SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
");background-position:center;background-size:19px 19px;background-repeat:no-repeat;background-color:var(--button-bg-color);padding:0;width:var(--form-elem-height);height:var(--form-elem-height);font-size:0;}:is(.js-newsletter-wrapper, .newsletter_bar.newsletter-wrapper) .widget__body:has(.response:not(:empty)) :is(.widget__headline, .widget__subheadline, #mc_embed_signup .mc-field-group, #mc_embed_signup input[type="submit"]){display:none;}:is(.grey_newsblock .newsletter-wrapper, .newsletter-wrapper) #mce-responses:has(.response:not(:empty)){grid-row:1 / -1;grid-column:1 / -1;}.newsletter-wrapper .widget__body > .snark-line:has(.response:not(:empty)){grid-column:1 / -1;}:is(.grey_newsblock .newsletter-wrapper, .newsletter-wrapper) :is(.newsletter-campaign:has(.response:not(:empty)), .newsletter-and-social:has(.response:not(:empty))){width:100%;}.newsletter-wrapper .newsletter_bar_col{display:flex;flex-wrap:wrap;justify-content:center;align-items:center;gap:8px 20px;margin:0 auto;}.newsletter-wrapper .newsletter_bar_col .text-element{display:flex;color:var(--shares-color);margin:0 !important;font-weight:400 !important;font-size:16px !important;}.newsletter-wrapper .newsletter_bar_col .whitebar_social{display:flex;gap:12px;width:auto;}.newsletter-wrapper .newsletter_bar_col a{margin:0;background-color:#0000;padding:0;width:32px;height:32px;}.newsletter-wrapper .social_icon:after{display:none;}.newsletter-wrapper .widget article:before, .newsletter-wrapper .widget article:after{display:none;}#sFollow_Block_0_0_2_0_0_0_1{margin:0;}.tabs__tab-content .row:not(:empty){margin-bottom:0;}@media (min-width: 1024px){#sHome_0_0_4_0_0_13_1_0_1{padding-left:30px;}}.donation_banner{position:relative;background:#000;}.donation_banner .posts-custom *, .donation_banner .posts-custom :after, .donation_banner .posts-custom :before{margin:0;}.donation_banner .posts-custom .widget{position:absolute;inset:0;}.donation_banner__wrapper{position:relative;z-index:2;pointer-events:none;}.donation_banner .donate_btn{position:relative;z-index:2;}#sSHARED_-_Support_Block_0_0_9_0_0_3_1_0{color:#fff;}#sSHARED_-_Support_Block_0_0_9_0_0_3_1_1{font-weight:normal;}.newswire_five_post .all-related-sections [href="https://www.commondreams.org/newswire"]{display:none;}.sticky-sidebar{margin:auto;}@media (min-width: 1024px){.main:has(.sticky-sidebar){overflow:visible;}}@media (min-width: 1024px){.row:has(.sticky-sidebar){display:flex;overflow:visible;}}@media (min-width: 1024px){.sticky-sidebar{position:-webkit-sticky;position:sticky;top:100px;transition:top .3s ease-in-out, position .3s ease-in-out;}}.custom-field-newsletter-visible-on-sticky-position, .custom-field-newsletter-visible-on-sidebar-position, .custom-field-newsletter-visible-on-fixed-position{display:none;}.cta-close:before, .cta-close:after{width:50%;height:2px;content:"";position:absolute;inset:50% auto auto 50%;border-radius:2px;background-color:#fff;}.cta-close:before{transform:translate(-50%)rotate(45deg);}.cta-close:after{transform:translate(-50%)rotate(-45deg);}.sticky_newsletter_wrapper{width:100%;}.black_newsletter.is_sticky_on{transition:all .3s ease-out;}.black_newsletter.is_sticky_on.cta-hide{transform:translateY(100%);}.black_newsletter .newsletter_bar{height:auto;padding:24px 16px;}.black_newsletter .newsletter_bar.newsletter-wrapper{margin:0;background:none !important;}@media only screen and (min-width: 768px){.black_newsletter .newsletter_bar{padding:20px 16px;justify-content:space-between;}}@media only screen and (min-width: 1320px){.black_newsletter .newsletter_bar.newsletter-wrapper{margin:0 -16px;}}.footer-campaign .posts-custom .widget, .footer-campaign .posts-custom .posts-wrapper:after, .footer-campaign .row:not(:empty), .footer-campaign .row.px10, .footer-campaign .row.px10 > .col, .footer-campaign .sm-mb-1 > *, .footer-campaign .sm-mb-1:not(:empty):after{margin:0;padding:0;}.footer-campaign .sm-mb-1:not(:empty):after{display:none;}.footer-campaign{padding:0;}.footer-campaign .widget:hover .widget__headline .widget__headline-text{color:#fff;}@media only screen and (min-width: 768px){.footer-campaign .sm-mt-1:not(:empty):after{content:"";grid-column:4;grid-row:1 / span 2;}}@media only screen and (min-width: 768px){.footer-campaign .sm-mt-1:not(:empty):before{grid-column:1;grid-row:1 / span 2;}}.grey_newsblock .newsletter-wrapper, .newsletter-wrapper, .newsletter-wrapper.sidebar{background:linear-gradient(91deg, #005dc7 28%, #1d63b2 65%, #0353ae 85%);}.black_newsletter{background:linear-gradient(91deg, #005dc7 28%, #1d63b2 65%, #0353ae 85%);}.black_newsletter .newsletter_bar.newsletter-wrapper{background:none;}
To donate by check, phone, or other method, see our More Ways to Give page.
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
Everything is still awful, but it was heartening to see Tesla Takedown's many protests and fiery message: "Would've fought the Nazis? Now's your chance." And as the world's richest, dimmest Nazi whines about people being mean to him, their persistence brings solace: Judges, park rangers, fired workers fight back, Swasticar posters pop up - "Goes from 0 to 1939 in 3 seconds" - and wild hacks, from DOGE lists to (eww) videos of the two foot-fetish besties at it on HUD screens. What a time to be alive.
