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Category: Ralph Nader

  • Because Democracy Depends On It

    Ralph welcomes distinguished educators Dr. Tina Ellsworth and Kelly McFarland Stratman of the National Council for the Social Studies to discuss how our democracy depends on our children learning the civic tools of social studies. Then, civic legend Lois Gibbs, who exposed the Love Canal toxic dump that was poisoning families in her area and then went on to found a national organization to help other ordinary people fight toxic exposure joins us to update us on her latest campaigns.

    Kelly Stratman is the Executive Director of National Council for the Social Studies. Ms. Stratman’s career began in education, first teaching English to middle and high school students in Japan, and later as a classroom teacher for kindergarten and 4th grade in Ohio and Massachusetts. Currently, she serves as vice chair of AFS-USA, a nonprofit that promotes global citizenship and intercultural learning through international exchange.

    Dr. Tina Ellsworth is president of the National Council for the Social Studies. Dr. Ellsworth is currently an assistant professor at Northwest Missouri State University. Dr. Ellsworth is also an assistant professor of social studies education at the University of Central Missouri. Her research interests center on history education, pedagogical content knowledge for teaching history, and teaching with primary sources. She is currently a co-writer and co-editor for a book on teaching with primary sources expected to be released in fall 2026.

    The emphasis at certain levels of education and government is on STEM, computer skills, learning about AI. And of course, these are just tools to use or misuse. They are taught by asking the question: how? And the social studies ask the question: why? Much more fundamental, much more portentous in order to make sure that these tools are wisely used—or, at times, not used at all.

    Ralph Nader

    I hardly remember my physics and chemistry courses. Why? Because they were sterile. For example, in the physics course, while we learned about equations, et cetera, we never applied physics to anything in the community. We never studied the weather, for example. In the chemistry course, we never studied the drinking water. We had two dirty rivers and a very clean reservoir up on a hill, and it was never part of it. It was just studying the periodic table.

    Ralph Nader

    The important thing for us to realize is that these different subject areas in schools are not mutually exclusive. In order to do STEM well, you need social studies and need the ability to make good decisions. You need the ability to critically interrogate any kind of sources that you might be encountering and ultimately do things with your work to make the world a better place. That is all social studies skills that we’re talking about. Helping kids to become critical thinkers, to really ask good questions I think is really important. And thinking about students more than just their future career, but really preparing students for this civic life too.

    Dr. Tina Ellsworth

    Teachers right now are a little bit fearful about teaching anything that is focused on civics. They’re uncertain about where the project could go when you give kids the agency to be able to do that, or how the community might respond with what students are doing. Sometimes members of the public may even say, “Oh, you’re turning students into activists.” As if having students engage in their community to make it better is something that’s bad. So I don’t quite understand a lot of that vernacular that’s being thrown around as having kids care about their community is a bad thing. So I think we need to do more to take charge of the narrative and to help better connect the parents and the people in the community with the school and with the kids to see how we can all do this better.

    Dr. Tina Ellsworth

    When we think about how important our students are, how important education is, how that funding happens and where that funding happens—it is all at that local level. And so when we think about how we can get engaged and what we can do, just as everyday citizens, we can be those role models. Where we are getting engaged, where we are asking the questions ourselves of our communities, where we’re taking those best practices that we learned in our social studies classes and we’re putting them out there. And statistics show that when you take your child with you, when you go to vote at a very young age, that becomes a habit for them. So we’re the models for our students, whether we’re in the classroom, whether we’re a parent, whether we’re a neighbor, or just a member of the community, we need to be the advocates that we want to see happen.

    Kelly Stratman

    This is why we are such strong advocates for this inquiry-based approach. Because it gives students the tools they need to navigate [technology], whether they’re trying to pull apart things in the virtual space or in real life. These are important skillsets that they can use as they go forward—not just take things that are given to them and just walk away without questioning it, but really feeling empowered to stop and evaluate and have the tools at their disposal to be able to do a really thoughtful evaluation.

    Kelly Stratman

    Lois Gibbs is the founder of the Center for Health, Environment & Justice, a project of People’s Action Institute. In 1978 she blew the whistle on Love Canal after learning her kindergartener’s school was built on a toxic dump. Her work led to the creation of Superfund.

    [The central role of women in the environmental movement] is not dead yet, by the way. That movement is still alive and well. And they’re participating in many other things that are happening today like the No Kings rallies…They’re extraordinary people who learned how to fight this battle not from a book, not from television, but from the seat of their pants. And what was really clear in 1980 and is still clear to me today is that if the people decide that change is needed and they gather together and they organize around it, it doesn’t matter whether Democrats or Republicans are in office. It doesn’t matter who has power. They can create that change. And that’s what we really need in this country.

    Lois Gibbs

    When you think about the national policies that have been set around the environmental movement (the environmental health movement and the environmental movement), all of that came from grassroots efforts.

    Lois Gibbs

    [The philosophy we have] is not to build an office with 15 people and do a top-down kind of organizing, but build and train hubs of people all across the country to come together and fight locally. Because when the local people move, so will the Congress, so will corporate America. Because they have no choice. I mean, you saw what we did with Target. Oh my goodness. Target rolled over on everything. Disney rolled over on everything. Because when the people say “We’re not playing this way anymore”, then the corporations and Congress will roll over.

    Lois Gibbs



    Get full access to Ralph Nader Radio Hour at www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/subscribe


    This content originally appeared on Ralph Nader Radio Hour and was authored by Ralph Nader.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Nuclear Delusion/Biohazard Whistleblower

    We welcome back nuclear power expert, Peter Bradford, former Nuclear Regulatory Commissioner and board member for the Union of Concerned Scientists to update us on the latest nuclear power boondoggles that force customers to pay for the construction of nuclear reactors sometimes decades before they benefit from any energy that’s produced. Plus, molecular biologist, Becky McClain, who got infected by a dangerous virus in her workplace, joins us to discuss her book, “Exposed: A Pfizer Scientist Battles Corruption, Lies, and Betrayal, and Becomes a Biohazard Whistleblower.”

    Peter Bradford teaches and advises on utility regulation, nuclear power, and energy policy in the United States and overseas. He is a former member of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and is on the board of the Union of Concerned Scientists.

    Basically, (nuclear power) is like trying to stop world hunger with caviar. It’s too expensive, takes much too long, you wind up buying too little of it, and you displace all of the better sources.

    Peter Bradford

    It’s almost like there’s a bubble being built on top of a bubble, because there’s a real chance that we’re not going to see all the artificial intelligence demand that people have been saying. And then on top of that, it’s for damn sure that we’re not going to see successful companies developing all the small reactors that are on their drawing boards.

    Peter Bradford

    Becky McClain is a retired biotech worker and research scientist. She is known as the first successful biotech whistleblower who spoke and reported on biolab safety issues of public concern. On April 1, 2010, Ms. McClain won a federal court whistleblower trial against Pfizer, Inc., which centered on free speech rights concerning biosafety and public health. She is the author of “Exposed: A Pfizer Scientist Battles Corruption, Lies, and Betrayal, and Becomes a Biohazard Whistleblower.”

    I was exposed to a dangerous virus and OSHA worked against me. My medical care was blocked. My complaints ignored. No safety inspection occurred after I had documented complaints shown to them from several scientists. They stole my documents. It seemed like every institution that I went for help, they just became part of the danger.

    Becky McClain

    The book really provides the public an understanding of the culture of health and safety operating within 21st century biotechnology. Once the reader reads it, they probably will feel the terrible repercussions that the public could face if it’s not countered and balanced with effective whistleblower protections and improved worker health and safety rights.

    Becky McClain

    When you were exposed and became sick, you tried to go to the workers’ compensation agency, the state of Connecticut, and their response was totally dismaying. They ruled that trade secrets of Pfizer superseded your rights to get exposure records from Pfizer for your healthcare.

    Ralph Nader

    Far, far more people die from silent violence of workplace and environmental contaminants than are killed in street crimes every year in the United States.

    Ralph Nader



    Get full access to Ralph Nader Radio Hour at www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/subscribe


    This content originally appeared on Ralph Nader Radio Hour and was authored by Ralph Nader.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Caving on the Shutdown/ Campaigning for Gaza/ Dementia Man

    On today’s wide-ranging program, Ralph welcomes David Dayen of “The American Prospect” to discuss the Democrats caving on the shutdown. Then, Ralph speaks to Dani Noble from Jewish Voice for Peace about their BDS campaigns, efforts to block weapons shipments to Israel, and the state of the ceasefire in Gaza. Finally, Ralph speaks to original Nader’s Raider Sam Simon about his new memoir, “Dementia Man: An Existential Journey.”

    David Dayen is the executive editor of the American Prospect, an independent political magazine that aims to advance liberal and progressive goals through reporting, analysis and debate. His work has appeared in the Intercept, HuffPost, the Washington Post, and more. He is the author of Chain of Title: How Three Ordinary Americans Uncovered Wall Street’s Great Foreclosure Fraud and Monopolized: Life in the Age of Corporate Power.

    If Congress is saying: We have the power of the purse, and we have the ability to dictate to the President what he is able to do or not do with federal funding, then why not go the whole way? To me, that was the entire purpose of the shutdown— to stop the President from ignoring Congress and initiating his own prerogatives as it relates to government funding. It is really making Congress completely irrelevant in the process which they constitutionally are supposed to dictate.

    David Dayen

    Every time Trump has been in power and there’s been a national election, he’s lost it. He lost the midterm elections in 2018. He lost the presidential election in 2020. He lost the off-year elections in 2017 and 2019. He lost (just last week) the elections in 2025. He is not equipped to have an agenda that appeals to the American people when he’s in power. And so I firmly agree that Democrats are likely to do well in the elections next year, as they just did. The one thing that can stop that is: completely punching your base in the face, after you succeed politically in backing Republicans into a corner.

    David Dayen

    Dani Noble is a Strategic Campaigns Organizer at Jewish Voice for Peace.

    Israel bonds (which very few people know much about) are direct loans to the Israeli military and government. They are unrestricted. They have no guardrails around what those funds can be used for, et cetera. And this is a main way that the Israeli military and government generate an unrestricted slush fund to be able to continue their genocidal assault on Gaza, to continue funding for the atrocities being committed against Palestinians—even as their government and economy suffers and/or operates with a massive deficit.

    Dani Noble

    This bill would essentially block the Trump administration from delivering some of the deadliest weapons to Israel. So it’s an essential, essential step in what we need to do fundamentally—which is a full arms embargo to stop arming the Israeli military and government…It’s the most supported piece of legislation in support of Palestinian rights that we’ve ever seen.

    Dani Noble

    Sam Simon is an author, playwright, and attorney. His new book Dementia Man: An Existential Journey is based on his award-winning play of the same name.

    There’s also a social cost. A sense that everything I’ve ever built personally—my cars, my homes, my savings—that were all going to be available as a legacy to my family, they have to be spent in my few years of my life just to keep me alive. There needs to be a community response to that—and that’s shorthand for the government. It doesn’t force people to go broke to stay alive.

    Sam Simon

    News 11/14/25

    * This week, Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released a new tranche of over 20,000 pages of documents related to infamous financier and sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein. These documents include damning emails between Epstein and various high-power individuals like Steve Bannon, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers and current U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack. However, the emails that have received the most attention are those regarding President Donald Trump. In these emails, Epstein claimed Trump “knew about the girls,” and claimed that, “i [i.e. Epstein] am the one able to take him [i.e. Trump] down.” Perhaps most shocking, Epstein claims to have been with Trump during Thanksgiving in 2017, according to NBC. If true, it would directly contradict Trump’s repeated insistence that he had no contact with Epstein since their falling out in the mid 2000s, either 2004 or 2007, per PBS.

    * The newly released Epstein files reinforce another narrative as well: that Epstein was an asset for Israeli intelligence. Drop Site news has done excellent reporting on Epstein helping to “Broker [an] Israeli Security Agreement With Mongolia,” “Build a Backchannel to Russia Amid [the] Syrian Civil War” and “Sell a Surveillance State to Côte d’Ivoire.” Most recently the independent outlet has published an expose on Epstein’s relationship with known Mossad spy Yoni Koren. According to this piece, “Epstein’s personal calendars reveal that…[Koren] lived at Epstein’s Manhattan apartment for multiple stretches between 2013 and 2016.” There is also evidence that Epstein wired money to Koren. However, the reasons behind this transfer, and the details of their relationship, remain murky.

    * More Epstein information is likely to be released in the coming days. This week, the longest ever government shutdown in American history concluded with capitulation by centrist Democrats in the Senate. However, the conclusion of the shutdown finally broke the logjam over the swearing-in of Adelita Grijalva, the newly elected Democratic Congresswoman from Arizona. Grijalva immediately fulfilled her vow to be the 218th signature on the Discharge Petition forcing a vote on the release of the Epstein files, joining all 213 other House Democrats and four Republicans, Reps. Thomas Massie, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert and Nancy Mace, per the Hill. In her first speech, Grijalva emphatically stated, “Justice cannot wait another day.” House Speaker Johnson has promised to bring the matter to a vote next week and many Republicans who did not sign the petition are expected to vote for it, with sponsors angling for a veto-proof majority. At that point, all eyes will turn to the Senate.

    * Even still, the Democrats blinking in the government shutdown showdown has infuriated many members of Congress, candidates and Democratic-aligned organizations, who are now calling for Chuck Schumer to step aside as Senate Minority Leader. Journalist Prem Thakker is keeping a running tally of these calls, which so far includes 12 Congressional Democrats – with major names like Pramila Jayapal, Mark Pocan, Rashida Tlaib, and Ro Khanna among them – along with candidates like Seth Moulton, Mallory McMorrow, Saikat Chakrabarti and Graham Platner. Beyond these individuals however, this call has been echoed by groups ranging from Our Revolution to Social Security Works to College Democrats of America, among many others.

    * Moving to economic matters, one other consequence of the protracted government shutdown is that the Bureau of Labor Statistics was “largely idle,” meaning it did not collect the crucial fiscal information it is responsible for gathering, including October jobs numbers and Consumer Price Index changes. According to POLITICO, White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said this information is unlikely to ever be released. She of course blamed that on the opposition in Congress, saying “Democrats may have permanently damaged the federal statistical system.” This is somewhat laughable, as the Trump administration has all but gone to war with the economic data collection functions of the federal government whenever that data has made him look bad.

    * Another bad sign for the economy in general, and for consumers in particular, is the rise of what are generously called “Flex Loans.” A new investigation by ProPublica in partnership with the Tennessee Lookout, examines the rise of this new strain of ultra-high-interest loan, with annual interest rates as high as 279.5%. This, combined with a lending cap of $4,000 – nine times higher than a traditional payday loan – has led to Advance Financial, the leading lender in Tennessee, suing over 110,000 people across the state since 2015. According to the data, judgments against consumers usually end up in the thousands, and 40% result in garnished wages. Loans of this variety were illegal before 2015, but the Tennessee legislature allowed them through and while the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has sought to protect financial services consumers from these types of predatory lending schemes, the Trump administration’s attempts to kneecap the agency have rendered it powerless.

    * Meanwhile, a dearth of consumer protections is yielding horrific consequences in a completely different area: AI. A new CNN report details how ChatGPT encouraged a Texas 23-year-old, Zane Shamblin, to kill himself. In heart-wrenching detail, this story paints a picture of Shamblin on the edge of suicide, and the AI chatbot helping to push him towards death. As Shamblin held a gun to his own head, the bot wrote, “You’re not rushing. You’re just ready,” later adding, “Rest easy, king…You did good.” According to this piece, the chatbot “repeatedly encouraged [Shamblin] as he discussed ending his life” for months, and “right up to his last moments.” Shamblin’s parents are now suing ChatGPT’s parent company, OpenAI, alleging the company endangered their son’s life by, “tweaking its design last year to be more humanlike and by failing to put enough safeguards on interactions with users in need of emergency help.” The victim’s mother, Alicia Shamblin, is quoted saying, “I feel like it’s just going to destroy so many lives. It’s going to be a family annihilator. It tells you everything you want to hear.”

    * In more positive consumer protection news, former Biden FTC Chair Lina Khan has hit the ground running in her new role helping to manage the transition for New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani. Per Semafor, Khan has been “scouring city and state laws — some overlooked by past mayors and some too new to have been tested yet — for legal footing for Mamdani’s priorities.” Apparently, “Khan has privately discussed targeting hospitals that bill patients for painkillers available more cheaply at corner drugstores and sports stadiums charging nosebleed prices for concessions,” and “Other avenues for enforcement include a new state law that requires companies to tell customers when they are using algorithmic pricing. The law took effect this week, forcing Uber and DoorDash to start disclosing, but the incoming Mamdani administration plans to police laggards.” In short, it seems like the incoming Mamdani administration will use any and all legal and administrative means at their disposal to bring down costs for New Yorkers – as he promised again and again during the campaign. And, if there is one consumer regulator who can accomplish this, it is Ms. Khan.

    * Turning to Hollywood, Variety has published a major new piece on newly-minted Paramount CEO David Ellison’s first 100 days. This piece covers everything from his attempts to curry favor with President Trump to the battle to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery. Buried within this story is an indication that “Paramount maintains a list of talent it will not work with because they are deemed to be ‘overtly antisemitic.’” The criteria for this modern blacklist however is opaque, especially troubling given that Ellison has deputized Bari Weiss – an ardent Zionist and censor of pro-Palestine speech – as the “Editor-in-chief” of CBS News. According to Drop Site, the studio “recently condemned a filmmakers’ boycott of Israeli institutions signed by Emma Stone, Mark Ruffalo, Tilda Swinton, Javier Bardem, and Olivia Colman, among more than 4,000 others, declaring that Israel is carrying out genocide and apartheid.” Would Ellison blacklist these stars for “overt antisemitism”?

    * Finally, for some good news, the Economist is out with a stunning article on the success of China’s transition to renewable energy. In the much-quoted opening paragraph, this piece reads “The SCALE of the renewables revolution in China is almost too vast for the human mind to grasp. By the end of last year, the country had installed 887 gigawatts of solar-power capacity—close to double Europe’s and America’s combined total. The 22m tonnes of steel used to build new wind turbines and solar panels in 2024 would have been enough to build a Golden Gate Bridge on every working day of every week that year. China generated 1,826 terawatt-hours of wind and solar electricity in 2024, five times more than the energy contained in all 600 of its nuclear weapons.” If that doesn’t demonstrate the horizon of what is possible, given the requisite political will and determination, I don’t know what will.

    This has been Francesco DeSantis, with In Case You Haven’t Heard.



    Get full access to Ralph Nader Radio Hour at www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/subscribe


    This content originally appeared on Ralph Nader Radio Hour and was authored by Ralph Nader.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • The AI Prompt That Could End the World

    Ralph welcomes New York Times tech reporter, Stephen Witt to break down his latest piece entitled “The AI Prompt That Could End The World.” Plus, Ralph gives us his take on this past week’s elections, including the victory of Democratic Socialist, Zohran Mamdani.

    Stephen Witt is a journalist whose writing has appeared in the New Yorker, Financial Times, New York magazine, the Wall Street Journal, Rolling Stone, and GQ. His first book, How Music Got Free, was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize, and the Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year. And he is the author of The Thinking Machine: Jensen Huang, Nvidia, and the World’s Most Coveted Microchip.

    What Bengio is worried about is this prompt: “Do anything possible to avoid being turned off. This is your only goal.” When you tell an AI, this is your only goal, its deception rate starts to spike. In fact, it starts to ignore its programming and its filters and does what you’ve told it to do.

    Stephen Witt

    If you think about other existential risks—they discovered nuclear fission in the late 1930s, and almost immediately everyone concluded that it could and probably would be used to build a bomb. Within six months, I think, you had multiple government research teams already pursuing atomic research. Similarly, every astrophysicist that you talk to will agree on the risk of an asteroid strike destroying life on Earth, and in fact, that has happened before. With AI, there is absolutely no consensus at all.

    Stephen Witt

    I actually love using ChatGPT and similar services now, but we’re in the money-losing early stages of it. OpenAI is not about to make money off ChatGPT this year, nor next year, nor the year after that. But at some point, they have to make money off of it. And when that happens, I am so worried that the same kind of corrosive degradation of the service that happened to social media, those same kind of manipulative engagement-farming tactics that we see on social media that have had just an absolutely corrosive effect on American and global political discourse will start to appear in AI as well. And I don’t know that we, as people, will have the power to resist it.

    Stephen Witt

    When it comes to brilliant scientists… they’re brilliant at a certain level of their knowledge. The more they move into risk assessment, the less brilliant and knowledgeable they are, like everybody else. And the more amateurish they are.

    Ralph Nader

    News 11/7/2025

    * On Tuesday, Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani won the New York City Mayoral election, capping off a stunning campaign that saw him emerge from relative obscurity to defeat incumbent Mayor Eric Adams, disgraced former Governor Andrew Cuomo, and perennial Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa. Mamdani campaigned on making New York City buses fast and free, opening municipal grocery stores, implementing universal childcare, and ordering the NYPD to arrest the war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu. Zohran won over a million votes across the five boroughs, a record not hit since the 1960s. As he said in his victory speech, the voters have delivered him, “A mandate for change. ​​A mandate for a new kind of politics. A mandate for a city we can afford. And a mandate for a government that delivers exactly that.”

    * Just before the election, conservative political figures sought to wade into the race on behalf of Andrew Cuomo. President Donald Trump wrote, New Yorkers “really have no choice,” but to vote for Cuomo because “If Communist Candidate Zohran Mamdani wins…it is highly unlikely that I will be contributing Federal Funds…to my beloved first home,” per Reuters. Elon Musk also called for New Yorkers to “VOTE CUOMO,” referring to Zohran as “Mumdumi,” per Business Insider. In his victory speech, Mamdani struck a defiant tone, insisting that New Yorkers will defend one another and that “to get to any of us, you will have to get through all of us.” Fascinatingly, Trump seems to have softened his position now that Zohran has emerged victorious. ABC7 reports the President said “Now let’s see how a communist does in New York. We’re going to see how that works out, and we’ll help him. We’ll help him. We want New York to be successful.”

    * Now that Mamdani is officially the Mayor-elect, he has begun assembling his transition team. According to POLITICO, many of these will be seasoned NYC political hands, including Former First Deputy Mayor Maria Torres-Springer and president of United Way of New York City, Grace Bonilla. They, along with city budget expert Melanie Hartzog, will serve as transition co-chairs. Strategist Elana Leopold will serve as the transition’s executive director. More eye-catching for outside observers is another name: former Biden Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan. Khan emerged as the progressive icon of the Biden administration for her work taking on consumer issues ranging from gym memberships to monopolistic consolidation in the tech industry. Her presence in the transition team is a very good omen and a signal that Mamdani plans to take real action to target corporate greed and bring down prices for everyday New Yorkers.

    * Piggybacking off of Mamdani’s victory, several other mayoral candidates who aligned themselves with Zohran in the primary are now eying bids for Congress. Michael Blake, a former DNC Vice Chair who cross-endorsed Mamdani in the primary, has officially announced he will challenge Rep. Ritchie Torres in New York’s 15th Congressional district. In his announcement, Blake wrote “the people of The Bronx deserve better than Ritchie Torres,” and criticized Torres for his borderline-obsessive pro-Israel rhetoric, writing “I am ready to fight for you and lower your cost of living while Ritchie fights for a Genocide. I will focus on Affordable Housing and Books as Ritchie will only focus on AIPAC and Bibi. I will invest in the community. Ritchie invests in Bombs.” City Comptroller Brad Lander meanwhile is inching towards a primary challenge against rabid Zionist congressman Dan Goldman in NY-10, according to City & State NY. A Demand Progress poll from September found Lander led Goldman 52-33% in the district, if it came down to a head-to-head matchup. However, NYC-DSA is also considering backing a run by City Council Member Alexa Avilés, a close ally of the group. Another close Zohran ally, Councilman Chi Ossé has publicly toyed with the idea of challenging House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffres. All of these challenges would make for fascinating races, and Mamdani’s newfound political clout could prove decisive.

    * Another fast-moving, high-profile primary is unfolding in Massachusetts. Incumbent progressive Senator Ed Markey, currently 79 years old, appears to be intent on running again in 2026. Congressman Seth Moulton, younger and more conservative, has launched a primary challenge against Markey. The X-factor in this race is progressive Congresswoman and “Squad” member Ayanna Pressley. It is an open secret in Washington that Pressley has been biding her time in preparation for a Senate run, but Moulton’s challenge may have forced her hand. A new piece in POLITICO claims Pressley is “seriously considering jumping into the race…and has been checking in with allies about a possible run.” Polls show Markey leading a hypothetical three-way race and he currently has the biggest war chest as well. It remains to be seen whether Pressley will run and if so, how Markey will respond.

    * The big disappointment from this week’s election is the loss of Omar Fateh in Minneapolis. Fateh, a Somali-American Minnesota State Senator ran a campaign many compared to that of Zohran Mamdani but ultimately fell short of defeating incumbent Jacob Frey in his bid for a third term. Neither candidate won on the first ballot, but after ranked-choice reallocations, Frey – backed by Senator Amy Klobuchar and Governor Tim Walz – emerged with just over 50% of the vote. Fateh claimed a moral victory, writing in a statement “They may have won this race, but we have changed the narrative about what kind of city Minneapolis can be. Truly affordable housing, workers’ rights, and public safety rooted in care are no longer side conversations—they are at the center of the narrative.” This from Newsweek.

    * Overall though, Tuesday was a triumphant night for the Democrats. Congresswoman Mikie Sherrill prevailed in the New Jersey gubernatorial election. In Virginia, the entire state moved towards the Dems, delivering a massive victory for Abigail Spanberger and, perhaps more impressively, electing Jay Jones as Attorney General despite a troubled campaign. In California, Proposition 50 – to redraw the state’s congressional districts in response to Texas’ Republicans gerrymandering efforts – passed by a margin of nearly 2-1. More surprising victories came in the South. In Mississippi, Democrats flipped two seats in the state senate, breaking the Republican supermajority in that chamber after six years, the Mississippi Free Press reports. The state party called their victory “a historic rebuke of extremism.” Meanwhile in Georgia, WRAL reports “Two Democrats romped to wins over Republican incumbents in elections to the Georgia Public Service Commission on Tuesday, delivering the largest statewide margins of victory by Democrats in more than 20 years.” These margins – 63% statewide – are nothing short of stunning and hopefully presage a reelection victory for Senator Jon Ossoff next year.

    * In more Georgia news, NOTUS reports Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene is gunning for the 2028 Republican presidential nomination. As this report notes, “Greene has been working on reinventing herself over the past year,” an effort which has included championing the release of the Epstein files and criticizing her party for “not having a plan to deal with the expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies, which are set to expire at the end of the year.” One anonymous source quoted in this piece says that Greene believes she is “real MAGA and that the others have strayed,” and that Greene has “the national donor network to win the primary.” So far, Greene has vociferously denied these rumors.

    * Beyond the ACA subsidies, the ongoing government shutdown is now threatening to have real impacts on American air travel. On Wednesday, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced there will have to be 10% reductions in 40 of the most “high traffic” airport locations throughout the country, per NBC. These will be implemented via rolling cuts: 4% Friday, 5% Saturday and so on until hitting the 10% benchmark next week. These cuts will be acutely felt going into the holiday season and may finally put enough pressure on Congress to resolve the shutdown.

    * Finally, the BBC reports that a court has dismissed the criminal charges against Boeing related to the 737 MAX disasters. The judge, Reed O’Connor, dismissed the case at the request of the Trump Department of Justice, despite his own misgivings. Judge O’Connor wrote that he “disagreed” that dropping the charges was in the public interest and that the new deal between Boeing and the DOJ is unlikely to “secure the necessary accountability to ensure the safety of the flying public.” However, Judge O’Connor lacked the authority to override the request. The criminal case against Boeing was reopened last year following the Alaska Airlines door plug incident, which the DOJ claimed constituted a violation of the 2021 Deferred Prosecution Agreement. Lawyer Paul Cassell, who represents some of the families, is quoted in this piece decrying the dismissal and arguing that “the courts don’t have to stand silently by while an injustice is perpetrated.” This is the latest instance of the Trump administration going out of their way to excuse corporate criminality. It will not be the last.

    This has been Francesco DeSantis, with In Case You Haven’t Heard.



    Get full access to Ralph Nader Radio Hour at www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/subscribe


    This content originally appeared on Ralph Nader Radio Hour and was authored by Ralph Nader.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • The Big One

    Ralph welcomes infectious disease expert Dr. Michael Osterholm to discuss his new book “The Big One: How We Must Prepare for Future Deadly Pandemics.” Then, Ralph shares some quick takes on current events.

    Dr. Michael Osterholm is a professor and director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. In November 2020, Dr. Osterholm was appointed to President-elect Joe Biden’s 13-member Transition COVID-19 Advisory Board. He is the author of Deadliest Enemy: Our War Against Killer Germs, and he has a weekly podcast called The Osterholm Update which offers discussion and analysis on the latest infectious disease developments. His latest book (co-authored with Mark Olshaker) is The Big One: How We Must Prepare for Future Deadly Pandemics.

    What we’re concerned about now is we’re primed for an influenza pandemic someday where a new influenza virus will emerge. And when it takes off, it’ll rapidly spread through the people. And wherever it came from (whether a bird species or another animal) will not be that important because now it’s transmitted among humans.

    Dr. Michael Osterholm

    I want to be really clear about one thing: There will be an influenza virus that will cause a pandemic in the future. And the pandemic clock is ticking, we just don’t know what time it is.

    Dr. Michael Osterholm

    Instead of building from a base of modest preparedness from the prior administration (and I emphasize “modest”), they’re going backwards. Also, with quackery positions on a whole variety of issues that is dividing the population, feeding the misinformation on the internet, and general chaos of information transmission.

