No one likes bad air days. Days when the air smells wrong; the sky is choked with haze, smog, soot; and the weather report has to invent new shades of purple to warn us to stay inside. But what people might not know is that bad air is literally killing us and making us less healthy.

And the build out of liquefied “natural” gas (LNG) export terminals along the Texas and Louisiana coast is making it worse.

A large percentage of U.S. “natural” gas production, which is just fracked methane gas, isn’t used here at home, but now gets shipped directly overseas. The terminals where this gas is turned into a liquid and loaded onto massive tankers emit all sorts of harmful air pollution. These facilities have a permit to pollute, but a recent report shows that just because the government signs off on something doesn’t mean it won’t kill you.

Maybe the most frustrating part of this whole story is that Texas and Louisiana taxpayers are footing the bill for all this suffering.

Seven of the currently operating LNG export terminals are estimated to cause 60 premature deaths every year due to flaring and other emissions. And there are many, many more such terminals in the planning stages looking to become operational within the decade, potentially upping that number to almost 150 premature deaths per year. The “soot” and “smog” that form from the resulting particulate matter and ozone also cause a range of other health problems, including asthma, and lead to people having to miss school and work, and cost us health impacts worth billions of dollars.

These LNG terminals plan to operate for decades to come, and if you add up the health impacts over time it amounts to over 4,000 deaths by 2050. The coastal communities that live in the shadow of these massive facilities face the highest per capita health impacts, but particulate matter and ozone don’t stay confined near their source. They are regional pollutants that can travel hundreds of miles and still cause harm.

As we speak, Harris County, Texas, home to Houston; and Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana are estimated to suffer the most deaths due to LNG terminal air pollution. Dallas County is No. 3, even though it is 250 miles from the nearest LNG terminal.

This report only looks at LNG terminals, but the dirty secret is that many places in Texas and Louisiana are already over-polluted. Oil refineries, petrochemical plants, coal plants, and more are already contributing to air pollution and health harms in the region. This frenzy to export methane gas is only pouring new pollution on top of old.

In Southwest Louisiana, decades of toxic emissions from refineries and petrochemical plants have polluted the air and contaminated the upper Calcasieu River, leading to a seafood advisory, limiting the amount of fish locals can eat. LNG export facilities have expanded this industrial air pollution to communities that had never faced these issues before. Now, residents frequently hear warning alarms and witness massive flares spewing black smoke into the sky. Many in the community report symptoms such as frequent headaches and worsening respiratory problems, clear signs of the harmful impact this pollution is having on their health.

For generations, fishermen in Cameron Parish, Louisiana have depended on the bounty of the estuaries and wetlands, providing for their families and communities. These waters were once an integral part of the local culture and economy, passed down from father to son. After rebuilding through storm after storm, these same families now face a new challenge—being displaced by a multi-billion-dollar industry that not only pollutes their environment but jeopardizes their ability to sustain themselves from it. The risks that coastal communities face like coastal erosion and extreme weather are worsened by the climate crisis, which the LNG industry ironically helps fuel.

Maybe the most frustrating part of this whole story is that Texas and Louisiana taxpayers are footing the bill for all this suffering. Another report from late last year showed how several of these LNG companies have received tax handouts in the billions of dollars, taking money away from needed resources like health and safety services. All this on the promise of good paying jobs to local folks that never materialize. And what’s more, every tanker of LNG that gets shipped overseas raises energy prices here at home.

Talk about a raw deal.

But after nearly a decade of rubber stamping these terminals, the federal government just took a closer look.The U.S. Department of Energy, who authorizes LNG for export, just updated its studies used to determine whether LNG exports actually serve the public interest. The studies conclude that LNG exports raise energy prices, inflame climate change, sabotage the clean energy transition, and cause harm to our local communities.

The incoming presidential administration may try to ignore the evidence. To expect them to choose what’s right for Texas and Louisiana—let’s just say, unfortunately, we won’t be holding our breath.

Now is the time to make our voices heard before the haze, smog, and soot choke the sky for good and while there are still a few days remaining that the Biden administration can reject the many LNG export applications in the queue. We all need to act now to protect the air in Louisiana and Texas, and everyone from the worst of the climate crisis.

In this polarized moment in America, where disinformation fuels division and mistrust, the stakes for our communities could not be higher. Systemic inequalities continue to affect Black and Brown populations disproportionately, yet harmful narratives often pit our growing communities against one another, diverting attention from shared struggles.

The need for unity is not new, but today it is especially urgent. Politicians and pundits have long exploited tensions between Black and Brown communities, often framing them as competitors in a zero-sum game for resources, jobs, and political influence. During the 2024 election cycle, it became nearly impossible to turn on the television or scroll through social media without encountering rampant information fraud. Led by the far right and bolstered by political allies, shadow actors, and extremist groups, this movement gained national momentum with the “birther” conspiracy targeting former U.S. President Barack Obama. That was only the beginning.

Over time, the lies grew more bizarre and targeted—accusing Haitian immigrants of eating pets—or even infiltrating weather reports, with claims that the government was creating hurricanes to target Republican voters. These lies were not only absurd but also devastatingly effective in fostering a culture of division, racism, and violent rhetoric that harmed marginalized communities across the country.

In response to the ongoing threat of information fraud and a lack of information education, our organizations have called on Black and Brown communities to embrace intersectionality and cross-racial solidarity as tools to combat deception.

Black and Brown communities are particularly vulnerable to targeted information fraud campaigns, especially on social media. Despite being factually unfounded and blatantly racist, these tactics have shown their effectiveness. Recent polls indicate that extremist ideologies gained traction among Black and Latino voters. By pitting these groups against each other, shadow actors promote the false notion that democracy and equality are in competition with each other, rather than shared objectives.

The high stakes for failing to unite are as much political as they are cultural. Both Black and Latino communities are growing forces in American politics, with immense potential to shape elections, policy, and public discourse. In recent years, we have seen how both groups mobilize to demand justice—from the Black Lives Matter movement to advocacy for comprehensive immigration reform. Yet without solidarity, the potential for meaningful change is significantly diminished.

Consider the fight for voting rights. Restrictions on voting access disproportionately impact both Black Americans and Latinos, yet efforts to combat these injustices often occur in silos. Similarly, debates over resources for schools, affordable housing, or healthcare too often devolve into blame games rather than coordinated demands for systemic reform. The far-right has skillfully exploited these fissures, promoting narratives that suggest Black and Brown communities are at odds over issues like affirmative action, policing, or economic opportunities.

Now, in a post-election United States, we know building stronger coalitions requires a commitment to equity, truth, and intentional dialogue. We must create spaces to address historic grievances, foster mutual understanding, and work toward collective goals.

To get there, we need to understand that the media also plays a critical role. Too often, stories about Black and Latino communities focus on conflict rather than collaboration. These skewed narratives reinforce stereotypes and undermine efforts at solidarity. Highlighting shared struggles and successes instead of conflicts can help bridge divides and foster unity.

Solidarity does not come easy. Centuries of systemic oppression and cultural erasure have left deep scars that cannot be healed overnight. But solidarity does not require erasing differences; it requires acknowledging them and finding common ground in the pursuit of justice.

In response to the ongoing threat of information fraud and a lack of information education, our organizations have called on Black and Brown communities to embrace intersectionality and cross-racial solidarity as tools to combat deception.

Solidarity, collaboration, and diversity are at the heart of every successful social justice movement. Like a New Orleans gumbo or a Mexican pozole, collaborative efforts are stronger and more innovative than the sum of their parts. By rallying around a shared message that rejects deception at its source, we can safeguard both the integrity of our democracy and the future of our country.

If you grew up in Southern California, you don’t need a weather person to know which way the Santa Ana winds blow.

These dry winds originate in the Great Basin and sweep down the mountains toward the Southern California coast. They lower the humidity and raise the temperature, creating critical fire weather conditions. “The wind shows us how close to the edge we are,” Joan Didion once observed in her essay “Los Angeles Notebook.”

The Santa Anas typically occur during the fall. But more and more often, they’re happening this time of year. In tandem, the changing climate is making Southern California drier.

Disturbingly, President-elect Donald Trump, a climate change denier, intends to gut even the inadequate measures that the U.S. has already taken.

This January, ferocious gusts up to 100 miles per hour overlapped with a months-long drought to create the conditions for the apocalyptic infernos now devastating Greater Los Angeles. The Eaton and Palisades fires—among the most destructive in California history—have together consumed over 37,000 acres. Losses could top $100 billion, according to AccuWeather.

Seeing the Eaton fire’s menacing flames from my family’s San Gabriel Valley home, driving past thick smoke and fallen palm fronds on the freeway, and receiving a mistaken evacuation alert showed me what “close to the edge” can look like. While we’ve been spared for now, many others have lost their homes, livelihoods, and a part of their families’ history.

The fires have forced tens of thousands to evacuate their homes, destroyed over 12,300 structures, and killed at least 25 people. Some victims died while trying to protect their homes, like Victor Shaw, 66, found outside his Altadena house clutching a garden hose.