On Saturday, Tesla Takedown's Day of Action saw over 500 rallies, at nearly every Tesla showroom in the US - San Jose to Austin to New York - and in over 200 cities worldwide, rippling from Australia and New Zealand across Europe. Each was locally organized and thematically designed, "Smash the Fash" to “Down with Doge,” with great signs: Don't Buy Nazi Cars, Burn A Tesla Save Democracy, Tesla Funds Fascists, Musk the Only Immigrant Taking Away American Jobs, DOGE: Department of Greedy Elon and Honk If You Hate Elon, with its accompanying cacophony. Also their sieg-heiling balloon effigy and to the point chants: "We don't want your Nazi cars/Take a one-way trip to Mars." Add multiple incidents of Tesla burnings, eggings, poopings and beadings - revelers throwing Mardi Gras beads at an unwelcome Cybertruck in their parade - and it becomes clear the rage at Musk for his many, many (unelected) transgressions is growing. Its goal: "To boycott Tesla and hurt him so that he stops hurting us."
Despite pie-in-the-sky White House claims DOGE is "very popular" and the regime's flunkies and fawners are "thrilled" with its move-fast-and-break-things carnage, the sound of angry pitchfork-rattling is palpable, and rising. They've lost a flood of lawsuits by advocacy groups and fired workers; judges have repeatedly said their closings and very existence violate the Constitution; GOPers are fleeing angry constituents at town halls; people who've lost jobs for citing the damage being done, aka tracking how many hungry children will die from USAID cuts, are furiously speaking out; and people are realizing when rich fascists slam a "parasite class" - half of them children - to justify their crimes, rich fascists are the biggest parasites of all. When that happens, the parasites inevitably throw vengeful pity-parties for themselves. When DOGE got dealt a series of legal setbacks, Musk yowled we no longer have "real democracy in America" and all these treasonous judges should be impeached. So much for "Heal thyself."
Because, "The country is being run by your drunken uncle sitting in his recliner watching (TV) and yelling 'throw the book at ’em!'”, any pushback against illegal acts of autocrats is met with paranoid histrionics like those of Nazi Stephen Miller, who's defended the disappearing of largely innocent migrants by raving, "We were invaded and occupied. Entire towns were subjugated. Our Treasury was in the (sic) plundered...America voted for liberation." Thus have protests against Musk sparked frantic Fox headlines - "Feds on High Alert" - and threats from the regime's DOJ that said protests will be viewed as "domestic terrorism" and "hate crimes," which no Jan. 6 mobsters were charged with. The FBI has formed a task force to investigate “violent activity toward Tesla," and the mad king has vowed to "catch (the) bad guys," calmly musing, "I look forward to watching the sick terrorist thugs get 20-year jail sentences" and "perhaps they could serve them in the prisons of El Salvador...recently famous for such lovely conditions!”
Of course our salesman-in-chief also supported his "first buddy" with a recent White House auto mall, hawking Teslas outside the People's House for "a truly great American" who's "being treated very unfairly" by people "breaking a law (as) Radical Left Lunatics often do (by) trying to illegally and collusively boycott one of the World’s great automakers," even though said cars do randomly explode and have the highest rate of deadly accidents of any brand. Cue tacky burlesque show of fat geezer who can't drive and hates EVs clambering into Tesla and exclaiming, "Wow! Everything's computer!" as slimy bot moronically explains, as to one of his prop children, "It's very simple. It's literally like a golf cart that goes really fast." It's also like a rocket that explodes mid-air in a "rapid unscheduled disassembly," strewing debris into the water. Or like a car that inexplicably bursts into flames, its lithium batteries spewing toxic fumes, while often trapping people inside, sometimes fatally, due to electronic doors that don't work when needed.
Alas, as Tesla shares plunge here and abroad - down 76% in Germany, 50% in China, with sad Elmo losing billions - all 46,000 of its hideous, $80,000 Cybertrucks, once lauded as the Fascistmobile of the future, were just recalled after national safety advisors warned it can fall apart while driving due to bad glue making some trim panels detach and fly off, causing "road hazard” for other drivers. This is its 8th recall intwo years, including one for sticking pedal pads that could lead to "unintended acceleration." The Cybertruck is already banned in Europe for exterior edges deemed "a pedestrian danger"; here, it's just ceaselessly trashed as a loud rusty "shitbox" with bad suspension that gets stuck in snow. The brazen, inept hubris it represents offers a bleak metaphor, suggests Paul Krugman: "America is now trapped in a burning Tesla." And with large parts of the economy and government "on the verge of self-immolation" and the combined arrogance and ignorance of Musk/Trump, "It’s hard to see how we get out."
Swasticar billboard in UK makes a splashScreengrab from TikTok
Perhaps, in part, with the help of popular rage. There've been multiple leaks naming alleged DOGE staffers, and an updated list with newly added attorneys to handle growing lawsuits. With protests on the rise, an online searchable map called Dogequest also appeared, documenting the locations of Tesla owners and dealerships and reportedly doxxing DOGE team members with their addresses and phone numbers; the site said it would remove owners' information once they sold their vehicles, but it's evidently since been taken offline. Several leaks have named dubious "wasteful" projects DOGE shut down: millions "doled out" to "push" equity, immigrant justice, indigenous knowledge, a performance of Angels in America in Macedonia? No less outlandishly, last week DOGE (which is still legally not a thing) forcibly laid off almost all employees of the US Institute of Peace, a Congressionally funded think tank, because it "has failed to deliver peace." Two former staff just sued to stop a DOGE-r from taking over.
