to extract terms beneficial to the US in negotiations around natural resources and access to sensitive health data from recipient countries."
In March, a draft memorandum of understanding with the government of Zambia was revealed to have conditioned $1 billion for HIV, tuberculosis, malaria, and other disease prevention for millions of people, on the country's acceptance of a separate bilateral treaty that would have given US companies greater access to the country's minerals.
A leaked State Department memo, prepared for Secretary Marco Rubio, put the exploitative terms plainly: “We will only secure our priorities by demonstrating willingness to publicly take support away from Zambia on a massive scale.”
After the details of that agreement were met with backlash, the text of agreements with several other countries—Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, and Uganda—were suddenly removed from the State Department’s Freedom of Information Act Library.
A Human Rights Watch assessment of the agreements with those five countries—as well as agreements with Rwanda and Liberia that were leaked—revealed that in order to restore a portion of the more than $800 million collectively stripped from them by the US, they'd have to agree to several coercive measures that jeopardize the reproductive and privacy rights of their citizens.
“The agreements show the US intends to condition vital health assistance for millions of people on acquiescence to troubling conditions,” said Julia Bleckner, senior health researcher at Human Rights Watch. “After the sudden and devastating pullback from US assistance in 2025, governments are now being pressured to accept agreements with contingencies that jeopardize human rights.”
All seven of the agreements require the governments to provide the US with "broad access to data and information" to monitor compliance with the Helms Amendment, which forbids the use of US foreign assistance to pay for abortion care.
The agreements with Mozambique, Rwanda, and Liberia require them to provide “any data” requested by the US to ensure compliance with the amendment, while Uganda's permits the US to conduct unannounced spot checks of health facilities and clinics.
"By making a broad package of health aid contingent on broad and potentially invasive surveillance of Helms compliance, the agreement could encourage a more restrictive regulation of abortion than national law mandates and give rise to further violations of the right to healthcare,” says the report.
The agreements also give the US permission to directly audit clinics, laboratories, and health programs to ensure compliance with the conditions. Six of them require clinics to provide access to "any data" requested by the US at a sample of facilities it chooses.
Agreements with five countries also mandate that they share biological specimens taken from patients and associated information related to novel infectious diseases, which HRW described as part of an effort to undermine a global pathogen access and sharing system being created by the World Health Organization, from which Trump has removed the US.
HRW said in a news release:
The agreements raise serious concerns about use of people’s private health data, without clear limits, uniform safeguards, or meaningful protections for patient confidentiality, including in several countries with weak or absent domestic data protection laws. The agreements contain no prohibition on this data being shared with US pharmaceutical companies without patient consent.
“Governments negotiating health assistance agreements with the United States face difficult choices,” Bleckner said. “They should be wary of terms asking them to sign away their populations’ rights and push for the inclusion of civil society representatives and multilateral global health organizations like the Global Fund in deliberations.”
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Trump Renews Call for Firing Senate Parliamentarian to Pass GOP Attack on Voting Rights
Senate Majority Leader John Thune indicated that he would not fire the parliamentarian after the president's angry tirade.
Jun 08, 2026
President Donald Trump on Monday renewed calls to fire US Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough, who in recent months has thwarted Republicans' efforts to include funding for his luxury ballroom and voter suppression legislation into a budget reconciliation package.
In a social media post, the president demanded Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) dismiss MacDonough, whom he described as "a nasty holdover" from former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) who "treats Republicans, and everything that they stand for, horribly!"
"She is known as a Radical Left Lunatic that caters to Democrats," Trump continued, "and has no respect for Republicans, or Republican Ideology... We have every right to change her, and should do so, IMMEDIATELY. As long as she’s there, we will never get our desperately needed, SAVE AMERICA ACT, approved, and put into full force and effect!"
Despite Trump's demands, there is little indication that Thune has any desire to fire the parliamentarian. As reported by Punchbowl News' Andrew Desiderio, the GOP Senate leader expressed appreciation for the work MacDonough has done since she took on the job in 2012.
"Parliamentarian rulings break both ways," Thune said. "You lose a few, you win a few. That's been true when the Democrats have been in the majority too. That’s a hard job. It’s a very specific skill set. And you need somebody that is going to be a fair referee."
Commenting on the president's post, Punchbowl News co-founder Jake Sherman noted that the president has much larger problems in the Senate than MacDonough, as Republicans themselves "disagree with parts of his agenda."
Sherman also hinted that Trump has caused further problems for himself in recent weeks, as his nomination of Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte to be his acting director of national intelligence has completely blown up a bipartisan plan to extend warrantless spying powers under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).
Trump has created headaches for Republicans by not only asking them to fund security for his ballroom, but also creating and defending a $1.8 billion slush fund aimed at paying off political allies who were supposedly victims of a "weaponized" Department of Justice under former President Joe Biden.
The Trump administration last week agreed to at least temporarily shut down the fund, which drew widespread political pushback after administration officials acknowledged it could be used to pay off rioters who stormed the US Capitol on the president's behalf on January 6, 2021.
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