But in the early days after the September 11 attacks, as the nation and the world reeled with shock and grief, IPS stood virtually alone among D.C.-based research and policy organizations in cautioning against a rush to war that our experts believed would be illegal, ineffective, and disastrous. When President George W. Bush announced the start of a “Global War on Terror,” beginning in Afghanistan, some 88 percent of Americans supported the call.

But that support was never unanimous. From the very beginning, a broad array of activists, experts, faith leaders, and concerned citizens from all walks of life organized against the war, warning presciently that a militarized response would fail to deliver justice for the victims of the 9/11 attacks. 

IPS, along with our board members Danny Glover and Harry Belafonte and our allies at YES! Magazine, helped organize a letter soon after the attacks broadcasting that warning all over the world. It was signed by over 150 supporters — including civil rights icon Rosa Parks, trailblazing feminist Gloria Steinem, and anti-colonial intellectual Edward Said, among many others.

Twenty years later, that view is widely supported, but only after staggering costs in human lives, tax dollars, and opportunity. Now, as we mourn those the world lost on 9/11 and the wars since, we confront a new era in which we urgently need to prioritize justice, human needs, and our planet itself over militarism. 

As our experts work with social movements, policy makers, and our allies to shape those choices, we’re sharing our 2001 statement in full in hopes that it can speak to a new generation.

DIVERSE COALITION OF AMERICANS SPEAK OUT AGAINST WAR AS SOLUTION TO TERRORISM

September 19, 2001

As Americans begin to consider the implications of a military response against terrorism, an increasing number are voicing their opposition to precipitous acts that may involve the world in a deadly conflict. Rosa Parks, Harry Belafonte, Danny Glover, and Gloria Steinem have joined Ben Cohen and a number of business, environmental, religious, and civil society leaders to speak out against war as the solution to terrorism. In a statement released today, these leaders argue that a “military response would not end the terror.” They call for “bringing the terrorists to justice under the rule of law” and they argue against an erosion of civil liberties.

The statement calls for a response to the September 11th disaster that is “prompt, just, and effective.” The signers question whether “a military response will end the terror: As citizens of this great nation, we support the efforts being made to find those behind the acts of terror. Bringing them to justice under the rule of law — not military action — is the way to end the violence.”

The signers also note that while the terrorist acts were aimed at U.S., citizens from more than 50 nations were among the victims: “Our best chance for preventing such devastating acts of terror is to act decisively and cooperatively as part of a community of nations within the framework of international law to route our terrorism and work for justice at home and abroad.”

The statement is one of many which are being developed by civil society groups including religious leaders and academics calling for justice rather than revenge. Newspaper advertisements and other initiatives are being planned. Reports from around the country indicate that activism is being planned throughout the coming months. On Thursday, students at 82 campuses in 25 states will hold peace rallies and vigils to call for restraint and reconciliation.

The full statement is below.

JUSTICE NOT VENGEANCE

Our hearts and prayers go out in compassion to the victims and their families who have suffered so greatly from the unspeakable acts of brutality committed on September 11, 2001.

We share the shock, anger, and grief of so many people in the U.S. and around the world and call for a response that is prompt, just, and effective.

We foresee that a military response would not end the terror. Rather, it would spark a cycle of escalating violence, the loss of innocent lives, and new acts of terrorism. As citizens of this great nation, we support the efforts being made to find those behind the acts of terror. Bringing them to justice under the rule of law — not military action — is the way to end the violence.

We note that although the terrorist acts of September 11 were aimed at the United States, citizens of over 50 nations are counted among the victims. The carnage of terrorism knows no borders. Our best chance for preventing such devastating acts of terror is to act decisively and cooperatively as part of a community of nations within the framework of international law to root out terrorism and work for justice at home and abroad.

We affirm that the United States is a nation of laws, rooted in fundamental American values of democracy, justice, human rights, and respect for life. The laws that protect our civil liberties and freedoms in the United States are part of what define us as a nation. They must not be abridged; to do so would offer victory to those who wrought these vengeful acts.

