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Emboldened by his attorney general's summary of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III's still-embargoed report, President Trump has shifted from his oft-repeated defense of "No collusion!" to an offensive against the investigation that he has always dismissed as a "witch hunt."
As the saying goes, it's not the parts of the Bible I don't understand that bother me; it's the parts that I do. As we wait to learn what the Mueller report really says, we need a similar clarity: It's not what we don't know that should bother us, but what we do. Whether Trump and his enablers have broken any laws, they are clearly committed to using law to subvert the basic tenets of our social contract: the will of the people, the good of the whole and equal justice under the law.
"History teaches us -- from abolition to women's suffrage to the labor movement to the civil rights era -- that reports never saved us. Only deeply committed moral-fusion movements that resisted the lies of oppression have pushed America toward a more perfect union."
Whether Trump and his campaign colluded with the Russians to subvert democracy, they have certainly colluded with homegrown and racist voter-suppression efforts to undermine the basic principle of one person, one vote. Since the Supreme Court's Shelby County v. Holderdecision in 2013, which stripped the Voting Rights Act of its power to require preclearance of voting-law changes in places with a history of racist voter suppression, 23 states have passed laws to limit voting rights, according to the Brennan Center. It's no accident that Trump won those states in 2016 and proudly points to them as "red states" on maps designed to obscure the nearly 3-million-vote margin by which he lost the popular vote.
When Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) refuses to take up the For the People Act -- a bill designed to restore voting rights to millions of Americans -- he is colluding in plain sight with state legislatures that have been found guilty in federal court of targeting African American voters with "almost surgical precision." And it should be noted that those who benefit and get elected because of this collusion support policies that hurt many millions of white people.
Trump's collusion to subvert the will of the American people extends to a policy record that is now well established. He and his enablers colluded to give $1.5 trillion in tax cuts to the greedy and to increase the military budget while refusing to address the needs of the estimated 140 million poor and low-wealth people in this country.
Though the Affordable Care Act remains popular and most Americans think our 37 million neighbors who are still uninsured deserve coverage, Trump continues to collude with those attacking and undermining the ACA.
Though most Americans support living wages for all workers, Trump and his enablers refuse to consider a minimum wage of $15 an hour and a union for the more than 58 million people working below that living wage. Trump points instead to low unemployment rates that in no way reflect the reality that there is no state or county in the United States where someone can rent a market-rate two-bedroom apartment working full time at the federal minimum wage.
"What we most need now is an enlightened public committed to rebuilding the infrastructure of democracy in our communities."
While the realities of global climate change threaten massive displacement and death for millions of Americans, Trump continues to deny what everyone can see, joking that the extreme winter storms created by climate change are somehow evidence that global warming doesn't exist.
We cannot wait for the Justice Department to catch this president in a legal misstep, though that may well happen at some point. Our present crisis is much bigger than Trump and his mendacity. It goes to the very heart of who we are as a nation. And history teaches us -- from abolition to women's suffrage to the labor movement to the civil rights era -- that reports never saved us. Only deeply committed moral-fusion movements that resisted the lies of oppression have pushed America toward a more perfect union.
What we most need now is an enlightened public committed to rebuilding the infrastructure of democracy in our communities. We must register the millions of eligible voters who are unregistered and mobilize those whose names are on the roll but did not show up in 2016 or 2018. We must reclaim the moral high ground and resolve to work together beyond the puny language of left and right until we achieve at the ballot box what too many have hoped the special counsel would do for us: a rebuke of Trump's immoral agenda that opens the possibility of an America that has never yet been.
