Marks of the Fascist, Tacky, Insatiable Beast
As we approach the 100-day milestone (yes it's only been that long) a sadistic, repressive regime increasingly reviled by its own people defiantly hurtles on - arresting judges, crushing dissent, abducting migrants, citizens, pregnant mothers, sick toddlers - while grotesquely cashing in on its atrocities with tawdry meme coins, black-tie dinners, loyalty pins and OMFG 2028 hats. We are become government by chaos, cruelty, greed - Liberace backed by the Stasi, a nation of gulags filled with gold (plated) gimcracks. SAD.
Historically, the 100-day milestone is seen as an ad-hoc national Rorschach test on a new president - or in this case führer - with pundits viewing the political landscape and drawing data-based conclusions. Amidst today's mayhem, though, the only clear verdict is, "There's some seriously dystopian things going on." Polls show an administration (sic) that's lost the support of much of its populace - “He has broken his own record for being the worst" - with approval ratings underwater on virtually every issue, including the economy and immigration. Happily, he keeps losing in court, even with Trump-appointed judges: Thank you independent judiciary and the ACLU. Nobody wants to visit his third-world shithole of a country anymore, mouthy Democrats like Jasmine Crockett are saying mean things about him - to his rants about keeping us safe from criminals she invariably notes, "I haven’t seen anybody with a rap sheet that looks like the president’s” - and despite a lame "ONLY THE WEAK WILL FAIL!” rallying cry, he's crashed the economy with "this most imbecilic and destructive trade war in the history of the world."
The "holy-shit-that's-dumb" spectacle of his disastrous "Liberation Day" tariffs offered grim quick proof of his staggering ineptness: What could match the mad dissonance of $6 trillion instantly obliterated in a market meltdown as he bragged of "billions and billions of dollars pouring into our country"? He confused trade deficits with the national debt, made up numbers - a 25% tariff on cars would raise $100 billion, no wait, $600 billion - and wildly flip-flopped. It turns out he based his "formula" on research its author said he got "very wrong" and advice by a fictional "Ron Vara" conjured up by Peter Navarro, who Elon dubbed "dumb as a sack of bricks" before later apologizing to bricks. The crowning moment of "chickenfuckery": Nobody collected any money at ports packed with goods due to a "technical glitch." The Economist on the "complete drivel" of a trade policy by an idiot duped by his own MAGA echo chamber: "Ifyou failed to spot America being 'looted, pillaged, raped and plundered by nations near and far,' congratulations: You have a firmer grip on reality than the President of the United States."
Luckily for him, a flunky says, "He’s at the peak of just not giving a fuck anymore." Great news for the nuclear codes! Thus does the old mad king spend over a quarter of his time at his crappy golf courses - cue many Nero cartoons - at a cost of more than $3 million a game. Asked about his weekend as the economy burned, he gloated, "I won (at golf) - it's good to win." We wouldn't know. Meanwhile, he rants, spews, babbles, out of the loop. He's considering drone strikes on Mexican drug cartels. He wished "Happy Easter to all," even the "despicable and unAmerican radical left lunatics (who) hate our country so much" and the "WEAK and INEFFECTIVE judges allowing this sinister attack so violent it will never be forgotten!" On Earth Day, focusing on the important things and celebrating now that "we finally have a president who follows science," he announced he's putting up two, new, beautiful, "top of the line" flag poles at the White House: "They needed flag poles for 200 years. It was something I've often said, you know, they don't have a flag pole per se. It's going to be two beautiful poles." Encountering bad polls, he literally raves.
As always, it's also, "a great time to get rich." Which is why he's still stupefyingly - how much money is enough? - grifting, a tacky hucksterism that echoes a 2016 portrayal of Trump as the GOP's "answer to Liberace." Both bitchy, germaphobe divas, Trump was (sort of) friends with the king of glitz, a master of sequined suits, candelabras on his Cadillac and gold-and-chandelier-drenched home - akin to Trump Tower, "the Liberace of buildings" - but topped by a faux Sistine Chapel ceiling featuring himself. His mantra: ‘Too much of a good thing is wonderful." And so to Trump's new scam, a $TRUMP memecoin that netted him millions, joined by $MELANIA, before predictably crashing. Now he's offering “the most EXCLUSIVE INVITATION in the World," where top buyers can attend an "unforgettable Gala DINNER.” "Own $TRUMP! ARE YOU IN?” shrieks the promo with exploding confetti like Better Call Saul ads. "The competition is fierce!" Sen. Chris Murphy: "This is the most brazenly corrupt thing a President has ever done. Not close.” All told, it has been "100 days from Hell," "delusions of monarchy" mixed with "fundamental ineptitude."
