January, 04 2018, 01:30pm EDT
Trump Administration's New Leasing Plan Would Expand Offshore Drilling Everywhere
Earthjustice to continue fighting reversal of safeguards against drilling in Arctic and Atlantic.
WASHINGTON
The Trump Administration unveiled its proposed Five-Year Plan for offshore leasing today. This proposal - which identifies which offshore territories could ultimately be auctioned off to the fossil fuel industry for oil and gas drilling - exposes coastal communities to unacceptable harm.
Oil spills issuing from offshore operations could irreversibly harm thriving coastal economies, public health, and marine life across vast swaths of publicly owned federal waters. In the long run, opening these areas to fossil fuel development will also make it extremely challenging, if not impossible, to correct course on climate change. The Trump Administration's Five-Year Plan was jumpstarted in 2017 despite the conclusion of a five-year plan in 2016, which integrated feedback from more than two million Americans who turned out to register their opposition to offshore drilling.
The following is a statement from Earthjustice President Trip Van Noppen:
"Today's draft offshore leasing plan continues the Trump administration's all-out assault on public lands and waters. The plan proposes to expand offshore oil drilling everywhere, including in our most sensitive waters. It puts irreplaceable wildlife and coastal communities at risk for the sole benefit of Big Oil, and it takes us in exactly the wrong direction on the urgently needed transition to a clean energy future. Less than a year ago, after years of study and public input, President Obama kept leasing out of some of our most sensitive seas and permanently protected the Arctic Ocean and important parts of the Atlantic Ocean from expanded offshore drilling. President Trump is bent on reversing these gains, but we will continue to fight him at every turn."
Earthjustice is a non-profit public interest law firm dedicated to protecting the magnificent places, natural resources, and wildlife of this earth, and to defending the right of all people to a healthy environment. We bring about far-reaching change by enforcing and strengthening environmental laws on behalf of hundreds of organizations, coalitions and communities.
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Talarico Takes Direct Aim at Elon Musk as Early Voting Shatters Record in Key Texas County
"Elon Musk wants our land, he wants our water, he wants his very own personal United States senator."
Oct 20, 2026
Texas Democratic US Senate candidate James Talarico on Monday took direct aim at far-right billionaire Elon Musk, the single biggest donor to the campaign of Republican rival Ken Paxton.
Speaking at an event in Denton, Texas, Talarico decried Musk's attempts to flood the Senate race with money, as recent financial disclosures show the SpaceX CEO has spent at least $158 million trying to boost Paxton's campaign.
"Musk is trying to buy this Senate seat in Texas," Talarico said. "We just found out that he is almost singlehandedly bankrolling this effort to install Ken Paxton in the US Senate and defeat this movement that we've built in our state."
Talarico: "We just found out that [Elon Musk] is almost single-handedly bankrolling this effort to install Ken Paxton in the U.S. Senate and defeat this movement...Elon Musk wants our land. He wants our water. He wants his very own personal United States senator. He is trying to buy Texas."
— Bulwark Clips (@BulwarkClips) October 19, 2026
Talarico outlined the ways Musk's money has impacted the Senate campaign.
"In all likelihood, if you have seen an attack ad on your TV, that was Elon," Talarico said. "If you've gotten lies in your mailbox, that was Elon. If you've received a text message saying scary things about me, that was Elon too."
The Texas Democrat contrasted Paxton's reliance on Musk with his own campaign receiving funding from over 1.3 million individual donors.
"Ken Paxton is funded by one dude," Talarico said. "Elon Musk wants our land, he wants our water, he wants his very own personal United States senator. He is trying to buy Texas. But on November 3, we are going to send a crystal-clear message... Texas is not for sale."
Talarico's remarks on Musk came amid a historic surge of early voting in the Texas Democratic stronghold of Harris County.
According to a Monday report from Click 2 Houston, Harris County recorded nearly 105,000 ballots cast on the first day of early voting, shattering the previous first-day early voting record of 63,000 votes set during the 2018 midterm elections.
In 2018, Democrat Beto O'Rourke came within two-and-a-half percentage points of ousting incumbent Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), the closest a Democrat has come to winning a US Senate race in the Lone Star State in decades.
The most recent polls aggregated by elections analyst Nate Silver show that Talarico holds a narrow lead over Paxton heading into the final stretch of the campaign.