Political revenge. Mass deportations. Project 2025. Unfathomable corruption. Attacks on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Pardons for insurrectionists. An all-out assault on democracy. Republicans in Congress are scrambling to give Trump broad new powers to strip the tax-exempt status of any nonprofit he doesn’t like by declaring it a “terrorist-supporting organization.” Trump has already begun filing lawsuits against news outlets that criticize him. At Common Dreams, we won’t back down, but we must get ready for whatever Trump and his thugs throw at us. As a people-powered nonprofit news outlet, we cover issues the corporate media never will, but we can only continue with our readers’ support. By donating today, please help us fight the dangers of a second Trump presidency. |
Emboldened by his attorney general's summary of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III's still-embargoed report, President Trump has shifted from his oft-repeated defense of "No collusion!" to an offensive against the investigation that he has always dismissed as a "witch hunt."
As the saying goes, it's not the parts of the Bible I don't understand that bother me; it's the parts that I do. As we wait to learn what the Mueller report really says, we need a similar clarity: It's not what we don't know that should bother us, but what we do. Whether Trump and his enablers have broken any laws, they are clearly committed to using law to subvert the basic tenets of our social contract: the will of the people, the good of the whole and equal justice under the law.
"History teaches us -- from abolition to women's suffrage to the labor movement to the civil rights era -- that reports never saved us. Only deeply committed moral-fusion movements that resisted the lies of oppression have pushed America toward a more perfect union."
Whether Trump and his campaign colluded with the Russians to subvert democracy, they have certainly colluded with homegrown and racist voter-suppression efforts to undermine the basic principle of one person, one vote. Since the Supreme Court's Shelby County v. Holderdecision in 2013, which stripped the Voting Rights Act of its power to require preclearance of voting-law changes in places with a history of racist voter suppression, 23 states have passed laws to limit voting rights, according to the Brennan Center. It's no accident that Trump won those states in 2016 and proudly points to them as "red states" on maps designed to obscure the nearly 3-million-vote margin by which he lost the popular vote.
When Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) refuses to take up the For the People Act -- a bill designed to restore voting rights to millions of Americans -- he is colluding in plain sight with state legislatures that have been found guilty in federal court of targeting African American voters with "almost surgical precision." And it should be noted that those who benefit and get elected because of this collusion support policies that hurt many millions of white people.
Trump's collusion to subvert the will of the American people extends to a policy record that is now well established. He and his enablers colluded to give $1.5 trillion in tax cuts to the greedy and to increase the military budget while refusing to address the needs of the estimated 140 million poor and low-wealth people in this country.
Though the Affordable Care Act remains popular and most Americans think our 37 million neighbors who are still uninsured deserve coverage, Trump continues to collude with those attacking and undermining the ACA.
Though most Americans support living wages for all workers, Trump and his enablers refuse to consider a minimum wage of $15 an hour and a union for the more than 58 million people working below that living wage. Trump points instead to low unemployment rates that in no way reflect the reality that there is no state or county in the United States where someone can rent a market-rate two-bedroom apartment working full time at the federal minimum wage.
"What we most need now is an enlightened public committed to rebuilding the infrastructure of democracy in our communities."
While the realities of global climate change threaten massive displacement and death for millions of Americans, Trump continues to deny what everyone can see, joking that the extreme winter storms created by climate change are somehow evidence that global warming doesn't exist.
We cannot wait for the Justice Department to catch this president in a legal misstep, though that may well happen at some point. Our present crisis is much bigger than Trump and his mendacity. It goes to the very heart of who we are as a nation. And history teaches us -- from abolition to women's suffrage to the labor movement to the civil rights era -- that reports never saved us. Only deeply committed moral-fusion movements that resisted the lies of oppression have pushed America toward a more perfect union.
What we most need now is an enlightened public committed to rebuilding the infrastructure of democracy in our communities. We must register the millions of eligible voters who are unregistered and mobilize those whose names are on the roll but did not show up in 2016 or 2018. We must reclaim the moral high ground and resolve to work together beyond the puny language of left and right until we achieve at the ballot box what too many have hoped the special counsel would do for us: a rebuke of Trump's immoral agenda that opens the possibility of an America that has never yet been.