Still, the scams and bling keep coming. Recently, FCC Chair Brendan Carr posted a photo of himself wearing a gold lapel pin of Dear Leader squinting up like he did at an eclipse, a cultish image prompting the NYT to boldly suggest it "raises questions" - like, given its resemblance to once-ubiquitous Mao Tse-Tung pins, "Is Trump the most communist leader we've ever had?" Following in the tradition of dictators past - Libyan students had to quote Gaddafi, Turkmenistan's gold statue rotated to the sun, North Koreans wear Kim Jong-un badges and sing Friendly Father - Trump has worn an aptly cartoonish version of himself, and myriad pins online go for as little as $3.97. His relentless merch machine hawks this for $25, "gold-plated," reportedly of a base metal used for cheap doodads that's toxic: "Tacky and cheap in every way. The Trump brand." Also, "The SS had their Death Head, MAGA has their Shit Head." The White House denies rumors pin-wearing is mandatory, but adds it's A-ok to "show support for the greatest President in history," also nice little family you have and how sad if anything happened to them.
More grandiose gestures hover. Trump is said to be considering planning a much-dreamed-of, $100-million "great celebratory military parade," just like other big bad guys, to mark his June 14 birthday, which coincides with the Army's 250th anniversary. Cue marching soldiers, armored vehicles, tanks ripping up the streets of D.C, and what waste and fraud? Also, the guy losing faster and sooner than any president in history continues trolling about maybe running (or crawling by then) for a third term. "They say I can't run again - that's the expression," he jabbered in February. "There are methods which you could do it. A lot of people want me to do it." Just in case, he's already cashing in with yet another crappy red cap - more trashy, deadly marks of the beast - this one declaring Trump 2028, which costs $50 and promises to "make a statement," presumably about evil tinpot wannabe dictators who just will not STFU. His store is also selling $36 t-shirts: "Trump 2028 (Rewrite the Rules). The future looks bright!" Except - per Billy Roach's "Facts owe" - for most of the denizens of a now-ravaged, on-the-edge America.
Back in the real world, away from the bling and lies and frenzied delusion, Trump and his accomplices are feverishly committing ever more outlandish atrocities against everyone who isn't them, especially if brown-skinned. Last month, citing "the dynamic nature of enforcement operations," the Justice Dept (sic) quietly gave ICE agents the power to conduct searches without warrants of people’s homes if based on "a reasonable belief" they suspect targets of being "an Alien Enemy." (Good god almighty they deserve hell just for their twisted desecration of language itself). "As much as practicable," agents should follow legal procedures and get warrants before "contacting an Alien Enemy,” the memo generously adds. “However, that will not always be realistic or effective in swiftly identifying and removing Alien Enemies," so sometimes they might just be whisked in the middle of the night into murderous gulags in foreign countries like Abrego Garcia and over 200 Venezuelans who happen to have tattoos while Kristi De Goebbels primps and smirks, but hey, too bad, so sad, at least now we're legally covered.
Under such dubious rubrics, Trump's rabid cabal of fascists and lickspittles have eagerly taken on the task of dismantling burdensome due process. Slimy Marco Rubio has defended detaining and seeking to deport over 300 innocents, including Tufts graduate student Rumesya Oztur, for mere political speech he doesn't agree with, gloating, "Every time I find one of these lunatics, I take away their visa. It's just that simple." Except when not: In another shitshow, he also revoked visas for South Sudanese after their country allegedly refused to accept one of their own named Nimeri Garang; in fact, Rubio mistakenly sent them DRC citizen Makula Kintu who told the U.S. he wasn’t from South Sudan but they wouldn't listen, insisting his argument was "legally irrelevant." Defying multiple court orders, Rubio is reportedly still sending “alien enemy” victims to El Salvador if they're over 14 - "What about those deadly Venezuelan toddlers?" - and praising their evil, profit-making alliance as “an example for security and prosperity, though U.S. law bars financial support for “units of foreign security forces," torturous or no.
Meanwhile Nazi Press Barbie says they're "exploring legal pathways" to disappear U.S. citizens, but only "heinous criminals (who) have broken our laws repeatedly," maybe like with 33 felony convictions? Tulsi Gabbard says gangs are foreign terrorists "invading" us 'cause they're working with the Venezuelan government to make America weaker and browner so they don't deserve any due process, though experts and 17 of 18 U.S. intelligence agencies call the charge "ludicrous"; in response she told Congress they're all deep-state liars who "twisted and manipulated" the (fictional) evidence "to undermine the president's agenda," she "fully supports" the (imaginary) assessment they're foreign terrorists acting with Maduro's support, they're thus subject to arrest and removal as alien enemies, and in what one skeptic calls "the fastest mole hunt in the history of mole hunts," she's already referred the leaking "deep-state criminals" to the DOJ for possible prosecution and, obviously, conveniently, their removal to CECOT or some similarly merciless location. Whew. Stalin really could have used her.