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Top Economist Says Elon Musk Needs to 'Pay More Taxes,' Not Just Donate SpaceX Shares
"The American people don’t need billionaires making grand promises of generosity," said University of California, Berkeley professor Gabriel Zucman. "They need billionaires to pay their fair share."
Oct 20, 2026
A world-renowned economist said Monday that Elon Musk's pledge to donate a share of his company, SpaceX, to every American child is not nearly enough to redress the exploding wealth inequality that he personifies.
Gabriel Zucman, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley and a leading inequality expert, wrote in a series of social media posts directed at Musk that "if you really want to help the American people, I have a better suggestion than charity: pay more taxes."
"You, like your fellow billionaires, pay a lower effective tax rate than the average American," Zucman wrote, pointing to his research on the tax rates of the wealthiest Americans.
Zucman and his colleagues estimated in a 2025 paper that the total effective tax rate of the 400 wealthiest US households "averaged 24% in 2018–2020 compared with 30% for the full population and 45% for top labor income earners."
Based on available data and tax records obtained by ProPublica, Musk's effective tax rate has been far lower than average. Between 2014 and 2018, Musk—whose wealth is mostly tied up in stock that is only taxed when it is sold—paid an effective federal rate of 3.27%.
"The American people don’t need billionaires making grand promises of generosity," wrote Zucman. "They need billionaires to pay their fair share. All of them. Each year. How is it acceptable that billionaires pay a lower tax rate than the average American? The most effective way to do is with a billionaire wealth tax."
Billionaires’s extremely low tax rates are fueling oligarchic power in the United States.Look at the wealth held by the richest billionaires relative to what’s produced in a given year in the US—a good measure of the influence their wealth can buy. The economic weight of extreme wealth now far exceeds its Gilded Age peak.
— Gabriel Zucman (@gabriel_zucman) October 19, 2026
Musk, whose net worth briefly surpassed $1 trillion earlier this year following SpaceX's debut on the public market, pledged to distribute a share of the company to every American child. Based on the company's current stock price, the donation would be worth around $11 billion—a tiny percentage of Musk's total wealth.
"Giving 1% is better than giving 0%, and I applaud that," Zucman wrote in his social media thread on Monday. "But Americans don’t need charity, as in 19th Century Britain. They need everybody to contribute through the tax system, in proportion to their ability to pay."
Zucman expressed support for the Make Billionaires Pay Their Fair Share Act, legislation introduced earlier this year by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.). The bill would impose a 5% annual wealth tax on US billionaires, whose combined net worth surged past $9 trillion over the summer.
"This would still be small relative to your wealth," Zucman said of the tax, "and yet would generate more than $4.4 trillion in revenue over the next decade. That would make a real difference to the lives of the American people. Owning one share in SpaceX won’t."
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'My Name Is Abdul': El-Sayed Confronts Trump's Racist, Anti-Muslim Attacks Head-On in New Ad
"In response to attacks about his faith, Abdul doubles down on who he is," said one observer.
Oct 20, 2026
In his latest campaign ad released late Monday, Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic US Senate candidate in Michigan, struck a resilient and matter-of-fact tone that suggested the recent racist attacks on him, his Arabic name, and his Muslim faith are no secret—but he has no plans to try to hide his identity to appease Republicans and Democrats who have claimed he's an "extremist" or accused him of terrorist ties.
"My name is Abdul," said El-Sayed in the 30-second ad. "It means servant. I pray every day. I reflect on my role in this life, on this Earth—how we leave it better than we found it."
He continued by linking his own faith traditions to those of millions of Michiganders who also "pray"—many of whom, he suggested, "feel hopeless" in President Donald Trump's America, as they face rising costs and struggle to afford groceries, healthcare, childcare, and other essentials.
As a man of faith, I pray every day. Faith is a thing there’s just too little of in Washington. https://t.co/1OUOb51AC8
— Dr. Abdul El-Sayed (@AbdulElSayed) October 19, 2026
The ad, subtly connecting El-Sayed's Muslim faith to people of all belief systems across Michigan, comes as Trump and others ramp up Islamophobic attacks on the progressive former public health official, with two weeks to go until Election Day.