Initiators:

Harry Belafonte, entertainer and activist
John Cavanagh, Director, Institute for Policy Studies
Danny Glover, actor and activist
David Korten, President, People-Centered Development Forum
Frances Korten, Executive Director, Positive Futures Network
Sarah van Gelder, Executive Editor, YES! magazine

Signatories:

Sharif Abdullah, Director, Commonway Institute
Patch Adams, MD, Gesundheit Institute
Gar Alperovitz, President, National Center for Economic and Security Alternatives, and Lionel Bauman Professor of Political Economy, University of Maryland
Ray C. Anderson, Chairman and CEO, Interface, Inc.
Carl Anthony, Ford Foundation
Naseer Aruri, professor emeritus University of Massachusetts, and President, Trans-Arab Research Institute
Ziad Asali, MD, Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee
Kenny Ausubel, Founder, Bioneers
Zenobia Barley, Executive Director, Center for Ecoliteracy
Harriet Barlow, Director, Blue Mountain Center
Tom Barry, Interhemispheric Resource Center, Co-Director, Foreign Policy In Focus
Peter Barnes, Writer
Harry Belafonte, entertainer and activist
Medea Benjamin, Founding Director, Global Exchange
Peter Berryman, Cornbelt Records, Recording Artist
Grace Boggs, Boggs Center to Nurture Community Leadership
David Bollier, Whole Earth
Christie Brinkley
Frank A. Butler, retired President, Eastman Gelatine Corp., a Kodak subsidiary
Helen Caldicott MD, Founding President, Physicians of Social Responsibility
Fritjof Capra, author, “The Web of Life”
Nancy Carstedt, President and CEO, Chicago Children’s Choir
John Cavanagh, Director, Institute for Policy Studies
Michael Christ, Executive Director, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (1985 Nobel Peace Prize Recipient)
Ben Cohen, Co-Founder, Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream
Terry Collingsworth, Executive Director, International Labor Rights Fund
Paul S. Collins, author, “Banvard’s Folly”
Peter H. Cook, Chairman, Star Foundation
Anthony Cortese, Sc.D., President, Second Nature, Inc.
Robert Costanza, Professor, University of Maryland
Peter Coyote, actor and activist
Casey Coates Danson, President, Global Possibilities
James Cromwell, activist and actor, Founder, Hecel Oyakapi
Claire Hope Cummings, Producer/Host, KPFA- FM, Berkeley
Ossie Davis, entertainer and social activist
Susan Davis, Chair, Grameen Foundation
Walter J. Davis, Professor, San Francisco Theological Seminary
Tanya Dawkins, founder, Inter-American Forum
Ruby Dee, entertainer and social activist
Marie Dennis, Director, Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns
Hari Dillon, President, Vanguard Public Foundation
Amy Domini, Managing Principal and Founder, Domini Social Investments
Barbara Dudley, former Director, Greenpeace, USA
Barbara Ehrenreich, Writer
Mike Farrell, actor and producer
Dr. Maureen A. Fay, O.P., President, University of Detroit Mercy
Richard Foos, President, Rhino Records
Isao Fujimoto, Professor, University of California, Davis
Barbara and Russell Fuller, Coordinators, Interfaith Council for Peace & Justice, Michigan
Meg Gage, Proteus Fund
Jim Garrison, President, State of the World Forum
Bernie Glassman, Co-Founder and President, Peacemaker Community
Herbert P. Gleason, Lawyers Alliance for World Security
Danny Glover, actor and activist
Tom Goldtooth, Executive Director, Indigenous Environmental Network
Sean Gonsalves, syndicated columnist
Akuyoe Graham, actor
Alisa Gravitz, Executive Director, Co-op America
Jerry Greenfield, Co-Founder, Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream
Susan Gzesh, Director, Human Rights Program, University of Chicago
John Harvey, National Coordinator, Grantmakers Without Borders
Paul Hawken, author
Randy Hayes, President, Rainforest Action Network
Richard G. Heck, Jr., Professor, Harvard University
Hazel Henderson, Calvert-Henderson Quality-of-Life Indicators
Doug Henwood, Editor, Left Business Observer
Anne Hess and Craig Kaplan
Gary Hirshberg, President and CEO, Stonyfield Farm
Nancy Hirshberg, Vice President, Stonyfield Farm
Jeffrey Hollender, President, Seventh Generation
Rev. Dr. Melvin Hoover, Director, Faith in Action, Unitarian Universalist Association
Rick Ingrasci, MD
Bernice Powell Jackson, Executive Minister, Justice and Witness Ministries, United Church of Christ
Gary W. Janka, Executive Director, Peacemaker Community
Rev. Robert Jeffrey, pastor, New Hope Baptist Church, Seattle
Douglas Johnson, Executive Director, Center for Victims of Torture
Jon Kabat-Zinn, author and Professor, UMass Medical School
