You Don't Frighten Us, You Pig-Dogs and Sons Of A Silly Person
To all of you mourning and quailing and brooding about how to withstand the coming authoritarian storm, we present Mark Zaid, a heroic national security lawyer for whistleblowers who shows us a canny way forward. When his client, a former Pence aide, went on air to call conspiracist hack Kash Patel "a delusional liar" who'd trash the FBI, Patel - bullies gonna bully - threatened to sue her. In turn, Zaid slung the most sublime troll back at him. Monty Python's Trojan Rabbit lives!
In a foul pack of flunkeys and bootlickers to Trump, paranoid crackpot Kash Patel, "The Man Who Will Do Anything for Trump," has been "exceptional in his devotion." Despite little expertise, he rose rapidly in Trump's White House - "each new title set off new alarms" - and was so fanatical an alarmed Mark Milley once reportedly warned him, “Life looks really shitty from behind bars." So, a perfect fit for the new regime. The other day, he went on Steve Bannon's podcast - yes, he and it are still here - to call for "offensive operations" to jail Americans, government officials to media, the Great Orange One deems "the enemy." "We will go out and find the conspirators," Patel raved. "Yes, we are going to come after people in the media," all those radical scribblers who helped Biden "steal" the 2020 election. "We're going to come after you, whether criminally or civilly... We're putting you all on notice.” He seems nice.
After Patel's nomination to head the FBI, Olivia Troye, a former counterterrorism aide to Mike Pence, went on MSNBC to declare his "unfitness to serve." "Let me just be very clear about that," she said. "He would lie about intelligence. He would lie about operations." Citing a mission in Nigeria where she said Patel's incompetence "put the lives of Navy Seals at risk," she went on, "At some point I realized I need to check Kash’s work (so) I wasn’t misinforming Mike Pence...I had to go around him. This is a guy who openly has contempt for people in national security." At the FBI, Troye said there is fear from people "who know Patel is fully capable of just doing partisan investigations. It will be insane if he becomes director." After an outraged Patel and his hack lawyer demanded she publicly retract her comments or they'd sue her for meanness, Troye responded, "I stand by my statements."
Enter her attorney Mark Zaid, the founding partner of a rare, renowned practice focused on national security law, freedom of speech claims and government accountability. Zaid, who has represented many government or military whistleblowers with grievances against the entities they once served, cites the ongoing, critical need to "challenge the authority that controls this complex dark world." In 1998, he founded the James Madison Project, aimed at reducing government secrecy; he also teaches a D.C. Bar Continuing Legal Ed class on Freedom of Information, and is repeatedly named a D.C. "Super Lawyer" for his national security work. If Agent Mulder, the fictional FBI agent on the X Files ever needed a lawyer, a National Law Journal article once argued, "Zaid would be his man."
Recently, Zaid went on record personally advising possible targets of The Orange One's vengeance “take a vacation outside of the country" around inauguration time, at least for a while, "just to see what happens." "Hey, by the way, John Brennan, when you appeared on CNN in October 2023, what you said was classified and you're going to be prosecuted under the Espionage Act," he speculated. "Is that going to happen? I have no idea." After Patel's "conspirators" rant, Zaid wrote, "Trump is fulfilling his promises by nominating those who have publicly decried #RuleOfLaw & promised to literally jail political enemies." Up first, for Zaid, is his client Troye: Right on time, Zaid got a letter from Patel's lawyer repeating their threat to sue Troye if she did not "publicly detract her defamatory statements."
This is not, of course, Zaid's first rodeo. So he gleefully shot back a polite response - see below - topping it with this image of a jeering French knight from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. He graciously added, "To answer your specific question as to Ms. Troye's intention, I think Monty Python expresses it best." LOL. In the memorable scene it's from - most of you know this, right? - King Arthur's Knights approach a castle seeking shelter; in exchange, they'll let the castle's master join their quest. Snubbing the offer, the Frenchman claims his master has a Grail - "I told them we already got one," he tells his giggling mates - before launching into a vicious flood of insults, also animals. "You silly king, you don't frighten us, English pig dogs!" he shrieks. "Go and boil your bottoms...I blow my nose at you, so-called Ah-thoor Keeng...I fart in your general direction! Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!" Etc.