The president explicitly, baselessly slandered El-Sayed as "a jihadist" at one recent rally, mocking his name as he told the crowd that El-Sayed "is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood." The Republican Senate candidate in Michigan, former Rep. Mike Rogers, has also attempted to tie El-Sayed to the political movement that was founded in Egypt in 1928.
On Monday, as El-Sayed's ad was released, Trump took aim at the candidate's name once again, calling him by his middle name, Mohamed.
"He knows my name is Abdul," El-Sayed said of the president earlier this month. "He says it every day. But he’s not just attacking me. He’s attacking all of us. He thinks so low of us. He thinks he can use my name and my faith to distract us from the suffering his policies are inflicting on us at the pump, at the grocery store, and at the doctor’s office. He thinks we don’t know any better. It’s time for change."
The Republican claims regarding El-Sayed's ties to the Muslim Brotherhood made their way into an exchange the candidate had with a town hall attendee identified as "Tommy" in Caro, Michigan over the weekend, where Tommy demanded that El-Sayed "disavow" the group.
“Sure. Yeah, absolutely,” El-Sayed said, before challenging Tommy to explain why he was asking a Muslim candidate to do so.
This is Tommy. Tommy had a question about my allegiances. Listen to the end to hear about his. https://t.co/p09eMtsh0x
— Dr. Abdul El-Sayed (@AbdulElSayed) October 18, 2026
Anti-Muslim attacks have come from both sides of the aisle since El-Sayed began his campaign, with Democratic strategists spending months fixating on his decision to campaign with popular Twitch streamer Hasan Piker and tying the candidate to Piker's earlier remarks about September 11 and Israel.
On Monday, former Michigan Democratic Party chair Lon Johnson accused El-Sayed of "extremism" and said his rhetoric threatens Jewish communities, calling on Democrats in the state to "leave the Senate race blank" to represent "a rejection of ideological absolutism." El-Sayed is a strong supporter of Palestinian rights and, like a majority of Americans, is deeply critical of US support for Israel as it continues its assault on Gaza and the West Bank.
In the ad released Monday, El-Sayed suggested that "faith" like his could bring positive change to Washington, DC, where political leaders have long claimed that big changes to systems in the US—such as its for-profit healthcare system, which El-Sayed strongly believes must be replaced by Medicare for All—would be impossible to make.
"Faith is a thing that there's just too little of in Washington," he said. "We don't have faith in our future. We don't have faith that we can actually fix things."
Mussab Ali, a former school board official in Jersey City, New Jersey, said the ad took "courage" to release.
"I think this might be the first time in American history you’ve seen a Muslim candidate demonstrate a part of their prayer in an ad like this," said Ali. "In response to attacks about his faith, Abdul doubles down on who he is."
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40+ California Multimillionaires Sign Open Letter Backing Billionaire Wealth Tax
"We have the chance to lead the world in establishing basic tax fairness, raising revenues for essential programs, and checking the power of the richest among us."
Oct 20, 2026
Dozens of multimillionaire Californians have signed an open letter supporting a one-time wealth tax on the state's billionaire residents, calling the proposal a "very sensible solution" to a looming healthcare disaster and runaway inequality.
"People like us can afford to live wherever we want. We choose to live in California because we love our state," reads the letter, which was organized by Patriotic Millionaires and Tax The Ultra Rich Now. "As multimillionaires, we’re willing to do our part. It’s past time for billionaires—our thousand millionaire cousins—to do theirs. Their opposition to this commonsense idea is embarrassing for all of us."
The letter's signatories, including filmmaker Tim Disney and former congressional candidate Saikat Chakrabarti, reject arguments that a 5% wealth tax on California's billionaires would hamper innovation and damage the state's economic status.
"I’m not a billionaire, but I have enough experience building wealth in California’s tech sector to know this fear is overblown," said Chakrabarti. "A one-time, retroactive tax on 200 or so billion-dollar fortunes is in no way going to disincentivize future innovators from coming to/staying in the tech capital of the world and creating new products, services, and businesses. If I can afford to pay more in tax, so can my billionaire neighbors—especially as many of them make a killing with advances in AI."
The letter comes as billionaire opponents of the tax, which will appear on California's November ballot as Proposition 40, ramp up their spending against the measure in the days ahead of the midterm elections. One recent analysis of financial disclosures estimates that the initiative's billionaire opponents—including Google co-founder Sergey Brin and venture capitalist Peter Thiel—are spending roughly $1 million per day to defeat it.
