Top News | Supreme Court Declares 'Open Season on All Our Rights'

 

Only four days left. Our Mid-Year Campaign is falling short. The only way Common Dreams' people-powered media model can survive is with the support of readers like you. Will you become a sustaining monthly donor to keep our progressive, nonprofit journalism alive? YES, I’LL SUPPORT COMMON DREAMS Friday, June 27, 2025 ■ Today's Top News  'Congress Can't Sit Back': Anti-War Groups Call on Senate to Invoke War Powers Act in Friday Vote More than 41,000 people have signed a petition calling on Congress to invoke the War Powers Act to limit Trump's ability to strike Iran without congressional authorization. By Stephen Prager The U.S. Senate will vote Friday evening on whether to invoke the War Powers Act, limiting President Donald Trump's ability to launch a war with Iran. With the vote looming, anti-war groups are turning up the pressure, urging their senators to reassert Congress's ability to check the president's power after he unilaterally inserted the U.S. into Israel's war with Iran by launching airstrikes on three Iranian nuclear sites last weekend. More than 41,000 people have signed a petition launched by the progressive group MoveOn Civic Action, which calls on Congress to vote for the resolutions introduced in both the House and Senate in recent weeks. "By launching strikes on Iran without congressional approval, Trump endangered civilians in the U.S. and around the world, while dragging our country closer to another endless war," said MoveOn spokesperson Britt Jacovich. "Congress has a responsibility to the people who elected them to check this abuse of power and take urgent action to prevent the U.S. from being pulled into another deadly and costly conflict." The vote on the Senate resolution, introduced by Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), will take place Friday at 6:00 pm Eastern time. A vote on the House resolution introduced by Reps. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) has not yet been scheduled. The War Powers resolution, which would require Trump to receive congressional approval for future strikes on Iran, has overwhelming support from Senate Democrats. However, according to reporting from Punchbowl News Friday, Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), a notorious pro-Israel hawk, is expected to vote no. If all other Democrats vote yes, they'd still need five Republicans to join them. The libertarian Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has also signaled his support for the resolution. But the rest, including seven who voted for a similar resolution in 2020, have remained tight-lipped about Friday's vote. The majority of Americans, 56%, said they disapproved of Trump's weekend strikes against Iran in a YouGov poll published Tuesday. They are even more strongly opposed to further escalations, with 84% saying in a Reuters/Ipsos poll that closed Monday that they were worried about growing conflict between the U.S. and Iran. On Monday, Trump announced that a cease-fire had been brokered between Israel and Iran. But with the two countries accusing one another of violating the truce, doubt remains about whether it will hold. Cavan Kharrazian, a senior policy advisor for the group Demand Progress, said that uncertainty is all the more reason Congress must assert itself to stop further escalations from the United States. "In just days, we've gone from a supposed two-week decision window to immediate U.S. airstrikes, a brief cease-fire, Israel and Iran trading fire again, and now another fragile pause," Kharrazian said. "We strongly support diplomatic efforts to end this crisis—but Congress can't sit back and hope for the best while the risk of U.S. involvement in unauthorized hostilities remains." By Limiting Nationwide Injunctions, Supreme Court Declares 'Open Season on All Our Rights' In a ruling that stems from the president's birthright citizenship order, the "conservative supermajority just took away lower courts' single most powerful tool for reining in the Trump administration's lawless excesses." By Jessica Corbett The U.S. Supreme Court issued a flurry of decisions Friday morning, including a ruling related to U.S. President Donald Trump's attack on birthright citizenship that led legal experts, elected Democrats, immigrants, and rights advocates to warn—as MoveOn Civic Action spokesperson Britt Jacovich put it—that the justices "just made it easier for Trump to take away your rights." Three different federal judges had granted nationwide injunctions blocking Trump's effort to end birthright citizenship with an executive order that Cody Wofsy, deputy director of the ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project, described as "blatantly illegal and cruel." Rather than considering the constitutionality of the president's order, the justices examined the relief provided by lower courts. "The Supreme Court has green-lighted Trump to run roughshod over a critical constitutional right. This is not a slide into