The fires have ravaged lower-income communities, historic Black neighborhoods in Altadena, and cultural landmarks like actor Will Rogers’ historic ranch house in the Pacific Palisades. Mass displacement is exacerbating the housing crisis in Los Angeles County, where roughly 75,000 unhoused people are now directly exposed to toxic smoke. Wildlife and pets haven’t been spared either.

The climate emergency has worsened this destruction. As the fires burned, scientists confirmed that 2024 was the world’s warmest year on record. Dramatic swings between intensely wet and dry weather—described by climate scientist Daniel Swain as “hydroclimate whiplash”—are increasing worldwide, resulting in more dangerous floods along with droughts that amplify wildfire risks.

Average global temperatures have now exceeded the Paris agreement threshold of 1.5°C (2.7°F) above preindustrial levels. To avoid further catastrophe, fossil fuel emissions must be slashed by 43% by 2030 and reach “net zero” by 2050, according to the United Nations.

Disturbingly, President-elect Donald Trump, a climate change denier, intends to gut even the inadequate measures that the U.S. has already taken. He’s widely expected to withdraw our nation—the biggest historical emitter of carbon dioxide—from the Paris agreement, as he did during his first administration, and he’s said he intends to cancel President Joe Biden’s historic investments in green jobs.

The result of these actions will be more heat and extreme weather.

Communities across the Southeast are still reeling from Hurricanes Helene and Milton in September and October, which killed over 250 people and caused over $100 billion in damages. Warmer ocean temperatures are supercharging these and other storms.

Measures like controlled burns, increased funding for fire departments, and more thoughtful residential planning in wildfire-prone areas can help California going forward, but it will take more to slash emissions and address the climate emergency.

Fossil fuel companies should be held accountable as well. The state of California is currently suing them for deceiving the public for decades about their products’ central role in the climate crisis and demanding that they pay for billions of dollars in damages. These latest fires should be added to the list.

Amid Angelenos banding together and vowing to rebuild what they’ve lost, the fires are yet another tragic reminder of how people and our planet pay the ultimate price for climate inaction.

Uh oh, nukes coming in. Should we retaliate?

This strikes me as the stupidest question a human being could ask—and, just possibly, also the last. Our enemy of the moment is loosing hell on us (if warning signals are accurate), so let’s do the same back at them. If we kill more of them than they kill of us, we win! Yes, human life—all life—will likely be destroyed in a nuclear war, but that’s just the way things work. That’s not our concern.

Among the global superpowers, this scenario remains etched into the meaning of self-defense: the ability to retaliate, no matter the consequences of doing so. The marketing slogan, of course, is “deterrence.” As long as the bad guys understand that we have the capability to retaliate, they won’t start a nuclear war. Hence, staying safe as a nation means maintaining our ability to create Armageddon.

It’s certainly the human paradox of the era. Are we stuck with it?

I fear the era of “greatness” the American right is yearning for goes back at least to the Middle Ages, which is to say, far enough back in time so that actual reality is subsumed by legend.

Well, that’s the question I’m asking right now. It’s the question most of humanity is struggling with in one way or another, although not, of course, at the highest levels of power, where wars remain a global certainty and the threat of nuclear war is humanity’s . . . uh, salvation. Apparently.

And thus, as The New York Times explains, “With Russia at war, China escalating regional disputes and nations like North Korea and Iran expanding their nuclear programs, the United States is set to spend an estimated $1.7 trillion over 30 years to revamp its own arsenal.”

“The spending spree, which the government began planning in 2010, is underway in at least 23 states—nearly 50 if you include subcontractors. It follows a decades-long freeze on designing, building or testing new nuclear weapons. Along with the subs, the military is paying for a new fleet of bomber jets, land-based missiles, and thermonuclear warheads. Tally all that spending, and the bill comes to almost $57 billion a year, or $108,000 per minute for three decades.”

And, oh yeah, the U.S. Department of Defense, according to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, currently maintains approximately 3,700 nuclear warheads, most of which “are not deployed but rather stored for potential upload onto missiles and aircraft as necessary. We estimate that approximately 1,770 warheads are currently deployed...“

And by the way, the Bulletin currently has its Doomsday Clock set at 90 seconds to midnight. That is to say, the world is trembling at the very edge of MADness, a.k.a., mutually assured destruction. Is there no way beyond this insanity? Shouldn’t addressing this, along with the expanding planetary climate crisis, be the number one priority not simply of ordinary citizens like you and me, but of the politically powerful? As a starting point, how do we create the context for global nuclear disarmament?

Into the midst of this madness comes—at the behest of President-elect Donald Trump—Pete Hegseth, his nominee for secretary of defense... the Fox News Channel host, the guy who has said he wants to give the department its old name back: the Department of War. Maybe the Senate will approve his controversial nomination, maybe it won’t. But the fact that he’s the one currently under consideration illustrates the limited consciousness of those at the peak of American power: Security is about being the toughest guy out there. Security is about winning. And the pursuit of “peace” is for wimps.

Hegseth seems to represent the essence of that attitude—a white Christian nationalist who draws his MAGA certainties from the old days, when the world was neatly divided into two parts, good and evil, and defeating evil was the work of manly men and pretty much all that mattered.

The Associated Press provides a brief snapshot into the Hegseth soul: “Hegseth complains in his latest book that ‘woke’ generals and the leaders of the elite service academies have left the military dangerously weak and ‘effeminate’ by promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion. He says rank and file soldiers are undermined by ‘feckless civilian leaders and foolish brass,’ adding that ‘the next commander in chief will need to clean house...’”

“Hegseth’s writing,” the AP story continues, “is contemptuous of the policies, laws, and treaties that constrain warfighters on the battlefield, from restrictive rules of engagement to the Geneva Conventions, which he suggests are outdated against enemies who don’t abide by them.”

“He has little patience for the moral questions surrounding war. Of the Americans who dropped nuclear bombs on Japan to end World War II, he writes, ‘They won. Who cares?’”

His focus, he has said, is making the military more lethal, and to that end, his body is plastered with moralistic tattoos, including a crusader’s cross on his chest and the Latin phrase “Deus Vult” on his bicep, which, according to the Daily Beast, means “God Wills It.” The term dates back to the Christian crusaders of the Middle Ages and “is now associated with right-wing extremism.”

Wow, the Crusades—and nuclear-armed crusaders! How could America, how could the world, be any safer than this?

As I say, the Hegseth nomination may not get approved, but the nomination itself is wearing a MAGA hat. I fear the era of “greatness” the American right is yearning for goes back at least to the Middle Ages, which is to say, far enough back in time so that actual reality is subsumed by legend: valiant good charging forward, conquering groveling evil. Those were definitely the good old days.

But my point here is not simply to denigrate Trump, Hegseth, and the MAGA right. The centrist Dems are equally committed to war, including that multi-trillion-dollar investment in nuclear weapons upgrade. Not to mention genocide in Palestine and a world committed to going MAD.

We can do better. We have no choice.

We’ve been told all our lives that America is a land of equal opportunity. We’ve been told that everyone has an equal chance of getting ahead—of landing a good job, making decent money, having a place to call their own.

This ideal has long been called the American Dream. It’s a pleasing phrase, but it runs head-on into an un-pleasing fact. The late comedian George Carlin said it all with a memorable wake-up call: “The reason they call it the American Dream is because you have to be asleep to believe it.”

Politicians have been proving Carlin right for decades, Republicans consistently and Democrats all too often. The GOP and the second Trump administration seem bent on doing what they’ve always done, sometimes even turning the American Dream into the American Nightmare.

Less revenue from the top means either higher taxes for those down below, making it harder for them to get along; or it means fewer dollars period, threatening the safety net programs that so many Americans depend on.

Taxes are a major contributor, especially the billions upon billions that the rich and corporations don’t pay. Trump and his fellow Republicans are committed to keeping it that way—and, if their slim congressional majorities can stick together, to do even more for those who need it the least. As one small example, the overall corporate tax rate could drop to 20%; domestic manufacturers could do even better, ending up with an effective corporate rate of 15%.

The federal tax code is famous (and infamous) for its huge handouts to those with the highest incomes, the most egregious being the cap on Social Security taxes.

Most workers pay the 6.2% Social Security tax on every dollar they make. Big earners, though, avoid that tax by the billions. There’s a dollar cap on earnings subject to the tax, and it rises yearly at the same rate as average wages. Last year’s cap was $168,600, for 2025 it’s $176,100.

For those in the earnings stratosphere, the cap means that Social Security taxes can literally begin and end on January 1. In 2024 Elon Musk hit the earnings cap at 12:04 am on New Year’s Day; for Tim Cook of Apple, it took all of two hours.

Lower taxes on income from wealth than income from work amount to another giant giveaway to the rich. Taxes on long-term capital gains top out at 20%; the corresponding rate on income from work is nearly twice as high at 37%.

The tax code is also chockful of loopholes, many of them so complex that ordinary Americans can’t even begin to understand them. The wealthy don’t understand them either, but they don’t have to. They’re able to pay small fortunes to have their tax accountants and lawyers handle it: “You have an army of well-trained, brilliant people who sit there all day long, charging $1,000 an hour, thinking up ways to beat” this tax, that tax, any tax.

