The Meager Agenda of Abundance Liberals
What the Democratic Party’s most buzzed-about policy movement gets right—and wrong.
By Paul Glastris and Nate Weisber
Washington Monthly
@WAMonthly
#Culture #brOligrach #Plutocrat #Corporatocracy #Economics #CritialInfrastructure #Repatriation #Decommdification #Housing #Healthcare #Transportation #Banking
https://washingtonmonthly.com/2025/03/23/the-meager-agenda-of-abundance-liberals/
No-Bid #ICE Contract Went to Former ICE Agents Being Sued for Fabricating Criminal Evidence on the Job
The $73 million deal for assisting with deportations went to a company whose executives are accused of retaliating against a fellow ICE worker.
Sam Biddle, April 17 2025
"U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement just signed a contract worth $73 million with a firm whose executives are accused of taking part in a scheme to manufacture evidence against a co-worker during their time working at the Department of Homeland Security.
"According to a contract document reviewed by The Intercept, federal contractor #UniversalStrategicAdvisors will provide services pertaining to #ICE’s 'non-detained docket,' a master list of millions of #noncitizens believed to be removable from the United States but not yet in the agency’s custody.
"The contract cites President Donald #Trump’s declaration of a #NationalEmergency on the #USMexicoBorder, an overwhelming glut of potential #deportees, and a shortage of officers to process them all as justification for hiring a private vendor to assist with the collection of biometric data, coordinating removals, and monitoring #immigrant populations.
"The document says that with a fleet of new outsourced employees, ICE can reassign hundreds of officers to tasks that better align with Trump’s recent executive orders aimed at maximizing the agency’s detention and deportation operations. With the contractors onboard, the document says at least 675 ICE officers 'will be able to take all appropriate actions to comply with the EO’s by prioritizing conducting at-large arrests, removals, and detention related activities.'
"A former ICE official, who spoke to The Intercept on the condition of anonymity, said they were concerned by this plan to further privatize the agency’s operations at the same time as the Trump administration has dramatically slashed its workforce and gutted important oversight bodies like the Office for #CivilRights and #CivilLiberties, as well as the Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman. 'I certainly take issue with them firing career feds and demolishing whole offices, just to hire contractors to do the same work, many of them who are former ICE employees now retired,' the official said."
Read more:
https://theintercept.com/2025/04/17/ice-deportation-contracts-us-advisors/
Archived version:
https://archive.ph/DjRAG
Trump's Tax Cuts Were Worse than We Thought
Robert Reich
@rbreich
#Culture #US #Economics #Politics #Kleptocrat #Corporatocracy #Trump
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdzzvRJM4eY&t=10s
25 #AntiCapitalism Posts Aimed At Building Class Consciousness
Story by Shanilou Perera, February 24, 2025
"The myriad of petty problems we deal with daily can often make us lose sight of the big picture. The folks behind the popular IG page #HamptonThink help us gain perspective on what caused us to end up in this situation in the first place. So today, take a moment to scroll through some of their eye-opening posts that point out the capitalist patterns of modern society that we need to correct immediately."
Read more:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/25-anti-capitalism-posts-aimed-at-building-class-consciousness/ar-AA1zG1D6
#CapitalismKills #CorporateColonialism #Corporatocracy
How to Turn an “#EconomicBlackout” Into an All-Out War on #CorporatePower
Friday’s economic boycott is a one-day attack on corporate interests. The #degrowth movement calls for a broader societal shift.
Jonah Valdez, February 28 2025
Excerpt: "Rooted in the work of American and European political theorists of the 1970s, the 'degrowth' movement criticizes a #capitalist system that seeks unending growth and profit, which has led to #ecological and #environmental ruin such as the impacts of #ClimateChange.
"Instead, it advocates for a system that prioritizes the needs of the #planet and its people, such as #housing, #education, and #healthcare. According to Jason Hickel, a leading advocate of degrowth and author of 'Less is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World,' the movement calls for reducing consumption and production of things that harm the planet such #FossilFuels, #SUVs, #PrivateJets, #mansions, #FastFashion, #IndustrialBeef, #CruiseShips, and the #MilitaryIndustrialComplex.