authoritarianism—this is a one-way plummet." In Friday's 6-3 ruling for Trump v. CASA, the right-wing justices held that "universal injunctions likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has given to federal courts," with Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a Trump appointee, delivering the majority opinion. "The Supreme Court's conservative supermajority just took away lower courts' single most powerful tool for reining in the Trump administration's lawless excesses," wroteSlate's Mark Joseph Stern‬. "I understand there is some debate about the scope of this ruling, but my view remains that the Supreme Court has just effectively abolished universal injunctions, at least as we know them. The question now is really whether lower courts can craft something to replace them that still sweeps widely." "Trump's Justice Department is about to file a motion in every lower court where it faces a universal injunction citing this case and arguing that the injunction must be narrowed," the journalist explained. "This will have huge downstream consequences for a ton of other extraordinarily important and controversial cases." Justice Sonia Sotomayor penned a dissent, joined by the other two liberals, and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson also wrote her own. Many other critics of the high court's majority decision echoed their warnings about the expected consequences of the ruling. "The Supreme Court has green-lighted Trump to run roughshod over a critical constitutional right. This is not a slide into authoritarianism—this is a one-way plummet," said Analilia Mejia and DaMareo Cooper, co-executive directors of the grassroots coalition Popular Democracy, in a Friday statement. "This ruling takes away the power of lower courts to block unconstitutional moves from the government on a federal level— allowing the government to act with impunity and apply law inconsistently across the country," they stressed. "As Justice Sotomayor wrote, 'No right is safe in the new legal regime this court creates.'" Congresswoman Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.), the daughter of Guatemalan immigrants and a citizen by birthright, said Friday that "I agree, Judge Sotomayor, no right is safe under the new regime, not even the ones clearly guaranteed under our Constitution." "For more than 100 years, the 14th Amendment has reaffirmed that all people born in the U.S. are U.S. citizens, with equal rights under the law. It has been and is the law of the land, consistently upheld by courts and scholars across the political spectrum," she noted. "But in limiting nationwide injunctions, Trump's loyalists have decided to—once again—put him above the rule of law, our Constitution, and the principles of our nation." Caroline Ciccone, president of the watchdog Accountable.US, highlighted that same line from Sotomayor and also explained that "results like this are the result of a yearslong takeover by Trump and special interest allies to capture the courts and install conservative majorities that help him advance an extreme ideological agenda." "Let's be clear: The Trump administration appealed this case to undermine the power of federal judges, rather than address his blatantly unconstitutional executive order seeking to end birthright citizenship," Ciccone said. Brett Edkins, managing director of policy and political affairs at the progressive advocacy group Stand Up America, said that "as Justice Jackson notes, 'The court's decision to permit the executive to violate the Constitution with respect to anyone who has not yet sued is an existential threat to the rule of law.'" "Today, six justices on the Supreme Court eliminated one of the most effective checks on Donald Trump, clearing a path for him to impose his extreme, anti-democratic agenda on any American who can't afford a lawyer or doesn't join the game of litigation Whac-A-Mole now required to protect their basic rights," he added. "This ruling should send a chill down every American's spine." Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Greg Casar (D-Texas) also described the decision as chilling and argued on social media that "the Supreme Court is declaring open season on all our rights." U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Immigration Subcommittee, called out the high court for failing "every American," and said that "we must heed Justice Jackson's warning," citing that same line from her dissent. Maggie Jo Buchanan, interim executive director of the group Demand Justice, pointed to another line, agreeing that "as Justice Jackson wrote in her dissent, the court has created an 'existential threat' to the rule of law and the system of checks and balances upon which our nation was founded." "The same six justices who gave Trump king-like immunity for criminal acts have now limited the ability of the judicial branch to protect everyday Americans from unconstitutional or illegal executive overreach," she said, referring to a decision issued a year ago. "Just as Republican leaders in Congress duck their heads and carry out Trump's bidding, the Republican appointees on the court do so as well." Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) also took aim at both his GOP colleagues and the justices, saying that "the Supreme Court's decision to limit courts of their long-held authority to block illegal executive actions is an unprecedented and terrifying step toward authoritarianism, a grave danger to our democracy, and a predictable move from this extremist MAGA court." "Congressional Republicans have to choose between being bystanders or co-conspirators," Schumer added, urging them to challenge Trump. "Congress must check this unimpeded power, but for that to happen, Republican members must stand up for core American democratic values and not for unchecked presidential power of the kind that our Founders most deeply feared." In addition to sounding the alarm about what the high court's decision means for all future legal battles, critics noted that although the justices didn't weigh in on Trump's birthright citizenship order, it could soon start to impact families nationwide. "The administration's attempt to deny citizenship to many children born in the United States is unquestionably unconstitutional, and nothing in today's Supreme Court opinion suggests otherwise. Yet, the court has nonetheless created a real risk that the administration's unconstitutional order will go into effect in many parts of the country in 30 days," said Sam Spital, associate director-counsel at the Legal Defense Fund (LDF), vowing to continue the fight against the order. FWD.us president Todd Schulte pointed out that with its new ruling, "the Supreme Court has opened the door to a fractured system in which a child born in one state is recognized as a citizen, but a child born in another is not." "If the president's order is allowed to go into effect by the lower courts, there will be immediate chaos for parents, hospitals, and local officials, and long-term harm for families and communities across the country," he warned. Juana, a pregnant mother, CASA member, and named plaintiff in a lawsuit over the order, said Friday that "I'm heartbroken that the Supreme Court chose to limit protections instead of standing firmly for all families like mine." "Every child born here deserves the same rights, no matter who their parents are," Juana declared. "I joined this lawsuit not just for my baby, but for every child who deserves to be recognized as fully American from their first breath. We won't stop fighting until that promise is real for everyone." Shortly after the ruling, organizations including the ACLU, Democracy Defenders Fund, and LDF filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of a proposed class of babies subject to Trump's executive order and their parents. "The Constitution guarantees birthright citizenship, and no procedural ruling will stop us from fighting to uphold that promise," said Tianna Mays, legal director for Democracy Defenders Fund. "Our plaintiffs, and millions of families across this country, deserve clarity, stability, and justice. We look forward to making our case in court again." Supreme Court Porn ID Ruling 'A Blow to Freedom of Speech and Privacy,' Says ACLU "The legislature claims to be protecting children from sexually explicit materials, but the law will do little to block their access, and instead deters adults from viewing vast amounts of First Amendment-protected content," said Cecillia Wang, national legal director of the ACLU. By Stephen Prager Free speech advocates are sounding the alarm after the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday upheld a Texas law requiring users to share personal identification to view adult material online. The law, which mandates websites that host sexual content to require users to provide photo IDs or biometric scans to verify that they are over 18, was challenged by several adult websites and free speech organizations. They argued that it violated adult users' First Amendment rights. In a 6-3 decision along ideological lines siding with Texas, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in the majority opinion that the law "only incidentally burdens the protected speech of adults," and therefore did not require "strict scrutiny" from the Court. But advocates for free speech and online security have warned that such laws—which have passed in 24 states—have the potential to be much more invasive, both to personal expression and privacy. Following the ruling, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) decried the Court's decision as "a blow to freedom of speech and privacy." "The Supreme Court has departed from decades of settled precedents that ensured that sweeping laws purportedly for the benefit of minors do not limit adults' access to First Amendment-protected materials," said Cecillia Wang, national legal director of the ACLU. "The legislature claims to be protecting children from sexually explicit materials, but the law will do little to block their access, and