And still the ICE rampage escalates. In New Orleans, they just arrested, held incommunicado and deported two mothers, one pregnant, and their three U.S.-citizen children - 7, 4 and a 2-year-old girl with metatastic cancer - at a routine immigration hearing, even as the girl's father was frantically petitioning the court to keep her in the country; agents admitted the move was a ploy to get him to turn himself in. For once, there was blowback: A horrified judge, Trump-appointed yet, ordered a hearing based on his
"strong suspicion the government just deported a U.S. citizen with no meaningful process.” We hope he knows multiple others have met the same fate - U.S. permanent residents detained at DHS offices, delivering paperwork, in naturalization interviews, a deported family with a 10-year-old U.S. citizen with brain cancer, a deported Cuban wife of a U.S. citizen with whom she shares a baby daughter. Her distraught husband: "They separated a girl from her mother. They killed a mother, a father, and the future of a girl while she was still alive." So much winning.
On Friday, the fascist-abuse-of-state-power-meter got turned up still more when FBI agents in Wisconsin arrested Milwaukee Circuit Court Judge Hannah Dugan, 65, for allegedly helping an immigrant evade arrest by ICE in her courtroom by letting him leave by another door. Though they caught him later, an outraged Ka$h Patel clamored, "We believe Judge Dugan intentionally misdirected federal agents away from the subject, an illegal alien" - oh how they love their racist slurs - for which she faces two federal felony counts of obstruction and concealing an individual. Defense attorneys called the action "very, very outrageous"; Attorney-General (sic) Pam Bondi, who took bribes to let both Jeffrey Epstein and Trump U. skate, went on Fox News as usual to declare the judiciary "deranged" and darkly warn, "We will find you." FactPac called on the Florida Bar to review Bondi's conduct and consider her disbarment for being "a lawless Attorney General." Finally, observers wondered, "What stage of fascism does arresting judges mark?" and speculated, "Her Nuremberg trial will be the best one."
Because the authoritarian goal is to harass or intimidate anyone who seems able to thwart their power, the regime's targets have also included labor unions, disgruntled or fired federal workers threatened with criminal penalties if they speak up - "Und Blabbermouths vill be zhot" - and victims of former anti-discrimination agencies like Equal Employment perversely flipped in service of today's hatred, like Barnard College professors asked to declare if they're Jewish and have encountered anti-Semitism or "unwelcome discussions." Given the sinister Red-Scare tactics and horrific damage inflicted by "a guy who eats a big bowl of contempt for breakfast each morning," it's hard to fathom the freakish juxtapositions at work, to conflate the cheesy clown and huckster with the foul, dark, implacably broken sociopath, devoid of empathy, grace, any saving human virtue. Jamelle Bouie posits a personality so driven by the need to dominate, to demonstrate "mastery over his perceived enemies," to "trample over those who don’t belong in his America," that he "will always want more...There must be a loser or else there is no Trump." (Please).
"When historians reflect on this regime," Robert Reich muses, "cruelty will be the word most used to define it." Also emblematic, others suggest: Sadism, stupidity, corruption, the vital task of "seeing people for who they really are." Recently, comedian Larry David wrote a blistering piece parodying Bill Maher's account of a dinner with Trump, who he called "gracious and measured." David's My Dinner With Adolf begins when, in the spring of 1939, a letter arrives "inviting me to dinner (with) the world’s most reviled man, Adolf Hitler.” "Everyone said don't go, he's a monster," but he decides "we need to talk to the other side - even if it (has) annexed other countries and committed unspeakable crimes against humanity." At dinner, Hitler laughs and tells jokes, like about his dog having diarrhea; he beams, "'Hey, if I can kill Jews, Gypsies and homosexuals, I can kill a dog!' which got the biggest laugh of the night...Suddenly he seemed so human. Like this was the real Hitler...We're not all that different." Leaving, he tells the furher, "I'm so thankful i came. Although we disagree on many issues, it doesn’t mean we have to hate each other." Then, "I gave him a Nazi salute and walked out into the night.”