"While the term may be unfamiliar to many Americans, its core ideas have cropped up in the Green New Deal’s goals of a post-fossil fuel economy; the pandemic-era phenomenon of white-collar workers voluntarily quitting their jobs and working less; and the recent social media trend of '#NoBuy,' which encouraged people to purchase less and #repurpose more.
"'People are getting a sense that they’re ripped off, that they’re being taken advantage of and exploited as consumers,' said Aaron Vansintjan, co-author of 'The Future Is Degrowth: A Guide to a World Beyond Capitalism.' 'It is promising that people are responding to the current moment by showing their distrust of these corporations.'
"The boycott has drawn wide–ranging media coverage, along with the attention of some celebrities. It also caught the attention of #LindaSarsour, a progressive activist best known for organizing the 2017 #WomensMarch after #Trump’s first election.
"'It is an easy risk-free way to invite masses of people to act in reaction to the outrageousness of this Administration,' Sarsour told The Intercept in an email."
https://theintercept.com/2025/02/28/no-buy-nothing-corporation-boycott-capitalism-degrowth/
#CorporateColonialism #Corporatocracy #RepairCafes #LibraryOfThings #ReuseRepairRecycle #CircularEconomy #CapitalismKills #EnvironmentalDamage #USPol #WorldPol #CapitalismMustDie #PlannedObsolescence #ProtectMotherEarth
Gutting US health agency will allow for private sector takeover, experts warn
Robert F Kennedy, Trump’s health secretary, said he will be laying off nearly 20,000 workers, imperiling crucial services
Money is finite. The world is a closed system. In order do make huge amounts of money, you have to take it from somewhere. You do not generate this money out of nowhere.
Let's say, there's a rich person who owns a company. Said person has the role "capitalist" and the goal "make profits". So, making profits here is neither good nor evil in itself (I don't like it and I dislike the person for being profit-driven, but that's not the point here), it is just what a person in that role does.
2/
Amazon forest felled to build road for climate summit
“A new four-lane highway cutting through tens of thousands of acres of protected Amazon rainforest is being built for the COP30 climate summit in the Brazilian city of Belém.”
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9vy191rgn1o
Who needs a giant asteroid when we have these assholes?
In a one person one vote #democracy the electorate vote people into positions of power. In contrast, #ElonMusk is one example of one person that is an unelected bureaucrat (a dictator?)
Further reading. Forms of #corporatocracy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporatocracy
#Fascists use various forms of #gaslighting (misleading rhetoric) For example, falsely accusing their political opponents of being, for example, "a dictator", to quote #Trumps slanderous accusations towards the elected president of #Ukraine
So remember folks, support huge EU corporations like this German one instead of US ones because our European Values™ are… oh…
“What Europe needs is something like DOGE.” – Tim Höttges, CEO, Deutsche Telekom AG (also, an asshole)
#EU #USA #fascism #corporatocracy #corporations #capitalism #EuroDOGE https://social.heise.de/@heiseonline/114109161159516607
#UN human rights chief ‘deeply worried by fundamental shift’ in #US | #HumanRights | The Guardian
> Volker Türk alarmed at growing power of ‘unelected tech oligarchs’ and warns gender equality is being rolled back
@mountainwitch #Corporatocracy, I wrote several weeks ago. This assumption makes Trump head of communication, not president of the American Democracy. The CEOs run the US.
Thousands in #Midwestern #GOP Districts Attend #Sanders' First Stops on Tour to Fight #Oligarchy
"It's like there's only one person who is actually able to sidestep the demoralization and frustration," said one observer.
Julia Conley, Feb 22, 2025
"After addressing more than 3,400 #Nebraska residents in Omaha Friday evening, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders on Saturday made his second stop on his National Tour to Fight Oligarchy—telling Iowa City, #Iowa residents that '#Trumpism will not be defeated by politicians inside the #DCBeltway.'
"'For better or worse, that is not going to happen,' said the Vermont Independent senator, whose broadly popular policy proposals have long been dismissed by Democratic leaders as unrealistic and radical while President Donald Trump has increasingly captured the attention of the #WorkingClass Americans who would benefit most from Sanders' ideas.