instead deters adults from viewing vast amounts of First Amendment-protected content." The ACLU's concerns echoed those expressed in Justice Elena Kagan's dissenting opinion, in which she said the court should have applied "strict scrutiny," which would have required the bill to use the least restrictive means possible to meet its goal. Applying strict scrutiny is standard in cases involving content related restrictions on expression, and has been used in past cases related to obscenity. "No one doubts that the distribution of sexually explicit speech to children, of the sort involved here, can cause great harm," she added. "But the First Amendment protects those sexually explicit materials, for every adult. So a state cannot target that expression, as Texas has here, any more than is necessary to prevent it from reaching children." During oral arguments in January, Kagan warned of the potential "spillover danger" if the court were to weaken strict scrutiny for free expression cases. "You relax strict scrutiny in one place," she said, "and all of a sudden, strict scrutiny gets relaxed in other places." Friday's ruling comes as red states have introduced laws increasingly cracking down on public discussion of sex and gender. These have included laws banning sexual education or the discussion of LGBTQ+ identities in schools, bans on books containing "divisive" topics including sex and gender, and bans on drag shows in public spaces. Many states have also introduced laws allowing parents to challenge books containing "divisive" concepts, including discussions of sexuality and LGBTQ+ identity. On Friday, the Supreme Court also ruled on religious liberty grounds in favor of parents' rights to opt their children out from classes with storybooks involving LGBTQ+ characters. "As it has been throughout history, pornography is once again the canary in the coal mine of free expression," said Alison Boden, executive director of the Free Speech Coalition, which was one of the plaintiffs in the Texas case. Beyond burdening adults' free expression, critics warned that requiring photo identification poses a privacy risk to porn viewers. The conservative justices defended the law as tantamount to others that require identification to access alcohol or to enter adults-only spaces. In his majority opinion, Thomas wrote that the law is "appropriately tailored because it permits users to verify their ages through the established methods of providing government-issued identification and sharing transactional data." However, Kagan argued in her dissent that requiring photo ID for online activity is fundamentally different because the user has no idea if their identifying information is being tracked or logged. "It is turning over information about yourself and your viewing habits—respecting speech many find repulsive—to a website operator, and then to… who knows?" she said. Evan Greer, founder of the online privacy advocacy group Fight for the Future, wrote on BlueSky that the ruling bodes ill for internet privacy more generally. "This is bad in a variety of ways that have nothing to do with porn and everything to do with expanding invasive surveillance of every single internet user, including all adults," Greer said. 'Just Killed, for Nothing': Israeli Troops Say They Were Ordered to Shoot Aid-Seeking Gaza Civilians "Killing innocent people—it's been normalized," said one senior reserve officer. "We were constantly told there are no noncombatants in Gaza, and apparently that message sank in among the troops." By Brett Wilkins Israel Defense Forces commanders ordered troops to shoot and shell aid-seeking Palestinian civilians in Gaza, even when they posed no threat, according to IDF officers and soldiers interviewed by Israel's oldest daily newspaper. Haaretz on Friday published testimonies of IDF members including senior officers who said that commanders including Brig. Gen. Yehuda Vach ordered troops to open fire on aid-seeking Palestinians in order to disperse them, even when there was no danger to Israeli troops. "It's a killing field," one soldier said. "Where I was stationed, between one and five people were killed every day. They're treated like a hostile force—no crowd-control measures, no tear gas—just live fire with everything imaginable: heavy machine guns, grenade launchers, mortars. Then, once the center opens, the shooting stops, and they know they can approach. Our form of communication is gunfire." The soldier said troops informally call this activity "Operation Salted Fish." Salted fish, or dag maluach in Hebrew, is an Israeli children's game similar to red light, green light. One IDF reservist who just finished a round of duty in Gaza this week said that "the loss of human life means nothing. It's not even an 'unfortunate incident,' like they used to say." Last month, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification report revealed that 244,000 people in Gaza were suffering such "an extreme deprivation of food" that "starvation, death, destitution, and extremely critical levels of acute malnutrition are or will likely be evident." Gaza officials say at least hundreds of people have already died of malnutrition and lack of medical care since Israel tightened the siege in March. Many of the victims are children and elders. Hundreds of premature infants face imminent death. Amid such desperation—driven by 629 days of U.S.