Of course, as Jon Stewart notes, these "profit-seeking psycopaths" won't touch the billions in subsidies to the rich, polluting, killing, "where the real money is": Over a billion in hedge-fund loopholes, $3 billion to oil and gas giants, $2 trillion to defence contractors, all while cutting health care, food stamps, hot lunch for kids. And while the mad king plays golf on 9 of 10 weekends, or over a quarter of his time "in office," at a cost of over $26 million. This weekend, he also "won" his own gazillionth tournament and boasted he made a great deal with the Finnish president to buy polar Icebreakers for the U.S. though in fact Biden made the deal last year. And Musk was there, high as a kite, playing with silverware, "in all our faces," having bought a government and hired a horde of clueless teenage incels to break shit and steal data and fire thousands of people "whose lives you’ve turned upside down who now can’t get anyone to answer the phone at Social Security because you’ve pared their staff down to the bone."
Of those who still have jobs, many are some pissed to be under the thumb of a rich jerk who demands they report what they did each week while he frolics at Motel-A-Lago. The Alt National Park Service sent shopping lists. Others said they researched why ketamine abusers wear sunglasses inside, reviewed court decisions about DOGE violating the Constitution, began the beguine, visited CatsThatLookLikeHitler.com, became Death Destroyer of Worlds, sent photos of their visit to Las Vegas' Mob Museum, "didn't vote for Elon" each day, listed five foods they couldn't keep down, "was a Lover, Sinner, Joker, Smoker, Midnight Toker," "did not give you up/did not let you down/did not run around/did not make you cry/did not say goodbye," "I get up in the evenin'/And I ain't got nothin' to say/I come home in the mornin/'I go to bed feelin' the same way." "I’m fairly sure I’m going to get fired, which is fine since I don’t work there anyway," one wrote. Another suggested, "Dear Mr. Nazi Musk, You should get a dog instead."
The "best example of civil disobedience EVER!" came the day employees were ordered back from remote work to HUD offices, where they found a grotesque, AI video of Trump fervently kissing the two left feet of his First Lady, with text of "Long Live The Real King," playing on a loop on screens throughout the building. Best: Staff couldn't turn it off, so frantically sent people to every floor to unplug TVs. "Bravo, hackers, a grateful nation tips their hats to you," was one response, urging it be shown in Times Square and at all those crappy golf clubs. Another: "They should leave it running for DOGE Bros to come fix it." After freelance journalist Marisa Kabas shared the clip online, Bluesky briefly took it down as "non-consensual explicit material," aka deepfake porn. Kabas wrote to argue it was "to protest a fascist regime, in the public interest and legitimate news"; Bluesky "reevaluated" and put it back up. One comment: "I'm fairly sure whenever this happens in real life it's completely consensual." Regardless, said another, "Bad day to have eyes."
Meanwhile, Mr. Rich Nazi Snowflake with "zero self-awareness" keeps whining. As protests and vandalism reports began rising, he whined, "The goal of the left is to destroy my influence, so they relentlessly push negative propaganda about me like the fake Nazi stuff...They are evil." Also, "My companies are suffering," but definitely not the moms who can't get food stamps for her kids or the cancer patients whose trials abruptly halted or the HIV/ Ebola clinics that had to fold or.....Then he whined about Gov. Tim Walz celebrating Tesla stocks falling into the shithole by calling Walz "a huge jerk." "What an evil thing to do," he screeched on Fox. "What a creep, what a jerk. Like who derives joy from that? Does that sound like a good person to you? I don’t think so." This, from the arbitrer of good personhood. But Minnesota's Mr. Nice Guy walked it back - "I have to be careful about being a smartass" - and offered Musk a deal: He'll stop mocking Tesla's plunging stock "when you take your hands off Social Security." No response.
Still, the huge jerk in a cheesehead hat whined on. Heckled at a Wisconsin rally where he'd come to bribe voters to elect a MAGA creep to a vital state Supreme Court seat by giving away two $1 million checks, he charged (Jewish) philanthropist George Soros was "funding" it all - "It was inevitable a few Soros operatives would be in the audience" - like it costs more than a buck or so to make a sign reading, "Fuck South African Apartheid Nazis," this while he's literally, blatantly buying votes. Chutzpah, thy name is. The next day, Ashley St. Clair, one of his baby mamas, sold her Tesla to make up for his "vindictive" cut in child support - "his modus operandi - I'm not the only one cleaning up after his messes" - and video of more protests prompted him to fume online, never mind the left's "puppets and paid foot-soldiers," "It is time to arrest those funding the attacks." We're with the patriot who watched a sneering MAGA thug cruise through the protest in his Cybertruck and declared, "Get this fucking asshole outta here."
Update: Tesla counter-protesters. They seem nice.
Musk siel-heil cut-outs at U.K protestImage from U.K. group Overthrow Musk
A region in southern Louisiana that has already been deemed a "sacrifice zone" by human rights experts—due to the high levels of pollution caused by the petrochemical and fossil fuel industry facilities that operate throughout the area—is now likely to face even more public health threats following the Trump administration's conditional approval of a new liquefied natural gas export terminal.
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) on Wednesday granted conditional authorization for Venture Global's Calcasieu Pass 2 (CP2) LNG export terminal in Cameron Parish, allowing the company to export LNG to countries that don't have free trade agreements with the United States.
The project was halted in 2024 when former President Joe Biden paused the issuance of new LNG export permits for non-free trade agreement partners, and climate campaigners have called for CP2 and other LNG projects to be permanently blocked because of the greenhouse gas emissions and local pollution they would cause.
In December, the Biden administration released an analysis showing that more LNG exports would increase household energy costs.
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) noted that emissions from CP2 are estimated to reach the equivalent of more than 47 million gas-powered cars or 53 coal-fired power plants—even as Venture Global claims the project would export enough fossil gas to replace 33 coal-fired plants.
"Greenlighting this terminal is simply selling out the American public to further boost the profits of fossil fuel companies," said Gillian Giannetti, senior attorney at NRDC. "LNG extraction and export floods frontline communities with dangerous pollution, raises U.S. energy costs, and further locks in our dependence on dirty fossil fuels."
