“As an adjudicated insurrectionist, Trump is an illegitimate president according to Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, and therefore every official act as president will be illegitimate.”
–Mike Zonta, co-editor of OccupySF.net
The 14th Amendment states: “No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.”
Call your Congressperson and your U.S. Senators at (202) 224-3121
The story of the improbable becoming possible — told by the people who slept in the park.
About The Series
In 2008, a Wall Street crash gutted millions of lives. It took until 2011 for the Left to answer — a call to protest went out, thousands came, and they tried to build an anti-capitalist village in a small Manhattan park.
Told through the voices of activists who camped in Zuccotti Park for almost two months, Occupy! An Unfinished Uprising gets inside a movement that grew fast, felt transcendent and chaotic at once, and then violently flamed out. The press called it a failure. It changed the national conversation about capitalism, gave us the language of the 99%, and trained a generation of organizers.
As Occupy’s 15th anniversary arrives this September, it’s a reminder that collective action can still reshape what looks impossible.
Here is every Democrat who voted to take funding away from universities that boycott Israel:
Jake Auchincloss (Massachusetts) Kathy Castor (Florida) Gilbert Ray Cisneros Jr. (California) Jim Costa (California) Joe Courtney (Connecticut) Henry Cuellar (Texas) Donald G. Davis (North Carolina) Lois Frankel (Florida) Laura Gillen (New York) Jared F. Golden (Maine) Vicente Gonzalez (Texas) Greg Landsman (Ohio) George Latimer (New York) Susie Lee (Nevada) John W. Mannion (New York) Jared Moskowitz (Florida) Donald Norcross (New Jersey) Jimmy Panetta (California) Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (Washington) Josh Riley (New York) Bradley Scott Schneider (Illinois) Hillary J. Scholten (Michigan) Kim Schrier (Washington) Brad Sherman (California) Darren Soto (Florida) Haley M. Stevens (Michigan) Thomas R. Suozzi (New York) Shri Thanedar (Michigan) Dina Titus (Nevada) Ritchie Torres (New York) Juan Vargas (California) Eugene Simon Vindman (Virginia) Debbie Wasserman Schultz (Florida)
H. Three-quarters of US college students say Israel is committing genocide – September 3, 2026
Chevron Corporate Station 5500 Telegraph Ave (Telegraph @ 55th) Oakland
FIRST SUNDAY OF THE MONTH, 1-3 PM (RAIN CANCELS)
Signs and chants will be provided. Bring your energy and tambourines!
Israel’s genocide machine couldn’t run without power from Chevron. Israel’s war on Gaza and Occupation of Palestine contributes to the climate catastrophe. Chevron supplies light and energy via its operation and co-ownership of two major Israeli-claimed fossil gas fields in the Mediterranean.
Chevron’s extraction activities are funneling millions of dollars in tax revenues to Israeli government coffers, directly fueling Israel’s system of settler colonialism and violence against all Palestinians. In 2022, those revenues amounted to over $462 million.
BDS is a global nonviolent Palestinian led movement, and we demand that Chevron immediately cut its contracts with genocidal Israel, and end its role in climate devastation globally.
Following in the tradition of the anti-apartheid gas station boycotts of the 60s & 70s, Palestinians and allies are building a global movement to hold Chevron accountable for its crimes through a coordinated boycott of Chevron gas stations and products around the world.
Join the campaign: Pledge to #BoycottChevron now at bit.ly/boycottchevron.
2. Sunday, 2:00pm, SF Mime Troupe: WRECKAGE: A Musical Tragicomedy – Mission Dolores Park SF
Mission Dolores Park Dolores Street & 19th Street SF
FREE or donation. Bring your own lawn chair or blanket.
LIVE MUSIC STARTS 30 MINUTES PRIOR TO SHOWS
The Tony Award-Winning San Francisco Mime Troupe Opens their 67th Season with:
WRECKAGE: A Musical Tragicomedy
Hallucinating robots, economic collapse, protesting frogs, people praying for the End of the World. This is not the future, or the democracy, we were promised! But the real question is: When it’s all over will there be enough left to build something new out of this… wreckage?
Join us for a new musical packed with live music, political satire, and the search for hope amid the wreckage.
Written by Michael Gene Sullivan
Music and Lyrics by Daniel Savio
Directed by Lisa Hori-Garcia
Music Direction by Daniel Savio and Will Durkee
Featuring a four-person cast that includes veteran SFMT collective members,
Michael Gene Sullivan, Jed Parsario, Keiko Shimosato Carreiro, and Chloris Li!
Show will also be held on Monday at Dolores Park2:00pm
A Webinar Hosted by Taxpayers Against Genocide Featuring Nida Liftawiya
Nida Liftawiya is a Palestinian refugee living in California on occupied Ohlone lands. She is an activist, artist, educator, and an organizer with the Arab Resource and Organizing Center (AROC). In this webinar, she will share experiences and analysis from recent trips to Palestine and Cuba where she personally witnessed how U.S. tax dollar are fueling genocide and how the people are resisting.