- YouTubewww.youtube.com
Except for the insane Frenchman and the flying cow and the Pythonesque mayhem they represent, Zaid's letter is entirely, by-the-books polite. "Dear Mr. Binnal," he writes. "Thank you for your letter dated Dec 4 regarding the threat of your client to file a lawsuit," blah blah blah. Of his client, he respectfully notes, "Many if not all her statements have been previously or similarly stated by a wide swath of the knowledgeable population." Adding, "Be that as it may," he points out, they have asked Troye to "confirm (her) intent" within five days of getting their letter, so here he promptly is. "As you know, I am personally well aware (of) your client's appetite to sue individuals, and your firm's proclivity to support such lawsuits," he writes; as proof of that awareness, he notes he has motions pending in two federal district courts seeking sanctions against them for their idiocy. Oh, the burn. #RightBackAtYa, you silly king.
Asserting he and his colleagues "fully expect many federal employees to become whistleblowers," Zaid also posted a request for donations to help them do so pro bono. Their non-profit, non-partisan legal organization Whistleblower Aid allows workers of conscience from both government and the private sector to "report government and corporate lawbreaking. Without breaking the law." And they're hiring. The first-listed job requirement: "An interest in justice, resilient democracy and corporate accountability." Ending his letter to Patel's lawyer, Zaid loftily notes, "I am reminded of the Italian proverb, 'A lawsuit is a fruit tree planted in a lawyer's garden.' I can only imagine the number of apples and oranges growing in your backyard. Whether they thrive or not, of course, is the question." He signs off, "With best wishes, Sincerely," etc etc. In other words, farting in your general direction.
Green, Indigenous Groups Warns Arctic Still at Grave Drilling Risk When Trump Returns
Wildlife protection groups and Indigenous leaders in Alaska said Monday that they would push to discourage bidding in an oil and gas lease sale just announced by the U.S. Interior Department for part of the Arctc National Wildlife Refuge.
Under the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which opened the refuge for oil and gas drilling, the Biden administration announced the second of two lease sales, set to be held on January 9, 2025.
The first Trump administration held the initial lease sale in 2021, but with banks and insurance companies increasingly reticent to back drilling projects in the area, it generated little interest and led to less than 1% of the projected sale revenue.
Releasing its final record of decision, the Interior Department said Monday that 400,000 acres of wilderness in the refuge's 1.6-million-acre northwest Coastal Plain would be put up for bidding at a minimum price of $30 per acre—despite vocal opposition from the Gwich'in Nation and the Iñupiat Alaska Natives.
The land supports local communities as well as porcupine caribou herds and polar bears.
"Our way of life, our food security, and our spiritual well-being is directly tied to the health of the caribou and the health of this irreplaceable landscape," Kristen Moreland, executive director of Gwich'in Steering Committee, toldBloomberg News. "Every oil company stayed away from the first lease sale, and we expect them to do the same during the second."
The record of decision concludes the Bureau of Land Management's process for developing a supplemental environmental impact statement, which was required after President-elect Donald Trump's first administration completed an analysis with "fundamental flaws and legal errors," as the Sierra Club said Monday.
Selling the drilling rights just before Trump takes office could complicate the GOP's plans to hold a more expansive sale later on, but Dan Ritzman, director of Sierra Club's Conservation Campaign, emphasized that regardless of who is in office when the sale takes place, "oil and gas development in the Arctic Refuge is a direct threat to some of the last untouched landscapes on Alaska's North Slope and to the caribou herds that the Gwich'in people rely on."