Emboldened by his attorney general's summary of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III's still-embargoed report, President Trump has shifted from his oft-repeated defense of "No collusion!" to an offensive against the investigation that he has always dismissed as a "witch hunt."
As the saying goes, it's not the parts of the Bible I don't understand that bother me; it's the parts that I do. As we wait to learn what the Mueller report really says, we need a similar clarity: It's not what we don't know that should bother us, but what we do. Whether Trump and his enablers have broken any laws, they are clearly committed to using law to subvert the basic tenets of our social contract: the will of the people, the good of the whole and equal justice under the law.
"History teaches us -- from abolition to women's suffrage to the labor movement to the civil rights era -- that reports never saved us. Only deeply committed moral-fusion movements that resisted the lies of oppression have pushed America toward a more perfect union."
Whether Trump and his campaign colluded with the Russians to subvert democracy, they have certainly colluded with homegrown and racist voter-suppression efforts to undermine the basic principle of one person, one vote. Since the Supreme Court's Shelby County v. Holderdecision in 2013, which stripped the Voting Rights Act of its power to require preclearance of voting-law changes in places with a history of racist voter suppression, 23 states have passed laws to limit voting rights, according to the Brennan Center. It's no accident that Trump won those states in 2016 and proudly points to them as "red states" on maps designed to obscure the nearly 3-million-vote margin by which he lost the popular vote.
When Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) refuses to take up the For the People Act -- a bill designed to restore voting rights to millions of Americans -- he is colluding in plain sight with state legislatures that have been found guilty in federal court of targeting African American voters with "almost surgical precision." And it should be noted that those who benefit and get elected because of this collusion support policies that hurt many millions of white people.
Trump's collusion to subvert the will of the American people extends to a policy record that is now well established. He and his enablers colluded to give $1.5 trillion in tax cuts to the greedy and to increase the military budget while refusing to address the needs of the estimated 140 million poor and low-wealth people in this country.
Though the Affordable Care Act remains popular and most Americans think our 37 million neighbors who are still uninsured deserve coverage, Trump continues to collude with those attacking and undermining the ACA.
Though most Americans support living wages for all workers, Trump and his enablers refuse to consider a minimum wage of $15 an hour and a union for the more than 58 million people working below that living wage. Trump points instead to low unemployment rates that in no way reflect the reality that there is no state or county in the United States where someone can rent a market-rate two-bedroom apartment working full time at the federal minimum wage.
"What we most need now is an enlightened public committed to rebuilding the infrastructure of democracy in our communities."
While the realities of global climate change threaten massive displacement and death for millions of Americans, Trump continues to deny what everyone can see, joking that the extreme winter storms created by climate change are somehow evidence that global warming doesn't exist.
We cannot wait for the Justice Department to catch this president in a legal misstep, though that may well happen at some point. Our present crisis is much bigger than Trump and his mendacity. It goes to the very heart of who we are as a nation. And history teaches us -- from abolition to women's suffrage to the labor movement to the civil rights era -- that reports never saved us. Only deeply committed moral-fusion movements that resisted the lies of oppression have pushed America toward a more perfect union.
What we most need now is an enlightened public committed to rebuilding the infrastructure of democracy in our communities. We must register the millions of eligible voters who are unregistered and mobilize those whose names are on the roll but did not show up in 2016 or 2018. We must reclaim the moral high ground and resolve to work together beyond the puny language of left and right until we achieve at the ballot box what too many have hoped the special counsel would do for us: a rebuke of Trump's immoral agenda that opens the possibility of an America that has never yet been.
"This dangerous agenda that Zeldin will oversee will roll back vital pollution limits that protect us, abandon clean energy investments, and lock the country into reliance on dirty, expensive fossil fuels," said one campaigner.
Climate and public health advocates were outraged on Wednesday after a trio of U.S. Senate Democrats
voted with Republicans to confirm President Donald Trump's pick to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, former New York Congressman Lee Zeldin.