One way or the other—whether it’s lawyers working loopholes, whether it’s the tax laws themselves—the rich somehow avoid paying tens of billions in taxes. All those lost billions lead inevitably to one result or the other, both of which gnaw away at The Dream. Less revenue from the top means either higher taxes for those down below, making it harder for them to get along; or it means fewer dollars period, threatening the safety net programs that so many Americans depend on.

Medicare is one of these programs, and its trust fund is set to run dry sometime in the 2030s. Wouldn’t you know it, part of the blame lies with some of the richest men in America. While paying Medicare taxes is routine for workers, a gilded few have been paying not a penny. ProPublica laid it all out in a piece published just last month, “How a Decades-Old Loophole Lets Billionaires Avoid Medicare Taxes.”

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) acts as the nation’s steward for tax collection and enforcement. It’s long been GOP gospel to do whatever it can to lower collections and lessen enforcement.

Despite the fact that cutting IRS funding “doesn’t save money, it costs money,” Republicans have repeatedly slashed away. Between 2010 and 2021 alone, the GOP managed to reduce the IRS enforcement budget by nearly a quarter. The cutting is endless and relentless—and it’s not likely to change under Billy Long, Trump’s choice as an early replacement for the reformer Danny Werfel as IRS commissioner.

Summing up, you have to be in slumberland (or not paying attention) to believe in the American Dream. Taxes are a major downer, lopsidedly favoring those at the top. Those with the power to act need to finally wake up, to insist that corporations and the wealthy pay their fair share.

Fat chance, obscenely fat. With the GOP in control, America’s taxes will just keep on mocking the American Dream.

This piece was originally published by the New York Daily News on Wednesday, January 8, 2025.

President Joe Biden, flanked by his Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Vice President Kamala Harris, announced the cease-fire in Gaza earlier this week with an air of accomplishment, framing it as a crowning achievement of his administration’s diplomatic efforts. However, this assertion is profoundly misleading. While the cease-fire was presented as a diplomatic victory, the truth reveals a far darker reality. For many, the Biden administration will not be remembered for brokering peace but for enabling and facilitating policies that allowed Israel’s genocide to continue unabated.

Far from a legacy of peace, the Biden administration, through its supply of the tool of genocide and to shield Israeli war crimes from international accountability, bears direct responsibility in the Israeli carnage. In announcing the cease-fire deal, President Biden claimed it was the result of eight months of diligent diplomatic efforts by his administration. In fact, it was eighth months of normalizing Israeli war crimes as self-defense. Under the leadership of America’s most Israel-first Secretary of State, the cease-fire is a symbolic gesture that conceals the deeper moral and political failings of an administration that has proven servile to Israel.

This failure is also an emblematic of a broader issue within U.S. foreign policy: prioritizing parochial or political expediency over moral and ethical imperatives. By allowing Benjamin Netanyahu to act with impunity, President Biden not only compromised America’s standing in the world but also perpetuated, unchecked, Israeli genocide in Gaza. In doing so, the administration became a complicit partner in war crimes, further undermining the United States supposed standing as a defender of human rights and international law.

Far from a legacy of peace, the Biden administration, through its supply of the tool of genocide and to shield Israeli war crimes from international accountability, bears direct responsibility in the Israeli carnage.

Biden and Blinken's legacy will be marked not by a cease-fire but by their role in providing and enabling Israel to drop 85,000 tons of bombs on Gaza—an amount that surpasses the combined bombings of Dresden, Hamburg, and London during World War II. Their tenure will be remembered for presiding over murdering or injuring 10% of Gaza’s population and the destruction of 86% of all building structures.

When students in Gaza eventually return to school after 15 months of devastation, they will face the grim effect of what the American-made bombs have wrought: 123 universities and schools reduced to rubble, murdering 750 academics, and the loss of 130 scholars and university professors who once inspired hope and knowledge.

As aid trucks will be allowed to slowly roll into Gaza, the people will not forget the 300 humanitarian workers deliberately killed by Israel, nor the 160 journalists and media workers who risked—and lost—their lives attempting to broadcast the cries of a besieged population, only to have their voices fall on deaf ears and a world of dead conscious.

Amid the ruins of over 654 healthcare facilities, the memory of 1,000 selfless healthcare workers and some of Palestine’s finest medical doctors who perished in their efforts to save lives will remain seared into the collective consciousness. For the people of Gaza, this is not just a story of destruction but a testament to the world’s indifference and complicity in the face of a humanitarian catastrophe of unimaginable scale.

The current cease-fire agreement could have been secured months earlier. In May, President Biden proposed a similar framework that the Palestinians accepted. However, Netanyahu rejected it as a “nonstarter,” prioritizing his political survival over ending genocide. Instead of holding Israel accountable or insisting on compliance with international humanitarian law, the Biden administration—led by the genocide facilitator, Secretary of State Blinken—chose to appease and embolden Netanyahu in his crimes.

Meanwhile, and not to be buoyed by false optimism, it’s not far-fetched to suspect that a future collapse or backtracking of the cease-fire deal could be part of a typical Netanyahu strategy. A last-minute attempt to exert pressure, either to undermine the agreement or 'wordsmith' language to change terms, such as the names of prisoners to be released, or to resume the war once he gets what he wants from the exchange. This would not be unprecedented for Netanyahu, as he counts on the docile support from Washington’s genocide enablers.

This was made all the more apparent when, on the same day Netanyahu agreed to the terms of the cease-fire, his army escalated air raids, murdering 81 civilians in eight separate massacres, capping its crimes under Biden’s granted “self-defense” genocide license

Nonetheless, ending Israel’s war of genocide offers a fleeting sense of relief after 15 months of suffering. This, however, is less of a triumph to American diplomacy and more an indictment of systemic failures in the Biden’s foreign policy. Nor should it be seen as the success Donald Trump wants to project, but a reality more rooted in the abject weakness and failure of Biden, the self-proclaimed Zionist.

In this context, Trump’s allies have opportunistically seized the moment to frame the cease-fire as a vindication of his so-called strength in foreign affairs. However, such a claim could not be farther from the truth. The cease-fire was not the result of decisive U.S. intervention or diplomatic maneuvers but rather an Israeli failure to subdue the steadfast resistance of the Palestinian people, despite giving Netanyahu a carte blanche for over 15 months to achieve his elusive "victory."

To this end, the ceasefire is a stark acknowledgment of Israel’s inability to impose its will, even with the unlimited U.S. military aid and diplomatic cover. Instead of securing the domination, the resistance from Gaza underscored the resilience and determination of the Palestinian people in the face of overwhelming odds. This outcome serves as a reminder that no amount of force or repression can extinguish the fight for justice and self-determination.

By Ralph Nader January 17, 2025 The rise of Donald Trump from a widely publicized, if failed, business boss to a two-term President has taught us a great deal about our society. He will teach us even more as his dictatorial regime, starting January 20th, 2025, further unravels what is left of the civilized norms,…

One of my editorial cartoonist colleagues got arrested for child pornography (or CSAM, for “child sexual abuse material” as it is also called) this week. As I write this, he is in jail, apparently unable to make bail, awaiting arraignment.

I won’t get into the details of his case, or at least the details we have so far, here. It is, as these things go, a novel set of allegations. I may write about those aspects of the situation in the future.

He has had an exceptionally rewarding life and career. First Black cartoonist to win the Pulitzer in cartooning. Creator of a widely-syndicated and highly-respected comic strip. Author of a bestselling graphic novel. Husband and father of four.

All of that is starting to fall apart. His employers have issued statements distancing themselves from him even as they note that, legally at least, Americans are presumed innocent until proven guilty. It isn’t difficult to predict what will happen next. His life as he knew it before the police arrived at his home bearing a search warrant has come to an end. It is highly unlikely that he will ever be paid to draw cartoons again or, for that matter, to do anything at all. At this point, his best-case scenario is that he doesn’t lose his family, makes bail so he can fight his case and is found not guilty or manages to negotiate a shorter-than-usual prison sentence.

Because you might wonder: we were not friends. Either of us could have called the other with reasonable certainty that the call would be returned. And we did. We talked about business stuff once or twice. We talked at a recent cartooning convention after he delivered a talk about his work.

He has not been charged with physically harming any children. In our culture, however, there is no worse offense to be accused of than anything that relates to pedophilia or child pornography. In prison, those convicted of “child molestation” are targeted for violence by inmates who have committed what they deem to be less serious offenses, like murder. He is in the worst kind of trouble.

It is completely understandable that we have contempt for those who violate and rape children, the most vulnerable members of society. Kids should be protected and cared for, not victimized. Survivors of childhood sexual (and other) trauma carry their wounds around with them the rest of their lives.

Reflecting our desire to protect children, lawmakers have instituted harsh penalties for those who are found guilty of crimes like those of which my colleague stands accused. For first offenders found guilty of CSAM possession, 99% go to prison; the average sentence is eight years. The House of Representatives is about to consider legislation, reportedly supported by President-Elect Donald Trump, that would impose either the death penalty or a mandatory life sentence.