"The 2017 tax act, forced through Congress by Donald Trump and his Big Oil CEO allies, opened up the Coastal Plain to oil and gas leasing," said Ritzman. "Letting him oversee a lease sale over these pristine lands would be beyond irresponsible. In the meantime, President [Joe] Biden should listen to the Gwich'in and do all that he can to preserve these lands and waters. His legacy is on the line."
Erik Grafe, an attorney at environmental law firm Earthjustice, said the group is "committed to going to court as often as necessary to defend the Arctic Refuge from oil drilling and will work toward a more sustainable future that does not depend on ever-expanding oil extraction."
"Drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is all risk with no reward," said Grafe. "Oil drilling would destroy this beautiful land, held sacred by Gwich'in people, and would further destabilize the global climate, but it offers zero benefit to taxpayers or consumers."
Defenders of Wildlife called on Congress to repeal the 2017 tax law's mandate for leasing sales in the "iconic American landscape" of the Arctic Refuge.
"Turning the coastal plain into an oilfield will obliterate the pristine wilderness of the Arctic Refuge," said Nicole Whittington-Evans, Alaska senior program director for the group, "directly threatening the future of the Porcupine caribou herd and the physical, cultural, and spiritual existence of the Gwich'in people who depend on them."
Wealth of World's Richest Has Doubled Over Past Decade
Driven largely by the accumulation of massive wealth by the richest people in the United States, the Swiss wealth manager UBS said Thursday the assets of billionaires around the world more than doubled over the past decade.
Between 2015-24, the total wealth of billionaires increased by 121%, from $6.3 trillion to $14 trillion.
Meanwhile, the MSCI AC World Index of global equities, which measures the performance of more than 3,000 stocks from both developed and emerging markets, rose by 73%.
The planet's total gross domestic product is about $105.4 trillion, with a population of just over 8 billion, underscoring the extreme concentration of wealth among the very richest people.
The number of billionaires rose from 1,757 to 2,682 over the past decade, while the wealthiest people in the world boasted significant gains over just the past year.
Billionaires' wealth jumped by about 17% in 2024, with the accumulation of wealth among the richest people in the U.S. offsetting a decline in China.
U.S. billionaires amassed wealth gains that were 27.6% higher than the previous year, accumulating a total of $5.8 trillion—more than 40% of international billionaire wealth.
The tax cuts pushed through by President-elect Donald Trump and the Republican Party in 2017 are still in effect in the U.S. Tax policy analysts have found that the law was skewed to the rich, with households in the top 1% of incomes expecting to receive an average tax cut of more than $60,000 in 2025 compared to an average tax cut of less than $500 for people in the bottom 60%.
As Common Dreams reported this week, the top 12 U.S. billionaires now control $2 trillion. The wealth of the four richest people in the U.S.—Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg—has hit $1 trillion.
"These four men were worth $74 billion 12 short years ago," said Americans for Tax Fairness. "Tax billionaires."
At the G20 Summit last month, world leaders agreed to "engage cooperatively to ensure that ultra-high-net-worth individuals are effectively taxed."
Top Progressives Urge DNC to Reject Super PACs, Uplift Working-Class Base
In the wake of U.S. federal elections resulting in Republican control of the White House and both chambers of Congress—in no small part due to Democrats' failure to win working-class votes—leading congressional progressives are pushing a plan to rebuild the Democratic Party by rejecting corporate cash and uplifting low- and middle-income Americans.
In a memo first shared with Punchbowl News, outgoing Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), incoming Chair Greg Casar (D-Texas), and CPC members Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) and Rep. Chris Deluzio (D-Pa.) urge the Democratic National Committee (DNC) to "rebuild our party from the ground up."
The lawmakers call on DNC leadership to "create an authentic Democratic brand that offers a clear alternative and inclusive vision for how we will make life better for the 90% who are struggling in this economy, take on the biggest corporations and wealthiest individuals who have rigged the system," and expose GOP President-elect Donald Trump's "corporate favoritism" to "create a clear contrast with Republicans."