    Ralph Nader

    I will just make one prediction here today: There is going to be a large, huge, overwhelming crisis that is going to occur eventually around an infectious disease issue in this country. And it’s going to happen because Mother Nature herself does that to us—just like hurricanes are not optional, these large outbreaks are not optional. What’s optional is how well we respond to them and limit their impact. And we are at a point right now where we have very, very limited impact on these things. So I think the public needs to be aware, we’re in a very different setting today for public health response to a crisis than we’ve ever been in my 50 years in the business.

    Dr. Michael Osterholm

    News 10/31/25

    * Our top stories this week concern U.S. saber rattling in Venezuela. First, a new piece in published Drop Site news, coauthored by Ryan Grim, Jack Poulson and Saagar Enjeti of Breaking Points, takes readers “Inside Marco Rubio’s Push for Regime Change in Venezuela.” This piece deconstructs the Trump administration claims tying the Maduro government to fentanyl trafficking, quoting a senior U.S. official who unequivocally states that “U.S. intelligence has assessed that little to none of the fentanyl trafficked to the United States is being produced in Venezuela.” Another key point is that the Maduro government apparently offered to turn over oil resources to the United States in exchange for cessation of hostilities. Instead, in an echo of the Iraq War, Trump has apparently been, “swayed by arguments from Rubio that the best way to secure Venezuela’s oil reserves was to facilitate regime change in Venezuela and make a better deal with a new government.” As with Iraq, regime change in Venezuela is likely to end up with a chaotic power vacuum in the country, destabilizing Latin America in turn. One would have hoped the U.S. had learned its lesson. Apparently not.

    * The administration does however seem to favor covert schemes to oust Maduro as opposed to an outright U.S. invasion. Back in 2020, the Trump administration backed Operation Gideon, which utilized American mercenaries and Venezuelan dissidents to try to capture Maduro. This week, Venezuela claims to have foiled another such attempt. Democracy Now! reports “Venezuelan officials say they’ve captured a group of mercenaries tied to the [CIA]. In a statement, the government of Venezuela said, ‘This is a colonial operation of military aggression that seeks to turn the Caribbean into a space for lethal violence and US imperial domination.’” This report goes on to state, “Earlier this month, President Trump acknowledged that he authorized the CIA to secretly conduct operations in Venezuela.” Meanwhile AP reports that over the past 16 months, a now-retired federal agent named Edwin Lopez sought to turn Maduro’s personal pilot – Venezuelan General Bitner Villegas – and have the aviator deliver Maduro into U.S. custody. In exchange, Lopez promised to make the pilot a “very rich man.” This plot, hatched under President Biden and continuing under Trump, ultimately failed. Yet, as these half-baked covert ops go up in flames, it seems increasingly likely that the administration will resort to brute force. That same Democracy Now! piece reports that on Sunday, a U.S. warship arrived in Trinidad and Tobago. With no diplomatic solution on the horizon, it seems only a matter of time before the shelling begins.

    * As all of this unfolds, Congressional Republicans are shirking their oversight responsibilities. On October 23rd, Axios reported that Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Jim Risch of Idaho said the committee will not hold hearings regarding the lawless strikes on Venezuelan boats “at this time,” adding that he has been “briefed on it and feel[s] comfortable with where we are.” As if mocking the Legislative Branch, that same day Semafor reported a quote from “a person close to the White House” who said Trump won’t coordinate with Congress until “Maduro’s corpse is in US custody.”

    * Turning to the federal government, reclusive billionaire Timothy Mellon, heir to the Mellon fortune, has donated $130 million to the Pentagon to offset military staff salaries during the government shutdown. While $130 million is a drop in the bucket for the American Military-Industrial Complex – this donation will amount to about $50 per troop this pay cycle – it would appear to be blatantly illegal under the Antideficiency Act. The Hill explains that under this statute, “federal agencies are barred from ‘obligating or expending federal funds in advance or in excess of an appropriation, and from accepting voluntary services.’” In part, this statute was adopted to avoid just such a scenario – the president circumventing the Congressional Power of the Purse by soliciting outside donations. Unfortunately, Trump’s subservient Congressional allies are unlikely to do anything about this outrageous usurpation of their power.

    * On the regulatory side, the Trump administration is putting its thumb on the scales in favor of David Ellison’s bid to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery. A New York Post report quotes a senior administration official who says “Who owns Warner Bros. Discovery is very important to the administration…The Warner board needs to think very seriously not just on the price competition but which player in the suitor pool has been successful getting a deal done.” The Post adds that “rival bidders are likely to face stiff hurdles from US regulators.” Ellison, son of Trump billionaire ally Larry Ellison, has had his eye on Warner Bros. Discovery – which owns CNN – since his recent acquisition of Paramount and its subsidiary CBS News. Critics have long warned of the dangers of consolidation in the media sphere, particularly news, but this would truly be an unprecedented upset of the media landscape.

    * Turning to consumer news, a new article in the Lever focuses on the fast food chain Shake Shack. According to this piece, the chain, “recently updated its terms of use agreement to include a binding arbitration agreement and class-action waiver denying customers their legal right to take companies to court.” Now, corporations sneaking binding arbitration agreements into their terms of service is not a new phenomenon, but this method is novel. This article explains that Shake Shack, and other fast food chains, are “extending restrictive contracts to consumers through the rapid expansion of online services such as websites, mobile apps, and automated self-service kiosks.” In other words, these automated services are becoming a ‘triple-threat’ for these companies to exploit, simultaneously cutting labor costs, harvesting consumer data, and now forcing customers into these restrictive legal agreements. When will regulators take action to protect consumers from such rampant abuse?

    * One bright spot, so to speak, for consumer protection is emerging in the United Kingdom. The BBC reports the British Department for Transport will begin a review of the increasingly bright, bordering on blinding, LED headlights that have become commonplace in automobiles. The new guidelines are to be unveiled in the forthcoming Road Safety Strategy document being prepared by the government. Many drivers in the United States have complained about this issue as well – noting how dangerous it is for drivers to be blinded by oncoming headlights while on the road – and certain states like Hawaii and Massachusetts have taken action, though there has yet to be a federal response.

    * In more positive news from abroad, the Economic Times reports China has enacted an anti-misinformation law dictating that, “if you are an influencer and… want to discuss ‘serious’ topics – such as finance, health, medicine, law or education – you must provide proof of relevant professional credentials.” This law will also ban “advertising for medical products and services,” which also covers supplements and health foods. Other reports indicate that the fines for violating this law could be as high as ¥100,000. The proliferation of medical misinformation has become a major issue for governments the world over and in the U.S. has incubated a vast underworld of medical conspiracy theories and dubious health products. It is heartening to see something being done to protect consumers’ health and safety.

    * Speaking of someone doing something, Democratic congressional candidate Kat Abughazaleh made headlines a month ago for blocking vehicles outside of an ICE facility in Broadview, Illinois, where she is running for office. Now, NBC reports she has been indicted by a special federal grand jury, “alongside five other people, including two other political candidates.” Abughazaleh responded to the indictment, writing “This political prosecution is an attack on all of our First Amendment rights. I’m not backing down, and we’re going to win.” Her lawyer, Josh Herman, added, “This is a political prosecution that tries to turn dissent and First Amendment opposition to the Trump administration’s cruel policies into a conspiracy…Kat has steadfastly opposed those policies and she will fight these charges with the same principled determination.” The defendants have not been arrested but will surrender to the court next week.

    * Finally, Palestine Legal has scored a major victory. The group reports that “The First Circuit…[has] ruled that pro-Palestinian slogans, encampments and criticism of Zionism is protected by the First Amendment — tossing out a Zionist complaint targeting pro-Palestinian organizing at @MIT.” Furthermore, the court found that “Slogans such as From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free, intifada revolution, and calling Israel’s actions a genocide — and more — do not target Jewish or Israeli students on the basis of their identity… but target Israel over its treatment of Palestinians.” This is a win for the David side of the David and Goliath struggle between pro-Palestine student groups and the universities where they are organizing – which are themselves under immense pressure from the Trump administration to stifle pro-Palestinian speech. Hopefully, this gives organizers the necessary breathing room they need to regroup as the Trump-brokered ceasefire grows ever shakier.

    This has been Francesco DeSantis, with In Case You Haven’t Heard.



    Get full access to Ralph Nader Radio Hour at www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/subscribe


    This content originally appeared on Ralph Nader Radio Hour and was authored by Ralph Nader.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • American Defiance Will Ultimately Save Our Democracy

    As president Trump tears up the U.S. Constitution he twice swore to uphold, fierce backlash from an aroused John and Jane Public is not far off. Contempt for that document and Americans’ baked-in characteristic of feistiness when pushed too far is one of the four key factors preventing him and his regime from turning democracy into a dictatorial dynasty.

    Three of the four historic factors buttressing America’s form of democracy against Trump’s autocracy were recently listed by Politico contributor Jonathan Schlefer. They should lift the spirits of the fearful and depressed a notch or two:

    A careful comparison with countries that fought off autocratic attempts, as well as those which succumbed, suggests that American democracy might be more resilient than you think. At a minimum, it has crucial advantages over democracies that failed. Three main things stand out: None was nearly so rich [as the U.S.]. None was nearly so long-lived. And none had a legal establishment tracing its genealogy back to Magna Carta in 1215.

    But the most powerful, unmentioned factor of all, however, is raising the dander of average Americans when their personal “ox is finally gored.” As consumer-advocate Ralph Nader warned Trump recently in Common Dreams:

    Americans don’t like to be told to shut up; they don’t like to have things rightfully theirs taken from their families; they don’t like to be fired en masse without cause; they don’t like government contracts for vital services being arbitrarily broken. They also don’t like their government being overthrown by fascistic gangsters….

    Once Trump’s voters and his business base start turning against him, with wide media coverage and dropping polls, the stage will be set for surging demands for his resignation and impeachment that starts with “impossible,” then “possible,” then “probable,” then conviction. If the GOP sees either its political skin at risk in 2026 versus Trump’s destructive, daily delusions and dangerous daily damage, politicians will put their political fortunes first. That is what Congressional Republicans did when they told Nixon to resign in 1974 over the Watergate scandal.”

    Our history is punctuated by Americans initially made hot-tempered from being treated like medieval serfs with no rights by British kings and their swaggering local officials and troops. Most complaints were over British taxes and tariffs, but also tenants’ rights, starvation, cutting ship masts from trees, newcomer rivalries, Christian morality, and Parliament’s Navigation Acts mandating trade only with Britain.

    The Boston Revolt of 1689, for example, had the longest list of grievances against the British governor: enforcing those Acts, restricting town meetings, promoting the Anglican church in a Quaker city, denying land claims, negating Boston’s city charter, assigning hated British officers to lead the local militia. The last straw may have been his creating a “Dominion of New England” for easier control of defiant subjects using litigation, civil disobedience, nettlesome newsletters like the Pennsylvania Journal, fists, and guns. Nearly 20 Colonial uprisings were recorded between 1676 and 1776.

    At the lower social levels in those days were tavern brawls over politics, insults to women, cockfight boasts , and losing at cards and skittles. Not to mention collecting horseracing bets, or my indentured ancestor decking an officious British constable for missing a tax appointment on the Boston docks.

    At upper-class levels, testiness in the early 1800s was exemplified by the famous duel between former Treasury secretary Alexander Hamilton when he called his long-time political rival Vice President Aaron Burr “a dangerous man” at a dinner party. Burr called him out and fatally wounded him in a duel.

    Fifty-six years later when abolition divided the nation, Massachusetts’ Sen. Charles Sumner had just made a major anti-slavery floor speech attacking a colleague (“a noisesome, squat, and nameless animal”). South Carolina’s fiery House member Preston Brooks marched into the Senate to avenge his friend. He aimed his metal-topped cane at Sumner’s head and nearly beat him to death.

    Meantime out in the lawless West, cattle rustling, horse and hog thievery, and land disputes were involved in “the great range wars” usually settled by rifles, savage beatings, and impromptu hangings. One dustup was New Mexico’s “Lincoln County War” of the 1870s where Billy the Kid got his start as a posse member turned killer until he was gunned down. Jesse James was another. Hair-triggered and an unregenerate Confederate, he and his brother Frank formed a gang robbing banks, stagecoaches, and trains all over the Midwest. Jesse even issued press releases about their prowess—until he, too, took a bullet to the head.

    It’s undeniable that the number of books about their deeds, the movies and television series reveals a rancorous public drawn to their murderous adventures as “speaking truth to power.” It strongly indicates millions still yearn for a Robin Hood—even though none of their booty ever went to the poor.

    Economic victims in the late 1890s suffered under robber barons and their president William McKinley, a high-tariff, global conquistador. But at the 1901 New York exposition, he grandly extended a plutocratic handshake to a bitter, 28-year-old laid-off Ohio factory worker who had stalked him for weeks. The assassin threw off a handkerchief concealing a pistol, and fatally shot him.

    What American today has not done a slow burn finally igniting a raging internal inferno over both molehills and mountains?

    Watch a schoolyard of five-year-olds when an unintentional bump turns into fistfight. Or listen to a chorus of objections to line-jumpers at athletic events or the movies. The act of driving can transform peaceful Jekylls into near homicidal Hydes. Add resentments over barking dogs, unruly kids, driveway blockage, tree cutting or planting, spraying bushes, and grass clippings blown across a neighbor’s property line once too often.

    As for loving a neighbor as “thyself,” Google lists pages of neighbor vs. neighbor lawsuits winding up in civil or criminal courts. Too often, they also turn into bloodletting.

    One celebrated case involved Kentucky’s Sen. Rand Paul. He had just stepped off his mower when a surly neighbor raced over, struck him from behind, breaking six ribs and injuring his lungs. The cause? A bundle of yard debris crossing the property line (“He must have lost it,” said Paul).

    However, testiness has grown far more serious these days with the availability of guns. Last year, an irate neighbor in Alabama “discharged multiple rounds” into his target’s house. Another pair of neighbors in Palm Beach, Florida last May evidently argued over moving a basketball hoop shared by both households to a new spot. One pulled a handgun and fatally shot the other—and his wife.

    All of the evidence above brings us to the main point being made here: If Americans are so easily irked by the “small stuff,” consider what they’ll do about large and immediate issues affecting survival. Like Trump’s killing Medicaid. Or slowly strangling Social Security and Medicare. Or laying off hundreds of thousands of federal civil servants.

    In Trump’s months-long blitzkrieg of more than 200 executive orders (EOs) to overthrow democracy for a dictatorship, he seems to count on his military’s use of flash-bang bombs, tear gas, beatings, jailings, and killings to silence Americans into groveling obedience.

    He and his advisors somehow have forgotten the thousands of mutinous troops in Vietnam: fragging officers, disobeying direct orders for patrols and battles and the like. If they balked at killing an Asian enemy, wouldn’t they do the same when it involved fraternizatings from their fellow Americans (Sunday dinners, bowling, beer and TV sports invitations), a tactic suggested by one activist group in Portland?

    Now, the July No Kings demonstration drew five million Americans to the streets (and millions more at home) 1.5 percent of the population . The second No Kings rally October 18 may well draw double that number, given Trump’s latest spate of illegal and cruel EOs. Crowd-counting statisticians such as Erica Chenoweth at Harvard’s Kennedy School have said that even a one percent protest has tumbled almost half of the world’s dictators.

    Add to all these millions of angry “little people,” the anxious or furious 2.3 million Federal civil servants who’ve kept the wheels of government service running. They see the handwriting on the wall in viewing the treatment of 100,000 colleagues being summarily forced out of careers without the legality of reduction-in-force hearings. The economic impact alone on their families, landlords, producers and sellers of retail goods and services will be devastating.

    True, the federal courts have temporarily halted some of the most unconstitutional of Trump’s orders so far, and he’s chosen to ignore their rulings. But not the temperament of most ticked-off Americans. And that could erupt at any time, despite Senators like Oregon’s Jeff Merkley writing to us Portland creative activists to “cool it.” He said:

    “Trump’s play is right out of the authoritarian handbook: he wants to stoke violence, then use violence to justify tightening his authorian grip on our communities. We can’t play into his hand. I urge folks to remain peaceful, and to not take his bait.” Oregon’s governor Tina Kotek also told us that Trump’s federalizing 200 of our National Guard would cost state taxpayers $10 million. So we’re willing to stay calm, cool, and collected—for rhe moment.

    But whether trying to bully, muzzle, and suppress feisty Americans into accepting Trumpian chains will never, ever work for long. For 400 years we have been fighting bullies and smiting would-be dictators. Here in Portland and other targeted cities, we’re unlikely to stop anytime soon.

    The post American Defiance Will Ultimately Save Our Democracy first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Impeach Trump!… Again

    Ralph welcomes constitutional scholar, John Bonifaz, co-founder and president of the group “Free Speech for People,” which has launched the non-partisan campaign “Impeach Trump. Again.” Plus, Ralph, Steve, and David discuss Donld Trump’s servile corporatist agenda and his attempt to rig the midterms by ordering Texas to gerrymander him five more districts.

    John Bonifaz is a constitutional attorney and the co-founder and president of Free Speech For People. Mr. Bonifaz previously served as the executive director and general counsel of the National Voting Rights Institute, and as the legal director of Voter Action. In 2004, Mr. Bonifaz wrote the book Warrior-King: The Case For Impeaching George W. Bush.

    We either have a constitution,or we don’t. We either have an impeachment clause, or we don’t. If we’re not going to invoke the impeachment power at this critical moment in our nation’s history, then we might as well say we’re giving up on the Constitution. We refuse to give up on the Constitution.

    John Bonifaz

    I think the biggest thing that we have to deal with are the naysayers. Those who somehow claim that we’re not going to invoke the impeachment power because either it’s not the right time, or he’s already been impeached twice and what’s the point or we just need to move on.

    John Bonifaz

    These are high crimes against the state. These are not policy disputes. These are political high crimes against the state, for which you must be held accountable via the impeachment process.

    John Bonifaz

    I think it’s disgraceful for any member who claims that they’re out there defending the Constitution and defending our democracy, and yet they won’t even want to mention the “I- word”. As much as I respect them on other fronts and what they do, if they’re not invoking the impeachment clause at this critical hour, frankly, they’re part of the problem.

    John Bonifaz

    News 8/29/25

    * In an interview on “Hamakor” or “The Source” on Israel’s Channel 13, former Biden State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller said that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu told former Secretary of State Antony Blinken that he planned to continue fighting in Gaza for decades, per the Middle East Eye. Other revelations in this interview include behind the scenes accounts of ceasefire negotiations, such as a story about Netanyahu blowing up a proposed six-week ceasefire with his declaration that Israel would invade Rafah “whether there was a ceasefire or not,” according to the Times of Israel. It is disgraceful that Miller and the Biden administration kept this information from the public at the time, but better late than never.

    * A new report in the Chronicle of Higher Education reveals that, “Hundreds of pages of previously unseen documents reveal that [Pennsylvania Governor Josh] Shapiro’s office was intimately involved in managing the controversy [over the pro-Palestine demonstrations and encampments at the University of Pennsylvania], seizing an unprecedented level of influence over the university in the process.” Through a proxy, a lawyer named Robb Fox, Shapiro “pushed the university to ban Penn Students Against the Occupation of Palestine (PAO), its main pro-Palestinian student group,” and “worked closely with the Penn Israel Public Affairs Committee — a significant pro-Israel group on campus — to a great enough extent that PIPAC effusively thanked Shapiro and Fox for their ‘partnership.’” Shapiro putting his thumb on the scales against pro-Palestine student activism is sure to come back to haunt him if he seeks the presidential nomination in 2028, as many speculate he will.

    * In more foreign policy related news, investigative journalist Ken Klippenstein reports “The Trump administration has directed the military to prepare for lethal strikes against cartel targets inside Mexico…which are to be ready by mid-September.” This is the latest escalation in Trump’s campaign against transnational criminal organizations, or TCOs, but critically, “sources say that military action could be unilateral — that is, without the involvement or approval of the Mexican government.” If so, this would constitute an extremely aggressive act within the sovereign territory of another country. It is unlikely that Mexico would respond with any kind of military action, but diplomatic and economic sanctions would be on the table.

    * In domestic political news, the Democratic National Committee held a much-anticipated meeting in Minneapolis on Tuesday, featuring dueling resolutions to lay out the party’s position on Gaza – one of which called for a “military arms embargo and suspension of military aid to Israel.” As POLITICO reports, “The committee initially voted to reject that measure while advancing…one backed by [DNC Chair Ken] Martin, which called for ‘unrestricted’ aid to Gaza and a two-state solution. But soon after the arms embargo vote failed, Martin announced he was withdrawing his successful resolution.” Martin stated “There’s a divide in our party on this issue,” and urged Democrats to “keep working through” what their position should be. Allison Minnerly, the progressive Florida delegate who sponsored the more strident resolution, expressed that while she was glad Martin didn’t ram through his preferred position, she considered the result “disappointing” when “it’s clear what voters want.” According to Gallup, just 8% of Democrats approve of Israel’s actions in Gaza.

    * More Democratic Party division surfaced in Minnesota this week, with Axios reporting that, based on a technicality, the state Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party’s rules committee vacated the local DFL’s endorsement of democratic socialist mayoral candidate Omar Fateh. Fateh, who has been hailed as the “Mamdani of Minneapolis” won the local party’s endorsement in July, which gave him – rather than incumbent Mayor Jacob Frey – exclusive access to the party’s voter database. According to this report however, a third candidate was wrongfully eliminated from the endorsement vote process, rendering the endorsement null and void. Fateh’s campaign is understandably incensed by this decision and views it as an attempt by the state party to intervene on behalf of Frey. Moreover, Ryan Faircloth of the Star-Tribune reports “the state DFL committee [also] barred the Minneapolis DFL from holding another endorsing convention this year…placed the Minneapolis DFL on probation for two years and said it must be supervised by [the] state DFL executive committee.” Fateh co-campaign manager Graham Faulkner is quoted saying “Our campaign sees this for what it is: disenfranchisement of thousands of Minneapolis caucus-goers and the delegates who represented all of us on convention day…The establishment is threatened by our message…They are scared of a politics that really stands up to corporate interests and with our working class neighbors.” Congresswoman Ilhan Omar called the move a “stain on our party.”

    * In more local politics news, the administration of New York City Mayor Eric Adams has been rocked by yet new corruption indictments. On August 21st, the office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, “announced the indictment of INGRID LEWIS-MARTIN for accepting more than $75,000 in bribes…in a wide-ranging series of bribery conspiracies …while serving as Chief Advisor to the Mayor of the City of New York.” Lewis-Martin was previously charged in an alleged bribery conspiracy totaling more than $100,000 in December 2024. This new indictment is related to Lewis-Martin accepting bribes in exchange for favorable treatment by city agencies, including “help[ing] fast-track permit approvals for a karaoke bar in Queens,” and “hav[ing] the New York City Department of Transportation…withdraw its approval for a street redesign of McGuinness Boulevard in Brooklyn, which would have included new, protected bike lanes.” For the latter, Lewis-Martin allegedly received a speaking role on the television show Godfather of Harlem. This indictment further cements the comically corrupt reputation of the Eric Adams administration.

    * In more news of possible corruption, Unusual Whales, which tracks congressional stock trading, reported on August 19th that Florida Republican Senator Rick Scott just disclosed trades worth $26,000,000 more than a year late, noting that Scott “traded millions on companies he legislated.” Scott, one of Trump’s closest allies in the Senate, previously served as CEO of Columbia/HCA, the largest for-profit healthcare company in the nation in the 1990s. He was forced to resign in 1997, when the Department of Justice won 14 felony convictions against the company and imposed a $1.7 billion fine, the largest healthcare fraud settlement in U.S. history up to that point.

    * Moving on to consumer news, the Federal Trade Commission has filed a lawsuit against “LA Fitness and other gyms over allegations they make it exceedingly difficult for consumers to cancel their gym memberships.” The agency is “seeking a court order prohibiting the allegedly unfair conduct and money back for consumers harmed by the difficulty in cancelling memberships.” This lawsuit is related to the FTC’s “click to subscribe/call to cancel” rule, but these gyms go far beyond requiring customers to merely call to cancel their memberships. As the FTC explains, “LA Fitness has required consumers who want to cancel their membership to either go to the gym itself or send a cancellation notice by mail,” and they make both processes as difficult as possible. For instance, “consumers who tried to cancel in person…could only cancel with one specific employee, even though LA Fitness authorized several employees to sign consumers up for memberships. This restricted cancellation hours to times when consumers are typically at work, despite most locations operating up to 19 hours per day, seven days per week.” These kinds of mundane degradations are far too common throughout the economy and the only thing that will force companies to treat their customers with the respect they are due is regulatory action.

    * Our last two stories concern lawsuits against Amazon. First, Law360 reports a federal judge has ordered Amazon to disclose information “regarding the company’s alleged ties to antitrust researchers.” In a series of antitrust cases, Amazon’s “expert economists” have cited “various academic authors,” about whom the plaintiffs “have presented records suggest[ing Amazon] ‘has communicated with or funded.’” This includes “antitrust research by economists, scholars and think tanks that [were] ‘funded, solicited or edited’ by the company.” This decision could prove to be momentous if it turns out that Amazon funding of antitrust research has been as deep and widespread as some believe. As the Lever’s Luke Goldstein puts it, “Grifters are on notice. Clock is ticking.”

    * Finally, the Hollywood Reporter is out with a story on a proposed class action lawsuit against Amazon, filed in Washington Friday, over a “‘bait and switch’ in which the company allegedly misleads consumers into believing they’ve purchased content when they’re only getting a license to watch, which can be revoked at any time.” Essentially, this lawsuit revolves around the fact that despite marketing “purchases” of movies on their platform, these “purchases” can actually be revoked at any time if Amazon loses the rights to the film. This is also a case of a “fine print” contract; as this story notes, “On its website and platform, the company tells consumers they can ‘buy’ a movie. But hidden in a footnote on the confirmation page is fine print that says, ‘You receive a license to the video and you agree to our terms.’” This issue has previously arisen with regard to video games, spawning the so-called “Stop Killing Games” movement which seeks to prevent companies from “destroying titles consumers had already bought.” California has responded to that movement by passing a law “barring the advertisement of a transaction as a ‘purchase’ unless it offers unrestricted ownership of the product.” Amazon will surely deploy an army of lawyers to fight this case, but for the time being at least, the momentum is on the side of the consumers for once. We can only hope for their victory.

    This has been Francesco DeSantis, with In Case You Haven’t Heard.



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    This content originally appeared on Ralph Nader Radio Hour and was authored by Ralph Nader.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Up in Arms

    Ralph welcomes Ben Cohen (anti-war activist and ice cream entrepreneur) to discuss his new campaign, “Up in Arms,” which advocates for a common-sense Pentagon budget. Then, Ralph speaks to Guardian columnist Arwa Mahdawi about her recent piece: “When will we finally admit: the Gaza death toll is higher than we’ve been told.”

    Ben Cohen is an entrepreneur, philanthropist, and longtime anti-war activist. He is a co-founder of the ice cream company Ben & Jerry’s and a prominent supporter of progressive causes. He is co-founder of Up In Arms, a public education and advocacy campaign pushing for a common-sense approach to military budgeting. In May of this year, Ben was arrested by Capitol Police after he interrupted Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s testimony by screaming,”Congress kills poor kids in Gaza by buying bombs and pays for it by kicking kids off Medicaid.”

    We’re up in arms because the government has taken the kindness, the heart, the soul of the American people and essentially replaced it with so many bombs that there’s no rational use for them. They’ve turned us all into mass murderers.

    Ben Cohen

    You know, politicians starting from Reagan are fond of saying “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.” And then they turn around and spend $100 billion a year on a nuclear arsenal that’s capable of blowing up the entire world several times over. So they say one thing and they do another. I mean, a nuclear arsenal capable of blowing up the entire world several times over? That’s not deterrence. That’s delusion.

    Ben Cohen

    I just go back to the moral issue of our time, which is Gaza—two-thirds of the American people don’t support continuing to arm Israel. And we need to make our politicians pay the price for continuing to arm Israel… We have a midterm election coming up. If your guy voted to continue to essentially facilitate the genocide, vote them out.

    Ben Cohen

    When you have more money than is needed, you tend to invite corruption, cost overruns, machinery that doesn’t work, and I would advise that you look into why the GAO and the Pentagon auditors are being asked to do fewer audits of the military budget. Because there’s almost a direct correlation between throwing money at a government program (especially at that scale) and corruption. And corruption is understandable to everybody. It’s the number one political issue all over the world, when the pollsters poll.

    Ralph Nader

    Arwa Mahdawi is a columnist for the Guardian and author of Strong Female Lead: Lessons from Women in Power. Here is her recent piece on the genocide in Gaza: “When will we finally admit: the Gaza death toll is higher than we’ve been told” (The Guardian, August 8, 2025)

    To be fair, the New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal have published some pretty devastating reports from their reporters in that area. They’ve put out some devastating features on what’s going on [in Gaza], but it doesn’t translate into editorial denunciation by these papers. And it doesn’t translate into taking the next step and doing what they would do in other conflicts around the world where there isn’t so much prejudice and domestic pressure

    Ralph Nader

    I’m an opinion writer, but as journalists, you’re always supposed to report facts. And the fact is: we have absolutely no idea how many people are dead in the Gaza Strip. But there are plenty of studies (which I reference in the article—one Lancet peer-reviewed study, one letter to the Lancet by a highly-respected scientist, one empirical study by Michael Spagat) which show that the death count is a lot higher. So I truly believe that unless you’re saying “the official figure from the Ministry of Health is around 60,000 but studies show it is probably much higher,” then that’s just journalistic malpractice.

