Thursday, September 25, 2025
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The Federal Trade Commission's decision to settle with Amazon would be "a big relief for the executives who knowingly harmed their customers," added Khan.
By Brad Reed
The Federal Trade Commission announced on Thursday it had reached a settlement with Amazon over allegations that the online retailer had tricked consumers into subscribing to its Prime service—but the woman who led the FTC under former President Joe Biden was not impressed.
According to the FTC, Amazon has agreed to pay $2.5 billion to settle claims that it deceived customers into subscribing to Prime and then deliberately made it difficult for them to cancel. In all, Amazon will pay a $1 billion civil penalty, as well as $1.5 billion in refunds to consumers who unwittingly subscribed to Prime.
FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson framed the settlement as a victory for the Trump administration and touted the deal as “a record-breaking, monumental win for the millions of Americans who are tired of deceptive subscriptions that feel impossible to cancel.” Ferguson also said the settlement would ensure “Amazon never does this again.”
Amazon, for its part, said in a statement that it didn’t break any laws despite agreeing to pay out billions.
“Amazon and our executives have always followed the law and this settlement allows us to move forward and focus on innovating for customers,” the company said. “We work incredibly hard to make it clear and simple for customers to both sign up or cancel their Prime membership, and to offer substantial value for our many millions of loyal Prime members around the world.”
However, former FTC Chairwoman Lina Khan accused the agency of letting Amazon off easy, while describing the $2.5 billion settlement as a “drop in the bucket” for the tech giant.
“In 2023, we sued Amazon and several top executives for tricking people into Prime subscriptions and then making it absurdly difficult to cancel,” she explained in a post on X. “This week marked the start of a historic jury trial, where American citizens would hear details of Amazon’s business practices and determine if it had broken the law. A couple of days into trial, FTC announces it has settled all charges, rescuing Amazon from likely being found liable for having violated the law and allowing it to pay its way out.”
Khan added that the settlement was “no doubt, a big relief for the executives who knowingly harmed their customers.”
Amazon currently has a market cap of over $2.3 trillion, meaning the $2.5 billion settlement represents a little more than one-tenth of 1% of its total worth. Its billionaire founder, Jeff Bezos, is among the richest people on Earth, with an estimated net worth of nearly $240 billion.
Matthew Stoller, an antitrust advocate and researcher at the American Economic Liberties Project, faulted the FTC for letting Amazon settle without any admission of wrongdoing.
“A judge already ruled in summary judgment they violated the law,” Stoller observed.
Amazon may not be completely out of the woods legally, however.
As NPR noted on Thursday, Amazon “still faces another, bigger federal lawsuit, in which the FTC has accused the company of functioning as a monopoly.” That trial is currently projected to begin in early 2027, NPR added.
"This is either a meeting that could have been an email," said one observer, "or something ominous."
By Julia Conley
“Nothing good is likely coming out of this,” said one Democratic political scientist on Thursday regarding reports that US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has called a meeting of hundreds of top military general and admirals in Quantico, Virginia next Tuesday.
The highly unusual summit was announced on short notice and no reason was given to military commanders and other leaders stationed in conflict zones, across Europe, the Middle East, and the Asia-Pacific region who are being required to leave their posts for the meeting.
The order applies to “all senior officers with the rank of brigadier general or above,” The Washington Post reported. There are roughly 800 generals and admirals in the US military.
“You don’t call [general officers and flag officers] leading their people and the global force into an auditorium outside DC and not tell them why/what the topic or agenda is,” one person familiar with the matter told the Post.
Some sources told the newspaper that the order raises security concerns.
“Are we taking every general and flag officer out of the Pacific right now?” one person said. “All of it is weird.”
The directive comes months after Hegseth fired about 100 generals and admirals and a month after he dismissed top leaders of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), the Navy Reserve, and the Naval Special Warfare Command, without giving the officials reasons for their firing.
The DIA had found a few months earlier that Iran’s nuclear program had not been significantly damaged by US strikes, contradicting President Donald Trump’s claims.
