While the US has a long history of signing treaties, making commitments, and then walking away from them (ask Native American tribes about this), this century’s record of American policy in the Middle East is something quite extraordinary. Dramatic policy shifts, broken treaties, promises made and forgotten, foolish wars fought without attention paid to the mess left for others, and the shattering of international law and conventions—all of these have done substantial damage to the region and to the trust that others have in the US.

It’s convenient for Republicans and Democrats to point the finger at the “other side” for America’s loss of standing and support in the world. In reality, there’s plenty of blame to be shared by all of this century’s administrations. President George W. Bush started the disastrous wars and occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq, but Presidents Barack Obama and Joseph Biden ended both badly, compounding the damage that had been done. And while Bush may have flaunted international law and conventions with the use of torture, rendition, and extrajudicial targeted killings, Obama further undermined the US’s commitment to the rule of law by refusing to call for accountability for these crimes.

Biden waxed eloquent in his defense of what he called the “international rules-based order.” But he undercut himself when it became clear that his commitment was selective since it only applied to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and not to Israel’s genocidal policies in Palestine.

And speaking of Palestine, during the first quarter of this century, no administration has taken the firm measures needed to curb Israeli behaviors in the occupied Palestinian territories or in Lebanon and now Syria. The impact has been clear: Israel acts with impunity, Palestinians have lost hope, and the people of the region have lost even a shred of belief that the US can play a constructive role in peacemaking.

Upon this dismal record of this century’s first four administrations, President Donald Trump, since reentering the White House in 2025, has pounded the final nail in the coffin of trust for American leadership in the Middle East.

While on one occasion Biden went to UN Security Council and secured passage of a ceasefire for Gaza—telling the council that Israel approved it, knowing full well that Israel had not agreed to its terms—Trump has taken this practice of dissembling even further. With great fanfare he assembled leaders to an event celebrating his 20-point peace plan to end the Gaza conflict. The problem, of course, was that none of the combatant parties—neither Hamas nor especially Israel—had agreed to its terms. And Trump’s boastful handling of his war with Iran has reached new levels of absurdity. On at least 42 occasions he has announced that the war was over, he had won, or that Iran was begging to negotiate on his terms, only to pivot a day or two later threatening, in violent or vulgar language, to obliterate Iran if they didn’t, as he put it, “wave the white flag” of surrender.

Added to this mess are the thousands of Lebanese who’ve been killed and the scores of villages laid waste by Israel since the Trump-backed ceasefire, the displacement and frightening violence that Israeli settlers and soldiers are wreaking in the West Bank, the continuing genocide unfolding in Gaza, and the insecurity in the Arab Gulf States housing US bases which are being recklessly attacked by Iranian missiles and drones. It is no wonder that Arabs have lost faith not only in the US’s commitment to regional peace and security, but also to the trustworthiness of the US as an ally.

A problem so big can’t be fixed by one US election. After decades of a dizzying roller coaster ride of wars based on lies, violations of international laws and conventions, promises made and then broken, and now an administration that acts impulsively and makes contradictory pronouncements as if words have no meaning—trust has been lost.

After the disasters resulting from the Bush administration’s Iraq war, its anti-Arab, anti-Muslim domestic policies, and its ill-conceived “democracy agenda,” President Obama traveled to Cairo to deliver a speech designed to open a new chapter in US relations with the region. After seven years without decisive follow-through on the promises he’d made in his Cairo address, Obama gave a long interview to The Atlantic Magazine in which he blamed the Arabs for not doing enough. When I spoke with him about the speech and that interview, he told me that the expectations of the Arabs had been too high. I responded that he was the one who set the high expectations and made the promises that he would “change Washington, change America, and change the world.” “Don’t blame them,” I said, “for believing you.”

What’s evident now is that the Arab world isn’t believing US promises or even our words. They are beginning to find their way in a post-US world order by creating new alliances, finding new partners, and putting their own interests first. If the US is to even have a place in this new order, we will need more than a just a new president with promises of change. What will be required is a thoughtful examination of our decades of shortcomings and betrayals leading to new policies toward justice for Palestinians and regional partnerships and security. But acknowledging the problems is only the first step. A demonstrated and sustained commitment to implement a changed approach to the multiple crises we have helped to create or exacerbate across the region must follow. Since it took us a generation to dig deep holes for ourselves in the Arab World, getting out won’t be quick or easy. Restoring trust will take time and hard work.

Donald Trump is not very good at running the economy, but he does have a great imagination about how he runs the economy. Trump continually boasts about the incredible amount of foreign investment coming into the country. It was $20 trillion last I heard, but it might be up to $30 or $40 trillion the next time Trump decides to boast about it.

This boast has absolutely nothing to do with reality. Contrary to what Trump says, there is no boom in auto factories or any other factories coming into the United States. Factory construction has actually plummeted since Trump came into the White House, after booming under Biden.

The looniness about the investment boom should be kept in mind when considering Trump’s deal to take control of 65 billion barrels of Venezuela’s oil. Trump is promising that this deal will both lower gas prices and be used to refill the Strategic Petroleum Reserves that he has largely drained as a result of his war on Iran.

If Venezuela doesn’t honor this deal, what will a future administration do, take them to court? Or will they send US soldiers to die for Venezuela’s oil?

While people are naturally offended by the blatant imperialism in this deal, that is precisely the reason why there is not much cause to be concerned. The basic story is, because the deal is so transparently an effort by the United States to steal oil from a country that it controls militarily, it is virtually guaranteed that as soon as the country is not run by a U.S.-installed dictator, Trump’s deal will be dumped in the trash.

This point was well-made by Venezuelan economist and opposition leader Ricardo Haussman (also cited in a piece by Michael Tomasky in The New Republic). The deal is seen as a joke by pretty much everyone in Venezuela.

If Venezuela doesn’t honor this deal, what will a future administration do, take them to court? Or will they send US soldiers to die for Venezuela’s oil?

In terms of its immediate impact, there is not some spigot that can be turned on that will get massive amounts of Venezuela’s oil flowing. It’s currently producing around 1.25 million barrels a day. While it has massive reserves, its production facilities deteriorated badly as a result of U.S. sanctions. The country was largely unable to get needed parts, and it lacked funding because it was prevented from selling its oil to much of the world.

Oil production can only get back to its 3 million barrel a day turn-of-the-century pace with billions of dollars of foreign investment. It is unlikely that this deal will make companies happier about putting large sums at risk. Any investment will only pay off over many years, long after Trump will be out of office.

It also is not plausible to use Venezuela’s oil to refill the Strategic Reserves. Venezuela’s oil is very heavy and highly acidic. The Strategic Reserve is designed for light, alkaline oil. It could not easily store Venezuela’s oil.

In short, file Trump’s Venezuelan oil deal with the $60 trillion in foreign investment pouring into the country. It exists only in his head.

Simon Bolivar, the great liberator of South America, famously observed, “The United States appear(s) to be destined by Providence to plague America with misery in the name of liberty.” For 200 years, US leaders have never proved him wrong.

In the early 1800s, Bolivar led what is now Venezuela and five other countries to independence from the Spanish Empire. But the United States still refuses to recognize the independence of other countries in the region. Wannabe emperor Donald Trump even refers to Canadian prime minister Mark Carney as a “governor,” as if Canada was merely another US state.

The US-backed despots replacing popular democratic and socialist governments across Latin America today are indeed doing so in the name of liberty, as Bolivar warned. But in practice this means only the liberty of traditional ruling classes to exploit, impoverish and kill their less privileged neighbors, formerly as conquistadors and compradors for the Spanish Empire and now as agents of the US government and transnational corporations.

Trump’s 2025 National Security Strategy (NSS) vowed to “restore American preeminence in the Western hemisphere.” It reiterated the 19th century Monroe Doctrine, demanded “sole source contracts to our companies,” and promised to “push out foreign countries that build infrastructure in the region.”

Then came the most blatant demonstration of what Trump’s new Monroe Doctrine means in practice: the US invasion of Venezuela. On January 3, 2026, US forces bombed targets in Venezuela, stormed Caracas and kidnapped President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. Trump has openly declared that the United States would “run” Venezuela and recently claimed that the U.S. had secured the biggest oil deal in world history.

And Venezuela is not the only place where the US is using military force. The “war on drugs” has become a pretext for expanding US military power throughout the region. Since September 2025, the US military has incinerated small boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, killing at least 227 people without providing proof that they committed any crime. US forces are now participating in counternarcotics operations inside Ecuador, while the Trump administration is seeking similar joint military operations in Colombia, Honduras and other countries.

But military force is only one weapon in Washington’s arsenal. Trump has also cajoled, threatened and encouraged people throughout Latin America to elect extreme right-wing authoritarian presidents in his own image. Before Argentina’s 2025 midterm elections, Trump offered Javier Milei’s far-right government a $20 billion currency lifeline and backed another $20 billion in financing, while warning that US generosity depended on Milei’s political success. After Milei’s party won, Trump boasted, “He had a lot of help from us.”

Across the continent—from Colombia and Peru to Argentina, Chile, Ecuador, Honduras, Bolivia and Panama—there has been a stark reversal of the region's progressive pink tide that brought hope for a more independent and socially just Latin America. The only two major powers in Latin America still governed by the left are Mexico and Brazil—and Brazil faces a fiercely contested presidential election in October.

The progressive coalitions that came to power in Latin America had forged impressive grassroots ties between indigenous and rural communities in heavily exploited areas and urban working classes, linking struggles over identity, land and sovereignty with struggles over class and economic justice. But these broad coalitions were fragile, while the economic and institutional power of entrenched oligarchies remained largely intact. Those elites were never going to surrender their wealth and power without a fight.

And that fight is hardly unique to Latin America. In the United States, oligarchs are reacting furiously to the election victories of democratic socialists, who propose real-world solutions to America’s problems that would improve ordinary people’s lives instead of making the rich even richer, as our current system of neoliberal capitalism demands. In Latin America and the Caribbean, the same battle is playing out on a larger and often more brutal scale.

The right has capitalized on genuine voter concerns about crime, drug trafficking, economic hardship and, in some cases, immigration. Promises to eradicate violent crime through harsh crackdowns modeled on El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele resonate with many voters.

Just as Americans who are disillusioned by economic insecurity and the broken promises of the Democrats have turned to Donald Trump and the Republicans as the only alternative on offer within this undemocratic two-party system, elections in Latin America present voters with similarly narrow and deliberately confusing choices that can lead to the election of Trump-allied right-wing governments.

This pattern is also reflected in the news media that frame these choices for voters. Since the 1980s, Latin American broadcast media have become increasingly dominated by a small number of large commercial conglomerates, mostly tied to wealthy, powerful families. Latin America lacks the public broadcasting and community media that balance the dominance of commercial media in other parts of the world, although, as in the United States, there is a small but growing alternative media movement, with outlets like TeleSur, Brasil do Fato, La Jornada and Kawsachun News.

The United States also has a narrow range of dominant corporate media, but Latin America’s media are even more concentrated and responsive to oligarchic interests. The market concentration of Latin American media conglomerates is among the highest in the world, with four transnational companies controlling 89% of the broadcast media across six major countries, while Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim has the largest media holdings anywhere. The market power of these huge media conglomerates is a real obstacle to any movement for democracy or socialism.

Another major factor working against progressive forces is direct intervention from the United States. As working people come together to organize coalitions for structural change in Latin America and the Caribbean, the United States pours money into right-wing political movements to counter them.

The US-funded National Endowment for Democracy (NED), has spent billions of dollars to interfere in the political systems of countries around the world, especially to organize opposition to governments that won’t take orders from Washington. Allan Weinstein, who helped to create the NED, told the Washington Post in 1991, “A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.”

The NED’s annual budget for Latin America and the Caribbean in 2025 was $36.7 million. But the NED spends most of its money in the countries where the US has the least influence, so it spent the largest amounts in Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua, and the most globally in China and Russia.

In countries where the US already has more influence through existing ruling classes and captive corporate media, it protects and promotes its interests through ideologically-crafted NGOs. Some receive direct US funding, while others are funded by corporate sponsors and foundations.

An organization that plays an outsized role in Latin America is the Atlas Network, a sprawling international network that brings together corporate interests, conservative donors and extreme right-wing groups to coordinate their activities. The Atlas Network receives no direct US government funding, but the US does fund many of the NGOs and foundations that Atlas works with to build right-wing coalitions and parties.

Atlas Network was founded in San Francisco in 1981 by Sir Antony Fisher, a British businessman and a colleague of Margaret Thatcher, Milton Friedman and F.A. Hayek, who all reportedly approved of his Atlas Network project. Atlas works in the shadows as “a think tank that creates think tanks,” and trains its partners on “how to win the battle for hearts and minds.” It has annual revenue of $28 million and works with more than 500 partner organizations in nearly 100 countries.

Atlas has a long history of connections to powerful corporate interests. In the 1990s it was strongly linked with the tobacco industry, and the UK’s Tobacco Control Research Group reported that Atlas “appears to have played a particular role in helping the tobacco industry oppose tobacco control measures in Latin America.” Atlas also has long-standing links with ExxonMobil and the Charles Koch Foundation.

More recently, the Atlas Network has been linked to Donald Trump, the Brexit campaign in the UK, and to protest movements against left-wing governments in Latin America.

Atlas and its partners set up fake online accounts to boost the #SOSCuba campaign on Twitter during protests in Cuba in 2021, and also ran trolling campaigns during the 2019 coup in Bolivia and elections in Ecuador and Peru. Atlas also worked with the now jailed Argentine right-wing fixer Fernando Cemedo to orchestrate “Gen Z” protests against the Scheinbaum government in Mexico in November 2025.