Critics have warned that Zeldin—like other Cabinet nominees—will serve billionaire polluters, not the American people and the planet, since Trump named him in November. They renewed those warnings after Democratic Sens. John Fetterman (Pa.), Ruben Gallego (Ariz.), and Mark Kelly (Ariz.) voted with Republicans to confirm him as EPA administrator.
After Zeldin's confirmation, the youth-led Sunrise Movement called him "a disaster for our planet and a win for Big Oil."
Climate Action Campaign director Margie Alt said in a statement that "Lee Zeldin's confirmation as EPA administrator is a catastrophic blow to the health of Americans, the climate, and the economy. Under Zeldin's leadership, the Environmental Protection Agency will no longer protect the American people and our communities—it will protect polluters."
Pointing to the new administrator's record and public statements, Alt said that "this dangerous agenda that Zeldin will oversee will roll back vital pollution limits that protect us, abandon clean energy investments, and lock the country into reliance on dirty, expensive fossil fuels that cost families at the gas pump."
"Americans didn't vote for dirtier air, more asthma attacks, or rising healthcare costs, yet that is exactly what Zeldin's EPA will deliver. Vulnerable communities, especially children, and seniors will bear the brunt of these policies, while a few fossil fuel executives rake in profits," she continued. "Zeldin's confirmation is a tragic failure for all Americans."
Marc Yaggi, CEO of Waterkeeper Alliance, declared that "this is a make-or-break moment for clean water, and the American people deserve leadership that puts their needs above the influence of corporate polluters."
While praising Zeldin's past rejection of offshore oil drilling and support for "sensible policies" on "forever chemicals," Yaggi said that "his history of voting against critical infrastructure and environmental funding and opposing clean water and air protections raises serious concerns about his commitment to effectively leading the Environmental Protection Agency."
Moms Clean Air Force suggested a rebrand for the EPA under Zeldin and Trump: Extreme Pollution Agency.
Since returning to the White House just 10 days ago, Trump has already
taken various executive actions to attack the planet.
"The EPA's stated mission is to protect human health and the environment," Sierra Club legislative director Melinda Pierce said. "In the wake of Donald Trump's dangerous executive orders and illegal push to freeze all federal funding, the new EPA administrator will face a decision of whether to carry out the necessary duties of the role, or fold to Trump's deadly fossil fuel-backed agenda and broken promises."
"The American people want to breathe clean air and drink clean water," she stressed. "They want a healthy environment for their families today and the future generations of tomorrow. And they want to know that their government is doing everything in its power to protect them from the destructive impacts of the climate crisis that we sadly witness more and more of each day. That is now Lee Zeldin's charge, and we will do everything in our power to hold him accountable to the American people."
"Every student deserves fully funded neighborhood public schools that give them a sense of belonging and prepare them with the lessons and life skills they need to follow their dreams and reach their full potential."
Leaders of the nation's two largest teachers unions on Wednesday sharply criticized U.S. President Donald Trump's executive order that would direct federal funding toward enabling families to send their children to private rather than public K-12 schools.
Before the White House released the order Wednesday evening, multiple media outlets obtained and reported on related documents and Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed on Fox News that Trump intended to sign that order and others.
In response to reporting on Trump's order promoting "school choice," as right-wing advocates call it, the National Education Association (NEA)—the largest U.S. teachers union, representing over 3 million workers— released a statement lambasting the president's plan to "steal money from public school students to fund private school vouchers."
NEA president Becky Pringle declared that "every student deserves fully funded neighborhood public schools that give them a sense of belonging and prepare them with the lessons and life skills they need to follow their dreams and reach their full potential. Instead of stealing taxpayer money to fund private schools, we should focus on public schools—where 90% of children, and 95% of children with disabilities, in America, attend—not take desperately needed funds away from them. If we are serious about doing what is best for students, let's reduce class sizes to give our students more one-on-one attention and increase salaries to address the teacher and staff shortages."