By all accounts, however, harsh sentencing is not having the desired deterrent effect. “Last year, tech companies reported over 45 million online photos and videos of children being sexually abused—more than double what they found the previous year,” The New York Times reported in 2019. “Twenty years ago, the online images were a problem; 10 years ago, an epidemic. Now, the crisis is at a breaking point… Pictures of child sexual abuse have long been produced and shared to satisfy twisted adult obsessions. But it has never been like this: Technology companies reported a record 45 million online photos and videos of the abuse last year.” CSAM had become even more widespread by 2023. AI “deep fake” CSAM, at least some of which is “trained” by scraping the real thing, has exploded all over the Internet.

Perhaps it’s time to start thinking of men (who account for over 99% of those charged with possessing CSAM) who seek out this material not as monsters, but as people desperately in need of help. As Dr. Fred Berlin, director of the Johns Hopkins Sex and Gender Clinic, told the Times: “People don’t choose what arouses them—they discover it. No one grows up wanting to be a pedophile.”

We used to think that victims of what we used to call child molestation tended to become molesters themselves. It happens, but not as much as experts formerly believed. Now the growing scientific consensus is that pedophiles are born that way. “The biological clues attached to pedophilia demonstrate that its roots are prenatal,” James Cantor, director of the Toronto Sexuality Center, said. “These are not genetic; they can be traced to specific periods of development in the womb.” It’s hard-wiring. Unlike other people, many pedophiles’ sexual attraction to young people remains frozen in time from when they too are young, rather than aging along with them.

None of this is to imply that people who consume CSAM are not a threat to flesh-and-blood children. They are. Roughly half of prisoners convicted of CSAM eventually admit that they assaulted at least one kid. And the recidivism rate for sexual offenders is high.

Though it is tempting to say that dangerous people should be locked up or even killed, where is our compassion for the fact that they are themselves victims, of a psychological disorder? That they’re trying to fight off strong sexual urges that they never chose? That it’s almost impossible for them to get the help they need? State of mind of the accused is, or should be, front and center when evaluating whether someone has a criminal mindset and deserves imprisonment or suffers from a disorder that causes urges that could be effectively treated by psychotherapy and/or psychotropic and other drugs.

If you can’t summon sympathy, try focusing on the fact that our current approach is failing miserably.

One reason we’re losing the fight is that the problem is so vast. One out of six men told a 2023 Australian study that they were sexually attracted to children under age 18. Aside from CSAM, “mainstream” media including advertising and social media increasingly sexualizes children at ever-younger ages. For every guy like my colleague, whose life we destroy and toss into prison at taxpayer expense, there are countless more to replace him and countless more disgusting images online and countless more young victims being exploited to provide them.

(Ted Rall (Twitter: @tedrall), the political cartoonist, columnist and graphic novelist, co-hosts the left-vs-right DMZ America podcast with fellow cartoonist Scott Stantis and The TMI Show with political analyst Manila Chan. His latest book is the graphic novel 2024: Revisited.)

The post Sympathy for Our Devils first appeared on Ted Rall's Rallblog.

The post Sympathy for Our Devils appeared first on Ted Rall's Rallblog.

Editorial cartoonists Ted Rall (on the Left) and Scott Stantis (on the Right) react to the arrest of Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist and comic-strip artist Darrin Bell for possessing and distributing child pornography.

The post DMZ America Podcast Ep 189: Darrin Bell Arrested for Child Porn first appeared on Ted Rall's Rallblog.

The post DMZ America Podcast Ep 189: Darrin Bell Arrested for Child Porn appeared first on Ted Rall's Rallblog.

The Israeli government is slated to meet today to ratify the recently-announced cease-fire deal with Hamas, despite mixed messages from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on implementation and resistance from some of his most extreme ministers. For its part, Hamas remains committed to the cease-fire agreement, and has reportedly urged president-elect Donald Trump to pressure Israel to honor its initial commitment. Pressure is what had been missing from Joe Biden’s approach.

The framework of the deal is nearly identical to the cease-fire agreement Biden presented from May. At the time, Biden stated that Israel had initiated the proposal, but Netanyahu dismissed it as a “nonstarter” the next day. Netanyahu then derailed negotiations by introducing new demands, such as the permanent occupation of Gaza’s border with Egypt, which appeared to be aimed solely at undermining the deal. Negotiations over a cease-fire and hostage release stalled thereafter. The fact that the agreement announced Wednesday is nearly identical to the one proposed in May suggests that Israel has since abandoned some of the key demands that previously sabotaged the deal.

What changed? As far as U.S. actions are concerned, Biden and Trump both credited themselves for the diplomatic breakthrough, and are now jockeying for the greater share of it. “I laid out the precise contours of this plan on May 31, 2024,” Biden declared in a statement. “My diplomacy never ceased… to get this done.” That’s true, but Netanyahu publicly rebuffed the plan, embarrassing the administration. Yet, when presented with a nearly identical proposal seven months later by Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, Netanyahu agreed to it.

Achieving the current breakthrough did not require Trump’s election but rather a change in course from the policy Biden enacted and Vice President Kamala Harris endorsed on the campaign trail.

The difference was Trump’s willingness to pressure Netanyahu—pressure Netayahu knows he is better off not to resist. Arab officials reportedly told The Times of Israel that Trump’s envoy “swayed Netanyahu more in one meeting than Biden did all year.” While Netanyahu brushed off Biden, Trump “bulldozed” him into accepting the deal, according to Haaretz. A diplomat familiar with the negotiations told The Washington Post that Trump’s intervention was “the first time there has been real pressure on the Israeli side to accept a deal.” Former Democratic Congressman Tom Malinowski acknowledged this dynamic, writing, “This was Biden’s deal… but he couldn’t have done it without Trump.” Malinowski credited the breakthrough to Trump’s blunt warning that the war must end by January 20, contrasting this with Biden’s reluctance to exercise similar leverage.

The Biden administration pretended it was powerless to shape Israel’s behavior over the last year. For instance, in February, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller claimed, “There is a mistaken belief that the United States is able to dictate other countries’ sovereign decisions.” Meanwhile, the administration was sending Israel new weapons shipments every 36 hours, on average. These shipments empowered Netanyahu’s government to reject cease-fire agreements and pursue its preferred course of action instead, namely, continuing its genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.

Without the unprecedented levels of military aid approved by Biden, Israel’s war machine would have ground to a halt. Retired Israeli General Yitzhak Brik underscored this, stating, “All of our missiles, the ammunition, the precision-guided bombs, all the airplanes and bombs—it’s all from the U.S. The minute they turn off the tap, you can’t keep fighting. Everyone understands that we can’t fight this war without the United States. Period.” Instead of forcing Israel to accept a cease-fire, the Biden administration spent tens of billions in U.S. taxpayer dollars incentivizing Netanyahu not to. Achieving the current breakthrough did not require Trump’s election but rather a change in course from the policy Biden enacted and Vice President Kamala Harris endorsed on the campaign trail.

The path forward is clear: Trump must sustain pressure on Israel. Without it, the massacres that have continued even after the cease-fire announcement are likely to persist. If Trump’s administration fails to maintain this pressure, Netanyahu’s statement from last month may become a grim reality: “If there is a deal—and I hope there will be—Israel will return to fighting afterward. There is no point in pretending otherwise because returning to fighting is needed to complete the goals of the war.”

Fortunately, the United States holds immense leverage over Israel. It is crucial to question whether the Trump administration will use it effectively to ensure the cease-fire progresses past its initial stages and leads to a lasting cease-fire, one that involves the unconditional release of hostages and political prisoners, a total Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, and implementation of security and reconstruction efforts needed to allow Gazans to return home.

This piece was co-published with the International Policy Journal.

Today, the Supreme Court upheld Congress’s wrongheaded decision to ban TikTok in a unanimous decision. The ban on TikTok is set to take effect on Sunday January 19, 2025.

Ahead of this misguided ruling, 15 racial justice nonprofits submitted an emergency filing to the Supreme Court, explaining how the TikTok ban violates the rights of 170 million U.S. users and echoes a disgraceful history of anti-Asian racism.

It is no secret that our government wrongfully uses “national security” as a weapon against Asian American and Pacific Islander communities. Stop AAPI Hate’s research highlights how the government routinely scapegoats our communities for economic downturns, public health crises, and national security threats—often without any evidence.

When our government engages in anti-Asian racial profiling and biased enforcement, it encourages everyday people to do the same.

In the case of TikTok, the government claims that a ban is necessary to protect U.S. national security against China. However, the government also filed an affidavit in open court, signed by a senior U.S. national security official, stating there is “no information” that China had ever tried to use TikTok for nefarious purposes in the United States.

In other words, what Congress is telling the world is that being a person or company that simply has origins in Asia is enough to be labeled a national security threat—no evidence required.

That is racial profiling, plain and simple. And it is an affront to the Constitution.