In Brazil, where agribusiness is gradually destroying the Amazon rainforest, climate science denial is a central part of Atlas’s work. Atlas Network sponsors the annual Liberty Forum, which brings right-wing groups together with the agribusiness industry to plan their strategy and messaging in Brazil. Atlas’s main partner organizing the Liberty Forums is the libertarian Institute for Business Studies, which has close links to the jailed former president Jair Bolsonaro. His son, Flavio, is challenging President Lula in October’s presidential election.

Another influential US ideological export to Latin America is evangelical protestant Christianity, which has grown from 4% of the population 50 years ago to 20-25% today. As in the United States, evangelical Christianity is a political force as much as a religion, leading movements against abortion, homosexuality and liberal, scientific education, and often supporting brutal state violence in the name of law and order.

The spread of evangelical christianity in Latin America was a deliberate Cold War policy launched by the US Information Agency in 1954 as a weapon against communism and later used to counter the growing influence of liberation theology among Catholics.

By the 1980s, Guatemala had its first evangelical president, Efrain Rios Montt, who seized power in a 1982 coup and conducted a US-backed genocide against the Mayan indigenous people, particularly the Ixil. Ríos Montt’s evangelical faith helped him cultivate powerful allies among US evangelicals, who raised money for his regime and lobbied Congress to restore US military aid even as evidence of massacres mounted.

Incredibly, evangelical Christianity has kept spreading in Guatemala since the end of the civil war in the 1990s, even among the Ixil themselves. The evangelical religion has become deeply rooted in the Ixil region even as survivors have struggled with the legacy of a genocide carried out under an evangelical dictator.

On a trip to Guatemala, Nicolas met a family in Ixil whose father was beheaded by an army death squad, after being accused of giving food to the Guerrilla Army of the Poor. His widow joined a weaving collective of genocide survivors, working long hours on a back-strap loom to weave the beautiful, intricate geometric designs that Ixil women are famous for. And yet, like many Ixil families in the decades since the genocide, the family had also joined an evangelical church.

It is tragic to see the recent resurgence of right-wing parties and politicians in Latin America and the Caribbean, but indigenous and working people are resisting, and they deserve our solidarity.

The mostly indigenous people of Bolivia have endured two right-wing coups in less than 10 years, but they have learned that when they say “No,” they have the power to down tools, withdraw their labor, block the roads and shut down the system that provides profits to the ruling class. They deserve our support.

The people of Cuba are enduring their worst test since the revolution, as the United States tightens its already deadly blockade, denying them fuel, electricity, medicine and even food. Many are dying of preventable causes at the hands of Trump and the US government. For 68 years, American politicians of both parties have tried and failed to snuff out this dangerous example of a poor country that, until this latest brutal escalation of the blockade, provided better healthcare to its people than the United States does. They too deserve our support.

The people of Brazil are going to the polls, and millions are standing up to Trump’s threats, manipulation by the Atlas Network, hypocritical sermons in evangelical churches, and the sneering arrogance and greed of Bolsonaro and his cronies. They too deserve our support.

In Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Honduras, brave people are already resisting the austerity and abuses of new right-wing rulers, as they have all done many times before. They all deserve our support.

In much of Latin America, the right’s grip on power is tenuous. The recent presidential elections in Colombia and Peru were extraordinarily close and many new right-wing governments face deeply divided parliaments and powerful opposition movements. We might well see a new wave of progressive politicians taking power across the region in less than four years.

For those of us in the United States, our job is to stop our government from interfering. While Simon Bolivar has been right for 200 years, the US is not doomed to act this way forever. It can and must stop exploiting, impoverishing and killing its neighbors.

LIVE 9:00 am Eastern time, Streaming Anytime:

Conflict reporter/writer/cartoonist Ted Rall and political analyst Jamarl Thomas deprogram you from mainstream media every weekday at 9 AM ET.

Today we discuss:

• NBC correspondent Matt Bradley says his team is “recovering well” after they “all took hits” from Israeli settler-terrorists during an interview the day before with elderly Palestinian woman Aida Ahmed Abdullah, who was knocked unconscious in Saturday’s attack. While interviewing Abdullah, whose home has been occupied by Israeli thugs, a group of masked men in a car with Israeli license plates descended on them with sticks and stones, beating them. One of the attackers could be seen swinging a stick at the cameraman before the camera fell to the ground.

• Laura Berlin built an interactive Google Map titled, “Who is Profiting from ICE?” The U.S. government found her website, too – and has labeled it a tool for domestic terrorism.

• The Supreme Court lets Trump proceed with plans to build the White House ballroom. The 5-4 ruling is likely the final word on the project. The majority decision noted that the justices did “not pass upon the legality of the government’s East Wing project.” The real issue: Constitutional separation of powers.

• The U.S. Postal Service could “derail” the midterm election if it continues rushing out “untested” technology as part of President Trump’s push to restrict mail-in voting, a newly released whistleblower report warns.

LIVE ON YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/@DeProgramShow

LIVE ON RUMBLE: https://rumble.com/c/DeProgramShow

https://x.com/tedrall

https://x.com/JamarlThomas

#tedrall #jamarlthomas #news #politics

The post Israeli Settler-Terrorists Maul NBC News Journalists | DeProgram with Ted Rall and Jamarl Thomas appeared first on Ted Rall's Rallblog.

August 31, 2026

Rep. Hakeem Jeffries
U.S. House of Representatives
2267 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515

Dear Rep. Jeffries,

Like other civic advocates, I read the New York Times and Wall Street Journal articles about your private meeting with Jared Kushner, Trump’s amateur Ambassador at Large, who is also furiously seeking investment opportunities while abroad. It is not difficult to read between the lines. You’re seeking a deal, should you be chosen as House Speaker in January. Trump also wants a deal as—you will hold off any Impeachment initiative, and in exchange, he will not oppose some undefined bills that you want to pass.

You can rebut this supposition by announcing very soon that you will seek to impeach Trump once the Democrats take over the House. About 90% of Democratic voters and two-thirds of independent voters want “Impeachment Now” (see Celinda Lake’s polls.) This is what the Bar of the City of New York urgently concluded, following two detailed reports on Trump’s executive violations of law in December and March. (See “The Abuse of Presidential Power and Breach of Public Trust” and “The Crisis Deepens: Congress Must Act Now to Address Escalating Abuses of Executive Power”.)

When asked about your stand on Impeachment in April by a reporter, you replied: “I don’t want to get ahead of that discussion.” What? Don’t want to get ahead of 90% of Democratic voters? Don’t want to move to fire an outlaw, corrupt, violent, raving racist, and serial sexual abuser of women? A dangerously unstable dictator (see April 30, 2026 Congressional Record) who is wrecking, endangering, and weakening America, making life more unaffordable for tens of millions of lower-income Americans and their children, many of whom are losing their Medicaid, food stamps, and health and safety protections? You are signaling that Trump has two more unchallenged years to destroy our Republic and the Constitution for which it stands. Adamant in drafting our Constitution to block any “monarchs,” what would our Founding Fathers have done?

Observers of your brand of politics know your game, Mr. Jeffries. Nonetheless, some weeks ago, your Executive Director Gideon Bragin told a respected intermediary that he was okay with receiving my suggestions for landsliding the GOP. You were sent a few pages, which your office received, but did not even courteously acknowledge, much less respond substantially. This is typical of the Democratic leadership’s incommunicado attitude toward independent citizen groups. (See the report The Incommunicados.)

Being control freaks, the Democratic leadership does not like “mandates.” Which is why they do not like popular Pledges, Compacts, or Contracts for the American People or for American Workers. When former Secretary of Labor, bestselling author, and popular podcaster Robert Reich sent his Party’s leaders a list of “What Democrats Must Pledge to America,” in December 2025, he probably expected a response. To date, not a single response from anyone in the so-called leadership of the Party. Many of his proposals are New Deal updates that test well with liberals and many conservative families where they live, work, and raise their families. NO RESPONSE!

We know the game, Mr. Jeffries. But in these times and with some stunning primary elections, it is a game that won’t be as easily played with impunity as in previous years under Speaker Pelosi. You may wish to refine your political antennae and answer the question most asked by voters, which is, “What does the Democratic Party stand for?” other than scapegoating when it loses to the most cruel, corrupt, anti-worker, corporatist GOP in history.

Having huddled with the genocide-backer Kushner, how can you continue not to meet with National citizen groups like Public Citizen, Common Cause, People for the American Way, Pension Rights Center, and others familiar to you as long-time advocates for policies that the past Democratic Party used to find commendable and support on Capitol Hill? No more excluding them, despite what your corporate-conflicted consultants advise. Also, no more of your silencing House Democrats from even talking about Impeachment. Under Rule 9, there will be a vote on an impeachment resolution after Labor Day, which you should support and NOT join Trump in opposing. (See Rep. John Larson’s H.Res 1155 and the April and July citizen impeachment symposiums on Capitol Hill.)

Ask yourself, is Trump going to continue becoming worse—violently and cruelly worse—both domestically and abroad without a mounting deterrence as in a fast-rising Impeachment Drive?

Would not such an Impeachment Drive led by the Democratic Party galvanize its voters—seeking fighters on their behalf—and increase voter turnout for a decisive November victory, not a marginal, unworkable majority?

If your answer is YES to both questions, what are you waiting for? If your answer is NO, what are you waiting for? More destruction of the living conditions of the American people, including loss of life to blatantly neglected natural disasters, the closure or depletion of crucial scientific alert and research programs, political brutalities, Trump’s inflation and job losses, and his “endless wars” and attacks and crazed military threats abroad? So you can cut deals with a treacherous Trump with his record of betrayals?? (See New York Times: “The Autocracy Index: The editorial board tracks 12 markers of democratic erosion” and “Trump’s Broken Promises, in 11 Charts”.)

You and your Party need to be seriously introspective about your mounting political disasters, the independent exclusion of input from progressive citizen groups and progressive labor unions that decades ago so assisted the Party’s better angels in enacting key legislation. (See When the Senate Worked for Us: The Invisible Role of Staffers in Countering Corporate Lobbies by Michael Perschuk, Vanderbilt University Press).

First introspection: Twice Democrats lost to the corrupt, chronically lying, corporatist, and failed gambling czar when you should have defeated him and his GOP handily. You and the Party stubbornly want to win, having years ago electorally abandoned almost half the country (red states), but without upsetting your paymasters. These are principally Wall Street, AIPAC and the military industry. Your corporate-conflicted consultants, to whom you have contracted out so much of the Party’s campaigns, lean strongly in that direction.

Back in 1994, I called the savvy Elizabeth Moynihan. She told me she had just fired Senator Pat Moynihan’s re-election consultants and is taking over management of his campaign. She firmly added: “These consultants are destroying the Democratic Party.”

How do you explain the Democratic Party’s failure at numerous critical junctures to stop Trump’s presidential campaigns? Trump’s energy levels to overcome impossible odds in 2016 and even more in 2024 tower above the feeble, indecisive ways of the Democratic Party. Your Party totally bungled, letting Trump continue to destroy our Democracy despite serious indictments, becoming a convicted felon, being sued, and being credibly charged with sexually abusing five dozen women. Trump is a foul-mouthed racist/bigot who constantly used defamatory language, such as against fallen GIs in World War II (a serial draft dodger, no less), and who was profiteering in suspect manners. He was low in the polls, and was widely condemned for his initiatory role inciting the January 6, 2020 insurrection in Congress, taking lives and causing injuries of many defending Capitol Police and other casualties. Still, he defeated your Party in 2024!

Who could overcome such odds and win the presidency? Someone with towering egomaniacal energy, opposed by the anemic, indentured Democratic Party that refuses to replace losers with new progressive energy. Indeed, losers get promoted, such as heading the Democratic National Committee, while presumptive presidential winners like Bernie Sanders in 2016 and 2020 are sabotaged by Party apparatchiks and their large donors.

More basically, the Party has become about raising money in place of credibly advancing progressive policies and programs. The almighty campaign dollars leave raising the paltry federal minimum wage ($7.25 per hour) to one-liners that your voting public doesn’t believe, or not taking up authentic full Medicare for all – which you just stunningly came out against!! Throwaway one-liners, like cracking down on corporate crooks, are not believable, because of the Party’s terrible record regarding corporate crime waves and massive corporate welfare. The same is true for not challenging Trump’s enormous 2017 tax cuts for the rich and big corporations when the Democrats took the House in January 2019. House Ways and Means Chair Richard Neal (D-MA), astonishingly announced on opening day that he was not going to reopen these deficit-ballooning tax cuts, depriving investments in public works and services throughout communities nationwide.

Then, of course, there is the long-sustained Democratic Party of overseas Empire, of a runaway unaudited – as long required by federal law – military budget and the aiding and abetting of Netanyahu’s genocidal mass murder and starvation of infants, children, mothers and fathers in Gaza, using U.S. bombs you voted for to drop the TNT equivalent of over eight Hiroshima bombs on that tiny enclave, the geographical size of Philadelphia, crowded with defenseless families having nothing to do with October 7, 2023, and the prior bombing raids by Israeli F-16s in the previous decades. Still, you proudly remain one of the top beneficiaries of AIPAC, which is the reason you and Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) didn’t endorse your newly elected Mayor, Zohran Mamdani.

More introspection may lead you to ask yourself whether you are up to leading the House Democrats in their immense and immediate tasks of policy and program restorations and adopting our Constitution’s mandated Congressional independence from the Presidency for the protection and advancement of the livelihoods, peace and freedoms of the American people. There is no indication that you are so willing and prepared. Unfortunately.