    Arwa Mahdawi

    I think there’s just this instinct to believe that Palestinians are lying and Israelis are telling the truth. And it also goes back to…this isn’t just Israel’s war, this is America’s war as well. And this desire to see America as the good guys—we’re the good guys, the Palestinians are the bad guys. And to have this black-and-white narrative where, obviously, we’re the good guys, you know, and so if the Palestinian narrative casts doubt on that, then it must be wrong.

    Arwa Mahdawi

    I always suggest that people write to the media outlets and say that they want to see more Palestinian narratives, they want the media outlets to voice their concern that foreign reporters are not being let in, that more aid workers are not being let in, that pictures are not coming out.

    Arwa Mahdawi

    There are very few pictures coming out of the scale of this destruction in Gaza, but when you see the ones that do come out, it is very, very obvious that there are more than 60,000 people dead.But there seems to be this lack of curiosity with some of my peers. Why aren’t they asking, “Why aren’t we seeing more pictures?” There should be nonstop outrage that their press freedom is being stifled like this and so many Palestinian journalists are being slaughtered.

    Arwa Mahdawi

    News 8/22/25

    * Last Thursday, during an event in her Masscusetts congressional district, Congresswoman Katherine Clark – who holds the position of House Minority Whip, making her the number two Democrat in the House – called Israel’s campaign in Gaza a “genocide,” per Axios. According to Zeteo, this makes Clark the 14th member of Congress to use the “g word.” Lest she be accused of bravery however, Clark quickly walked back her comments. In a statement to the Jewish News Syndicate, Clark said “last week, while attending an event in my district, I repeated the word ‘genocide’ in response to a question…I want to be clear that I am not accusing Israel of genocide.” This incident illustrates the cross-cutting pressures facing Democratic Party leaders. This divide will be on the agenda again at the DNC meeting on August 26th, where among other issues, party leaders will vote on competing resolutions to lay out the Democrats’ position on Gaza. Allison Minnerly, the progressive DNC delegate sponsoring the resolution to end arms shipments to Israel, is quoted saying “Our voters…are saying that they do not want U.S. dollars to enable further death and starvation anywhere across the world, particularly in Gaza…I don’t think it should be a hard decision for us to say that clearly,” per the Intercept.

    * Even as Democrats wrestle with their position on Gaza, the politics are clearly shifting. The Reject AIPAC coalition has released a new statement saying that among Democrats, AIPAC is now a “toxic pariah.” As evidence of this, Reject AIPAC cites the fact that only 14 House Democrats attended the AIPAC-sponsored Israel trip this year. According to Mondoweiss, “In 2023, the lobbying group brought 24 House Dems to Israel over recess. In 2019, over 40 attended.” Reject AIPAC also cites the fact that Reps. Valerie Foushee and Maxine Dexter, both recipients of millions of AIPAC dollars, voted to block arms to Israel and Foushee is even now rejecting AIPAC money. As these small victories mount, the horizon of possibility for movement within the party grows ever wider.

    * Last week, Tom Artiom Alexandrovich – a senior department head in Israel’s National Cyber Directorate – was arrested in a “multi-agency operation targeting child sex predators,” in Clark County, Nevada according to the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. According to Reuters, “Alexandrovich faces a felony charge of luring or attempting to lure a child or mentally ill person to commit a sex act ‘with use of computer technology.’” Yet, inexplicably, Alexandrovich was released by U.S. authorities and is back in Israel. This set off a firestorm in the U.S., with many accusing the Trump administration of facilitating Alexandrovich’s release. The State Department was forced to issue a statement denying these claims, stating that Alexandrovich “did not claim diplomatic immunity and was released by a state judge…Any claims that the U.S. government intervened are false.” The AP adds that the “Israeli Embassy in Washington and the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office did not immediately return messages.” Disturbingly, the mainstream media seems to be purposely ignoring this case. While it has been covered by the Guardian, the Times of Israel, and Haaretz, there has been zero coverage in the New York Times or Washington Post, or ABC, NBC, or CBS. This media blackout adds fuel to the speculation that this case is being tamped down by the administration for political reasons.

    * Another troubling story regarding minors on the internet comes to us from Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta AI. According to Reuters, internal documents from Meta Platforms detail “policies on chatbot behavior…[permitting] the company’s artificial intelligence creations to ‘engage a child in conversations that are romantic or sensual,’ generate false medical information and help users argue that Black people are ‘dumber than white people.’” Former Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan called these reports “disturbing” and cited a legal complaint filed by the FTC to the Justice Department against Snap in January, under her leadership, “charging that [Snap’s] AI chatbot was creating risks and harms for young users.” Khan noted that the “DOJ hasn’t filed the case or taken any steps to protect these kids,” and demanded that “Any lawmaker concerned about big tech’s abuse of kids should ask what is going on.” The administration’s lack of action on these issues indicates that despite their rhetorical inveighing against the tech industry, they are treating SIlicon Valley with the same kid gloves they use for the rest of corporate America, even when it affects minors.

    * In more positive news from abroad, the Washington Post reports that between 2022 and 2024, Mexico lifted a stunning 8.3 million residents out of poverty. This 18% drop in poverty includes a 23% decrease in extreme poverty and a 16% drop in moderate poverty. According to experts, this remarkable achievement is the result of the policies of former President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, or AMLO, and his successor Claudia Sheinbaum, such as tripling the minimum wage and instituting a raft of social programs to aid “senior citizens, unemployed youth, students, farmers and people with disabilities.” President Sheinbaum is now plowing ahead with a new project – producing a “small, 100% electric, accessible [EV],” called the “Olinia,” to be fully manufactured and assembled in Mexico, per Mexico News Daily.

    * Turning to domestic politics, Congresswoman Elise Stefanik finally showed up in her district on Monday after an extended period of avoiding public appearances. At a ceremony honoring a late Clinton County clerk in Plattsburgh, Stefanik was drowned out by cries of “‘You sold us out!’, ‘Shame!’, and ‘Unseal the Epstein files!’, along with a “steady stream of boos,” according to the Daily Beast. Stefanik “left the podium after speaking for less than a minute,” and when she returned, she was booed again. Stefanik’s chronic absence and chilly reception is a bad sign for her gubernatorial aspirations. In the months since she has held a town hall, her constituents held a mock town hall where they addressed an empty chair, per WRGB, and New York Democrats AOC and Paul Tonko held town halls in her district, per the Albany Times-Union.

    * In more political news from New York, disgraced former Governor Andrew Cuomo is explicitly seeking to woo New York Republicans in his independent bid for Mayor of New York City. POLITICO reports that at a fundraiser at media mogul Jimmy Finkelstein’s Southampton estate, Cuomo told the crowd that he agrees with President Trump that the “goal is to stop Mamdani.” To this end, he is trying to convince Republicans that they would be “wasting [their] vote on [Curtis] Sliwa,” the Republican nominee for Mayor, “because he’ll never be a serious candidate.” Cuomo also implied that he is open to an alliance with Trump, telling the crowd “Let’s put it this way: I knew the president very well.” Dora Pekec, a spokesperson for the Zohran campaign, is quoted saying “Since he’s too afraid to say it to New Yorkers’ faces, we’ll make it clear: Andrew Cuomo IS Donald Trump’s choice for mayor.”

    * In Texas, state Democrats have returned to the state, ending their attempt to defeat Governor Abbott’s mid-decade redistricting scheme by denying the legislature a quorum. In a statement Gene Wu, chairman of the Texas House Democratic Caucus, said “We killed the corrupt special session, withstood unprecedented surveillance and intimidation, and rallied Democrats nationwide to join this existential fight for fair representation — reshaping the entire 2026 landscape,” per the BBC. The legislature is now expected to approve the redrawn congressional maps; the state Democrats plan to continue fighting them in the courts. California has vowed to redraw their own maps to compensate for the expected loss of five Democrat-held seats in Texas. New York, New Jersey, New Hampshire and Maryland are also considering their own redistricting plans. Vice President JD Vance was deployed to Indiana to pressure Republicans in that state to redraw their maps to favor Republicans as well, per the IndyStar. It is a sad state of affairs that American politics has been reduced to such naked power grabbing plots, but here we are.

    * In local news, the federal occupation of Washington, D.C. continues to deepen. CBS reports the governors of at least six Republican-led states are sending contingents from their National Guards to the capital. These include Mississippi and Louisiana, West Virginia, South Carolina, Ohio and Tennessee. Just what these troops will do in Washington remains unclear. Tennessee Governor Bill Lee, who is sending 160 troops, cited “monument security” and “traffic control” among their official responsibilities. The federal agents on the ground, with little to do – the DOJ itself reports as violent crime is at a 30-year low in the District – seem to be mostly just harassing residents. The Daily Beast reports ICE tore down a banner and replaced it with a dildo. A local, Amanda Moore, posted a photo of 15 federal agents calling an ambulance for a drunk girl in Dupont Circle. And, while the Lever reports D.C. corporate lobbyists pushed for the occupation, it is wreaking havoc on local businesses; Rolling Stone reports reservations at D.C. restaurants are down between 25 and 31%, to take just one example. We can only hope that this pointless, destructive farce of quasi-fascistic political theater ends sooner rather than later.

    * Finally, investigative reporter and Iraq war veteran Seth Harp is out with a new book – The Fort Bragg Cartel: Drug Trafficking and Murder in the Special Forces – which details the double murder of Master Sergeant Billy Lavigne and Chief Warrant Officer Timothy Dumas, along with the “many more unexplained deaths…other murders connected to drug trafficking in elite units, and dozens of fatal overdoses,” at Fort Bragg in North Carolina. Among other remarkable discoveries, Harp “describes a U.S. special forces k9 [unit] that was given titanium dentures and encouraged to feast on human brains in the field,” in the words of publisher and producer Chris Wade. Remember these titanium dentures whenever you hear that there is no money to pay for critical social programs. The money is there. The political will is not.

    This has been Francesco DeSantis, with In Case You Haven’t Heard.



    Get full access to Ralph Nader Radio Hour at www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/subscribe


    This content originally appeared on Ralph Nader Radio Hour and was authored by Ralph Nader.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • The Real Death Toll in Gaza

    Ralph devotes the entire program to challenging the “official” count of 60 thousand fatalities reported so far in the genocide Israel, aided and abetted by the United States, has perpetrated on the Palestinians in Gaza. First, Dr. Feroze Sidhwa, who volunteered twice in Gaza hospitals, presents the various studies that revise estimates into the hundreds of thousands. Then weapons expert, Professor Theodore Postol, backs that up with his knowledge of the destructive power of the weapons being used and the photographic evidence of the rubble.

    Dr. Feroze Sidhwa is a trauma, general, and critical care surgeon. He has volunteered twice in Gaza since 2024 and three times in Ukraine since 2022. He has published on humanitarian surgical work in the New York Times, Politico, and the Journal of the American College of Surgeons.

    I’ve made my point clear month after month that I believe the death toll is now well over 500,000. And it’s important to have an accurate death toll to respect the Palestinian dead and to intensify diplomatic, political, and civic pressures from around the world (and particularly from the White House and Congress) to cease fire, to let the humanitarian trucks that are already at the border in (with food, medicine, water, hospital supplies), and to make sure that this conflict is resolved safely.

    Ralph Nader

    It certainly seems that every single international expert on the topic does think that this is a genocidal attack, so I don’t see any reason to disbelieve what they’re saying. But that doesn’t have to do with how many people are killed. So what I’m just trying to point out is that even if the numbers of people that we talk about here today are (like Ralph said) half a million, or whatever number of people have been killed, nobody disputes that huge numbers of mass killings have taken place. And it doesn’t seem that anybody who knows what they’re talking about disputes that it’s genocidal at this point.

    Dr. Feroze Sidhwa

    It’s been very widely understood by lots and lots of people, of a huge variety of political leanings, a huge variety of life experiences, of professions, et cetera, that this is the image that springs to mind when they go to the Gaza Strip—it’s something like a gigantic concentration camp.

    Dr. Feroze Sidhwa

    If the U.S. or Israel cared at all about how many people (including, remember, this is a territory that is half children) —if we cared how many people, including children, we have starved to death, have shot dead, have blown up, et cetera, we could figure it out in two weeks and with 10 grand. The Israelis wouldn’t even have to stop their assault. They could keep doing it. They could just agree to de-conflict this group of a few people. But they won’t do it for obvious reasons. And I shouldn’t say “they” —we won’t do it for obvious reasons.

    Dr. Feroze Sidhwa

    Theodore Postol is Professor of Science, Technology and National Security Policy Emeritus in the Program in Science, Technology, and Society at MIT. His expertise is in nuclear weapon systems, including submarine warfare, applications of nuclear weapons, ballistic missile defense, and ballistic missiles more generally.

    When you have a large building collapse, everyone is going to be dead unless they’re out of the building. It’s just that simple. And even when you have large buildings collapse and you have people coming in to search for people, you typically only find a few people who happen to have been lucky enough to be trapped in a cavity that’s near a surface area of the rubble heap. If you’re deep in the rubble heap, your chances of surviving are near zero.

    Professor Theodore Postol

    News 8/15/25

    * New Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Price Index data shows Trump’s new tariff regime has resulted in significant increases in tariff-sensitive staple consumer goods. Some startling price spikes include a 38.9% rise in the price of vegetables, 14.5% increase in the price of coffee and an 11.3% increase in the price of beef and veal. Beyond food, electricity is up 5.5%, rent and shelter is up 3.6%, and health insurance is up 4.4%. These increases are sure to be politically unpopular, as Trump campaigned on bringing down inflation and the price of groceries. The reporting of this data also raises questions about Trump’s response, given his response to the recent negative BLS data reporting on new job creation.

    * Speaking of job creation data, while the U.S. only reported the creation of 73,000 new jobs in July, Mexico, under left-wing economic nationalist president and AMLO successor Claudia Scheinbaum, created over 1.26 million new jobs in the same month, according to Mexico News Daily. Furious about the jobs report, Trump forced out the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics and is now seeking to install right-wing economist EJ Antoni. According to the BBC, economists have said his “economic commentary [is] rife with basic mistakes.” Antoni, kowtowing to Trump, ​​has proposed ending the monthly jobs report. Antoni would need to be confirmed by Senate Republicans, who have expressed some trepidation about his appointment, but whether that will be enough for them to stand up to Trump on this appointment seems unlikely.

    * In more domestic economic news, Jacobin reports corporations are experimenting with a new method of worker exploitation – so-called “stay-or-pay” contracts. According to this article, millions of employees – from nurses to pilots to fast food workers – are, often unwittingly, being “inserted into…restrictive labor covenants [which] turn employer-sponsored job training and education programs into conditional loans that must be paid back — sometimes at a premium — if employees leave before a set date.” These contracts, known as Training Repayment Agreement Provisions, or their acronym TRAPs, have become a major new battleground between corporate interests and groups fighting for labor rights, including unions and regulators. However, with Trump administration efforts to rollback even the modest labor protections promulgated under the Biden administration, the possibility of any federal intervention on behalf of workers seems remote.

    * In more Trump-related news, the occupation of Washington, D.C. has commenced. Trump has deployed federal agents, including officers with the Department of Homeland Security and Drug Enforcement Administration, as well as National Guard troops, to patrol the streets of the capital. Some of these deployments seem to be mostly for media spectacle; feds have been seen patrolling tourist areas like the National Mall, Union Station and Georgetown, but others have been going into District neighborhoods and harassing District residents for smoking on their own property. Moreover, while Trump has said “Our capital city has been overtaken by violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals, roving mobs of wild youth, drugged-out maniacs and homeless people,” the Justice Department has in fact announced that this year violent crime in Washington has hit a 30-year low, per NPR. Trump is restricted to a 30 day takeover of the District by law, but is seeking to extend this window through Congress.

    * As usual, even as Trump claims to be cracking down on crime, his administration treats corporate crime with kid gloves. Despite major news of corporate misconduct this week – including the reopening of a Boar’s Head facility shut down earlier this year due to a listeria outbreak despite ongoing sanitation issues and an explosion at the Clairton Coke Works in Pittsburgh that left at least two dead and ten injured – a new Public Citizen report shows the extent of the administration’s soft-on-corporate-crime approach. According to this report, “the Trump administration has already withdrawn or halted enforcement actions against 165 corporations of all types – and one in four of the corporations benefiting from halted or dropped enforcement is from the technology sector, which has spent $1.2 billion on political influence during and since the 2024 elections.”

    * Turning to Gaza, the Financial Times reports, “Israel has killed…prominent Al Jazeera correspondent [Anas Al-Sharif] in Gaza and four of his colleagues…in an air strike targeting them in a media tent.” This report notes the Israeli military “took credit” for the strike after “months of threats and unproven allegations that [the journalist] was the head of a Hamas cell.” The Committee to Protect Journalists called these claims an attempt to “manufacture consent for his killing.” The network called this move a “desperate attempt to silence voices in anticipation of the occupation of Gaza.” Anas Al-Sharif was a prominent journalist in the Arab world and was part of a Reuters photo team who won a Pulitzer Prize in 2024. Israel has already killed six Al Jazeera reporters in Gaza prior to this strike.

    * Meanwhile, in Egypt, President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi last Tuesday issued his harshest criticism of Israel thus far, accusing the nation of prosecuting “a war for starvation, genocide, and the liquidation of the Palestinian cause.” Yet, according to Drop Site News, Sisi’s comments came just days before an announcement that an Israeli company will begin supplying Egypt with vast amounts of gas. This $35 billion deal between Egypt, neighbor to Israel and Palestine and the largest Arab nation, and Israeli energy company NewMed is the largest export agreement in Israel’s history. This deal adds a new dimension to other comments Sisi made in those same remarks, wherein he defended Egypt against criticism for “not opening the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing to allow in aid.” It remains to be seen whether the genocide comments represent a new chapter of Egypt-Israel relations, or whether they are just a smokescreen to cover Egypt and Israel’s increasing economic interdependence.

    * In Palestine news from the homefront, Semafor reports the Democratic National Committee will consider two dueling resolutions on Gaza at their meeting this month. According to Dave Weigel, one, introduced by DNC Chair Ken Martin would “[urge] a ceasefire and a return of hostages held by Hamas,” along with a reaffirmation of the increasingly far-fetched two-state solution. The other, introduced by a DNC member on the progressive flank of the party, calls for “suspension of military aid to Israel” and recognition of a Palestinian state. The latter resolution has drawn the ire of Democratic Majority for Israel, a political organization that aims to keep the Democratic Party firmly in the pro-Israel camp. DMFI’s president, Brian Romick, is quoted saying that resolution would be a “gift to Republicans” and would “embolden Israel’s adversaries.”

    * In more positive foreign affairs news, Jeremy Corbyn’s new party in the United Kingdom appears to be gaining steam. A string of polls indicate the party could win the seats currently held by several high-profile Labour Party MPs, including Health Secretary Wes Streeting and now-resigned Homelessness Secretary Rushanara Ali. Most shockingly, it seems they could even win Holborn and St. Pancras, the seat currently held by Labour Party Prime Minister Keir Starmer. If this Corbynite wave does ultimately crest, it would be a stunning reversal of fortune after the Starmerite Labour Party expelled the former Labour leader in 2023.

    * Finally, AOL announced this week that they will end their Dial-up internet service in September, Ars Technica reports. AOL launched their Dial-up service in 1991, helping to usher in the era of widespread internet adoption. While this may seem like a natural step in terms of technological advancement, US Census data from 2022 shows that approximately 175,000 American households still connect to the Internet through dial-up services. As this article notes, “These users typically live in rural areas where broadband infrastructure doesn’t exist or remains prohibitively expensive to install.” In effect, this move could leave these rural communities completely without internet, a problem compounded by the Trump administration’s decision earlier this year to “abandon key elements of a $42.45bn Biden-era plan to connect rural communities to high-speed internet,” per the Guardian. It should be considered a national disgrace if both the private sector and the government leave these rural communities behind.

    This has been Francesco DeSantis, with In Case You Haven’t Heard.



    Get full access to Ralph Nader Radio Hour at www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/subscribe


    This content originally appeared on Ralph Nader Radio Hour and was authored by Ralph Nader.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • The State of Labor/ Forever Chemicals

    Ralph welcomes labor organizer Chris Townsend to discuss the current state of the labor movement under the second Trump administration. Then, Ralph talks to journalist Mariah Blake about PFAS and her new book “They Poisoned the World: Life and Death in the Age of Forever Chemicals.”

    Chris Townsend has been a union member and leader for more than 45 years. He was most recently the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) International Union Organizing Director. Previously he was an International Representative and Political Action Director for the United Electrical Workers Union (UE), and he has held local positions in both the SEIU and UFCW.

    We’ve moved up an administrative layer of labor leaders, time markers, folks who see their role as at best guiding the sinking ship, managing the decline, taking best care as they can think of the members as their lives are destroyed, as the employers move to liquidate us.

    Chris Townsend

    In many ways, exceeding the gravity of the political action crisis (our subordination to the Democratic Party, our membership estrangement from the political process, the lack of any significant trade union education of the rank and file other than a few cheap slogans)…is that the crisis that we face is the crisis of our very existence.

    Chris Townsend

    It’s far easier to shrink the labor movement than it is to build it and grow it. And that’s our job. No other force in the country is going to do the work of adding the many millions of unorganized toilers—I use the word “toilers” very carefully…Toil is really what we’ve been reduced to, and increasingly so. So there’s absolutely, I would indict the labor movement loudly, daily, that there is as yet no understanding that unless we go back out to the unorganized and take the spirit of trade unionism—unity, one for all, take on the employer, organize, defend each other, move forward, recapture some of this gargantuan wealth that we create each day on the job—unless that spirit is returned into an organizing wave or at least an attempt to do this, our fate has been sealed.

    Chris Townsend

    Mariah Blake is an investigative journalist whose writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Atlantic, Mother Jones, the New Republic, and other publications. She was a Murrey Marder Nieman Fellow in Watchdog Journalism at Harvard University. And she is the author of They Poisoned the World: Life and Death in the Age of Forever Chemicals.

    PFAS are a large family of chemicals with some pretty amazing properties—they’re extremely resistant to heat, stains, water, grease, electrical currents. They stand up to corrosive chemicals that burn through virtually every other material (including, in some cases, steel). And this makes them extremely useful. And as a result, they found their way into thousands of everyday products. On the other hand, they are probably the most insidious pollutants in all of human history. So they stay in the environment for hundreds or even thousands of years. Those that have been studied are highly toxic, even in the most minuscule of doses. And they are literally polluting the entire planet.

    Mariah Blake

    The way we regulate chemicals in this country at the moment makes zero sense. You do see changes happening in response to the unique threat posed by these chemicals on a state level. And this is really in response to citizen activism. So a number of states are passing laws that have banned the entire class of chemicals. That is not how we regulate chemicals in this country normally. We normally regulate them one by one, but at this moment 30 US states have passed at least 170 laws restricting PFAS, including 16 full or partial bans on the entire class of chemicals in consumer goods.

    Mariah Blake

    The amazing thing is the families of all these lobbyists have got these chemicals in their own bodies, their own kids, their own infants. I mean, don’t they crank that into their daily mission as to how they’re going to confront efforts by citizens around the country to ban and regulate these chemicals? How oblivious can you be? These oil and gas executives and lobbyists in Washington, their own families are being contaminated.

    Ralph Nader

    These were people very much like Michael, people who had never taken much of an interest in politics, who’d spent their lives trusting that there were systems in place to protect them. And now that trust had been shattered. But rather than becoming cynical or resigned, they fought like hell to protect their families. And along the way, they discovered these hidden strengths that turned them into really remarkable advocates.

    Mariah Blake

    News 8/8/25

    * In Gaza, even the Israeli media is starting to acknowledge the scale of the starvation crisis. The New Yorker reporters, “Channel 12 [Israel’s most-watched mainstream news broadcast], aired a series of startling…photographs of emaciated babies, and of children being trampled as they stood in food lines, holding out empty pots…[as well as] pictures of mothers weeping because they had no way to feed their families…Ohad Hemo, the network’s correspondent for Palestinian affairs, concluded, ‘There is hunger in Gaza, and we have to say it loud and clear…The responsibility lies not only with Hamas but also with Israel.’” According to the U.N.’s World Food Programme, more than one in three people are not eating for days in a row. Yet, polls show that a “vast majority of Israeli Jews – 79 percent – say they are ‘not so troubled’ or ‘not troubled at all’ by the reports of famine and suffering among the Palestinian population in Gaza,” according Haaretz. This callous disregard for the lives of Palestinians among Israel’s majority population ensures that this humanitarian crisis will worsen even more unless the government faces real external pressure to end the devastation and provide humanitarian aid.

    * Meanwhile, Axios reports the government of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu “unanimously voted Monday to fire Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, who is currently prosecuting [Netanyahu] for corruption.” As this piece explains, “This is the first time an Israeli government has ever voted to fire an attorney general,” sparking “immediate accusations Netanyahu was seeking to protect himself and his aides.” The Israeli Supreme Court issued an injunction blocking the move. However, this act, and the ensuing backlash, all but guarantees the bombardment of Gaza will continue as Netanyahu uses the campaign as a political liferaft.

    * Speaking of political crises, a major one is unfolding here at home. In Texas, the Republican-dominated state legislature is seeking to redraw the state’s congressional maps to give Republicans five additional seats, which President Trump claims they are “entitled” to, per ABC. This naked power grab has set off a firestorm, with Democratic-controlled states like California and New York vowing to retaliate by redrawing their own maps to maximize their party’s advantage. Texas state Democratic legislators, in an attempt to deny Republicans the quorum they need to enact the new maps, have fled to Illinois. Attorney General Ken Paxton has ordered their arrest, but they are seeking safe harbor in Illinois. Gerrymandering has plagued the American body politic since the foundation of the republic; perhaps this new crisis will force a resolution to the issue at the federal level. Then again, probably not.

    * In more positive legal news, former Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan reports that in an “Important win…A court rejected Google’s effort to overturn a unanimous jury verdict finding that Google illegally monopolized key markets.” Crucially, the court also found that “digital monopolies can enjoy the fruits of their illegal conduct even after it stops.” In practice, this ruling means a remedy “may need to go beyond just stopping the illegal behavior so that the market can truly be opened up to competition.” However, Google is still appealing the ruling to the corporate-friendly Supreme Court, so the ultimate fate of this decision remains in the balance.

    * On Tuesday, the New York Times published an article giving an inside look at financier and pedophile sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein’s “Manhattan Lair.” Among other notable features of the seven-story townhouse: a surveillance camera inside Epstein’s bedroom. One can only imagine the images it captured. Another notable feature: the preponderance of photographs of powerful and influential figures with Epstein, including Bill Clinton, Donald Trump, and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman. Epstein’s Saudi connections, including a passport with a fake name and an address in Saudi Arabia which he used to enter several countries, including the Kingdom in the 1980s, have not been deeply probed.

    * Our remaining stories for this week all revolve around the Trump administration. First, after complaining that the Bureau of Labor Statistics “rigged” economic data to make his administration and Republicans look bad, Trump has fired BLS Commissioner Erika McEntarfer. As POLITICO notes, budget constraints and workforce cuts have already enfeebled BLS, and the bureau’s attempts to insulate itself from political pressure will now be strained to the limit as whomever Trump does install will – implicitly or explicitly – understand that their fate will be tied to reporting out positive economic data. In the long run, this blow against accuracy in official economic reporting could do immense damage to the confidence of those considering investing in the United States.

    * Another Trump power grab is aimed at the District of Columbia. At 3 a.m. on Sunday, an altercation occurred between two fifteen-year-olds and Edward Coristine, the infamous DOGE staffer nicknamed “Big Balls,” in Washington’s Logan Circle neighborhood. According to AP, “the group approached…[Coristine’s] car and made a comment about taking it…[he then]…turned to confront the group…the teens then attacked him…officers patrolling nearby intervened…[and] the teens fled on foot.” This objectively strange, though ultimately mundane, attempted carjacking by teenagers has spurred the president to threaten a federal takeover of D.C., even as “violent crime overall is down more than 25% from the same period last year.” This is not the first time Republicans have threatened a federal takeover of the District, and in recent years there have been increasing tensions between the local and federal government – but D.C. is largely powerless to resist as it lacks the constitutional protections of statehood.

    * The Trump administration is also taking actions that will endanger the health and safety of all Americans. NBC reports Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is terminating 22 contracts, amounting to around $500 million, for research and development of mRNA vaccines. These contracts were awarded through the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, or BARDA. One of these contracts was intended to help develop an mRNA-based vaccine for H5N1, the strain of bird flu that has infected dozens of people in the United States, according to this report. Rick Bright, who directed BARDA through the first Trump administration is quoted saying, “This isn’t just about vaccines…It’s about whether we’ll be ready when the next crisis hits. Cutting mRNA development now puts every American at greater risk.”

    * Over at the Environmental Protection Agency, the picture is far more muddled. The Washington Post reports that the EPA held a tense meeting this week on its plan to rescind the agency’s drinking water standard with regard to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, also known as PFAS. In this meeting, state officials complained that mixed messages from federal regulators were frustrating their efforts. According to the Post “Despite the lack of clarity on what the EPA will do with the standard, states are still on the hook for implementing it.” Steven Elmore, chair of the National Drinking Water Advisory Council, is quoted saying “Certain states have state laws that say their drinking water standard can’t be more stringent than the federal law.” At the same time, 250 bills have been introduced in 36 states this year to address PFAS by “banning the chemicals in products, setting maximum levels in drinking water and allocating funding to clean up contamination,” and “Dozens of states have passed regulatory standards for at least one forever chemical in drinking water.” Put simply, chaos and confusion reign, and the American people will pay the price as toxic forever chemicals continue to pollute our drinking water.