It is disappointing, though unsurprising, that our government is targeting Asian American communities solely because of our race and national origins. Since our nation’s founding, our government has repeatedly trampled on the rights of Asians, Asian Americans, and other minority groups by relying on so-called “national security” concerns as a basis for outright racial discrimination.

Take, for example, the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, Japanese American incarceration during World War II, and government-sanctioned racial profiling and surveillance of innocent Muslim communities following the 9/11 attacks. More recently, we saw the China Initiative, a Department of Justice operation from 2018 to 2022 that unjustly targeted Chinese and Chinese American academics, ruined careers and livelihoods, and chilled scientific research.

Every time the government insisted that such laws or programs targeting Asian Americans were necessary, it reinforced the pernicious “perpetual foreigner” stereotype or the idea that all Asian people in America are inherently suspicious and disloyal to the United States based on our ancestry, skin color, or religious faith.

Those laws and programs were based on fearmongering and scapegoating. All three branches of government—the president, Congress, and the Supreme Court—eventually admitted that Japanese American incarceration violated the Constitution. Both the House and the Senate officially apologized for the Chinese Exclusion Act and other discriminatory laws. And the DOJ eventually shut down the China Initiative, acknowledging it perpetuated a discriminatory double standard against people with any ties to China, though President-elect Donald Trump wants to revive it.

Our government never seems to learn and instead continues to pass laws motivated by anti-Asian prejudice, like this TikTok ban.

The TikTok ban has real human costs. The ban will silence 170 million U.S. users, including communities like ours that rely on TikTok to build solidarity, share valuable information, practice their faith, and engage in free expression.

But what worries us even more is how the TikTok ban fuels hateful rhetoric and actions against Asian Americans. It is clear that Congress targeted TikTok because the company is Chinese. Other social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube collect vast amounts of user data and have had major privacy and security issues—yet the government is not applying the same level of scrutiny on those companies.

When our government engages in anti-Asian racial profiling and biased enforcement, it encourages everyday people to do the same. We saw this exact ripple effect of hate during the Covid-19 pandemic.

At the start of the pandemic, then-President Trump spewed racist, anti-Asian rhetoric blaming Chinese people for the virus, fueling a torrent of hate against AAPI communities. In fact, from 2020 to 2022, Stop AAPI Hate received over 2,000 reports of hate acts in which offenders mimicked Trump’s language. His rhetoric emboldened people to spit racist vitriol at our community members as we shopped for groceries, dropped our kids off at school, and took the bus to work. They shouted that we were diseased and told us to go back to our country. Since our founding in March 2020, we have received over 12,000 reports of anti-AAPI hate acts from across the country—and we know racism and discrimination increase when politicians target our communities.

That’s why AAPI communities must tell our leaders that we disagree with the TikTok ban. This decision is not only an affront to our civil liberties and free speech, it is also an affront to our safety. We need leaders who will defend our rights and safety—not strip it away.

Live at 10 am Eastern time today and streaming 24-7 thereafter:

Calin Georgescu, a right-wing politician from the right-wing Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR) Party, won the first round of Romania’s presidential election on November 24. Shocked by the results, pro-NATO and pro-EU officials in Romania claimed that Georgescu had been boosted by TikTok and Russia, both of whom denied interfering.

Romania’s highest court annulled the results and ordered the government to rerun the election in its entirety. Georgescu denounced the vote cancellation as a “formalized coup d’etat.” The first round of the replacement election is now scheduled for May 4.

Dr. George Szamuely, senior research fellow at the Global Policy Institute, joins “The TMI Show”’s Ted Rall and Manila Chan to analyze this strange geopolitical turn in the heart of Europe.

The post TMI Show Ep 59: “The Very Strange Romanian Election That Wasn’t” first appeared on Ted Rall's Rallblog.

The post TMI Show Ep 59: “The Very Strange Romanian Election That Wasn’t” appeared first on Ted Rall's Rallblog.

It’s the beginning of the end for corporate control of health care. The tsunami of outrage against the health insurance industry in the wake of the shooting of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson, can propel an urgent, unyielding demand for the removal of profit from healthcare and the enactment of a universal, national single payer system. That is, if the single payer, Medicare for All, national health service movement can summon the vision and audacity to rise to the occasion.

The myth, promoted by health care think tanks and policy experts, that people in the United States are satisfied with their health insurance was exploded in the social media rage unleashed in the aftermath of the killing of the United Healthcare CEO.

Fifteen years after the passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), our failing health care system is exposed with all its cruel denials, debt, disease, despair and death at the hands of the investor-owned companies for whom patients are merely pawns for the extraction of profit.

Health care in the United States comes in dead last when rated against comparable countries. The U. S. is at the bottom in overall performance, health outcomes, equity, access to care, and efficiency. As the Commonwealth Fund states: “In fulfilling this fundamental obligation [the ability to keep people healthy], the U. S. continues to fail.”

Health care in the United States comes in dead last when rated against comparable countries.

People in the United States aren’t living to their full potential. Already, the U.S. is 55th in life expectancy, behind Panama, Albania, and Czechia, and will fall in its global rankings by 2050 if the country continues the same trajectory. Years of life are lost to a health care system that serves profit over the value of life.

Our maternal mortality rate would be the shame of many of the poorest nations. In 2020, U.S. maternal mortality rate was higher than in Gaza. In 2022, there were 22 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births in the U.S. This is easily double, and often triple, the mortality rate in peer nations, which can be as low as 5 per 100,000 live births. Black mortality rate is criminally worse: 49.5 per 100,000 live births.

Over one million in the U.S. died in the pandemic, a rate much higher than other nations. Over 330,000 of the pandemic deaths in the U.S. were avoidable. Those lives could have been saved had we had a healthcare system that left no one with inadequate coverage.

Cancer patients must not only fight for their lives but also for the economic survival of their families. The newest treatments with so much hope are beyond the means of those who have insurance policies but no great wealth. About 30% of cancer survivors report lasting financial hardship.

Cancer patients are nearly 5 times more likely to experience bankruptcy, and the medical burden forces many to forego care.

Those who have employer-based insurance were assumed to have the gold standard in health care. Now even the highest paid workers are subjected to premiums, deductibles, and co-pays that impede their care despite the family plans that average $32,000 per year. More have insurance that covers less than a hospital gown. Gold has turned to scrap metal.

As people struggle to pay for the premiums, deductibles, and co-pays, revenues of the seven largest health insurance companies in 2022 reached $1.25 trillion and profits soared to $69.3 billion. That’s a 287% increase in profits in just one decade, when profits were $24 billion.

The toxicity of the health care profit makers that spread unnecessary suffering and death generates the hatred that is poisoning the land.

Medicare, our best health care program, publicly funded and open to all, is now strangled in the grip of the privatized Medicare Advantage plans and the Accountable Care Organizations facilitated by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI). Medicare Advantage now controls a majority of recipients, not because it is better, but because the law that established it and the regulators that control it have allowed it to charge less in monthly premiums—plans that are also allowed to delay and deny care yet are overpaid by billions every year. CMMI issues waivers to the private plans exempting them from fraud and abuse laws and allowing kickbacks, self-referral, and illegal benefit inducement.

Millions on fixed incomes cannot afford the alternative of traditional Medicare plus a prescription drug plan and a supplementary Medigap plan. Those who have managed to escape the clutches of Medicare Advantage can still find themselves assigned, without their knowledge, to “value-based” payment schemes such as ACO REACH and other Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) which privatize traditional Medicare. “Value-based” payment models are touted, without evidence, as reducing costs for Medicare, yet encompass a multitude of for-profit entities and subject patients to physicians incentivized to deny care. There is ample evidence that “value-based” payment schemes do not lower costs for Medicare. Nevertheless, the privatization of Medicare, through Medicare Advantage or ACOs, is now official policy.

The hoax of “value-based” payments, promoted by CMMI, is exposed by the fact that, despite all the assertions of promoting equity, the inequities of health care are expanding.

Medicaid, the program for children and adults with low income, is almost completely privatized, subjecting the recipients to delays, denials and restrictions imposed by the private managed care organizations that control it.

The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is hurtling down the wrong track. They invite venture capital and health care investors into the Health Care Payment Learning and Action Network (LAN) that they created. CMS holds conferences, seeking advice and collaboration from the very profiteers that are the cause of high cost, low-quality care. The “value-based” payment scheme promoted by CMS has advanced the power of the profit makers, raising costs, cutting care, and pretending to promote equity for minorities and low-income patients.

It’s time to end the chaos. No more foxes in the hen house, no more poison in the system, no more profit in health care.

The toxicity of the health care profit makers that spread unnecessary suffering and death generates the hatred that is poisoning the land.

It’s time to end the chaos. No more foxes in the hen house, no more poison in the system, no more profit in health care. The nation has rejected the insurance company health care model that delays and denies care, demands skin in the game, asserts that there is massive unnecessary care, throws up barriers against care, and walks away with billions. A system that collects money from patients and employers then profits by withholding the promised care is not a business but a fraudulent, diabolical scam.

This system built on profit cannot be tweaked or regulated into better performance. Runaway trains are not deterred by guardrails.