-backed Israeli bombardment, invasion, and ethnic cleansing that have killed, wounded, or disappeared more than 200,000 Palestinians and forcibly displaced over 2 million—Gazans are willing to risk their lives for their next meal. According to Gaza's Government Media Office, at least 549 Palestinians have been killed and more than 4,000 others have been wounded by IDF troops since May 27 while trying to obtain humanitarian aid amid Israel's "complete siege" of the Gaza Strip that has fueled mass starvation and illness. Dozens or more civilians have been killed in the worst of these aid massacres. A reserve officer in Vach's Division 252—veterans of which have accused the general of telling them "there are no innocents in Gaza"—told Haaretz that he was ordered to fire artillery shells toward a crowd gathered near an aid distribution site. "Technically, it's supposed to be warning fire—either to push people back or stop them from advancing," he said. "But lately, firing shells has just become standard practice. Every time we fire, there are casualties and deaths, and when someone asks why a shell is necessary, there's never a good answer. Sometimes, merely asking the question annoys the commanders." "You know it's not right. You feel it's not right—that the commanders here are taking the law into their own hands," the soldier added. "But Gaza is a parallel universe. You move on quickly. The truth is, most people don't even stop to think about it." A senior reserve officer who was present when more than 10 aid-seekers were killed said: When we asked why they opened fire, we were told it was an order from above and that the civilians had posed a threat to the troops. I can say with certainty that the people were not close to the forces and did not endanger them. It was pointless—they were just killed, for nothing. This thing called killing innocent people—it's been normalized. We were constantly told there are no noncombatants in Gaza, and apparently that message sank in among the troops. That message has come all the way from the top. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza, including murder and weaponized starvation—has invoked the biblical command for genocide against Israel's ancient enemy Amalek. Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said that the killing of every man, woman, and child in Gaza would be "justified and moral." Deputy Knesset Speaker Nissim Vaturi asserted that "there are no uninvolved people" in Gaza, and "we must go in there and kill, kill, kill." Many other prominent Israelis have made similar statements. Israel's Military Advocate General has instructed the IDF General Staff's Fact-Finding Assessment Mechanism to investigate the killing of aid-seeking civilians as possible war crimes. However, the historical record suggests impunity—or at worst, wrist-slap punishment—will prevail for most if not all of those who ordered and carried out the shooting and shelling of civilians. One military source who attended a high-level IDF meeting during which the use of artillery on aid-seekers was discussed told Haaretz that "they talk about using artillery on a junction full of civilians as if it's normal." "An entire conversation about whether it's right or wrong to use artillery, without even asking why that weapon was needed in the first place," the source said. "What concerns everyone is whether it'll hurt our legitimacy to keep operating in Gaza. The moral aspect is practically nonexistent. No one stops to ask why dozens of civilians looking for food are being killed every day." "This isn't about a few people being killed—we're talking about dozens of casualties every day." A legal official who attended the meeting told Haaretz that representatives of the Military Advocate General's Office rejected the IDF's argument that aid killings were one-off incidents. "The claim that these are isolated cases doesn't align with incidents in which grenades were dropped from the air and mortars and artillery were fired at civilians," the official said. "This isn't about a few people being killed—we're talking about dozens of casualties every day." The near-daily massacres of aid-seeking Palestinian civilians by Israeli forces and Israel's use of the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation—whose operations have been called a "death trap"—have drawn international condemnation. Earlier this week, a spokesperson for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said that "the weaponization of food for civilians... constitutes a war crime and, under certain circumstances, may constitute elements of other crimes under international law," remarks that came amid the ongoing genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice in The Hague. Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz rejected the claims in the Haaretz report as "blood libels," while the IDF responded to the exposé in a statement claiming that "any allegation of a deviation from the law or IDF directives will be thoroughly examined, and further action will be taken as necessary." "The allegations of deliberate fire toward civilians presented in the article are not recognized in the field," the IDF added. IDF troops have previously admitted to witnessing alleged war crimes including indiscriminate murder of people including women and children in Gaza and torture, sometimes fatal, in Israeli detention centers including the notorious Sde Teiman prison. ***MY POST SCRIPT:  HATE MONGER ANDY OGLES IS A CONGRESSMAN FROM THE FAILED REPUBLICAN CONTROLLED STATE OF TENNESSEE & DEFINES GOP PLATFORM OF INCITING HATE & VIOLENCE BASED ON LIES! IF REPUBLICANS DIDN'T LIE, NO ONE WOULD VOTE FOR THEM! IT'S TIME TO CALL OUT REPUBLICAN FAILURES & LIES! REPUBLICANS HAVE NOTHING TO OFFER FOR SOLUTIONS - THEY DISTRACT FROM THEIR FAILURES WITH HATE!**** 'Vicious Islamophobia': GOP Calls for Deportation of US Citizen Mamdani Journalist Mehdi Hasan demanded "any leadership at all from the Democrats against brazen Islamophobia against their own presumptive mayoral candidate." By Julia Conley The victory of New York state lawmaker Zohran Mamdani in New York City's Democratic mayoral primary this week quickly ushered in what one progressive media outlet called "mask-off racism and fascism" from several Republicans in Congress, with U.S. Rep. Andy Ogles going as far as making an official request to the Trump administration for "denaturalization proceedings" for the U.S. citizen. Mamdani would be the first Muslim mayor of the nation's largest city if he wins the general election in November—a fact that appears to have enraged the Tennessee Republican, who wrote to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi to call for a federal investigation into rap lyrics Mamdani wrote before he became a naturalized citizen and began his political career. Ogles pointed to the lyrics, "Free the Holy Land Five / My guys"—a reference to the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, a major Muslim charity that was shut down by the George W. Bush administration and designated a terrorist group after the September 11, 2001 attacks—even though it donated money to Palestinian charities that the U.S. government also supported. Dozens of major U.S. and international rights organizations have also called for five philanthropists who worked for the Holy Land Foundation—who were sentenced to up to 65 years in prison even though they were not accused of directly funding terrorism—to be pardoned and released, but Ogles accused Mamdani of publicly glorifying "a group convicted of financing terrorism." Ogles also pointed to Mamdani's refusal to condemn the phrase "globalize the intifada," which includes the Arabic word for "uprising" and is associated by supporters of the Israeli government with Hamas' violent attacks on Israel—but evidently not with Palestinians' numerous peaceful acts of protest against Israel's apartheid policies. Mamdani said in a podcast interview before the primary election this week that the word intifada means "very different things" for different people, including "a desperate desire for equality and equal rights in standing up for Palestinian human rights"—comments many New Yorkers who voted for him, including as many as 1 in 5 Jewish Democrats, according to some polls—appeared to agree with. But Ogles claimed the remarks bolstered the case for Mamdani's denaturalization seven years after he became a U.S. citizen, and suggested without evidence that the New York state assemblymember "concealed relevant associations" when he applied for citizenship. "Publicly praising the [Holy Land] Foundation's leadership as 'My Guys' raises serious concerns about whether Mr. Mamdani held affiliations or sympathies he failed to disclose during the naturalization process," Ogles claimed. In a post on X announcing his request to Bondi, Ogles referred to Mamdani as "little muhammad" said, "He need to be deported." Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) posted on the social media platform X after Mamdani's victory that "we sadly have forgotten" the September 11 attacks, adding a photo of Mamdani wearing a traditional tunic with other Muslims at a gathering in New York. She later posted a poll on her account, providing no justification or supporting evidence as she asked her more than 500,000 followers whether the Democratic mayoral candidate should be denaturalized and deported. Journalist Mehdi Hasan of Zeteo pointed out that while both establishment Democratic and Republican lawmakers have joined the corporate media in lobbing accusations of antisemitism at progressive politicians and pro-Palestinian student protesters, they are "totally normalizing and amplifying the worst and most vicious