Jayapal outlined what she called "four core principles" for the next DNC chair, who hasn't yet been elected:
- Reform, restructure, and rebrand the Democratic Party from the ground up and commit to a 50-state strategy that builds power through state parties;
- Embrace grassroots donors and reject special interest and dark money, including by reinstating the DNC's 2008 ban on corporate political action committee donations, and pushing to prohibit super PAC spending in state primaries;
- Rebuild Democrats' multiracial, working-class base by uplifting poor, low-, and middle-income voices and concerns; and
- Highlight recent electoral successes while working to build broad coalitions to win elections.
The progressives' memo urges the DNC to "invest in showing our commitment to real populism versus Trump's faux populism
through lifting up working-class voices and issue-based campaigns that take on corporate concentration and monopoly power at the expense of working people."
The principles enumerated in the memo resonated beyond the CPC. Responding to the proposed agenda in a social media post, U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) concurred: "The next DNC chair should absolutely refuse to take corporate PAC money. If we are the party of the working class—and we are—then let's raise $ like we mean it."
Casar, who before running for elected office worked as policy director for the Workers Defense Project—whose victories included rest and water breaks for outdoor laborers, anti-wage theft legislation, and living wage requirements—has repeatedly stressed the imperative "to re-emphasize core economic issues" that matter most to American workers.
"The core of the Republican Party is about helping Wall Street and billionaires. And I think we have to call out the game," Casar said last week during an interview with NBC News.
"The Democratic Party, at its best, can hold people or can have inside of its tent people across geography, across race, and across ideology," he added. "Because we're all in the same boat when it comes to making sure that you can retire with dignity, that your kids can go to school, that you can buy a house."
Humanitarian Groups Dread 2025 Aid Shortfall as Trump Term Looms
As the United Nations humanitarian agency and its partner organizations launched the annual Global Humanitarian overview on Wednesday to appeal for aid ahead of 2025, officials shared sobering numbers: 305 million people in dire need of assistance, 190 million people the agencies believe they can help next year if funding demands are met, and $47 billion that's needed to help the people facing the greatest threats.
Tom Fletcher, under-secretary-general at the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said governments, particularly those in wealthy countries like the United States, face "a choice" as the world bears witness to starvation, increasingly frequent climate disasters, and other suffering in Gaza, Sudan, Yemen, and elsewhere.
"We can respond to these numbers with generosity, with compassion, with genuine solidarity for those in the most dire need on the planet—or we can carry on," said Fletcher at a news briefing. "We can choose to leave them alone to face these crises. We can choose to let them down."
Fletcher and other humanitarian leaders noted that as of last month, just 43% of the $50 billion funding appeal made for 2024 had been met.
Food assistance in Syria has been cut by 80% as a result of the large funding gap, while protection services in Myanmar and water and sanitation aid in Yemen have also been reduced.
Fletcher said that with another major funding shortfall expected in 2025, OCHA and its partners are expecting to be forced to make "ruthless" decisions to direct aid to those most in need—likely leaving out 115 million people.
Fears that funding needs will be far from met in 2025 are arising partially from the election last month of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, who pursued significant cuts during his first term to agencies including the U.N. Population Fund, UNAIDS, the World Health Organization, and the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East.
"America is very much on our minds at the moment, we're facing the election of a number of governments who will be more questioning of what the United Nations does and less ideologically supportive of this humanitarian effort that we've laid out in this report," said Fletcher. "But it's our job to frame the arguments in the right way to land and not to give up. And so I'll head to Washington. I'll spend a lot of time in Washington, I imagine, over the next few months, engaging with the new administration, making the case to them, just as I'll spend a lot of time in other capitals where people might be skeptical about the work that we are doing."
Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) Secretary-General Jan Egeland, who led OCHA for three years, toldAl Jazeera that U.S. funding under the Trump administration is "a tremendous question mark."