NRDC sued the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission over its approval of CP2 in September 2024, arguing FERC violated the law by not considering "adverse environmental and socioeconomic impacts" when it approved the terminal despite its determination that "the ambient air quality around the project will exceed the national air quality standards for multiple air pollutants."
FERC rescinded its approval and planned to make additional assessments after the lawsuit, but DOE's announcement on Wednesday came before the commission had made its final determination.
By conditionally authorizing the project, said Giannetti, the DOE violated "the public interest" and announced "the latest in a long line of giveaways to the fossil fuel industry from the Trump administration."
"NRDC sued over FERC's approval of this project, and we will be closely examining the legality of this DOE approval, as well," said Giannetti.
The export terminal approval announced by Energy Secretary Chris Wright is the administration's fifth—and largest—LNG approval since President Donald Trump lifted Biden's freeze on new export permits. The finished facility would have the capacity to export 3.96 billion cubic feet of LNG per day and produce 20 million tons of LNG per year.
CP2 would also be adjacent to Venture Global's Calcasieu Pass LNG facility and less than two miles from the proposed Commonwealth LNG facility, in an area with more low-income residents than 88% of the country. Venture Global's existing LNG project in the area "has already exposed the surrounding community to dangerous air pollution well in excess of permit limits in over 130 incidents since it began operations in 2022," said Sierra Club.
"Fishermen have reported a dramatic impact on their livelihoods since the commencement of Calcasieu Pass operations, highlighting the severe negative impact of gas exports on the local economy and environment," added the group.
The conditional approval was announced a week after the Environmental Protection Agency revealed plans to shutter all 10 of its environmental justice offices, ending the agency's work to address systemic injustices in places like Cameron Parish and Louisiana's "Cancer Alley."
"As a mom living in Sulphur [Louisiana], I feel a profound responsibility to protect my children's future," said Roishetta Ozane, founder and CEO of the Vessel Project of Louisiana, an environmental justice and mutual aid group. "The decision to authorize the CP2 LNG facility is a direct threat to our health and safety. We cannot allow our community to become a sacrifice zone for corporate interests. The proposed facility, with its potential for devastating air pollution and harmful impacts on our local environment, jeopardizes everything we hold dear. Our children deserve clean air, safe water, and a thriving ecosystem. I completely oppose this project and all others like it for the sake of my children and everyone else."
Mahyar Sorour, director of Beyond Fossil Fuels policy for Sierra Club, said CP2 "will be a disaster for local communities devastated by pollution."
"American consumers who will face higher costs, and the global climate crisis that will be supercharged by the project's emissions," said Sorour. "The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission had to reconsider its approval of the project after it failed in 2024 to consider the cumulative impacts of air pollution. By conditionally approving exports from this massive project, Trump's Department of Energy is once again failing to protect the American people from an unnecessary LNG project set to generate billions for corporate executives and leave everyday people with higher energy costs."
"Despite his hollow promises on the campaign trail," Sorour added, "Trump continues to fail to prioritize the livelihoods and future of our country over the profits of the dirty fossil fuel industry."
All signs are pointing to a coming recession as U.S. President Donald Trump imposes tariffs on close trading partners, oversees mass firings of civil servants, and pushes for cuts to public services—but by firing economists, advisers, and other experts tasked with advising federal agencies on economic shifts, the administration is working to ensure that the government and the public can't read those signs.
As Politicoreported Friday, experts serving on the Bureau of Labor Statistics' (BLS) Technical Advisory Committee were informed this week that they were no longer needed, leaving the BLS without a panel that has long advised the Labor Department on how economic changes can impact data collection.
A page for the committee was removed from the Labor Department's website, along with one that had information about the Data Users Advisory Committee, which has advised on how businesses and policymakers can use the agency's economic reports.
"It would be a bad sign for a software company to cancel all beta testing if you expect to keep making better software," Michael Madowitz, an economist at the Roosevelt Institute who served on the data users committee, told Politico. "This feels like the same sort of thing."
The dismissal of the advisers follows the disbanding by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick of another advisory board that has worked for years to ensure the government produces accurate data on economic indicators—the Federal Economic Statistics Advisory Committee (FESAC), which worked under the Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis.
"If laying off tens or hundreds of thousands of federal workers is going to drag down macroeconomic indicators in ways that are unhelpful to them, they're apparently quite willing to just rewrite definitions so they can insulate themselves to the extent possible from the fallout."
"Reduced transparency in official statistics is perhaps the most troubling aspect of disbanding FESAC," wrote Claudia Sahm, a former Federal Reserve economist, at Bloomberg on March 11. "Cutting off agency staff from external advisers creates an environment where political interference could occur much more easily—and go undetected. With political officials such as Lutnick arguing publicly that GDP should exclude government spending, it is especially important to have external, independent experts."
On Wednesday, the Federal Housing Finance Authority also placed workers who helped compile its home price index on administrative leave.
The dismantling of much of the federal government's data analysis apparatus comes amid the illegal firing of the two Democratic members of the Federal Trade Commission just after one called on FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson to take 10 steps to lower prices for U.S. consumers.
"This administration wants to write its own narrative," Stephanie Kelton, a professor of economics and public policy at Stony Brook University, toldThe Nation after the disbanding of FESAC. "If laying off tens or hundreds of thousands of federal workers is going to drag down macroeconomic indicators in ways that are unhelpful to them, they're apparently quite willing to just rewrite definitions so they can insulate themselves to the extent possible from the fallout."
The latest advisory committee firings this week came as the Federal Reserve projected higher unemployment, faster inflation, and slower growth—or "stagflation." Economic growth this year was projected to be 2.1% in the last weeks of former President Joe Biden's administration; the Fed now expects 1.7% growth, as well as the unemployment rate rising to 4.4%.
Other negative economic indicators include the largest manufacturing decline in nearly two years, according to the New York Federal Reserve's Manufacturing Index, and declining consumer confidence, with bars and restaurants reporting their largest sales decline last month since February 2023.