The Pentagon has said there will likely be another 10% reduction of generals and admirals, and political consultant Joel Montfort noted that the right-wing policy blueprint Project 2025 “details a plan to remove senior leaders and consolidate power to loyalists” at the Department of Defense, which Hegseth has claimed is now called the Department of War.
“Are we taking every general and flag officer out of the Pacific right now? All of it is weird.”
“People are very concerned,” one official told the Post regarding the meeting. “They have no idea what it means.”
The Intercept reported that military sources it spoke to “speculated about the purpose, wondering if it might foretell a culling of general officers; a significant reorganization of the military command structure; a threat to eschew contact with the press; or a loyalty oath about putting Trump administration priorities above all else.”
“One source, somewhat in jest, evoked the phrase ‘coup d’état,’ later clarifying they meant a gutting of leaders who might question Trump’s policies,” reported the outlet.
Some other officials familiar with the matter told the Post that they believed the Trump administration’s desire to make “homeland defense the nation’s top concern,” rather than China, was likely to be discussed at the meeting.
The order also came a day after the Office of Management and Budget threatened a new round of mass firings at federal agencies unless Democrats in Congress agree to a funding bill to keep the government running before the October 1 deadline.
“This is either a meeting that could have been an email,” said Matt Gertz of Media Matters for America, “or something ominous.”
"Our opposition and upset over Jimmy Kimmel being taken off air have led to Kimmel coming back. Let's organize that much noise for reporters like Mario Guevara detained (despite being here legally) for filming police and ICE."
By Jessica Corbett
Mario Guevara’s legal team this week renewed its request that a federal judge free the Salvadoran journalist, who faces “imminent” deportation from the United States after being arrested while covering a June “No Kings” protest in Georgia and then held in an immigration detention center for over 100 days.
The local charges against Guevara have been dropped, but the Emmy-winning Spanish-language journalist—who has covered immigration in the Atlanta area for two decades—remains at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Folkston, despite having work authorization and a path to a green card through his son.
“Journalists should not have to fear government retaliation for doing their jobs, and showing up to work should not mean getting your family torn apart,” said Scarlet Kim, senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, in a Wednesday statement.
Kim was one of several lawyers who sent a letter to Benjamin Cheesbro, a magistrate judge of the US District Court for the Southern District of Georgia, late Tuesday, after the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) issued an order of final removal, which authorizes Guevara’s deportation.
Guevara’s legal team asked Cheesbro for “immediate relief” on the grounds presented in a Monday motion for a temporary restraining order or preliminary injunction. The lawyers challenged the federal government’s claims about his asylum case from 13 years ago, offering evidence that he “posted the voluntary departure bond on June 26, 2012,” and “ICE issued a notice of cancellation of the bond on April, 21 2015.”
“First, because he posted the voluntary departure bond, he should be subject to a voluntary departure order, and his detention is therefore unlawful under the Immigration and Nationality Act,” the letter explains. “Second, his detention is intended to gag and punish his speech and therefore continues to violate the First Amendment.”
Guevara’s team is seeking his release while his federal court case challenging his detention plays out. However, as the jailed journalist wrote in a Monday letter made public by the ACLU, he is prepared “to be deported from this country, a country I have loved and respected for more than two decades.”
“If I am deported, I will leave with my head held high, because I am convinced it will be for doing my work as a journalist and not for committing crimes,” he wrote. “That said, I will leave with a broken heart and my dignity tarnished, because I have been humiliated by both federal and local authorities, and I don’t believe I deserve it. And because my family, the thing I love most in life, will be separated, although all my loved ones know it has all been because of my passion for my work.”
The journalist’s adult children have publicly advocated for his release this week. His son, 21-year-old Oscar Guevara, who suffered a stroke during a 2021 surgery for a brain tumor, shared that “he drives me to my medical appointments, helps me manage my care and, most importantly, lifts me up when I feel like giving in to the pain.”
Katherine Guevara, who is 27, said that “no one should have to face this fear of punishment for their free speech in this country. Still, we are holding on to hope that the government will do the right thing and release him at once. His place is with his family and his community, not behind bars or facing deportation.”
