Common Dreams

Today, President Trump released his administration’s FY2027 budget, doubling down on an unpopular economic agenda that is raising costs and ripping away support for working families. Trump’s budget proposes deep cuts to programs that help families afford energy bills and housing costs, while gutting worker protections to bankroll the Pentagon and Trump’s Iran war. Since Trump launched his war on Iran, Americans have paid $8.4 billion more at the pump, adding to rising prices driven by his tariff

In the wake of President Trump’s removal of Pam Bondi, Our Revolution, the largest grassroots-funded progressive political organizing group in the country, is calling on Senate Democrats to withhold any vote on confirming a new Attorney General until there is a clear commitment to release all Epstein-related files and pursue real accountability.The call follows a statement issued yesterday by Rep. Ro Khanna, who urged senators to refuse any confirmation vote absent full transparency and prosecut

Today’s jobs report shows the labor market added 178,000 jobs in March, and February’s losses significantly revised down, revealing a decrease of 133,000 jobs. The unemployment rate remained mostly unchanged at 4.3%, with unemployment at its weakest pace since 2020. As hiring stalls, the share of workers who say it’s harder to find jobs has increased sharply, and the number of workers who have given up on the labor market entirely increased by 40% in the last month alone. Paychecks are stalling

Today, the Trump Administration appointees on the National Capital Planning Commission, which provides overall planning guidance for federal land and buildings in the District, overrode opposition from DC officials, dismissed 35,000 public comments nearly all against the project, and ignored a ruling from a federal judge blocking the project and voted to approve Trump’s corporate-funded White House Ballroom.Public Citizen Democracy Advocate Jon Golinger, who was in the room for today’s vote and

Gulf and environmental groups sued the Trump Administration today over its decision to strip Endangered Species Act protection from imperiled species threatened by oil-and-gas offshore drilling activities in the Gulf of Mexico. The unprecedented blanket-exemption would leave numerous Gulf species and ecosystems unprotected and vulnerable to extinction, including the critically endangered Rice’s whale, sea turtles, fish, rays, corals, and birds.Read the complaint: https://earthjustice.org/wp-cont

Growing concerns that microplastics – tiny plastic particles found in human bodies and the environment – are toxic to human health led the EPA today to identify microplastics as a contaminant of concern in drinking water for the first time. Toxic PFAS and pharmaceuticals were also identified as priority contaminants. Yet, just two weeks ago, EPA announced that it will not issue health standards for any of the drinking water contaminants on its official list.The following are reactions from NRDC

Today, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced that the EPA is including microplastics on the draft Sixth Contaminant Candidate List (CCL 6), a list of unregulated contaminants that are known or likely to occur in public water systems that the EPA may regulate in the future. The announcement, however, did not mention the inclusion of microplastics on the Sixth Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Rule (UCMR 6) – the EPA’s list of which contaminants the agency will monitor in drinking water issued e

Newly obtained internal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) emails published by E&E News reveal that senior legal officials were explicitly warned not to take retaliatory action against employees who signed a public letter raising concerns about agency policies — advice that was disregarded by agency leadership just one day later.The documents, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request via E&E News, include a July 2 email from Nathanael Nicols, Assistant General Counsel for

Six of the 8 small molecule drugs currently undergoing Medicare price negotiation would have been excluded under drug industry-backed legislation, a new Public Citizen report finds.The Big Pharma-backed EPIC Act would give drug companies more years of monopoly pricing, gutting the historic 2022 law that for the first time ever empowered Medicare to prevent corporate price gouging and make medicines more affordable for Americans. Public Citizen’s report titled “EPIC Act Would Be A Multi-Billion D

Today, President Trump fired Pam Bondi from her position as U.S. attorney general.Public Citizen Co-President Lisa Gilbert, who testified against Bondi’s confirmation hearing, issued the following statement. “No one can be loyal enough. No one can punish Trump’s enemies fast enough. Pam Bondi took the DOJ in a lawless, non-independent, shameful direction, and the institution of justice has suffered as a result. Bondi has trivialized the DOJ, the sanctity of law and the attorney general position.