Following her presentation, there will be a discussion about how we, as U.S. taxpayers, can elevate and practice more effective international solidarity at this moment.
Endorsers: Alongside of the Haiti Action Committee and Taxpayers Against Genocide, Bay Area Cuba Solidarity, Task Force on the Americas, Arab Resource Organizing Center, ANSWER Coalition, the All-African People’s Revolutionary Party, and many others.
Join Zoom Meeting 9/7/26 10AM PST/12PM CST/1PM EST
Workers in this country need democratic unions to fight back against union busting employers and a government that wants to eliminate all union and human rights. This panel will have trade unionists who are fighting against concession bargaining, the introduction of AI and robotics that threaten jobs and also top down corporate unionism. This will include Teamsters, SEIU members and other unionists.
5. Tuesday, 12:00Noon – 1:00pm, Canadians Are Not The Enemy! STOP The Trade War NOW! No Tariffs & Trade War With Canada
Middle Harbor Shoreline Park Port Of Oakland 2777 Middle Harbor Road Oakland
Rally & Speak Out
The growing trade war between the US and Canada and the rest of the world is leading to more attacks on working people here and around the world. Canadians are not the enemy. It is the billionaires who run the US and the world who want to pit workers here against workers in Canada and around the world.
This trade war will hurt airline workers, hotel and tourist workers and workers both union and non-union who are connected to international trade. It is an attack on workers on border states and in California and the West Coast who will pay the costs of this anti-working class trade war with more inflation and union busting.
At the same time Trump, who is a racist and fascist is demanding that Canada no longer use French as one of their national languages. This fascist who is using ICE gestapo agents against Black and Brown immigrants is demanding that Canada start attacking their own people to get a trade deal. This use of trade war to create national divisions is part of the game book of fascists and Nazis.
ILWU port workers on the West Coast, Teamsters in the airlines and tourist workers are already facing the brunt of trade war along with increasing costs and inflation making it difficult to live and pay the bills.
The major decline of US capitalism is a direct result of the same billionaires outsourcing our industrial base to China to make more profits.
6. Tuesday, 3:00pm – 10:00pm, Annual 9/11 Truth Film Festival
Grand Lake Theatre 3200 Grand Avenue Oakland, California 94610
Honoring those seeking peace, justice, liberty, and the truth of the events of September 11, 2001 for the past 25 years. Northern California 9/11 Truth Alliance invites you to their 22nd Annual 9/11 Truth Film Festival with films and speakers.
Seeking to cast light on the truth and to deconstruct the lies that lead to wars, loss of civil liberties, the surveillance state, as well as the deaths, displacement, injuries and impoverishment of multitudes and ecological disasters. Showing how truth change this trajectory…
Featured Films Include:
A sneak preview of the new documentary-
The Responders: Breaking the Silence,
The untold story of September 11th, 2001, both from the uncensored experience of the first responders who risked their lives that day and from those who have since responded to the call to speak the truth, whatever the cost…
Four Died Trying [Prologue]
The unflinching examination of the four earthshaking political murders of the 1960s that radically curtailed human progress around the world. The murders of President John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert Kennedy accelerated the United States government’s slide into becoming an imperial power untethered from its founding ideals.
The Demolition of Truth: Psychologists Examine 9/11
Respected social scientists examine America’s cognitive dissonance – its inability to reconcile the observable facts and science of 9/11 with our government’s official story that doesn’t add up.
Speakers Include:
Bruce de Torres, author of “God, School, 9/11 and JFK: The Lies That Are Killing Us and the Truth that Sets Us Free”
Carol Brouillet Co-Founder of the Northern California 9/11 Truth Alliance
Demand that congressional representatives do all that they can to save Temporary Protective Status (TPS),a program that provides protection from deportation to people when it is unsafe to return to their home countries.
World Meteorological Organization Secretary-General Celeste Saulo and chief of climate prediction Wilfran Moufouma-Okia attend a press conference in Geneva, Switzerland on September 3, 2026.
(Photo by Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images)
“The science leaves no room for doubt: the planet is in uncharted waters, and those waters are heating up.”
Officials at the United Nations are warning that governments around the world must urgently prepare for the impacts of an El Niño climate pattern that is being “supersized before our eyes.”
The UN’s World Meteorological Organization (WMO) on Thursday provided an update on El Niño, projecting with near certainty that it would persist at least through Februrary 2027.
El Niño is a phenomenon that produces above-average temperatures in the Pacific Ocean, which then disrupt weather patterns elsewhere in the world. In its update, WMO said that this year’s El Niño projects to be historically intense.