Your response is invited.

Sincerely,

Sincerely,
Ralph Nader

August 31, 2026 Rep. Hakeem Jeffries U.S. House of Representatives 2267 Rayburn House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 Dear Rep. Jeffries, Like other civic advocates, I read the New York Times and Wall Street Journal articles about your private meeting with Jared Kushner, Trump’s amateur Ambassador at Large, who is also furiously seeking investment opportunities while abroad.…

Members of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) are proud to wear their socialism on their sleeves (and on their hats.) It lets everyone know they are serious about changing capitalism into something far more humane, transforming the system into one in which working people rather than plutocrats run the economy.

Their embrace of socialism also gives its members a sense of community. It signals a commonality in opposition to the status quo, on behalf of all working people. It’s a righteous identity that signals us against them, right against wrong, justice against injustice—a moral, almost religious bonding.

However, it also pushes people away. It creates a demarcation line between in and out. It’s not just the capitalists who are excluded, but anyone who doesn’t buy into DSA’s vision of socialism.

But why wouldn’t all working people readily embrace DSA’s socialist vision?

Let’s look at how the DSA defines its socialism:

• Capitalism is a system designed by the owning class to exploit the rest of us for their own profit.
• We must replace it with democratic socialism, a system in which ordinary people have a real voice in our workplaces, neighborhoods, and society.
• The people should collectively own key economic drivers, such as energy production and transportation, that are used by all.
• We want the multiracial working class united in solidarity instead of divided by fear.
• We want reforms, such as Medicare for All, community-centered public safety, and the Green New Deal, that the current establishment considers radical but we think are essential for a fairer system.

So far, that sounds within the realm of progressive economic populism. Even doable, I hope, but then they go further:

• Work as much as you are able and no more than needed. Control your own labor and see it going to good use. Work is not just a job to pay the bills.
• You have no debt. You don’t need health insurance. You don’t pay a mortgage or have a landlord, no rent, because comfortable housing is a human right.
• Your retirement is publicly funded. Food, education, energy, medicine, and transportation aren’t for-profit businesses; they are common goods and utilities.
• A socialist’s day off could be like any good day now. But you should be free to spend your time how you like without worrying about cost or dreading going back to work.
• And college, as well as groceries, should be free.

When DSA candidates take to the field, they focus almost entirely on populist economic demands—housing and food affordability, fair taxes on billionaires, and Medicare for All. These are socialist in the sense that Social Security, libraries, fire departments, and our current Medicare are socialist, and yet they are also firmly embedded in our capitalist system.

I have yet to encounter a DSA candidate who discusses truly socialist reforms, like the elimination of large private enterprises and workers’ control of the corporations that employ them.

We have the word “socialism” and significant portions of the DSA platform that do not have significant working-class support, yet DSA doesn’t seem bothered by being out of touch with large segments of the working class they claim to be fighting for.

Then why does DSA use the word “socialist” if it does not involve their day-to-day political debates? And why use it when it is sure to turn off many of the very working people DSA claims to represent?

The Education Class Divide

There is a significant disparity among educational groups when it comes to having positive or negative views toward socialism.

Gallup’s 2025 polling found that:

• 31 percent of people with some college, but no four-year degree, viewed socialism positively, compared with 66 percent who viewed it negatively.
• Among people with a high-school education or less, the split was 38 percent positive to 57 percent negative.
• College graduates were the most favorable educational group, with 47 percent viewing socialism positively, and 51 percent negatively.
• Among independents, only 38 percent viewed socialism positively, compared with 57 percent who viewed it negatively.

This doesn’t mean working people oppose the policies associated with democratic socialism, like taxing billionaires. But it does mean that DSA’s use of the word “socialism” itself is likely to trigger a negative response and undermine its effectiveness among working-class voters, especially in red America.

Why use the word “socialism” when it’s going to turn off the very voters you hope to attract?

Because it doesn’t turn off DSA college-educated members. The reality is that despite their “Workers Deserve More” platform, DSA is a political organization by and for college graduates, especially disenchanted Democrats in blue areas. That demographic seems to have no problem with the idea of socialism. In fact, 66 percent of Democrats had a favorable opinion of socialism, with just 32 percent feeling negatively.

Which fits with several of the policies DSA supports that also are likely to turn off non-college working-class voters.

Immigration

For example, the DSA platform calls for legalizing migration, granting amnesty to all immigrants regardless of status, providing a path to citizenship for all permanent residents, and ending visa caps and quotas.

Some elements of this position have considerable popular support. Pew Research found that 64 percent of Americans believe undocumented immigrants should have some way to stay legally in the United States, and 60 percent favor allowing them to apply for citizenship.

But that support generally comes with conditions: 79 percent favor security background checks, and 52 percent favor requiring immigrants to have a job.

The broader DSA position is another matter. The Pew Research Center conducted in August 2024 found that 48 percent of U.S. adults wanted legal immigration kept at its present level; 24 percent wanted it increased and 26 percent wanted it decreased.

There is little evidence that working-class Americans want to eliminate visa caps and quotas altogether. In fact, non-college voters are more likely than college graduates to see large-scale migration as contributing to crime.

The distinction is important: working people can support a path to citizenship for immigrants already here while also wanting secure borders and limits on future immigration. DSA’s position largely erases that distinction.

Abolish the Police?

DSA calls for demilitarizing police departments, disempowering police unions, redirecting police funding to public services, and ultimately abolishing the police and prison system.

Here again, polling reveals a sharp divide between progressive reforms and the more sweeping DSA position. A 2020 Gallup poll taken after the George Floyd murder found that 58 percent said policing needed major changes and vast majorities supported changing police management practices so that officer abuses are punished. However, there was little to no support for abolishing police departments.

The lesson here isn’t that working people oppose police reform. Quite the contrary: there is overwhelming support for holding abusive officers accountable, improving police-community relations, and expanding community-based alternatives.

But there is a huge difference between reforming policing and abolishing it. DSA’s position goes far beyond what polling shows most working people are prepared to support.

Palestine

It’s not that working people necessarily disagree with DSA’s concern for Palestinian lives or even with major elements of its policy. Polling shows substantial support across the electorate for a ceasefire, humanitarian aid, Palestinian self-determination, and conditioning or reducing U.S. military aid to Israel.

The problem is that DSA bundles those broadly popular positions with a much more sweeping ideological program—open-ended opposition to Israel as a state, the right of return to Israel for Palestinians and their decedents who lived within its border but fled during various wars, unrestricted immigration, and prosecution of U.S. and Israeli leaders for genocide—that has not been adequately tested among working-class voters.

While justice for Palestine is a major issue for DSA members, it’s not at all clear that it is a major issue for working people without college degrees. We have no indication from polling that it ranks anywhere near as important as economic issues, nor that it influences the votes of non-college graduates. Also, it seems to rank about the same as the Russia-Ukraine war, which is not even mentioned in the DSA platform. The distinction? Palestine, not Ukraine, is a very big issue among college-educated young people and hence essential to the DSA platform.

Why would an organization that purports to be fighting on behalf of the working class develop a platform with many elements that a majority of working people do not support?

Again, the answer is that those positions do have strong support among college graduates, the real base of DSA. And those college graduates hope that most working people will support those positions, if not now, eventually.

So, we have the word “socialism” and significant portions of the DSA platform that do not have significant working-class support, yet DSA doesn’t seem bothered by being out of touch with large segments of the working class they claim to be fighting for.

That’s socialist identity politics. It lets the world know that DSA members, mostly college educated, have a vision to eliminate capitalism and the many problems it poses. While DSA would like to have broad working-class support, it is not about to give up its socialist vision and its more radical policies to get it.

And it’s doubtful to change because DSA is on a roll as it gains more and more members and support among disenchanted college graduates who they see as the new working class, or at least a large part of it. Afterall, DSA already is the largest, most active political organization in the country.

So, DSA and its members do not feel any pressure to change their political identity. They wear it proudly as the oligarchy limits opportunities for recent college graduates and drives them towards DSA.

That’s why it is highly unlikely that DSA will become a political organization of workers without college degrees. And that’s exactly why those unrepresented workers need a party of their own that reflects what they believe in and what they want from our economy and political system. (Please see my latest book for a fuller account.)

On August 24, the Department of War announced a $750 million investment to secure rare-earth elements produced by Serra Verde at its Pela Ema project in Brazil. Combined with a $300 million purchase commitment from the Defense Logistics Agency and $500 million from a major bank, the arrangement represents a $1.55 billion investment structure aimed at reducing US dependence on Chinese-controlled supply chains.

There is a legitimate problem here.

There is also a troubling choice about how we intend to solve it.

Rare-earth elements such as neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium, and terbium are essential components of modern life. They are used in permanent magnets found in electric vehicles, wind turbines, electronics, industrial equipment, and other technologies. They are also used in fighter jets, guided missiles, nuclear submarines, drones, and other weapons systems.

A mineral dug from the ground does not know whether it will eventually become part of an offshore wind turbine or the guidance system of a missile. That decision is political.

China currently dominates this supply chain. According to the International Energy Agency, China accounted for about 60% of global mining of magnet rare earths in 2024, 91% of their refining, and 94% of sintered permanent-magnet production. That level of concentration creates a genuine economic vulnerability, particularly after Chinese export restrictions demonstrated how quickly access to these materials can become a geopolitical bargaining chip.

Diversification makes sense.

But listen carefully to the language the US government is using to describe it.

Assistant Secretary of War for Industrial Base Policy Mike Cadenazzi called resilient supply chains a “fundamental warfighting requirement.” The department says the agreement will guarantee materials necessary to manufacture “next-generation weapons systems.” Its announcement specifically highlights nuclear submarines, fighter jets, guided missiles, combat vessels, and drones.

That framing deserves scrutiny.

The United States is not simply securing minerals. It is incorporating another piece of the global economy into an increasingly militarized conception of national security.

A Mineral Can Power a Wind Turbine or a Missile

There is nothing inherently military about neodymium.

A mineral dug from the ground does not know whether it will eventually become part of an offshore wind turbine or the guidance system of a missile.

That decision is political.

And that is precisely why this $1.55 billion initiative should provoke a broader conversation about the kind of economy the United States is building.

If Washington treats critical minerals primarily as inputs for weapons, we should not be surprised when the industries surrounding them increasingly organize themselves around weapons production.

Serra Verde is an important source of these materials. Its Pela Ema operation began commercial production in 2024 and is the first large-scale producer outside Asia of all four critical magnetic rare-earth elements: neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium, and terbium. The company expects production to reach roughly 6,400 metric tons of rare-earth oxides annually by the end of 2027.

That makes Brazil potentially important to reducing the world's dangerous dependence on a single supplier.

But reducing dependence on China should not automatically mean subordinating a new international supply chain to the needs of the Pentagon.

Rare-earth resilience could instead be treated as civilian industrial policy: an effort to ensure reliable supplies for renewable energy, public transportation, resilient electrical grids, medical technologies, communications infrastructure, and other components of human security.

The difference is more than rhetorical.

Government priorities influence markets. Purchase guarantees influence production. Subsidies determine which industries expand. Billions of public dollars can create an ecosystem in which manufacturers orient themselves toward military customers because those customers offer enormous, guaranteed demand.

If Washington treats critical minerals primarily as inputs for weapons, we should not be surprised when the industries surrounding them increasingly organize themselves around weapons production.

Security Is Bigger Than Military Power

The Department of War's announcement actually exposes the contradiction.

The same release that celebrates rare earths as essential to fighter aircraft and nuclear submarines acknowledges that they are vital to “energy infrastructure, transportation, aerospace, and electronics.”

Exactly.

Those civilian applications should not be an afterthought.

The United States could reproduce the very system it says it wants to escape: concentrated supply chains organized around geopolitical blocs, each treating access to minerals as leverage against the other.

Climate change threatens lives. An unreliable electrical grid threatens lives. Fragile transportation and communications systems threaten economic stability. Supply-chain disruptions can close factories and eliminate jobs.

Those are security issues too.

Yet American policymakers repeatedly define security through the narrowest possible lens: military capability first, virtually everything else second.

A peace economy asks a different question.

Instead of asking only, "What materials do we need to maintain our technological advantage in warfare?" we should ask: "What materials do people need to live safely, sustainably and prosperously—and how can we obtain them without creating new forms of exploitation, environmental destruction, or international conflict?"

That would still require diversifying the rare-earth supply chain.

It would still require investment.

It would still require cooperation with countries such as Brazil.

But the purpose would be different.

Don't Replace One Dependency With Another

There is another danger in framing critical minerals as part of strategic competition with China.

The United States could reproduce the very system it says it wants to escape: concentrated supply chains organized around geopolitical blocs, each treating access to minerals as leverage against the other.

Minerals essential to decarbonization could become another source of great-power confrontation.

The result would not necessarily be resilience. It could be a global scramble for resources.

Countries possessing lithium, cobalt, nickel, and rare-earth deposits would increasingly become arenas for competition among powerful states. Supply agreements would become security agreements. Economic relationships would become tests of allegiance.

Minerals essential to decarbonization could become another source of great-power confrontation.

That is not a theoretical concern when officials explicitly describe access to raw materials as a “warfighting requirement.”

The alternative is not continued dependence on China. Diversification is necessary. The IEA itself has repeatedly warned that extreme concentration in rare-earth refining and magnet production represents a significant economic risk.

But diversification should mean creating many reliable suppliers and processing centers—not dividing the mineral economy into rival military camps.