Press freedom advocates have also rallied behind the journalist, with some pointing to the case of late-night host Jimmy Kimmel—who returned to his show on Disney-owned ABC on Tuesday after being yanked off the air by the company last week amid pressure from Federal Communication Commission Chair Brendan Carr, who objected to the comedian’s comments about President Donald Trump and the assassination of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk.
“If you were concerned about Kimmel, here’s another for you,” Zeteo’s Prem Thakker wrote on social media Wednesday.
Free Press senior counsel Nora Benavidez similarly said on Bluesky Tuesday: “Our opposition and upset over Jimmy Kimmel being taken off air have led to Kimmel coming back. Let’s organize that much noise for reporters like Mario Guevara detained (despite being here legally) for filming police and ICE.”
On Monday, Free Press and the Committee to Protect Journalists led a coalition in releasing a statement that says in part, “The government’s prolonged detention of Guevara sends a chilling message to all journalists, citizens, and residents who record law enforcement, report on government activities, and seek to report the truth.”
Other signatories include Amnesty International USA, the Freedom of the Press Foundation, PEN America, Reporters Without Borders, the Society of Professional Journalists, and others. The coalition also launched the website freedomformario.com.
The government’s effort to deport Guevara comes not only amid the Trump administration’s crackdown on dissent but also as masked ICE agents aim to deliver on the president’s promise of mass deportations by rounding up immigrants across the country.
"The composition of the UN still largely reflects the world of 1945," said Alexander Stubb. "As the world has changed drastically, so should the decision-making at the UN."
By Brett Wilkins
Finnish President Alexander Stubb on Wednesday renewed his call for expanding the number of permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, abolishing veto power, and stripping voting rights from states that violate the UN Charter.
“Today, the UN is struggling to fulfill its central promise of delivering peace and stability,” Stubb said during his UN General Assembly address. “Countries have increasingly taken the liberty to break the rules of international law, and to use force to gain other peoples’ territories, and suppress other nations.”
Noting Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, Israel’s obliteration of Gaza, and wars in Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo, Subb asserted: “War is always a failure of humanity. It is a collective failure of our fundamental values.”
“Last year in this very hall, I argued for a reformed Security Council,” he said. “A council where currently underrepresented regions would have a stronger voice through permanent seats at the table.”
“The number of permanent members should be increased at the Security Council,” Subb proposed. “At least, there should be two new seats for Asia, two for Africa and one for Latin America. No single state should have veto power. And, if a member of the Security Council violates the UN Charter, its voting rights should be suspended.”
Under Stubb’s proposal, all five permanent Security Council members would likely lose voting rights: the United States bombs countries and alleged drug traffickers in violation of international law while backing Israel’s genocide in Gaza, Russia is invading and occupying Ukraine, Britain and France back Israel’s genocidal war, and China persecutes people within its own borders.
“Finland strongly supports the UN and wants it to succeed,” Stubb said. “Therefore, we stress the need for true reform to enhance the organization’s credibility, relevance, and efficiency. This will ensure that the UN can act.”
“The UN needs to focus its efforts on its most important goals: ending and preventing wars, protecting human rights, and acting as a catalyst for sustainable development,” he added.
Last week, Finland voted in favor of a UN General Assembly resolution condemning Israel’s occupation of Palestine, which the International Court of Justice last year ruled is an illegal form of apartheid that must end as soon as possible. The vote on last week’s resolution was 124 in favor, 14 against, and 43 abstentions. The ICJ is also weighing a genocide case against Israel filed in December 2023 by South Africa.
“The occupation that began in 1967 must end, and all permanent status issues must be resolved,” Stubb said during his Wednesday speech.
Stubb then turned to the current situation in Gaza, where Israel’s US-backed 720-day genocidal assault and forced starvation has left more than 241,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing and millions more starved, sickened, and forcibly displaced as Israeli forces push to conquer, occupy, and ethnically cleanse the coastal strip.