“Forecasts indicate further strengthening of El Niño in the coming months, with the event forecast to reach very strong intensity before peaking towards the end of the year,” WMO said. “A very strong El Niño increases the likelihood of significant shifts in temperature and rainfall patterns in many parts of the world.”
The organization emphasized, however, that El Niño’s impacts are not predictable and vary widely by region.
WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo said the latest projections show that El Niño “has the potential to deliver a massive blow to communities and economies across the world” in the form of droughts, floods, and other climate-related disasters made more intense by the continued extraction and burning of fossil fuels.
“This exceptional El Niño demands exceptional preparation and response,” Saulo said. “Never before in the 50-year history of the World Meteorological Organization have we launched such a major mobilization with National Meteorological and Hydrological Services who are on the frontline of delivering the forecasts and services to save lives and livelihoods.”
While speaking with reporters in Geneva, Switzerland on Thursday, Saulo noted that the current El Niño “may be stronger than anything since our monitoring began,” making it “literally off the charts we have used for the past four decades.”
UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned that “El Niño is being supersized before our eyes,” and said the ramifications could be severe.
“The science leaves no room for doubt: the planet is in uncharted waters, and those waters are heating up,” said Guterres. “Sea surface temperatures are rising, temperatures keep climbing, and the world is in the danger zone of extreme weather.”
Daniel Swain, climate scientist at the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources, echoed UN officials’ warning about El Niño in an interview with Wired published Thursday.
“This is probably one of the larger, if not the largest, climate events… that anybody alive is potentially ever experiencing,” said Swain. “That’s a very big deal. And I think there’s certainly going to be dramatic outcomes from this.”
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
Shortly before US President Donald Trump on Tuesday spurred fresh fears that he’ll use nuclear weapons in his illegal war on Iran, Vice President JD Vance told a Christian podcaster that he’s fine with the administration’s work leading to the end times.
“Do I think that we’re in the end times? I don’t know,” Vance told 22-year-old podcaster Bryce Crawford nearly an hour into a lengthy video interview released Monday. While admitting his fascination with the theories, the VP said that “I think that it’s probably bad for me, spiritually, to focus too much on it.”
As The New Republic’s Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling explained: “The Christian end times refer to the religion’s interpretations of the final days of humanity. That’s detailed in the Bible as a period involving widespread turmoil and deception (such as wars, earthquakes, and a false prophet), a seven-year stretch of unprecedented hardship known as the Great Tribulation that will end in Armageddon, the emergence of the Antichrist and a cadre of their followers who reject Christ’s teachings, and a final judgment by God.”
As Vance sat beside a propped-up edition of his new book on his religious journey, including his conversion to Catholicism, he said that “I think that there are… things about the world that make me feel like not shocked if the Antichrist was walking among us, but again, I try not to focus too much on it.”
“One of the things that I think that Catholics are very focused on, that I think is very good for me, is this idea that… we don’t know when God is coming, but we’re commanded to try to, as much as possible, try to make the world the kind of world that God wants it to be,” the vice president continued.
“While I wouldn’t be shocked if we are living in the end times,” he added, “what I’m trying to focus on is doing as much of God’s work as possible right now, and if that leads to the end times, OK, and if that leads to, you know, us building a better world that thrives and survives for a very long time after I’m gone, that’s great, too.”
Those remarks—from a man expected to compete with figures such as Donald Trump Jr. and Secretary of State Marco Rubio for the GOP’s 2028 presidential nomination, if the president doesn’t try for an unconstitutional third term—were met with alarm.
Critics wrote that “this should concern us all” and wondered: “WTF does that mean? Is he OK with using nuclear weapons?”
Sharing a clip of Vance’s comments on social media, Iranian-American writer Alex Shams noted that “these guys are trying to convince you Iran is ruled by a crazed messianic theocracy.”
Podcaster and writer Katie Halper said, “Show this clip to anyone who says Iran is run by religious lunatics.”
As Vance’s video interview began circulating on Monday, over six months into the Iran War, a reporter in the Oval Office asked Trump if he’s ruled out using a nuclear weapon against the Mideast country.
While suggesting he has ruled out nuclear war, Trump also said: “What a stupid question that is, actually. Here they are, they’re totally defeated militarily, so now I defeat them, and now I should use a nuclear weapon on top of them?”
Just a day later, Trump triggered speculation that he’ll pursue a nuclear attack. On Tuesday, while bombing alleged Iranian military targets, he wrote on his Truth Social platform, “If the failed Nation of Iran retaliates for this very justified attack, they will be hit again at a much harder and higher level, but it will not be the biggest attack of them all, that is waiting in the wings and, when it is over, there will be very little left of the Islamic Republic of Iran!”
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
A George Washington University student wearing a graduation cap with the message “Our Tuition Killed Gaza’s Class of ‘25” shouts slogans during a walkout at the National Mall as President Ellen Granberg delivers her commencement address on May 18, 2025.