"Should the U.S. administration cut its humanitarian funding, it could be more complex to fill the gap of growing needs," said Egeland.
The U.S. is the largest humanitarian donor in the world, contributing $10 billion last year—but its donations pale in comparison to its military spending, which was budgeted at more than $841 billion in 2024, and the earnings of its top corporations.
As NRC noted, Facebook parent company Meta earned $47.4 billion—about the same amount humanitarian agencies are requesting this year—before income taxes in 2023.
Without naming billionaire SpaceX CEO Elon Musk—a Trump ally and megadonor who's expected to have a role in his new administration—Camilla Waszink, director of partnership and policy at NRC, called out the widening gap between the world's richest people and those in desperate need of humanitarian assistance.
"At a time when the richest people on Earth can go to space as a tourist and trillions of U.S. dollars are used annually on global military expenditure, it is incomprehensible that we as an international community are unable to find the necessary funding to provide displaced families with shelter and prevent children from dying of hunger," said Waszink. "There is an urgent need for a revamp of global solidarity. Existing donor countries must ensure assistance keeps pace with needs and inflation, and emerging economies should compete to become among the most generous donors in the same way they compete to host expensive international sports events."
"It is devastating to know that millions of people in need will not receive necessary assistance next year because of the growing lack of funding for the humanitarian response. With a record number of conflicts ongoing, donors are cutting aid budgets that displaced and conflict-affected people rely on to survive," she added. "Conflicts and a blatant disregard for protection of civilians are driving massive humanitarian needs. It is essential that donors provide funding, but they must also invest in ending conflicts, bringing violations to a halt and preventing new needs from developing."
Fletcher noted that in addition to conflicts like Israel's U.S.-backed assault on Gaza, Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and the civil war in Sudan, the climate crisis is a major driver of growing humanitarian needs.
"2024 will be the hottest year on record," said Fletcher. "Presumably 2025 will then be the hottest year on record. Floods, droughts, heatwaves, wildfires affecting millions. We're on the brink of surpassing the 1.5°C in warming, and that will hit hardest in the countries that have actually contributed least to climate change. It wipes out food systems. It wipes out livelihoods, it forces communities to move from their homes and land. Drought has caused 65% of agricultural economic damage over the last 15 years, worsening food insecurity."
In conflict zones and in regions affected by the climate emergency, said Fletcher, "it's our mission to do more."
"My people are desperate to get out there and deliver because they really are on the frontline," he said. "They can see what is needed, but we need these resources. That's our call to action. And we also need the world to do more. Those with power to do more—to challenge this era of impunity and to challenge this era of indifference."
Assad Government Falls After Nearly 14 Years of Civil War as Rebels Seize Capital
The government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad collapsed Sunday after rebels seized control of the capital following a stunning advance through major cities, prompting celebrations in the streets as the country's ousted leader fled.
"The city of Damascus has been liberated," rebel fighters declared on state TV. "The regime of the tyrant Bashar al-Assad has been toppled."
Video footage posted to social media showed rebels escorting Syrian Prime Minister Mohammad Ghazi al-Jalali to meet with their leaders. The prime minister said that "we are ready to cooperate" and called for free elections and the preservation of "all the properties of the people and the institutions of the Syrian state."
"They belong to all Syrians," he said.
A video captured outside the Syrian Prime Minister's residence shows rebel forces escorting Mohamad Al Jalali to a meeting with their leaders at the Four Seasons Hotel pic.twitter.com/WkT2IZAJLi
— The National (@TheNationalNews) December 8, 2024
The rebel movement was led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS)—an Islamist organization that was once an affiliate of al-Qaeda—along with Turkish-backed Syrian militias. HTS is led by Abu Mohammad al-Jolani; the U.S. State Department has deemed him a "Specially Designated Global Terrorist" and is offering a reward of up to $10 million for information that results in his capture.