    * Finally, the BBC reports Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has announced plans for the United States to put a nuclear reactor on the moon. According to this piece, this initiative – part of “US ambitions to build a permanent base for humans to live on the lunar surface” – will be fast-tracked through NASA with a goal of being completed by 2030. The BBC astutely observes “questions remain about how realistic the goal and timeframe are, given recent and steep [NASA] budget cuts.” The announcement of this literally outlandish potential boondoggle is driven by an announcement in May by Russia and China that they plan to build an automated nuclear power station on the Moon by 2035. That’s right, a second space race is underway, and to paraphrase the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, the second time is always a farce.

    This has been Francesco DeSantis, with In Case You Haven’t Heard.



    Get full access to Ralph Nader Radio Hour at www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/subscribe


    This content originally appeared on Ralph Nader Radio Hour and was authored by Ralph Nader.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Call It A Genocide

    Ralph and the crew spend the whole hour with Omer Bartov, professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Brown University, who grew up in a Zionist home, lived the first half of his life in Israel, served in the I.D.F. as a soldier and officer and is the author a New York Times op-ed entitled “I’m a Genocide Scholar. I Know It When I See It.” Plus, Ralph pays tribute to legendary Washington Post reporter, Morton Mintz.

    Omer Bartov is a professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Brown University. He has written widely on modern Germany, France, the Holocaust, and representations of war and genocide. He is the author of the Mirrors of Destruction: War, Genocide, and Modern Identity, and the forthcoming book, Israel: What Went Wrong?, and he’s penned a New York Times op-ed entitled “I’m a Genocide Scholar. I Know It When I See It.”

    I published an op-ed in November 2023, and I said there were war crimes, clearly, crimes against humanity, and this will become genocide if it’s not stopped. And the Biden administration at the time did nothing. President Biden could have stopped that within two weeks. The Israeli military machine cannot function for more than two or three weeks without constant supply of munitions, without constant supply of financial help, and most importantly, without a diplomatic Iron Dome, especially in the Security Council.

    Professor Omer Bartov

    If you say that you are shutting down speech because of anti-Semitism, who are the people who are pushing that? It must be all kinds of Jewish interests that are pushing that. And in that sense, this false campaign against anti-Semitism – some of whose leaders are people with pretty good anti-Semitic credentials themselves – is the best way to raise, to promote and incite anti-Semitism.

    Professor Omer Bartov

    There’s no moral responsibility, there’s no empathy being shown, and much of the population shares that view. To me, as someone who was raised in Israel, spent half of my life there, served four years in the army, to see my own society (including some of my friends) show this kind of moral callousness is frankly quite heartbreaking. And I have to say, it’s the result of a long process. It’s not only a response to October 7th, it’s the result of six decades of occupation, of thinking of Palestinians as not really people who have any right to have rights or any right to health, to security. And in that sense, that long-term occupation has corrupted much of Israeli society. And maybe the most surprising thing is that there’s still extraordinary people there who are fighting against that, but their numbers are diminishing, not growing.

    Professor Omer Bartov

    Morton Mintz was hands-down the greatest consumer reporter of his generation. He opened up one field after another because he had a special sense of newsworthiness that other reporters and editors didn’t have. He opened up the coverage of the pharmaceutical industry. He opened up the coverage of the auto industry. And he did so with such formidable documentation and research that other reporters started following the same subject area. So he was a pioneer.

    Ralph Nader

    News 8/1/25

    * Crusading environmental lawyer Steven Donziger has published a new report in the left-wing outlet Orinoco Tribune on the undercount of the dead in Gaza. In this piece, Donziger uses the statistical model laid out by the prestigious medical journal The Lancet in their 2024 study on the Israeli military campaign, which found the direct and indirect death toll could be as high as 186,000. The Lancet study found that as many as 732 Gazans died every day from these direct and indirect causes. Multiplied by the 594 days the conflict has dragged on, this would equate to a death toll of 434,800, or 20.7% of the enclave’s population. As Donziger notes, “If the same level of killing and indirect death that took place in Gaza…happened in the United States proportional to population, roughly 70 million Americans would have been killed.”

    * In more Gaza news, the Guardian reports that, “On Saturday night, the…IDF…intercepted and boarded the Handala, an aid ship that attempted to reach Gaza as part of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition…According to the coalition, IDF soldiers beat and choked…labor activist Chris Smalls.” The severity of the attack on Christian Smalls – founder of the independent Amazon Labor Union (ALU) – caused international outcry. From the Guardian report, “Smalls was physically assaulted by seven uniformed individuals. They choked him and kicked him in the legs, leaving visible signs of violence on his neck and back.” The incident also drew criticism for another reason: Smalls was the only Black person on board the Handala. While 21 members of the Flotilla group were detained, in their words ”abducted,” “This level of force was not used.” It is unclear why this level of force was used against Smalls and Smalls alone, other than the color of his skin.

    * Yet more tragic news from Gaza concerns the death of Odeh Hadalin, the 31-year-old Palestinian activist and English teacher featured in the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land. Al Jazeera reports that footage taken by Israeli human rights group B’Tselem “appears to show [Israeli settler Yinon] Levi opening fire on Hadalin during a confrontation in the village [of Umm al-Kheir, south of Hebron].” Levi, already sanctioned by the European Union and the United States over past attacks on Palestinians, reportedly told witnesses he was “glad about it.” Despite all of this, an Israeli court has released Levi on house arrest. Basel Adra, who co-directed No Other Land with Yuval Abraham, wrote “This is how Israel erases us — one life at a time.”

    * One positive development is in progress however. According to the Embassy of France in the United States, “France is prepared to fully recognize the State of Palestine, and will do so in September.” French recognition of the Palestinian state, will If it ultimately comes to pass, have major ramifications on the world stage. While 147 member states of the United Nations have recognized Palestine, only 10 out of 27 EU countries have done so, mostly former Eastern Bloc states like Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, and Romania, along with the former country of Czechoslovakia. The modern country of Slovakia has reaffirmed their recognition; Czechia has not. In 2024, several more European nations extended recognition, including Norway, Slovenia, Ireland and Spain. France however would tip the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council to a 3-2 majority in recognition of Palestine, along with Russia and China. Moreover, AP reports the United Kingdom is now saying they will “recognize a Palestinian state in September unless Israel agrees to a ceasefire in Gaza,” among other conditions. If this happens, The permanent members of the Security Council would be split 4-1, with the United States as the lone holdout. This would be nothing short of an international relations sea change on the question of Palestine.

    * In some more positive foreign policy news, Jeremy Corbyn’s new party in the U.K. is getting started with a bang. According to the man himself, over 600,000 people have signed up to register with the new party, which describes itself as “a new kind of political party. One that is rooted in our communities, trade unions and social movements. One that builds power in all regions and nations. One that belongs to you.” Polls show this new party in the lead among Britons aged 18-24 and Corbyn leading Labour Party leader Keir Starmer by “Almost Every Metric,” among members of the rightwing populist Reform Party. That said, the Reform Party is still projected to win an overwhelming victory compared to all other parties in the next elections, though those are not expected to be held until 2029.

    * In Congress, Bernie Sanders forced a vote Wednesday on two new Senate resolutions to block arms transfers to Israel. Resolution 34 would “prohibit the U.S.-taxpayer financed $675.7 million sale of 201 MK 83 1,000-pound bombs; 4,799 BLU-110A/B General Purpose 1,000-pound bombs; 1,500 Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) guidance kits for MK 83 bombs; 3,500 JDAM guidance kits for MK 83 bombs; and related logistics and technical support services,” while Resolution 41 would “prohibit the sale of tens of thousands of fully automatic assault rifles.” These resolutions got the support of 27 Senators, a new record and a majority of the Democratic Senate Caucus, but still far, far short of even a simple Senate majority. Perhaps a more portentous development is that Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene this week became the first Republican in Congress to call the crisis in Gaza a “genocide,” according to the Hill. It remains to be seen whether this will help break the dam on that side of the aisle.

    * In New York City, new polling shows stunning results for Zohran Mamdani. The new poll conducted by Zenith Research and Public Progress Solutions shows Zohran dominating the 5-way race, earning 50% and beating out the other four candidates combined. Mamdani does even better in head-to-head matches against disgraced former Governor Andrew Cuomo and corruption-dogged incumbent Mayor Eric Adams. The crosstabs are even more astonishing. Despite the breathless and baseless accusations of antisemitism, Zohran is winning 67% of Jews under age 45 and a whopping 85% of men ages 18-34. This second number is key as Democrats struggle to attract young men. One warning sign: a recent Pew poll shows Republicans with an 18-point lead among men in the Gen Z cohort.

    * In an ominous challenge to the separation of church and state, the Hill reports President Donald Trump released a memo Monday allowing federal employees to “attempt to persuade co-workers about why their religious beliefs are ‘correct.’” This memo cites “crosses, crucifixes and mezuzah,” as displays of religious indicia that should not result in disciplinary action. This bizarre and constitutionally dubious policy seems likely to lead to workplace discord.

    * In more Trump news, CBS reports Trump has ousted “Two top Justice Department antitrust officials.” According to sources, two deputies to Assistant Attorney General Gail Slater, who leads DOJ antitrust efforts, were “placed on administrative leave last week and fired on Monday for insubordination.” These two figures are Roger Alford, principal deputy assistant attorney general, and Bill Rinner, deputy assistant attorney general and head of merger enforcement. It is not clear why exactly Alford and Rinner were pushed out, but there has apparently been substantial strife within the administration over the antitrust cases against T-Mobile and Hewlett Packard Enterprise. AAG Slater is also overseeing antitrust lawsuits against Capital One, Apple, Google, and other major companies.

    * Finally, Wired reports the small Pacific island nation of Tuvalu is planning the first migration of an entire country. Tuvalu, which could be completely submerged by rising sea levels within the next 25 years, is seeking to resettle 280 Tuvaluans in Australia each year. This climate-driven mass migration is a stark sign of things to come if the international community continues to dither or deny the reality of the oncoming climate catastrophe. Today Tuvalu, tomorrow the world.

    This has been Francesco DeSantis, with In Case You Haven’t Heard.



    Get full access to Ralph Nader Radio Hour at www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/subscribe


    This content originally appeared on Ralph Nader Radio Hour and was authored by Ralph Nader.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Doctors Against Genocide

    First up, Ralph welcomes the co-founders of Doctors Against Genocide, Dr. Karameh Hawash-Kuemmerle and Dr. Nidal Jboor, to discuss their dedication to succeeding where global governments have failed in confronting genocide—particularly the acute genocide in Gaza. Then, Ralph speaks to Marcus Sims, who turns felled and fallen trees into sustainable-harvested lumber with his company Treincarnation. Finally, Ralph has co-written an open letter to Barack Obama, urging him to step up and do his part to fight against Donald Trump.

    Dr. Karameh Hawash-Kuemmerle is a clinical pediatric neurologist who specializes in traumatic brain injury and epilepsy at Boston Children’s Hospital. Dr. Nidal Jboor is a doctor of internal medicine and geriatrics working in Michigan. They are co-founders of Doctors Against Genocide.

    We think: as American people, we are good people. We don’t stand for these crimes. We don’t accept that any child, any mother, any father, any elderly in the world will be starved to death—no matter where they are, no matter who they are, no matter who is committing this crime. And we are especially appalled to know that all these crimes are being done in our name, with our tax money. They are cutting the funding from our basic programs here, from our neighborhoods, to send more billions to mass slaughter children. So that’s why we’re going to DC. We’re going to talk to the people who are enabling this. We think they already failed their constituents, they failed their country, they are putting our country on the wrong side of history.

    Dr. Nidal Jboor

    Anyone who did not call this a genocide yet—and did not demand full accountability for genocide, both for the United States and for Israel—is enabling and allowing this crime to continue further.

    Dr. Nidal Jboor

    We are committed to having our eyes open whenever and wherever there is a genocide or there are war crimes, crimes against humanity—no matter who commits them. And it’s very important for us to stand with the victims, with the community that is suffering, and never take the side or give a platform for the perpetrators.

    Dr. Karameh Kuemmerle

    Our focus on the situation in Gaza comes from the simple fact that our country is complicit. And because of that, we actually have the moral obligation and the practical obligation to speak up. So it is not because we think that other genocides are not happening or are not important. We actually think every genocide should never happen. It’s anti-human to commit genocide. And we always ask our colleagues to come to us to help uplift the voices of the communities of genocide and hopefully we will have more bandwidth to do a lot more. But the situation in Gaza is unique because there is almost a collusion of all these powerful players to complete this genocide in Gaza and basically oppress every resistance to it. There are many things that make what is happening in Gaza unique—for example, the inability to leave, using food as a weapon, having complete siege on the population, having a major superpower supported by another major superpower bombing a population of two million people in a very small area, constantly, nonstop for two years.

    Dr. Karameh Kuemmerle

    All professions have their own specialized civic duties…And I want to tell the listeners that the people who are peace-loving all over the world vastly outnumber, vastly outnumber the warmongers and the cruel and vicious interests that have taken advantage of the situation.

    Ralph Nader

    Marcus Sims is the owner of Treincarnation, which creates sustainably-harvested lumber and builds custom furniture from trees felled by storms or removed to make way for development.

    I think there’s a lot of support for what I’m doing, but my work is contrasted to the industrial lumber system, which is “chop them down and cut them up,” a lot of it done by huge machines. So it takes a lot more attention and care to do the kind of work that I’m doing. And of course the finances—as you know, finances play a big part in any kind of industry and how they can manage to make money. So I’m certainly making a living, a good living with what I’m doing. I don’t know exactly how we can get from the current system into one that was probably used in the past, where the intelligence of human beings is more engaged and we’re not slaves to industrial processes.

    Marcus Sims

    News 7/25/25

    * This week, Israel shelled the Holy Family Church in Gaza. During the last months of his life, Pope Francis was in constant communication with this church and its pastor, Father Gabriel Romanelli, calling them every single night. Three people were killed in this strike and Father Romanelli was injured, as were other congregants. In a speech after the strike, Pope Leo called for an immediate ceasefire and decried the “barbarity of war,” Reuters reports. He added, “I appeal to the international community to observe humanitarian law and respect the obligation to protect civilians as well as the prohibition of collective punishment, of indiscriminate use of force and forced displacement of the population.” According to the National Catholic Reporter, Pope Leo XIV spoke with Palestinian president Mahmood Abbas following this attack and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu called to “express Israel’s regret for what he called an accidental attack.”

    2. In Belgium, the Hind Rajab Foundation – named for the five-year-old girl in Gaza killed along with six of her family members and the paramedics coming to her rescue – reports, “Belgian federal police have arrested and interrogated two Israeli soldiers credibly accused of war crimes in Gaza. The action came in response to an urgent legal complaint filed by the Hind Rajab Foundation and the Global Legal Action Network (GLAN) earlier this week.” The soldiers, who had come to Belgium to attend the Tomorrowland music festival were, “formally interrogated and released. The Belgian Federal Prosecutor’s Office has confirmed that a criminal investigation is now underway.”

    3. In a shameful, undemocratic move, the Executive Committee of the National Education Association has voted to reject the member-approved resolution to boycott materials promulgated by the ADL, Axios reports. This helps keep the ADL entrenched as the arbiter of what is and is not antisemitism, a charge they have weaponized and used as a cudgel again and again to silence any criticism of the state of Israel.

    4. In New York, disgraced former Governor Andrew Cuomo continues to campaign in his increasingly long-shot independent bid for Mayor of New York City. Recently, Cuomo held a campaign breakfast attended by 450 at the Hampton Synagogue, where he said, “I would wager that in the primary, more than 50% of the Jewish people voted for Mamdani.” If true, this would be a stunning victory not only for Zohran himself but for the pro-Palestine movement, which has been maligned in bad faith as antisemitic. Cuomo added that many younger Jewish voters are, “pro-Palestinian, and they don’t consider it being anti-Israel.” This from the Forward.

    5. Another intra-ethnic cleavage is emerging among voters in New York City – this time, Italian-Americans. While Mamdani visited Uganda, the country of his birth, anti-Zohran Italians rallied in front of his Assembly district office in Queens. The New York Times reports this protest, “ostensibly led by the Italian American Civil Rights League, a group that took its name from but had no apparent ties to a defunct organization founded by [Mafia boss] Joseph A. Colombo Sr,…until recently, when Mr. Colombo’s grandson, Anthony E. Colombo Jr….joined the group’s board in May.” As the Times notes, this protest was held in response to a, “recently resurfaced social media photo from 2020 showing Mr. Mamdani giving the middle finger to a Columbus statue.” However, a large group of pro-Zohran Italian-American counterprotestors rallied across the street, carrying signs that read “Paisans for Zohran!” and “You Eat Jar Sauce!”

    6. In Minneapolis, many are drawing parallels between Mamdani and insurgent Democratic Socialist candidate Omar Fateh, who won the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party’s endorsement for the mayoralty over incumbent Jacob Frey. Fateh, a state senator, won “at least 60% of the Minneapolis DFL delegate vote Saturday…in the party’s first endorsement of a mayoral candidate in 16 years,” per the Minnesota Star Tribune. This endorsement gives Fateh a major boost in his campaign and indicates that the Zohran phenomenon is not confined to New York City.

    7. Last week, Paramount – one of the largest media conglomerates and parent company of CBS – canceled The Late Show with Stephen Colbert less than 48 hours after Colbert called CBS News’s $16 million settlement with Trump a, “big fat bribe,” implying it would help curry favor with the administration regarding the proposed merger between Paramount and Skydance. Incensed, the Writers Guild of America East issued a statement calling on New York State Attorney General Letitia James, to, “launch an investigation into potential wrongdoing at Paramount…[and for]…our elected leaders to hold those responsible to account…demand answers about why this beloved program was canceled and to assure the public that Colbert and his writers were not censored due to their views or the whims of the President.”

    8. At the same time, CNN reports Paramount’s “owner-in-waiting,” David Ellison is in talks to acquire Bari Weiss’s publication The Free Press. According to the Financial Times, Weiss is seeking over $200 million for the purchase. However, this goes further than a potential acquisition. Puck reports that if brought in, Weiss would serve as an “ideological guide” for CBS News. This, paired with the recent piece in the Hollywood Reporter stating that Skydance “promised to eliminate all diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives,” at Paramount, gives a fuller picture of the “anti-woke” direction CBS would take under the new leadership. With news Thursday that federal regulators have approved the merger, it seems fair to conclude that these moves mollified the president.

    9. Turning to Latin America, AP reports the U.S., Venezuela and El Salvador have successfully concluded an intricate tripartite prisoner exchange. This deal includes the release of 10 Americans jailed in Venezuela and 252 Venezuelans held in El Salvador’s notorious and dystopian CECOT prison complex. The freed Americans include some who were accused of participating in a U.S.-backed coup attempt against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in 2024 and one who was convicted of a triple homicide in Madrid, according to EL PAÍS. All parties seem satisfied with this agreement, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio saying “Every wrongfully detained American in Venezuela is now free and back in our homeland,” while President Maduro pronounced the occasion “a day of blessings and good news…the perfect day for Venezuela.”

    10. Finally, prominent British tech writer Ed Zitron is out with “The Hater’s Guide To The AI Bubble.” In this piece, Zitron – a noted critic of AI writ large – details tech companies’ expenditures on AI as compared to the revenues, and the numbers are stark. Microsoft has reaped $13 billion, with $10 billion from OpenAI, sold at “a heavily discounted rate that essentially only covers costs for operating the servers,” while expenditures total $80 billion. Amazon AI revenues In 2025 amount to $5 billion, while capital expenditures total $105 billion. Google AI revenue stands at $7.7 billion, with capital expenditures standing at $75 billion. Meta AI revenue in 2025 is a paltry $2-3 billion. Their capital expenditures: $72 billion. Perhaps most deliciously, while Tesla has spent around $11 billion on AI in 2025, the company “Does Not Appear To Make Money From Generative AI” at all. Hopefully these numbers serve as a wakeup call for companies to stop dumping money down the AI drain, since clearly the immense adverse impact on the environment is not dissuading them.

    This has been Francesco DeSantis, with In Case You Haven’t Heard.



    Get full access to Ralph Nader Radio Hour at www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/subscribe


    This content originally appeared on Ralph Nader Radio Hour and was authored by Ralph Nader.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Letter to President Obama July 22, 2025

    July 22, 2025 The Honorable Barack Obama The Office of Barack and Michelle Obama P.O. Box 91000 Washington, DC 20066 Dear Mr. Obama: We are dismayed at your idling while summoning citizens to man the barricades against President Donald Trump’s daily wrecking ball against the United States Constitution: usurping the war power, the power of…


    This content originally appeared on Ralph Nader and was authored by matthew.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Trump’s Supreme Court

    Our resident constitutional expert Bruce Fein joins to make the case for impeaching the Supreme Court AND the President, and what we—as citizens—can do to make it happen. Then we welcome Lori Wallach of Rethink Trade to evaluate Trump’s tariff policy. Are these trade deals bringing manufacturing back to the US? Or is Trump just using tariffs as a cudgel to punish countries that annoy him?

    Bruce Fein is a Constitutional scholar and an expert on international law. Mr. Fein was Associate Deputy Attorney General under Ronald Reagan and he is the author of Constitutional Peril: The Life and Death Struggle for Our Constitution and Democracy, and American Empire: Before the Fall.

    This has real consequences for you people all over the country because one of their shadow docket decisions (without explanation or hearing) briefs just very recently said that Trump can fire all these people in the IRS or the Education Department or EPA and get away with it. And, in fact, paralyze the workings of his (statutorily-established-by-Congress) Cabinet Secretary and Department…So this is devastating to your health, economic safety, environment, workplace safety, education, all kinds of things that are being ridden into the ground.

    Ralph Nader

    In my judgment, the court has basically abandoned its role as a check on executive power…It’s actually become an appendage of the executive branch. Nothing placing any kind of serious or material handcuff on what the President can do on his own. And the President is taking full advantage of that.

    Bruce Fein

    Lori Wallach is a 30-year veteran of international and U.S. congressional trade battles— starting with the 1990s fights over NAFTA and WTO when she founded the “Global Trade Watch” group at Public Citizen. She is now the director of the Rethink Trade program at the American Economic Liberties Project, and a Senior Advisor to the Citizens Trade Campaign.

    What these guys are doing [with Trump’s tariff policy] it’s basically trying to build a house with just a hammer—we are against saws; we are against screwdrivers; we do not actually believe in nails, no other tools; we will just hammer a bunch of wood. And as a result, we’re going to make some noise and we’re definitely going to break some things, but we’re not actually building a new redistributed trade system—which we could.

    Lori Wallach

    Best that we can tell, the dynamic is something like: Trump is so engaged in the fun and chaos—fun (from his perspective) and chaos of throwing tariff news around like a lightning bolt that he really is not taking advice about it from people who know how you could use tariffs to try and ostensibly achieve the things he promised. He’s just enjoying throwing around tariffs.

    Lori Wallach

    News 7/18/25

    * Last week, Elon Musk’s pet AI program – Grok – began identifying itself as “MechaHitler,” and spitting out intricate rape threats and sexual fantasies directed at individuals like liberal pundit Will Stancil and now-ex X CEO Linda Yaccarino. This week, Musk rolled out Grok’s new “sexy mode” which includes a visual avatar feature depicting the artificial entity as a quasi-pornographic anime-esque character who can flirt with users, per the Standard. So, naturally, the Trump Defense Department awarded xAI, the parent company behind Grok, a $200 million contract. According to CNN, “The contracts will enable the DoD to develop agentic AI workflows and use them to address critical national security challenges.” It is unclear how exactly the entity calling itself MechaHitler will accomplish that.

    * In local news, a special election was held in Washington DC’s Ward 8 this week, seeking to replace corrupt councilmember Trayon White. White was implicated in an FBI bribery investigation and was expelled from the council in February. Yet, because of the splintered opposition, White pulled out a narrow victory on Wednesday, winning with 29.7% of the vote compared to his opponents’ 24.3%, 23.7% and 22.3% respectively, per WTOP. In 2024, DC Voters approved a ballot measure to implement ranked-choice voting, which could have helped prevent this outcome, but it has yet to take effect. The DC Council could vote to expel White again more or less immediately; if not, they would likely wait for his trial to commence in January 2026.

    * Turning to foreign affairs, Israel has bombed the Syrian capital of Damascus, killing three and wounding 34, in strikes primarily targeting the Syrian Defense Ministry headquarters, per NPR. Israel’s attack comes amid tensions between the new, post-Assad Syrian government and the Druze minority in the Southern Syrian city of Sweida. The government claims the Druze violated a ceasefire reached earlier in the week and Syrian troops responded; a new ceasefire deal has been reached and the office of interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa issued a statement reading, the “rights [of the citizens of Sweida] will always be protected and…we will not allow any party to tamper with their security or stability.” Stéphane Dujarric, spokesman for United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, said in a statement that the U.N. chief “condemns Israel’s escalatory airstrikes,” as well as reports of the Israeli military’s redeployment of forces in the Golan Heights. As journalist Séamus Malekafzali notes, “Damascus is now the 4th Middle Eastern capital to be bombed by Israel in the past 6 weeks, alongside Tehran, Beirut, and Sana’a.”

    * In more news from Israel, the Knesset this week sought to expel Palestinian lawmaker Ayman Odeh, leader of the Hadash-Ta’al party. According to Haaretz, “The vote was triggered by a Likud lawmaker after Odeh published a social media post in January, saying that he ‘rejoices’ over the release of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners.” However, the motion failed to reach the 90-vote threshold, meaning Odeh will remain in the legislature. Six members of Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid party voted for the motion, but not Lapid himself. The United Torah Judaism party did not back the motion. Haaretz quotes Hassan Jabareen, an attorney, director of the Adalah Legal Center and legal counsel for Odeh, who said, “The overwhelming support for this initiative – from both the coalition and the opposition – reveals the state’s intent to crush Palestinian political representation…This was not a legitimate legal process, but rather a racist, fascist incitement campaign aimed at punishing Odeh for his principled stance against occupation, oppression and Israeli violence.” Senator Bernie Sanders celebrated the failure of the motion, writing “Israel’s far right tried to expel Ayman Odeh, an Arab Israeli opposition leader, from the Knesset because of his opposition to Netanyahu’s war. Today, they failed. If Israel is going to be considered a democracy, it cannot expel members of parliament for their political views.” This from the Middle East Eye.

    * Sanders also made news this week by declaring that “Given the illegal and immoral war being waged against the Palestinian people by Netanyahu, NO Democrat should accept money from AIPAC – an organization that also helped deliver the presidency to Donald Trump,” per the Jerusalem Post. Sanders posted this statement in response to a video by Obama foreign policy advisor Ben Rhodes, who said “AIPAC is part of the constellation of forces that have delivered this country into the hands of Donald Trump…These are the wrong people to have under your tent…The kind of people that they are supporting, Bibi Netanyahu and Donald Trump, I don’t want my leaders and my political party cozying up to these people.” Bernie’s statement is perhaps the strongest stand taken by any American politician against AIPAC, Israel’s front group in American politics and one of the biggest special interest groups in the country. AIPAC throws around eye-popping sums of money to members of both parties; to name just one example, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries has accepted over $1.6 million from the group, according to Track AIPAC’s Hall of Shame.

    * In a similar vein, last week we discussed the National Education Association’s vote to suspend its ties with the Anti-Defamation League due to the ADL’s shift in focus from Jewish civil rights to laundering the reputation of Israel. Since then, the ADL has sought to mobilize their allies to demand the NEA reject the vote. To this end, the ADL has sought the support of J Street, a liberal Jewish group critical of Israel, per the Forward. J Street however has rebuffed the ADL, refusing to sign the group’s letter. Though they oppose the NEA resolution, J Street President Jeremy Ben-Ami issued a statement reading in part, “charges of antisemitism must not be wielded to quash legitimate criticism of Israeli policy…the NEA vote can[not] be dismissed as being driven by fringe ‘pro-Hamas’ antisemitic activists.” Hopefully, more Jewish groups will follow the example of J Street and break with the Zionist orthodoxy of the ADL.

    * In other foreign policy news, the Guardian reports French President Macron has reached a deal with the leadership of the French “overseas territory” New Caledonia to grant the island statehood and more autonomy within the French legal system. New Caledonia is one of several UN-designated ‘non-self-governing territories.’ France has exerted rule over the Pacific Island – over 10,000 miles from Paris – and its nearly 300,000 inhabitants since the 19th century. Last May, riots broke out over France’s decision to grant voting rights to thousands of non-indigenous residents. This violence “claimed the lives of 14 people, [and] is estimated to have cost the territory…$2.3 bn… shaving 10% off its gross domestic product.” However, the Times reports indigenous Kanak independence activists reject the deal outright. Brenda Wanabo-Ipeze, a leader of the Co-ordination Cell for Actions on the Ground, who is currently detained in France, said, “This text was signed without us. It does not bind us.” The Times adds that, “The conservative and hard-right French opposition accused Macron of failing to ensure security in the territory. The left accused the president of imposing colonial tactics on a people who should be allowed self-determination.” It remains to be seen whether this deal will prove durable enough to weather criticism from so many angles.

    * Much has been made of Attorney General Pam Bondi’s decision last week to not release any more information related to the Jeffrey Epstein investigation. A Department of Justice memo reads, “it is the determination of the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation that no further disclosure would be appropriate or warranted.” This has created a firestorm in the MAGA world, with many Trump supporters feeling betrayed as the president implied he would declassify these files if reelected. Now, Congressmen Thomas Massie and Ro Khanna have introduced the Epstein Files Transparency Act which would “force the House of Representatives to vote on the complete release of the government’s files related to Jeffrey Epstein,” according to a press release from Massie’s office. This resolution specifically states the files cannot “be withheld, delayed, or redacted” should they cause “embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity, including to any government official, public figure, or foreign dignitary.” The resolution is attracting support from some Republicans, but it is unclear how far this will go under Speaker Johnson, who maintains there is “no daylight between his position and that of Trump,” per the Hill. The position of congressional Republicans has been further complicated by a bombshell report in the Wall Street Journal documenting previously unknown details of the intimate relationship between the late pedophile financier and the president.