The ballot measure is also opposed by Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has endorsed a competing initiative that would cancel out the billionaire tax and prohibit future wealth taxes.
Experts say the proposed billionaire tax would raise around $100 billion in revenue, which would mostly be used to offset the impacts of federal Medicaid cuts that President Donald Trump signed into law last summer.
"Our state is one of the many starving for revenues and facing the prospect of drastic cuts to essential services like healthcare, food assistance, and education," the open letter reads. "Prop 40—a one-time, 5% tax on the wealth of billionaires—would help solve this problem and achieve what we’re after: establishing tax fairness, raising desperately needed revenues, and checking the power of the rich."
"To our fellow Californians, we have the chance to make history in November," the letter continues. "We have the chance to lead the world in establishing basic tax fairness, raising revenues for essential programs, and checking the power of the richest among us. With so much on the line, we urge you to stand up for the future of all Californians and vote 'yes' on Prop 40.
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US Officials Face Fresh Pressure After Another American 'Brutalized' by Israeli Settlers in West Bank
"We call on members of Congress to demand the US government place sanctions on illegal Israeli settlers and the Israeli military," said the Council on American-Islamic Relations and CAIR-Chicago.
Oct 19, 2026
Just days after Israelis assaulted 63-year-old Washington Post photojournalist Heidi Levine in the illegally occupied West Bank, settlers who have invaded the Palestinian territory attacked another American there, spurring calls for action by US officials.
"Over a dozen masked settlers just attacked Turmus 'Ayya. Burned an American home and severely beat an American citizen, Chicagoan Mohammed Sakat," Jasper Nathaniel, an American journalist who covers the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, wrote on the social media platform X, sharing footage of the bloodied man and floor.
"One town over from Abu Falah and was attacked on the same day," he noted. "They're really cracking down here."
The journalist pointed out that six weeks ago, President Donald Trump's ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, "stood in a home in Turmus 'Ayya, telling residents they deserved peace, condemning settler terror, and promising severe consequences."
"Today, settlers burned American homes and assaulted US citizens here," he continued. "No accountability in sight."
"Meanwhile, Huckabee just gave the keynote speech at a settlement conference alongside Eliram Azoulay, one of the key figures in ethnically cleansing Masafer Yatta," Nathaniel added.
Israeli settlers set fire to a house and attack Palestinians in Turmus 'Ayya, a town in the illegally occupied West Bank, on October 19, 2026. (Photo by Avishay Mohar/Facebook)
Avishay Mohar, who is part of Activestills, "an independent photography collective engaged in decolonial struggles in Palestine/Israel since 2005," described the Monday attack with photographs on his Facebook and Instagram accounts.
"Israelis set fire to a house and attack Palestinian olive harvesters in Turmus 'Ayya as they picked olives in a residential area between the village's houses," he wrote in the caption. "Over the years, Israel has taken nearly all of the village's land. The Israelis, dressed in black and wearing masks, severely beat an elderly farmer with sticks and sharp objects."
"They threw stones at houses, set two cars on fire, and burned a room in one of the homes," according to Mohar. "Later, Israeli army forces arrived along with other Israeli civilians, including one known for building new outposts in the area. They threatened residents with tear gas if they did not leave immediately, and banned them from blocking the road leading from the violent outposts to the village homes."
The United States' largest Muslim civil rights group and its Chicago chapter demanded action from US policymakers—who have increased the billions of dollars in military aid that they give to Israel annually since Israeli forces began a genocidal war on Palestinians in the Gaza Strip in response to the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack.
Throughout Israel's assault on Gaza—which has killed over 74,000 people—there has been a surge of violence by Israeli settlers and soldiers in the West Bank, leading to the deaths of more than 1,100 Palestinians and multiple Americans.
"Once again, the extremist thugs supported and enabled by the Israeli government have brutalized an American citizen. Enough is enough. Failing to speak out about this and demand accountability is a betrayal of the American people in favor of a foreign state," said the Council on American-Islamic Relations and CAIR-Chicago in a Monday statement.