"The bottom line is vouchers have been a catastrophic failure everywhere they have been tried," she continued. "President Trump is using his Project 2025 playbook to privatize education because he knows vouchers have repeatedly been a failure in Congress. Parents, educators, and voters know what students need—and vouchers are never the solution. In fact, when voters have a say about vouchers, they have been soundly rejected—time and again—at the ballot box. Just this past November, voters in Colorado, Kentucky, and Nebraska overwhelmingly said no to vouchers."
"We know vouchers take money away from neighborhood public schools. We know students with disabilities depend on these same public schools. We know that voucher programs leave out wide swaths of students, especially Black and brown students as well as those living in rural areas with no or limited access to private schools. And we know this stunt is meaningless without the consent of Congress," she said. "So, we are putting all anti-public education politicians on notice: If you try to come for our students, for our schools, and for our communities, NEA members will mobilize and will defeat vouchers again."
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), which has 1.8 million members, similarly stressed that "Americans of all political stripes want safe and welcoming public schools where kids are engaged and have the knowledge and skills to thrive in careers, college, and life. This plan is a direct attack on all that parents and families hold dear; it's a ham-fisted, recycled, and likely illegal scheme to diminish choice and deny classrooms resources to pay for tax cuts for billionaires."
"We already know that vouchers go mostly to wealthy families whose kids are already in private school. This order hijacks federal money used to level the playing field for poor and disadvantaged kids and hands it directly to unaccountable private operators—a tax cut for the rich," she explained. "It diminishes community schools and the services they provide. It dilutes crucial literacy and arts education grants. It takes an ax to the Department of Defense schools that are a global model for student success. It weakens Bureau of Indian Education schools already struggling due to underfunding and neglect."
Specifically, according to CBS News, "the executive order directs the secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, to submit a plan to Mr. Trump for how military families can use Defense Department funds to send their kids to the school of their choosing."
"More broadly, it directs the Department of Education to prioritize school choice programs through its discretionary grant programs, and orders the Department of Health and Human Services to issue guidance on how states receiving block grants for families and children can use those funds to support private and faith-based institutions," the outlet reported.
CBS added:
The executive order also directs the Department of Education to issue guidance to states on how to use federal funding formulas—which determine how much money to allocate to districts and schools—to support their K-12 scholarship programs.
The interior secretary, when confirmed, must also submit a plan to the president outlining how families with students at Bureau of Indian Education schools can use federal money to send those children to a school of their family's choosing. About 47,000 American Indian and Alaska Native students are enrolled in Bureau of Indian Education schools.
Like Pringle, Weingarten highlighted that "voters overwhelmingly rejected billionaire-backed voucher scams in November—even in states Trump won—because they know vouchers hurt student achievement, bankrupt state budgets, and deny opportunity to rural and urban communities."
"They spurned extremist school board candidates and opted again and again for levies and ballot initiatives to improve public schools," she said. "While this order will succeed in uniting parents and educators in a righteous effort to defend public schools, it is unfortunate that we have to spend time fighting for—rather than strengthening—the institutions 90% of American kids attend."
The union leaders' comments came just hours after the National Assessment of Educational Progress released data on student performance in mathematics and reading for 2024—which Weingarten responded to by saying: "We don't need stagnant NAEP scores to show us the headwinds children are facing, regardless of whether they attend public or private school. Rather than waiting for lagging indicators such as NAEP, AFT members are fighting every day for 'real solutions' to create safe, welcoming, and joyful schools that engage kids and close the achievement gap between the lowest and highest performers."
Trump's order and the related backlash also came after the president said on his Truth Social platform Tuesday afternoon: "Congratulations to Tennessee Legislators who are working hard to pass School Choice this week, which I totally support. We will very soon be sending Education BACK TO THE STATES, where it belongs. It is our goal to bring Education in the United States to the highest level, one that it has never attained before. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!"