(Photo by Probal Rashid/LightRocket via Getty Images)
“The goal here is to basically say every university not only cannot refuse cooperation with Israel but must actively seek every opportunity to cooperate with Israel,” said one analyst.
The US House of Representatives on Thursday passed what critics say could be one of the most severe infringements on free expression in recent memory—a bill that could effectively require colleges and universities to do business with Israel or risk losing federal funds.
As Israel’s genocide in Gaza and accelerating ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in the West Bank continue to fuel protests, the bill is the latest piece of legislation aimed at punishing the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which uses nonviolent economic tactics to pressure Israel to end its illegal occupation of Palestinian territory and human rights abuses.
HR 4795, introduced in July 2025 by Reps. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) and Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), is known as the Protect Economic and Academic Freedom Act. But Lara Friedman, the president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, described it as an “Orwellian” turn of phrase for what the legislation actually does.
“The goal here is to basically say every university not only cannot refuse cooperation with Israel but must actively seek every opportunity to cooperate with Israel,” she told Responsible Statecraft. “And if they’re not doing that, they’re pro-BDS and anti-Israel.”
[The bill] would bar colleges that receive federal funds from engaging in what it defines as a “nonexpressive commercial boycott” of Israel, including “refusals to deal” or terminating business relationships in order to limit commercial ties without a “valid business reason.” The law would require these institutions to submit annual certification that they were giving students and faculty access to academic programs in Israel on the same terms as programs in other countries.
In a brief opposing the bill, Friedman argued that it was not just forcing universities to do business with Israel, but with its settlements in the West Bank, which are considered illegal under international law. With backing from the Israeli state, violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank has exploded to never-before-seen highs this year, according to the United Nations.
“This legislation,” Friedman wrote, “sets up a situation in which the alleged absence of engagement with any Israeli partner/party, including in settlements, will become the basis for an accusation of boycott, putting universities in the position where, if they universities want to avoid being accused of boycotting Israel/settlements, they will need to adopt an affirmative policy of prioritizing maximal engagement/partnership with Israeli entities (including in settlements).”
The bill passed by a 237-169 vote, with support from all but two Republicans—Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Warren Davidson (R-Ohio). And although the vast majority of Democratic voters now hold negative views of Israel, 33 Democrats also voted in favor of the bill.
The legislation now heads to the narrowly Republican-controlled US Senate, where it would need 60 votes to advance.
Introducing the bill last year, Gottheimer said it was necessary because BDS was an “antisemitic, hate-fueled… movement” that “seeks to destroy Israel—and has no place on our college campuses.”
But even critics of the BDS movement, like Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), chafed at its potential chilling effect on protected speech.
“No matter how strongly I oppose the BDS movement, I also believe that those who engage in BDS have a First Amendment right to do so,” Nadler said before voting against the bill. “The First Amendment right to free speech does not apply only to agreeable speech.”
He cited a letter sent to Congress by the ACLU opposing the bill’s contention that schools should need a “valid business reason” to cut ties with Israel.
“Many of those engaged in boycotts of Israel do so not for commercial reasons, but because they wish to express their political opposition to the policies of the Israeli government—matters of overwhelming public concern and debate in the present moment. HR 4795’s labeling such boycotts as ‘non-expressive’ does nothing to change this reality,” the letter said.
The bill comes as members of Congress, especially Democrats, are under increasing scrutiny for their support from pro-Israel lobbying groups like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), whose political spending arm has poured more than $104 million into supporting its preferred candidates this election cycle.
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump has spent more than six months embroiled in a costly war with Iran that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahuplayed a key role in persuading him to launch.
"Let's leave universities alone."
A bill coming up for a vote in the House would deny federal funding to any university that chooses to divest from Israel, Israeli companies, or Israeli institutions — including those in the occupied West Bank and settlements.
“We just got dragged into a war by Benjamin Netanyahu. He’s bragging about it,” Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) told Julian Andreone of Drop Site News. “That’s about as embarrassing as you can get… So let’s leave universities alone.”
Aaron Regunberg, a contributing editor at The New Republic, described it as outrageous that Democrats who supported the bill were “actively joining the far-right’s war on higher education in order to shield a genocidal ethnostate that most Americans increasingly want nothing to do with.”
Dylan Williams, the vice president for government affairs at the Center for International Policy, said the bill was “another effort to single out Israel for special treatment and erode Americans’ rights on its behalf.”
“Will it be your child who can’t afford to go to college after 33 Democrats voted with Republicans to help Trump defund US universities? Because it certainly won’t be any of theirs,” he said. “Shame on them for joining the attack on our schools and constitutional rights on behalf of Israel.”