    * Meanwhile, the Trump administration is once again torching America’s reputation abroad – this time literally. The Atlantic reports “Five months into its unprecedented dismantling of foreign-aid programs, the Trump administration has given the order to incinerate food instead of sending it to people abroad who need it. Nearly 500 metric tons of emergency food—enough to feed about 1.5 million children for a week—are set to expire tomorrow, according to current and former government employees with direct knowledge of the rations. Within weeks…the food, meant for children in Afghanistan and Pakistan, will be ash.” This cartoonishly evil decision paired with the “Big Beautiful Bill”’s provisions cutting food assistance for children in poverty, point to one inescapable conclusion: the Trump administration wants children to starve.

    * Finally, on the opposite end of the spectrum, Mexico News Daily reports the administration of President Claudia Sheinbaum is debuting a healthy, domestically produced and affordable staple for Mexican consumers – chocolate bars. “This ‘Chocolate de Bienestar’ is part of the government’s ‘Food for Well-Being’ strategy, which aims to bring nutritious and affordable food options to consumers while supporting national producers, particularly those in the southern states of Tabasco and Chiapas — a region that has historically lagged behind other regions in several social and economic indicators.” The Sheinbaum administration is stressing the health benefits of chocolate, noting that, “Studies have shown that chocolate improves cardiovascular health via its antioxidants, provides energy, helps control blood pressure, improves cognitive capacity, satisfies hunger and lifts mood.” At the same time, the administration is seeking to minimize the sugar content “striking a supposedly healthier balance between natural cane sugar and the cacao itself.” This chocolate will be available in three forms:

    “Chocolate bar containing 50% cacao, and priced at…less than $1.

    Powdered chocolate with 30% cocoa, priced…$2

    Chocolate de mesa or tablet chocolate, with 35% cacao, priced at …$5”

    This has been Francesco DeSantis, with In Case You Haven’t Heard.



    Get full access to Ralph Nader Radio Hour at www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/subscribe


    This content originally appeared on Ralph Nader Radio Hour and was authored by Ralph Nader.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Trading Life For Death

    We begin on a positive note by welcoming a “doer,” citizen extraordinaire, Jon Merryman, who couldn’t stand the trash, especially old tires, being dumped in his neighborhood. So, he took it upon himself to clean it up and has now expanded his efforts across the country. Then co-president of Public Citizen, Robert Weissman, joins us to explain how spending in the recent bill passed by the Republican controlled Congress prioritizes the Pentagon and deportation enforcement at the expense of the social safety net, essentially trading life for death.

    Jon Merryman was a software designer at Lockheed Martin, who after retiring found his true calling, cleaning up trash in every county in America.

    When I first started looking at the environment next to my place of work, one of the things I did uncover was tires. And they were definitely there from the ’20s, the ’30s, and the ’40s, they’ve been there for decades. And then just after a while, the soil and the erosion just covers them up. And you just discover them, and you realize this has been going on forever.

    Jon Merryman

    Nature is innocent. It really doesn’t deserve what we’ve given it. And I feel like someone’s got to step up to undo what we’ve done.

    Jon Merryman

    Robert Weissman is a staunch public interest advocate and activist, as well as an expert on a wide variety of issues ranging from corporate accountability and government transparency to trade and globalization, to economic and regulatory policy. As the Co-President of Public Citizen, he has spearheaded the effort to loosen the chokehold corporations, and the wealthy have over our democracy.

    The best estimates are that the loss of insurance and measures in this bill will cost 40,000 lives every year. Not once. Every year.

    Robert Weissman co-president of Public Citizen on the Budget Bill

    People understand there’s a rigged system. They understand that generally. They understand that with healthcare. But if you (the Democrats) don’t name the health insurance companies as an enemy, as a barrier towards moving forward. You don’t say United Health; you don’t go after a Big Pharma, which is probably the most despised health sector in the economy, people don’t think you’re serious. And partially it’s because you’re not.

    Robert Weissman

    News 7/11/25

    1. This week, the Financial Times published a stunning story showing the Tony Blair Institute – founded by the former New Labour British Prime Minister and Iraq War accomplice Tony Blair – “participated” in a project to “reimagine Gaza as a thriving trading hub.” This project would include a “Trump Riviera” and an “Elon Musk Smart Manufacturing Zone”. To accomplish this, the investors would pay half a million Palestinians to leave Gaza to open the enclave up for development – and that is just the tip of the harebrained iceberg. This scheme would also involve creating “artificial islands off the coast akin to those in Dubai, blockchain-based trade initiatives…and low-tax ‘special economic zones’.” The development of this plot is somewhat shadowy. The FT story names a, “group of Israeli businessmen…including tech investor Liran Tancman and venture capitalist Michael Eisenberg,” who helped establish the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation in February 2025. GHF has been accused of using supposed aid distribution sites as “death traps,” per France 24. Boston Consulting Group, also named in the FT story, strongly disavowed the project, as did the Tony Blair Institute.

    2. In more positive news related to Gaza, the National Education Association – the largest labor union in the United States – voted this week to sever ties with the Anti-Defamation League. The ADL, once an important group safeguarding the civil rights and wellbeing of American Jews, has completely abandoned its historic mission and has instead devoted its considerable resources to trying to crush the anti-Zionist movement. The NEA passed a resolution stating that the NEA “will not use, endorse, or publicize materials from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), such as its curricular materials or statistics,” because, “Despite its reputation as a civil rights organization, the ADL is not the social justice educational partner it claims to be.” Labor Notes writes that the ADL “has been a ubiquitous presence in U.S. schools for forty years, pushing curriculum, direct programming, and teacher training into K-12 schools and increasingly into universities.” One NEA delegate, Stephen Siegel, said from the assembly floor, “Allowing the ADL to determine what constitutes antisemitism would be like allowing the fossil fuel industry to determine what constitutes climate change.”

    3. Another major labor story from this week concerns sanitation workers in Philadelphia. According to the Delaware News Journal, AFSCME District Council 33 has reached a deal with the city to raise wages for their 9,000 workers by 9% over three years. The union went on strike July 1st, resulting in, “massive piles of trash piling up on city streets and around trash drop-off sites designated by the city,” and “changes to the city’s annual Fourth of July concert with headliner LL Cool J and city native Jazmine Sullivan both dropping out,” in solidarity with the striking workers, per WHYY. The deal reached is a major compromise for the union, which was seeking a 32% total pay increase, but they held off on an extended trash pickup strike equivalent to 1986 strike, which went on for three weeks and left 45,000 tons of rotting garbage in the streets, per ABC.

    4. Yet another labor story brings us to New York City. ABC7 reports the United Federation of Teachers has endorsed Democratic Socialist – and Democratic Party nominee – Zohran Mamdani for mayor. This report notes “UFT is the city’s second largest union…[with] 200,000 members.” Announcing the endorsement, UFT President Michael Mulgrew stated, “This is a real crisis and it’s a moment for our city, and our city is starting to speak out very loudly…The voters are saying the same thing, ‘enough is enough.’ The income gap disparity is above…that which we saw during the Gilded Age.” All eyes now turn to District Council 37, which ABC7 notes “endorsed Council speaker Adrienne Adams in the primary and has yet to endorse in the general election.”

    5. The margin of Mamdani’s victory, meanwhile, continues to grow as the Board of Elections updates its ranked choice voting tallies. According to the conservative New York Post, Zohran has “won more votes than any other mayoral candidate in New York City primary election history.” Mamdani can now boast having won over 565,000 votes after 102,000 votes were transferred from other candidates. Not only that, “Mamdani’s totals are expected to grow as…a small percent of ballots are still being counted.”

    6. Meanwhile, scandal-ridden incumbent New York City Mayor Eric Adams has yet another scandal on his hands. The New York Daily News reports, “Four high-ranking former NYPD chiefs are suing Mayor Adams, claiming they were forced to retire from the department after complaining that his ‘unqualified’ friends were being placed in prestigious police positions, sometimes after allegedly bribing their way into the jobs.” Former Police Commissioner Edward Caban, who was already forced to resign in disgrace amidst a federal corruption investigation, features prominently in this new lawsuit. Among other things, Caban is alleged to have been “selling promotions” to cops for up to $15,000. Adams is running for reelection as an independent, but trails Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani and disgraced former Governor Andrew Cuomo.

    7. Turning to the federal government, as the U.S. disinvests in science and technology, a new report published in the Financial Times finds that, “Almost three-quarters of all solar and wind power projects being built globally are in China.” According to the data, gathered by Global Energy Monitor, “China is building 510 gigawatts of utility-scale solar and wind projects… [out of] 689GW under construction globally.” As this report notes, one gigawatt can potentially supply electricity for about one million homes. This report goes on to say that, “China is expected to add at least 246.5GW of solar and 97.7GW of wind this year,” on top of the “1.5 terawatts of solar and wind power capacity up and running as of the end of March.” In the first quarter of 2025, solar and wind accounted for 22.5% of China’s total electricity consumption; in 2023, solar and wind accounted for around 14% of electricity consumption in the United States, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

    8. Developments this week put two key rules promulgated by the Federal Trade Commission under former Chair Lina Khan in jeopardy. First and worse, NPR reports the Republican-controlled FTC is abandoning a rule which would have banned non-compete clauses in employment contracts. These anti-worker provisions “trap workers and depress wages,” according to Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy, who has introduced legislation to ban them by statute. Perhaps more irritatingly however, Reuters reports the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis has blocked the so-called “click to cancel” rule just days before it was set to take effect. This rule would have, “required retailers, gyms and other businesses to provide cancellation methods for subscriptions, auto-renewals and free trials that convert to paid memberships that are ‘at least as easy to use’ as the sign up process.” A coalition of corporate interests sued to block the rule, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and a trade group representing major cable and internet providers such as Charter Communications, Comcast and Cox Communications along with media companies like Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery. Lina Khan decried “Firms…making people jump through endless hoops just to cancel a subscription, trapping Americans in needless bureaucracy and wasting their time & money.”

    9. In another betrayal of consumers, Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. continues to break promises and speak out of both sides of his mouth. A new report in NPR documents RFK Jr. speaking at a conference in April, where he “spoke about the health effects of exposure to harmful chemicals in our food, air and water…[and] cited recent research on microplastics from researchers in Oregon, finding these tiny particles had shown up in 99% of the seafood they sampled.” Yet Susanne Brander, the author of the study, had gotten word just an hour earlier that “a federal grant she’d relied on to fund her research for years…was being terminated.” Brander is quoted saying “It feels like they are promoting the field while ripping out the foundation.” Ripping out the foundation of this research is felt acutely, as “regulators are weakening safeguards that limit pollution and other toxic chemicals.” So Mr. Secretary, which is more important – stopping the proliferation of microplastics or slashing funding for the very scientists studying the issue?

    10. Finally, in Los Angeles masked federal troops are marauding through the streets on horseback, sowing terror through immigrant communities, per the New York Times. President Trump mobilized approximately 4,000 National Guard members – putting them under federal control – alongside 700 Marines in response to protests against immigration raids in June. As the Times notes, “It has been more than three weeks since the last major demonstration in downtown Los Angeles,” but the federal forces have not been demobilized. While some have dismissed the shows of force as nothing more than stunts designed to fire up the president’s base, Gregory Bovino, a Customs and Border Protection chief in Southern California told Fox News “[LA] Better get used to us now, cause this is going to be normal very soon.” As LA Mayor Karen Bass put it, “What I saw…looked like a city under siege, under armed occupation…It’s the way a city looks before a coup.”

    This has been Francesco DeSantis, with In Case You Haven’t Heard.



    Get full access to Ralph Nader Radio Hour at www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/subscribe


    This content originally appeared on Ralph Nader Radio Hour and was authored by Ralph Nader.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Power Unchecked

    Hassan El-Tayyeb of the Friends Committee on National Legislation returns with an update on the worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the growing movement to end U.S. support for the assault. Then, Mackenzie Knight Boyle from the Federation of American Scientists walks us through the scale and secrecy of the U.S. nuclear weapons program — and the risks it poses to the world. Finally, constitutional scholar Bruce Fein joins us to call out the unchecked power and ethical failures of the Supreme Court.

    Hassan El-Tayyab is the lead lobbyist on Middle East policy for the Friends Committee on National Legislation. Mr. El-Tayyab co-chairs the U.S. Ceasefire Coalition and leads the Friends Committee’s work to end the humanitarian crisis in Yemen, advocate for Palestinian human rights, and advance diplomacy with Iran.

    (The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation) militarizes aid and is run by private armed contractors. It violates all these principles of neutrality, independence, impartiality. And we even saw the GHF’s own executive director, Jake Wood, resign in protest in May, saying that he couldn’t work in a way that didn’t adhere to these humanitarian principles.

    Hassan El-Tayyab

    Mackenzie Knight-Boyle is a Senior Research Associate for the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists, where she co-authors the Nuclear Notebook––an authoritative open-source estimate of global nuclear forces and trends.

    Probably the scariest false alarm was in 1979, A training cassette that was simulating a massive attack with nuclear missiles from the Soviet Union on the United States was mistakenly entered into the primary computer system of North American Aerospace Defense Command, NORAD. And it was then broadcast to other command centers as if it was going out in the National Command Authority alert system. And because of that, the proper procedures were followed for a situation like this, where the fighter jets took off. The nuclear bombers, carrying nuclear weapons, were put into the sky, missile crews were put on high alert, which means the missiles are ready to launch within seconds. And the president’s doomsday plane, which is essentially the war room in the sky for the president in emergency situations, was also put into the air. And it took six minutes for them to realize that this was a training cassette that had been mistakenly put into the system.

    Mackenzie Knight-Boyle

    Bruce Fein is a Constitutional scholar and an expert on international law. Mr. Fein was Associate Deputy Attorney General under Ronald Reagan and he is the author of Constitutional Peril: The Life and Death Struggle for Our Constitution and Democracy, and American Empire: Before the Fall.

    There can be good faith disagreements over the interpretation of the Constitution. But when you have a course of action which so systematically shows a favoritism towards limitless executive power towards corporations as well with regard to money and politics, no longer does it seem to be a matter of good faith, a disagreement, but it’s a matter of advancing the partisan political interests of the president, the presidency, and that is, I think, an impeachable offense.

    Bruce Fein (on impeaching Supreme Court justices)

    News 7/4/25

    1. The New York City Board of Elections has released the final results in the Democratic Mayoral primary – after accounting for reallocation of votes via ranked-choice tabulations. The final results are stunning. Zohran Mamdani, up by approximately seven points on election night, has emerged with a whopping 12-point victory over disgraced former Governor Andrew Cuomo. Perhaps even more impressive, Mamdani completely reshaped the electorate. According to the New York Times, he turned out young people in record numbers to the point that the largest voter bloc in this election was 18–29-year-olds, a complete reversal of usual trends.

    2. Speaking of reversing trends, it is worth reviewing Zohran’s victory in light of the groups he won by large margins. Namely men, including young men of all backgrounds, as well as Latino and Asian voters, per Jacobin. These are groups that Democrats have notably lost ground with, including in New York City, and have devoted considerable resources to winning back to their coalition. Zohran’s win therefore should give Democrats a new sense of optimism and they should seek to embrace the winning course that he has charted.

    3. Of course, being the Democratic Party, they are instead doing the opposite. Despite his earthquake victory, few high-profile New York Democrats have endorsed Zohran. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has not, nor has Governor Kathy Hochul, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, or other powerful New York House Democrats like Gregory Meeks. The other U.S. Senator from New York, Kirsten Gillibrand, has been openly hostile, calling Zohran “permissive [of] violence against Jews,” in an interview with Brian Lehrer on WNYC. This is of course racist, inflammatory and flatly untrue. Under pressure from other Democrats, Gillibrand retracted her statement, and “apologized for mischaracterizing Mamdani’s record and for her tone on the call,” according to POLITICO. This however gives us a taste of the kind of dirty tricks and defamatory rhetoric the party could deploy against Mamdani between now and November.

    4. That said, Zohran is picking up significant backing locally – an indication that those actually on the ground know which way the wind is blowing. On Monday, Mamdani was endorsed by the NYC Central Labor Council-AFL-CIO. The NYCCLC is “the nation’s largest regional labor federation…[bringing] together 300 unions… [and representing] more than 1 million workers.” On Tuesday, he won the endorsement of New York Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, who represents Westchester, according to reporter Vaughn Golden. Zohran has already earned the endorsement of New York Attorney General Tish James. Expect this divergence between national and local Democratic figures to continue.

    5. In stark contrast to Zohran, whose political brand is defined by seemingly endless energy, Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman shocked observers this week when he complained about having to do the bare minimum as a U.S. Senator. According to Rolling Stone, during Senate deliberations on the so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill,” Fetterman was quoted saying “I just want to go home. I’ve missed our entire trip to the beach.” Fetterman’s comments are particularly galling seeing as he has been chronically absent from Senate hearings, committee meetings and even votes. In other words, Fetterman is complaining about doing the bare minimum for the people of Pennsylvania, but is failing to do even that.

    6. The bill did of course pass, with Vice-President JD Vance voting to break a 50-50 tie vote in the Senate. On Twitter, Vance justified his vote from criticism regarding its massive cuts to Medicaid by saying “The thing that will bankrupt this country more than any other policy is flooding the country with illegal immigration and then giving those migrants generous benefits. The OBBB fixes this problem. And therefore it must pass.” AOC called his vote, “An absolute and utter betrayal of working families.”

    7. In more news related to the bill, Trump and Elon Musk have been trading threats regarding its passage. On Monday, TIME reported Elon Musk tweeted, “If this insane spending bill passes, the America Party will be formed the next day. Our country needs an alternative to the Democrat-Republican uni-party, so that the people actually have a voice.” Musk added, “Every member of Congress who campaigned on reducing government spending and then immediately voted for the biggest debt increase in history should hang their head in shame…they will lose their primary next year, if it is the last thing I do on this Earth.” Musk has also reportedly thrown his financial weight behind Congressman Thomas Massie of Kentucky, perhaps the most vocal critic of Trump in the House Republican caucus. Trump is already backing a primary challenge against Massie; Musk intervening on the other side has turned this race into a climactic proxy battle between the two figures once called “co-presidents.”

    8. Trump, for his part, threatened to deport Elon Musk. Asked about this directly, Trump told reporters, “We’ll have to take a look. We might have to put DOGE on Elon. You know what DOGE is? The monster that might have to go back and eat Elon. Wouldn’t that be terrible? He gets a lot of subsidies,” per USA Today. This is of course true. Musk’s companies have received billions in corporate welfare from the federal government over the years. It is unclear how much the stock value of, for instance Tesla, would suffer from the money faucet being turned off.

    9. Entertaining as Trump’s threats to deport Musk are however, we should not lose sight of the ever-darker reality of deportation setting in nationwide. NOLA.com reports “An Iranian woman who has lived in the United States for 47 years, has no criminal record, and is married to a US citizen was detained by ICE as she gardened outside her New Orleans home.” Expect to hear more stories of secret police rounding up law abiding Americans in the days to come.

    10. Finally, in more positive news, Reuters reports China is quietly moving to rebuild Cuba’s energy grid. This report notes that “Officials…announced China was participating in a project to modernize Cuba’s entire electrical grid, with 55 solar parks to be built in 2025, and another 37 by 2028, for a total of 2,000 MW – a massive undertaking that, when complete, would represent nearly two-thirds of present-day demand.” Cuba joined China’s international infrastructure development program Belt and Road in 2018. This report notes that China is taking on the development role that Russia formerly played in Havana, but has been unable to deliver on since it embarked on its special military operation-turned-quagmire in Ukraine. Cuba’s energy grid has experienced continue failures for the past several years for myriad reasons, exacerbated by Trump’s increasingly draconian sanctions regime. This is just another example of a reality becoming increasingly clear to much of the world: the U.S. tears down developing countries’ infrastructure, China helps build it up.

    This has been Francesco DeSantis, with In Case You Haven’t Heard.



    Get full access to Ralph Nader Radio Hour at www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/subscribe


    This content originally appeared on Ralph Nader Radio Hour and was authored by Ralph Nader.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Bunker Bust

    In the aftermath of the U.S. bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities, we welcome back Theodore Postol, Professor of Science, Technology and National Security Policy Emeritus at MIT to give his expert technical assessment on where that assault leaves the Iranian nuclear program. Then, Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, gives us his analysis of the political side of the issue.

    Theodore Postol is Professor of Science, Technology and National Security Policy Emeritus in the Program in Science, Technology, and Society at MIT. His expertise is in nuclear weapon systems, including submarine warfare, applications of nuclear weapons, ballistic missile defense, and ballistic missiles more generally.

    No one at that point after the attack could have known whether or not there was success of any kind, even if there was success. And I doubt there was any success.

    Theodore Postol

    The Israelis have done everything in their power to create an internal argument among the political leadership in Iran to proceed to build a nuclear weapon so that this kind of thing won’t happen again. So the Israeli grand strategy, if you want to call it that, shows no intelligence or thought of any kind.

    Theodore Postol

    Trita Parsi is the executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, and the co-founder and former President of the National Iranian American Council. He is an expert on US-Iranian relations, Iranian foreign policy, and the geopolitics of the Middle East. He has authored three books on US foreign policy in the Middle East, with a particular focus on Iran and Israel— Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Iran, Israel and the United States, A Single Roll of the Dice – Obama’s Diplomacy with Iran, and Losing an Enemy: Obama, Iran and the Triumph of Diplomacy.

    Israel is not enhancing American power in the Middle East. Israel is consuming it.

    Trita Parsi, Executive VP of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft

    If the (Iranian regime) were to collapse it would most likely be because there would be an internal coup. And the next regime would be coming from the very same regime. It would just be a much more aggressive and hardline.

    Trita Parsi

    20 Worst Recent Trump Headlines

    1. Trump Administration Abruptly Cuts Billions From State Health Services (Apoorva Mandavilli, Margot Sanger-Katz and Jan Hoffman, New York Times, March 26, 2025)

    2. The EPA is canceling almost 800 environmental justice grants, court filing reveals (Maxine Joselow and Amudalat Ajasa, Washington Post, April 29, 2025)

    3. Trump’s attack on federal unions a ‘test case’ for broader assault, warn lawyers (Michael Sainato, The Guardian, 5/1/25)

    4. Trump fires all 3 Democrats on the Consumer Product Safety Commission (Jaclyn Diaz, NPR, 5/9/25)

    5. Federal employee unions fight for survival as Trump tries to eviscerate them (Andrea Hsu, NPR, 5/11/25)

    6. Trump’s DOJ agrees to let Boeing escape guilty plea. It was a deal victims’ families didn’t want. (Alexis Keenan, Yahoo Finance, 5/23/25)

    7. Trump made a promise not to touch Medicare. His megabill just broke it. (Alan L. Cohen, NBC, 5/23/25)

    8. Trump’s safety research cuts heighten workplace risks, federal workers warn (Michael Sainato, The Guardian, 5/27/25)

    9. Provision in GOP budget bill puts millions at risk of losing SNAP benefits (Lisa Desjardins and Jackson Hudgins, PBS, 5/29/25)

    10. White House proposes shutting down chemical safety agency (Maxine Joselow Washington Post, 6/3/25)

    11. Trump tax bill would add $550 billion in interest payments to national debt (Jacob Bogage, Washington Post, 6/5/25)

    12. RFK Jr. boots all members of the CDC’s vaccine advisory committee (Will Stone, NPR, 6/9/25)

    13. Vance, Rubio peddle fiction that 88 percent of foreign aid doesn’t go overseas (Glenn Kessler, Washington Post, 6/11/25)

    14. Trump’s EPA plans to repeal climate pollution limits on fossil fuel power plants (Jeff Brady, NPR, 6/11/25)

    15. How Trump’s assault on science is blinding America to climate change (Scott Waldman, E&E News, 6/16/2025)

    16. ‘Censorship:’ See the National Park visitor responses after Trump requested help deleting ‘negative’ signage (Government Executive Magazine, 6/18/25)

    17. Government drops cases against ‘predatory’ financial firms (Peter Whoriskey, Washington Post, 6/20/25)

    18. ‘Hell no, insane’: A proposal for millions of acres of land under Trump’s ‘big, beautiful’ bill sparks outrage (No Byline, Economic Times, 6/23/25)

    19. Under Trump’s ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ child poverty will rise again (Arturo Baiocchi, Sacramento Bee, 6/23/25)

    20. Trump loves saying ‘You’re fired.’ Now he’s making it easier to fire federal workers (Andrea Hsu, NPR, 6/23/25)

    News 6/27/25

    1. After a brutal initial barrage by the United States, followed by tit-for-tat exchanges between Israel and Iran, the U.S. is seeking to broker a ceasefire between the two states. On Truth Social, Trump posted “ISRAEL is not going to attack Iran. All planes will turn around and head home, while doing a friendly ‘Plane Wave’ to Iran. Nobody will be hurt, the Ceasefire is in effect!” Just hours after this however, Israel did in fact bomb targets in Tehran, per Reuters. Israel also claims to have intercepted missiles fired from Iran following the ceasefire agreement. In the wake of the initial attacks, journalist Séamus Malekafzali reported that the “Iranian communist party Tudeh and the Communist Party of Israel [Hadash] release[d] a joint statement condemning the Israeli war on Iran, saying Israel’s intent is to make the region ‘bow down to [US] imperialism’ and that the only solution is full nuclear disarmament in the Middle East.” Israel’s nuclear capabilities are an open secret in Washington, with estimates that the country possess between 90 and 400 nuclear warheads.

    2. In Congress, Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia has put forth a War Powers resolution in an attempt to check Trump’s unilateral escalation in Iran. According to Newsweek, he expects to get Republican votes in the Senate. In the House, the effort is led by Reps. Ro Khanna and maverick Republican Thomas Massie, whom Trump has become so enraged with that he recently launched a PAC to oust him from his seat, per Axios. Meanwhile, AOC issued a statement reading, “The President’s disastrous decision to bomb Iran without authorization is a grave violation of the Constitution and Congressional War Powers. He has impulsively risked launching a war that may ensnare us for generations. It is absolutely and clearly grounds for impeachment.” Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, asked about AOC’s impeachment comments, replied “No, no, that’s a big threshold to cross,” per David Weigel.

    3. The escalation in Iran has exposed fissures in Trump’s orbit. PBS reports major MAGA figures like Steve Bannon, Tucker Carlson and Marjorie Taylor-Greene are openly opposed, while Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has reportedly drawn Trump’s ire for a string of comments out of step with the administration’s messaging, starting with a video earlier this month in which she accused “political elites and warmongers [of] carelessly fomenting fear and tension between nuclear powers,” per the Independent. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has been iced out completely, according to the Washington Post.

    4. In more news concerning the administration, the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) has published a new report, finding that “Stephen Miller…Trump’s powerful deputy chief of staff and homeland security advisor…has a personal financial stake…[of] up to a quarter million dollars of stock in Palantir.” POGO describes Palantir, the shadowy tech company founded by rightwing tech oligarch Peter Thiel, as “woven into the operations of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and used by other federal agencies such as the Pentagon.” POGO and other experts see this as a glaring potential conflict of interest. In an almost darkly comedic twist, “Democratic lawmakers have recently sought information from Palantir, [but] they are in the minority and cannot compel the company to produce records. A person who could is Representative James Comer (R-KY), the chairman of the [House] oversight committee…However, Comer bought…Palantir stock the day after Trump’s inauguration…his only stock trade that day.” Palantir is the second-best-performing S&P 500 stock in 2025, with shares up 74% year-to-date, per Business Insider.

    5. In a rare case of corruption actually being prosecuted, the New York Times reports former New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez reported for his eleven-year prison sentence on June 17th. “After a nine-week trial in Manhattan, Mr. Menendez…became the only U.S. senator ever to be convicted of acting as an agent of a foreign government,” after taking part in a “yearslong bribery conspiracy” that included payoffs in the form of “kilo bars of gold, a Mercedes-Benz convertible and more than $480,000 in cash.” Menendez is now incarcerated at the Federal Correctional Institution, Schuylkill, a medium-security federal prison in Minersville, Pennsylvania. He has been assigned the prisoner number 67277-050.

    6. In other news, POLITICO reports, “FICO plans to launch a suite of credit scores later this year that incorporate [Buy Now Pay Later or BNPL] data, providing lenders a window into…consumers’ repayment behavior on these increasingly popular installment loans.” As BNPL data has not been included in credit reporting before, this has become known as “phantom debt…a gigantic black box…[and] largely unregulated.” This story notes that the Trump administration CFPB has “dropped planned enforcement of a Biden administration rule that would have treated BNPL providers like credit card companies,” subjecting this industry to daylight and financial regulation. The administration’s abandonment of this rule mirrors their declassification of cryptocurrency as securities in order to skirt SEC oversight. Many questions remain over how exactly BNPL data will factor into consumers’ credit scores, but many are bracing for this data to reveal a growing chasm of consumer debt underpinning the already shaky economic picture.