There is one way to heal the nation. Put single payer on the nation’s table and focus the steaming rage to move the engine of change. Raise the demand for removal of profit and enactment of an Improved Medicare for All free from profit to a level commensurate with the damage that our current failing system is causing the patients’ and the country’s goodwill.

Some look at the current Congress, make the assessment that it’s not possible to pass single payer, then change their demand to a lesser proposal. But incremental changes are at the root of the privatization and profit schemes we are locked into now. Fifteen years after the ACA we have a failing health care system. We have witnessed that more incrementalism does more harm than good. Power concedes nothing without a demand, and the demand must be equal to the solution needed.

There is one way to heal the nation. Put single payer on the nation’s table and focus the steaming rage to move the engine of change.

As Marcia Angell, former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, taught us, in our current private profit-based system, proposals that lower costs also decrease care, and proposals that increase care, raise costs. To improve care and control costs, we must turn to national single payer, free from profit or a national health service.

The status quo is deadly, and people are demanding a stronger more effective fight. We must organize and educate, locally and nationally with a new determination. In every town hall, classroom, union, organization, and neighborhood, people must hear the message and join the fight. Redirect the rage into a positive force for change.

The new anger in the nation makes possible what we could not do before. Many are now discussing the possibility of setting a National Day of Action in 2025 to demand freeing health care from corporate profit and covering everyone under a national single payer plan. That’s a great idea. Actions across the country lifting up that demand could inspire the movement we need.

National Single Payer—an Improved Medicare for All free from profit with everybody in and nobody out. Nothing less can heal the nation.

There is little doubt that President-elect Donald Trump’s posture vis-a-vis Israel is a key reason why a cease-fire in Gaza has finally been achieved. According to a diplomat briefed on the matter, this was “the first time there has been real pressure on the Israeli side to accept a deal.”

This means that for 15 months, Israel has dropped American bombs on children in tents, on refugees sheltering in schools, and on patients seeking help in hospitals without President Joe Biden exerting any “real pressure” on Israel to stop.

And once the mere posture of pressure was exerted on Israel by an envoy representing a man who isn’t even president yet, lo and behold, a cease-fire was secured.

By willingly making America complicit, Biden’s decisions will have profound and long-lasting strategic repercussions for the American people on par with the damage George W. Bush’s illegal invasion of Iraq inflicted on America’s standing, credibility, and security, as well as on the region’s stability.

All these senseless deaths, all the American credibility lost, all the Biden voters who stayed home in protest on November 5 could have been avoided.

The truth of the matter is that every day for the past year, Biden could have secured a cease-fire by using America’s vast leverage.

And every day for the past year, from all the evidence we have today, Biden chose not to.

That is the crux of the matter. It is precisely the fact that Biden chose this path that will damage America for years to come. It wasn’t that he lacked the ability or strength to stop the carnage. It’s not that he really wanted to stop it but sadly couldn’t. It wasn’t that his hands were tied. It wasn’t that Congress forced him. Or that polls showed that he or Kamala Harris would lose the elections if they pressed Israel. It wasn’t any of that.

Biden was simply in on it. He was on board with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s war plans. He even attended the war cabinet where the plans were adopted.

In an exit interview with The Times of Israel, Biden’s outgoing ambassador to Israel even bragged about the Biden administration never exerting pressure on Netanyahu to halt the killing. “Nothing that we ever said was, Just stop the war,” Ambassador Jack Lew proudly declared.

By willingly making America complicit, Biden’s decisions will have profound and long-lasting strategic repercussions for the American people on par with the damage George W. Bush’s illegal invasion of Iraq inflicted on America’s standing, credibility, and security, as well as on the region’s stability.

Biden’s own acting Director of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), Brett Holmgren, told CBS that "anti-American sentiment fueled by the war in Gaza is at a level not seen since the Iraq war." Terrorist groups such as al Qaeda and ISIS are recruiting on these sentiments and issuing the most specific calls for America in years, according to Holmgren.

So every bomb Biden provided Israel to drop on children in Gaza was not only morally monstrous; it also made Americans less safe.

It will take years for America to recuperate from the damage Biden has inflicted on our standing, our moral compass, our credibility, and on our security. America is still recovering from the sins of the Iraq invasion.

But there will be no healing at all, no bouncing back, unless we admit the errors, hold those responsible accountable, and learn to do better. Just as Bush’s Iraq invasion and Global War on Terror gave birth to the strongest anti-war sentiments among Americans seen in decades, made war-mongering bad politics, and the epithet “neocon” an insult, Biden’s bearhug strategy on and blind deference to Israel must forever be remembered as the original sin that led America down the path of complicity in what most likely amounts to genocide.

Welcome to the age of Oil-Garchy, where the concentrated wealth and power of the fossil fuel industry dominates our political system. After donating heavily to Trump’s campaign, the industry has already begun to reap return on their investments.

Trump has nominated some of the most vociferous climate deniers and advocates for the oil, gas, and coal industries for key positions overseeing the environment, energy, and public lands. Former Congressman Lee Zeldin has been nominated to run the Environmental Protection Agency and Chris Wright, CEO of fracking company Liberty Energy, is poised to oversee the Energy Department.

In addition to putting drillers in charge of the watershed, the financial returns are beginning to flow in likely anticipation of pro-oil and gas policies. The top 15 fossil fuel industry billionaires have already seen their personal combined wealth rise from $267.6 billion to $307.9 billion, a gain of over $40 billion, or 15.2 percent since April 2024.

The Climate Accountability Research Project (CARP) released its first monthly tracking report, Pipeline to Power: Trump and the “Oil-garch” Wealth Surge, that will monitor wealth gains and losses by top billionaires in the sector over the coming year. According to the report, the first wave of big wealth gainers include:

• Richard Kinder, Chairman and CEO of Kinder Morgan who saw his wealth increase from $8.1 billion to $11 billion, a gain of 35 percent. Pipeline magnate Kinder may be realizing speculative gains in anticipation of new liquified natural gas (LNG) infrastructure and export capacity.
  
• Lyndal Stephens Greth, chair of Endeavor Energy Resources, saw her wealth increase from $24.3 billion to $29.9 billion, a gain of 23 percent. Greth family wealth is probably surging in anticipation of the resumption of “drill baby drill” policies under the Trump administration. Endeavor Energy Resources, one of the largest private oil producers in the U.S. and owner of more than 500,000 acres of Texas oil country, was sold to Diamondback Energy in September for $26 million in stock and cash.
  
• Koch Industries billionaires, Julia Flesher-Koch (wife of the late David Koch) and Charles Koch, saw their wealth increase from $58.5 billion and $64.3 billion, respectively, to $67.5 and $74.2 billion.

Return on Investment

On April 11, 2024, the CEOs and leaders of the oil and gas industries gathered at Mar-A-Lago for a meeting with candidate Trump about energy policy. Trump used the occasion, according to witnesses present, to make a brazen transactional pitch: raise $1 billion for his campaign and he would do their bidding. Trump told the assembled that the amount of money they would save in taxes and legal expenses after he repealed regulations would more than cover their billion-dollar contribution. Trump implied that if elected, he would expand offshore drilling, weaken environmental rules, and scrap electric vehicle and wind policies and other regulations opposed by the industry groups. Trump vowed to reverse President Biden’s pause on new LNG exports.

Present at the Mar-a-Lago Club on that April day were industry leaders such as Harold Hamm, the wildcat fracker and chairman of Continental Resources, who played an influential role in Trump’s first administration, pushing for Scott Pruitt to serve as Trump’s head of the Environmental Protection Agency. Also present was Doug Burgum, governor of North Dakota and Trump’s nominee to Interior Secretary, a position overseeing gas leases on public lands. Other attendees included leaders from the American Petroleum Institute and executives from Chevron, ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips, along with fracking producers Cheniere Energy and EQT.

Harold Hamm and Vicki Hollub, CEO of Occidental Petroleum, organized donors within the fossil fuel sector to support Trump and funnel money to his campaign. They didn’t raise a billion dollars, but they helped move hundreds of millions to PACs supporting Trump and directly to the candidate.

According to Climate Connections at Yale University, the fossil fuel industry spent $219 million to influence the new U.S. government. This included $26 million in direct oil and gas industry contributions to the campaigns of policymakers taking office in 2025, with 88 percent going to Republican lawmakers. The analysis found an additional $151 million in outside spending, including donations to political action committees (PACs), and $67 million to PACs supporting candidates. Nearly $23 million in oil and gas industry funds went directly to candidate Trump and his PACs.

Trump’s mega-donors included banking and oil scion Timothy Mellon and Timothy Dunn, CEO billionaire of CrownQuest, a major oil and fracking company based in Texas. George Bishop, the CEO of oil and gas company GeoSouthern Energy, donated $1 million to Trump’s campaign, with his wife forking over an additional $500,000. Fossil fuel billionaires Kelcy Warren and Harold Hamm donated $5 million and $1 million respectively to Trump's 2024 presidential campaign.

This is what “Oil-garchy” looks like. See the whole report, Pipeline to Power: Trump and the “Oil-garch” Wealth Surge, at www.climatecriminals.org.