'Sick': Trump Marks Earth Day With Layoff Notice for Hundreds of EPA Staff
As defenders of the planet marked Earth Day with pledges to fight the destructive agenda of U.S. President Donald Trump, some green groups on Tuesday responded with alarm to the administration's plans for layoffs at the Environmental Protection Agency.
Several news outlets obtained the notice that EPA Assistant Deputy Administrator Travis Voyles sent on Monday evening to staffers with the Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights as well as regional EJ divisions, warning of a reduction in force (RIF) that will cut 280 employees and reassign about 175 others this summer.
"This action is necessary to align our workforce with the agency's current and future needs and to ensure the efficient and effective operation of our programs," Voyles said. "With this action, EPA is delivering organizational improvements to the personnel structure that will directly benefit the American people and better advance the agency's core mission of protecting human health and the environment."
The Washington Postnoted that "the news comes months after the agency placed 171 of the office's employees on administrative leave and then reversed course, reinstating dozens of regional employees in offices across the country," and as decision-makers at the EPA have been weighing how to implement Trump's executive order targeting diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).
"It's a gut punch but long expected," said an employee who was put on leave in February and spoke with the Post on the condition of anonymity. "Announcing a RIF of the EJ program on the eve of Earth Day is sick and shows exactly who they are."
Joyce Howell, executive vice president of the American Federation of Government Employees Council 238 that represents over 8,400 EPA workers nationwide, toldReuters that "decimating our agency and environmental justice workforce goes against our oath to protect human health and to keep our planet healthy and habitable for future generations."
In a Tuesday statement, Sierra Club executive director Ben Jealous similarly said that "the Trump administration is determined to destroy the stated mission of the Environmental Protection Agency to protect human health and the environment. All of us deserve to have clean air to breathe, safe water to drink, and be protected from toxic pollution."
"Instead, the Trump administration is selling us out to corporate polluters by actively working to slash clean air and water protections and laying off critical environmental justice staff," he continued. "The people that Donald Trump is putting out of work are hardworking, dedicated civil servants who have devoted their careers to protecting our clean air and water and securing a livable future for us all. The only people who will benefit from their firings are corporate polluters."
Chitra Kumar, a former official with the impacted EPA office who's now managing director at the Union of Concerned Scientists' Climate and Energy Program, said in a statement that "the layoff notice sent to employees claimed their dismissal would 'better advance the agency's core mission of protecting human health and the environment,' which is the height of hypocrisy given that these staffers are working to reduce pollution and toxins in the communities suffering the most harm."
"Scientific data shows that, due to historic and ongoing injustices, communities overburdened by polluting industries, smog-forming traffic, and contaminated waterways and soil are predominantly low-income, Black, Brown, and Indigenous. Exposure to consistently higher levels of pollution increases the risk of asthma, heart and lung ailments, cancer, and even death," said Kumar, who took aim at EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin.
"Zeldin and the Trump administration continue to focus on propping up the profits of coal, oil, and gas companies and other big polluters who take advantage of every loophole available at the expense of public health. This is about all of us, our children, and grandchildren," she stressed. "If Administrator Zeldin goes forward with this destructive move, he will be responsible for ending decades of work intended to help set right the harmful legacy of pollution in overburdened communities in a handout to big polluters."
Kumar pointed out that "this is also part of the Trump administration's larger ongoing strategy to dismantle EPA and its core functions and undermine its very mission, which is to help keep all people in America safe. In the time ahead, Zeldin is expected to launch a repeal, or 'no enforce' order, for a host of science-backed environmental regulations and engage in a wholesale 'reorganization' of the agency, including gutting the Research and Development Office that produces science undergirding EPA decisions."
As criticism of Zeldin and Trump's plans for the EPA mounted, people protested against the administration in communities across the country. Aru Shiney-Ajay, executive director of the youth-led Sunrise Movement, said in a statement that "Donald Trump, backed by fossil fuel billionaires, is waging a full-scale assault on the very lifesaving protections that Earth Day was created to demand."
While Republicans currently control the White House and both chambers of Congress, some elected Democrats used Earth Day to advocate for policies that would protect the planet. Multiple senators
used the day to promote bills that would protect the Pacific and Atlantic oceans from offshore oil and gas drilling.
Tax Day Report Exposes Six US Corporate Giants Responsible for Dodging $278 Billion
A report published Tuesday to coincide with the tax filing deadline in the United States found that, over the past decade, six of the country's largest tech corporations have paid nearly $278 billion less in taxes than they should have under statutory tax rates worldwide.
The analysis by the Fair Tax Foundation (FTF) estimates that the so-called "Silicon Six"—Amazon, Meta, Alphabet, Netflix, Apple, and Microsoft—paid an average corporate income tax rate of 18.8% on a combined $2.5 trillion in profits between 2015 and 2024.