Trump has repeatedly teased fully dismantling the federal Department of Education, but he has also nominated its potential next leader: scandal-plagued former World Wrestling Entertainment CEO Linda McMahon. She still needs to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate, which is narrowly controlled by Republicans.
In addition to the measure that will shift money toward private schools, Trump on Wednesday signed an executive order "eliminating federal funding or support for illegal and discriminatory treatment and indoctrination in K-12 schools, including based on gender ideology and discriminatory equity ideology," and "protecting parental rights."
As LawDork's Chris Geidner summarized, the latter measure "attempts to restrict all schools that receive federal funds from protecting trans and nonbinary students or supporting diversity measures, while at the same time purporting to advance 'patriotic education.'"
"Trump and his cronies do not care about Jewish safety—in fact, they and the white nationalists who support them are themselves the greatest threat to American Jews," said one campaigner.
An executive order signed Wednesday by Republican U.S. President Donald Trump authorizing the deportation of noncitizen students and others who took part in protests against Israel's annihilation of Gaza was condemned by civil rights defenders as an overzealous bid to smear the movement for Palestinian rights under the guise of combating antisemitism.
Before publishing the order—which is titled "Additional Measures to Combat Antisemitism"—the White House accused "pro-Hamas aliens and left-wing radicals" of waging "a campaign of intimidation, vandalism, and violence on the campuses and streets of America" and the Biden administration of turning "a blind eye to this coordinated assault on public order."
Trump's office said the new directive "takes forceful and unprecedented steps to marshal all Federal resources to combat the explosion of antisemitism on our campuses and in our streets since October 7, 2023."
"To all the resident aliens who joined in the pro-jihadist protests, we put you on notice... we will find you, and we will deport you," the White House said, adding that the Trump administration "will also quickly cancel the student visas of all Hamas sympathizers on college campuses, which have been infested with radicalism like never before."
The White House vowed "immediate action" by federal prosecutors in response to "terroristic threats, arson, vandalism, and violence against American Jews"—without providing any examples of these alleged crimes.
⚠️ “Text groups in NY are urging members to report pro-Palestine foreign students as ‘terrorist supporters’ for deportation under Trump. Other groups are using AI to create lists of names.” Screenshot of one of the texts below. Via Etanetan23 on X Story: www.haaretz.com/israel-news/...
[image or embed]
— Leah McElrath (@leahmcelrath.bsky.social) January 28, 2025 at 3:35 PM
While analyses have shown that pro-Palestine student protests have been nearly 100% peaceful, violence by police and pro-Israel counter-demonstrators was reported on numerous campuses.
Trump signed two additional executive orders late Wednesday; one promoting so-called "school choice" policies critics say are meant to destroy public education, and another ending federal funding for public schools accused of "indoctrination... including based on gender ideology and discriminatory equity ideology."
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) condemned Trump's antisemitism order as "a dishonest, overbroad, and unenforceable attempt to smear college students who protested against the Israeli government's genocidal war on Gaza in overwhelmingly peaceful ways."
Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP)—which led an unprecedented nationwide wave of Jewish-led protests for Palestinian rights—said Trump's order "is pulled directly from the pages of the far-Right Heritage Foundation's 'Project Esther' report, which is a blueprint for using the federal government and private institutions to dismantle the Palestine solidarity movement and broader U.S. civil society, under the guise of 'fighting antisemitism.'"
"These tactics are built to disrupt the historic movement for Palestinian liberation across the U.S.—including on college campuses—before then using those same tactics to attack a wide range of progressive social justice movements," JVP added.
JVP executive director Stefanie Fox said in a statement, "We stand with the student protestors who so bravely put their bodies and academic careers on the line to save lives and demand an end to the Israeli military's destruction of Gaza."
"As Jews, we refuse to be pawns in the far-right's authoritarian takeover," Fox added. "Trump and his cronies do not care about Jewish safety—in fact, they and the white nationalists who support them are themselves the greatest threat to American Jews. They are waging a campaign against all those who are brave enough to challenge their power."