Tuesday, August 5, 2025
■ Today's Top News
CHINA HAS LONG BEEN THE 'BOOGEY MAN' THAT RIGHT WINGERS POINT TO AS AN EXCUSE NOT TO REDUCE FOSSIL FUEL CONSUMPTION...BUT CHINA IS PROMOTING CHEAP CLEAN ENERGY, REDUCING POLLUTION & LEADING THE WORLD! THEIR ECONOMY IS PROSPERING!
PER CAPITA CONSUMPTION BY NATIONS REVEALS THAT AMERICANS ARE ENERGY GUZZLERS - AT THEIR OWN EXPENSE!
AMERICANS SHOULD COPY SUCCESS & POCKET THE DIFFERENCE!
WHAT YOU SAVE ON ENERGY CONSUMPTION GOES INTO YOUR POCKET!
TRUMP HAS ELIMINATED ENERGY STAR THAT COMPARES APPLIANCES - YOU DON'T WANT TO SAVE MONEY BUYING THE MOST ENERGY EFFICIENT APPLIANCE?
"At a time when working families are getting crushed by skyrocketing energy costs and the planet is literally burning, sabotaging this program isn't just wrong—it's absolutely insane," said Sen. Bernie Sanders.
By Brett Wilkins
In a move denounced by climate and environmental justice defenders, the Trump administration is planning to claw back $7 billion in federal grants for low- and middle-income households to install rooftop solar panels, people briefed on the matter told The New York Times on Tuesday.
According to the Times, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is drafting termination letters to the 60 state agencies, nonprofit groups, and Indigenous tribes that received the grants under the Solar for All program. The move is part of the Trump administration's efforts to cancel billions of dollars in climate- and environment-oriented grants included in former President Joe Biden's landmark Inflation Reduction Act, signed in 2022.
Solar for All was launched by the Biden administration in 2023 in conjunction with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). The program aimed to "develop long-lasting solar programs that enable low-income and disadvantaged communities to deploy and benefit from distributed residential solar, lowering energy costs for families, creating good-quality jobs in communities that have been left behind, advancing environmental justice, and tackling climate change."
The program was meant to help around 900,000 low- and middle-income households go solar.
The Trump administration froze Solar for All funding in February after President Donald Trump issued a day one executive order mandating a review of all Biden-era climate spending. The funds were reinstated in early March after EPA "worked expeditiously to enable payment accounts," according to the agency.
Responding to the Times report, Sanders said in a statement: "I introduced the Solar for All program to slash electric bills for working families by up to 80%—putting money back in the pockets of ordinary Americans, not fossil fuel billionaires. Now, Donald Trump wants to illegally kill this program to protect the obscene profits of his friends in the oil and gas industry. That is outrageous."
"Solar for All means lower utility bills, many thousands of good-paying jobs, and real action to address the existential threat of climate change," Sanders continued. "At a time when working families are getting crushed by skyrocketing energy costs and the planet is literally burning, sabotaging this program isn't just wrong—it's absolutely insane."
"We will fight back to preserve this enormously important program," he added.
Other Solar for All proponents also slammed the reported EPA move.
"Canceling these investments makes no sense," Adam Kent, green finance director amt the Natural Resources Defense Council, said in a statement reported by The Washington Post. "Every investment will save families at least 20% on their energy bills. Members of Congress need to step up and defend a program that focused on lowering energy bills for hardworking Americans."
"The Solar for All program has been embraced by both red and blue states and has so much promise."
Kyle Wallace, vice president of public policy and government affairs at the solar company PosiGen, said on social media: "This would be a shocking and harmful action that will hurt vulnerable families who are struggling with rising energy costs. The Solar for All program has been embraced by both red and blue states and has so much promise. EPA should not do this."
Solar for All defenders vowed to fight the EPA's move.
"If leaders in the Trump administration move forward with this unlawful attempt to strip critical funding from communities across the United States, we will see them in court," Kym Meyer, litigation director at the nonprofit Southern Environmental Law Center, told the Times.
"This is simply John Cornyn asking for unconstitutional, lawless, and arbitrary federal power," said one legal expert.
By Julia Conley
"Entirely unhinged" was how one constitutional law expert described a letter U.S. Sen. John Cornyn sent to the FBI Tuesday, demanding that the top federal law enforcement agency intervene "to locate or arrest potential lawbreakers who have fled" Texas—meaning the Democratic state legislators who left the state this week to prevent Republicans from advancing a congressional map that would likely net the GOP five more U.S. House seats.
Cornyn (R-Texas) didn't mention the Republican Party's redistricting effort, which has been backed by the Trump administration and is aimed at changing district lines that formed districts with Black and Latino majorities, in his letter to FBI Director Kash Patel. Instead, he claimed the dozens of Democratic state lawmakers who left Texas on Sunday were stopping the state House from addressing proposed disaster relief following deadly floods last month.