Today, Campaign Legal Center and Democracy Defenders Fund sued the Executive Office of the President — alongside members of the president’s Cabinet and select federal agencies — on behalf of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), Secure Families Initiative and Arizona Students’ Association. The complaint asserts that the most recent executive order on elections unconstitutionally violates the separation of powers and exceeds the president’s legal authority by attempting to limit a

The amount of untaxed wealth hidden offshore by the richest 0.1 percent exceeds the entire wealth of the poorest half of humanity (4.1 billion people), reveals new Oxfam analysis published today ahead of the 10th anniversary of the Panama Papers. The findings show that, a decade later, the super-rich continue to exploit offshore systems to evade taxes and conceal assets, highlighting the urgent need for coordinated international action to tax extreme wealth and end the use of tax havens.Oxfam es

On Tuesday night, Donald Trump signed a new executive order that attempts to stop voting by mail. Lisa Gilbert, co-president of Public Citizen, issued the following statement in response: “This executive order is an attempt to create additional barriers for Americans seeking to cast their ballots. President Trump is a hypocrite who uses mail in voting himself. But what’s good for the goose is not good for the gander when voter suppression is the goal. This EO is an attempt to federalize our el

In a perhaps unprecedented dark time for America and the world, let us take solace in our indomitable Dear Stable Genius, who remains unwaveringly focused on taking care of shiny business: Gold social security cards like Elvis, a $400 million, lopsided shed/ballroom with gaudy columns but no main entrance, and of course gold toilets - which all keeps him so busy he hardly has time to threaten Iran with war crimes. What a time to be alive, barely.In actual good news, No Kings Day 3.0 drew between

Today, The Hill reported that Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT), the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, acknowledged that many of his Democratic colleagues plan to flip their votes against renewing Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) because they do not trust the Trump administration with the law's sweeping warrantless surveillance powers. Despite those concerns, Himes is continuing to push for renewal and against any votes on privacy protections.The following is a

A coalition of public health, environmental, and community advocates filed a lawsuit today challenging the Trump administration’s repeal of standards that limit brain-damaging mercury, lead, and other hazardous air pollution from coal-fired power plants. Since EPA’s Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) took effect in 2015, they’ve driven down dangerous mercury pollution from power plants by more than 90%. The standards have also delivered significant public health benefits, lowering the risk

The Environmental Protection Agency has routinely failed to put cancer warnings on pesticide products even when its own assessments have found a high risk of those products causing cancer, according to two new analyses released today by the Center for Food Safety and the Center for Biological Diversity. The Center for Food Safety analyzed the level of risk the EPA permitted for both currently approved and legacy pesticide active ingredients. The analysis found that pesticides have been allowed

One month after the start of the Iran war, new analysis from 350.org shows that over $100 billion has been siphoned from ordinary people to oil and gas companies due to soaring energy prices.In addition to the horrific loss of human life, campaigners say the crisis highlights how dependence on fossil fuels enriches the few at the expense of the many. The analysis estimates that rising oil and gas prices have already cost consumers and businesses an additional $104.2–$111.6 billion. Impacts have

In response to Sen. Chris Murphy’s (D-CT) and Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon’s (D-PA-05) introduction of the Take Back Our Hospitals Act, which would effectively prohibit private-equity firms from owning hospitals and skilled nursing facilities, the American Economic Liberties Project put out the following statement. “Private-equity ownership of healthcare facilities drives up prices, lowers wages, reduces access, and degrades patient care,” said Emma Freer, Senior Policy Analyst for Healthcare at the Am

As airports reach peak chaos amidst a government shutdown and massive departures by unpaid TSA agents, the regime's evil idiots moved to resolve their new quagmire by sending in the same brutal, ill-trained, much-despised ICE goons who caused the shutdown - and whose past abuses and corruption now daily come to light. The Beckett-esque result: Images of cranky travelers standing up to six hours in hellish lines overseen by aimlessly loitering henchmen: "Nobody comes, nobody goes. It's awful."Lat