You’re reading the words of a formerly undocumented immigrant.

When I fled El Salvador four decades ago, I was 12 years old and alone. I wanted to escape the country’s civil war, where U.S.-backed death squads had made murders and rape our daily reality.

I reunited with my sisters, my only surviving family, in Wichita, Kansas. Once there, I helped open churches, started businesses, and raised three daughters. There were times I wasn’t sure we’d make it to the end of the month, but I was grateful for the sense of peace and security we were able to create here.

We all have a stake in stopping private prison corporations from becoming more powerful, regardless of our language, race, gender, or community.

That’s why I’m so alarmed that the new Republican-led Congress has chosen to open with a bill, H.R. 29, that strikes fear in the hearts of immigrant families all across the country. This bill would strip judges of discretion and require immigrants to be detained and subject to deportation if they’re accused—not even convicted—of even minor offenses like shoplifting.

This major assault on due process won’t keep anyone safer. It would terrorize all immigrants in this country, who studies show are much less likely to commit crimes of any kind than native-born Americans.

So who benefits from H.R. 29? Private prison corporations like CoreCivic and GEO Group, who made a fortune during the last Trump administration by running private prisons for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

CoreCivic and GEO kept immigrants and asylum seekers in inhumane and toxic conditions with poor hygiene and exposed women and children to sexual predators. Under this new law, cynical executives will siphon off more public dollars, and wealthy investors will reap more rewards, from abusing and demonizing people seeking refuge from violence or poverty.

When President-elect Donald Trump won, private prison stocks soared. Why? Because investors anticipated making a fortune detaining immigrants. More than 90% of migrants detained by ICE end up in for-profit facilities.

GEO Group, which maxed out its campaign contributions to Trump, told its investors they could make almost $400 million per year supporting “future needs for ICE and the federal government” in a second Trump term. Their stock price nearly doubled in November.

Whether those detained are guilty or not, CoreCivic and GEO get paid. That’s what H.R. 29 is for: advancing corporate greed, not protecting Americans.

We all have a stake in stopping private prison corporations from becoming more powerful, regardless of our language, race, gender, or community. In addition to jailing immigrants, for-profit prison companies also look for ways to put citizens in prison more often—and for longer—so they can make more money.

Whenever we allow fundamental rights to be taken away, we erode our shared humanity and diminish all of our rights and freedoms.

The people behind H.R. 29 want us to be afraid of each other so we won’t stand together. They want to be able to barge into our homes, schools, and churches to take our neighbors and loved ones away. They want workers to be too scared to stand up to their bosses’ abuse. All so their donors in the private prison industry can make more money.

Democrats will need to find their way in this new Congress. Falling in line behind nativist fear-mongers who take millions in campaign contributions from the private-prison industry is not the right way to do it.

Americans demand better. We want true leadership with an affirmative vision for the future of this country and dignity for all people, including immigrants.

H.R. 29 targets whole communities because of the language we speak and the color of our skin. Instead, our elected leaders, regardless of party, must work to address people’s needs through building an economy that works for all of us, not just the wealthy few.

In her Tuesday confirmation hearing, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for Attorney General, Pamela Bondi, had a contentious exchange with Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) about 2020 election denialism and the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of birthright citizenship. Bondi was evasive and tried to waste time through rambling answers instead of directly answering Padilla’s questions. However, it was her non-answer to the question about the 14th Amendment that spoke loudest.

Padilla asked the following question, “Now when we met yesterday, you did not seem to be familiar with the citizenship clause [of] the 14th Amendment of the United States of America, which was deeply disappointing. And I’m hoping you are more familiar with it today after I gave an opportunity to study it overnight. So can you tell me at this committee what the citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment says?”

This is an extremely straightforward question. Although I wouldn’t expect anyone to be able to recite all of the text of all of the Amendments of the Constitution verbatim from memory, Bondi gave a stonewalling non-answer that was very telling. “Senator, I’m here to answer your questions. I’m not here to do your homework and study for you. If I’m confirmed as Attorney General,” at which point the senator repeated his question and tried to press her for an answer. The only answer that she ended up giving on this topic was a pathetic, “Senator, the 14th Amendment we all know addresses birthright citizenship…. I didn’t take your homework assignment: I’m sorry I was preparing for today.”

Although Bondi’s answer made her sound like a student who is giving a book report on a book they didn’t read, I am certain that she knows exactly what the 14th Amendment says. Padilla, to his credit, did not fall for Bondi’s attempted dodge. He asked point blank, “So now on the 14th Amendment, you’ve testified repeatedly to this committee that you will uphold the laws of this country and defend the Constitution of the United States. Do you believe birthright citizenship is the law of the land and will you defend it regardless of a…child born in the United States, regardless of their parents’ immigration status?”

Again, Bondi’s lack of a direct response tells you everything you need to know. “Senator, I will study birthright citizenship. I would love to meet with you regarding birthright citizenship.” Bondi does not have the courage to own up to the fact that she and the administration that she is applying to work for will put into practice an illegal set of policies designed to contravene the 14th Amendment’s citizenship clause and deny U.S. citizenship to children born in the U.S. to undocumented parents. She does not want to say the text of the 14th Amendment out loud because it’s really quite unambiguous.

For reference, the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment says, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.” Children who are born in the U.S. to undocumented parents are subject to the jurisdiction of U.S. laws. Therefore, they are citizens. It couldn’t be any more straightforward. As I wrote about previously, the conservative legal “theory” that these children are not subject to the jurisdiction of the U.S. and are therefore not citizens is completely ludicrous and incoherent. I also recently wrote about the dystopian nightmare that would be created if Donald Trump is allowed to bring this incoherent theory into practice. With Trump’s inauguration looming next week, it is important that we understand what Bondi’s role would be in the push to end birthright citizenship in the U.S.

As Attorney General, Bondi would be a key player in Trump’s Push to end birthright citizenship and shred the 14th Amendment

There are three key roles Bondi would play as Attorney General in Donald Trump’s plan to destroy the 14th Amendment. First, the Attorney General is the head of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel. The OLC is a critical part of any administration that many Americans may not be aware of. As the OLC’s website says, “The Office drafts legal opinions of the Attorney General and provides its own written opinions and other advice in response to requests from the Counsel to the President, the various agencies of the Executive Branch, and other components of the Department of Justice…. All executive orders and substantive proclamations proposed to be issued by the President are reviewed by the Office of Legal Counsel for form and legality, as are various other matters that require the President’s formal approval.” (emphasis added).

As Attorney General, Bondi will be responsible for issuing OLC legal memos and reviewing the legality (or illegality) of Trump’s executive orders. Although OLC legal memos are only advisory in nature, they can have powerful effects. We are still living under the shadow of the 1973 OLC memo that concludes that a sitting President is immune from criminal prosecution. OLC memos create legal cover and justification for agencies to take action. Further, Bondi would be theoretically responsible for signing off on the constitutionality of any Trump executive orders that contravene the 14th Amendment. Her statement that she has to “study” the 14th Amendment is hard to believe because I would not be surprised to find out that they have a legal memo and executive orders already drafted and ready to go that will start the attack on birthright citizenship as soon as Trump takes office. We can assume that behind closed doors, she has already signed off on Trump’s illegal plan to deny citizenship to children of undocumented parents.

Second, the Attorney General sits at the top of the Executive Office for Immigration Review, which is commonly referred to as “Immigration Court.” The EOIR is the arm of the government that carries out removal proceedings, i.e., deportation proceedings. In a previous piece for Common Dreams, I wrote about a nightmare scenario where the federal government would begin to detain and deport people born in the U.S. with undocumented parents. As Attorney General, Bondi would be instrumental in this as her office would be carrying out these proceedings under the flagrantly incorrect notion that these people born in the U.S. are not citizens.

Third, the AG controls the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG). The OSG is the arm of the Executive Branch that will defend Trump’s policies in court against the inevitable legal challenges that they will draw. Of course, as I previously wrote, these policies are intentionally designed to draw legal challenges and make their way to the corrupt U.S. Supreme Court. If the Supreme Court overturns birthright citizenship despite the incredibly clear language of the 14th Amendment, it will be because of the arguments put forward by Bondi’s attorneys who are part of the Office of the Solicitor General and the Department of Justice. If birthright citizenship in the U.S. is erased, it will be because of Pam Bondi.

Bondi’s response that she would have to “study” the 14th Amendment is a lie. She is lying to cover up the fact that she will be a key player in Trump’s plans to shred the 14th Amendment and abrogate his oath of office. Just let that sink in. She is lying at her confirmation hearing because she knows that she will be a major part of the incoming administration’s effort to break the law by ignoring the plain text of the U.S. Constitution. Her nomination should be opposed unanimously, but of course, we cannot count on any Republicans in the Senate to do the right thing, ever. We need to keep a clear moral perspective and never let them forget what they have done if they are successful in confirming Bondi and destroying the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of birthright citizenship in the U.S.