After the Assad government fell, ending a decades-long family dynasty, The Associated Pressreported that "revelers filled Umayyad Square in the city center, where the Defense Ministry is located."
"Men fired celebratory gunshots into the air and some waved the three-starred Syrian flag that predates the Assad government and was adopted by the revolutionaries," the outlet reported. "A few kilometers (miles) away, Syrians stormed the presidential palace, tearing up portraits of the toppled president. Soldiers and police officers left their posts and fled, and looters broke into the Defense Ministry. Videos from Damascus showed families wandering into the presidential palace, with some emerging carrying stacks of plates and other household items."
Prisons, including a notorious facility on the outskirts of Damascus that Amnesty International described as a "human slaughterhouse," were reportedly opened in the wake of Assad's ouster, with video footage showing detainees walking free.
"Literally seeing hundreds of people across Damascus, friends, family people I've known to be neutral and not involved in politics, all post green flags, all support this movement, people are tired, broken and angry, they want change and change is what they've got," Danny Makki, a non-resident scholar at the Middle East Institute who was on the ground in Damascus as the government fell, wrote on social media.
(Photo: Aref Tammawi/AFP via Getty Images)
Assad's whereabouts are not known; he left the country without issuing a statement. Reutersreported that the ousted president, "who has not spoken in public since the sudden rebel advance a week ago, flew out of Damascus for an unknown destination earlier on Sunday." (Update: Citing Russian state media, APreported that "Assad has arrived in Moscow with his family" and has been given asylum.")
Russia's Foreign Ministry said in a statement that "as a result of negotiations between B. Assad and a number of participants in the armed conflict on the territory of the Syrian Arab Republic, he decided to resign from the presidency and left the country, giving instructions for a peaceful transfer of power."
The explosion of Syria's civil war in recent days brought renewed focus to the current role of United States troops in the country. There are currently around 900 American forces in Syria alongside an unknown number of private contractors—troop presence that the Pentagon said it intends to maintain in the wake of Assad's ouster.
The U.S. has said it was not involved in the rebel offensive. In a social media post, a spokesperson for the White House National Security Council wrote that President Joe Biden and his team "are closely monitoring the extraordinary events in Syria and staying in constant touch with regional partners."
"The astonishing speed at which the Assad regime has crumbled exposes once again the inherent fragility of seemingly ironclad dictatorships, and of all governments whose rule is based on repression and corruption."
The U.S.-backed Israeli military said Sunday that it has "taken up new positions" in the occupied Golan Heights "as it prepared for potential chaos following the lightning-fast fall" of Assad, The Times of Israelreported.
"Syrian media reports said Israel had launched artillery shelling in the area," the outlet added.
Geir Pedersen, the United Nations' special envoy for Syria, said in a statement Sunday that Assad's fall "marks a watershed moment in Syria's history—a nation that has endured nearly 14 years of relentless suffering and unspeakable loss."
"The challenges ahead remain immense and we hear those who are anxious and apprehensive," said Pedersen. "Yet this is a moment to embrace the possibility of renewal. The resilience of the Syrian people offers a path toward a united and peaceful Syria."
Nancy Okail, president and CEO of the Center for International Policy, said Sunday that "today belongs to the people of Syria."
"The astonishing speed at which the Assad regime has crumbled exposes once again the inherent fragility of seemingly ironclad dictatorships, and of all governments whose rule is based on repression and corruption," said Okail. "The regime's fast disintegration shows how autocracy, resistance to political transitions, and gross atrocities and the lack of accountability for committing them ultimately doomed Assad's brutal rule. Ritualistic elections cannot replace legitimacy, which remains crucial for stability."
"True sovereignty cannot be attained under the influence of foreign powers that exploit nations as arenas for their own geopolitical competition," Okail added. "While Syria's future is for its people to determine, the United States and its partners should take immediate steps to facilitate delivery of humanitarian and reconstruction aid, and help ensure that future is free and democratic, and the rights of all of its communities are protected."