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
Democracy Now! Sep 4, 2026 Latest Shows Support our work: https://democracynow.org/donate/sm-de… A federal judge has ruled that the Trump administration violated the constitutional rights of international students in seeking to deport them for their pro-Palestinian activism and criticism of Israel. The ruling is the result of a lawsuit filed by The Stanford Daily, the student newspaper at Stanford University, which claimed that some of its writers on student visas declined to report on topics related to Israel and Palestine, or requested their published articles be removed from the paper’s website, for fear of deportation. “What we were hearing from the noncitizens in our newsroom and from noncitizens across campus — current students, former students, alumni — was that they were genuinely frightened because of what they saw in the headlines, what they saw happen to Rümeysa Öztürk,” says George Porteous, editor-in-chief of The Stanford Daily. Rümeysa Öztürk is the former Tufts University graduate student arrested and detained by ICE after co-authoring an op-ed encouraging Tufts to divest from Israel in her university’s student newspaper. “The chill is the point,” adds Will Creeley, legal director at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, or FIRE, the organization that represented The Stanford Daily in court. “That’s a First Amendment violation every day of the week. It’s flatly un-American.” Subscribe to our Daily Email Digest: https://democracynow.org/subscribe
After years of efforts to unionize, more than 200 local and remote US workers from the San Francisco-based Wikimedia Foundation voted to join the Communication Workers of America labor union Thursday.
Thursday’s vote follows months of organizing at Wikimedia Foundation, where employees have discussed unionizing for about a decade. As Wired reports, the effort gained momentum after the foundation, which is headquartered in San Francisco, expanded by hundreds of employees during the pandemic, with workers saying the growth brought more bureaucracy and left some staff feeling powerless in workplace decisions.
More than 200 employees across departments including software engineering, finance, and communications reportedly voted in the election. Workers say frustration with how management handled hiring, firing, and other organizational changes were the main issues driving the union effort, as opposed to pay and benefits.
One major turning point in the group’s efforts was the foundation’s decision in May to disband its six-person Community Tech team, which developed tools requested by Wikipedia’s volunteer editors and served as a link between the foundation and its contributor community. The foundation said the work would instead be distributed among multiple teams because the centralized system had created bottlenecks and delays.
According to The Verge, the decision drew immediate backlash from longtime Wikipedia contributors, who called for the team to be reinstated. Some also questioned whether the restructuring was connected to the employee’s push for unionization. Nadee Gunasena, chief of staff at the Wikimedia Foundation, denied that any staff had been terminated for union activity and said the foundation would try to place the six employees in other roles.
Lauren de Lench, a lead technical program manager, told Wired she supported unionization after seeing colleagues hesitate to raise concerns or propose unconventional ideas because they feared retaliation.
“I want us to be loud and debate freely up and down the organizational chart because that’s how we move quickly, address challenges, and come up with the best collective solutions,” de Lench said.
As Wired reports, the organizing effort also stems from the growing pressure Wikimedia faces from AI companies that scrape Wikipedia for training data, while human traffic to the site has been declining as more people turn to chatbots to answer questions. Workers say the organization needs to rethink how it responds to those challenges, and they believe staff and volunteers should have a greater role in shaping that strategy.
After 70% of eligible US staff signed union cards, the workers reportedly partnered with Communication Workers of America Local 9415. The foundation declined to voluntarily recognize the union, saying a formal election was more democratic, but workers said management remained neutral during the vote.
The workers will now negotiate a collective bargaining agreement with the foundation, with expected issues including protections against termination without just cause, per Wired. The foundation has hired Littler Mendelson, a law firm known for representing employers in labor disputes, for the negotiations. Wikimedia workers in the UK are also organizing and hope to eventually coordinate with the US group.
New details from a whistleblower provide new cause for alarm. Will the courts intervene in time?
Until the release of a whistleblower dossier on Monday, one could be relatively hopeful that a string of court decisions would prevent the U.S. Postal Service from carrying out Trump’s orders to slow-walk mail-in voting. As I wrote in this piece last Friday, U.S. District Court Judge Indira Talwani has enjoined the Postal Service from implementing its plans, pending a full hearing scheduled for tomorrow. Now, however, a whistleblower lays out new alarming details. In a letter to Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), the whistleblower, described as a government official, explains how the Postal Service is rushing to build an online portal that will be used to screen ballots submitted by state election officials prior to USPS agreeing to mail them to voters. According to the whistleblower complaint, building the information technology infrastructure necessary to complete the portal would normally take a year or more. Yet, USPS leadership ordered that the portal be completed for a launch date of September 1, 2026. That was yesterday.
As a result of this rushed process, USPS has been unable to conduct tests of the portal to ensure its proper functioning, troubleshoot problems, or distribute instructions on use to state election officials. According to the whistleblower, the portal “violates standard principles of testing and debugging new software before launch.” Normal procedures at USPS for such systems include internal testing, customer acceptance testing, and a final development stage before release to end users. The portal has gone through none of these basic checks.