Islamophobia." "Will Rep. Hakeem Jeffries or Sen. Chuck Schumer be saying anything about this? Condemning it? Calling for a censure vote of Ogles? Any leadership at all from the Democrats against brazen Islamophobia against their own presumptive mayoral candidate?" asked Hasan, referring to the top Democrats in the House and Senate. Democratic members of the House Homeland Security Committee denounced Ogles for spreading "racist drivel" and issued a reminder that Ogles "faked a $320,000 campaign loan" and "lied about being an economist," but at press time neither Schumer nor Jeffries—both New York Democrats—had publicly addressed the Republicans' attacks on the mayoral candidate and sitting lawmaker from their home state. Another prominent Democrat in Mamdani's home state, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, appeared to align herself squarely with Republicans like Ogles—proclaiming on "The Brian Lehrer Show" that Mamdani had made references to "global jihad" and saying unequivocally that the phrase "globalize the intifada" is a call to "kill all the Jews." Hasan was among those who said Gillibrand should "resign for falsely smearing Zohran Mamdani as a terrorist." A spokesperson for the senator later said she "misspoke" when using the phrase "global jihad"—a term Mamdani is not reported to have ever said. At press time Gillibrand herself had not publicly apologized for the remark. In contrast to Democratic leaders' approach to Mamdani thus far, in November 2023, Palestinian-American Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) faced a censure vote that was supported by 22 House Democrats for expressing support for Palestinian rights and criticizing the Israeli government after a Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. Rep. Yassamin Ansari (D-Ariz.) said "egregious behavior" like that of Ogles "has gone unchecked for too long and will inevitably lead to more political violence." "It's full-blown, dangerous Islamophobia and racism," said Ansari. "House Republican leadership must condemn it unequivocally and urgently. Enough." Senate Dems Demand Explanation After Big Oil Lobbied for 'Giveaways at the Expense of American Families' The fossil fuel industry spent big to push through a $1 billion provision in the GOP budget bill, which the senators said would allow some oil companies to "pay no federal income taxes whatsoever." By Stephen Prager Four Democratic U.S. senators are demanding an explanation from Big Oil after a $1.1 billion tax loophole was added to the Senate version of the GOP's budget reconciliation megabill. Letters sent Thursday by Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), and Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) called out the CEOs of two oil giants, ConocoPhillips and Ovintiv, which they say "lobbied furiously" for the handout. The companies, the senators said, "[stand] to benefit tremendously from this provision and ha[ve] spent big to support it—while preserving the many government subsidies for the oil and gas industry already in the tax code." They asked for the companies to disclose how much they have spent lobbying Republicans for the tax break and how much of a windfall they expect in return. The provision in question, approved by the Senate Finance Committee last week, would shield many large oil companies from the Inflation Reduction Act's corporate alternative minimum tax, or CAMT. Introduced in 2022, the CAMT requires that companies making more than $1 billion pay 15% of the profits they report to shareholders. "The rationale for CAMT was simple," the senators said. "For far too long, massive corporations had taken advantage of loopholes in the tax code to avoid paying their fair share, sometimes paying zero federal taxes despite earning billions in profits." The GOP bill modifies how oil companies are required to report earnings, allowing them to exempt "intangible drilling and development costs," which in turn allows more companies to fall below the $1 billion earnings threshold. The senators highlighted a 2023 earnings call by Marathon Oil, recently acquired by ConocoPhillips, in which executives said the CAMT was the only income tax they were required to pay. "If enacted," the senators said, "this provision would reduce or even eliminate tax liabilities for oil and gas companies under CAMT, allowing some to pay no federal income taxes whatsoever." The letter highlighted lobbying filings by ConocoPhillips and Ovintiv in which they "explicitly prioritize" securing this handout. Referenced throughout is the aggressive effort to court Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.), who wrote the loophole into the Senate bill. According to OpenSecrets, Lankford received more than $546,000 in campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry—his top source of industry donations—between 2019 and 2024. The senators described the industry's lobbying as "especially insulting" because "Senate Republicans are trying to pay for this handout with cuts to other programs that would