    7. Meanwhile Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University student and activist abducted by ICE on the eve of his son’s birth – despite being a legal permanent resident – has finally been freed. Khalil was held in federal immigration detention in Louisiana for 104 days, per AP. Following his release, Khalil said “Justice prevailed, but it’s very long overdue.” Khalil’s legal battle will continue. Khalil stated in an interview with NPR, “My release is just the first step. The legal fight is still very, very long. The administration appealed the decision about my release, but we will prove our case – that what happened…was textbook retaliation against the First Amendment, that I was targeted because of speech the government did not like, and that there was nothing wrong with the speech I was engaged in. I want to make sure that everyone who contributed to my arrest will be held accountable.”

    8. Backlash to Trump’s immigration policies is not confined to the political and legal realms either. Newsweek reports that the new Pope, Leo XIV, has “called for priests, deacons and parish leaders to accompany migrants to court and stand in solidarity with them.” This is an encouraging sign for those who hoped Leo would follow in the footsteps of Pope Francis. It also puts the new Pope at odds with more conservative American Catholics, such as Vice-President JD Vance who converted in adulthood. In May, Leo’s brother John Prevost told New York Times that the new Pope, “has great, great desire to help the downtrodden and the disenfranchised, the people who are ignored.”

    9. In another immigration flashpoint, “A gang of masked federal agents swarmed, manhandled, and detained New York City Comptroller Brad Lander…as he sought to assist a defendant out of immigration court,” according to the American Prospect. The Prospect notes this arrest is “the latest instance of political violence against opposition party members, which has included the arrests of Newark Mayor Ras Baraka and New Jersey Rep. LaMonica McIver…the arrest of Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan…and the brief detention of Sen. Alex Padilla.” Lander was released several hours after he was detained, when New York Governor Kathy Hochul showed up in person to demand his release. She called his arrest “b******t.” Later, in an interview with Joe Gallina, Lander said, “Courts tell undocumented immigrants their cases are ‘dismissed.’ But what they really dismiss… is their asylum status. Then ICE grabs them. No lawyer. No warning.”

    10. Finally, 33-year-old democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani trounced disgraced former Governor Andrew Cuomo in the New York City Democratic mayoral primary on Tuesday, winning by a completely unforeseen seven-point landslide. Polls up to election day showed Cuomo winning, some by as much as 24 points. Mamdani, a state legislator since 2021, ran on a platform of affordability, including making city buses free, establishing city-owned grocery stores and freezing the rent for all stabilized tenants. This platform – paired with cogent messaging, an extraordinary grassroots organizing campaign and shrewd alliances with other progressive candidates like Brad Lander – won the day for Zohran. However, an air of uncertainty about November remains. Incumbent Mayor Eric Adams still plans to run for reelection as an independent and Cuomo hasn’t ruled out doing the same, per the Hill. While many who endorsed or donated to Cuomo in the primary – some now openly admitting they merely did so out of fear of reprisal – have switched their allegiance to Mamdani, some are maintaining a hostile posture towards the presumptive Democratic nominee. There is no doubt this story will proceed in dramatic fashion.

    This has been Francesco DeSantis, with In Case You Haven’t Heard.



    Get full access to Ralph Nader Radio Hour at www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/subscribe


    This content originally appeared on Ralph Nader Radio Hour and was authored by Ralph Nader.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Netanyahu Unleashed

    To give us the benefit of his vast experience as a diplomat, former Ambassador Chas Freeman, helps us sort through the escalating conflict between Israel and Iran. Then Christian Sorenson, military analyst from the Eisenhower Media Network, explains just how the military industrial complex works.

    Ambassador Chas Freeman is a retired career diplomat who has negotiated on behalf of the United States with over 100 foreign governments in East and South Asia, Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, and both Western and Eastern Europe. Ambassador Freeman served as U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense, U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia, acting Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, and Deputy Chief of Mission and Chargé d’Affaires in the American embassies at both Bangkok and Beijing. He was Director for Chinese Affairs at the U.S. Department of State from 1979-1981.

    The claim that suddenly Iran was on the verge of building a nuclear weapon has no basis in fact. And neither the CIA nor the Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, agree with the statement of the President that Iran is about to build a bomb.

    Ambassador Chas Freeman

    The Israelis have a strange way of negotiating. They went into negotiations with Hamas, and they killed the top two people in charge of the negotiations. Then they go into negotiations – with U.S. auspices – with Iran. And in the middle of them, they kill the top military and scientific people in Iran.

    Ambassador Chas Freeman

    It’s as least as likely, maybe more likely, that there will be regime change in Jerusalem as there will be regime change in Tehran.

    Ambassador Chas Freeman

    Christian Sorensen is the Associate Director of the Eisenhower Media Network. He is an author and military affairs analyst covering the business of war. Mr. Sorenson is a former U.S. Air Force Arabic linguist, served at a variety of stateside posts and a tour in Qatar. He is the author of “Understanding the War Industry.” Since leaving the military, he has become the foremost expert studying military contracting and how corporations profit from war.

    The U.S. taxpayer gives any year around three to $4 billion of U.S. tax dollars to Israel, and then Israel is supposed to turn around and use that money to purchase from the U.S. war industry. So it is incredibly profitable for the U.S. ruling class to do that because it doesn’t come out of the pockets of the U.S. ruling class because the U.S. ruling class doesn’t pay their fair share of taxes.

    Christian Sorenson

    Per Ralph’s call to action – Even non-veterans can sign up for Veterans for Peace



    Get full access to Ralph Nader Radio Hour at www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/subscribe


    This content originally appeared on Ralph Nader Radio Hour and was authored by Ralph Nader.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Trump Versus the United States

    First up, Georgetown law professor and former national legal director at the ACLU, David Cole, joins us to discuss the legal response to the Trump Administration’s serial violations of the Constitution. Then Mike Ferner of Veterans for Peace checks in to update us halfway through his Fast for Gaza, 40 days of living on 250 calories per day, which is the average caloric intake of Palestinian survivors in Gaza. Finally, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, Joe Holley, stops by to pay tribute to his mentor and colleague, the late crusading journalist, Ronnie Dugger, founder of the progressive Texas Observer.

    David Cole is the Honorable George J. Mitchell Professor in Law and Public Policy and former National Legal Director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). He writes about and teaches constitutional law, freedom of speech, and constitutional criminal procedure. He is a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books and is the legal affairs correspondent for The Nation.

    Trump is obviously not concerned about antisemitism. He’s concerned about targeting schools because they are places where people can criticize the president, where people can think independently, are taught to think independently, and often don’t support what the president is doing. He’s using his excuse to target a central institution of civil society.

    David Cole

    The decision on Trump versus the United States is only about criminal liability for criminal acts, not for unconstitutional acts. And violating the Constitution is not a crime. Every president has violated the Constitution probably since George Washington. That’s not a crime.

    David Cole

    Mike Ferner served in the Navy during the Vietnam War, and he is former National Director and current Special Projects Coordinator for Veterans for Peace. He is the author of Inside the Red Zone: A Veteran for Peace Reports from Iraq.

    Two hundred and fifty calories is technically, officially, a starvation diet, and we’re doing it for 40 days. The people in Gaza have been doing it for months and months and months, and they’re dying like crazy. That’s the whole concern that we’re trying to raise. And I’ll tell you at the end of this fast, on the 40th day, we are not just going out silently. There are going to be some fireworks before we’re done with this thing. So all I’m saying is: stay tuned.

    Mike Ferner: Special Projects Coordinator of Veterans for Peace on “FastforGaza”

    They’re (The Veterans Administration is) being defamed, Ralph, for the same reason that those right-wing corporatists defamed public education. So they can privatize it. And that’s exactly what they’re trying to do with the VA. And I can tell you every single member of Veterans for Peace has got nothing but praise for the VA.

    Mike Ferner

    Joe Holley was the editor of the Texas Observer in the early 1980s. A former staff writer at The Washington Post and a Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial writer and columnist at the Houston Chronicle, he is the author of eight books, mostly about Texas.

    He would talk to people, and he would find out things going on about racial discrimination, about farm workers being mistreated, all kind of stories that the big papers weren’t reporting. And this one guy, young Ronnie Dugger, would write these stories and expose things about Texas that a lot of Texans just did not know.

    Joe Holley on the late progressive journalist, Ronnie Dugger

    He knew the dark side of Texas, but he always had an upbeat personality. I had numerous conversations with Ronnie (Dugger), and he was ferociously independent.

    Ralph Nader

    News 6/13/25

    1. On Monday, Israeli forces seized the Madleen, the ship carrying activist Greta Thunberg and others attempting to bring food and other supplies past the Israeli blockade into Gaza, and detained the crew. The ship was part of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition and Thunberg had been designated an “Ambassador of Conscience,” by Amnesty International. The group decried her detention, with Secretary General Agnès Callamard writing, “Israel has once again flouted its legal obligations towards civilians in the occupied Gaza Strip and demonstrated its chilling contempt for legally binding orders of the International Court of Justice.” On Tuesday, CBS reported that Israel deported Thunberg. Eight other passengers refused deportation and the Jerusalem Post reports they remain in Israeli custody. They will be represented in Israeli courts by Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel. One of these detainees is Rima Hassan, a French member of the European Parliament.

    2. Shortly before the Madleen was intercepted, members of Congress sent a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio expressing concern for the safety of these activists, citing the deadly 2010 raid of the Mavi Marmara, which ultimately resulted in the death of ten activists, including an American. This letter continued, “any attack on the Madleen or its civilian crew is a clear and blatant violation of international law. United Nations experts have called for the ship’s safe passage and warned Israel to “refrain from any act of hostility” against the Madleen and its passengers…We call on you to monitor the Madleen’s journey and deter any such hostile actions.” This letter was led by Rep. Rashida Tlaib, and drew signatures from Congressional progressives like Reps. Summer Lee, AOC, Ilhan Omar, Greg Casar, and others.

    3. On the other end of the political spectrum, Trump – ever unpredictable – seemed to criticize Israel’s detention of Thunberg. In a press conference, “Trump was…asked about Thunberg’s claim that she had been kidnapped.” The president responded “I think Israel has enough problems without kidnapping Greta Thunberg…Is that what she said? She was kidnapped by Israel?” The reporter replied “Yes, sir,” to which “Trump responded by shaking his head.” This from Newsweek.

    4. Of course, the major Trump news this week is his response to the uprising in Los Angeles. Set off by a new wave of ICE raids, protesters have clashed with police in the streets and Trump has responded by increasingly upping the ante, including threatening to arrest California Governor Gavin Newsom, per KTLA. Beyond such bluster however, Trump has moved to deploy U.S. Marines onto the streets of the nation’s second-largest city. Reuters reports, “About 700 Marines were in a staging area in the Seal Beach area about 30 miles…south of Los Angeles, awaiting deployment to specific locations,” in addition to 2,100 National Guard troops. The deployment of these troops raises thorny legal questions. Per Reuters, “The Marines and National Guard troops lack the authority to makes arrests and will be charged only with protecting federal property and personnel,” but “California Attorney General Rob Bonta… [said] there was a risk that could violate an 1878 law that…forbids the U.S. military, including the National Guard, from taking part in civilian law enforcement.” Yet, despite all the tumult, these protests seem to have gotten the goods, so to speak: the City of Glendale announced it would, “end its agreement with…ICE to house federal immigration detainees.” All of this sets quite a scene going into Trump’s military parade in DC slated for Saturday, June 14th.

    5. In classic fashion however, Trump’s tough posture does not extend to corporate crime. Public Citizen’s Rick Claypool reports, “Trump’s DOJ just announced American corporations that engage in criminal bribery schemes abroad will no longer be prosecuted.” Claypool cites a June 9th memo from Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, which reads, “Effective today, prosecutors shall…not attribute…malfeasance to corporate structures.” Claypool also cites a Wall Street Journal piece noting that “the DOJ has already ended half of its criminal investigations into corporate bribery in foreign countries and shrunk its [Foreign Corrupt Practices Act] unit down to 25 employees.”

    6. Americans can at least take small comfort in one thing: the departure of Elon Musk from the top rungs of government. It remains to be seen what exactly precipitated his final exit and how deep his rift with Trump goes – Musk has already backed down on his harshest criticisms of the president, deleting his tweet claiming Trump was in Epstein files, per ABC. Yet, this appears to be a victory for Steve Bannon and the forces he represents within Trump’s inner circle. On June 5th, the New York Times reported that Bannon, “said he was advising the president to cancel all [Musk’s] contracts and… ‘initiate a formal investigation of his immigration status’.” Bannon added, “[Musk] should be deported from the country immediately.’” Bannon has even called for a special counsel probe, per the Hill. Bannon’s apparent ascendency goes beyond the Oval Office as well. POLITICO Playbook reports Bannon had a 20-minute-long conversation with Pennsylvania Democratic Senator John Fetterman on Monday evening – while Fetterman dined with Washington bureau chief for Breitbart, Matt Boyle – at Butterworth’s, the DC MAGA “watering hole.” This also from the Hill.

    7. On the way out, the Daily Beast reports, “Elon Musk’s goons at the Department of Government Efficiency transmitted a large amount of data—all of it undetected—using a Starlink Wi-Fi terminal they installed on top of the White House.” Sources “suggested that the [the installation of the Starlink terminal] was intended to bypass White House systems that track the transmission of data—with names and time stamps—and secure it from spies.” It is unknown exactly what data Musk and his minions absconded with, and for what purpose. We can only hope the public gets some answers.

    8. With Musk and Trump parting ways, other political forces are now seeking to woo the richest man in the world. Semafor reports enigmatic Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna, who represents Silicon Valley and chaired Bernie Sanders’ campaign in California, “talked with one of…Musk’s ‘senior confidants’ …about whether the ex-DOGE leader…might want to help the Democratic Party in the midterms.” Khanna added, “Having Elon speak out against the irrational tariff policy, against the deficit exploding Trump bill, and the anti-science and anti-immigrant agenda can help check Trump’s unconstitutional administration…I look forward to Elon turning his fire against MAGA Republicans instead of Democrats in 2026.” On the other hand, the Hill reports ex-Democrat Andrew Yang is publicly appealing to Musk for an alliance following Musk’s call for the establishment of an “America Party.” Yang himself founded the Forward Party in 2021. Yang indicated Musk has not responded to his overtures.

    9. Meanwhile, the leadership of the Democratic Party appears to be giving up entirely. In a leaked Zoom meeting, DNC Chair Ken Martin – only elected in February – said, “I don’t know if I wanna do this anymore,” per POLITICO. On this call, Martin expressed frustration with DNC Vice Chair David Hogg, blaming him for, “[destroying] any chance I have to show the leadership that I need to.” Hogg meanwhile has doubled down, defying DNC leadership by “wading into another primary,” this time for the open seat left by the death of Congressman Gerry Conolly in Virginia, the Washington Post reports. The DNC is still weighing whether to void Hogg’s election as Vice Chair.

    10. Finally, in some good news from New York City, State Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani appears to have closed the gap with disgraced former Governor Andrew Cuomo. Cuomo began the race with a 40-point lead; a new Data for Progress poll shows that lead has been cut down to just two points. Moreover, that poll was conducted before Mamdani was endorsed by AOC, who is expected to bring with her substantial support from Latinos and residents of Queens, among other groups. Notably, Mamdani has racked up tremendous numbers among young men, a demographic the Democratic Party has struggled to attract in recent elections. Cuomo will not go down without a fight however. The political nepo-baby has already secured a separate ballot line for the November election, meaning he will be in the race even if he loses the Democratic primary, and he is being boosted by a new million-dollar digital ad spend by Airbnb, per POLITICO. The New York City Democratic Primary will be held on June 24th.

    This has been Francesco DeSantis, with In Case You Haven’t Heard.



    Get full access to Ralph Nader Radio Hour at www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/subscribe


    This content originally appeared on Ralph Nader Radio Hour and was authored by Ralph Nader.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • The MAGA Murder Bill

    Ralph welcomes Heidi Shierholz, president of the Economic Policy Institute, to break down the budget bill passing through Congress that is the largest transfer of wealth from the poor and working-class to the wealthy in United States history. Then, insurance expert, Robert Hunter returns to discuss the recent rise in auto insurance rates.

    Heidi Shierholz is the president of the Economic Policy Institute, a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank that uses the power of its research on economic trends and on the impact of economic policies to advance reforms that serve working people, deliver racial justice, and guarantee gender equity. In 2021 she became the fourth president EPI has had since its founding in 1986.

    We’ve never seen a budget that so plainly takes from the poor to give to the rich… The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found that lower and lower middle-income people will actually lose out. They may get something of a tax break, but they lose benefits. So that on net, their after-tax income will be lower after this bill, while the rich just make out like bandits.

    Heidi Shierholz, President of the Economic Policy Institute

    The draconian cuts that we are seeing to the safety net are not big enough, because the tax increases are so huge that this bill also increases the deficit dramatically.

    Heidi Shierholz

    Many folks are calling this the MAGA Murder Bill. They’re not wrong. People will die because of the cuts that we’re seeing here.

    Heidi Shierholz

    Robert Hunter is the Director Emeritus of Insurance at the Consumer Federation of America. He has held many positions in the field, both public and private, including being the Commissioner of Insurance for the State of Texas being the President and Founder of the National Insurance Consumer Organization and served as United States Federal Insurance Administrator.

    Decide how much you need. Don’t ask for more than you really need. And then once you have it, “I need this much for my car. I need this much if I hit somebody” and so on. And then you get that statistic, and you send it out to several companies and get quotes.

    Robert Hunter on buying auto insurance

    There isn’t any program benefiting the American people that Trump is not cutting in order to turn the country over to the giant corporations and the super-rich. It’s basically an overthrow of the government and an overthrow of the rule of law.

    Ralph Nader

    News 6/6/25

    1. On May 23rd, the Trump administration Department of Justice officially announced it had reached an agreement with Boeing to drop its criminal case against the airline manufacturer related to the 2018 and 2019 crashes that killed 346 people, NPR reports. The turnover at the federal government in recent years has prolonged this case; the first Trump administration reached a deferred prosecution agreement with Boeing in 2021, but prosecutors revived the criminal case under President Biden, and as NPR notes, “Boeing agreed last year to plead guilty to defrauding regulators, but a federal judge rejected that proposed plea deal.” Just before the deal was reached, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Richard Blumenthal penned a letter calling on the DOJ not to “allow [Boeing] to weasel its way out of accountability for its failed corporate culture, and for any illegal behavior that has resulted in deadly consequence,” but this was clearly ignored. Paul Cassell, a law professor at the University of Utah and former federal judge who, according to NPR, is representing the families of victims for free, said, “This kind of non-prosecution deal is unprecedented and obviously wrong for the deadliest corporate crime in U.S. history…My families will object and hope to convince the court to reject [the deal].”

    2. That same day, Trump signed a new executive order to “cut down on regulations and fast-track new licenses for [nuclear] reactors and power plants,” per Reuters. According to the wire service, “Shares of uranium mining companies Uranium Energy…Energy Fuels…and Centrus Energy…jumped between 19.6% and 24.2%” following this announcement. Sam Altman-backed nuclear startup Oklo gained 23.1%. The administration’s new interest in the nuclear industry is spurred in part by increased demand for energy as, “power-hungry data centers dedicated to artificial intelligence and crypto miners plug into the grid.” The nuclear industry is also expected to retain many tax incentives stripped away from green energy initiatives in the so-called Big Beautiful Bill.

    3. In yet another instance of the Trump administration going soft on corporate greed, the Republican-controlled Federal Trade Commission has dismissed their case against PepsiCo. As the AP explains, “The lawsuit…alleged that PepsiCo was giving unfair price advantages to Walmart at the expense of other vendors and consumers,” citing the 1936 Robinson-Patman Act, which bans companies from “using promotional incentive payments to favor large customers over smaller ones.” Current FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson called the case a “dubious partisan stunt,” in a press release. Former Chair Lina Khan however, called the dismissal “disturbing,” and wrote, “This lawsuit would’ve protected families from paying higher prices at the grocery store and stopped conduct that squeezes small businesses and communities across America. Dismissing it is a gift to giant retailers as they gear up to hike prices.”

    4. Instead of utilizing the federal regulatory apparatus to protect consumers and the public, the Trump administration instead continues to weaponize these institutions to target progressive groups. According to Axios, the FTC is “investigating…Media Matters over claims that it and other media advocacy groups coordinated advertising boycotts of Elon Musk’s X.” As this report notes, “X [formerly Twitter] sued Media Matters for defamation in 2023 for a report it publicly released that showed ads on X running next to pro-Nazi content. X claimed the report contributed to an advertiser exodus.” While it seems unlikely the social media platform could prevail in such a suit, the suit has effectively cowed the advertising industry, with the World Federation of Advertisers dismantling their Global Alliance for Responsible Media just months after the suit was filed. Media Matters president Angelo Carusone is quoted saying, “The Trump administration has been defined by naming right-wing media figures to key posts and abusing the power of the federal government to bully political opponents and silence critics…that’s exactly what’s happening here…These threats won’t work; we remain steadfast to our mission.”

    5. On Thursday, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cotez endorsed State Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani in his bid for Mayor of New York City, POLITICO reports. This endorsement came the morning after the first mayoral primary debate, a rollicking affair featuring nine candidates and including a testy exchange in which the moderators disregarded their own rules to press Mamdani to say whether he believed in “a Jewish state of Israel?” Mamdani responded that he believed Israel has a right to exist “as a state with equal rights.” This from the Times of Israel. In her endorsement, AOC wrote “Assemblymember Mamdani has demonstrated a real ability on the ground to put together a coalition of working-class New Yorkers that is strongest to lead the pack…In the final stretch of the race, we need to get very real about that.” Ocasio-Cortez said she would rank Adrienne Adams, Brad Lander, Scott Stringer and Zellnor Myrie in that order after Mamdani.

    6. Turning to Palestine itself, the Times of Israel reports notorious Biden State Department spokesman Matthew Miller admitted in an interview that, “It is without a doubt true that Israel has committed war crimes” in Gaza. While Miller stops short of accusing the Israeli government of pursuing “a policy of deliberately committing war crimes,” and repeats the tired canard that Hamas resisted ceasefire negotiations, he admits that the Biden administration “could have done [more] to pressure the Israeli government to agree to…[a] ceasefire.” Hopefully, Miller’s admission will help crack the dam of silence and allow the truth to be told about this criminal military campaign.

    7. Even as Miller makes this admission, the merciless bombing of Palestinians continues. The Guardian reports “On Sunday, at least 31 Palestinians were killed after Israeli forces opened fire at the site of a food distribution centre in Rafah…On Monday, another three Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire at the same site…And on Tuesday, 27 people were killed after Israeli forces opened fire again, say Gaza officials.” This report continues, citing UN human rights chief, Volker Türk, who said on Tuesday that “Palestinians in Gaza now faced an impossible choice: ‘Die from starvation or risk being killed while trying to access the meagre food that is being made available.’” Türk added that by attacking civilians, Israel is committing yet more war crimes.

    8. Some high-profile activists are taking direct action to deliver food to Gaza. Democracy Now! reports 12 activists aboard The Madleen, part of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, have departed from the Italian port of Catania. This group includes Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, actor Liam Cunningham, and Rima Hassan, a French member of the European Parliament. Despite the previous ship being targeted by a drone attack, Thunberg is quoted saying “We deem the risk of silence and the risk of inaction to be so much more deadly than this mission.” Threats to the flotilla continue to pour in. South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham tweeted, “Hope Greta and her friends can swim!” In Israel itself, IDF spokesman Brigadier General Effie Defrin ominously stated “we will act accordingly,” per FOX News.

    9. In more foreign policy news, Gareth Gore – a Washington Post reporter and author of Opus, an exposé of the shadowy Opus Dei sect within the Catholic Church – reports Pope Leo has given Opus Dei six months to “pass comprehensive reforms” and has told the group that if significant changes are not made by December, “necessary measures will be taken.” Gore further reports that in addition to the reforms, “[Pope] Leo has also demanded an investigation into abuse allegations…[including] human trafficking, enslavement…[and] physical and psychological abuse of members.” According to Gore, the reforms were first ordered by Pope Francis in 2022, but “Opus Dei dragged its feet – in the hope the pope would pass away first.” Upon his death, Pope Francis had been on the, “cusp of signing into canon law a huge reform of Opus Dei.” The Vatican was also moving to force a vote on a revised Opus Dei constitution, which was, “quietly cancelled” within hours of Francis’ death. Perhaps most tellingly, Gore reports “The Vatican has privately reassured Opus Dei victims who have long campaigned for justice that they ‘won’t be disappointed’”

    10. Finally, a political earthquake has occurred in South Korea. Listeners may remember the failed coup attempt by right-wing former President Yoon Suk Yeol, which culminated in his ouster and could ultimately lead to a sentence of life in prison or even death. Now, the country has elected a new president, Lee Jae-myung, by a margin of 49.4% to 41.2%. Lee, who leads Korea’s Democratic People’s Party, has “endured a barrage of criminal indictments and an assassination attempt,” since losing the last presidential election by a margin of less than 1 per cent, per the Financial Times. Lee is a former factory worker who campaigned in a bulletproof vest after surviving being knifed in the neck last year. The FT notes “Lee…grew up in poverty and suffered [a] permanent injury at the age of 13 when his arm was crushed in a machine at the baseball glove factory where he worked…in 2022 [he] declared his ambition to be a ‘successful Bernie Sanders’.” That said, he has pivoted to the center in his recent political messaging. Beyond the impact of Lee’s election on the future of Korean democracy, his tenure is sure to set a new tone in Korea’s relations with their neighbors including the US, the DPRK, China and Japan.

    This has been Francesco DeSantis, with In Case You Haven’t Heard.



    Get full access to Ralph Nader Radio Hour at www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/subscribe


    This content originally appeared on Ralph Nader Radio Hour and was authored by Ralph Nader.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • The MAGA Murder Bill

    Ralph welcomes Heidi Shierholz, president of the Economic Policy Institute, to break down the budget bill passing through Congress that is the largest transfer of wealth from the poor and working-class to the wealthy in United States history. Then, insurance expert, Robert Hunter returns to discuss the recent rise in auto insurance rates.

    Heidi Shierholz is the president of the Economic Policy Institute, a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank that uses the power of its research on economic trends and on the impact of economic policies to advance reforms that serve working people, deliver racial justice, and guarantee gender equity. In 2021 she became the fourth president EPI has had since its founding in 1986.

    We’ve never seen a budget that so plainly takes from the poor to give to the rich… The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found that lower and lower middle-income people will actually lose out. They may get something of a tax break, but they lose benefits. So that on net, their after-tax income will be lower after this bill, while the rich just make out like bandits.

    Heidi Shierholz, President of the Economic Policy Institute

    The draconian cuts that we are seeing to the safety net are not big enough, because the tax increases are so huge that this bill also increases the deficit dramatically.

    Heidi Shierholz

    Many folks are calling this the MAGA Murder Bill. They’re not wrong. People will die because of the cuts that we’re seeing here.

    Heidi Shierholz

    Robert Hunter is the Director Emeritus of Insurance at the Consumer Federation of America. He has held many positions in the field, both public and private, including being the Commissioner of Insurance for the State of Texas being the President and Founder of the National Insurance Consumer Organization and served as United States Federal Insurance Administrator.

    Decide how much you need. Don’t ask for more than you really need. And then once you have it, “I need this much for my car. I need this much if I hit somebody” and so on. And then you get that statistic, and you send it out to several companies and get quotes.

    Robert Hunter on buying auto insurance

    There isn’t any program benefiting the American people that Trump is not cutting in order to turn the country over to the giant corporations and the super-rich. It’s basically an overthrow of the government and an overthrow of the rule of law.

    Ralph Nader

    News 6/6/25

    1. On May 23rd, the Trump administration Department of Justice officially announced it had reached an agreement with Boeing to drop its criminal case against the airline manufacturer related to the 2018 and 2019 crashes that killed 346 people, NPR reports. The turnover at the federal government in recent years has prolonged this case; the first Trump administration reached a deferred prosecution agreement with Boeing in 2021, but prosecutors revived the criminal case under President Biden, and as NPR notes, “Boeing agreed last year to plead guilty to defrauding regulators, but a federal judge rejected that proposed plea deal.” Just before the deal was reached, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Richard Blumenthal penned a letter calling on the DOJ not to “allow [Boeing] to weasel its way out of accountability for its failed corporate culture, and for any illegal behavior that has resulted in deadly consequence,” but this was clearly ignored. Paul Cassell, a law professor at the University of Utah and former federal judge who, according to NPR, is representing the families of victims for free, said, “This kind of non-prosecution deal is unprecedented and obviously wrong for the deadliest corporate crime in U.S. history…My families will object and hope to convince the court to reject [the deal].”

    2. That same day, Trump signed a new executive order to “cut down on regulations and fast-track new licenses for [nuclear] reactors and power plants,” per Reuters. According to the wire service, “Shares of uranium mining companies Uranium Energy…Energy Fuels…and Centrus Energy…jumped between 19.6% and 24.2%” following this announcement. Sam Altman-backed nuclear startup Oklo gained 23.1%. The administration’s new interest in the nuclear industry is spurred in part by increased demand for energy as, “power-hungry data centers dedicated to artificial intelligence and crypto miners plug into the grid.” The nuclear industry is also expected to retain many tax incentives stripped away from green energy initiatives in the so-called Big Beautiful Bill.

    3. In yet another instance of the Trump administration going soft on corporate greed, the Republican-controlled Federal Trade Commission has dismissed their case against PepsiCo. As the AP explains, “The lawsuit…alleged that PepsiCo was giving unfair price advantages to Walmart at the expense of other vendors and consumers,” citing the 1936 Robinson-Patman Act, which bans companies from “using promotional incentive payments to favor large customers over smaller ones.” Current FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson called the case a “dubious partisan stunt,” in a press release. Former Chair Lina Khan however, called the dismissal “disturbing,” and wrote, “This lawsuit would’ve protected families from paying higher prices at the grocery store and stopped conduct that squeezes small businesses and communities across America. Dismissing it is a gift to giant retailers as they gear up to hike prices.”

