Yosemite embodies the long war over US national park privatization

  The Trump administration’s cuts to the National Park Service’s budget and staffing have raised concerns among park advocates and the public that the administration is aiming to further privatize the national parks.

  The nation has a long history of similar efforts, including a wildly unpopular 1980 attempt by Reagan administration Interior Secretary James Watt to promote development and expand private concessions in the parks. But debate over using public national park land for private profit dates back more than a century before that.

President Donald Trump sues The Wall Street Journal: First Amendment analysis

  President Donald Trump is suing The Wall Street Journal owner Rupert Murdoch and publisher Dow Jones & Co., as well as two reporters, after the paper published an article stating that Trump sent a letter to financier Jeffrey Epstein in 2003 that included a lewd drawing and birthday wishes containing sexual innuendo. Two years later, in 2005, police began investigating Epstein, who in 2008 pleaded guilty to prostitution-related charges involving underage girls. He was arrested again in 2019 on sex-trafficking charges involving allegations that dated back to the early 2000s. He died in prison later that same year.

Attacks on the U.S. innovation ecosystem are an attack on a wellspring of American prosperity

  Fifty-six years ago, on July 20, 1969, the United States landed a man on the moon, culminating a decade-long race that showcased the ingenuity of America’s public sector, its universities, and its thriving private industry. The moon landing was a singular accomplishment in the history of humanity and a triumph of the U.S. innovation ecosystem. The United States’ unparalleled science and technology advantage, developed in large part through federally funded research and development (R&D); world-class colleges and universities; and its openness to the best and brightest from anywhere created not just the technologies that define the modern world but also many of the world’s most successful companies. Now, the Trump administration is dismantling America’s science and innovation lead. The impacts will be felt for decades.

The Trump administration is endangering women’s reproductive health

  The Trump administration has made drastic cuts to federal programs that protect the health of Americans, putting women’s health at particular risk. Job cuts described as a “bloodbath,” along with restructuring within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), will dismantle programs that support women’s health, including those that focus on chronic and infectious disease, injuries, mental health, genetic disorders, substance use, and health disparities. These cuts will scale back efforts to prevent, treat, and discover cures for illnesses and diseases, including many that affect women’s reproductive health.

Data can show if government programs work or not, but the Trump administration is suppressing the necessary information

  The U.S. has the highest rate of maternal mortality among developed nations. Since 1987, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has administered the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System to better understand when, where, and why maternal deaths occur.

  In April 2025, the Trump administration put the department in charge of collecting and tracking this data on leave.

  It’s just one example of how the administration is deleting and disrupting American data of all kinds.

How the ‘big, beautiful bill’ will deepen the racial wealth gap – a law scholar explains how it reduces poor families’ ability to afford food and health care

  President Donald Trump has said the “big, beautiful bill” he signed into law on July 4, 2025, will stimulate the economy and foster financial security.

  But a close look at the legislation reveals a different story, particularly for low-income people and racial and ethnic minorities.

  As a legal scholar who studies how taxes increase the gap in wealth and income between Black and white Americans, I believe the law’s provisions make existing wealth inequalities worse through broad tax cuts that disproportionately favor wealthy families while forcing its costs on low- and middle-income Americans.

President Trump’s tug-of-war with the courts, explained

  The Supreme Court handed President Donald Trump a big win on June 27, 2025 by limiting the ability of judges to block Trump administration policies across the nation.

  But Trump has not fared nearly as well in the lower courts, where he has lost a series of cases through different levels of the federal court system. On June 5, a single judge temporarily stopped the administration from preventing Harvard University from enrolling international students.

‘Big Beautiful Bill’ will have Americans paying higher prices for dirtier energy

  When congressional Republicans decided to cut some Biden-era energy subsidies to help fund their One Big Beautiful Bill Act, they could have pruned wasteful subsidies while sparing the rest. Instead, they did the reverse. Americans will pay the price with higher costs for dirtier energy.

  The nearly 900-page bill that President Donald Trump signed on July 4, 2025 slashes incentives for wind and solar energy, batteries, electric cars, and home efficiency while expanding subsidies for fossil fuels and biofuels. That will leave Americans burning more fossil fuels despite strong public and scientific support for shifting to renewable energy.

What freedom of speech?

  In a totalitarian or authoritarian dictatorship, government officials do not need the support of the citizenry to exterminate freedom of speech. That’s because there are no elections to worry about. The regime simply starts having its military and paramilitary goons start arresting critics, disappearing them in terrorist confinement facilities, torturing them, and then killing them. Everyone else understands. No more criticism of the regime.

  In a democratic system, suppressing criticism is much more difficult owing to the problem of elections. If the goons of some democratically elected president begin rounding up critics, incarcerating them, torturing them, and killing them, the ruler runs the risk of being kicked out of office in the next election. There is also the risk of impeachment.

10 egregious things you may not know about the One Big Beautiful Bill Act

  Congressional Republicans passed a radical budget and tax bill—the One Big Beautiful Bill Act—on a party-line vote. Many of the plan’s key elements will increase families’ costs for health care, food, and utilities—such as historic cuts to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) as well as terminating tax credits to produce more American-made energy—and are deeply unpopular according to recent survey data. Several provisions, however, remain less understood because they’ve received less media attention or were added during rushed negotiations that took place overnight and behind closed doors.

  This article details several lesser-known provisions of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) that will increase costs and limit Americans’ ability to meet their basic needs; create a slush fund for Trump administration overreach; and waste taxpayer money.