As Blumenthal points out, under the portal, “When ballots are submitted to USPS in large-volume batches, if any one ballot in the batch cannot be verified against the portal, all ballots in that batch will be rejected. For example, if a state election official brings a batch of 10,000 ballots to USPS and USPS is unable to match just one of those ballots against the portal—because, for example, someone has recently changed their name after marriage or they’ve moved—then USPS would refuse to mail the remaining 9,999 ballots as well.”
What’s clear is that if the system goes forward, it gives the Trump administration three possible ways to undermine the 2026 election. Either state officials are forced to comply with a buggy system that will lose millions of mail-in ballots. Or officials in some states will refuse to comply and the Postal Service will refuse to deliver their ballots. Or the sheer confusion and publicity will deter large numbers of citizens from voting. And complaints will be tied up in court until long after the election. In 2024, roughly 48 million people voted by mail. They were disproportionately Democrats.
I have been skeptical of concerns that Trump will try to pull off some kind of Election Day coup by sending in ICE or the military to block voting. But the USPS slow-rolling coup, unless blocked by the courts, could do almost as much damage. It’s already the case that the Postal Service failed to deliver about 10,000 mail-in ballots in the Michigan Democratic primary in time for them to be counted, due to underfunding and incompetence.
According to the whistleblower, the USPS has continued work on the portal despite several court orders directing it to suspend its plans. In a letter to Postmaster General David Steiner on Monday, Blumenthal wrote, “Please state whether USPS has halted work to implement the Executive Order, in compliance with the August 27, 2026 temporary restraining order.” So far, he has received no reply.
But in a statement released Tuesday, the Postal Service seemed to be thumbing its nose at both Blumenthal and the courts: “The Postal Service is now finalizing the portal and will soon make it available to election officials who voluntarily wish to familiarize themselves with the platform,” the statement said. “USPS will also provide tools, presentations, and other resources to help election officials understand the platform and make informed decisions about whether and how they wish to use it.” The Postal Service has only one duty: to deliver the mail. It has no legitimate role in elections.
The lower courts have been doing their jobs in blocking Trump’s postal scheme, but the Supreme Court’s coy pattern has been to allow illegal conduct to proceed, pending some final judgement that is often effectively moot by the time it is rendered. The most recent instance of this gambit is the Court’s 5-4 ruling to allow construction of Trump’s grotesque ballroom to proceed.
Enabling the desecration of the White House is bad enough. It would be far more serious if the high court enabled the postal desecration of our democracy.
The first postmaster general, you may recall, was Benjamin Franklin. When Franklin, emerging from the Constitutional Convention in 1797, famously told a bystander that the Founders had created “a democracy, if you can keep it,” he had no way of knowing that his beloved Post Office might be the instrument of democracy’s destruction.
Members of National Nurses United rally with lawmakers to show their support for the Medicare for All Act on April 29, 2025 in Washington, DC.
(Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
As Trump-GOP healthcare cuts devastate millions, Yale experts have found that Medicare for All would save the US over $1 trillion and more than 114,000 lives per year.
US President Donald Trump railed against Medicare for All during an Oval Office event on Tuesday, falsely claiming the proposal would be prohibitively expensive and ineffective despite new research confirming it would save lives and cost significantly less than the corporate-dominated status quo.
The president’s remarks came during an event touting his limited, voluntary, and secretive agreements with leading pharmaceutical companies, deals purportedly aimed at lowering drug prices. Trump again lied by claiming that his efforts are “much bigger” than Medicare for All, which would provide comprehensive health coverage to every person in the US for free at the point of service, eliminating premiums, copays, and deductibles.
Trump said that Medicare for All, which has not been tried at a national level in the US, “doesn’t work,” falsely claiming a single-payer system would cost “the entire budget of the whole country” and send taxes into the stratosphere.
Total federal outlays were $7.04 trillion in 2025. According to a study published last month by Yale University researchers, a single-payer system like the one set out in Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-Vt.) Medicare for All Act would save the US roughly $1 trillion per year in national healthcare expenditures, which totaled around $5.7 trillion last year. The finding was consistent with past research showing major savings under Medicare for All compared with the current privatized system.
“A universal healthcare system in the US would not require the country to spend more on healthcare,” the Yale researchers wrote. “It would require it to spend less. Our results indicate that the existing budget is more than sufficient to cover everyone at lower total cost.”
The study also found that Medicare for All would save more than 114,000 lives across the US each year by providing the tens of millions of uninsured and underinsured Americans with comprehensive coverage.
The researchers contrasted the life-saving impacts of a Medicare for All system with the deadly consequences of the unprecedented Medicaid cuts that Trump signed into law last summer. Experts at Yale and the University of Pennsylvania estimated that the sweeping Republican assault on Medicaid could cause more than 51,000 deaths annually as millions are kicked off the program.
“Numerous highly respected analyses show that improving Medicare and expanding it to everyone, with no premiums, copays, deductibles or coinsurance costs trillions of dollars less than what the nation now spends, while covering the entire population and saving lives,” Altman of Social Security Works told Common Dreams. “The question isn’t how will we pay for universal coverage, but how will we divvy up the savings.”