"We call on Illinois lawmakers to condemn this vicious attack. We call on members of Congress to demand the US government place sanctions on illegal Israeli settlers and the Israeli military," they continued. "We call on Illinois State Treasurer Michael Frerichs to divest Illinois' public funds from Israel bonds and halt all new purchases and renewals."
They added that "Illinois taxpayers should not be bankrolling a government that enables attacks on American citizens. We also call on the US government to launch an independent investigation into the attacks on Mohammed Sakat, Heidi Levine, and all other Americans targeted by Israeli settlers and troops."
Between the Israeli settler assaults of Levine and Sakat, there were reports that Israel's military ignored repeated distress calls before masked settlers attacked a group of European diplomats in the West Bank over the weekend.
While the Israel Defense Forces attempted to defend itself by saying the diplomats did not coordinate their visit with the military and turned to a hotline not intended for civilian use, the anti-occupation group Breaking the Silence said that "the IDF will always have a bureaucratic excuse, but the real reason is that backing settler terrorists is its policy."
According to The Associated Press, "Israeli police said they arrested 10 people on Monday in connection with a wave of settler violence that included attacks on a foreign journalist and European diplomats in the occupied West Bank over the weekend."
However, as the Palestinian National Authority's news agency WAFA noted in a Monday report about three olive harvesters injured by Israeli settlers near Salfit, "colonists' violence against Palestinians and their property is routine in the West Bank and is rarely prosecuted by Israeli authorities."
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'Mississippi Goddam': State AG Calls Police Killing of Toddler Kohen Wiley 'Justified'
"Kohen should be alive," said one civil rights attorney. "He and his family deserve accountability. The fight for justice continues."
Oct 19, 2026
Republican Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch on Monday declared the fatal police shooting of 1-year-old Kohen Wiley “justified,” provoking outrage over a decision that civil rights advocates said underscores the enduring systemic racism in US policing and prosecution.
Wiley, who is Black, was killed on June 14 in a Walmart parking lot in Senatobia, Mississippi as he sat in his mother’s arms inside a car. Police had responded to an allegation that his mother, Vellesiya Wiley, and another woman, Latoya Ferrell—the baby's aunt—had stolen diapers.
Senatobia Police Sgt. Hunter Foster, who is white, opened fire on the car, striking Wiley and Ferrell, who was critically wounded. Neither woman has been charged, and authorities have not publicly released evidence establishing that a theft occurred.
“I watched my baby take his first breath, and I watched my baby take his last breath,” Wiley said after her son's killing.
A TRAVESTY OF JUSTICE. Horror and racism from Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch as she announces that the police shooting of Black baby Kohen Wiley was "justified."
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— Indivisible Chicago Alliance ❌👑 (@indivisiblechicago.bsky.social) October 19, 2026 at 12:01 PM
Cellphone video footage showed a vehicle driving away from officers, but does not appear to capture the moment of the shooting. A photo of the car shows bullet holes in the windshield.
In a brief statement, Fitch's office said it had "completed the review" of the shooting and "found the use of force was justified."
The finding means that Foster will face no criminal charges.
"How can anyone accept that conclusion when Kohen’s family and the public still have not been allowed to see the body camera footage?" national civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who represents the Wiley family, said following Fitch's announcement.
"This is a department whose chief was fired after reports of racial slurs in his text messages, and whose officer faced a complaint alleging a racially offensive remark two days before he shot Kohen," he added. "If the footage supports the state’s decision, release it. We will not stop fighting until this family gets the truth."
Last month, the city of Senatobia fired former Police Chief Harold Vanderford after text messages emerged in which he regularly used racial slurs.
Marquell Bridges, a Mississippi activist who is president of the Building Bridges Coalition, told the Mississippi Free Press Monday that “there is blood" on the hands of "not just Hunter Foster, but everyone that is complicit in the cover-up, including Attorney General Lynn Fitch."
Rev. Cornell William Brooks—a lawyer, civil rights activist, and professor—posted on social media, "BABY EXECUTION BY JUSTIFIABLE HOMICIDE."
"With the video, the public won’t buy this," Brooks added. "A fleeing alleged shoplifter does not justify shooting into a vehicle with a known 'baby on board.' Every alleged perception of danger doesn’t justify every Black death."