Build a Peace Supply Chain

A different critical-minerals strategy is possible.

The United States could invest aggressively in recycling and recovery of rare-earth materials. It could develop domestic processing capacity while applying strong labor and environmental standards. It could enter long-term partnerships with Brazil and other producing countries that emphasize shared economic development rather than simply extracting resources for American strategic advantage.

And the government could prioritize civilian demand—renewable power, electric transportation, grid modernization, and other public infrastructure—alongside legitimate defense requirements.

It could guarantee that communities near mines and processing facilities benefit economically and retain meaningful influence over development decisions.

And the government could prioritize civilian demand—renewable power, electric transportation, grid modernization, and other public infrastructure—alongside legitimate defense requirements rather than allowing military procurement to dictate the direction of an entire emerging industry.

Serra Verde itself demonstrates why the choice matters. The company's rare earths can supply permanent magnets for electric vehicles and wind turbines just as surely as they can supply defense and aerospace manufacturers.

The question is not whether America should secure access to critical minerals.

It should.

The question is what we intend to do with the security that access provides.

A nation can spend billions building supply chains designed to manufacture the next generation of weapons.

Or it can use the same industrial capacity to build the infrastructure required for the next generation of human life.

The minerals are the same.

The economy we build around them is a choice.

I still come across people who believe Trump won the 2020 election, that the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, was an act of patriotism, that Trump’s subsequent indictments and felonies were Biden’s work, that most immigrants are criminals, that Democrats are evil, that Jews are trying to replace white Christians born in America, that Muslims can’t be trusted, that a significant amount of voting is fraudulent, that we’re winning the war against Iran, that the economy has never been as good, that climate change is a hoax, that Canada poses a threat to the United States and it’s only fair for Lake Ontario to be renamed Lake America.

To label these people “deluded” is to overlook an entire world created by Trump and his assistants, Cabinet secretaries, “spokespeople,” other political appointees, Republican enablers in Congress and state legislatures, and billionaire accomplices in the media (Musk, Murdoch, Pichai, Bezos, Zuckerberg, the Ellisons) — all of whom have reinforced Trump’s “artificially fabricated insanity,” as the philosopher Hannah Arendt once termed the technique of totalitarian tyrants.

Google, for example, just updated its Maps application to rename Lake Ontario “Lake America.” ** (It’s already relabeled the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America.”)

Totalitarian movements, Arendt wrote, succeed not by convincing people of a specific lie but by creating a consistent, logical fictional world that defies ordinary common sense and human experience.

Which raises the questions that a growing number of Americans are asking: Is Trump insane? Are those who believe Trump’s artificially fabricated world insane? Are they making the rest of us insane?

I remember during the Biden administration when a panel of medical experts — the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force — recommended that doctors screen all adult patients under 65 for depression and “anxiety disorders.” The advisory group said the guidance was intended to deal with a rise in mental health disorders that were going undetected and untreated.

The advice highlighted the extraordinary stress levels that have plagued Americans in recent years, especially since Trump and his enablers and accomplices have come to power. Lori Pbert, a clinical psychologist and professor at the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School, who served on the task force, called mental health disorders “a crisis in this country.”

But maybe we need to stop thinking about anxiety and depression as “disorders” and start regarding them as rational responses to a society that’s become ever more disordered under Trump, and to an economy that’s been leaving so many behind.

Sane Americans are outraged by Trump’s continuous lies, terrified by his attacks on our democracy, upset by his arbitrary renaming and rearranging of our reality, angry about his brutality toward immigrants in our communities, and furious at his encouragement of homophobia, transphobia, and racism. They’re also concerned about the soaring costs of living and growing insecurity of jobs.

Let me be clear: Trump is out of his gourd. He’s losing all connection to reality. His lies are becoming more brazen. His statements about Canada, his war in Iran, the economy, and immigrants, all increasingly bizarre.

But his MAGA movement is just about over. His polls are in the cellar. Many of his followers now see through his lies. “It is in the moment of defeat that the inherent weakness of totalitarian propaganda becomes visible,” Arendt wrote. At such point, the followers of tyrants “quietly give up the movement as a bad bet.”

Yes, of course, we need better access to mental-heath care. We also need better wages, more job security, and stronger safety nets.

Perhaps even more important to the mental well-being of most Americans, we need an administration and media that don’t promote artificially fabricated insanity but that consistently and reliably tell Americans the whole truth.

Despite the excitement around Donald Trump’s new sanctions and even the US strikes against the Iranian island of Larak just hours ago, much suggests that Trump is not seeking a dramatic ratcheting up of pressure on Iran.

According to reports Sunday, the U.S. military hit Iranian launchers on the island to prevent Tehran from planting new mines in the Strait of Hormuz. This is the first known U.S. strike against the country since Trump announced a ceasefire in July. Details are forthcoming.

Meanwhile, the much-touted “major financial institution” that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent promised to sanction for dealings with Iran turned out to be nothing more than Egypt’s second-largest bank. Though Banque Misr ranks among the region’s major banks, it is a dwarf beside the multi-trillion-dollar giants of global finance.

It should come as no surprise that there is more bark than bite in Trump’s latest sanctions moves. That is not to say Bessent’s economic warfare won’t hurt ordinary Iranians or squeeze the Iranian economy. It will. But there is little to suggest that the pain will compel Tehran to submit to Trump — or that the sanctions are even designed to inflict significant harm, despite his rhetoric.

Rather, Trump appears to be pursuing a very different gamble: maintaining a low-level conflict until the midterms—neither securing a diplomatic deal nor allowing the situation to deteriorate into full-scale war. A period of relative tranquility that pushes Iran out of the headlines and, in the run-up to the elections, weakens the connection between rising inflation and gas prices, on the one hand, and Trump’s foolish war of choice, on the other.

The D-Day sanctions help create the perception that the U.S. has the upper hand while increasing pressure on Iran. Together with increased traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, they make the status quo more costly for Tehran than for Washington — but not so costly that Iran is incentivized to counter-escalate in the short term.

Rather, it is a slow strangulation designed to ensure that, for the next two months, there is neither headline-grabbing diplomacy nor military escalation.

This gives Tehran little cause for immediate panic. Its response will largely depend on what Washington does next. I see three possible scenarios.

Trump may overshoot, pushing Iran beyond what Tehran deems manageable in the short term. For instance, the strikes against Iranian positions on Larak island will very likely generate an Iranian response. Moreover, if Trump confiscates Iranian oil tankers bound for China, Tehran will almost certainly respond by intensifying attacks on ships using the southern corridor of the Strait, while potentially also targeting energy infrastructure in the GCC. China, too, would likely respond forcefully to such a move. The result would be precisely the kind of escalation Trump wants to avoid over the next two months.

In the second scenario, the D-Day sanctions neither incentivize Iran to counter-escalate in the short term nor alter its medium-term calculations. Tehran reckons that, despite the hype, its closure of the Strait remains sufficient and that the mounting economic pressure on Trump will eventually compel him to return to the table with a more pragmatic posture.

Though this is not the most likely outcome, it helps explain why Iran is investing heavily in regional diplomacy even as all signs point to Trump not wanting a deal at this juncture.

Omani, Pakistani, and Qatari diplomats are engaged in intense diplomacy with Tehran over the Strait. According to my sources, Trump has signaled directly to Iran that he will not lift the blockade even if Tehran reopens the Strait, nor does he favor returning to the earlier Memorandum of Understanding. Again, keeping Iran out of the headlines in the run-up to the elections requires avoiding developments of either kind—military or diplomatic.

By engaging with regional mediators, Tehran achieves three objectives. First, it demonstrates to its domestic public that the war’s prolongation is due to American intransigence, not Iranian inflexibility. As the war drags on and Iranian civilians grow weary, controlling the blame narrative becomes increasingly important to Tehran. Fortunately for Tehran, Trump’s categorical public rejection of diplomacy plays directly into Iran’s hands.

Second, this diplomatic engagement is also crucial for the regional blame game. If the war resumes, who regional states blame matters considerably, particularly because the war will inflict a heavy price on them. Tehran needs to demonstrate to regional governments that Iran is willing to compromise while Trump refuses even to negotiate.

Finally, the current diplomacy builds regional consensus around specific solutions and principles. If Trump returns to the table, an infrastructure of semi-completed agreements with regional buy-in will already be in place — built while Trump voluntarily absented himself. Trump will pay a price if he seeks to unravel the progress the region made while he sulked in the White House.

But the most likely scenario is neither immediate escalation nor a post-midterm return to talks. Rather, in this scenario the Trump administration’s newfound confidence proves warranted: the combination of new sanctions and growing traffic through the southern corridor of the Strait has created a new reality in which Iran is hurting more than the U.S., and its trajectory is becoming increasingly — but not dramatically — negative. Iran will therefore be weaker in a few months, and in a less favorable diplomatic and military position.

While this will incentivize Iran to counter-escalate, Tehran may choose to delay its response and wait for a more opportune moment. If Washington wants to keep things quiet until the midterms, Tehran may conclude that the optimal moment to strike back is two or three weeks before the Congressional elections, maximizing the political damage to Trump.

But Iran may not limit its response to tankers in the Strait. Iranian officials say, both publicly and privately, that they expect the U.S. and Israel to resume the war after the midterms regardless of the impact of the D-Day sanctions. Regional diplomats have largely reached the same conclusion. If sanctions weaken Iran over time while the global economy recovers and adjusts to the new reality in the Strait, a prolonged pause will work against Tehran. Iran may therefore decide to escalate dramatically, taking full advantage of Trump’s perceived vulnerability in the run-up to the elections.

Iran appears encouraged by its performance in the second round of the war and by how quickly Trump halted his attacks. The first round lasted 38 days; the second just 13. Yet more than half of the American casualties were inflicted during the second round, despite it lasting only a third as long.

While only one out of a plethora of variables in this war, the impacts of the second round suggest that American force protection had weakened, interceptor shortages had become more acute, and Iran had learned more from the first round of fighting in February than America did. Tehran appears to have improved both the sophistication of its attacks and the intelligence behind them. Iran had spent decades studying how America fought in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now, for the first time, it had direct experience fighting the United States — and Tehran has learned faster than Washington had anticipated.

Still, while Iran’s calculation about Trump’s electoral vulnerability may prove correct, its apparent belief that an election loss will restrain Trump in 2027 may be misplaced. A Trump humiliated at the polls and potentially facing a third impeachment attempt may be forced to play defense at home, but precisely because of his domestic troubles, he may also be incentivized to lash out abroad. Freed from electoral constraints, Trump may be willing to take risks he previously eschewed, including deploying ground troops.

After all, it was in the period following his November 2020 defeat that Trump displayed an unprecedented appetite for risk. Then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley feared Trump might either provoke a war with Iran after losing the election or manufacture a domestic crisis to justify using the military and potentially remain in power.

Trump reportedly floated proposals for an attack on Iran, which Milley vehemently opposed. “You're gonna have a fucking war,” he prophetically told Trump. Will there be a General Milley in Trump’s inner circle after the midterms?

LIVE 9:00 am Eastern time, Streaming Anytime:

Conflict reporter/writer/cartoonist Ted Rall and political analyst Jamarl Thomas deprogram you from mainstream media every weekday at 9 AM ET.

Today we discuss:

• “Too Much, Too Long”: Top generals warn in the the Aug. 14 edition of the Secretary of Defense Orders Book (SDOB) to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that prolonged large-scale operations against Iran are unsustainable and risks weakening their ability to confront threats elsewhere, including the U.S. homeland.

At the same time, the U.S. attacks Iranian rocket launchers on an island in the Strait of Hormuz as Iranian forces were allegedly preparing to disperse sea mines into the waterway. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps warn that the U.S. strikes would “result in the punishment of the aggressor” and fired ballistic missiles at a Jordanian air base housing U.S. troops.

• The U.S. government says it is entering into a joint venture with a private Venezuelan energy company to loot oil and gas. The Trump administration says the U.S. would get 55% of the oil from the joint venture. That’s equivalent to about 65 billion barrels of oil that’s under the ground. Trump called it the “biggest oil deal in the world.” But energy experts say there are many reasons to be skeptical.

LIVE ON YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/@DeProgramShow

LIVE ON RUMBLE: https://rumble.com/c/DeProgramShow

https://x.com/tedrall

https://x.com/JamarlThomas

#tedrall #jamarlthomas #news #politics

The post Hegseth Warned by US Experts to Stop Iran War | DeProgram with Ted Rall and Jamarl Thomas appeared first on Ted Rall's Rallblog.

Nearly $58 billion is now flowing into states and local governments after the recent settlement with Purdue Pharma and other companies whose actions fueled the overdose epidemic, one of the deadliest public health crises in American history. For the first time in a generation, local communities have a critical opportunity to decide how this money is spent and allocate funding to build systems on their own terms, systems that actually save lives and provide care rooted in dignity.

The question is whether state, county, and municipal officials will actually take that chance.

The settlement money belongs to the people that paid the price. It is restitution for those lives lost, for families devastated, and for communities harmed not only by addiction and overdose, but by decades of failed punitive policies that criminalized suffering instead of treating it. It doesn’t belong to politicians, hospital systems, police departments, or consultants.

That means people directly impacted by overdose, addiction, incarceration, homelessness, and family separation should help decide how these dollars are spent. Too often, they are shut out of that decision entirely. In many states, opioid settlement decisions are made in private meetings with little public awareness, minimal reporting requirements, and limited opportunities for ordinary residents to participate. Some local governments still have no meaningful public process at all.