That's well below the average statutory corporate tax rate during that period in the U.S. (29.7%) and globally (27%), resulting in a "tax gap" of $277.8 billion.
"Our analysis would indicate that tax avoidance continues to be hard-wired into corporate structures," said Paul Monaghan, FTF's chief executive officer. "The Silicon Six's corporate income tax contributions are, in percentage terms, way below what sectors such as banking and energy are paying in many parts of the world."
Of the six corporate behemoths examined in the report, Amazon is the worst tax offender, according to FTF—but all of the companies are guilty of what the group called "aggressive" practices to avoid taxation.
The companies have also benefited greatly from the foreign-derived intangible income tax break. FTF said that, thanks to the tax break, "much of the Silicon Six's overseas revenue is subject to 'tax haven' level rates" in the U.S.
"This is especially so at Meta (Facebook), Alphabet (Google), and Netflix, where the foreign-derived intangible income (FDII) deduction reduced their effective tax rate by a substantial five percentage points each in 2024," the new analysis found. "The FDII has been worth $30 billion to the Silicon Six over the past three years alone."
The analysis comes as Republicans in the U.S. Congress and President Donald Trump work to advance another round of tax cuts that would predominantly benefit wealthy Americans and large corporations. The Trump administration is also trying to gut the Internal Revenue Service with large-scale workforce cuts, which would further hinder the agency's ability to pursue rich tax cheats.
FTF's new report notes the "enormous political influence" that the Silicon Six exert to preserve and enhance their tax benefits: The six companies spent a combined $115 million lobbying the U.S. government and the European Union last year.
To prevent corporate tax avoidance that is costing governments around the world billions of dollars in revenue that could be spent on education, healthcare, and other priorities, FTF said the U.S. should "end the FDII tax break" and back a 15% global minimum tax on multinational corporations.
In February, Trump withdrew the U.S. from a tax agreement that included a global minimum levy.
FTF also urged other governments to "give more serious consideration to the degree to which the Silicon Six's overseas revenue is subject to low levels of corporate income tax and develop more assertive responses to ensure that a fairer tax contribution is secured and so that more equitable business competition can operate within their jurisdictions."
'Trump Is Trying to Break Us,' Carney Warns as Liberals Win Canadian Election
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney declared that his country's "old relationship with the United States... is over" after leading his Liberal Party to victory in Monday's federal election, a contest that came amid U.S. President Donald Trump's destructive trade war and threats to forcibly annex Canada.
"As I have been warning for months, America wants our land, our resources, our water, our country. But these are not idle threats," Carney, a former central banker who succeeded Justin Trudeau as Canada's prime minister last month, said after he was projected the winner of Monday's election.
On the day of the contest, Trump reiterated his desire to make Canada "the cherished 51st. State of the United States of America."
"President Trump is trying to break us so that America can own us," Carney said Monday. "That will never, ever happen."
Carney: President Trump is trying to break us so that America can own us. That will never, ever happen pic.twitter.com/dUEI0YGSM2
— Acyn (@Acyn) April 29, 2025
It's not yet clear whether the Liberal Party will secure enough seats for a parliamentary majority, but its victory Monday was seen as a stunning comeback after the party appeared to be spiraling toward defeat under Trudeau's leadership.
Pierre Poilievre, the head of Canada's Conservative Party, looked for much of the past year to be "cruising to one of the largest majority governments in Canada's history," The Washington Postnoted.
But on Monday, Poilievre—who was embraced by Trump allies, including mega-billionaire Elon Musk—lost his parliamentary seat to his Liberal opponent, Bruce Fanjoy.
Vox's Zack Beauchamp wrote Tuesday that "Trump has single-handedly created the greatest surge of nationalist anti-Americanism in Canada's history as an independent country," pointing to a recent survey showing that "61% of Canadians are currently boycotting American-made goods."
"Trump's aggressive economic policy isn't, as he claimed, making America Great or respected again. Instead, it's having the opposite effect: turning longtime allies into places where campaigning against American leadership is a winning strategy," Beauchamp added. "If we are indeed witnessing the beginning of the end of the American-led world order, the history books will likely record April 28, 2025, as a notable date—one where even America's closest ally started eying the geopolitical exits."
Cancer Patient Among 3 American Children Deported by ICE
Federal immigration authorities deported three U.S. citizen children on Friday—including one with cancer who was reportedly expelled without medication—in a move that critics and one judge appointed by President Donald Trump said was carried out without due process.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) New Orleans field office deported the American children—ages 2, 4, and 7—along with their undocumented mothers, one of whom is pregnant. The ACLU said that both families were held incommunicado following their arrests, and that ICE agents refused or failed to respond to efforts by attorneys and relatives who were trying to contact them.