Don Kegley, Labor Chairman, Alliance for Sustainable Jobs and Environment’ Marilyn King, former member, U.S. Olympic Team
Bob Kinsey, Peace and Justice Task Force, Rocky Mountain Conference, United Church of Christ
Steve Kirsch, Founder and Chairman, Steven and Michele Kirsch Foundation
Frederick Kirschenmann, President, Kirschenmann Family Farms
Michael Klare, Professor, Hampshire College
Alan E. Kligerman, CEO, Akpharma Inc.
Josh Knauer, Founder, GreenMarketplace.com
David Korten, President, People-Centered Development Forum
Frances Korten, Executive Director, Positive Futures Network
A.V. Krebs, Corporate Agribusiness Research Project
George Lakoff, Professor, University of California at Berkeley
Dal Lamagna, Founder and President, Tweezerman Corporation
Saul Landau, filmmaker and Professor, California Polytechnic University, Pomona
Rabbi Michael Lerner, Editor, Tikkun Magazine
Brenda Levin
Mark Lichty, CEO, Bustin Industrial Products
Catherine S. Manegold, Professor, Emory University
Conrad Martin, Executive Director, Fund for Constitutional Government
Fleet Maull, North American Director, Peacemaker Community, Executive Director, Prison Dharma Network, and President, National Prison Hospice Association
Chris Moore, Co-Founder and CEO, LivePlanet
Frances Moore Lappe, author, “Diet for a Small Planet”
Nancy Lewis, Co-founder, Charlie’s Place
Sally Light, Executive Director, Nevada Desert Experience
Ambassador John McDonald, Chairman and CEO, Institute for Multi-Track Diplomacy
Anuradha Mittal, Executive Director, Food First
John Mohawk, Associate Professor, University at Buffalo
Robin Morgan, author and activist
Michel S. Moushabeck, President and Publisher, Interlink Publishing
Helena Norberg-Hodge, Director, International Society for Ecology and Culture
Larry Olds, North American Alliance for Popular and Adult Education
Molly Harriss Olson, Director, Eco Futures, former Executive Director, President’s Council on Sustainable Development
Torie Osborn, Executive Director, Liberty Hill Foundation
Rosa Parks, civil rights leader
Richard Perl, President, Pacific Partners International Investments,Inc.
Marc Pilisuk, University of California
Gifford and Elizabeth Pinchot, Pinchot and Company
Timothy R. Quigley, The New School
Bonnie Raitt
David Ranney, Professor, University of Illinois Chicago
Marcus Raskin, Co-Founder, Institute for Policy Studies
Michael Ratner, Vice-President, Center for Constitutional Rights
Paul H. Ray and Sherry Ruth Anderson, Integral Partnerships
Andrew Reding, Senior Fellow, World Policy Institute
Mark Ritchie, President, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy
John Robbins, author, “Diet for a New America”
Vicki Robin, President, New Road Map Foundation
Belvie Rooks, Educator, “Hey, Listen Up!”
Marshall Rosenberg, Director of Educational Services, Center for Nonviolent Communication
Randy Rowland, Founder and Producer, Video Quarterly, Pepper Spray Productions
Alan Sagner, past chairman, Port Authority of New York and New Jersey
Edward W. Said, Author and Professor, Columbia University
David Salniker, Executive Director, Tides Center
Juliet Schor, author and Professor, Boston College
John Sellers, Director, The Ruckus Society
Martin Sheen
Doug Schuler, Director, Public Sphere Project, Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility, and Professor, Evergreen State College
Nina Simons, Executive Director, Collective Heritage Institute
Alice Slater, President, Global Resource Action Center for the Environment
Ted Smith, Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition
Marc Sommer, Executive Director, Mainstream Media Project
Krishna Sondhi, Publisher, Kumarian Press, Inc.
John Stauber, author and activist
Gloria Steinem
Rt. Rev. William E. Swing, Episcopal Bishop of California and President, United Religious Initiative
Woody Tasch, Chairman, Investors’ Circle
Betsy Taylor, Executive Director, Center for a New American Dream
Chet Tchozewski, Global Greengrants Fund
Ellen Thomas, Executive Director, Proposition One Committee
Lori Ann Thrup, writer
Nina Utne, Utne Reader, Chair and CEO
Barbara L. Valocore, President, The Lifebridge Foundation
Sarah van Gelder, Executive Editor, YES! Magazine
Heidi VanGenderen, Senior Associate, University of Colorado at Denver
Rev. John H. Vaughn, Executive Director, Peace Development Fund
Alice Walker, Pulitzer-prize winning author
Lori M. Wallach, Director, Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch
Rabbi Arthur Waskow, Director, The Shalom Center
Cora Weiss, President, Hague Appeal for Peace
June Zeitlin, Executive Director, Women’s Environment and Development Organization (WEDO)