As federal health and social service funding faces growing cuts, many states and localities are quietly eyeing opioid settlement dollars to backfill budget gaps or prop up systems that should already be publicly funded.

When people get involved, the results improve. More states are passing legislation requiring reports on opioid settlement spending. In Hancock County, Maine, there was initially no public framework for opioid settlement spending. After a local advocate stepped forward to engage county officials, authorities created a committee of community stakeholders, including people with firsthand lived experience, to help advise how to spend those funds. In Buffalo, New York, public scrutiny and press attention around the use of settlement spending on things like police equipment and snowblowers pushed local leaders toward better investments, such as recovery coaches and treatment clinic upgrades, in later funding rounds. We can see how public engagement changes outcomes.

New Jersey committed nearly $119 million to expand harm reduction centers offering naloxone distribution, syringe access, mobile outreach, and connections to care. Kentucky continues to invest in a network of legal aid providers helping people impacted by drug use expunge their criminal records. Portland, Maine spreads its opioid funds across three efforts: a needle buyback program that removes used syringes from public spaces; a housing first program that gets people into stable housing without requiring sobriety first; and contingency management, which rewards people with incentives like gift cards for staying off stimulants such as meth and cocaine.

We also know what does not work. Nevertheless, across the country, settlement dollars are still being spent on police equipment, surveillance technology, jail expansions, and outmoded treatment programs that forbid modern medications, and ineffective "just say no" style prevention campaigns. Some jurisdictions have purchased drones, tasers, license plate readers, police dogs, and narcotics detection equipment using funds that were supposed to heal communities harmed by overdose.

The most insidious trend may be one the public cannot easily see: supplantation. According to best practice guidance from Johns Hopkins University and endorsed by more than 60 organizations including my own, supplantation advises that opioid settlement funds must not replace existing funding sources. But as federal health and social service funding faces growing cuts, many states and localities are quietly eyeing opioid settlement dollars to backfill budget gaps or prop up systems that should already be publicly funded. Settlement dollars should not replace Medicaid; they should not compensate for cuts to public health infrastructure. They were never meant to become a government slush fund.

This money was won because communities suffered extraordinary harm and hundreds of thousands of people lost their lives. Funds should build and expand capacity of much-needed health infrastructure and create lasting systems of care, not patch holes created by shifting political priorities. It’s not that settlement funds should never stabilize existing programs; in some cases, communities may need to use these dollars temporarily to sustain lifesaving services that would otherwise disappear. But those decisions must happen transparently, with public input, and with a clear understanding of the trade-offs involved. Advocates have issued guidelines that can help jurisdictions think through these challenging decisions.

There is reason for cautious optimism. Advocates, impacted families, and community organizations across the country are building models for transparency, accountability, and evidence-based investment. A new National Roadmap for Spending Opioid Settlement Funds can help communities understand their local processes and push for smarter spending. It also documents problematic and promising spending across the country. Advocates in Maine, New York, and New Jersey have created websites to help community members get involved in directing opioid settlement funds. The Maine Recovery Action Project has created a national toolkit that anyone can use to start organizing residents to have a say in spending decisions.

Residents should ask simple but critical questions, such as: Where is the money going? Who benefits? What evidence supports these investments? Who was consulted?

The overdose crisis was perpetrated by decisions, made over the course of decades, that never faced accountability. We cannot afford to repeat that mistake now with resources made available to repair the damage.

It’s been harder than usual for me to write these past few days, and that’s because the glacier collapse and subsequent calamity along the Tibet-Nepal border hit very hard. As it happens, I’ve stood in that border crossing where you’ve watched the giant wave obliterate… everything in a split second. I’d spent weeks in the high, dry, cold of Buddhist Tibet, and then crossed into the lush humid chaos of Hindu Nepal, and so I can summon up some sense of what it must have been like, and of the people who died almost before panic could grip them.

More, I knew it was coming. Not on that day, of course, but I’d been in Tibet 20 years ago partly to report on what we already knew was an enormous threat: the fallout from the rapid melt on what is sometimes called Earth’s Third Pole. The danger of these collapses, and the blocked lakes they can create, were well-known to scientists; they happen often, but usually in unpopulated valleys. I’m not going to concentrate on these reports—there’s been much good coverage in the last few days. Jonathan Watts, for instance, does the important service of laying out the exact link between the climate crisis and the collapse:

Two days before the collapse, the ground temperature hit its highest point in the last two years, according to Dr. Hamish Pritchard, a glaciologist with the British Antarctic Survey, whose team had sensors 6 miles (10 kilometers) away from the site.

“These high temperatures would have weakened the snowpack, filled crevasses with water, and thawed the bonds between ice and rock that hold these glaciers in place,” he told the Science Media Centre.

Jeff Berardelli tracks the ongoing increase in temperature in the region (it’s been about twice the global average, up 5°F since 1940). And Jonathan Mingle provides a very fine account of his own travels in the region, and of the similar smaller incidents that have happened across the years.

I want simply to ask you to focus on the image at the top of this newsletter, taken by a Chinese mountaineer named Zhia Yitie, that shows the collapse—that’s the stream in the center of the picture that looks like a waterfall. And what I want you to notice is how much ice is still there—to the naked eye it looks like 99% of the glacier remains. And this is just one glacier of perhaps 50,000 across the Himalayas and Hindu Kush. My point is: There is infinitely more damage to be done, or to put it another way there is infinitely more damage we might still be able to forestall. And that’s what should concern us.

In short: In a world beginning to turn away from oil, the United States has become the biggest force trying to insure we keep pouring carbon into the atmosphere. If the rest of that ice is going to fall off that Nepali glacier, this will be why.

Just to do the math for a minute: On average, Nepalis produce about four-tenths of a ton of carbon emissions annually, compared with about 14 tons for an American. More than 99% of the country’s electricity comes from hydropower (though much of that capacity was wiped out in last week’s floods). They are not causing the crisis that is killing them: We are.

Indeed, even as the mud was settling over the ruins of Himalayan villages we took the next steps to insure these catastrophes would continue, announcing an “agreement” with the Venezuela that we control to dramatically increase its oil production. As Al Jazeera put it:

Shortly before the deal was announced, energy analyst Gregory Brew likened reports of the impending agreement to oil concessions sought by the British Empire in the early 20th century.

“Such a thing is without precedent,” Brew wrote on social media. “The closest thing would be BP [British Petroleum] (back when it was majority owned by the UK govt) claiming ownership of Iraqi and Iranian oil reserves pre-WWII.”

Trump himself has embraced the colonial-era slogan “Manifest Destiny”, as part of his plan for a “growing nation” that “increases our wealth” and “expands our territory."

This is literal colonialism, in the service of President Donald Trump’s Big Oil donors—it’s pretty much precisely what we did to Iran’s Mohammad Mossadegh in 1953, triggering a set of bloody events that continue to this day.

And it comes, of course, as we continue to sabotage renewable energy—this week’s installment, thanks to great investigative reporting from Evan Halper, finds the White House paying a European firm to cancel yet more wind leases, on the condition that the money be “reinvested” with a big Trump donor building export facilities for liquefied natural gas on the Louisiana coast.

In short: In a world beginning to turn away from oil, the United States has become the biggest force trying to insure we keep pouring carbon into the atmosphere. If the rest of that ice is going to fall off that Nepali glacier, this will be why.

Which means that the question I promised to raise in last week’s newsletter is more important than ever: How do we translate these horrors (of which there will be far far more as the growing El Niño envelops the world in record temperatures) into political change here?

To be clear: I don’t mean before November’s midterms. The issues on which that will be fought—democracy, data centers, dementia—are baked in by this point. Gas prices will play a crucial role too, which means that anyone challenging the GOP should be pointing out the absurdity of our energy policy: The polling is clear that Americans hate Trump’s attacks on wind and solar. I’ll be spending the rest of the fall out on the trail with the Third Act and Gray Pac, mobilizing voters in key races; for the moment the goal is just to reestablish some beachhead for sanity in DC.

But physics is giving us very little time now, and so the next set of elections in this country will be, I think, our last real chance to make the sea change—replacing oil and gas with sun and wind—that is our best hope for limiting warming. And the El Niño will be peaking just as the Democratic candidates start jockeying for position. So it is not too early to start trying to get them thinking about all this.

Matt Pawa, the lawyer who helped launch much of the litigation to hold oil companies responsible for global warming, has helpfully provided a three-part summation of why Democrats should run in part on climate. It is lawyerly in the best sense of the word, which is to say filled with fact—he finds the long-term polling data, offers the historical examples dating back to 1988, and brings it home with what I think will be the most salient argument: Clean energy is potentially very cheap energy:

We are in an utterly extraordinary moment of energy transformation. Yet powerful corporations are keeping us stuck burning stuff from the dinosaur era to make energy. It’s dangerously heating up the climate and causing extreme weather. It kills millions of people who breathe bad air. It poisons our water. And yet renewable energy is now the cheapest way to make energy. This is not a moment for climate silence. It’s a moment for action.

You can see this dynamic playing out right now in the UK, which isn’t in the midst of an election but—since a parliamentary system means a kind of daily political battle—is nonetheless trying to figure out how to grapple with the shock they got this summer: week after week of blistering heat, and the drought that came with it. The green and pleasant land spent most of the summer brown and sweaty. (Not only that, but it turns out that shoppers shop less if the temperature gets above 25°C, and so businesses are grump too).

It’s all put the Labour government in a difficult spot. On the one hand, they’d like to appease the Murdoch press and open up more of the North Sea to drilling. This would accomplish nothing to reduce energy prices, since oil prices are set on a global market and there’s not enough crude left off UK shores to influence that number. But it would send a signal of “moderation,” which is the same kind of signal that American politicians—New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, say—have tried to send with their embrace of gas. (It turns out, new reporting shows this week, that Hochul was also lobbied persuasasively by a natural gas front group).

But the problem is that danged heat, and the upsurge in concern, anger, and activism it’s causing among voters—it turns out that that latent hope for a workable future emerges quickly once the temperature rises. And so we’ve seen in recent weeks a spate of new data comparing the climate damage from North Sea oil drilling to the economic benefit: “The economic damage caused by the carbon pollution from the oil and gas produced would be between £119bn and £336bn in the coming decades, compared with the £28.7bn in value to the UK estimated by Adura, the fossil fuel company promoting the new fields.”

As Matthew Taylor lays out in a long and useful essay, it’s become a crucial question in UK politics, with the surging Greens on one side and the Conservatives and far-right Reform on the other:

The leader of Reform UK, Nigel Farage, and the Conservative Party leader, Kemi Badenoch, have called for a massive expansion of drilling in the North Sea, claiming they would reverse the ban on new licences if elected.

In a speech this year, Farage declared that the UK should be “self-sufficient in gas.” Badenoch followed with the promise of a growing UK oil and gas industry that would “ensure our energy security for generations to come.”

At the moment, the new Labour leader Andy Burnham is trying to figure out if there’s a straddle available. His new environment secretary, the wonderfully named Angela Eagle, tried to bluster her way through in a recent column for The Guardian but I suspect that promises of “healthier ecosystems” to fight fire risk won’t cut it. People are generally sophisticated enough by now to know that the real question hinges on fossil fuels.

I don’t know how the UK decision on drilling will fall next week—again, there’s a lot that’s been baked in by now—but I do know that ambitious American politicians would be well-advised to get ahead of this storm. I don’t think it’s hard. The basic argument goes like this:

"Donald Trump and the GOP are corrupt and stupid to insist that the future lies with fossil fuel. I will stop coddling Big Oil and instead start making it much easier to America to run on energy from the sun and wind. Instead of shutting down wind farms we’ll be opening them up; instead of tariffing solar panels we’ll be making it simple for Americans to stick them on the roof and balcony. This is our best chance to cut the risk and cost of catastrophe (not to mention rising insurance prices). It’s also our best chance to let Americans enjoy the plummeting energy prices that other parts of the world have begun to see. And it may be the only path we have to restoring even a little of our standing in a world that now sees us as a reckless and rogue state."

If nothing else, prospective candidates should be thinking of it as a way to El Niño-proof their campaigns. And they should get on it sooner rather than later.

Pro-Israel “hasbara” internet warriors frequently regurgitate the same arguments to defend that country’s actions against the people of Gaza and the West Bank: there was never such a country as Palestine—not that Palestinians ever claimed that there was. Israel is merely defending itself. And so on. Chillingly, these are all arguments that have close analogies to those used by Nazi Germany during World War II to justify the Holocaust against the Jews.

The post The Arguments Are Timeless appeared first on Ted Rall's Rallblog.

In a recent, high-profile dispute, the president castigated the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History for failing to “present American history as a shared national inheritance to be taught and celebrated.” His showdown with its director, Anthea Hartig, followed a contentious House subcommittee hearing at which Republicans openly chastised her for similar reasons. The White House has now directed that the National Park Service install signage outside the building warning visitors of alleged inaccuracies within.

Many of the museum’s current exhibits commemorate the country’s diverse histories in honor of the American semiquincentennial. The president is wrong that these displays pander and divide. Rather, they educate Americans on often overlooked events in our own country.

Take my wheelhouse, Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) history. It gets the Smithsonian treatment in an exhibit canvassing Filipino American history from the 1910s to the 1970s. In fact, Asian Americans have been here since before the Declaration of Independence—from the crew of a Spanish expedition in 1587 to a mid-1700s settlement in the swamplands near New Orleans. I bet your school textbooks never taught that.