"'It will only be defeated by millions of Americans in Iowa, in #Vermont, in Nebraska, in every state in this country, who come together in a strong #grassroots movement and say no to oligarchy, no to #authoritarianism, no to #kleptocracy, no to massive cuts to programs that #LowIncome and working Americans desperately need, no to huge #TaxBreaks for the #wealthiest people in this country,' said Sanders.
"The senator announced his tour earlier this month as #ElonMusk, the head of the Trump-created Department of Government Efficiency ( #DOGE) who poured $277 million on the president's campaign, swept through numerous agencies, with DOGE staffers setting up illegal servers, seizing control of data, shutting federal employees out of offices, and working to shut down operations across the government.
"Since Trump took office for his second term just over a month ago, roughly 30,000 federal employees have been fired or laid off—part of Musk's push to cut $2 trillion in federal spending in order to fill the $4.6 trillion hole that Trump's extension of the 2017 tax cuts would blow in the deficit.
"#Republican lawmakers have also pushed to include cuts to #Medicaid, and Trump this week signaled he would back #Medicare cuts after repeatedly insisting he would not slash the popular healthcare program used by more than 65 million Americans, in order to save money while handing out tax cuts to the same #corporations and #ultrawealthy households that benefited from the 2017 tax law.
"'Today in America we are rapidly moving toward an #oligarchic form of society where a handful of #multibillionaires not only have extraordinary wealth, but unprecedented economic, media, and political power,' said Sanders in Iowa City, which like Omaha is represented by a Republican U.S. House member who narrowly won reelection last November and has faced pressure to reject the GOP budget plan. 'Brothers and sisters, that is not the democracy that men and women fought and died to defend.'"
Read more:
https://www.commondreams.org/news/bernie-sanders-donald-trump
#Oligarchy #OligarchyTour #StillSanders #BernieSanders #USPol #CorporateInterests #Corporatocracy #CorporateColonialism
Slide from my talk "Open Science for Medicine and Society" at Komazawa university. Using GNU Health to select a BRCA1 variant involved in breast #cancer and the 3D representation of the BRCT domain using PyMOL.
Having access to the latest scientific evidence makes a huge difference in patients, yet medical research is being dismantled by #corporatocracy.
Medicine and society evolves not because of the bullshit hype of AI, but because of the effort and talent of the men and women behind these projects. Respect 
#UniProt #HUGO #GNUHealth #PyMOL #NIH #genomics #OpenScience
Honest Government Ad | Our Last Fair Election?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kYIojG707w
The Australien Government has made an ad to announce the 2025 election, and it's surprisingly honest and informative. 
Do not click it https://linktr.ee/notshitcandidates
Just proving that #Trump's administration is TOXIC!
Trump #EPA withdrawal of #PFAS effluent limits is setback for #PublicHealth, #EWG warns
WASHINGTON – "On Tuesday, the Trump Environmental Protection Agency withdrew a pending Biden administration plan that would have protected public health from the chemical manufacturing sector by setting discharge limits on the toxic '#ForeverChemicals' known as PFAS.
"The Trump administration pulled the proposal from White House review – the last step before the agency could release the plan publicly and seek comment on it. The decision is a significant setback for efforts to address the growing public health crisis caused by industrial PFAS pollution of the water supply.
"Coupled with President Donald Trump’s executive order placing a freeze on any new federal regulations, the withdrawal prompts significant concerns from environmental and public health advocates about the future of PFAS regulation and whether tackling the PFAS contamination crisis will be an administration priority.
The following is a statement from Melanie Benesh, vice president for government affairs at the #EnvironmentalWorkingGroup:
"Yesterday’s action by the Trump administration to withdraw the long-awaited proposal on PFAS effluent limits is a devastating setback in the fight to protect our communities from toxic 'forever chemicals.'
"This move not only delays establishing critical federal standards but also sends a dangerous message giving polluters a green light to continue poisoning our water and communities without fear of consequence.
"It’s an unconscionable betrayal of the public’s health in favor of corporate interests, and it underscores this administration’s troubling shift in policy which threatens to roll back any progress to protect our #environment and hold #polluters accountable.
"PFAS contamination is already a public health crisis. The science is clear: PFAS are toxic at even the smallest levels, and they have been linked to serious health problems, including cancer, immune suppression and developmental harm. Communities across the country, especially those near PFAS-manufacturing facilities, have lived with the devastating consequences of this pollution for decades.