Members of Trump's own administration are increasingly admitting that a recession could be in the near future, but as Lindsay Owens, executive director of progressive think tank Groundwork Collaborative, said Friday, "the Trump administration is testing whether you can prevent a recession with a disappearing act."
"Unfortunately tossing a scarf over the GDP numbers doesn't change the fact that their policies have us careening toward a downturn," said Owens. "The fact that they are ramping up their obfuscation tactics confirms it."
This week, Harvard University learned that Trump administration is reviewing nearly $9 billion in federal grants awarded to the school and Princeton University has had multiple research grants suspended by multiple federal agencies—making the two institutions the latest in series of elite colleges to have their funding threatened by U.S. President Donald Trump.
In the case of Harvard, the scrutiny from the Trump administration is explicitly tied to Trump's pledge to crackdown on what he sees as rampant antisemitism on college campuses.
In the name of opposing antisemitism, Trump has vowed to target foreign-born students who have engaged in pro-Palestine protests, activities that the president has described as "pro-jihadist." Several students who have taken part in pro-Palestine activism have already been targeted for deportation.
According to a Monday statement from the U.S. Department of Education, multiple federal agencies are launching a comprehensive review of federal contracts and grants at Harvard as part of the ongoing efforts of the Trump administration's Joint Task Force to Combat Antisemitism.
The task force will review over $255.6 million in contracts between Harvard, its affiliates, and the federal government, as well as $8.7 billion in multiyear grant commitments to the university and its affiliates to ensure "the university is in compliance with federal regulations, including its civil rights responsibilities."
"Harvard's failure to protect students on campus from antisemitic discrimination—all while promoting divisive ideologies over free inquiry—has put its reputation in serious jeopardy. Harvard can right these wrongs and restore itself to a campus dedicated to academic excellence and truth-seeking, where all students feel safe on its campus," said Education Secretary Linda McMahon in a statement on Monday.
In a message that was denounced by multiple observers, Harvard's president Alan Garber wrote in a Monday message to the Harvard community that the school has devoted "considerable effort" to addressing antisemitism on its campus over the past 15 months, including by "enhancing training and education on antisemitism."
"We still have much work to do," wrote Garber. "We will engage with members of the federal government's task force to combat antisemitism to ensure that they have a full account of the work we have done and the actions we will take going forward to combat antisemitism."
"If this funding is stopped, it will halt lifesaving research and imperil important scientific research and innovation," he also wrote.
Researcher Hannah Gais, a graduate of Harvard Divinity School, wrote on Monday that Garber's message "completely caves to the administration and its bogus premise that this is about 'protecting' students against antisemitism."
"What a disgraceful letter from Harvard president Alan Garber, surrendering entirely to Trump and the pernicious nonsense that America's universities, some of the greatest and most Jewish institutions in American life, are rife with antisemitism," wrote historian and editor Sam Haselby on X.
Meanwhile, the president of Princeton told the university community on Tuesday that several research grants to the university have been suspended by the federal government.
"The full rationale for this action is not yet clear, but I want to be clear about the principles that will guide our response," wrote Princeton president Christopher L. Eisgruber on Tuesday, according to The New York Times. "Princeton University will comply with the law. We are committed to fighting antisemitism and all forms of discrimination, and we will cooperate with the government in combating antisemitism."
In February, the Task Force to Combat Antisemitism announced that it would be investigating 10 universities, including Harvard and Columbia University—which recently had $400 million in federal grants revoked by the Trump administration. That list did not include Princeton, though Princeton was one of 60 colleges that received letters last month from the U.S. Department of Education that warned of potential actions against schools if the government found they had not done enough to protect Jewish students.
After the Trump administration stripped Columbia of the $400 million, the administration announced later in March that it was freezing $175 million in federal funds for the University of Pennsylvania, citing the university's policies on transgender athletes.
In March, Columbia announced a number of changes to the school that aligned with the wishes of the Trump administration as part of negotiations over the rescinded $400 million in federal grants—prompting a wave of criticism of the university.
In an opinion piece for Common Dreamspublished on Tuesday, Steve Striffler, the director of the Labor Resource Center at the University of Massachusetts Boston, argued that it is not wholly accurate to say that Columbia's changes were a "capitulation" to the Trump administration.
Instead, "it seems quite likely that Columbia's leaders accepted Trump's demands not so much because they were forced to (capitulate), or because they saw fighting as either futile or potentially disastrous, but because they welcomed the opportunity and political cover that Trump's order provided," he wrote.
Outraged by Elon Musk's devastating contributions to the Trump administration, tens of thousands worldwide held "Tesla Takedown" protests at over 200 locations on Saturday.
Protests began the day in front of Tesla showrooms in Australia and New Zealand. They then rippled across Europe, including Finland, Norway, Denmark, Germany, France, the Netherlands, and the UK. In the US, protests occurred in nearly every state, including the northeast, south, midwest, and west coast.
"Elon Musk is destroying our democracy, and he's using the fortune he built at Tesla to do it," organizers wrote on Action Network, which has an interactive map of the protest sites. "We are taking action at Tesla to stop Musk's illegal coup."
Organizers also have a message for people with ties to the company: "Sell your Teslas, dump your stock, join the picket lines."
Since Musk began dismantling the federal bureaucracy as chief of President Donald Trump's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), critics have protested at Tesla facilities and posted videos about selling their vehicles on social media.
In an aerial view, protesters demonstrate against Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) initiatives during a nationwide “Tesla Takedown” rally at a dealership on March 29, 2025, in Austin, Texas. (Getty image)
While protesting at the Tesla dealership in west London, Louise Cobbett-Witten told The Guardian: “It’s too overwhelming to do nothing. There is real solace in coming together like this. Everyone has to do something. We haven’t got a big strategy besides just standing on the side of the street, holding signs and screaming.”
Alainn Hanson, of Washington, DC, brought her mother from Minnesota to their first Tesla protest. She told CNN: “I’m sick of billionaires trampling over working class people.”