Writer and racial justice advocate Tanisha Long voiced her indignation in the words of a famous Civil Rights-era protest song from Jazz icon Nina Simone:
"Mississippi Goddam."
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While Waging War and Wrecking Economy, Trump's Focused On... Renaming New Mexico
"New Mexico is New Mexico, and you lost here three times because you're corrupt and don't care about working people," said Deb Haaland.
Oct 19, 2026
As Americans suffer from an affordability crisis exacerbated by President Donald Trump's policies, both foreign and domestic, critics on Monday excoriated him for his inane pursuit of changing the name of yet another geographical place—this time, one of the nation's most culturally distinct states.
"New Mexico should immediately change its name to New America," Trump wrote on his Truth Social network. "We are not Mexico, we are the United States of America! The name would add great value and prestige to the State!"
"Home Values and Incomes would rise," the president baselessly contended, "and you would be even prouder while saluting our beautiful American Flag! Maybe even the Crooked Elections, that New Mexico is known for, would become honest again!"
Americas: Please do literally anything about affordability. I can't afford groceries. Trump: WE SHOULD RENAME NEW MEXICO TO NEW AMERICA!!
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— Mike Nellis (@mikenellis.bsky.social) October 19, 2026 at 12:57 PM
New Mexico has no such reputation, despite Republican electors signing a certificate purporting to cast the state's electoral votes for Trump in 2020—former President Joe Biden won there by double digits—and GOP commissioners in Otero County refusing to certify the June 2022 primary results over unfounded concerns about voting machines.
Trump's desire to rename New Mexico "New America" is curious, given that both old and New Mexico—as well as everywhere from Greenland to Tierra del Fuego—are part of the Americas.
The president has already renamed the Gulf of Mexico and Lake Ontario—though the new names aren't recognized internationally—and has also floated changing the name of the Strait of Hormuz to the Trump Strait, even as the military under his command has been unable to gain control of the vital waterway amid the increasingly protracted US-Israeli war of choice against Iran.
"It's like we're living in a never-ending 'South Park' episode," Zeteo media columnist Justin Baragona said Monday on Bluesky, referring to the long-running Comedy Central adult animation show, whose upcoming season will be renamed "South America" in a satirical send-up of not only Trump's rechristening spree, but also the complicity of tech titans like Google and Apple that all too readily comply with the president's whims.
Your President of the United States, folks. Laser-focused on the issues that matter to Americans and on the myriad major problems around the globe.
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— Aaron Reichlin-Melnick (@reichlinmelnick.bsky.social) October 19, 2026 at 12:15 PM
US Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-NM)—who recently led New Mexico's congressional delegation in calling on Apple and Google to keep the state's current name on their maps—said Monday on social media that "New Mexico’s name dates back hundreds of years, long before the United States even existed."
"It carries generations of history, culture, and rich traditions that continue to shape who we are," he added. "We are New Mexicans. We’re proud of our name, proud of our home, and we’re keeping both. Long after Donald Trump is out of office, we’ll still be New Mexico."
Critics of Trump's policies skewered the president's priorities amid a cost-of-living crisis he said he'd fix upon returning to office and a war of choice he promised never to wage.
"People are struggling to afford housing, to pay their electric bills, to fill their tank with gas, and to buy groceries. The Mad King’s solution: Rename New Mexico as New America and your income will magically go up," California state Sen. Scott Wiener, a Democrat running to fill retiring Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi's (D-Calif.) House seat, said on social media.
Former US Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, a Democrat running for governor of New Mexico, said, "New Mexico is New Mexico, and you lost here three times because you're corrupt and don't care about working people."
"You should be focused on ending this war, stopping these tariffs, and making things less expensive," she added, "not renaming our state."
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'Blatant Hypocrisy': Trump Signs Executive Order on Women’s Health—While Attacking Women's Health
"This is an attempt to change the headlines, not women’s lives.”
Oct 19, 2026
President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Monday to promote women's health. But advocates say it's an example of "blatant hypocrisy" after his administration slashed healthcare access and medical research funding.
The initiative, promoted by First Lady Melania Trump, establishes a new Women's Health Division within the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) and a White House task force to advance research into conditions disproportionately affecting women, like heart disease, Alzheimer's disease, cancer, and endometriosis.
During a speech on Monday, Trump said the task force "will mobilize the entire federal government to coordinate action focused on improving women's health." He added that it would be led by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whom he said "has been fantastic" even though he’s "a little different."