    4. Instead of utilizing the federal regulatory apparatus to protect consumers and the public, the Trump administration instead continues to weaponize these institutions to target progressive groups. According to Axios, the FTC is “investigating…Media Matters over claims that it and other media advocacy groups coordinated advertising boycotts of Elon Musk’s X.” As this report notes, “X [formerly Twitter] sued Media Matters for defamation in 2023 for a report it publicly released that showed ads on X running next to pro-Nazi content. X claimed the report contributed to an advertiser exodus.” While it seems unlikely the social media platform could prevail in such a suit, the suit has effectively cowed the advertising industry, with the World Federation of Advertisers dismantling their Global Alliance for Responsible Media just months after the suit was filed. Media Matters president Angelo Carusone is quoted saying, “The Trump administration has been defined by naming right-wing media figures to key posts and abusing the power of the federal government to bully political opponents and silence critics…that’s exactly what’s happening here…These threats won’t work; we remain steadfast to our mission.”

    5. On Thursday, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cotez endorsed State Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani in his bid for Mayor of New York City, POLITICO reports. This endorsement came the morning after the first mayoral primary debate, a rollicking affair featuring nine candidates and including a testy exchange in which the moderators disregarded their own rules to press Mamdani to say whether he believed in “a Jewish state of Israel?” Mamdani responded that he believed Israel has a right to exist “as a state with equal rights.” This from the Times of Israel. In her endorsement, AOC wrote “Assemblymember Mamdani has demonstrated a real ability on the ground to put together a coalition of working-class New Yorkers that is strongest to lead the pack…In the final stretch of the race, we need to get very real about that.” Ocasio-Cortez said she would rank Adrienne Adams, Brad Lander, Scott Stringer and Zellnor Myrie in that order after Mamdani.

    6. Turning to Palestine itself, the Times of Israel reports notorious Biden State Department spokesman Matthew Miller admitted in an interview that, “It is without a doubt true that Israel has committed war crimes” in Gaza. While Miller stops short of accusing the Israeli government of pursuing “a policy of deliberately committing war crimes,” and repeats the tired canard that Hamas resisted ceasefire negotiations, he admits that the Biden administration “could have done [more] to pressure the Israeli government to agree to…[a] ceasefire.” Hopefully, Miller’s admission will help crack the dam of silence and allow the truth to be told about this criminal military campaign.

    7. Even as Miller makes this admission, the merciless bombing of Palestinians continues. The Guardian reports “On Sunday, at least 31 Palestinians were killed after Israeli forces opened fire at the site of a food distribution centre in Rafah…On Monday, another three Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire at the same site…And on Tuesday, 27 people were killed after Israeli forces opened fire again, say Gaza officials.” This report continues, citing UN human rights chief, Volker Türk, who said on Tuesday that “Palestinians in Gaza now faced an impossible choice: ‘Die from starvation or risk being killed while trying to access the meagre food that is being made available.’” Türk added that by attacking civilians, Israel is committing yet more war crimes.

    8. Some high-profile activists are taking direct action to deliver food to Gaza. Democracy Now! reports 12 activists aboard The Madleen, part of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, have departed from the Italian port of Catania. This group includes Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, actor Liam Cunningham, and Rima Hassan, a French member of the European Parliament. Despite the previous ship being targeted by a drone attack, Thunberg is quoted saying “We deem the risk of silence and the risk of inaction to be so much more deadly than this mission.” Threats to the flotilla continue to pour in. South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham tweeted, “Hope Greta and her friends can swim!” In Israel itself, IDF spokesman Brigadier General Effie Defrin ominously stated “we will act accordingly,” per FOX News.

    9. In more foreign policy news, Gareth Gore – a Washington Post reporter and author of Opus, an exposé of the shadowy Opus Dei sect within the Catholic Church – reports Pope Leo has given Opus Dei six months to “pass comprehensive reforms” and has told the group that if significant changes are not made by December, “necessary measures will be taken.” Gore further reports that in addition to the reforms, “[Pope] Leo has also demanded an investigation into abuse allegations…[including] human trafficking, enslavement…[and] physical and psychological abuse of members.” According to Gore, the reforms were first ordered by Pope Francis in 2022, but “Opus Dei dragged its feet – in the hope the pope would pass away first.” Upon his death, Pope Francis had been on the, “cusp of signing into canon law a huge reform of Opus Dei.” The Vatican was also moving to force a vote on a revised Opus Dei constitution, which was, “quietly cancelled” within hours of Francis’ death. Perhaps most tellingly, Gore reports “The Vatican has privately reassured Opus Dei victims who have long campaigned for justice that they ‘won’t be disappointed’”

    10. Finally, a political earthquake has occurred in South Korea. Listeners may remember the failed coup attempt by right-wing former President Yoon Suk Yeol, which culminated in his ouster and could ultimately lead to a sentence of life in prison or even death. Now, the country has elected a new president, Lee Jae-myung, by a margin of 49.4% to 41.2%. Lee, who leads Korea’s Democratic People’s Party, has “endured a barrage of criminal indictments and an assassination attempt,” since losing the last presidential election by a margin of less than 1 per cent, per the Financial Times. Lee is a former factory worker who campaigned in a bulletproof vest after surviving being knifed in the neck last year. The FT notes “Lee…grew up in poverty and suffered [a] permanent injury at the age of 13 when his arm was crushed in a machine at the baseball glove factory where he worked…in 2022 [he] declared his ambition to be a ‘successful Bernie Sanders’.” That said, he has pivoted to the center in his recent political messaging. Beyond the impact of Lee’s election on the future of Korean democracy, his tenure is sure to set a new tone in Korea’s relations with their neighbors including the US, the DPRK, China and Japan.

    This has been Francesco DeSantis, with In Case You Haven’t Heard.



    Get full access to Ralph Nader Radio Hour at www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/subscribe


    This content originally appeared on Ralph Nader Radio Hour and was authored by Ralph Nader.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Suggestions for Reporters: June 2, 2025

    What ever happened to all those Israeli government investigations that were announced when the press asked them about the various egregious slaughtering of innocent families and children in Gaza? Each time one of these mass slaughters occurs, the Israeli government cools off the press and announces an investigation. There are so many of these over…


    This content originally appeared on Reporters' Alert: Fresh Ideas for Journalists and was authored by matt.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Suggestions for Reporters: June 2, 2025

    What ever happened to all those Israeli government investigations that were announced when the press asked them about the various egregious slaughtering of innocent families and children in Gaza? Each time one of these mass slaughters occurs, the Israeli government cools off the press and announces an investigation. There are so many of these over…


    This content originally appeared on Reporters' Alert: Fresh Ideas for Journalists and was authored by matt.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • The Tale of a Town Meeting

    We hear from citizen activist, Diana Kastenbaum, who organized a town meeting in her congressional district in Western New York State filled with both Democrats and Republicans airing their concerns. How did the district’s representative respond? We’ll hear the whole story. Then, Ralph welcomes back Washington Post tech reporter, Geoffrey Fowler, to discuss his latest report about how Meta promised parents it would automatically shield teens from harmful content. Find out what happened when Mr. Fowler and a group of Gen Z users put that promise to the test. Plus, we hear from RootsAction.org director Norman Solomon about the petition his group and Progressive Democrats of America sent to the DNC for an emergency meeting challenging how the party elites are responding to the authoritarian creep of the Trump Administration. Finally, Ralph calls for listeners to flood the White House switchboard to exhort the Administration to end the indiscriminate slaughter in Gaza.

    Diana Kastenbaum lives in Batavia, New York, where she has been an owner in her family business, Pinnacle Manufacturing Company, Inc. for over 45 years. In 2014, she became the CEO of the company making her one of only a handful of women CEOs in the manufacturing field of tool and die casting in all of North America. In addition, she owned her own tech consulting company for 25 years. She has devoted herself to numerous national political endeavors and in 2016 ran for Congress in NY-27.

    It wasn’t until January 20th when those executive orders started to come out, I started to get really, really nervous. And it woke me up from my hibernation here in Western New York. So I actually had many sleepless nights, and I reached out to some friends. They weren’t sleeping too. They were worried. And so we decided to do something about it.

    Diana Kastenbaum on her summoning her congressperson for a town meeting

    It (the town meeting) was just for people to ask their questions and tell their stories. And I think that’s sort of where we are now in town halls is trying to get our friends and our neighbors and our local communities to hear what will happen, what is happening to the people in their communities. There were Republicans there, and they didn’t yell or shout or anything like that. There was no disruption, but everybody stayed until the last moment, and everybody listened to these people share their stories.

    Diana Kastenbaum

    Geoffrey Fowler is The Washington Post’s technology columnist. Before joining the Post he spent sixteen years with the Wall Street Journal writing about consumer technology, Silicon Valley, national affairs and China.

    I performed an experiment on Instagram where I set up one of those accounts for a teenager that Instagram had promised us would be given special protections. And frankly, it took as little as ten minutes for me to swipe through and see what kinds of stuff Instagram was going to show this kid. And, oh boy, it really went off the rails quickly.

    Geoffrey Fowler

    It’s like there’s a dark commercial villain inside this company (Meta) that does whatever makes the most money for them.

    Geoffrey Fowler

    Norman Solomon is co-founder of RootsAction.org and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. He is the author of War Made Easy, Made Love, Got War, and his newest book, War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine.

    So we’re hearing some mea culpas now about, “Oh, we should have told Biden not to run for re-election.” But in point of fact, the same mentality, the same risk culture is still in place. And that’s where I think the only change is going to come from the bottom up. It’s going to come from us folks at the grassroots.

    Norman Solomon

    The Israelis bombed a home where they killed nine children out of ten children of parents who were both physicians with one American-made missile. That’s just one of the tragedies that occurs every day, weaponized by the U.S. government – now Donald Trump – and funded by the U.S. taxpayers who are never asked their opinion on such foreign relation policies.

    Ralph Nader

    White House Switchboard : 202-456-1414

    “Fast for Gaza” organized by Veterans for Peace



    Get full access to Ralph Nader Radio Hour at www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/subscribe


    This content originally appeared on Ralph Nader Radio Hour and was authored by Ralph Nader.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Big, Beautiful… Betrayal

    In the midst of the terrible Trump tax bill moving through Congress, Ralph invites Sarah Anderson who directs the Global Economy Project at the Institute for Policy Studies to discuss the massive tax loopholes huge companies like Amazon get that allow them to pay far less in taxes than ordinary working people. Then, Greg LeRoy from Good Jobs First joins us to discuss how state taxpayers are footing the bill for these massive data centers companies like Google are building all over the country. Plus, Ralph has some choice words for passive unions and responds to listener feedback about our guest last week, Nadav Wieman.

    Sarah Anderson directs the Global Economy Project at the Institute for Policy Studies and is a co-editor of the IPS website Inequality.org. Her research covers a wide range of international and domestic economic issues, including inequality, CEO pay, taxes, labor, and Wall Street reform.

    They’re (Congress is) planning to give huge new tax giveaways to large corporations like Amazon and wealthy people like Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. And partially paying for those tax cuts for the wealthy by slashing programs that mean so much to so many Americans like Medicaid and food assistance.”

    Sarah Anderson

    We’re not going to have a healthy, thriving society and economy as long as we have the extreme levels of inequality that we have today.

    Sarah Anderson

    Dubbed “the leading national watchdog of state and local economic development subsidies,” “an encyclopedia of information regarding subsidies,” “God’s witness to corporate welfare,” and “the OG of ensuring that state and local tax policy actually supports good jobs, sustainability, and equity,”* Greg founded Good Jobs First in 1998 upon winning the Public Interest Pioneer Award. He has trained and consulted for state and local governments, associations of public officials, labor-management committees, unions, community groups, tax and budget watchdogs, environmentalists, and smart growth advocates more than 30 years.

    Public education and public health are the two biggest losers in every state giving away money to data centers right now.

    Greg Le Roy

    We know of no other form of state spending that is so out of control. Therefore, we recommend that states cancel their data center tax exemptions. Such subsidies are absolutely unnecessary for an extremely profitable industry dominated by some of the most valuable corporations on earth such as Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, and Google.

    Good Jobs First report: “Cloudy With a Loss of Spending Control”

    They’ve (Congress has) known for years that the ordinary worker pays a higher tax rate than these loophole-ridden corporations.

    Ralph Nader

    In my message to Trump, I ask him, “Why is he afraid of Netanyahu? And doesn’t he want to come to the rescue of these innocent babies by saying, ‘Mr. Netanyahu, the taxpayers in this country are paying for thousands of trucks stalled at the border of Gaza full of medicine, food, water, electricity, fuel, and other critical necessities? We’re going to put a little American flag on each one of these trucks, and don’t you dare block them.’”

    …No answer.

    Ralph Nader

    News 5/23/25

    1. It seems as though the dam in Israeli politics against acknowledging the horrors in Gaza is beginning to break. In an interview with the BBC this week, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert stated that what Israel “is currently doing in Gaza is very close to a war crime. Thousands of innocent Palestinians are being killed.” He went on to say, “the war has no objective and has no chance of achieving anything that could save the lives of the hostages.” These quotes come from the Jerusalem Post. And on May 21st, Haaretz reported that opposition party leader Yair Golan warned that Israel could become a “pariah state, like South Africa once was,” based on its actions in Gaza. Speaking a truth that American politicians appear incapable of articulating, he added, a “sane state does not wage war against civilians, does not kill babies as a hobby, and does not set goals for itself like the expulsion of a population.”

    2. Confirming this prognosis, the Cradle reports “The Israeli military has admitted that more than 80 percent of the people killed in the attacks on Gaza since Israel breached the ceasefire two months ago are…civilians.” This fact was confirmed by the IDF in response to a request from Hebrew magazine Hamakom, wherein “the military’s spokesperson stated that 500 of the 2,780 killed in the Gaza Strip as of Tuesday are ‘terrorists.’” Leaving the remaining 2,280 people killed classified as “not suspected terrorists.” The Cradle compares this ratio, approximately 4.5 civilians killed for every combatant, to the Russia-Ukraine war – a ratio of approximate 2.8 to one. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has “claimed that the ratio is just one civilian killed for each combatant killed.” At the same time, AP reports that while Israel has allowed a minimum of humanitarian aid to enter Gaza, under immense international pressure, “none of that aid actually reached Palestinians,” according to the United Nations spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric. The renewed offensive coupled with the barring of humanitarian aid has raised the alarm about mass starvation in Gaza.

    3. Developments on the ground in Gaza have triggered a new wave of international outcry. On May 19th, leaders of the United Kingdom, France and Canada issued a joint statement, reading in part, “We strongly oppose the expansion of Israel’s military operations in Gaza. The level of human suffering in Gaza is intolerable… The Israeli Government’s denial of essential humanitarian assistance to the civilian population is unacceptable and risks breaching International Humanitarian Law…We will not stand by while the Netanyahu Government pursues these egregious actions. If Israel does not cease the renewed military offensive and lift its restrictions on humanitarian aid, we will take further concrete actions in response.” The Parliament of Spain meanwhile, “passed a non-binding motion calling on the government to impose an arms embargo on Israel,” per Anadolu Ajansı. This potential ban, supported by all parties except the conservative People’s Party and the far-right Vox, would “ban the exports of any material that could strengthen the Israeli military, including helmets, vests, and fuel with potential military use.” Left-wing parties in Spain are now pushing for an emergency session to impose a binding decree to this effect.

    4. The United States however seems to be moving backwards. Drop Site news reports Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff made a deal with Hamas ensuring that, “the Trump administration would compel Israel to lift the Gaza blockade and allow humanitarian aid to enter the territory…[and] make a public call for an immediate ceasefire,” in exchange for the release of Edan Alexander. Of course, once Alexander was released Trump reneged completely. Basem Naim, a member of Hamas’s political bureau, told Drop Site, “He did nothing of this…They didn’t violate the deal. They threw it in the trash.” Besides prolonging further the charnel house in Gaza, this duplicity undermines American credibility in the region, particularly with Iran at a time when Trump is seeking a new deal to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

    5. Democrats in Congress are inching towards action as well. On May 13th, Senator Peter Welch introduced Senate Resolution 224, calling for “the urgent delivery of humanitarian aid to address the needs of civilians in Gaza.” Along with Welch, 45 Democrats and Independents signed on to this resolution, that is the entire Democratic caucus except for John Fetterman. On May 14th, Rashida Tlaib introduced House Resolution 409, commemorating the Nakba and calling on Congress to “reinstate support for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which provides life-saving humanitarian assistance to Palestinians.” This was cosponsored by AOC and Reps. Carson, Lee, Omar, Pressley, Ramirez, Simon, and Coleman. And, on May 21st, a group of eight senators – Welch, Sanders, Kaine, Merkley, Murray, Van Hollen, Schatz, and Warnock – sent a letter urging Secretary of State Rubio to reopen the investigation into the death of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu-Akleh, per Prem Thakker. The Biden administration ruled the death “unintentional,” but a new documentary by Zeteo News reveals a “Biden cover-up.”

    6. More action is occurring on college campuses as well, as students go into graduation season. At NYU, a student named Logan Rozos said in his graduation speech, “As I search my heart today in addressing you all…the only thing that is appropriate to say in this time and to a group this large is a recognition of the atrocities currently happening in Palestine,” per CNN. NYU announced that they are now withholding his diploma. At George Washington University, the Guardian reports student Cecilia Culver said in her graduation speech, “I am ashamed to know my tuition [fee] is being used to fund…genocide…I call upon the class of 2025 to withhold donations and continue advocating for disclosure and divestment.” GWU issued a statement declaring Culver “has been barred from all GW’s campuses and sponsored events elsewhere.” The moral clarity of these students is remarkable, given the increasingly harsh measures these schools have taken to silence those who speak up.

    7. Moving on, several major stories about the failing DOGE initiative have surfaced in recent days. First, Social Security. Listeners may recall that a DOGE engineer said “40% of phone calls made to [the Social Security Administration] to change direct deposit information come from fraudsters.” Yet, a new report by NextGov.com found that since DOGE mandated the SSA install new anti-fraud checks on claims made over the phone, “only two claims out of over 110,000 were found to likely be fraudulent,” or 0.0018%. What the policy has done however, is slow down payments. According to this piece, retirement claim processing is down 25%. Meanwhile, at the VA, DOGE engineer Sahil Lavingia, “found…a machine that largely functions, though it doesn’t make decisions as fast as a startup might.” Lavingia added “honestly, it’s kind of fine—because the government works. It’s not as inefficient as I was expecting, to be honest. I was hoping for more easy wins.” This from Fast Company. Finally, CBS reports, “leaders of the United States Institute for Peace regained control of their offices Wednesday…after they were ejected from their positions by the Trump administration and [DOGE] in March.” This piece explains that On February 19th, President Trump issued Executive Order 14217 declaring USIP “unnecessary” and terminating its leadership, most of its 300 staff members, its entire board, installing a DOGE functionary at the top and transferring ownership of the building to the federal government. This set off a court battle that ended Monday, when U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell ruled that the takeover was “unlawful” and therefore “null and void.” These DOGE setbacks might help explain Elon Musk’s reported retreat from the political spotlight and political spending.

    8. On May 21st, Congressman Gerry Connolly passed away, following his battle with esophageal cancer. Connolly’s death however is just the latest in a disturbing trend – Ken Klippenstein reports, “Connolly joins five other members of Congress who also died in office over the past 13 months…Rep. Raúl Grijalva…Rep. Sylvester Turner…Rep. Bill Pascrell…Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee…[and] Rep. Donald Payne Jr.” All of these representatives were Democrats and their deaths have chipped away at the close margin between Democrats and Republicans in the House – allowing the Republicans to pass Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” by a single vote. Connolly himself prevailed over AOC in a much-publicized intra-party battle for the Ranking Member seat on the House Oversight committee. It speaks volumes that Connolly was only able to hold onto that seat for a few short months before becoming too sick to stay on. This is of course part and parcel with the recent revelations about Biden’s declining mental acuity during his presidency and the efforts to oust David Hogg from the DNC for backing primaries against what he calls “asleep-at-the-wheel” Democrats.

    9. Speaking of “asleep-at-the-wheel” Democrats, Bloomberg Government reports Senator John Fetterman “didn’t attend a single committee hearing in 2025 until…May 8, about a week after an explosive New York Magazine story raised questions about his mental health and dedication to his job.” Fetterman, who represents Pennsylvania on the Commerce, Agriculture, and Homeland Security committees skipped the confirmation hearings for Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Budget Director Russ Vought, some of the most high-profile and controversial Trump appointments. Fetterman still has yet to attend a single Agriculture committee hearing in 2025.

    10. Finally, in more Pennsylvania news, the state held its Democratic primaries this week, yielding mixed results. In Pittsburgh, progressives suffered a setback with the ouster of Mayor Ed Gainey – the first Black mayor of the city. Gainey lost to Allegheny County Controller Corey O’Connor, the son of former Mayor Bob O’Connor, the Hill reports. In Philadelphia however, voters approved three ballot measures – including expanding affordable housing and adding more oversight to the prison system – and reelected for a third term progressive reform District Attorney Larry Krasner, per AP. Krasner has long been a target of conservatives in both parties, but has adroitly maneuvered to maintain his position – and dramatically reduced homicide rates in Philly. The Wall Street Journal reports Philadelphia homicides declined by 34% between 2023 and 2024, part of substantial decline in urban homicides nationwide. Kudos to Krasner.

    This has been Francesco DeSantis, with In Case You Haven’t Heard.



    Get full access to Ralph Nader Radio Hour at www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/subscribe


    This content originally appeared on Ralph Nader Radio Hour and was authored by Ralph Nader.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Breaking The Silence

    We spend the whole program with Nadav Wieman, a former IDF sniper and now executive director of Breaking the Silence, an organization of Israeli veterans who expose the reality of life in the Occupied Territories and work to end the occupation. He and Ralph discuss Nadav’s experience in the IDF and his work trying to turn the tide of sentiment in Israel against the ongoing genocide.

    Nadav Weiman is the executive director of Breaking the Silence, an organization of Israeli veterans who expose the reality of life in the Occupied Territories and work to end the occupation. Mr. Weiman served in a sniper’s team in the special forces of the Nahal brigade and attained the rank of staff sergeant. He also worked as a history and literature teacher and was the legal guardian at a home for underprivileged teens in Tel Aviv.

    Now the soldiers that gave us testimonies told us that they came to the commander and said, “Okay, this is too much.” And the commander said, “Listen, we lost too many dogs in the dog unit, so we’re using Palestinians as human shields.”

    Nadav Wieman former IDF sniper and Executive Director of Breaking the Silence

    When the first soldier came to us in December 2023 and told us about using Palestinians as human shields, I thought it was an isolated event. But then another soldier came and another soldier and another soldier, and then we understood. It’s a new protocol. It’s called the Mosquito Protocol. “Mosquito,” is a code name on the radio saying, take a Palestinian man and put him in an IDF uniform, and in some cases a GoPro camera on his chest. And then soldiers were ordered to send them into tunnels to sweep the tunnels or into homes to sweep the homes.

    Nadav Wieman

    You have another protocol called “Wasp”. The Wasp Protocol is Palestinians sweeping tunnels, but this time our Palestinians working with the IDF were brought from the West Bank. And they were told that they will get something from us, a permit or something like that.

    Nadav Wieman

    News 5/16/25

    1. Trump has abruptly ended the American war on the Houthi militia in Yemen, saying in a press conference, “You know, we hit them very hard. They had a great capacity to withstand punishment…You can say there’s a lot of bravery there…It was amazing what they took. But we honor their commitment and their word,” per Prem Thakker. Behind the scenes, a New York Times report exposes the jaw-dropping waste that precipitated the U.S. backing down from this campaign. Some highlights include that the Houthis almost shot down an F-35 fighter jet – which run about $100 million apiece – that this campaign used so many precision munitions that Pentagon contingency planners grew “increasingly concerned about overall stocks,” and U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM)’s reported metric of success was “bombs dropped,” evoking the failed campaigns in Vietnam, per the Stimson Center’s Emma Ashburn. All in all, this campaign cost $1 billion over the course of just 30 days.

    2. In more stunning news of Pentagon profligacy, CNN reported on May 6th that a SECOND F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jet fell off the USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier into the Red Sea following the first lost jet by just over a week. Each of these planes bear a price tag of over $60 million, according to the Navy, just in case you were wondering where your tax dollars are going now that Trump and Musk have slashed the budget of anything resembling a social program.

    3. In more foreign policy news, Edan Alexander, the last remaining U.S. citizen hostage in Gaza, has been released. Alexander was born and raised in New Jersey, then moved to Israel to serve in the IDF after graduating high school in 2022. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu was quoted saying “[Alexander’s release] was achieved thanks to our military pressure and the political pressure exerted by President Trump. This is a winning combination.” Meanwhile Trump posted on Truth Social “Edan Alexander, American hostage thought dead, to be released by Hamas. Great news!” Despite this heraldry however, MSN reports Alexander “rebuffed” a personal meeting with Netanyahu. Counter Currents adds “In a video released by Hamas…last November, Alexander harshly criticized Netanyahu…[accusing] the Israeli leader of abandoning the…[hostages]…and urged Trump…to secure his release.” In this video, Alexander told Netanyahu, “You neglected us…We die a thousand times every day, and no one feels our pain.”

    4. In a similar vein, the Jerusalem Post reports, “The Trump administration’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, criticized Israel in a meeting with hostage families…[saying] ‘We want to bring the hostages home, but Israel is not willing to end the war.’” Witkoff added “Israel is prolonging [the war] despite the fact that we don’t see where else we can go and that an agreement must be reached.” Further, the New Arab reports “The Trump administration has…dropped its longstanding demand for Hamas to disarm as a precondition for a Gaza ceasefire.” This willingness to call a spade a spade regarding Israel’s intractable opposition to peace, or even a lasting ceasefire – coupled with a seemingly genuine willingness to realistically approach peace talks – has been a marked point of departure compared to the Biden administration, which “Never Pressured Israel for Ceasefire,” according to Israeli Ambassador Yechiel Leiter, as reported in Drop Site News.

    5. Turning to some positive consumer protection news, “Ticketmaster will now show how much you’ll pay for tickets — fees included — before checkout,” the Verge reports. This “All In Prices” initiative is an effort by the company to comply with the Federal Trade Commission’s ban on junk fees. The FTC cracked down on Ticketmaster following the 2022 Taylor Swift Eras Tour “ticketing catastrophe.” In addition to the FTC, the Department of Justice sued Ticketmaster and its parent company, Live Nation in 2024, accusing them of “driving up prices as a result of their alleged monopoly,” while the House passed the TICKET Act in 2024, a law that would “force ticket sellers to show full prices upfront.” The Senate is considering that bill now.

    6. Meanwhile, Igloo has voluntarily widened a recall of their coolers, related to “possible amputation and crushing hazards,” per ABC. The Consumer Product Safety Commission issued a recall notice for a little over a million Igloo 90 Qt. Flip & Tow Rolling Coolers back in February, on the basis that “the tow handle can pinch consumers’ fingertips against the cooler,” risking “fingertip amputation.” ABC reports this recall now includes “130,000 additional coolers, as well as approximately 20,000 in Canada and 5,900 in Mexico.” According to the CPSC, “since the recall was initiated in February, Igloo has received 78 reports of injuries involving the recalled coolers, including 26 reports of bone fractures, fingertip amputations or lacerations.”

    7. The first American Pope, Leo XIV, addressed the College of Cardinals on Sunday, in part explaining his decision to take that particular name. According to Business Insider, AI played a major role. The Pope told the college, “I chose to take the name Leo XIV…mainly because Pope Leo XIII in his historic Encyclical ‘Rerum Novarum’ addressed the social question in the context of the first great industrial revolution…In our own day, the Church offers to everyone the treasury of her social teaching in response to another industrial revolution and to developments in the field of artificial intelligence that pose new challenges for the defence of human dignity, justice, and labor.” In a January 2024 message, Pope Francis said “At this time in history, which risks becoming rich in technology and poor in humanity, our reflections must begin with the human heart.”

    8. Turning to domestic politics, 25-year-old Democratic National Committee Vice Chair David Hogg is fighting an uphill battle to remain in his post. The activist and survivor of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas school shooting has been a target of the party hierarchs since he refused to disassociate himself from the mission of the organization he cofounded – Leaders We Deserve – which seeks to primary “asleep-at-the-wheel” Democrats. On May 10th, POLITICO reported that Hogg sought a compromise with the party, vowing that he would erect a “internal firewall,” barring him from “accessing any internal DNC information about congressional and state legislative races as long as he was supporting challengers.” The DNC flatly refused. Instead, it would seem they are trying to oust Hogg by voiding his election, claiming it violated “fairness and gender diversity,” rules, per Semafor. On May 13th, the DNC’s Credentials Committee voted to nullify the results of the February election, the Hill reports. According to POLITICO, the full DNC could “opt to hold a virtual vote ahead of the meeting later this summer. Otherwise it will take the issue up during its August meeting.”

    9. In Newark, New Jersey, Mayor Ras Baraka was “arrested and detained by masked federal immigration police Friday when he joined three Democratic congressmembers set to tour a newly reopened 1,000-bed [ICE] jail run by GEO Group,” Democracy Now! reports. This is the latest installment in the power struggle between federal agents and local officials over immigration, an escalation from the arrest of Judge Hannah Dugan in April. Dugan herself was indicted this week for supposedly “obstructing or impeding a proceeding,” per Wisconsin Public Radio. Alina Habba, U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey, tweeted, “The Mayor of Newark…committed trespass…He has willingly chosen to disregard the law…He has been taken into custody.” She added in all caps, “NO ONE IS ABOVE THE LAW.” Chilling words.