A robust American education requires that we preserve more of these stories: in museums, in the classroom, and in broader popular culture. To our credit, we are beginning to do so. Five years ago, Illinois passed the first state-level mandate to teach AAPI history in classrooms. Since then, local pilot programs and legislation in 23 states have expanded AAPI history in K-12 social-studies curricula. These efforts have accompanied moves in many school districts to teach diverse content, including Black, women’s, and LGBTQ+ histories.

Whatever one’s political leanings, having more information about our shared past allows us to draw more educated conclusions about our present.

Still, 55% of Americans cannot name a single event or policy related to Asian Americans. That means more than lacking familiarity with a racial group. Without knowing the past, and how diverse communities influenced it, we cannot fully understand many of today’s legal institutions and enforcement activities.

For example, immigration enforcement at our Southern border first became a priority during the era of Chinese Exclusion. To skirt detention at Angel Island, new arrivals from China increasingly entered the country via Mexico. Around 1904, mounted federal agents began patrolling the border in response. Over time, their duties expanded from immigration to general law enforcement. In conjunction with the Texas Rangers, they engaged in confrontations, sometimes fatal, with Tejanos and others accused of smuggling illicit goods.

The border, it hardly requires pointing out, haunts national politics still, with mass detention, visas, and the status of sanctuary cities dominating the news cycle. The construction of a physical border wall, meanwhile, threatens to disrupt our relations with Native American tribes and jeopardize our national parks.

Other links between past and present abound. For example, many contemporary labor movements share DNA with those that AAPI workers led. The American History Museum’s exhibit on Filipino Americans explores the decades-long organizing work of Larry Itliong, which culminated in his leadership of the 1965 Delano grape strike alongside Cesar Chavez. The latter is a household name, and the former should be.

Similarly, the movie Sinners brought attention to the role of Chinese American grocers in the Mississippi Delta during Jim Crow. They played complex roles in their local communities, testing and fortifying racial hierarchies in turn. They sold goods to Black patrons on credit, breaking the dominance of extractive plantation commissaries. But they also brought legal challenges that reinforced the premise of “separate but equal,” such as a suit in which they argued for their children’s admission into white schools while accepting the need for separate Black schools. How Chinese American families lived in and navigated the political climate of the postbellum South sheds light on little-known facets of the region’s economy and institutions.

I learned about all these events as an adult, reading texts on my own (such as Erika Lee’s The Making of Asian America). And far from diminishing my patriotism, as the president apparently fears, each of these stories has strengthened my belief in the resilience of all Americans—and in the idea that America itself is a collective project.

Instead of warning Americans away, we should safeguard exhibits, lesson plans, and art that tell diverse histories. They help us understand our country better. Whatever one’s political leanings, having more information about our shared past allows us to draw more educated conclusions about our present. Democracies rely on informed citizens. And the way to build an informed citizenry is to treat diverse histories as a vital part of our national inheritance.

Hey, I’ve been 80 for almost two weeks now. Where’s the Jell-O? Where’s the yeast? Where’s the pitchfork?

And I know by now you’re asking: What the hell is he talking about?

Bear with me. I’m talking about being funny. This is not what I expected to be writing about today, and nothing feels the least bit funny to me about the world I’m living in—or about the stumbling leg pain and imbalance the aging process has bequeathed me, not to mention... huh? What did you say? Oh yeah, I can barely hear.

All of which, you would think, adds up to the need to be deeply serious. And that was the spirit in which I started working on this column. And nothing came of it. I felt far too lost to be serious, that is, to speak with certainty about global politics and the state of the world. What I felt instead was desperation mixed with ego and self-pity. Mostly the latter.

Now during every discussion I’m in, part of me wanders into no man’s land, looking for inappropriate, chuckle-wrenching contributions—cans of spam, political sound bites, anything to stick on the pitchfork of seriousness.

And then I went down to eat, here at my retirement community. At one point, one of the wonderful young servers asked me, “What else can I get you?”

I answered, without a moment’s thought, “How about some peace on Earth?”

And my heart lightened. So did hers. The world relaxed around us. And I thought about a column I wrote 25 years ago. It’s called (for some reason) “Yeast and Jell-O.” I think it’s time to serve it up again:

Yeast and Jell-O

Nothing particularly funny about a pitchfork, unless it’s skewering… oh, a pair of bikini underwear, maybe. A bratwurst?

Indulge me here. This is a joke in progress. What do you think? What object would be most likely to pry a guffaw out of that scowling, granite-faced farmer in Grant Wood’s famous (and famously parodied) painting, “American Gothic”? A roll of toilet paper? How about a pineapple upside down cake?

Well, keep working on it. Something has to make him laugh or he’s done for, this poster boy of dour.

His was the face that came to mind as I began pondering the nature of humor recently, thanks to my niece, who asked me, “How’d you get to be such a funny guy, Uncle Bob?” This is not an answer to her question, but here’s a fun fact: Children laugh 300 times a day, while adults cut loose a spare, grim 15. It’s true; I read it somewhere. Can’t remember where, but it’s gospel to me now. I use it to justify my life. I’m one of those people who can’t stop turning everything into a joke.

Whatever the minimum daily requirement of titters turns out to be—and I’m sure 15 isn’t nearly enough—I help supply it. If laughter is the spiritual equivalent of Fleischmann’s yeast, I’m one of the agents who makes the bread rise.

But all I was trying to do was find my way into the conversation. I was so out of it when I was an adolescent—so clueless about the straight-ahead certainties of that age, so unable to contribute to discussions about cool hair, stick shifts, or the facts of life, much less to swagger about such matters—I spent a lot of time watching other people talk. As I prowled the periphery, free of the conversation’s centrifugal logic, I’d notice stuff the participants missed.

Odd pieces would sometimes fly out of the chatter like foul balls—a word, a phrase, an implication. When I ran to retrieve it, I’d find other subject matter nearby: someone’s crabby grandmother, last week’s homework, a dirty joke. It would have nothing to do with the conversation, but I’d bring it along and divert the others’ attention. They’d look at me with surprise, their own thoughts momentarily shattered. The shattering noise was laughter.

So that was my answer to Carmen’s question: Laughter stopped the action and got a lonely kid some eye contact. Now during every discussion I’m in, part of me wanders into no man’s land, looking for inappropriate, chuckle-wrenching contributions—cans of spam, political sound bites, anything to stick on the pitchfork of seriousness.

To test my thesis, I decided to follow myself around for a few days and keep track of the levity. This is live: My sister is telling me about losing her credit card, then remembering she used it at Kinko’s. She calls the place; amazingly, it’s there. “When you pick it up,” I hear myself say, “Be wary if, when you say ‘Thanks,’ the clerk says, ‘No, thank YOU!’” She laughs. Life goes on.

I’m proofreading a column of news briefs. I read that the No. 1 city in per capita Jell-O consumption is Des Moines, followed by Salt Lake City. This pitches me into a fit of giggles; I have no idea why. Maybe because Jell-O is such an earnest food, laced with shredded carrots, topped with sliced bananas. It’s a staple of church socials and moms everywhere, but it also wiggles. It has no food value. I work in a hushed setting, among copy editors. It’s all I can do not to disrupt their concentration with the news.

I can’t help myself. Life is too full of frowning guys gripping pitchforks.

On Saturday August 22, the world’s ocean surface temperature was the hottest it’s ever been recorded—just a fraction under 70°F. As the ocean continues warming, I and Vicki Nichols Goldstein of the Inland Ocean Coalition interviewed weather and climate scientist Daniel Swain who is affiliated with the University of California’s California Institute for Water Resources and the National Science Foundation’s National Center for Atmospheric Research. We spoke with him on our Rising Tide Ocean Podcast. Here is an excerpted version of that conversation:

David Helvarg: Before we get into our rapidly heating ocean and its impacts onshore and off, give us some background.

Daniel Swain: I started out as a weather geek, even as a kid. When I went to UC Davis for an undergraduate degree in atmospheric science, I thought I might become a federal meteorologist with the National Weather Service. But at some point, I realized that some of the really big questions, both intellectually interesting and societally important, were at this weather-climate interface. We can predict the weather really well, but the climate is changing. What does that mean for the weather?

So, I came into climate from the weather side—day-to-day weather changes and operational forecasting. I still get to wear that weather-geek hat pretty regularly, even though today I would call myself a climate scientist. I exist at that boundary between weather and climate, which of course is not very distinct to begin with. It’s all the same fluid atmosphere and the same fluid ocean, just different densities.

If funding becomes dependent on whether a research topic aligns with the political priorities of whoever happens to be president, that fundamentally changes the scientific enterprise. It is difficult to overstate how destructive and dangerous that could be.

I’ve been known to call the ocean, “the atmosphere, but upside down and wet.” That comes from an Earth-system perspective. The atmosphere, ocean, biosphere, and cryosphere (frozen water) aren’t really distinct elements. That becomes more obvious with each passing decade as we try to predict and model these different Earth systems and discover we can’t do it very well unless we connect them. We can’t predict the atmosphere very well unless we connect it to the ocean, and vice versa.

Helvarg: So, let’s start at that large scale. People don’t necessarily think of the ocean as a driver of climate and weather, even though it covers more than 70% of the planet.

Swain: Exactly. We live on a water planet even though we don’t really think of it that way. Fundamentally, that is what Earth is. The fact that more than 70% of the planet is covered by water means that long-term variations in the atmosphere are largely driven by what’s happening in the ocean.

Climate change, as we think about it, is actually, to a first order, ocean warming. The majority of the accumulated heat is going into the oceans. Then it affects the atmosphere as some of that heat comes back out of the ocean and comes back to bite us on land. One way to think about global warming is that it is primarily a tremendous amount of extra energy accumulating in the oceans and then spilling over into the remaining third of the Earth that isn’t ocean covered.

Vicki Nichols Goldstein: We know that about 90% of the excess heat is being stored in the ocean. Why can the ocean absorb so much heat compared to land?

Swain: First, because most of the planet is ocean. If you’re warming the whole sphere, most of that warming is going to involve the ocean simply because that’s most of the planet. But there’s more to it. Water has an enormous specific heat capacity. It can absorb an incredible amount of energy compared to an equivalent mass of soil or rock. It can also absorb that energy over a very deep layer.

On land, we talk about geology over millions of years—mountains building and collapsing, continents colliding and diverging. But over a few decades, that’s not happening to a meaningful degree. The ocean moves much more rapidly. An individual water molecule at the surface can end up in the atmosphere through evaporation or thousands of feet down in the deep ocean within a couple of years. The ocean is therefore very good at transferring energy from the surface to the depths.

It’s not just that the ocean covers 70+% of the planet and absorbs a lot of the increased warmth at the surface. Through vertical circulation and currents, it transfers some of that heat downward and redistributes it across the planet—longitudinally, latitudinally, and vertically.

The atmosphere overturns very quickly. A cumulus cloud can go from your house up to 20,000 feet in 20 minutes during a thunderstorm. The ocean takes longer, but significant movement can still occur over weeks, months, and years. On land, comparable movement can take millennia to millions of years. That’s why the ocean and atmosphere are tightly coupled. They interact causally, bidirectionally, and continuously.

Helvarg: People also have a hard time grasping how rapidly this change has occurred. Since we began burning fossil fuels just a few centuries ago, we’ve been changing the physical nature of the ocean—its temperature, chemistry, circulation, even its color. What does increasing ocean heat mean in terms of marine heatwaves?

Swain: Marine heatwaves really just mean anomalously warm ocean temperatures. Usually, we’re talking about the surface ocean because that’s what we can observe most readily and where these heatwaves are often most pronounced. We’re seeing them emerge with much greater frequency, intensity, and spatial connectedness, year after year and decade after decade. Unfortunately, I don’t see that stopping.

We’re going to see continued acceleration in marine heatwaves for as long as planetary warming continues. And marine heatwaves can have a lot of staying power because the oceans evolve more slowly than the atmosphere. You get a blob of unusually warm water and, except under unusual circumstances, you can’t just blow it away with a strong wind the way you might end a heatwave over land. A large marine heatwave can take days, weeks, or months to dissipate because there’s so much thermal inertia in the ocean.

Ironically, that persistence is also part of why the ocean helps us predict the atmosphere. The ocean varies more slowly. It has more “memory,” and therefore its variations can exert a persistent influence on the atmosphere. At a fundamental level, as the air warms, the ocean beneath it is going to warm too—although it will warm more in some places than others because of ocean currents, circulation, and atmospheric conditions.

Goldstein: We hear a lot about La Niña and El Niño. What is actually happening during that transition?

Swain: El Niño and La Niña are parts of a broader pattern of natural ocean variability called the El Niño-Southern Oscillation, or ENSO.

El Niño is the warm phase. La Niña is the cool phase. Essentially, we’re talking about whether the eastern tropical Pacific, particularly the ocean off Peru and South America, is warmer or cooler than usual. That’s a region where there’s normally a lot of coastal upwelling, with cold water moving vertically upward from the deeper ocean. Despite being in the tropics, this keeps coastal temperatures relatively moderate.

During El Niño, that cold-water upwelling weakens as warm water from the western Pacific literally sloshes eastward, sometimes thousands of miles. The prevailing easterly winds that help drive the upwelling can also weaken or even reverse. When the eastern tropical Pacific warms substantially, that is fundamentally El Niño.

But the reason it matters globally is that ENSO performs something like a thermostat function in the global climate system. During La Niña, heat gets stored below the surface in the tropical Pacific. During El Niño, some of that accumulated heat is released from the ocean into the tropical atmosphere, where it spreads through the rest of the climate system.