Here are some of Saturday's actions:
Saint Petersburg, Florida
Cherry Hill, New Jersey
Washington, DC
Tucson, Arizona
Manlius, New York
Salt Lake City, Utah
Vancouver, British Columbia
Chicago, Illinois
And in London, England
The leaked messages among top Trump administration officials about U.S. strikes in Yemen earlier this month, which were held via a private sector messaging app in breach of national security protocol and inadvertently included a journalist, sparked considerable discussion among political commentators and social media users—but as the initial shock regarding the Signal conversation faded, advocates and policy experts said lawmakers' attention should turn to the illegality of the attacks on Yemen.
The advocacy groups Just Foreign Policy, DAWN, and Action Corps released a joint statement Thursday calling on Congress to take action to stop U.S. military action in Yemen by upholding "its sole authority to declare war under Article I of the Constitution and the 1973 War Powers Resolution (WPR)."
The chat messages sent between officials including Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and National Security Adviser Michael Waltz stunned the public and Washington insiders this week because they had accidentally also been sent to Atlantic journalist Jeffrey Goldberg, but the three groups pointed out that they also included an admission from Vance that the strikes were not defensive—contrary to claims by President Donald Trump:
I think we are making a mistake… 3 percent of US trade runs through the suez. 40 percent of European trade does. There is a real risk that the public doesn't understand this or why it's necessary. The strongest reason to do this is, as POTUS said, to send a message…
Vance's comments bolster the three groups' position that "the strikes also violate Chapters I and VII of the United Nations Charter, which prohibit states from launching a war unless in self-defense or authorized by the U.N. Security Council."
Even before the chats were leaked, said the groups, it was clear that Trump had not sought congressional authorization for military strikes in Yemen, which have killed at least 53 people since the U.S. launched attacks on March 15.
The War Powers Resolution of 1973, which was introduced after former President Richard Nixon's secretive bombings of Cambodia, requires congressional authorization for "the introduction of the United States armed forces into hostilities, or into situations where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances," while Article I of the Constitution grants Congress the authority to declare war.
"Congress should demand an end to this reckless, unauthorized war that will both harm U.S. interests and continue to terrorize the Yemeni people who have already suffered years of U.S.-backed violence."
"President Trump has not only launched us into a new military escapade in the Middle East, he's done so in breach of our Constitution," said Isaac Evans-Frantz, director of Action Corps. "Congress should demand an end to this reckless, unauthorized war that will both harm U.S. interests and continue to terrorize the Yemeni people who have already suffered years of U.S.-backed violence."
The groups' comments echoed those of Michigan State University professor and Quincy Institute fellow Shireen Al-Adeimi, who is Yemeni-American.
"With all the noise about the Signal leak, is anyone in Congress or the media concerned that actually bombing Yemeni people and Yemen's infrastructure is unconstitutional?" she asked on Tuesday. "Anyone?"
The Trump administration claimed that the strikes in Yemen were made because the Houthis' blockade on Israeli ships—established in retaliation for Israel's breaking of a cease-fire in Gaza—was an attack on U.S. economic interests and economic security, but the three groups noted that "there is no evidence that Houthi forces attacked any U.S. ships or personnel from the beginning of the Gaza cease-fire in January 2025 through March 15."
The Houthis struck cargo ships they deemed to be tied to Israel starting in November 2023, in response to Israel's relentless assault on Gaza. They stopped the attacks for the duration of the cease-fire, which lasted nearly two months starting in mid-January.
"The cessation of Houthi attacks during the short-lived Gaza truce underscores their primary focus to defend Palestinians from genocide—a reality obscured by Trump's rhetoric to justify unauthorized military action and deepen U.S. aggression in a widening conflict," said Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of DAWN. "The best way to protect global maritime navigation through the Red Sea is to ensure the Israeli government ends its genocidal violence in Gaza."
Along with Vance's apparent admission that the strikes were not in self-defense, the Signal discussion included what observers called a "confession" to alleged war crimes by Waltz, who said the residential building of the girlfriend of a Houthi leader had "collapsed" after a U.S. strike. As Common Dreams reported Wednesday, Waltz and Vance celebrated the strike.
Etan Mabourakh, a fellow at Action Corps, called on Congress to introduce a Yemen War Powers Resolution. The House and Senate both passed such a resolution in 2019 to bar the U.S. from participating in the Saudi war in Yemen.
"Congress should take the necessary step to stop these illegal, ineffective, and unauthorized airstrikes in Yemen," said Mabourakh. "Rather than debating the Trump administration's violation of security protocols in their Signal chats, they should do their job and challenge another unlawful new war in the region that is making everyone less safe."
Israeli forces also bombed an U.N. clinic in Jabalia, killing at least 68 Palestinians including elders, women, and children—one of them a newborn baby.
Israel's far-right government on Wednesday admitted to a major land grab in the embattled Gaza Strip, where the forced removal of Palestinians accelerated amid ongoing airstrikes that killed scores of civilians, including at least 68 people slain in the bombing of a health clinic run by the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees.
Defense Minister Israel Katz said the Israel Defense Forces' (IDF) renewed assault is "expanding to crush and clean" Gaza while "seizing large areas that will be added to the security zones of the state of Israel for the protection of fighting forces and the settlements," a reference to plans by far-right members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government for the ethnic cleansing and Israeli recolonization of the Palestinian enclave.
"Did you decide that we are sacrificing hostages for capturing land?"
Israeli forces control what they call a buffer zone along Gaza's entire border and on Monday ordered a sweeping evacuatione that forced approximately 140,000 Palestinians to flee from Rafah and other areas. In scenes reminiscent of the Nakba—during which over 750,000 Arabs fled or were forced from Palestine during the establishment of the modern state of Israel in 1948—Palestinian families were seen carrying their possessions or loading them atop vehicles and donkey carts as they sought ever-elusive safety.
Ihab Suliman, a former university professor forcibly expelled from Jabalia with his family, toldThe Associated Press on Monday that "there is no longer any taste to life. Life and death have become one and the same for us."
