The court seems ready to give the president extraordinary power over what had been independent worker- and consumer-protection agencies. The west façade of the Supreme Court Building in Washington, DC, at dusk.(Joe Ravi / CC-BY-SA 3.0) Here’s a troubling news alert for everyone who cares about workers and consumers being protected from illegal, exploitative, and dangerous business practices: The Supreme Court appears ready to give President Donald Trump extraordinary power over what for nearly a century have been independent expert federal worker and consumer protection agencies insulated from White House interference. The court showed its hand in Wilcox v. Trump—the…
Author: Hans
Orisanmi Burton’s Tip of the Spear uncovers the obscured and radical demands of the inmates who staged the 1971 prison uprising—a world without prisons. Attica after state police stormed the prison, 1971. (Bettmann / Getty Images) After the 2016 publication of Heather Ann Thompson’s Pulitzer Prize–winning account of the 1971 Attica prison rebellion, Blood in the Water, three New York Times reporters sought to determine whether some of the prisoners’ demands “meant to expand their rights and improve prison conditions” had actually come to fruition, and if prisoners in the state of New York had benefited in the years since.…
Charlie Kushner, the newly confirmed US ambassador to France, is a vindictive, felonious, and score-settling real estate mogul, not unlike a certain US president. Charles Kushner looks on at a White House meeting of US ambasadors(Mandel Ngan / AFP via Getty Images) The first time I met Charlie Kushner was at the Kushner Company offices at 666 Fifth Avenue, the New York City skyscraper the company bought in 2007 for $1.8 billion, making it the largest commercial real estate deal in history. I had just been hired by Charlie’s son Jared to be the editor in chief of The New…
May 22, 2025 A sacred site for Native Americans is on the verge of being destroyed for profit, and profit alone—just one more colonial conquest of lands in the American West. Thacker Pass in northern Nevada. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images) This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To stay on top of important articles like these, sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatch.com. Ancient oak trees rise above gigantic boulders scattered across a high desert mesa in Arizona’s Tonto National Forest. This is Oak Flat (Chi’ chil Bildagoteel), a sacred site for Native Americans,…
The administration’s funding cuts would force unaccompanied migrant children, from infants to toddlers to teenagers, to navigate complex and punishing legal procedures entirely alone. Alexa Sendukas, managing attorney at GHIRP, preparing a 7-year-old client for his asylum interview.(GHIRP) The notice from the Department of the Interior arrived in the middle of the workday. Alexa Sendukas, a managing attorney at the Galveston-Houston Immigrant Representation Project, opened her inbox to a notice directing her to stop working immediately. The order was spare. In three paragraphs, the Trump administration halted all work under a government contract funding legal representation for unaccompanied migrant children.…
May 23, 2025 St. Louis can either use the disaster as an opportunity to commit to the safety of all its residents, or it can continue a barbaric cycle of neglect. A tornado leveled the Harlem Tap Room, which has been in operation since 1946, on Dr. Martin Luther King Drive in St. Louis.(Richard Reilly) St. Louis—On May 15, St. Louis officials conducted extensive tornado siren tests. At noon precisely, alarms blared under clear skies. The next day, the National Weather Service texted an alert at 2:34 pm, but no sirens went off as a tornado touched down at 2:41…
The Nebraska city swung by 43 points to elect John Ewing Jr. Democrats should study the model he embraced. Jane Kleeb, chair of the Nebraska Democratic Party, speaks at the “Win With Workers” Rally and Press Conference at the DNC Midwestern Candidate Forum on January 16, 2025, in Detroit, Michigan.(Aaron J. Thornton / One Fair Wage via Getty Images) For the last several months, the Trump administration’s reckless use of executive power, trade policy, gutting federal agencies and defying court orders has gone largely unchecked. National Democrats have limited means of opposition—so the best hope for accountability will be electoral…
Last night, the president’s destructive spending bill passed the House by a single vote. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson and President Donald Trump speak to members of the press as they depart a House Republican meeting at the US Capitol in May.(Andrew Harnik / Getty Images) It wasn’t quite the dead of night, but in the bleary dawn of Thursday morning, the House GOP conference rallied to pass President Donald Trump’s signature domestic spending bill, by the narrowest of margins, with a vote of 215 to 214. House Speaker Mike Johnson scheduled a floor vote as the first order…
The charges against McIver are a form of political intimidation directed with particular force against Black politicians—but it will work only if the people don’t have her back. Representative LaMonica McIver demands the release of Newark Mayor Ras Baraka after his arrest while protesting outside an ICE detention prison, Friday, May 9, 2025. She was herself later charged by the Trump Department of Justice.(Angelina Katsanis / AP Photo) It’s become clear that the most dangerous thing for a public official to do during the Trump administration—other than fly out of Newark—is to try to get ICE to follow the law…
The first in a two-part series on the global housing crisis. Next to inflation, Americans ranked housing as their top financial worry in a Gallup survey last May. It’s only gotten worse. January home sales were down 5% from last year’s dismal numbers. Record numbers of first-time buyers are stuck on the sidelines as housing affordability stands at the lowest level ever recorded, while one in three Americans now spend over 30% of their income on mortgage or rent. The housing crisis is not just an American problem, but a global phenomenon that hits the middle and working classes the hardest. Studies of the…