Tag Archives: Donald Trump

Exposé of ‘Scandalous’ US Spying Sparks Calls for Congress to Act

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“These new details add up to a horrifying picture that proves the need for Congress to… enact comprehensive privacy protections for Americans before reauthorizing any spying powers,” said one campaigner.

By Jessica Corbett. Published 11-20-2023 by Common Dreams

A U.S. senator is sounding the alarm about a “long-running dragnet surveillance program” enabling law enforcement to :request often-warrantless searches of trillions of domestic phone records.” Photo: Ivan Radic/flickr/CC

Privacy advocates on Monday renewed demands for swift congressional action on government surveillance in response to new WIRED reporting on a federally funded program through which law enforcement obtains phone records from AT&T.

“This is a long-running dragnet surveillance program in which the White House pays AT&T to provide all federal, state, local, and tribal law enforcement agencies the ability to request often-warrantless searches of trillions of domestic phone records,” U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) wrote Sunday in a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland, which WIRED obtained and published in full.

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Far-Right Climate Denier Javier Milei Wins Argentina Presidential Runoff

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“No one so extremist on economic issues has been elected president of a South American country,” said U.S. economist Mark Weisbrot.

By Brett Wilkins. Published 11-19-2023 by Common Dreams

Javier Milei. Photo: Vox España/flickr/CC

Javier Milei—a far-right admirer of former U.S. President Donald Trump who says that climate change is a “socialist lie” and who pledged to take a “chainsaw” to social programs—will be Argentina’s next president after winning a decisive victory in Sunday’s presidential runoff.

Sergio Massa, Argentina’s Peronist economy minister, conceded defeat Sunday evening to the 53-year-old Milei, a radical libertarian economist often called the “Trump of Argentina” who will take office amid a looming recession, triple-digit inflation, and a nearly 40% poverty rate in Latin America’s third-largest economy.

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$10 Trillion in Added US Debt Since 2001 Shows ‘Bush and Trump Tax Cuts Broke Our Modern Tax Structure’

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“In their blind loyalty to their mega-donors, Republicans’ fixation on giant tax cuts for billionaires has created a revenue problem that is driving up our national debt,” said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse in response to new Treasury Department figures.

By Jon Queally. Published 10-21-2023 by Common Dreams

Photo: White House Archives

The U.S. Treasury Department on Friday released new figures related to the 2023 budget that showed a troubling drop in the nation’s tax revenue compared to GDP—a measure which fell to 16.5% despite a growing economy—and an annual deficit increase that essentially doubled from the previous year.

“After record U.S. government spending in 2020 and 2021” due to programs related to the economic fallout from the Covid-19 crisis, the Washington Post reports, “the deficit dropped from close to $3 trillion to close to $1 trillion in 2022. But rather than continue to fall to its pre-pandemic levels, the deficit unexpectedly jumped this year to roughly $2 trillion.”

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FCC Chair Confirms Plan to Reinstate Net Neutrality Rules Eviscerated Under Trump

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“To allow a handful of monopoly-aspiring gatekeepers to control access to the internet is a direct threat to our democracy,” said Michael Copps, a Common Cause special adviser and former FCC commissioner.

By Jessica Corbett. Published 9-26-2023 by Common Dreams

FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel Photo: Internet Education Foundation/flickr/CC

Open internet advocates across the United States celebrated on Tuesday as Federal Communications Commission Chair Jessica Rosenworcel announced her highly anticipated proposal to reestablish FCC oversight of broadband and restore net neutrality rules.

“We thank the FCC for moving swiftly to begin the process of reinstating net neutrality regulations,” said ACLU senior policy counsel Jenna Leventoff. “The internet is our nation’s primary marketplace of ideas—and it’s critical that access to that marketplace is not controlled by the profit-seeking whims of powerful telecommunications giants.”

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Watchdog Finds Trump Border Wall Harmed Environment, Indigenous Sites, and Wildlife

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“This racist political stunt has been an ineffective waste of billions of American taxpayers’ dollars—and now we know it has caused immeasurable, irreparable harm,” said Congressman Raúl Grijalva.

By Jessica Corbett Published 9-7-2023 by Common Dreams

Donald Trump stands before a section of border fencing. Photo: rump White House Archived/flickr/CC

A U.S. government watchdog agency on Thursday released a report exposing how former President Donald Trump’s wall construction along the nation’s border with Mexico negatively affected cultural and natural resources, as critics have long argued.

“The Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and the Department of Defense (DOD) installed about 458 miles of border barrier panels across the southwest border from January 2017 through January 2021,” according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO) report. “Most (81%) of the miles of panels replaced existing barriers.”