The ACLU said that one of the children has a rare form of metastatic cancer and was deported without medication or consultation with their treating physician, despite ICE being notified about the child's urgent condition. This follows last month's ICE deportation of a family including a 10-year-old American citizen with brain cancer.
According to court documents, the 2-year-old New Orleans native—identified as V.M.L.—was brought by her mother, Jenny Carolina Lopez Villela, to a routine immigration appointment in the Louisiana city on Tuesday when they were arrested.
A habeas petition filed on Thursday states that ICE New Orleans Field Office Director Mellissa Harper told V.M.L.'s desperate father on a phone call that he could try to pick the girl up but would likely be arrested, as he is undocumented. The petition argues that Harper was detaining V.M.L. "in order to induce her father to turn himself in to immigration authorities."
On Friday, U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty—a Trump nominee—ordered a May 16 hearing in Monroe, Louisiana based on his "strong suspicion that the government just deported a U.S. citizen with no meaningful process."
"It is illegal and unconstitutional to deport, detain for deportation, or recommend deportation of a U.S. citizen," Doughty wrote, citing relevant case law. "The government contends that this is all OK because the mother wishes that the child be deported with her. But the court doesn't know that."
The ACLU argued that ICE's actions "represent a shocking—although increasingly common—abuse of power," adding that the agency "has inflicted harm and jeopardized the lives and health of vulnerable children and a pregnant woman. The cruelty and deliberate denial of legal and medical access are not only unlawful, but inhumane."
Teresa Reyes-Flores of the Southeast Dignity not Detention Coalition said in a statement Friday: "ICE's actions show a blatant violation of due process and basic human rights. The families were disappeared, cut off from their lawyers and loved ones, and rushed to be deported, stripping their parents of the chance to protect their U.S. citizen children."
Immigration Services and Legal Advocacy legal director Homero López Jr. said that "these deplorable actions demonstrate ICE's increasing willingness to violate all protections for immigrants as well as those of their children."
"These types of disappearances are reminiscent of the darkest eras in our country's history and put everyone, regardless of immigration status, at risk," he added.
The Trump administration—whose first-term immigration policies and practices included separating children from their parents and imprisonment in concentration camps—is once again under fire for its anti-immigrant agenda.
The U.S. Supreme Court recently blocked the deportation of undocumented Venezuelans under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 and has also ordered the administration to facilitate the return of Kilmar Abrego García, a Salvadoran man wrongfully deported to a notorious prison in his native country. On Wednesday, a Trump-appointed judge ordered the administration to take action to return another Salvadoran deported to the same prison.
In a scathing ruling Friday, U.S. District Judge David Briones ordered ICE to free a Venezuelan couple dubiously held in El Paso under the Alien Enemies Act, finding that the government "has not demonstrated they have any lawful basis to continue detaining" the pair. Briones also warned ICE to not deport anyone else it is holding as an alleged "alien enemy" in West Texas.
ICE overreach and abuses—which include wrongful detention of U.S. citizens, arrests of green-card holders who defend Palestine, and warrantless home searches—have fueled renewed calls for the agency's defunding.
"A government agency that sequesters and deports vulnerable mothers with their U.S. citizen children without due process must be defunded, not rewarded with an additional $45 billion to continue at taxpayers' expense," Mich P. González, a founding partner of Sanctuary of the South—which provides legal aid to immigrants—said Friday.
"These families were lawfully complying with ICE's orders and for this they suffered cruel and traumatic separation," González added. "If this is what the Trump administration is orchestrating just three months in, we should all be terrified of what the next four years will bring."
Scores of Civilians Reportedly Among Victims of Latest US Airstrikes on Yemen
Scores of civilians have reportedly been killed or wounded by U.S. airstrikes on Yemen—including at an oil port and market—since late last week as the Trump administration continues its monthlong intensification of strikes targeting Houthi rebels, who vowed to carry out more operations against enablers of Israel's genocidal assault on Gaza.
The Houthis said Monday that U.S. airstrikes on the Yemeni capital Sanaa killed dozens, including a strike on the popular Farwah market in the Shuub neighborhood that killed 12 people and wounded 30 others.
As the Houthis did not disclose victims' combatant status and U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) refused to answer questions about civilians killed in the strikes, it is unclear how many noncombatants were among the dead and wounded. Video footage recorded in the strike's aftermath shows rescue workers uncovering the body of a small child found amid the rubble while a woman shrieks, "Let it be a dream!"