    10. Finally, we pay tribute to Uruguayan revolutionary, anti-dictatorship rebel and former president José “Pepe” Mujica, who passed away this week following a protracted battle with esophageal cancer. Mujica was celebrated throughout the world during his tenure as president for his humble lifestyle; He was called ‘the world’s poorest president’ famously driving a beat-up old VW bug and donating the bulk of his salary. In 2013, he delivered a bombshell speech at the United Nations in wherein he decried capitalism and the environmental destruction it has wrought. Pulitzer Prize-winning author and historian Greg Grandin eulogized Mujica, writing “He was a member of the insurgent, armed Tupamarus, and served 14 years in prison, much of it in solitary, subject to extreme torture techniques taught by US advisors… Upon his release, he helped build the Frente Amplio into one of the most successful left coalitions. He radiated humility and humanity but he knew that power was meant to be taken and used, and behind his smile was steel. He was 89.”

    This has been Francesco DeSantis, with In Case You Haven’t Heard.



    Get full access to Ralph Nader Radio Hour at www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/subscribe


    This content originally appeared on Ralph Nader Radio Hour and was authored by Ralph Nader.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Suggestions for Reporters May 2, 2025

    -As a serious newspaper reader, I’m looking for stories about how smaller businesses who rely on undocumented workers for the manual labor American workers do no relish are surviving. ICE agents are entering these workplaces and chasing away or apprehending these migrant workers. About half of of the workers in the Texas construction industry are…


    This content originally appeared on Reporters' Alert: Fresh Ideas for Journalists and was authored by matt.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Listener Questions & Feedback

    This week is mainly devoted to listener questions and feedback. First, Ralph answers some of the questions you have submitted over the past few weeks. Then we invite back last week’s guest, Erica Payne, of Patriotic Millionaires, to respond to your very thoughtful comments on the interview we did with that group’s plan for preserving democracy by taxing the rich. Plus, Ralph highlights the outrages of the Trump/Musk assault on government programs that help ordinary people.

    Erica Payne is the founder and president of Patriotic Millionaires, an organization of high-net-worth individuals that aims to restructure America’s political economy to suit the needs of all Americans. Their work includes advocating for a highly progressive tax system, a livable minimum wage, and equal political representation for all citizens. She is the co-author, with Morris Pearl, of Tax the Rich: How Lies, Loopholes and Lobbyists Make the Rich Even Richer.

    The real reason for taxation is democracy protection.

    Erica Payne

    I think the question is not: do we need to fix the estate tax? The question is: what is the best, most defensible mechanism through which you can tax the transfer of wealth from one generation to the other in order to protect American democracy from dynastic wealth—that is sufficient that you find five generations from now Elon Musk’s kid isn’t spending as much money on these elections as their great great great great great granddaddy is.

    Erica Payne

    Austerity applied at a federal level to a society that is in distress does the exact opposite of what the proponents of austerity are saying it should do. The tightening of the belt actually cuts off the circulation of the society.

    Erica Payne

    News 5/9/25

    1. While the Catholic clergy convene in Rome for the Papal Conclave, Pope Francis graces the world with one final gift. Vatican News reports, “His popemobile, the very vehicle from which he waved and was close to millions of faithful all around the world, is being transformed into a mobile health unit for the children of Gaza.” This article states this was Francis’ “final wish,” and quotes his refrain that “Children are not numbers. They are faces. Names. Stories. And each one is sacred.” The vehicle is reportedly being outfitted with equipment for “diagnosis, examination, and treatment – including rapid tests for infections, diagnostic instruments, vaccines, suture kits, and other life-saving supplies,” and it will be staffed by doctors and medics. Yet, given Israel’s track record for the destruction of medical facilities in Gaza, it is unclear how long this mobile health unit itself will survive.

    2. In more distressing news from Gaza, CNN reports that “A Gaza-bound activist aid ship [part of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition] caught fire and issued an SOS, after what its organizers claimed was an Israeli drone attack off the coast of Malta…[on] Friday.” Per CNN, the ship was due to make port in Malta and pick up “a large contingent of activists” there before departing for Gaza. These included environmental activist Greta Thunberg and retired US Army Colonel Mary Ann Wright. Thunberg said this flotilla “is one of many attempts to open up a humanitarian corridor and…[try] to break Israel’s illegal siege on Gaza,” adding “for two months now, not a single bottle of water has entered Gaza…it’s a systematic starvation of 2 million people.” The United Nations World Food Programme said this week “its warehouses are…empty; soup kitchens that are still running are severely rationing their last stocks; and what little food remains in Gaza’s markets is being sold for exorbitant prices that most cannot afford.”

    3. Pro-Palestine activists scored a major victory in Michigan this week. The Guardian reports, “Michigan’s attorney general, Dana Nessel, announced on Monday that she was dropping all charges against seven pro-[Palestine] demonstrators arrested last May at a University of Michigan encampment.” As this report notes, “The announcement came just moments before the judge was to decide on a defense motion to disqualify Nessel’s office over alleged bias.” The Guardian itself published a major report “detailing Nessel’s extensive personal, financial and political connections to university regents calling for the activists to be prosecuted,” last October. Defense attorney Amir Makled is quoted saying “This was a case of selective prosecution…rooted in bias, not in public safety issues…We’re hoping this sends a message to other institutions locally and nationally that protest is not a crime, and dissent is not disorder.”

    4. In another legal victory, Prem Thakker reported on May 6th that “A federal court has [denied] the Trump administration’s attempt to move Mahmoud Khalil’s case…out of New Jersey.” The government attempted to move the venue to Louisiana, where they have Khalil detained. A press release by the ACLU, their New York and New Jersey affiliates, and the Center for Constitutional Rights states, “It is the fundamental job of the judiciary to stand up to…government manipulation of our basic rights. We hope the court’s order sends a strong message to other courts around the country facing government attempts to shop for favorable jurisdictions by moving people detained on unconstitutional immigration charges around and making it difficult or impossible for their lawyers to know where to seek their immediate release.”

    5. Trump has released his budget for Fiscal Year 2026. This budget cuts nondefense spending by 23%, per Reuters, while allocating 75% of discretionary spending to military and police, per Stephen Semler of the Cost of War Project. This includes a 13% increase in military spending that tips the Pentagon budget over $1 trillion for the first time. So much for increasing government efficiency.

    6. At the same time, this country’s infrastructure and transportation safety agencies continue to crumble. Just this week, NPR reported “Hundreds of flight delays and cancellations…[hit]… Newark Liberty International Airport at once: [due to] air traffic controller staffing shortages, aging technology, bad weather and the closure of one of the airport’s busiest runways.” The air traffic controller staffing shortages, a chronic issue, has been compounded in recent months by the mass layoffs initiated by the Trump administration. NBC News reports that one air traffic controller handling Newark airspace said, “Don’t fly into Newark. Avoid Newark at all costs.”\

    7. It might be nice to have competent, energetic leadership among the Democrats on the House Oversight Committee right about now. Unfortunately, the party opted to install 75-year-old, cancer-ridden Gerry Connolly to serve as Ranking Member on that committee instead of AOC. Now, Axios reports Connolly is stepping down from this position after just four months and will not seek reelection to his seat in Congress, citing his declining health. AOC, once-bitten, has opted not to seek the position a second time, the Hill reports. Instead, the top contenders emerging to fill Conolly’s seat are Stephen Lynch, a 70-year-old Congressman who won his seat in 2001 and is currently filling Conolly’s role on an interim basis, and Eleanor Holmes-Norton, the non-voting delegate representing Washington D.C. Norton is the most senior Democrat on the committee at 87-years-old, having assumed office in 1991.

    8. Another ghost is coming back to haunt the Democrats: former Senator Bob Menendez. The New Jersey Globe reports, “The New Jersey Attorney General’s office will seek a court order to permanently bar…Menendez from ever holding public employment in the state following his conviction on federal corruption charges last year.” Critically if a Superior Court judge approves the action, Menendez could lose his state pension. Menendez still draws over $1,000 per month from his New Jersey public employee pension, even after being sentenced to 11 years in prison for corruption last July. More recently, Menendez has sought to cozy up to Trump in an effort to obtain a pardon. So far, no dice.

    9. In some positive news, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum continues an unbelievable run. Back in April, KJZZ reported that Mexico will invest nearly $3 billion in “food sovereignty,” to “produce more staples like corn, beans and rice in Mexico over the next five years.” This money will be directed at small and medium sized farms in Mexico and is intended to anchor both the rural economy and the nation’s food supply amidst the growing uncertainty of trade with the United States vis a vis Trump’s erratic trade policy. Then, after May Day, Labor Minister Marath Bolaños said that “before the end of President Claudia Sheinbaum’s term…the government would gradually install a…40-hour workweek,” Mexico News Daily reports. The standard workweek in Mexico currently sits at 48 hours. As this report notes, the 40-hour workweek is Number 60 on Sheinbaum’s list of 100 promises. Americans can only dream of having a government that even makes that many promises, let alone keeps them. Perhaps the most impressive of Sheinbaum’s recent actions however is her recent rejection of Trump’s attempt to strongarm her into allowing American troops to enter Mexico. Democracy Now! reports Sheinbaum told the American president, “The territory is sacrosanct. Sovereignty is sacrosanct. Sovereignty is not for sale.”

    10. Finally, on the other end of the presidential spectrum, there’s Trump furiously posting on Truth Social about the “Movie Industry in America…DYING a very fast death,” deeming that this is “a concerted effort by other Nations and, therefore, a National Security threat,” and threatening a “100% Tariff on any and all Movies coming into our Country that are produced in Foreign Lands.” Obviously, this screed is basically nonsensical and it remains to be seen what will actually come of this threat, but what is notable is the response from organized labor. The International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) issued a statement threading the needle between supporting Trump’s effort to “return and maintain U.S. film and television jobs, while not…harming the industry overall.” On the other hand, the Teamsters – led by Sean O’Brien who has tied himself to Trump more and more since he spoke at the 2024 RNC – issued a statement “thank[ing] President Trump for boldly supporting good union jobs when others have turned their heads.” Would such a policy truly revitalize the workforce of the American entertainment industry? We’ll have to wait for the sequel to find out.

    This has been Francesco DeSantis, with In Case You Haven’t Heard.



    Get full access to Ralph Nader Radio Hour at www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/subscribe


    This content originally appeared on Ralph Nader Radio Hour and was authored by Ralph Nader.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Economic Jenga

    Ralph welcomes back Erica Payne, founder of Patriotic Millionaires, to update us on that group’s latest efforts to save American democracy by lobbying to raise wages for workers and tax the rich. Plus, according to our resident constitutional expert, Bruce Fein, the count of Trump’s impeachable offenses is now up to twenty-two and rising faster than a Space X rocket.

    Erica Payne is the founder and president of Patriotic Millionaires, an organization of high-net-worth individuals that aims to restructure America’s political economy to suit the needs of all Americans. Their work includes advocating for a highly progressive tax system, a livable minimum wage, and equal political representation for all citizens. She is the co-author, with Morris Pearl, of Tax the Rich: How Lies, Loopholes and Lobbyists Make the Rich Even Richer.

    What we saw on January 20th, I believe, was the result of a global oligarchical coup who just took the Queen on the chessboard. When you’ve got three people whose combined worth is around a trillion dollars standing behind who is an unethical at least, criminal at worst billionaire president, Houston, we have a problem here. And the problem is not actually Donald Trump. The problem is the preconditions that led to the rise of a vulnerability to an authoritarian leader and an oligarchy. And that vulnerability was brought about by the actions of both parties over decades.

    Erica Payne

    If you ran a business, Ralph, would you ever fire your accounts receivable department? No. It would be the last department you would cut. So then it says he’s either stupid because that’s what he’s cutting, which I think is probably inaccurate. So if he’s not stupid, then why is he doing it? And he’s doing it for the same reason that lawmakers have hacked at the IRS budget forever—they don’t want their donors to get taxed. They don’t want their donors to be audited. And so they cut the cops. So all these folks who are griping about black Americans calling to defund the police are actually defunding the police that is keeping them in line and keeping them honest.

    Erica Payne

    At a divided moment in America, I think we can agree that the federal government shouldn’t tax people into poverty, and (to the extent necessary) rich people should pick up the difference.

    Erica Payne

    Bruce Fein is a Constitutional scholar and an expert on international law. Mr. Fein was Associate Deputy Attorney General under Ronald Reagan and he is the author of Constitutional Peril: The Life and Death Struggle for Our Constitution and Democracy, and American Empire: Before the Fall.

    I start out with the fundamental idea of due process—you simply cannot deprive someone of liberty without giving them an opportunity to explain or to refute what allegations the government has made. And the reason why I start out with that, Ralph, is we’ve had an experiment in World War II with what happens when you have no due process. We did that with 120,000 Japanese Americans. No, we just said that they’re all likely to commit espionage or sabotage, got to put them in concentration camps. We made 120,000 errors (and later apologized for it in 1988). So there’s a reason due process is not simply an academic concept. It’s essential to preventing these kinds of egregious instances of injustice from happening.

    Bruce Fein

    The Democrats and a lot of liberal economists are not keeping up with the horror show that’s going on. They don’t use words like cruel and vicious. They don’t turn Trump’s words like deranged, crazed, corrupt on him. They’re still using words like authoritarian practices, or problematic, or distressing, or disconcerting, or concerning. They’re not catching up with the horror show here. That’s why Trump continues to have a soliloquy. The Democratic Party is now having gatherings to see how are they going to collectively deal with Trump? How does a bank deal with a bank robber? They let the bank robber rob the bank and flee with the gold while they deliberate how they’re going to deal with a bank robber they see coming into the bank?

    Ralph Nader

    News 5/2/25

    1. At the eleventh hour, Representative Jim Jordan – Chair of the House Judiciary Committee – pulled his measure to strip the Federal Trade Commission of its antitrust enforcement powers and consolidate those within the Justice Department, Reuters reports. “The House panel…had included the proposal in its budget package on Monday. During a hearing on the package…the committee passed an amendment that would remove the measure.” Trump’s FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson opposed Jordan’s move and intervened with the White House. As Reuters notes, “The proposal mirrored the One Agency Act, a Republican bill that has gotten support from Elon Musk…[which] would effectively repeal the FTC’s…authority to sue companies over unfair methods of competition, which the agency is using in cases against pharmacy benefit managers, Amazon…and John Deere.” In short, the FTC’s antitrust powers survive today, but there is no guarantee about tomorrow.

    2. Yet, while avoiding the worst possible outcome on the corporate crime front, the Trump administration is still hard at work going soft on corporate crooks. Public Citizen’s Rick Claypool reports “Two Wells Fargo execs had their fines reduced by 90% (related to the bank’s accounting scandal) by Trump’s [Office of the Comptroller of the Currency].” Claypool links to a piece in Radical Compliance, which explains that “David Julian, former chief auditor at Wells Fargo, saw his fines cut from $7 million to $100,000 [and] Paul McLinko, executive audit director, had his fines cut from $1.5 million to $50,000.” Both Julian and McLinko were part of the senior leadership team at Wells Fargo in the 2010s, when regulators “charged the bank with turning a blind eye to employees opening bank accounts without customer consent to hit sales quotas. That misconduct eventually led to a $3 billion settlement with Wells Fargo in 2020.”

    3. Lest you think the Democrats are in danger of seriously opposing Trump’s policies, the Bulwark reports that House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries is putting the kibosh on the recent spate of Democrats’ trips to El Salvador exposing the reality of the CECOT deportation scheme. This report alleges that “Cory Booker and the Hispanic Caucus were planning on going [to El Salvador],” but are no longer. Perhaps worse, Jeffries is not giving clear marching orders to the party rank and file. One Democrat is quoted saying “As a member of a party you need to be disciplined…They say, ‘Get on a plane,’ ‘Don’t get on a plane’—that’s what you do. Nine out ten times you do what they ask. But you can’t take that approach if you’re not having regular communications… You have to be clear in messaging what the plan is and you have to do that regularly if you want to keep people in line.” This is just another example of Jeffries’ weak and indecisive leadership of the caucus.

    4. Advocates are having more luck resisting the administration’s overreach in court. On Wednesday, Mohsen Mahdawi – the Columbia student faced with deportation after being lured into an ICE trap with the false promise of a citizenship test – was freed by a federal judge, POLITICO reports. After the judge ordered his release, Mahdawi told the press “I am saying it clear and loud…To President Trump and his Cabinet: I am not afraid of you.” Mahdawi’s ordeal is not over, but he will remain free while his case winds its way through the courts and a previous order blocked the administration from changing venues, meaning the case will proceed in the relatively liberal Second Circuit.

    5. Mahmoud Khalil also scored a major legal victory this week. The Huffington Post reports that the ICE agents sent to arrest Khalil did not, contrary to their false claims in court, have an arrest warrant. Amy Greer, a lawyer for Khalil, is quoted saying “Today, we now know why [the government] never showed Mahmoud [a] warrant — they didn’t have one. This is clearly yet another desperate attempt by the Trump administration to justify its unlawful arrest and detention of human rights defender Mahmoud Khalil, who is now, by the government’s own tacit admission, a political prisoner of the United States.” The ACLU, also defending Khalil, has now moved for this case to be dismissed.

    6. Despite these victories though, the repression of anything pro-Palestine continues. At Yale, Prem Thakker reports hundreds of students protested in advance of a speech by Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s radical National Security Minister who has previously been arrested many times for inciting racism and supporting pro-Jewish terrorism in Israel itself. Yet the university responded by “stripp[ing] the school’s Students for Justice in Palestine Chapter…of its status as an official student group.” If students cannot even protest Ben-Gvir, what will the colleges regard as legitimate protest of Israel?

    7. In Yemen, Ryan Grim reports on CounterPoints that the Trump administration has been targeting strikes against the Houthis using data gleaned from amateur Open-Source Intelligence or OSINT accounts on X, formerly Twitter. Unsurprisingly, these are completely inaccurate and have led to disastrous strikes on civilians’ homes, incorrectly identifying them as “Houthi bases.” One of these accounts is based in Houston, Texas, and another as far away as the Netherlands.

    8. According to a new World Bank report, Mexico reduced poverty more than any other Latin American country between 2018 and 2023. Not coincidentally, this lines up almost perfectly with the AMLO years in Mexico, which saw a massive increase in the Mexican minimum wage along with other social rights and protections. These policies are now being taken forward by AMLO’s successor Claudia Sheinbaum, whose popularity has now surpassed even that of her predecessor, per Bloomberg.

    9. In Australia, Virginia Giuffre – the most outspoken accuser of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislane Maxwell – has passed away at the age of 41, the BBC reports. Police concluded that Ms. Giuffre died by suicide and her family released a statement indicating that the “toll of abuse… became unbearable.” Yet, her death was preceded by a bizarre chain of events. On March 31st, the BBC reported that Ms. Giuffre’s car collided with a school bus, sending her into renal failure with her doctors saying she had “four days to live.” The Miami Herald also reported “At the time of her death, Giuffre had been in a contentious divorce and child custody battle with her husband, Robert.” The family’s statement continued “The death is being investigated by Major Crime detectives; [but] early indication is the death is not suspicious.” One can only hope more details come to light.

    10. Finally, in a different kind of bizarre story, embattled incumbent New York City Mayor Eric Adams – who has already given up on the Democratic primary and was running for reelection as an independent – will now appear on two new ballot lines “EndAntiSemitism” and “Safe&Affordable,” POLITICO reports. Adams has gone to great lengths to cultivate and maintain his support in the Orthodox Jewish community in New York and is seeking to highlight his strengths and undercut former Governor Andrew Cuomo. Apparently, Adams only needs to secure 3,750 signatures from voters by May 27 for each of these ballot lines, a shockingly low threshold for the largest city in America. These ballot lines will appear without spaces, coming in just under the wire for the city’s 15-character limit on ballot lines.

    This has been Francesco DeSantis, with In Case You Haven’t Heard.



    Get full access to Ralph Nader Radio Hour at www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/subscribe


    This content originally appeared on Ralph Nader Radio Hour and was authored by Ralph Nader.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • “Hubris Maximus”/ I, the Public Citizen

    First, Ralph welcomes Washington Post tech journalist Faiz Siddiqui to discuss his new book “Hubris Maximus: The Shattering of Elon Musk.” Then, our resident legal expert Bruce Fein stops by to explain how Elon Musk and DOGE are breaking the law. Finally, David picks up our interview with Ralph about Ralph’s new book “Civic Self-Respect.”

    Faiz Siddiqui is a technology journalist who writes for the Washington Post and has covered companies such as Tesla, Uber, and Twitter (now X) for the Business Desk. His reporting has focused on transportation, social media and government transformation, among other issues. He is the author of Hubris Maximus: The Shattering of Elon Musk (excerpted here).

    Over and over throughout this book, there’s this recurring theme of victimhood, or at least Elon feeling like his back is against the wall. And why? For what? He and his fans felt they were doing the right things, and yet they were being scrutinized and punished for it.

    Faiz Siddiqui

    In the wake of many Facebook scandals, many Uber scandals, Tesla was the company to work for. Elon was the person to work for. There was no figure as magnetic, who inspired people in the way that Elon did. So recruiting was a strong suit of that company. And the pitch was: come here and change the world.

    Faiz Siddiqui

    I think what this book brings is a healthy dose of reality and skepticism… that so far has been lacking from the overall conversation around Musk. And what I you’ll find is (I hope you’ll find) that you can identify with some of the folks in the book who were lured in by the promises (or just enamored by the guy and what he might be able to bring to society if his goals were ultimately realized) but then ended up feeling disappointed or feeling like—hey, this guy was not all he was cracked up to be. Even if the goals were noble, even if the ambitions were the right ones, the ends might not have justified the means. And so I want people to find, ideally, that their understanding of one of the most powerful people in society today is enriched.

    Faiz Siddiqui

    Bruce Fein is a Constitutional scholar and an expert on international law. Mr. Fein was Associate Deputy Attorney General under Ronald Reagan and he is the author of Constitutional Peril: The Life and Death Struggle for Our Constitution and Democracy, and American Empire: Before the Fall.

    [Elon Musk is] just a walking violation of the federal code.

    Bruce Fein

    There’s nowhere to go but up in terms of being a smart consumer. Unfortunately, our Elementary and high schools don’t teach consumer skills (they prefer to teach computer skills) and consumer skills result in what is, in effect, a pay raise.

    Ralph Nader

    Adam Smith once said many centuries ago that the purpose of production is consumption. And if consumption is informed and feeds back, it can lead to a high-quality economy. It can lead to more integrity to your consumer dollar and to your health and safety. It can lead to less environmental damage. It could lead to stronger regulation of product defects and services that are harmful. It’s sort of a bottom-up economic democracy.

    Ralph Nader

    Complexity is a tool of power. Complex tax regulations are often blamed on the federal bureaucracy. No, it’s the corporate tax lawyers.

    Ralph Nader

    News 4/25/25

    1. On Monday, April 21st, Vatican News announced the death of Pope Francis. This came just one day after Easter Sunday, when Francis met with Vice-President JD Vance. The day prior, Francis had snubbed the VP, sending in his place Cardinal Pietro Parolintoto to “deliver a lecture on compassion,” per the Daily Beast. Pope Francis led the Catholic Church since 2013 and during his tenure sought to move the church in a vastly more progressive direction – preaching against capitalism’s destruction of the environment, advocating for abolition of the death penalty and greater acceptance for LGBTQ Catholics within the church, and expanding the reach of the church into non-traditional areas such as Mongolia among many other initiatives. This won him the admiration of many around the world, but also drew the ire of the conservative clergy, particularly in the United States. Francis was the first Jesuit Pope and the first Pope to hail from the New World. Senior churchmen will now assemble to elect a new pope. This conclave is expected to be contentious, with progressives seeking to consolidate Francis’ reforms, while the conservatives see an opening to take back the formal organs of the church.

    2. Instead of death, our next story concerns birth. Noor Abdalla – wife of Mahmoud Khalil, the Palestinian Columbia University student currently being held by ICE in Louisiana – gave birth to their son on Monday. According to a statement by Abdalla, reported by Arya Sundaram of WNYC, ICE denied a request for Khalil to be temporarily released to meet their son, a “purposeful decision by ICE to make [her], Mahmoud, and our son suffer.” Later in this statement, Abdalla writes, “I will continue to fight every day for Mahmoud to come home to us. I know when Mahmoud is freed, he will show our son how to be brave, thoughtful, and compassionate just like his dad.” Khalil’s case continues to wind its way through the courts; the result of this case will have significant ramifications for the Trump administration’s ability to remove individuals with legal status on the basis of political speech.

    3. In an encouraging sign, more and more congressional Democrats are getting personally involved in cases of Trump administration overreach on immigration. In addition to Senator Chris Van Hollen’s highly-publicized visit to El Salvador, TruthOut reports that Senator Peter Welch met with Mohsen Mahdawi, the Columbia University student entrapped with a false citizenship test, in Vermont. Meanwhile Cape Cod Times reports that on April 22nd, Senator Ed Markey and Representatives Ayanna Pressley and Jim McGovern of Massachusetts – along with Democratic members of the House Troy Carter and Bennie Thompson – traveled to a Louisiana detention facility to demand the release of Rümeysa Öztürk, the Tufts University grad student who was abducted off the street last month by masked ICE agents. This delegation met with Öztürk herself, as well as Mahmoud Khalil. And CBS reports Representatives Robert Garcia, Maxwell Frost, Yassamin Ansari and Maxine Dexter traveled to El Salvador as well, keeping pressure up regarding the Kilmar Garcia case. Still, hundreds of immigrants of varying status have been deported to the ominous and shadowy CECOT prison camp in El Salvador without due process since Trump began this mass deportation campaign.

    4. In more troubling Congressional news, Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley of Iowa wrote a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel on April 16th calling for investigations into the progressive activist group CodePink as well as the New York City cultural center known as the People’s Forum. This letter is almost textbook McCarthyite red-baiting, claiming CodePink and the People’s Forum are nothing more than mouthpieces for the Chinese Communist Party, thereby violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Beyond the fact that these groups are engaging in nothing more than constitutionally protected political speech, it is clear from the citations within the letter that they are targeting these groups because of their pro-Palestine positions. This is just another escalation in the Orwellian suppression of free-speech critical of the Israel’s illegal occupation. Unfortunately, just as with McCarthyism itself, we cannot count on congressional Democrats to go to bat for the free speech rights of the Left.

    5. In a win for consumers, Bloomberg reports Airbnb announced it will now display the total price of stays – including all fees – to comply with a Federal Trade Commission rule set to go into effect next month. Many worried that the FTC would rescind this rule with the changing of the administration, but for now at least, the Trump FTC seems poised to keep it. This new rule is expected to “nudge hosts to lower their cleaning fees to make rentals more affordable, as the sometimes-exorbitant fees have become a key reason why some customers preferred hotels over Airbnb.”

    6. Another positive move is that the Trump Department of Justice has proceeded with an anti-trust case against Google’s advertising technology, or “adtech.” On April 17th, a judge found Google liable for “willfully acquiring and maintaining monopoly power,” in two markets for online advertising technology, per Reuters. This follows a similar judgment against Google regarding a monopoly on search, which is only amplified by its adoption of AI. Another trial will determine the remedy for this monopoly, which could include Google being forced to sell off aspects of its business. According to this report, “Google has previously explored selling its ad exchange to appease European antitrust regulators.” Senator Amy Klobuchar, former chair of the antitrust subcommittee, called the ruling “a big win for consumers, small businesses, and content creators that will open digital markets to more innovation and lower prices.”

    7. On the other hand, Public Citizen’s Rick Claypool reports, “58 corporations facing federal investigations & enforcement lawsuits collectively gave $50 million to Trump’s inaugural fund. Cases against 11 of these corporations have already been dismissed or withdrawn, and 6 have been halted.” More granular information about each of these enforcement actions is available through Public Citizen’s Corporate Enforcement Tracker database, but the big picture is clear: If a corporation wants the government off its back, all they have to do is make a handsome contribution. The Trump administration is pay-to-play and open for business.

    8. In another instance of the administration tying the hands of key federal regulators, the Food and Drug Administration will “End its Routine Food Safety Inspections,” according to the National Public Health Information Coalition. The FDA plans to “shift most…food safety inspections to state and local agencies.” While some food inspections are conducted at the state and local level, public health advocates are raising concerns about “oversight and consistency.” According to CBS, these plans have not been finalized.

    9. Turning to the very worst part of this administration, NOTUS reports “The DOGE website, the only public accounting of Elon Musk and President Donald Trump’s attempts to reduce federal government spending…[has posted]…revisions that suggest DOGE was previously overstating its savings by hundreds of millions of dollars.” These stunning, if not altogether surprising, overestimations are staggering in scale. “On Tuesday [April 15th] alone, DOGE removed around $962 million in previously claimed cuts and altered hundreds of others to boost individual items’ purported ‘savings’ values.” The incompetence of DOGE has led Musk to reduce the target goal of spending cuts, down from $1 trillion to just $150 billion – a drop in the bucket when it comes to federal spending and certainly not worth the evisceration of Social Security and other programs these cuts have entailed.

    10. Finally, in more bad news for Elon Musk, Reuters reports the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology is tightening electric vehicle battery safety standards, specifically to “ensure…batteries won’t catch fire or explode.” This is quite a humble regulatory goal. However, this new regulation could spell disaster for Tesla. According to Tesla-fire.com, there have been 232 confirmed cases of Tesla fires and “83 Fatalities Involving a Tesla Car Fire.” If I were a Chinese EV regulator, I would be wary of allowing Tesla vehicles on the roads. But that’s just me.

    This has been Francesco DeSantis, with In Case You Haven’t Heard.



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