Critics were quick to point out that the order doesn’t provide any new research funding and that the Trump administration has canceled nearly half a billion dollars in NIH research funding, some of which supported research into the very diseases the order mentions.
Following years of growth in women's health research, a Washington Post analysis found that under Kennedy, the number of competitively funded NIH research projects mentioning women fell by 31% in 2025, amid the administration's crusade against so-called diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.
In April, Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine)—who faces a tough reelection campaign—criticized these cuts, saying that "the administration's emphasis on canceling diversity-related grants has resulted in less research aimed at women's health."
The new order also revokes two Biden-era directives on women's health research, which had helped secure nearly $1 billion in funding. Trump's order provides no additional research funding. It also does not specify what will happen to the existing funds.
"Women’s health has long been ignored as a federal priority, and while we agree that steps must be taken to close disparities in women’s healthcare, it’s hard not to point out the blatant hypocrisy of this unfunded order coming from an administration that is actively decimating healthcare access for women," said Dorianne Mason, senior director of health equity and contraceptive access at the National Women's Law Center (NWLC).
"From the One Big Beautiful Bill Act’s cuts to Medicaid and the defunding of Planned Parenthood, to gutting the federal Office of Minority Health and slashing funding for women’s health research, this administration has made it clear that it doesn’t actually care about women’s healthcare needs, despite what this weak executive order attempts to convey," she added.
Last year, Trump signed a GOP budget law that cut hundreds of billions of dollars from Medicaid—a program that finances maternity care, reproductive healthcare, as well as routine health services for around 39 million low-income women.
Under Kennedy, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has rescinded federal guidance protecting emergency abortion access and launched a medical review that could restrict access to abortion pills.
“With RFK Jr. at the HHS helm, millions of women are paying more for healthcare and have less access to services they need,” said Brad Woodhouse, president of Protect Our Care. “Secretary Kennedy has tried to scrap any research grant or program that dares to fix women’s health disparities—and disproportionately fired women doctors and career scientists en masse. He’s fought tooth and nail to restrict access to abortion medication even when the lives and health of women depend on it, including patients dealing with a horrific ectopic pregnancy."
Polls show that Trump and Republicans are performing dismally among women. According to a Washington Post/ABC News/Ipsos poll released Sunday, just 30% of women said they approved of Trump’s job performance, and 61% wanted Democrats to control Congress.
Noting that the midterm elections were just weeks away, Mason said Trump's announcement of a women's health initiative "is an attempt to change the headlines, not women’s lives.”
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Toxic Betrayal: Report Details How Trump Duped His MAHA Base by Appeasing Corporate Interests
The MAHA movement "reminded the American public of the dangers of toxic chemicals in our air and water... But then the Trump administration either did nothing—or gave industry permission to pollute more.”
Oct 19, 2026
It's been seven months since more than 30 leaders of the "Make America Healthy Again" movement told the Trump administration that they were losing patience, and demanded to see evidence that the US Environmental Protection Agency took seriously millions of Americans' concerns about toxic "forever chemicals" and microplastics.
"MAHA is a mandate, not a marketing campaign," the advocates told EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, calling for an end to both corporate-friendly loopholes in regulations and the "revolving door" that saw chemical lobbyists hired by the agency tasked with regulating the industry.
But on Monday, the government watchdog Public Citizen revealed that 20 out of 21 environmental chemicals that the White House pledged to address in its May 2025 "MAHA Report" have been subject to less, not more, regulation under the Trump administration.
For nine of the chemicals, including the carcinogenic herbicide atrazine, mercury, and per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS)—often called forever chemicals—President Donald Trump and his top officials have loosened public health regulations.
For 10 of them, the administration has taken none of the action promised in the MAHA Report, and in the case of the cancer-causing herbicide glyphosate, Trump issued an executive order not only endorsing the use of the chemical but mandating its production—a year after Bayer, the parent company of the chemical firm that uses glyphosate in popular weedkiller Roundup, donated $1 million to Trump's inaugural campaign.
Public Citizen found just one substance, microplastics, for which the administration has "taken any step toward regulation, and at best it was a baby step"—announcing in April that microplastics may be considered for regulation in the future and that the government would study measuring and removing them from the human body.