“Democratic laws and institutions can only function effectively when they are based on a culture of democracy.” —Thorbjørn Jagland, Secretary General of the Council of Europe (2018)

If political rage propels authoritarianism, what supports democratic governance? If a culture of democracy is required, is it attainable? Or has the slide into authoritarian rule crossed the point of no return? The time of cultural reckoning has arrived.

U.S. democracy, historically thin, is susceptible to demagoguery and oligarchy. As political philosopher Benjamin Barber observed decades ago, “the survival of democracy remains an open question.” It will endure “only as strong democracy,” secured by a competent, responsible, politically engaged, and well-informed citizenry; a lasting commitment to self-governance requires a civically educated public.

Strong democracy presupposes a culture of democracy.

What is a culture of democracy?

This question is so important that in 2018 the Council of Europe—an intergovernmental human rights organization representing 46 European member states—published a three-volume report dedicated to answering it. According to the report, a civic culture strong enough to sustain democratic institutions, laws, and practices consists of a full set of values, attitudes, and knowledge acted upon by the citizenry in public spaces. This is a high standard, especially for a markedly diverse country of over 300 million. It presumes adherence to key values, command of relevant knowledge, and proficiency in corresponding competencies.

Democratic values include a commitment to human dignity and rights, cultural diversity, equality, fairness, justice, the rule of law, and democratic procedures. Human rights apply universally, are safeguarded without distinction, and are exercised short of violating the rights of others. Respect for cultural diversity enables the contribution of diverse perspectives to public deliberation and decision-making. Decisions by majority or plurality vote are made without resort to coercion and with continuing respect for civil liberties.

Among democratic attitudes, openness to cultural diversity entails a suspension of prejudice and a willingness to cooperate with citizens of different cultural identities in a relationship of equality. An attitude of tolerance and respect presumes the intrinsic dignity and equality of others regardless of their differences. An attitude of civic mindedness and self-sufficiency involves a sense of interconnectedness among citizens, a concern for one another’s welfare, a willingness to serve the common good, an expectation of personal accountability, and a belief that one’s contribution can make a positive difference. Civic mindedness extends to dealing creatively and constructively with complexities, ambiguities, and uncertainties.

A functioning democracy requires a substantial investment in cultural knowledge, not just technical competency.

Implementing these values and attitudes requires various democratic competencies. Analytical thinking consists of logical and systematic analysis of issues and arguments together with critical thinking to make evaluative judgments about options and to sort out political propaganda, while recognizing that one’s own judgments are contingent on a working perspective. Active listening and close observation are required to appreciate subtleties, identify inconsistencies and omissions, and understand cultural differences. Empathy is requisite to apprehending the cognitive and affective orientation of people with dissimilar cultural backgrounds. Flexibility and adaptation to changing circumstances and experiences are necessary to reconsider fixed habits of thought. Competency in communication is needed to express opinions, ideas, and wants, to request and provide clarifications, to persuade and negotiate constructively, to compromise, cooperate, manage conflict, and build consensus.

The democratic knowledge expected of citizens is familiarity with the complexities of the larger world. It encompasses an understanding of political and legal concepts such as rights, equality, and justice as well as an awareness of how democratic institutions operate; knowledge of current affairs and the political views of others; knowledge of the history, texts, doctrines, practices, and diversity of religious traditions; understanding how history is constructed and shapes contemporary perceptions; knowing how media select, interpret, and edit information for various purposes, and their impact on the public’s judgment and behavior; understanding economic processes, their consequences for profit and employment, and their intersection with social, political, and environmental issues.

Is a culture of democracy attainable?

Even more than the above synopsis, the full text of democratic values, attitudes, knowledge, and competencies conveys an expectation that is well above the present capacity of publics in the U.S., Europe, and elsewhere. This disjunction between aspiration and reality raises a question of feasibility. Can the public’s competencies be raised to a closer approximation of the ideal, to a level close enough for civic culture to support democratic politics?

The decline of liberal arts and civic education is indicative of the difficulty of answering the feasibility question affirmatively. Democratic culture is undermined rather than advanced by a commitment to technical and applied training at the expense of teaching the humanities, arts, and social sciences. A functioning democracy requires a substantial investment in cultural knowledge, not just technical competency. Nor can a balanced education be restricted to elites if the aim is to develop an able, well-informed public.

Beyond the deficit in formal education, lifelong civic learning is hampered by economic struggle, health crises, life’s everyday demands, violence riddled entertainment, sensationalized news media, and polarized politics. The country is caught in a downward political spiral exacerbated by its diminishing influence in the world, the economic disruption of globalization, inequity of wealth distribution, ongoing demographic shifts and migration, and imminent climate change, culminating in the election of a rightwing authoritarian regime. Under these circumstances, it is difficult to foresee a rise of civic culture above even the minimum needed to sustain thin democracy.

The value of an aspirational model as a gauge of the democratic deficit is that it can provide a goal and sense of direction for rectifying present deficiencies. The problem with an aspirational model is that the ideal can be too far removed from exigent circumstances, frustrated expectations, and fragmented politics to inspire commitment to a democratic future. It takes strong faith to bridge the gap and to move forward in an imperfect world.

Has faith in the democratic ideal expired?

Perhaps the spirit of democracy is most immediately in need of revival, if that is possible. An analytical ideal of democratic culture is abstract, literal, even antiseptic, and thus stripped of narrative texture and figurative transcendence. Absent a binding mythos, a people’s shared sentiment fades, and collective faith in democracy diminishes. The people are deprived of a political north star.

Just as Trumpism mobilizes the country’s dark impulses, historian Jon Meacham argues, the people must call upon their better angels and reach within the nation’s soul for a noble guiding vision. That “ancient and perennial” soul is an “immanent collection of convictions, dispositions, and sensitivities that shape character and inform conduct.” It is “the vital center, the core, the heart, the essence of life.”

Historian Heather Cox Richardson documents how the country’s antidemocratic leaders have rewritten the nation’s story to abandon the principle of equality. She also observes that Americans have managed, despite several close calls, to hold on to democratic principles for over three centuries, “however imperfectly they lived them.” In her view, “the true nature of American democracy … is, and has always been, a work in progress.” The task at hand in this “time of testing,” she writes, is one of “keeping the dream of equality alive.”

By these accounts, reawakening the spirit of democracy is a plausible undertaking. An imperfect citizenry might draw sustenance from its centuries-long, checkered quest for liberty and equality, and it might reasonably hope to muddle through dark times.

When robust democratic deliberation is rendered inherently destabilizing, the modes of responsible and active citizenship by a competent public are diminished.

That said, rhetorical scholar Jennifer Mercieca observes that the capacity of the citizenry to act democratically is “ambiguous.” American citizenship, depending on “whoever ‘the people’ are thought to be,” is a “conflicted, paradoxical, and complex” phenomenon that does not ensure the kind of national stability the Constitution was designed to protect. By representing active citizenship as a danger to stability, the country’s Constitutional founders strayed from the revolutionary conception of citizens actively watching and critiquing government, resisting corruption and oppression, and working for the common good. Over the course of time, a pseudo-democratic conception of citizenship, informed by an infantilizing discourse of a distempered public, a public that must be contained and constrained by political parties, has demoted citizens from decisionmakers to bystanders and relegated them to consumer status. When robust democratic deliberation is rendered inherently destabilizing, the modes of responsible and active citizenship by a competent public are diminished.

While the slide into authoritarianism has perhaps reached the point of no return, which we cannot know for certain, now might instead be regarded as an exigent moment for revitalizing the spirit of democracy. Reconstituting civic will would take a fugitive act in the Jeffersonian sense of instigating a little rebellion now and again—a rebellious interval of deliberative dissent with sufficient intensity and duration to jump start the democratic dream. There can be no guarantee, only a conviction that an effort to prevent the demise of democracy might succeed.

Never have Americans been more surveyed or tracked, a situation highlighted by airport security. We present IDs, allow our retinas to be scanned and submit to X-rays. Meanwhile, random migrants are falling out of airplane wheel wells and scrambling across our international borders. To be free, you need to be outside the system.

The post Documented vs. Free Range first appeared on Ted Rall's Rallblog.

The post Documented vs. Free Range appeared first on Ted Rall's Rallblog.

Echoing President Dwight Eisenhower’s warning of a “military industrial complex” in his 1961 farewell address, President Joe Biden brought his decades-long career in politics to an end by warning of “an oligarchy [that] is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power and influence that really threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedom.”

Indeed, income and wealth inequality have exploded to levels similar to those that preceded the 1789 French Revolution. “The TMI Show”’s Ted Rall and Manila Chan ask: what can or should be done to make American society and economics more equal?

Meanwhile, Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire deal in the Gaza War that could send three dozen Israeli hostages home and give starving and homeless Palestinians a reprieve from more than a year of genocidal violence and wind down a 15-month war that helped destroy Biden’s presidency.

Streams live Monday-Friday 10 am Eastern time. You can watch anytime thereafter.

The post TMI Show Ep 58: “Biden’s Farewell + Gaza Ceasefire” first appeared on Ted Rall's Rallblog.

The post TMI Show Ep 58: “Biden’s Farewell + Gaza Ceasefire” appeared first on Ted Rall's Rallblog.