The fresh wave of expulsions follows last month's creation of a new IDF directorate tasked with ethnically cleansing northern Gaza under the guise of "voluntary emigration." Katz said the agency would be run "in accordance with the vision of U.S. President Donald Trump," who last month said that the United States would "take over" Gaza after emptying the strip of its over 2 million Palestinians and transform the coastal enclave into the "Riviera of the Middle East." Trump has since attempted to walk back some of his comments.
The renewed ethnic cleansing of southern Gaza came amid heavy IDF airstrikes throughout the strip, including the Wednesday bombing of a clinic-turned-shelter run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) in Jabalia that killed at least 68 civilians, including women, children, and elders and wounded dozens more, according to local officials. Graphic video of the strike's aftermath showed a man holding up the headless body of a newborn baby outside the Indonesian Hospital in Beit Lahia.
Gaza's Government Media Office called the strike "a full-fledged war crime," while the Palestinian Foreign Ministry urged the international community to pressure Israel "to halt its genocide, displacement, and annexation, and impose a political settlement per international law."
Israel admitted to carrying out the strike, claiming it targeted "Hamas terrorists" hiding among the civilians. Israeli policy implemented after Hamas led the deadliest-ever attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 permits the IDF to knowingly kill an unlimited number of civilians in order to kill just one Hamas member, no matter their rank or role in the organization.
Katz called on Gaza residents to "expel Hamas and return all hostages" kidnapped from Israel on October 7.
However, the umbrella group representing families of some of the abductees—24 of whom are believed to still be alive—on Wednesday accused Netanyahu of "burying the hostages alive" by unilaterally abandoning aa cease-fire with Hamas last month.
"Did you decide that we are sacrificing hostages for capturing land?" the Hostages and Missing Families Forum asked following Katz's announcement. "Instead of getting the hostages out in a deal and ending the war, Israel's government is sending more soldiers to Gaza to fight in the same places that they already fought over and over again."
Since March 18, when Israel broke the cease-fire with Hamas and resumed its assault on Gaza, more than 1,000 Palestinians, including over 320 children, have been killed, and thousands more wounded, according to local and international officials.
Since Israel resumed its terror bombing of Gaza on March 18, every day we see images of small children with their heads or limbs blown off by U.S. weapons. Doctors having to cut holiday clothes off of children in a desperate attempt to save them. Amputations without anesthesia.
— Jeremy Scahill ( @jeremyscahill.com) April 2, 2025 at 3:51 AM
Since October 2023, Israeli forces have killed or wounded more than 175,000 Palestinians in Gaza, most of them women and children, according the Gaza Health Ministry. That figure includes at least 14,000 people who are missing and presumed dead and buried beneath rubble. Almost all of Gaza's more than 2 million people have been forcibly displaced, often multiple times. Meanwhile, Israel's "complete siege" of Gaza has exacerbated widespread and sometimes deadly starvation and illness.
On Monday, the Gaza Government Media Office said that at least 1,513 humanitarian workers have also been killed by Israeli forces since October 2023. It is uncertain whether that figure includes the 15 first responders—including eight Red Crescent workers and six Civil Defense personnel—whose bodies, some of them allegedly bound and shot, were found in a mass grave that day.
Israel is facing an ongoing genocide case at the International Court of Justice, and Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant are fugitives from the International Criminal Court (ICC), which last year issued arrest warrants for the pair for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The ICC joined human rights groups on Wednesday in condemning Netanyahu trip to Hungary, a signatory to the Rome Statute governing the world's top war crimes tribunal. Hungarian President Viktor Orbán and other members of his far-right government are set to welcome Netanyahu for a four-day visit underscoring both countries' disdain for international law.
Meanwhile in the illegally occupied West Bank—where thousands of Palestinians have been killed or wounded by IDF troops and Jewish settler-colonists since October 2023—the UNRWA area director said this week that the scale of forced displacement is unprecedented during the 58 years of Israeli occupation.
This article has been updated to reflect the latest death toll from shelter bombing.
"The billions of dollars of donations these oligarchic clans give candidates, parties, and particularly outside spending groups drown out the voices and concerns of ordinary voters," according to the report.
The ever-growing amount of billionaire cash in elections is poisoning U.S. democracy, according to a report published Wednesday by the advocacy group Americans for Tax Fairness—which found that the top 100 billionaire families spent an eye-popping $2.6 billion on federal contests in 2024.
That's more than twice the roughly $1 billion spent by individual billionaire donors in 2020, according to the group, and constitutes 160 times the amount of billionaire political spending since the 2010 Supreme Court decision Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. That decision paved the way for the proliferation of super political action committees (PACs), a type of committee that can accept unlimited donations to spend on political activity.
Picking apart that $2.6 billion, there's a clear partisan skew: 70% of that billionaire money went to entities supporting Republican candidates, while 23% went to entities backing Democratic candidates. The other 7% went toward independent candidates—such as presidential contender Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is now a Cabinet secretary—and committees that gave to candidates from both parties who champion specific issues, such as cryptocurrency.
That skew is particularly pronounced when it comes to the competitive Senate races that determined control of the chamber in 2024.
Looking at Senate contests in Arizona, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, the authors of the report found that nearly 80% of the total billionaire cash in these races—which tallied $1.14 billion in outside spending—went to outside groups supporting Republican candidates, compared to 20% used to support Democratic hopefuls.
"The billions of dollars of donations these oligarchic clans give candidates, parties, and particularly outside spending groups drown out the voices and concerns of ordinary voters, endangering democracy and distorting public policy," the report states.
What's more, "this undue influence by the billionaire donor class over our government—always a concern and already present in mostly indirect ways—has found its full, frightening expression in the second Trump administration with the ascendancy of Elon Musk, the world's richest man and the biggest billionaire donor in the 2024 elections," the authors wrote.
Musk's ability to convert his extreme wealth into political influence in the Trump administration contrasts with reports that Musk pays relatively little in taxes. In 2018, for example, Musk paid nothing in federal income taxes even as his wealth soared, largely due to Tesla stock appreciation.