The House version of the Medicare for All Act, led by Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) and Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.), is cosponsored by a majority of the chamber’s Democratic caucus—though it’s opposed by the House Democratic leader, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York. The Senate version of the bill, led by Sanders, has 17 cosponsors.
“We already introduced the legislation. Now we need the political will to pass it,” Jayapal said on Tuesday. “Healthcare is a human right. No one should go broke, or die, because they got sick.”
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
Four victims of the Trump administration’s boat bombings, Eduard Hidalgo, Dushak Milovcic, Ricky Joseph, and Chad Joseph, are seen in a composite image.
(Photo courtesy of CLIP)
“This is a make-believe armed conflict, but these are very real killings,” said one legal expert.
Wednesday marked one year since President Donald Trump began bombing boats allegedly smuggling drugs in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean—a grim anniversary that sparked a fresh wave of condemnation from rights advocates across the United States and beyond.
“For a year now, the Trump administration has engaged in a terrifying, lawless killing campaign at sea and has yet to provide the public with anything beyond the most threadbare justifications,” said Jeff Stein, staff attorney with ACLU’s National Security Project, in a statement late Tuesday.
The ACLU and the Center for Constitutional Rights are suing over the administration’s refusal to comply with a Freedom of Information Act request for a legal opinion authored by the US Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) attempting to justify the strikes.
“These strikes have devastated countless families, terrified communities, and, by the administration’s own admission, failed to achieve their purported goal of stopping drugs from entering into the United States,” Stein said. “We urge leaders in both Congress and the executive branch to put an immediate end to these strikes before anyone else is killed.”
Despite mounting outrage over the bombings, which have killed at least 227 people and, as Amnesty International USA’s national director for government relations, Amanda Klasing, highlighted Monday, “are illegal under both international and US law,” the Republican-controlled Congress has failed to pass any war powers resolutions intended to stop the campaign.
“The Trump administration has summarily killed more than 200 people over the course of the past year, bragging about these killings online and facing no accountability,” Ida Sawyer, crisis, conflict, and arms director at Human Rights Watch, said Wednesday. “The victims and their loved ones deserve a full accounting of these operations, and justice for the grave harm they have suffered.”
After a two-month pause in the bombings, the administration revived them last week, launching a pair of attacks that killed at least six people, according to social media posts and aerial footage from US Southern Command. The strikes followed SOUTHCOM’s early August announcement of an expanded operation across Latin America called Joint Task Force Western Hemisphere.
In September and October 2025, when the strikes began, US Southern Command, known as SOUTHCOM, linked three of the strikes to the Tren de Aragua and Ejército de Liberación Nacional criminal organizations. Most later strikes were described as targeting “a vessel operated by designated terrorist organizations.”
But the military’s most recent two announcements of strikes simply stated that “confirmed intelligence revealed the vessel’s active involvement in narco-trafficking.”
Brian Finucane, a former State Department legal adviser who now advises the US Program at the International Crisis Group, told the outlet that “they are engaging in conduct that is widely regarded to be flagrantly illegal, criminal even, and have not offered anything approaching plausible legal rationale.”
The OLC memo may be the administration’s “permission slip,” Finucane said, but it hasn’t actually substantiated claims that the United States is engaged in an armed conflict with cartels that traffic drugs.
“This war framing on the part of the administration is really bogus,” he added. “This is a make-believe armed conflict, but these are very real killings.”
Several Democrats in Congress, from House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (NY) to Senate Minority Whip and Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Dick Durbin (Ill.), renewed their criticism of the boat bombings on Wednesday.
Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) said that “the most recent strike was four days ago. A year of killing, and this administration has never once come to Congress to justify any of it. This cannot become the way our country goes to war.”
“The American people are already paying for one war they didn’t want in the first place,” he continued, nodding to the illegal six-month assault on Iran. “I fought in Iraq. I know what these wars cost, and I know who pays them. I will use every tool I have as a United States senator to stop this and to defend the Constitution.”
House Armed Services Committee Ranking Member Adam Smith (D-Wash.) noted that “it remains unclear whether these operations have made any real difference in stopping illegal drugs from reaching the United States.”
“This is especially true for fentanyl,” he noted, which Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth “have repeatedly claimed is the reason for these extrajudicial killings even though we know that it is cocaine—not fentanyl—that is typically shipped via small boats from South America.”
Smith also called out the Department of Defense for failing “to publicly provide the costs of these operations, both in terms of dollars and readiness,” and declared that “never before in my over 20 years on this committee have I seen such a staggering lack of transparency on behalf of an administration and DOD to meaningfully inform Congress of the use of lethal military force.”
However, with Republicans holding narrow majorities in Congress and mostly still refusing to truly challenge the administration on the boat strikes—and various other violent actions around the world—some campaigners are also stepping up pressure on other governments.