“Civilians in Gaza are experiencing immense suffering,” he noted. “The deepening humanitarian crisis has reached unbearable levels and represents a failure of the international system. At the same time, Hamas continues to hold the hostages it has taken and many have already lost their lives.”
“An immediate ceasefire is needed in Gaza,” Stubb added. “Humanitarian aid must be granted safe and unhindered access. The hostages must be released.”
“Instead of coming to the table to negotiate lowering costs and addressing the healthcare crisis Republicans created, the White House is staging harmful charades like this that will impact all Americans," said Sen. Rosa DeLauro.
By Julia Conley
The largest federal workers union on Thursday denounced the White House’s threat of mass firings in the event of a government shutdown next week as “political games” and an attempt to distract from a simple fact: The Republican Party needs Democrats to vote for its funding bill, so it must agree to reverse massive healthcare cuts in order to get Democratic support.
The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) released a memo Wednesday night, telling federal agencies to prepare for mass layoffs if the government shuts down on October 1.
The office, headed by Russell Vought—who co-authored the right-wing agenda Project 2025 and helped push for the firing of tens of thousands of other federal employees by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)—said agencies should consider firing workers involved in programs that are not funded by other laws such as the GOP’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) and that are “not consistent with the president’s priorities.”
Even after government funding is eventually reinstated following a potential shutdown, said the OMB, agencies should plan to retain the smallest possible number of employees needed to operate.
“While politicians are playing games, real Americans’ jobs, paychecks, and access to vital services are being threatened by a looming government shutdown. Now, White House OMB Director Russell Vought has announced his intention to pursue another DOGE-like round of illegal mass firings in the event of a shutdown, adding to the chaos,” said Everett Kelley, national president of the American Federation of Government Employees.
An OMB official told Politico that “Social Security, Medicare, veterans benefits, military operations, law enforcement, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Protection, and air traffic control” would not be impacted by the mass firings threatened in the memo.
The threat came just a week before the October 1 deadline to pass legislation to keep the government funded.
Republicans have proposed a continuing resolution to keep the government funded through November 21.
The Democratic Party has proposed a plan to keep the government running through October 31 with legislation that reverses Medicaid cuts included in the OBBBA and extends Affordable Care Act subsidies that set to expire due to provisions in the law.
Neither proposal passed in the Senate last week before lawmakers left for recess. GOP leaders including House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) have refused to meet with Democrats to negotiate on the healthcare cuts, and President Donald Trump this week canceled talks with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY)—baselessly claiming on his Truth Social platform that the Democrats had made demands including “transgender operations for everybody” in a government funding bill.
On Wednesday, Schumer called Vought’s memo “an attempt at intimidation” and said the mass firings threatened by the OMB would not stand up in court.
“Donald Trump has been firing federal workers since day one—not to govern, but to scare,” said Schumer. “This is nothing new and has nothing to do with funding the government. These unnecessary firings will either be overturned in court or the administration will end up hiring the workers back, just like they did as recently as today.”
But since the Republicans are “happy to downsize and to shed federal government employees,” warned Harvard law professor Jack Goldsmith, they have “an asymmetric weapon against congressional shutdown threats.”
Vought’s memo concluded by placing the responsibility for a shutdown on Democrats, asserting that their refusal to support legislation that’s expected to result in healthcare premiums that are 75% higher for millions of families would be to blame for the mass firings.
Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee, said in a statement that the memo displayed “Russ Vought’s trademark chaos.”
“Instead of coming to the table to negotiate lowering costs and addressing the healthcare crisis Republicans created, the White House is staging harmful charades like this that will impact all Americans,” DeLauro said.
Kelley added that “the truth is simple: Republicans cannot fund the government without Democratic votes.”
“That means the only path forward is compromise,” said Kelley. “The president and congressional leaders must sit down and negotiate in good faith to keep the lights on for the American people. Nothing less is acceptable.”
“Federal employees are not bargaining chips,” he added. “They are veterans, caregivers, law enforcement officers, and neighbors who serve their country and fellow Americans every day. They deserve stability and respect, not pink slips and political games.”
"Trying to criminalize the act of calling a government 'authoritarian,'" one journalist said, "is exactly what an authoritarian government would do."