In what were likely the deadliest U.S. attacks on Yemen since U.S. President Donald Trumplaunched the current bombing campaign last month, at least 80 people including dozens of workers were killed and more than 150 others wounded in a series of Thursday airstrikes on the Ras Isa oil port on the Red Sea north of Hodeidah, according to the Hodeidah Health Office.
Al Jazeerareported that the first four U.S. strikes on the port happened while people were still working. Officials said first responders including paramedics and rescue workers who rushed to the scene were killed in subsequent strikes, known as "double taps" in military parlance.
"They targeted a civilian side over there; as you can see, the casualties are all civilians who had worked at this facility," one first responder toldSky News as he gestured toward flaming ruins.
Officials also raised concerns over possible oil leaks into the Red Sea.
CENTCOM said Thursday that ships have continued to supply fuel to the Houthis via the port of Ras Isa—which is the terminus for Yemen's main oil pipeline—despite the group, whose official name is Ansar Allah, being designated a terrorist organization by the Trump administration in March.
"U.S. forces took action to eliminate this source of fuel for the Iran-backed Houthi terrorists and deprive them of illegal revenue that has funded Houthi efforts to terrorize the entire region for over 10 years," CENTCOM said, adding that "this strike was not intended to harm the people of Yemen."
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres "is gravely concerned about the airstrikes conducted by the United States over the course of April 17th and 18th in and around Yemen's port of Ras Isa, which reportedly resulted in scores of civilian casualties, including five humanitarian workers injured," spokesman Stephane Dujarric said on Saturday.
The Geneva-based Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor said Friday that "the use of heavy ordnance against a known civilian facility suggests a deliberate disregard for the risk of mass casualties, explaining the high death toll and raising serious suspicions of a blatant violation of the principles of distinction, proportionality, and precaution under international humanitarian law."
"The targeted facility was civilian, and the civilian harm caused is grossly disproportionate to the declared military advantage of weakening the Houthis' economic base," the group added. "The use of force against such infrastructure, especially without clear necessity, inflicted severe harm on civilians and further debilitated Yemen's fuel import capabilities."
U.S. forces have been bombing Yemen since the administration of George W. Bush, who launched the open-ended War on Terror in response to the September 11, 2001 attacks. There have also been occasional U.S. ground raids in Yemen, including one in January 2017 that killed Nawar al-Awlaki, an 8-year-old American girl whose father and brother were killed in separate U.S. drone strikes during the Obama administration.
According to the U.K.-based monitor Airwars, U.S. forces have killed hundreds of Yemeni civilians in 181 declared actions since 2002. Overall, hundreds of thousands of Yemenis have died during the civil war that began in 2014, with international experts attributing more than 150,000 Yemeni deaths to U.S.-backed, Saudi-led bombing and blockade.
The Pentagon only acknowledges 13 civilian deaths caused by U.S. military action in Yemen. The Trump administration has been particularly tight-lipped about civilian casualties resulting from its operations, a stance some critics have called ironic given that top administration officials shared highly sensitive plans for attacking Yemen on a Signal group chat in which a journalist was inadvertently included. Calls for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's resignation grew following Sunday's revelation that he shared Yemen war plans in a second Signal chat group that included his relatives and personal attorney.
On Saturday, Houthi spokesperson and senior political officer Mohammed Al-Bukhaiti vowed that "our military operations will continue as long as the genocide in Gaza persists and the siege on its people remains."
Since October 2023, Houthi forces have launched at least scores of mostly unsuccessful missile attacks on Israel-linked shipping, U.S. warships, and Israel itself in solidarity with Gaza.
Israel's 563-day war on Gaza, which is the subject of an International Court of Justice genocide case and is the impetus behind International Criminal Court arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant—has left more than 182,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing and millions more forcibly displaced, starved, and sickened, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
'For the Workers, Not the Billionaires': Bernie Sanders to Join Nationwide Rallies for May Day
"Bernie knows that when the working class—labor, immigrants, community members—stand together, we are force that can defeat any bad boss," said the Philadelphia chapter of the AFL-CIO.
As U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders continues his nationwide Fighting Oligarchy tour, the longtime economic justice advocate is joining forces with organizers of another major mass mobilization against the "Billionaire Agenda" that has left working families struggling to afford healthcare, education, and the rising cost of living.
On Thursday, one of more than 1,100 May Day rallies will be held at Philadelphia City Hall, where Sanders (I-Vt.) will join the city's AFL-CIO chapter under the banner, "For the Workers, Not the Billionaires."