“The Trump administration has had complete impunity for this campaign of unlawful killings for a year, and has stated openly that it has no intention of stopping,” said Sawyer. “Other countries should refrain from any cooperation on these strikes, and Congress should urgently work to rein in the deadly actions of an administration bent on violating international law.”
Jamil Dakwar, director of ACLU’s Human Rights Program, said that “the international community must do everything in its power to hold the Trump administration responsible for these extrajudicial killings that are blatant violations of international law.”
“No other country should provide any assistance that could contribute to these unlawful US government killings,” Dakwar added, calling for an “independent international investigation into this lawless campaign.”
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
Status Coup News Sep 2, 2026 Status Coup News tagged products below. Status Coup reporter JT Cestkowski breaks down the latest tragedy caused by ICE agents: this time, Pierre Damas Bel, a Haitian student who was forced to wear an ankle monitor like a criminal, took his own life in traffic in response to ICE treatment. JT tells you what you need to know and the incredible hypocrisy of this case compared to an actual murderer in the form of an ICE agent. Status Coup is the leading INDEPENDENT ON-THE-GROUND reporting outlet in America that covers what the corporate media COVERS UP. We are FUNDED BY THE PEOPLE FOR THE PEOPLE—and need your support to help us stay ON-THE-GROUND. Join us as a paying member for as low as $5 bucks a month: https://www.statuscoup.com/join
Help Outreach Working Group lift the fog of corporate media. Donate to help us maintain this website and distribute literature on the street.
We protest Heritage Foundation EVERY MONDAY (Join us!!!!) By admin | September 2, 2025 | Uncategorized Cliff Cash Comedy Premiered Jul 26, 2025 Every Monday at The Heritage Foundation 214 Massachusetts Ave. Washington D.C. 4pm protest 6pm pizza Every Friday at Fox News D.C. 400 N. Capitol St. Washington D.C. 4pm protest 6pm pizza We are... Continue reading →
September PAC Meeting *We will be voting on November Election endorsement recommendations for state propositions!* Date: Tuesday, 8 September, 2026 (second Tuesday of month) Time: 7-9 PM *NEW* In-person Location: Women’s Building (3543 18th St), Audre Lorde Room Remote: Via Zoom Link Here
One Million Rising: Strategic Non-Cooperation to Fight Authoritarianism Virtual Event · Hosted by No Kings Time Wednesdays 8 – 9:30pm EDT Location Virtual event Join from anywhere About this event Across the country, authoritarian forces are getting bolder and more dangerous. Trump and his allies are not hiding their agenda: mass deportations,... Continue reading →
THURSDAY, JUNE 29, 2023 AT 2 AM – 4 AM PDT How to create trust in a group? Details Event by Extinction Rebellion Empathy Circles online EMPATHY CAFE Duration: 2 hr Public · Anyone on or off Facebook How to create trust in a group? This is the question that arose in our... Continue reading →
The San Francisco Democratic Party presents The San Francisco Democratic Party 2026 Gala Thursday, September 10th 6:00 – 10:00 PM Bimbo’s 365 Club 1025 Columbus Ave San Francisco, CA 94133 TICKETS https://www.sfdems.org/gala2026
Public Banking Coalition monthly meetings Next call: Nov 11 Excitement is building for public banking and once a month, PBI hosts an hour-long Public Banking Coalition online meeting to share the excitement and successes. Find out the latest updates on the advances being made all across the country from local advocates themselves... Continue reading →
Trump Regime Takedown: Every Saturday Saturday, March 7, 2026 12:00 PM 2:00 PM Tesla San Francisco999 Van Ness AvenueSan Francisco, CA, 94109United States (map) Google Calendar ICS Keep democracy alive every Saturday by showing up, taking a stand, and sticking together for the long haul. Standing together is better than standing alone. Let’s get together... Continue reading →
This Sunday’s Town Hall: Announcing This Week’s Progressive Town Hall: Every Sunday at 4pm ET/1pm PT RSVP HERE Join PDA activists online from across the country to discuss the importance of progressives reclaiming the American story from the MAGA right, an issue of heightened importance as we’re now within one... Continue reading →
We protest Heritage Foundation EVERY MONDAY (Join us!!!!) By admin | September 2, 2025 | Uncategorized Cliff Cash Comedy Premiered Jul 26, 2025 Every Monday at The Heritage Foundation 214 Massachusetts Ave. Washington D.C. 4pm protest 6pm pizza Every Friday at Fox News D.C. 400 N. Capitol St. Washington D.C. 4pm protest 6pm pizza We are... Continue reading →
There are less than 9 weeks until the critical November election, and what we do between now and then will shape the future of our health care. We started Nurses for Democracy to fight back against fascism and protect our democracy, but also to elect candidates in key races who are committed... Continue reading →
Robert Kuttner