* (organizational affiliations for identification only)

The post ‘Justice, Not Vengeance’: Read Our 2001 Statement on the 9/11 Attacks appeared first on Institute for Policy Studies.

The agent pinned Aguilar Garcia to the floor with a knee on his neck before shoving him and another employee into an unmarked SUV. Hours later, they dumped out the men — both U.S. citizens — in a parking lot in a different suburb.

As agents dragged Walmart worker Suban Noor from her car in the Minnesota town of Willmar, her shoes fell off, leaving the high school student barefoot in the January cold. Her Somali refugee family, in the United States legally, did not know where she was until her release five days later.

…

Read the full article on The Los Angeles Times.

The post Corporations With Big Pay Disparities Have Been Silent as ICE Detains Their Workers appeared first on Institute for Policy Studies.

“My grandpa is an herbalist and he can’t find the sacred plants,” Antonio told Inequality.org. When he tells Antonio that he needs to return to a particular place to gather them, she tries to warn him away from areas near drilling. But, she said, he has little alternative: “There’s nowhere else to go.”

Now, the Bureau of Land Management is considering a plan that could make matters even worse by revoking a 20-year mineral withdrawal on new oil, gas, and mining leasing on federal public lands within a 10-mile radius of the Chaco Culture National Historical Park. The land is currently protected by the Biden Administration’s Public Land Order 7923.

For people like Antonio, a member of the Navajo Nation and organizer with Diné Citizens Against Ruining Our Environment (Diné C.A.R.E.), this isn’t a hypothetical environmental threat. It comes after decades of oil and gas development have already transformed the landscape — and, residents say, brought widespread costs that fall disproportionately on the communities closest to the wells.

New Mexico has built one of the country’s more ambitious systems for capturing oil and gas wealth, channeling a portion of the industry’s revenues into public services and long-term savings. But the Chaco Basin reveals a central limitation of that model: the state can redistribute some of the wealth generated by extraction while leaving the most immediate environmental and social costs concentrated in the communities closest to the wells.

There has been strong pushback to this most recent threat of expanded oil and gas development. During a 14-day comment period in July, over 200,000 comments were submitted.

“It’s tough to get public comments,” Robyn Jackson, Executive Director of Diné C.A.R.E. told Inequality.org. But in this case, “the public spoke very loudly in favor of protecting Chaco.”