"State regulators have waited for the federal government to lead on this issue so they can incorporate effective monitoring and treatment requirements into their discharge permits. Without federal limits, those efforts remain stalled.
"The Trump administration’s refusal to act now puts even more lives at risk, leaving American communities to fend for themselves as polluters continue their unchecked discharges of toxic PFAS into our water."
https://www.ewg.org/news-insights/statement/2025/01/trump-epa-withdrawal-pfas-effluent-limits-setback-public-health-ewg
#WaterIsLife #PFASContamination #EnvironmentalDamage #ManMadeDisasters #AFFF #Wildlife #OceansAreLife #PFASPollution
#FirefightingFoam #PFOS
#3M #ForeverChemicals #Environment #BigChemical #CorporateInterests #Corporatocracy #TrumptyDumpty #WhenIdiotsRule #USPol
Trump taps #OilIndustry insider to oversee drilling on #PublicLands
#BureauOfLandManagement nominee #KathleenSgamma heads a #FossilFuel industry trade group that sued the Biden administration over a landmark #conservation rule.
By Maxine Joselow
"President Donald #Trump has nominated oil and gas advocate #KathleenSgamma to lead the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management, the agency tasked with managing millions of acres of public lands and waters for the benefit of all Americans.
"The nomination of Sgamma, who heads a Denver-based oil and gas industry trade group called the #WesternEnergyAlliance, heralds a seismic shift in the management of roughly 245 million acres of public property — about one-tenth of the nation’s land mass.
"If confirmed by the Senate, she would be a key architect of Trump’s #DrillBabyDrill agenda alongside Interior Secretary and '#EnergyCzar' #DougBurgum. An MIT graduate who previously worked in consulting, she has advocated for the BLM to prioritize oil and gas drilling, #HardrockMining and #livestock grazing on public lands nationwide.
"A spokesman for Sgamma did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
"During his first term, Trump tapped conservative lawyer William Perry Pendley to lead the BLM on an acting basis. But Trump never nominated Pendley, a vocal advocate of selling off public lands, to helm the agency on a permanent basis, prompting a rebuke from a federal judge.
"President Joe Biden in 2021 chose Tracy Stone-Manning, a prominent Montana-based #environmentalist, to lead the BLM. Earlier in her career, Stone-Manning worked on conservation policy at the #NationalWildlifeFederation and led Montana’s Department of Environmental Quality.
"Under Biden, the BLM finalized a landmark rule that sought to put conservation, #recreation and #RenewableEnergy development on equal footing with #ResourceExtraction on public lands. Sgamma’s Western Energy Alliance filed a lawsuit challenging that rule, which the Trump administration is expected to overturn.
"In an interview with The Washington Post in April, Sgamma criticized the regulation for allowing ranchers, renewable-energy developers and other interests to lease federal lands for the purpose of #conservation and #HabitatRestoration.
"We have no choice but to litigate,' she said. 'These conservation leases seem to be designed to preclude energy development on federal lands.'
#Environmentalists criticized #Sgamma’s nomination.
"'This choice shows that the new administration will leave no favor ungranted for the oil and gas industry and the wealthy #FossilFuel #executives who funded Trump’s campaign,' #AlanZibel, oil and gas research director with the liberal advocacy group #PublicCitizen, said in an email.
"#JeffEshelman, president and #CEO of the Independent Petroleum Association of America, which represents small oil producers, praised Sgamma’s selection while critiquing the Biden administration."
Original article:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2025/02/12/trump-bureau-land-management-kathleen-sgamma/
Archived version:
https://archive.ph/tmTH6#selection-645.0-724.1
#USPol #BigOilAndGas #Oiligarchy #Oligarchy #BigOilAndGas #BigOilKnew #KillCapitalism #WaterIsLife #LandIsLife #CorporateColonialism #Corporatocracy #BigOilCriminals #ClimateEmergency #ClimateCatastrophe #ClimateCrisis
#NoMiningWithoutConsent #NoMiningOnConservationLands #DrainTheSwamp? More like, #OilUpTheSwamp!#IndepdendentPetroleumAssociationOfAmerica
CET 