By Stephen Prager
Stephen Miller, the White House’s deputy chief of staff, signaled how far he is willing to go to criminalize dissent against President Donald Trump in a social media post on Wednesday in which he implied that merely describing the president’s actions as “authoritarian” is tantamount to a criminal offense.
Miller’s comments came in response to a clip of California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), who appeared Tuesday on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” on CBS. In the clip, posted to X, the governor is shown describing Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) mass immigration roundups.
“Masked men jumping out of unmarked cars, people disappearing, no due process, no oversight, zero accountability—that’s what’s happening in the United States today,” Newsom said. “People ask, ‘Is ‘authoritarianism’ being hyperbolic?’ Bullshit we’re being hyperbolic.”
Newsom noted that he had just signed the first bill in the nation forbidding ICE agents from wearing masks while carrying out arrests and requiring them to provide identification.
“I mean, if some guy jumped out of an unmarked car in a van and tried to grab me, by definition, you’re going to push back,” Newsom continued. “These are not just authoritarian tendencies; these are authoritarian actions by an authoritarian government.”
Newsom directly called out comments made by Miller, who recently said on Fox News that the Trump administration should use law enforcement to “dismantle” the left following the assassination of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk.
“This should put chills up spines, “Newsom said. “[Miller] called the Democratic Party an ‘extremist organization,’ basically a terrorist organization, saying he’s going after his enemies.”
Newsom also referred to a post made by Trump on Truth Social telling Attorney General Pam Bondi to target certain political enemies for prosecution.
Miller responded to the clip of Newsom, saying: “This language incites violence and terrorism.”
As many critics pointed out, none of Newsom’s statements in the clip promoted or encouraged violence. They were simply criticisms of the Trump administration’s actions, which have included rounding up immigrants without due process and singling out political opponents for persecution.
US law has historically set an extraordinarily high bar for what speech constitutes “incitement” to violence.
As Lee Rowland of the New York Civil Liberties Union explained, “The Supreme Court recognizes, rightfully, that political speech often involves really passionate, sometimes violent rhetoric. And unless and until it creates a specific and immediate roadmap to violence against others, it cannot be criminalized consistent with our First Amendment.”
But Miller’s comments indicate a concerted effort within the Trump administration to widen what protected political speech can be deemed violent.
On the day of Kirk’s assassination, Trump blamed “those on the radical left” for the murder, saying they “have compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis and the world’s worst mass murderers and criminals. He added that “This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we’re seeing in our country today, and it must stop right now.”
Earlier this week, Trump signed an executive order designating “antifa,” short for antifascist, as a “domestic terrorist organization”—although it is not, in fact, an organization at all. Without a concrete group to target, critics have warned that the designation will instead be used to label those who describe Trump as “fascist” or “authoritarian” as threats in and of themselves.
Bondi suggested last week, in comments that were met with derision across the political spectrum, that the administration would use law enforcement to go after “hate speech,” which is generally protected by the First Amendment.
But the characterization of criticism being equal to violence only amplified following Wednesday’s shooting at an ICE facility in Dallas, which killed one detainee and critically injured two others. JD Vance made a similar suggestion that critical rhetoric toward ICE was to blame for the attack.
“When Democrats like Gavin Newsom ... say that these people [ICE] are part of an authoritarian government, when the left-wing media lies about what they’re doing, when they lie about who they’re arresting, when they lie about the actual job of law enforcement... What they’re doing is encouraging crazy people to go and commit violence,” said Vance.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), likewise, blamed the shooting on “every politician who is using rhetoric demonizing ICE and demonizing [Customs and Border Protection].”
Miller’s comments, which directly refer to criticism of the Trump administration as “inciting violence and terrorism,” may be the most direct indication yet of an intent to criminalize First Amendment-protected dissent.
Ironically, these threats have only made criticisms of Trump as an authoritarian grow louder.
“Trying to criminalize the act of calling a government ‘authoritarian,‘” said journalist James Surowiecki, “is exactly what an authoritarian government would do.”
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