Swain: Because El Niño unleashes stored energy from the tropical ocean, it increases the global average temperature. And in a warming world, when you put a big El Niño on top of long-term global warming, you increase the likelihood of new global temperature records. It also accelerates the hydrologic cycle.

The warmer the air, the greater the potential swings between extreme wet and extreme dry. Warmer air can hold more water vapor. It doesn’t necessarily do so everywhere, but it raises the ceiling on how much moisture can be present. That raises the ceiling on extreme precipitation events, but also on extreme drought and wildfire conditions in different places and at different times. Some parts of the world see increased flood risk during El Niño. Other places see increased drought risk. El Niño shifts weather patterns while global warming increases the potential magnitude of whatever those patterns produce.

Helvarg: Here on the West Coast, my experience with El Niño has generally meant more storminess. How strong is that relationship?

Swain: El Niño in general exerts a meaningful but sometimes hard-to-pinpoint influence on California because it’s just one of many relevant factors. But with a very strong El Niño, I think it’s a different story.

This is a message I’ve tried to communicate to people in emergency management and policy. Recent El Niño events haven’t always produced the canonical effects people expected. The 2015-16 El Niño, for example, was one of the strongest ever observed in the tropical Pacific, but we did not see extremely strong impacts in California. Some people took that to mean, “Well, what does El Niño really mean anyway?” My answer is: not much if it’s weak. But if it’s strong or very strong, it should significantly tilt the odds.

It can mean a significantly warmer California nearshore ocean. It can mean temporarily elevated local sea levels, increasing the risk of coastal flooding and marine heatwave impacts. And in winter it can significantly increase the odds of a wetter-than-average California winter, potentially even a very wet winter with increased flood risk.

But if you asked me for one single predictor in the global climate system that could provide three to six months’ advance notice of the potential for a very wet California winter, it would be a very strong El Niño.

Goldstein: What does that mean for mountain snowpack in California and across the West?

Swain: This is where things get tricky because precipitation means different things in a warming world. You can have a winter that isn’t particularly dry and still have very low snowpack because it’s simply too warm. Some places can actually be wetter than average and still have unusually low snowpack. So, a strong El Niño may increase precipitation in California, including the Sierra Nevada, and could bring needed water to parts of the Colorado River Basin.

But more precipitation doesn’t necessarily mean more snow (if it rains). We may see above-average precipitation in some mountainous regions while still seeing below-average snowpack. That can help alleviate drought, but it’s a very different picture from a cold, snowy winter.

Helvarg: Jumping from the Pacific to that other still-significant ocean, the Atlantic: Strong El Niño events are supposed to suppress Atlantic hurricanes. Is that right? And why?

Swain: This is a good example of global warming and El Niño pushing in different directions. El Niño usually decreases Atlantic hurricane activity, mainly because of its effect on vertical wind shear rather than temperature. Tropical cyclones don’t like strong winds at upper levels of the atmosphere because those winds can literally decapitate storms—shear them apart. El Niño tends to increase wind shear in the Atlantic hurricane development region, making it more difficult for hurricanes to form and strengthen.

But there’s a big asterisk. If you have record-warm waters in places like the Gulf of Mexico, and a storm manages to develop during a brief period when wind shear is low, you can still get an extremely strong hurricane. So, a strong El Niño may suppress the overall hurricane season, while exceptionally warm ocean water can supercharge a storm that does manage to develop.

That’s a good example of natural variability—El Niño and the Southern Oscillation—interacting with the decidedly unnatural long-term warming trend to produce outcomes we haven’t seen very often before. It’s also why, despite all our advances in prediction and historical data, science still has a lot to learn.

Goldstein: That brings us to science itself. The Trump administration is changing Office of Management and Budget rules in ways that could make federal research funding reflect presidential priorities. How does that affect climate research and communication?

Swain: This goes far beyond weather, climate, and oceans. It affects any domain requiring expert knowledge to make important decisions—from health to public policy to research funding. There has been a lot of focus on research funding, but it’s important to emphasize that this affects everything.

The degree of alarm in academic and research institutions is significant. Changes that politicize the federal grant system could make us vastly less able to understand how the world works and prepare for future contingencies—whether storms, floods, pandemics, or geopolitical disturbances. It also becomes much harder for people in science to remain nonpartisan and simply focus on their research.

If funding becomes dependent on whether a research topic aligns with the political priorities of whoever happens to be president, that fundamentally changes the scientific enterprise. It is difficult to overstate how destructive and dangerous that could be.

Goldstein: That’s why people have to follow these issues, raise their voices, and try to hold the line.

Helvarg: Democracy doesn’t guarantee that we’ll be good ocean stewards or base public policy on sound science. But without democratic means, it becomes far harder to move forward on existential challenges like climate change and ocean protection.

This summer, over 100 community members gave public comments against Project Taurus, an AI data center proposed by the tech and real estate company, Raeden, near Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs. Despite only 15 comments in favor of the project, the city planning commission voted 6-2 to move forward with the project.

As a youth environmental and social justice organizer who sat through hours of the hearing and spent much of my past week encouraging community members to join me, I left the hearing devastated by the commission’s decision. Building a data center at a site already facing a water crisis and next to a National Natural Landmark felt like just one more step toward a society that has lost all care and consideration for communities and nature.

But the next day, as I discussed the hearing with one of my roommates, I found myself trying to convey the energy, hope, empathy, and deep care that had filled the hearing room. I explained my admiration for the dozens of working-class community members who sat for hours in a windowless room just to give a two-minute comment or simply support the other speakers. By the end of the conversation, I realized that despite being upset about the decision, the experience left me with hope and faith in the goodness of humanity.

As America continues to throw billions into war, cut Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and Medicaid funding, pull out of climate commitments, and move toward projects and systems that further harm people, we can begin to believe that Americans are not concerned with their neighbors’ well-being. What the hearing taught me, however, is that decisions—like whether to move forward with data center projects—and the current state of our county do not reflect our communities’ desires.

It is critical that decisions like the Colorado Springs Planning Commission’s don’t lead us to lose hope in one another and our collective power.

The committee’s decision is a reflection of money in politics. It is a reflection of desperately needing to change who our elected officials are. Of needing to address corporate consolidation that holds this power in opposition to people’s needs and not accountable to communities. Of needing to distribute power so that real people are better represented, and of needing to better support communities so that they have the time, resources, and energy to ensure their voices are taken into account in issues that affect them and their neighbors.

We are up against a political and economic system with such strong inertia that even if communities understand it isn’t working for them, only strategic coordinated action will bring about change. The more people are overworked, underfed, and under-resourced, the harder it is for them to advocate. They have less time to attend community meetings; to speak out about the meetings themselves being scheduled during the workday; to look into local candidates' positions; to turn out to vote. And they have less money to contribute to grassroots campaigns that refuse money from Big Oil, Big Pharma, Big Agriculture, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, and Big Tech.

Though Raeden claims to have people’s best interests in mind, it is structured to secure a profit, not to adhere to communities’ needs. A majority of Americans oppose local data center construction, and only 14% of Americans feel comfortable with a data center built nearby. This aligns with the 85% of public comments that were in opposition to Project Taurus.

Community members spoke about the project's impact on neighborhood health, the environment, wildlife, water, and energy. They explained that the center’s infrasound can’t be blocked by Raeden’s proposed 30-foot sound wall; diesel backup generators pose severe health risks by emitting high levels of toxic particles that cause respiratory issues, worsen asthma, and increase long-term cancer risks; and although Raeden emphasizes its closed-loop cooling system to save water in an environment that is already in a major drought, the treatment chemicals used pose risks to the local environment and health of our water supply while the system as a whole significantly increases energy usage, which the company itself admits will likely be powered by fossil fuels and nuclear plants.

Furthermore, community members emphasized that data centers are not built for community needs. The energy itself powers mass surveillance and military AI programs for companies like Palantir and the world’s largest prisoner tracking company, BI, both of which are headquartered in Colorado.

Raeden tells the community that it will bring jobs and money to the Springs. However, while Raeden will immediately profit from the development, the long-term economic benefits for the community are much more dubious. Experts have increasingly been raising concerns about the longevity of AI investments, or what they refer to as the “AI bubble.” A recent MIT study found that 95% of AI companies have achieved zero return on investment, despite investments of $30 to $40 billion in the technology. The end of the AI bubble is predicted to be akin to the 2008 financial crisis but with more devastating effects. Similar to 2008, when banks got a $500 billion bailout while 6 million Americans lost their homes, tech companies will likely be protected while communities will suffer the costs. Raeden, for instance, will be protected because it is a real estate company and does not have roots in the community, unlike Colorado Springs residents.

As one community member emphasized, Raeden came into Colorado Springs not for the water or natural resources the city can provide, but to take advantage of the city's human desperation. Northwest Colorado Springs is in need of jobs and local investment.

Raeden came to the Springs expecting to be welcomed by a community too tired and worn out to push back, but the company has been met with a very different reality. Despite the minimal transparency from the city and Raeden, not only are a large majority of community members against data centers, but the community has also been able to spread awareness about the project and mobilize over 100 people to show up to speak out for nature, their neighbors’ health, and the fate of future generations.

I have built my worldview around a belief that if we all come together as regular people with human values, we will have the power to stand up against even the millions of dollars corporations throw at candidates, policy, or, in this case, data centers. The hearing was a realization of this working-class movement of the people that I spend much of my time striving for.

The hard part was supposed to be getting people to come together and to show up. We did that. People spoke eloquently, with knowledge, and heartfelt appeals. And still, they were denied.

Nevertheless, this past week has shown me that people are truly good. Despite billions of dollars put into trying to change individuals' opinions to fit the needs of corporations, people continue to hold onto values of health, well-being, community, mutual aid, and democracy. This is true power that can be harnessed.

It is critical that decisions like the Colorado Springs Planning Commission’s don’t lead us to lose hope in one another and our collective power. Corporations like Raeden would love nothing more than for us to be apathetic and divided. Instead, we must stay true to our demands for humanity. Stay true to these demands as we vote for candidates who prioritize human needs over corporate interests. As we increase our trust in one another, the conversations we have with our neighbors, and our faith in our power. We will continue to show up and prove that people have not given consent for our current systems.

There are now over 300 local bans and moratoriums on data centers across the US, including Denver, Jefferson County, Boulder, Longmont, and Monument, and a majority of Americans support pausing the construction of AI data centers for at least one year.

Colorado Springs proved that communities have not and will not accept a rise in corporate trickle-down projects as a replacement for government programs. We proved that communities will continue to show up for one another and stay grounded in human values. We proved that this fight is far from easy and anything but fair, but we will persist.

Some years back, I was toying with the idea of writing a book-length history of World War II from the perspective of wild and domesticated animals. I bought a number of relevant texts for research, like The Long Shadows: A Global Environmental History of the Second World War, edited by Simo Laakkonen, Richard P. Tucker, and Timo Vuorisalo. Ultimately, the project was more ambitious than what I was capable of, so I set it aside.

Still, I remained interested in the question which, at least partially, inspired my focus on the topic—namely, what would a pro-animal foreign policy, that we could plausibly get politicians to adopt, look like? Recently, I sought to ask various animal activists and thinkers that question. I had hoped to feature a broader range of figures. Nevertheless, I’m very grateful to all of the people who took the time to answer.

pattrice jones is a co-founder of VINE Sanctuary as well as an ecofeminist scholar and writer. VINE Sanctuary is an LGBTQ-led farmed animal refuge working for social and environmental justice as well as animal liberation. Prior to co-founding the sanctuary, jones worked as a tenant organizer and anti-racist educator. Her books include The Oxen at the Intersection and Bird’s-Eye Views: Queer Queries About Activism, Animals, and Identity.

“Countless animals are facing literally existential crises due to climate change, so the easiest animal-friendly foreign policy to promote would be to rejoin and rejuvenate international efforts to cooperatively do everything possible to address the climate emergency,” jones said. “I say ‘easiest’ because many—perhaps the majority—of people in the US already support efforts in that direction. Bonus points for bringing (a) diet and (b) the viewpoints of animals themselves into high-level international conversations about climate solutions.”

She pointed out wars kill animals and destroy their habitats, so a pro-animal foreign policy would necessarily be pro-peace. jones called for an end to giving or selling weapons to all countries and groups, aside from those engaged in legitimate self-defense. She wants to prohibit war unless the conflict was approved by domestic supermajorities and a majority of members of the United Nations.

“A vaccine for bird flu exists but has been blocked by international trade concerns of the poultry industry,” jones continued. “Not only farmed birds but also wild birds by the billions have died and will die. The risk for some wild bird species is, again, existential. The US should broker an international agreement so that this vaccine is available to all, including wild bird rehabbers who could begin to make a difference by vaccinating every bird who comes in for care for any reason. Foreign aid should include funds for the manufacture and distribution of this vaccine at scale.”

Martin Smedjeback is the chairperson of Animal Save Sweden. He campaigns for animal rights and the climate by giving presentations, facilitating workshops, participating in open rescues of animals, blockading oil transports, occasionally spending time in prison, taking photos, and shooting videos. Smedjeback argued the European Union should help accelerate the development of cultivated meat and levy higher taxes on traditional animal products.

“We need significantly more investment in alternative protein research,” he said. “Our environment, health, and animal welfare depend on a new food system where protein no longer originates from animals. We must develop plant-based foods and cultivated meat—produced from animal cells without harming the animal—that compete directly with conventional meat on taste and price. This transition is essential to tackling the climate crisis, reducing the risk of future pandemics, and curbing antibiotic overuse.”