The costs of extraction

For more than a decade, Kyle Tisdel, a senior attorney and Climate and Energy Program director at the Western Environmental Law Center, has worked on environmental issues in the Chaco Basin area. He told Inequality.org that the introduction of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing technologies around 2010 allowed companies to reach oil formations in the southern portion of the basin that had previously been less accessible to conventional vertical drilling.

That shift brought industrial development closer to the inhabited communities — including numerous Navajo Chapter Houses and tribal allotments — and historic cultural sites surrounding Chaco.

Antonio has watched that transformation unfold in Pueblo Pintado, where her family has lived for generations. She remembers thousands of trucks moving through the landscape during the expansion of hydraulic fracturing, along with methane flares burning and drilling infrastructure littering the landscape. New extraction technologies can require up to 4,000 truck trips per well, according to the research group FracTracker Alliance, bringing additional traffic risks and air pollution to the region.

Antonio said these changes have directly impacted the health of community members: “I’m just watching my people get sick,” she said.

Her concerns are not isolated. A 2021 health impact assessment of oil and gas development in the Greater Chaco region found alarmingly widespread health issues among residents surveyed: more than 90 percent reported sinus problems, while nosebleeds, shortness of breath and nausea were also common. The assessment linked those concerns to elevated levels of pollutants detected in the region.

The burden extends to education. According to recent Associated Press reporting, there are 694 oil and gas wells within a mile of a school in New Mexico. At the 74 schools located near these wells, the student populations are disproportionately Native American and Hispanic — highlighting how the consequences of extractivism intersect with existing racial inequalities.

The concentration of these costs in communities surrounding oil and gas development reflects what environmental justice advocates, such as WildEarth Guardians, have long called a “sacrifice zone”: a place where the environmental and social consequences of resource extraction are disproportionately borne by the people who live there.

From Tisdel’s legal perspective, the problem is not any single well in New Mexico. It is what happens when hundreds of wells are considered together.

“There have been hundreds of oil and gas wells that have been approved without ever considering the cumulative impacts of that development on the climate, on the environment, and on the people and communities living in vicinity to those oil and gas wells,” Tisdel said.

That gap has become a central focus of Tisdel’s litigation with the Western Environmental Law Center. Under the National Environmental Policy Act, federal agencies must take a “hard look” at the environmental consequences of major actions, including their direct, indirect, and cumulative impacts.

In a 2019 case, WELC challenged the Bureau of Land Management over its failure to adequately account for cumulative impacts from oil and gas development — including water consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, and hazardous air pollutants. The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals sided with WELC, finding that the agency had failed to adequately consider the combined effects of extraction.

And the consequences extend beyond pollution to social and cultural practices. One drilling site, Antonio said, is near her great-grandmother’s grave, where her aunt lives. At the Nageezi Chapter House’s Saturday flea market, spaces where vendors once set up are now fenced off for drilling activity, according to Antonio.

As another key indicator of inequality, the infrastructure built for the oil and gas extraction has also created stark contrasts, Antonio said, at a time when the surrounding communities are experiencing severe drought.

“At times we see industry have water while next door there are Diné residents that don’t have water.” Antonio said.

Taken together, the result is a familiar pattern in sacrifice zones: the consequences of extraction remain local, while the resources flow outward. For Antonio, the contradiction provokes a broader question about who benefits from the region’s natural resources and who is left to live with their costs. “A lot of that money doesn’t come back to our communities,” she said.

Who benefits?

Oil and gas development in New Mexico has generated substantial wealth for the state government, which is on track to amass over $100 billion in its sovereign wealth fund by 2030 — which would be the largest in the nation. For decades, the state has relied on revenue from extraction to fund public services and build long-term savings. In recent years, the state has also used that revenue to expand roll out universal childcare and tuition-free public college.

According to a 2025 report from Resources for the Future, New Mexico captured roughly 20 percent of the value of its oil and gas production in 2023 through a mix of production taxes, state royalties, and federal land distributions. The state saves approximately half of those collections in funds designed to support public services. That system allows New Mexico to convert part of an exhaustible natural resource into long-term public wealth.