But Musk is just the "most notorious example of billionaires literally buying power," according to the group. ATF highlighted that billionaire Linda McMahon secured a position as President Donald Trump's education secretary after she and her ex-husband gave tens of millions to support Republican candidates, as did billionaire businessman Howard Lutnick, now the commerce secretary.
The report, titled Billionaires Buying Elections: They've Come to Collect, is the latest in ATF's "billionaires buying elections" series, and according to the group it is the most comprehensive because it covers both direct billionaire giving and "traces the indirect routes billionaire cash can take through campaign committees contributing to each other."
In its methodology section, the report gives the example of WinSenate—a super PAC that works to elect Democrats to the Senate—which did not report billionaire contributions, but received all of its funding from the Senate Majority PAC. Because the Senate Majority PAC got 19.9% of its funding from billionaires, the report counted WinSenate's share of billionaire spending at 19.9%.
According to the report, other big-name Republican megadonors in the 2024 cycle included shipping supply magnates Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein and Israeli-American billionaire Miriam Adelson.
According to the authors of the report, billionaires need to be taxed more.
"Tax policy—which has the most direct impact on billionaire wealth—is perhaps the most obviously affected by the money-for-power billionaire bargain," according to the group, which cites the current Republican push to extend parts of Trump's 2017 tax cuts that primarily benefit the wealthy as part of a general trend in tax policy over the past four decades to decrease taxes on the wealthiest people and most profitable businesses.
"The self-reinforcing combination of booming billionaire fortunes and weakening campaign finance laws continues to threaten our democratic form of government," according to the report. "As the outcome of the last presidential campaign amply demonstrates, until billionaires pay their fair share of taxes and we put effective curbs on their political spending, this threat will only grow."
The report calls for solutions like bolstering the estate tax and implementing a wealth tax, such as the Ultra-Millionaire Tax Act, a bill that was reintroduced by multiple Democratic senators in 2024. The newer version of the legislation would place a 2% annual tax on the net worth of households and trusts between $50 million and $1 billion, and impose an 1% annual surtax—so 3% tax overall—on the net worth of families and trusts that is above $1 billion.
One legal expert called Judge Dale Ho's move a "major smackdown for DOJ's unsavory behavior."
A federal judge in Manhattan dismissed the corruption case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams on Wednesday but also tried to ensure that going forward, the Trump administration cannot use the charges as leverage over the Democrat—who had agreed to help with the White House's mass deportation agenda in exchange for what opponents blasted as an "openly corrupt legal bailout."
In February, just weeks after Republican President Donald Trump returned to office, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) instructed prosecutors to drop federal charges against Adams, triggering widespread outrage over the attempted "illegal quid pro quo," as some congressional critics have called it.
"DOJ's motion states that dismissal of this case is justified for several reasons, including because 'continuing these proceedings would interfere with" the mayor's ability to govern, thereby threatening 'federal immigration initiatives and policies,'" Judge Dale Ho, appointed to the Southern District of New York by former President Joe Biden, wrote Wednesday in a 78-page opinion and order.
Ho explained that "a critical feature of DOJ's motion is that it seeks dismissal without prejudice—that is, DOJ seeks to abandon its prosecution of Mayor Adams at this time, while reserving the right to reinitiate the case in the future. DOJ does not seek to end this case once and for all. Rather, its request, if granted, would leave Mayor Adams under the specter of reindictment at essentially any time, and for essentially any reason. The court declines, in its limited discretion under Rule 48(a), to endorse that outcome."
"Instead, it dismisses this case with prejudice—meaning that the government may not bring the charges in the Indictment against Mayor Adams in the future," he continued. "In light of DOJ's rationales, dismissing the case without prejudice would create the unavoidable perception that the mayor's freedom depends on his ability to carry out the immigration enforcement priorities of the administration, and that he might be more beholden to the demands of the federal government thanto the wishes of his own constituents. That appearance is inevitable, and it counsels in favor of dismissal with prejudice."
Ho noted that "various groups that have submitted friend-of-the-court briefs urge this court to go further and deny DOJ's motion altogether, arguing that the reasons DOJ has given to justify dismissing this case are unsubstantiated or contrary to the public interest. The court ultimately declines their invitation to deny the motion. But it concludes that many of their arguments have merit."
However, as the judge detailed, he ultimately did not deny the DOJ's motion for two reasons: "The first is that a court's principal role in deciding a motion of this nature is to protect the rights of the defendant... The second and perhaps more fundamental reason is that a court, if it were so inclined, would have no way to compel the government to prosecute a case in circumstances like those presented here."
BREAKING: major smackdown for DOJ’s unsavory behavior in dismissing the Eric Adams case Judge Ho follows our @sddaction.bsky.social brief with @ldadorg.bsky.social to only logical conclusion: Dismissal WITH prejudice statedemocracydefenders.org/wp-content/u... Fight will continue & so will we!
[image or embed]
— Norm Eisen (@normeisen.bsky.social) April 2, 2025 at 10:47 AM
As The Citypointed out, "The dismissal comes just weeks before the June 24 mayor primary and a day before the mayor is required to file petition signatures his campaign is collecting to get on the ballot."
In the crowded Democratic primary contest, Adams' challengers include former Gov. Andrew Cuomo—who resigned in 2021 in the face of sexual harassment allegations he has denied—and state Rep. Zohran Kwame Mamdani, a Democratic socialist who represents New York's 36th Assembly District in Queens.
A 2024 Democratic National Convention delegate known as Candidly Tiff on social media said Wednesday that "the judge actually helped Eric Adams with this ruling. He should be thankful the [White House] can no longer dangle this case over his big head. Should be a sign for him to walk away from politics but his ego is too damn big."
The development also sparked calls for Democratic New York Attorney General Letitia James to bring state charges against Adams. Attorney Tristan Snell said that she "can and should" do so "immediately."