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Now End All the Drilling, Campaigners Say as Biden Rescinds Arctic Refuge Leases

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“Our sacred land is only temporarily safe from oil and gas development,” said one First Nations leader, urging Congress and the White House to “permanently protect the Arctic Refuge.”

By Julia Conley. Published 9-6-2023 by Common Dreams

Polar bear, Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Alaska. Photo: Alan D. Wilson/Wikimedia Commons/CC

Indigenous tribes and climate campaigners applauded the Biden administration’s announcement Wednesday that it will cancel all existing oil and gas drilling leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska and ban drilling across 13 million acres of the National Petroleum Reserve, while hundreds of groups also called on the U.S. Interior Department to go further on fossil fuel leasing.

Biden’s move in Alaska will reverse former Republican President Donald Trump’s approval of a 2017 law that required leasing in the Arctic Refuge, the nation’s largest area of pristine wilderness which is home to vulnerable species including polar bears, migratory birds, and caribou.

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Trump and Big Tech are setting the tone for a violent 2024 election season

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Tech giants’ hands-off approach to disinformation does not bode well at a time of growing political violence

By Chrissy Stroop Published 8-30-2023 by openDemocracy

Photo: Fulton County Sheriff’s Office

Donald Trump turned himself in at Fulton County jail in Georgia on Thursday last week, where he was fingerprinted and had a mugshot taken – just like any other accused felon. Obviously, unlike many others in the same situation, he was immediately able to post bond and leave. Nevertheless, the moment was remarkable: it was the first ever mugshot of a former president.

Back in March, before the various investigations had resulted in any indictments, Trump warned there could be consequences if he was indicted, calling on his supporters to “take back our nation”. No 6 January-style mass action has materialised, but as summer winds down in the northern hemisphere, political threats and violence do seem to be ramping up here in the US.

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Trump’s Last-Minute Attack on Old-Growth Trees Was Illegal, Judge Rules

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The federal judge said that the “highly uncertain effects of this project, when considered in light of its massive scope and setting, raise substantial questions about whether this project will have a significant effect on the environment.”

By Olivia Rosane. Published 9-1-2023 by Common Dreams

Large trees are proposed for logging in one of Oregon’s wildest landscapes as part of the Morgan Nesbitt “Restoration” project. (Photo: Oregon Wild)

Two days before he left office, a political appointee for President Donald Trump removed protections from old-growth trees in Oregon and Washington. On Thursday, U.S. Magistrate Judge Andrew Hallman ruled that decision was illegal.

Hallman vacated the U.S. Forest Service’s finding that the change would have no impact, and ordered the agency to carry out a full environmental impact statement of the proposal, as The Associated Press reported.

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‘A Welcome Relief’: Transportation Department Suspends Trump-Era LNG ‘Bomb Trains’ Rule

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While celebrating the forthcoming review, campaigners also argued that “Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg should put a new rule in place that restores the ban on LNG by rail once and for all.”

By Jessica Corbett. Published 9-1-2023 by Common Dreams

Just another bomb train. Photo: Don/flickr/CC

Green groups on Friday applauded as the Biden administration suspended a Trump-era rule allowing liquefied natural gas to be transported by train, delivering another blow to New Fortress Energy’s proposal to ship climate-wrecking LNG by rail from Wyalusing, Pennsylvania to Gibbstown, New Jersey.

The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA)—in coordination with the Federal Railroad Administration, another U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) agency—announced in the Federal Register on Friday that it is amending the Hazardous Materials Regulations (HMR) to suspend authorization of LNG rail transportation.

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Watchdog Argues Obama Admin’s Cave on White Supremacy Helped Pave Way for Jacksonville Shooting

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“We must not be fooled into treating each massacre as its own tragedy,” said one civil rights advocate. “The tragedy first lies in the unchecked proliferation of the violent racist ideology coupled with the unchecked access to weapons of war.”

By Julia Conley. Published 8-30-2023 by Common Dreams

Neo-Nazis demonstrating outside a Turning Point USA conference in Tampa on July 23, 2022. Photo: @Freeyourmindkid/Twitter

As the community of Jacksonville, Florida reeled from the killing of three Black Americans by a white supremacist at a Dollar General store last Saturday, a government watchdog said that the “lion’s share” of blame for the proliferation of racist, white nationalist violence in the U.S. can be placed on Republican politicians including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former President Donald Trump—but noted that the Obama administration helped allow white supremacy to fester by caving to the GOP at a crucial moment more than a decade ago.

Chris Lewis, a senior researcher at the Revolving Door Project, pointed to the Democratic administration’s response when Republican lawmakers complained about a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) report in 2009 that warned of the growth of right-wing extremism, including the white supremacist movement, and the danger it posed to communities across the United States.

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