Announcing that Sanders will speak at the rally at 4:00 pm Thursday, the union said on Facebook that "Bernie knows that when the working class—labor, immigrants, community members—stand together, we are force that can defeat any bad boss... When workers fight, workers win!"
As Common Dreams reported last week, labor unions and advocacy groups are planning rallies in nearly 1,000 cities across all 50 states to mark May 1 or May Day, which commemorates the struggles and victories of the labor movement throughout history.
The events are taking place more than two months into Sanders' Fighting Oligarchy tour, during which he and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) have drawn crowds of thousands in Republican districts in Nebraska, Iowa, Idaho, and other states—addressing a total of 250,000 people, about a third of whom are not registered Democrats, according to Sanders' office.
Advocates say the tour has demonstrated the broad appeal of the progressive lawmakers' prioritizing of issues that impact working families, their demand that the Democratic Party aggressively fight the Trump agenda in any way that they can, and their rejection of billionaires' and corporations' encroachment on the U.S. political system and hoarding of wealth.
Like the Fighting Oligarchy tour, the May Day 2025 rallies aim to "unite working people across race, immigration status, and geography," according to organizers, with attendees demanding:
- An end to the billionaire takeover and government corruption, including tech mogul Elon Musk's spearheading of efforts to slash hundreds of thousands of federal jobs and dismantle agencies;
- Full funding for public schools, healthcare, and housing;
- Protection and expansion of Medicaid, Social Security, and other essential programs that have been attacked by Musk and Trump;
- A halt to attacks on immigrants, Black, Indigenous, trans, and other targeted communities; and
- Strong union protections, fair wages, and dignity for all workers.
'This Will Gut the FTC': Republicans Push Musk-Backed Plan to Kill Key Antitrust Law
"Jim Jordan and House Judiciary Republicans are directly undermining both current and future litigation against the monopolies that gouge and censor Americans."
House Republicans are set to consider legislation on Wednesday that experts say would effectively eliminate a law that gives the Federal Trade Commission sole authority to protect the American public from corporations engaging in "unfair methods of competition."
The GOP-controlled House Judiciary Committee, led by Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), released the bill Monday as part of a sweeping, filibuster-proof reconciliation package that Republicans are looking to pass as soon as next month.
The new bill states that "all FTC antitrust actions, all FTC antitrust employees, all FTC antitrust assets, and all FTC antitrust funding" must be "transferred to the attorney general." The proposal is virtually identical to Republican legislation that Elon Musk, a lieutenant of President Donald Trump and the richest person in the world, endorsed earlier this year.
Matt Stoller, research director at the American Economic Liberties Project, observed Monday that the House Judiciary Committee measure is "not just a bill to change the office locations and reporting structures." Specifically, Stoller noted that the bill doesn't explicitly transfer to the Justice Department the FTC's authority under Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act to combat "unfair methods of competition."
"That authority," Stoller wrote, "remains with an agency that has no staff and no capacity to litigate, which means it could die."
Alvaro Bedoya, who is currently engaged in a legal fight to get his job back at the FTC after Trump fired him and another Democratic commissioner last month, echoed Stoller's concerns, writing on social media that the Republican bill "doesn't transfer the laws that FTC enforces, or authority to enforce those laws."
"This will gut the FTC," Bedoya wrote, noting that the agency's legal action against pharmacy benefit managers—pharmaceutical industry middlemen—would likely be among the casualties of the Republican bill, given that "the sole law that the FTC alleges was broken in all three counts was that core prohibition against 'unfair methods of competition.'"
Stoller pointed out in his blog post that Section 5 is also used "in the antitrust case against Amazon" and "another case against Corteva/Syngenta over exclusive dealing in seeds and chemicals." It was also "the authority used to ban noncompete agreements," he wrote.
"These cases, as well as every consent decree ever reached under Section 5, are now at risk," Stoller added.
The House Judiciary Committee is slated to mark up the legislation on Wednesday afternoon, starting at 2:00 pm ET.
Lisa Gilbert, co-president of Public Citizen, said in a statement Monday that the measure as a whole is "laden with language attempting to protect corporate wrongdoers."
"One provision appears to effectively eliminate the FTC pro-competition division," said Gilbert. "Another set of provisions makes significant changes to the already overreaching Congressional Review Act. One measure says that major rules that raise revenue go into effect only if Congress proactively approves them. Another section says for the next four years Congress has to affirmatively approve rules for them not to expire."
"If made law," she warned, "this would sign a death warrant for a slew of important consumer, worker, and environmental protections."