The dangers of obeying: 4 risks for organizations bowing to the Trump administration

  A key element in the authoritarian playbook is the targeting of perceived enemies who can stand as a bulwark against political leaders amassing unchecked power. The second administration of President Donald Trump, since Inauguration Day, has been aggressively targeting a wide range of key civil society organizations—such as universities, law firms, media companies, nonprofits, and business leaders—in attempts to have them comply with a long list of demands that arguably undermine their constitutional rights. Organizations under threat have some reason to submit to the administration, especially as they face intimidating investigations into their free speech, restricted access to government spaces, and cancellation of federal grants based on their use of certain disfavored words, among others. However, huge risks accompany submission. And ultimately, too many civil society organizations failing to stand up to the administration’s unreasonable, coercive demands could hasten the degradation of U.S. democracy.

What the Supreme Court ruling against ‘universal injunctions’ means for court challenges to presidential actions

  When presidents have tried to make big changes through executive orders, they have often hit a roadblock: A single federal judge, whether located in Seattle or Miami or anywhere in between, could stop these policies across the entire country.

  But on June 27, 2025, the Supreme Court significantly limited this judicial power. In Trump v. CASA Inc., a 6-3 majority ruled that federal courts likely lack the authority to issue “universal injunctions” that block government policies nationwide. The ruling means that going forward, federal judges can generally only block policies from being enforced against the specific plaintiffs who filed the lawsuit, not against everyone in the country.

Britt and Tuberville enter Trump’s fantasy world at Alabama’s expense

  I have no inside sources in the White House.

  I do not have access to military intelligence. Or any expert knowledge of the Middle East.

  But I’ve spent my adult life watching American presidents try to bomb the region into peace. It never works.

  Which leaves me wondering how Alabama’s senators, who on paper have better sources than us Goat Hill wretches, think that President Donald Trump’s decision to attack Iranian nuclear facilities solved anything.

Despite Musk’s departure, Trump’s war against unions and workers will continue

  President Donald Trump’s second administration has been defined by its assault on the federal workforce. With Elon Musk at the helm of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), the Trump administration fired tens of thousands of federal workers, jeopardizing services that working families across the country rely on. Yet the attacks on workers have gone beyond firing public sector workers and will not end just because Musk has left the government.

Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Iran(q)

  President Trump says it was necessary for him to order U.S. pilots to bomb Iran to prevent that nation’s government from building a nuclear bomb.

  Wait a minute. Something is coming to me. Just give me a moment. It’s coming into my mind. Oh, yes, I remember:

  “WMDs! WMDs, Jacob! We have to invade Iran, I mean Iraq, because Saddam Hussein is coming to get us with his WMDs! We have to invade now! Tomorrow will be too late. WMDs! WMDs!”

Maybe it’s not American greatness that brings immigrants here

  My mother left a small village in western Ireland when she was 17.

  She had good reason. Her public education ended at age 14. At the time, public high schools did not exist in Ireland. The fifth child of a Irish farmer’s 10 children could only get a secondary education with a scholarship to a private school. And she did not get that. Many people in her village in County Mayo were migrant workers, traveling to Scotland to pick potatoes.

  She didn’t want that life. So she left. So did most of her sisters.

  And decades later, she’s still angry.

Energy Star, on the Trump administration’s target list, has a long history of helping consumers’ wallets and the planet

  Since the early 1990s, the small blue Energy Star label has appeared on millions of household appliances, electronics, and even buildings across the United States. But as the Trump administration considers terminating some or all of the program, it is worth a look at what exactly this government-backed label means, and why it has become one of the most recognizable environmental certifications in the country.

  Energy Star was launched by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 1992 and later expanded in partnership with the Department of Energy with a simple goal: making it easier for consumers and businesses to choose energy-efficient products, helping them reduce energy use and save money, without sacrificing quality or performance.

Golden Dome dangers: An arms control expert explains how Trump’s missile defense threatens to make the US less safe

  President Donald Trump’s idea of a “Golden Dome” missile defense system carries a range of potential strategic dangers for the United States.

  Golden Dome is meant to protect the U.S. from ballistic, cruise, and hypersonic missiles, and missiles launched from space. Trump has called for the missile defense to be fully operational before the end of his term in three years.

Trump’s justifications for the latest travel ban aren’t supported by the data on immigration and terrorism

  The Trump administration, on June 4, announced travel restrictions targeting 19 countries in Africa and Asia, including many of the world’s poorest nations. All travel is banned from 12 of these countries, with partial restrictions on travel from the rest.

  The presidential proclamation, entitled “Restricting the Entry of Foreign Nationals to Protect the United States from Foreign Terrorists and Other National Security and Public Safety Threats,” is aimed at “countries throughout the world for which vetting and screening information is so deficient as to warrant a full or partial suspension on the entry or admission of nationals from those countries.”

AmeriCorps is on the chopping block – despite research showing that the national service agency is making a difference in local communities

  Hundreds of thousands of U.S. nonprofits provide vital services, such as running food banks and youth programs, supporting public health initiatives, and helping unemployed people find new jobs. Although this work helps sustain local communities, obtaining the money and staff they require is a constant struggle for many of these groups.

  That’s where AmeriCorps often comes in. The independent federal agency for national service and volunteerism has facilitated the work of approximately 200,000 people a year, placing them through partnerships with thousands of nonprofits that provide tutoring, disaster relief, and many other important services.