Republicans had added the redistricting efforts to the legislative agenda of a special session, making the flood relief a lesser priority—and angering state Democrats who have been in states including Illinois and New York since leaving Sunday, with Democratic Govs. JB Pritzker and Kathy Hochul providing protection against GOP Texas Gov. Greg Abbott's threat to arrest them.
Cornyn claimed in his letter to Patel that the Texas Department of Public Safety may need the FBI's help in locating and arresting the "fleeing lawmakers," and accused the state Democrats of potentially running afoul of anti-bribery laws by accepting the support of Prtizker, Hochul, and other out-of-state officials who have helped them since they left Texas.
"I am concerned that legislators who solicited or accepted funds to aid in their efforts to avoid their legislative duties may be guilty of bribery or other public corruption offenses," wrote Cornyn. "These legislators have committed potential criminal acts in their rush to avoid their constitutional responsibilities and must be fully investigated and held accountable."
Anthony Michael Kreis, a law professor at Georgia State University, said Cornyn's plea for help from Patel amounted to "police state hogwash from a guy who should know better."
"There is no reasonable basis that arresting Texas legislators will prevent the commission of a federal crime," he said. "This is simply John Cornyn asking for unconstitutional, lawless, and arbitrary federal power."
As Common Dreams reported Monday, Texas state House Speaker Dustin Burrows (R-83) signed civil arrest warrants for the more than 50 Democrats who left the state to deny the chamber a quorum, but one expert said the warrants would not be enforceable outside Texas.
Under legislative rules the state House members face $500 daily fines for each day they miss of the session, and they could be formally reprimanded, censured, and expelled if two-thirds of the chamber vote in support of those measures—but legal experts have said Abbott and other Republican leaders in Texas would have a difficult time proving the lawmakers have committed any civil or criminal offenses.
"They have not committed a crime. They are not fugitives," said Kreis. "There's no offense against the United States."
"When governments can unilaterally shut down access to war zones," the petitioners warn, "they undermine the very foundation of democracy: press freedom as a check on power."
By Stephen Prager
"We are at a pivotal moment in our country—the future of our unions, our democracy, and our freedoms is at stake," said labor organizations across the country.
By Jake Johnson
"The administration is setting the stage for election subversion. This power play poses a grave threat to the future of U.S. election infrastructure. It is also, in many respects, illegal."
By Jessica Corbett
"It's a disgraceful law that forces working families to pay the price so the ultra-rich can profit," said Rep. Brendan Boyle.
By Jake Johnson
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office on Monday said the Republican budget package that President Donald Trump signed into law last month will push up interest rates and add at least $4.1 trillion to the deficit over the next decade—largely due to the measure's massive tax cuts for the rich and large corporations.
According to the CBO, growing interest payments on the national debt will account for $718 billion of the estimated $4.1 trillion total deficit increase. Economist Josh Bivens has noted that it would cost the federal government $4.1 trillion to send a $12,000 check to every adult and child in the United States.
If temporary tax provisions of the highly regressive Trump-GOP law are made permanent, the estimated deficit impact would soar to nearly $5 trillion, CBO Director Phillip Swagel—a Republican—wrote in a letter to Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) on Monday.
"Each and every analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office continues to show the same result regardless of how you look at it: this bill explodes the debt by trillions of dollars to fund tax breaks for billionaires," Merkley, the top Democrat on the Senate Budget Committee, said in a statement. "Republicans can't spin the fact that this bill is bad policy that kicks more than 15 million people off of their health insurance, will force millions of kids to go hungry, and explodes the national debt by $5 trillion over the next 10 years—pushing the cost of this bill onto future generations to ensure billionaires can pay less in taxes."
"It is the height of hypocrisy coming from the party that claims to be fiscally responsible," Merkley added.
The deeply unpopular Republican law includes the largest cuts to Medicaid and federal nutrition assistance in U.S. history, alongside major handouts to profitable corporations—including oil and gas firms, pharmaceutical giants, and tech companies.
Zion Research Group estimates that 369 companies in the S&P 500 are set to reap a combined $148 billion in cash tax savings this year as a result of the Trump-GOP law, which extends tax breaks in Republicans' 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Just four companies—Amazon, Meta, Alphabet, and Microsoft—are expected to rake in 38% of the $148 billion total.
The poorest 40% of Americans, meanwhile are set to see their taxes rise next year under the Trump-GOP bill, mostly due to Republican lawmakers' refusal to extend Affordable Care Act tax credits.
Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.), the ranking member of the House Budget Committee, said the new CBO analysis "yet again confirms Republicans' Big Ugly Law is as expensive as it is cruel."
"It explodes the deficit by over $4 trillion to pay for massive tax breaks for billionaires, while ripping healthcare and food assistance away from millions of Americans," said Boyle. "It's a disgraceful law that forces working families to pay the price so the ultra-rich can profit."