This story has been updated to include a statement from the Center for International Policy.
Watchdog Says Wray Should Not Assist Trump's Attack on FBI by Resigning
"FBI directors are given 10-year terms for a reason: to insulate them from political pressure," said Robert Weissman, co-president of Public Citizen.
Current FBI Director Christopher Wray announced Wednesday that he will depart his post when President Joe Biden's term ends in January—a move that drew criticism from the watchdog group Public Citizen.
Public Citizen co-president Robert Weissman pointed out that Wray's planned departure follows President-elect Donald Trump's threat to fire him.
"FBI directors are given 10-year terms for a reason: to insulate them from political pressure. To defend the vital independence of the FBI, Director Wray should not preemptively resign in face of Donald Trump's bad-faith threats to remove him," Weissman said in a statement.
Patel, who served as chief of staff to acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller at the end of Trump's first term, was characterized by The Associated Press earlier this year as a "trusted aide and swaggering campaign surrogate who mythologizes the former president while promoting conspiracy theories and his own brand."
Some of Patel's past statements have alarmed critics, who worry he may be willing to weaponize the agency to go after political enemies or media critics of Trump.
"We will go out and find the conspirators, not just in government, but in the media. Yes, we're going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections," he said during an appearance on former Trump advisor Steve Bannon's War Room podcast last year.
Weissman said that "if Donald Trump fires [Wray], so be it. But Wray should not aid and abet the effort to weaponize the FBI by bowing out in advance."
Weissman was not the only person to criticize Wray along these lines: "A profile in courage, Chris Wray is not. Wray bowed to political pressure; his early resignation is the easy way out. It avoids a very public conversation when Trump inevitably would have fired him," wrote Anthony Coley, an analyst at NBC News, CNBC, and MSNBC.
In announcing his decision to leave, Wray said the choice "is the best way to avoid dragging the bureau deeper into the fray, while reinforcing the values and principles that are so important to how we do our work," according to The New York Times.
He also struck a wistful tone. "This is not easy for me," Wray said, per the Times. "I love this place, I love our mission, and I love our people."
Doing For-Profit Tax Industry's Bidding, GOP Calls On Trump to Cancel Direct File Program
"This is the most efficient way and cost-efficient way for millions of people to pay their taxes," said one advocate.
Responding to the "absurd" news that more than two dozen U.S. House Republicans are calling on President-elect Donald Trump to end the Internal Revenue Service's Direct File program, Rep. Gerry Connolly came to one conclusion: "Republicans want to make your lives more difficult."
The Virginia Democrat wasn't alone in denouncing a letter penned by Reps. Adrian Smith (R-Neb.) and Chuck Edwards (R-N.C.) and signed by at least 27 other Republicans who called on Trump to sign a "day-one executive order" to end the free tax-filing program that allowed roughly 140,000 taxpayers to save an estimated $5.6 million in filing costs this year.
Direct File, which was introduced as a pilot program in 12 states in the last tax filing season and is set to be expanded to 24 states and more than 30 million eligible taxpayers this year, is "a free, easy way for people to file their taxes directly online with IRS," said Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).
The software allows taxpayers to keep their entire tax refund "rather than paying $150 to a sleazy tax prep company," said the senator, adding that Republicans evidently want Americans "to keep wasting money on TurboTax," the popular tax filing program run by Intuit, which reported a net income of $2 billion in 2023 and spent $3.5 million on federal lobbying the previous year. The private tax filing industry has spent decades lobbying to ensure a system like Direct File wouldn't be made available to Americans.
In the letter, the Republicans claim the Direct File system is "unauthorized and wasteful" and that "the program's creation and ongoing expansion pose a threat to taxpayers' freedom from government overreach."