Emilia A. Leese is an author, rewilder, and podcast host exploring the intersections of morality, food, and our relationship with the environment. She wrote Think Like a Vegan: Embracing Ethics in a Plant-Powered World. Leese believes a pro-animal foreign policy would be indistinguishable from a pro-animal domestic policy, and pushed back on the notion nonhuman activists should take into consideration existing political reality.

“We must abandon the mirage of ‘plausible’ reform within a system which is actively hostile against other animals,” she said, “Instead, we must demand radical change and reframe our current property-based utility to co-existence. This can be achieved by ascribing legal personhood to all other animals, such as is given to people and corporate or other legal entities. Or through a non-anthropocentric standard of beingness, like that developed by Professor Maneesha Deckha.”

Barry Kent MacKay is an artist, writer, and conservationist who has worked in different capacities for Born Free USA, the Animal Alliance of Canada, Zoocheck, the Animal Protection Party of Canada, Species Survival Network, the Toronto Humane Society, the Canadian Federation of Humane Societies, and others groups.

“History shows that while great reforms may seem fairly spontaneous—the result of a tipping point having been reached—there are incremental steps to get there,” MacKay said, putting forward a number of potential foreign policy goals. “I think the connection between Covid-19 and mustelids opens an opportunity for bans on mink farming, locally, and the import of live mustelids from other countries.”

Merritt Clifton is editor of the Animals 24-7 blog. Previously, he was news editor of the Animals’ Agenda magazine, editor of the Animal People newspaper, and editor of the annual Watchdog Report on Animal Charities. Working as a journalist since 1968, Clifton has reported as a foreign correspondent from approximately 40 different countries.

“The simplest, easiest thing to do would be to enforce [the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora] and other relevant international treaties as written,” he said. “There are so many UN-brokered treaties relevant to animal welfare that I can’t even remember them all off the top of my head, also including the [International Whaling Commission] treaty, Treaty of Sea, several on various aspects of zoonotic disease, etc., but the US, though a signatory to practically all of them, has a terrible enforcement record.”

Moritz Stumpe is the executive director of Animal Advocacy Africa, which is trying to stop the spread of factory farming on the continent. He is based in Germany but travels regularly. Stumpe views his organization as a capacity builder and a bridge between the African and international animal protection movements.

He argued the same welfare standards should be applied to imported and domestic products. “This kind of policy should have broad support since it protects domestic farmers,” Stumpe said. “A similar principle applies to equipment that was used for practices that are prohibited in the Global North, like battery cages in Europe, not being exported to the Global South, where battery cages are still permitted.” He added Global North countries shouldn’t finance development projects in the Global South that promote factory farms.

S. Marek Muller is an associate professor of Communication Studies at Texas State University. They are the author of Impersonating Animals: Rhetoric, Ecofeminism, and Animal Rights Law and the forthcoming Soy Boy Beta Cuck: Primal Rhetoric and the Rise of Right-Wing Carnivorism. Their research centers discourses of animal rights and welfare as well as alt-protein biotechnologies.

“Sometimes imperialist tendencies get combined with genuine devotion to animal welfare and protection such that ‘our’ kind of animal relations are considered superior to ‘theirs’ in a way that ends up quite problematic in practice,” Muller said. “Take zoonotic disease in the cases of Ebola and Covid-19 and how, respectively, bushmeat and wet markets became the subjects of international scrutiny and denizens of non-Western countries were villainized as unsanitary, deviant, and cruel to animals.”

Muller noted there wasn’t much introspection in Western countries about industrial agriculture and its ties to zoonotic diseases and animal suffering. They added the far-right has used arguments about animal cruelty to demonize various human populations, for instance, by framing specific forms of religious slaughter as evidence of the inferiority of adherents to that faith.

“I'd say an important element of a pro-animal foreign policy involves the nation-state having humbleness about its own complicity in the animal-industrial complex, noting how being ‘pro’ animal will involve work from all parties in a foreign policy relationship, not a top-down relationship where the ‘civilized’ country ‘teaches’ the other country how to be,” Muller said. “I'm not talking about simplified cultural relativism, but rather an understanding of mutuality and dialogue where individual nations' individual contexts allow for distinct forms of animal protection that may not be a one-size-fits all situation.”

John Patrick is a co-founder of Scotland for Animals, a former member of the Scottish Parliament Cross-Party Animal Welfare Group, and a former Scottish Socialist Party animal-rights spokesman. He thinks foreign cooperation and assistance should be dependent on basic nonhuman welfare reforms with effective deterrents.

“Governments and alliances are able and willing to sanction other nations for a multitude of reasons,” he said. “They are also very keen to intervene at a diplomatic level on behalf of wealth and industry. They can and should apply this same pressure and zeal for failing or refusing to act on [the issue of animal protection].”

A longtime nonhuman activist, who previously founded Animal Outlook and worked at Humane World for Animals, Paul Shapiro is the author of Clean Meat: How Growing Meat Without Animals Will Revolutionize Dinner and the World. He believes the three most consequential pro-animal foreign policy goals would be to end United States financing for the global expansion of intensive animal agriculture, make the development of alternative proteins a food-security priority, and put enforceable animal-welfare provisions into trade agreements.

“Those would likely help vastly more animals than the symbolically attractive approach of concentrating foreign policy on dog meat, trophy hunting, or a handful of notorious festivals,” Shapiro said. “A pro-animal foreign policy would use American money and market access to change systems.”

Matthew A. King is the president and co-founder of the Christian Animal Rights Association. He has written a growing number of books which address nonhuman ethics from a faith-based perspective. His latest text is Pride Goes Before Destruction: Human Vanity, Animal Agriculture, and the New Covenant Solution.

“A pro-animal foreign policy would mirror the legal framework established domestically by measures like California’s Prop 12 and Massachusetts' Question 3, ensuring that international trade and imports of animal products are permitted only when they meet rigorous, humane welfare standards,” King said. “Additionally, a practical step would be redirecting US Agency for International Development funds away from industrial factory farming models and instead investing in sustainable, plant-based agricultural infrastructure abroad.”

Katherine Perlo is the author of Kinship and Killing: The Animal in World Religions. She has worked as a typist, typesetter, accompanist, piano teacher, and academic proofreader. Later in life, Perlo earned a doctoral degree in philosophy, choosing the subject in order to promote animal rights. While born in the United States, she lives in Scotland.

“Veganism can be promoted, using standard foreign policy mechanisms, through the perspective of land,” Perlo said. “Agricultural support, through subsidies, import-export policies, and aid, could go to stock-free food production along with human-socially beneficial land projects, as an essential part of land reform and land management.”

Itai Roffman, PhD, an evolutionary anthropologist and conservationist, is a senior lecturer, researcher, and co-executive director of the Jane Goodall Institute Israel. He established the Mali Chimpanzee Cultural Preservation, Rehabilitation and Tribal Heritage League, dedicated to initiation of tribal protected reservations for chimpanzees and other critically endangered species, via community-led ecological restoration.

“Rainforest destruction is a global catastrophe, as they are Earth's lungs,” Roffman said. “Factory farming as cause of zoonotic pathogens and spread of lethal epidemics is also a global concern. It pollutes ground water and rivers. Governments should work together to find technological alternatives to meat from slaughter, such as promoting commercially sound cultured meat from cells."

Marco Maurizi wrote Beyond Nature: Animal Liberation, Marxism, and Critical Theory. He is particularly interested in attempts to understand nonhuman protection as part of a wider left-wing project, rather than an isolated ethical issue. Maurizi teaches philosophy and history in Italian high schools, while collaborating with the University of Rome Tor Vergata.

“A plausible pro-animal foreign policy,” he said, “could include ending subsidies and other forms of state support for industrial animal agriculture; incorporating strong restrictions on animal exploitation into international trade agreements; opposing the expansion of factory farming through international development and investment programs; strengthening international action against wildlife trafficking and industrial fishing; and redirecting development aid toward plant-based and ecologically sustainable forms of agriculture.”

Spencer Roberts is a science writer, ecologist, musician, and engineer. In his journalistic work, he focuses on the climate crisis, marine life, and animal agriculture. Roberts’ work has been published in Wired, The Intercept, Jacobin, and elsewhere. He pointed out fishing is the largest source of human-caused animal suffering and premature death.

“Ending the subsidization of high seas and distant water fishing would not only save countless billions of animals, but would extend an olive branch in foreign policy, deescalating the ‘arms race‘ of competition for catch and hegemony of the high seas,” Roberts said. “These subsidies could be redirected to countries who endured United States military occupations, many to this day, particularly in the Pacific. Many small island nations derive a majority of their national revenue from licenses to foreign fleets to plunder their waters.”

Low-wage US workers have faced multiple rising threats to their economic and personal security over the past year.

Aggressive Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) actions have terrorized immigrant workers, who are disproportionately represented at the bottom of the corporate ladder. Congress approved the largest cuts in history to public assistance programs that millions of low-wage workers have to rely on to get by. And the Trump administration has attacked diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs designed to expand opportunities for disadvantaged employees.

How have the largest employers of low-wage workers responded to these threats? This year’s edition of the annual Institute for Policy Studies Executive Excess report takes a look by zeroing in on the 100 S&P 500 firms with the lowest median wages, a group we’ve dubbed the “Low-Wage 100.” The country’s most profitable retailers, fast food chains, and hospitality firms dominate the list.

Low-Wage 100 CEOs Have Remained Silent About Threats to Workers

Our key finding: Low-Wage 100 CEOs have raised nary a peep about ICE attacks on their employees or the gutting of our social safety net. And, with few exceptions, they have obediently rolled back DEI programs.

By looking the other way as low-wage workers face surging threats, corporate CEOs have shown even more clearly that we cannot rely on them to voluntarily do the right thing.

How did these corporate leaders choose to deploy their vast political power instead? Passage of the July 2025 budget bill was a top priority. This legislation will throw millions of Americans off Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to pay for more tax cuts for the rich and a massive increase in ICE funding.

Under the bill’s reduced top marginal tax rate, chief executives will be able to take home an even greater share of their fat paychecks. In 2025, average CEO compensation within the Low-Wage 100 hit $17.5 million. By contrast, the group’s average median worker pay sat at just $36,571 and their average CEO-worker pay gap came to 614 to 1.

Low-Wage 100 Firms Won Tax Cuts for the Rich, Paid for With Cuts to Aid Programs Their Employees Rely On

We reviewed public statements about this budget legislation by Low-Wage 100 firms and the corporate lobby groups that represent them. Each statement cheered the law’s tax cuts, which will overwhelmingly benefit the wealthy. The International Franchise Association even praised the doubling of the estate tax exemption, a tax break that will benefit less than 0.2% of the population.

Not one statement expressed concern about the law’s drastic Medicaid and SNAP cuts. A recent Government Accountability Office report lists the top employers of workers receiving Medicaid and SNAP in a sampling of states where this information is available. Low-Wage 100 firms dominate the lists.

Long-Term Trends of Executive Excess

Given past trends, Low-Wage 100 CEOs’ muted response to the increased threats against their employees is hardly a surprise. The pandemic opened the eyes of many Americans to the essential value of frontline low-wage workers. But even that national crisis did not lead to more equitable sharing of corporate wealth.

Between 2019 and 2025, the Low-Wage 100’s average CEO pay rose 41.4%, double the 20.7% increase in their average median worker pay.

A technical note: we did not adjust these figures for US inflation because median pay figures in corporate SEC filings are based on a company’s global workforce. But many Low-Wage 100 firms have the vast majority of their employees in the United States. In fact, that’s the case for 5 of the 10 Low-Wage 100 corporations with the lowest median pay (Ross Stores, Ulta Beauty, TJX, Yum! Brands, and Dollar Tree).

Buybacks Bonanza

To further enrich their wealthy executives, Low-Wage 100 firms have spent over $718 billion repurchasing their own stock over the past seven years. This formerly illegal financial maneuver artificially boosts the value of a company’s shares and, in the process, pumps up the value of the stock-based compensation that makes up about 80% of corporate CEO compensation.

Every dollar spent on buybacks represents a dollar not spent on worker wages or long-term productive investments. The Lowe’s home improvement store’s $46.8 billion expenditures on buybacks over the past seven years could have covered the cost of a $24,235 bonus for each of their 276,000 employees every year during that period. Median pay at Lowe’s in 2025: $37,371.

Policy Changes to Curb Executive Excess

The Low-Wage 100 represent a business model designed to deliver staggering personal gains for top executives by squeezing their workers. This predominant model is shredding our social fabric and threatening our democracy. We clearly need to build worker power and raise the minimum wage to a living wage. But to solve this problem we also need to curb runaway CEO pay.

Governments at all levels should explore options for leveraging tax policies and procurement and subsidy policies against executive excess. These policy solutions have serious bipartisan potential.

For instance, one survey found that 89% of Democratic and 71% of Republican likely voters support a tax hike on corporations that pay their CEO over 50 or more times what they pay their median employees. A bipartisan provision in the pending Senate defense authorization bill would bar military contractors from engaging in CEO pay-inflating stock buybacks.

Congress should also increase the existing 1% stock buybacks tax, ideally to a level high enough to discourage this activity. But even if companies continued the wasteful practice, hiking this tax would generate additional revenue for combatting inequality. If a 4% buyback levy had been in place between 2023 and 2025, the Low-Wage 100 would have owed approximately $9.3 billion in additional federal taxes.

By looking the other way as low-wage workers face surging threats, corporate CEOs have shown even more clearly that we cannot rely on them to voluntarily do the right thing. Lawmakers must take responsible action to narrow our dangerous economic divides.