The report identifies the lifted limits on forever chemicals, loosened regulations on air pollution, and action on glyphosate as "among the most egregious betrayals" of the MAHA movement that helped elect Trump.
"These examples show how the Trump administration’s retreat on chemicals in the environment is failing to keep Americans healthy," reads the report.
Despite the warning from MAHA leaders earlier this year, Public Citizen research director Peter Whoriskey wrote, the administration's conduct has shown that "MAHA is worse than an empty slogan. It’s a sham."
Nearly two years into Trump's second term in office—despite the fact that MAHA leader Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is the president's secretary of health and human services—key regulatory posts have been filled by former industry lobbyists and officials, such as David Fotouhi, who as the deputy administrator of the EPA is the agency’s second-highest official.
During his legal career, Fotouhi defended the company International Paper when it was sued for contaminating the environment with forever chemicals.
Eight out of 10 top leadership roles at the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention and the Office of Air and Radiation are filled by "officials, lawyers, and lobbyists who previously worked for chemical oil, chemical, and agriculture companies," reads the report.
"For years, Kennedy, like other leaders in the MAHA movement, accused federal regulators of being controlled by corporate lobbyists and failing to protect Americans from dangerous industrial and agricultural chemicals. Accordingly, they campaigned to curtail corporate influence at the EPA and other federal agencies," wrote Whoriskey.
But with Kennedy at his side, "the Trump administration has not only accommodated industry demands but appointed industry lobbyists and other officials to senior positions in the EPA."
The report also takes aim at persistent claims by Trump administration officials, including in the MAHA Report, that they will use "gold standard science" to evaluate environmental dangers.
The White House has made that all but impossible by disbanding the Office of Research and Development, which has conducted research on the impact of chemicals on humans, the report says.
The government's top air pollution research facility in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, was also shut down, while all the members of the EPA's Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee and the Clean Air Act Advisory Committee were ousted.
“The MAHA Report reminded the American public of the dangers of toxic chemicals in our air and water,” said Whoriskey in a statement. “It was described as a ‘call to action.’ But then the Trump administration either did nothing—or gave industry permission to pollute more.”
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Mahmoud Khalil Asks Supreme Court to Weigh In On Fights Against 'Unlawful Attempts to Detain and Deport People'
"The Supreme Court must uphold the power of habeas courts to free people from retaliatory detention and prevent the weaponization of the immigration system to punish dissent."
Oct 19, 2026
Attorneys representing former Columbia University student organizer Mahmoud Khalil on Monday asked the US Supreme Court to hear a challenge to an appellate ruling that overturned a judge's determination that his 2025 detention by federal immigration officials was unconstitutional.
Khalil, a legal US permanent resident who was born in a Palestinian refugee camp in Syria, was arrested by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in March 2025 and detained on claims that his activism was "adverse to the foreign policy interests of the United States."
US District Judge Michael Farbiarz, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, freed Khalil from ICE custody, arguing that his detention was unwarranted since he was neither a flight risk nor a danger to the community.
However, the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals overruled Farbiarz's decision on the grounds that federal courts did not have jurisdiction to rule on immigration cases.
In making his appeal to the Supreme Court to hear his case, Khalil said the outcome would determine "whether I, and all immigrants in this country, can actually challenge this administration’s unlawful attempts to detain and deport people solely in retaliation for their First Amendment protected speech."
Baher Azmy, legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, which represents Khalil, argued that the appeals court's decision was in error because federal courts should always have jurisdiction over cases involving core rights such as habeas corpus petitions.
"Our most fundamental constitutional principles have always prevented the president from sending people into detention on a whim or out of spite," said Azmy. "Access to the critical protections of habeas corpus is an essential check on the kind of arbitrary detention here, which the administration wants free rein to accomplish, by punishing Mr. Khalil for nothing other than constitutionally protected speech."
Alina Das, director of the New York University Immigrant Rights Clinic, which is also representing the former student, said the Trump administration's detention of Khalil violated his core constitutional rights, while also chilling the speech of both US citizens and noncitizens who "fear retaliation against themselves or their loved one."
"The Supreme Court must uphold the power of habeas courts to free people from retaliatory detention," said Das, "and prevent the weaponization of the immigration system to punish dissent."
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