The Republican lawmakers also sent the letter to billionaire businessmen Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, Trump's nominees to lead the proposed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
In the letter they claim to want to protect "hardworking Americans" from the "overreach" of the IRS, but as In the Public Interest founder and executive director Donald Cohen told Common Dreams on Wednesday, the Direct File program is "incredibly popular" with those who have used it.
"This is the most efficient way and cost-efficient way for millions of people to pay their taxes," Cohen said. "So what the Republicans want to do is make it more costly, more complicated, and more profitable for the big tax software vendors."
Cohen also questioned how Smith and Edwards could argue, as they do in the letter, that Direct File is a "clear conflict of interest."
"It is in all of our interests for the federal government to... collect taxes in the most efficient and cheapest way," he told Common Dreams.
On the contrary, he said, private tax software companies like Intuit and H&R Block are incentivized to fight against Direct File, which keeps them from collecting about $1 billion in filing fees as well as users' data.
At the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, vice president of tax policy Chuck Marr said Republicans who signed Wednesday's letter are essentially pushing for "a tax on paying taxes."
Ernie Tedeschi, director of economics at the Yale Budget Lab and the former chief economist of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, argued that Direct File "does what policymakers should be in favor of: It makes a core government function more efficient and user-friendly, in a way that's accessible for everyone."
In Wake of UN Climate Summit, Azerbaijan Targets Independent Journalists
"Azerbaijan's international partners should take note and urge the authorities to end the crackdown," said a major human rights group.
Mere weeks after thousands of delegates descended on Baku, Azerbaijan for the COP29 climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan, authorities in the country arrested multiple independent journalists on charges that one prominent human rights group called "bogus."
On December 6, police arrested six employees with the independent media organization Meydan TV: Ramin Deko (Jabrailzade), Aynur Elgunesh (Ganbarova), Aysel Umudova, Aytaj Tapdig (Ahmadova), Khayala Agayeva, and Natig Javadli on suspicion of smuggling, according to a statement from Meydan TV. Another media worker, Ulvi Tahirov, was also arrested that day. All seven have been given four months pretrial detention, according to Human Rights Watch.
In a statement released December 6, Meydan TV—which is headquartered in Berlin—said that "since the day we started our activities over a decade ago, our brave journalists have been arrested, and they and their families have been subjected to persecution. Journalists who cooperate with us have been illegally banned from leaving the country, and have been surveilled by Pegasus spyware, among other forms of pressure." Meydan TV has also called the charges "unfounded" and the detention of its journalists "illegal."
Since launching in 2013, Meydan TV has become one of the most important sources of independent news in Azerbaijan, broadcasting interviews with opposition politicians and publishing investigative reporting, according to the Eurasianet, an outlet that covers South Caucasus and Central Asia.
As part of its coverage of COP29, Meydan TV addressed the scrutiny that the Azerbaijani government has engendered for its human rights record.
Members of the Azerbaijani media were also arrested last year. Reporters with Abzas Media, Toplum TV, and Kanal 13 were arrested in 2023 and remain in pretrial custody, and like those targeted in this most recent wave of arrests they face smuggling charges, according to Human Rights Watch.
"Having created a network of laws and regulations in Azerbaijan designed to make it virtually impossible for journalists and activists carrying out legitimate work in full compliance, the government then invokes such bogus charges as politically convenient to silence critics," wrote Arzu Geybulla, a research assistant with Human Rights Watch.
Geybulla added: "Azerbaijan's international partners should take note and urge the authorities to end the crackdown, including releasing all those arbitrarily detailed, and dropping all politically motivated prosecutions."
Another rights group, Reporters Without Borders, urged the Azerbaijani government to release these journalists, as well as others that have been "arbitrarily detained."
Jeanne Cavelier, head of Reporters Without Borders' Eastern Europe and Central Asia desk, said that "barely a month after Ilham Aliyev's regime used the glitz of COP29 to polish its international image, it has resumed its relentless repression of journalists."