end up raising energy prices for everyday Americans." The GOP bill would eliminate tax breaks for clean energy that incentivize consumers to purchase electric vehicles and make their homes more energy-efficient, including the home energy-efficiency and residential clean energy credits. Citing data from Rewiring America, the senators estimated that ditching the two credits would cost the average household up to $2,200 per year in savings on utility bills. The Center for American Progress projects that eliminating electric vehicle credits would increase demand for gasoline, raising prices by 27 to 35 cents per gallon by 2035. Americans will pay the oil and gas industry "an additional $339 billion for gasoline and $75 billion for electricity by 2035," the May report says. "Congress should not raise energy prices for working families to deliver handouts to Big Oil," the senators said. JOIN THE MOVEMENT As a people-powered nonprofit news outlet, we cover the issues the corporate media never will. Your contribution supports this bold media model—free, independent, and dedicated to reporting the facts every day. Stand with us in the fight for economic equality, social justice, human rights, and a more sustainable future. JOIN WITH US TODAY ■ More News Supreme Court Religious Opt-Out Ruling 'Could Wreak Havoc on Public Schools' Palestinian American Student Who Refused to Stand for Pledge of Allegiance Sues School for Violating Her Rights Bank-Funded Senate Republicans Revive Effort to Gut Consumer Protection Agency's Budget Senate Republicans on Thursday moved to revive a plan to dramatically reduce the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's budget after the chamber's parliamentarian determined that an earlier proposal ran afoul of reconciliation rules. The previous proposal, crafted by Republicans on the Senate Banking Committee, would have zeroed out the CFPB's budget, but the Senate parliamentarian deemed it in violation of the Byrd Rule. The new attack on the CFPB, unveiled by Senate Banking Committee Chair Tim Scott (R-S.C.)—a major recipient of financial industry donations—would cut the agency's budget nearly in half. The proposal still must face scrutiny from the parliamentarian. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), the ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee and an architect of the consumer bureau, said in a statement that Democrats would introduce an amendment to strip the proposal from the reconciliation package, noting that the CFPB has "returned $21 billion to scammed American families" since its inception in the wake of the Great Recession. " Donald Trump and Republicans tried to shut down the CFPB by gutting its entire operating budget to 0%," said Warren. "We fought back and won. Now, Senate Republicans will bring to the floor a proposal that slashes the agency's available budget so they can hand out more tax breaks for billionaires and billionaire corporations." The CFPB has been a major target of the Trump administration, which has installed an opponent of the agency—Russell Vought—as its acting director, moved to gut the bureau's staff, and effectively halted its enforcement efforts. Since the start of Trump's second term, the CFPB has dropped at least 18 enforcement actions against predatory financial firms. "Trump is making his corporate backers even richer by letting them swindle you," former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich wrote Thursday. Research released earlier this week estimates that the Trump administration's assault on the CFPB has already cost Americans $18 billion worth of fees and lost compensation for harms inflicted by law-breaking corporations. "The increased consumer costs from the CFPB's rollback of regulations on bank fees, wholesale dismissal of cases against banks and other lenders, and the apparent failure to disburse funds intended for harmed borrowers run counter to Trump's campaign pledges to ease the cost of living," Reuters reported Tuesday, citing an analysis by the Student Borrower Protection Center and the Consumer Federation of America. 'We Have Lost a Giant': Broadcast Legend Bill Moyers Dies at 91 VIEW ALL NEWS ■ Opinion Remembering Bill Moyers, Who Always Strived to Make the Future Work In the wake of today’s grim Supreme Court decision imperiling American citizenship for millions, he exemplified what a citizen could and should be. By Bill Mckibben 2 Truths the Dems Should Take Away From Mamdani’s Win Message for the Democratic Party: Recognize that America once again has a vibrant and visionary left and welcome a new generation of progressives, and yes, socialists into the party. By Alan Minsky Bill Moyers (1934-2025): The Oligarchy vs. The People The religion of inequality—of money and power—has failed us; its gods are false gods. There is something more essential—more profound—in the American experience than the hyena's appetite. Once we recognize and nurture this, once we honor it, we can reboot democracy. 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