The state’s 20 percent capture rate is a comparatively large percentage among top oil-producing states — Texas collects roughly 10 percent of production and Pennsylvania collects just 3 percent — but it also reveals the limits of relying on extraction as a public finance strategy: while New Mexico captures a significant share of the value generated by oil and gas, the majority accrues to the companies and investors that operate the wells. And those financial returns are not necessarily staying in New Mexico.

A 2019 master’s thesis in community economic development quantified exactly what happens when oil and gas production intensifies in New Mexico. The study analyzed the Counselor Chapter — a rural Navajo community directly adjacent to the Chaco region.

The findings are stark: from 1998 to 2017, nearly $600 million in oil and gas value was extracted from the specific study area. Yet from 2009 to 2016 — during the boom of horizontal drilling, which increased monthly oil production 34-fold — per capita income in the community actually dropped by 14.1 percent. The poverty rate stood at 67.7 percent, unemployment at 42.2 percent, and median household income at just $14,375 per year.

The patterns documented in Counselor aren’t an anomaly, but rather reflect “structural exploitation” where the federal and state government prioritize oil and gas revenues over community well-being, according to the report.

Crucially, the same lands in Counselor that yielded hundreds of millions in value extend directly into the protected Chaco region — and companies have already proven willing to extract from Navajo lands.

One of the companies poised to benefit from new leasing opportunities is Denver-based Enduring Resources and its subsidiary DJR Operating. According to permitting data from New Mexico Oil Conservation Division, nearly 70 percent of Enduring’s existing wells are located on tribal lands in the state.

Enduring operates roughly 1,500 wells, according to company reporting, which use “the latest operational technologies to optimize underdeveloped resources, creating value for our stakeholders and investors.”

Those stakeholders can include some of the country’s wealthiest financial institutions. A 2022 investigation by Searchlight New Mexico found that eight of the then 10 largest companies active in the Chaco region, including Enduring Resources, were owned by private equity firms. By prioritizing financial returns over service quality, private equity firms generally serve “the ultra-wealthy and large institutional investors” — not local communities.

The concentration of ownership means that the financial returns from extraction can travel far away from the communities where drilling occurs.

Enduring has also faced scrutiny over the environmental costs of its operations. In 2023, the Environmental Protection Agency fined Enduring and DJR more than $600,000 for Clean Air Act violations involving unauthorized emissions in the San Juan Basin. In 2022, the company also faced legal challenges over proposed oil-waste infrastructure near the Navajo Nation.

Hilcorp Energy Company, another major operator in the region, has likewise drawn criticism. Searchlight New Mexico documented complaints from residents about the company’s encroachment on rural communities and described Hilcorp as a private company known for both high profits and high methane emissions. The company currently operates more than 12,000 wells in New Mexico.

The state’s revenue system therefore presents an imperfect bargain. New Mexico can successfully channel a portion of oil and gas wealth into public services while communities living closest to extraction continue to experience its immediate environmental and infrastructure costs. In other words, the result is a geographic mismatch: the revenue generated by extraction can be captured at the corporate and state levels, while many of its most immediate costs remain concentrated around the Greater Chaco region.

For those on the frontlines at Diné C.A.R.E., that trade-off is not worth it. Jackson described oil and gas development as, “short term economic gains that come with a high cost to the environment, the people, and the land.”

Building power on the frontlines

The Trump administration’s proposed revocation of the current moratorium on extraction around Chaco Canyon has hit local activists hard. For residents already living with the consequences of oil and gas development, the prospect of reopening protected lands to new extraction. When BLM released its environmental assessment, Antonio said she struggled to process what came next.

“I just went into a void,” Antonio said.

But with encouragement from her sister, Antonio organized a July 26 community cookout with a teach-in and public-comment writing event. Hundreds of people attended, lifting her spirits and energizing her for more action. She began collecting public comments, speaking at protests, and working with fluent Navajo speakers to translate and explain the environmental assessment for community members.

The community response reflects what Jackson described as an unusually strong coalition of grassroots and political opposition at this moment.

“It means a lot to have the energy and solidarity from the public,” said Jackson, who hopes the community could use a continued ban on extraction as an opportunity to build a local economy beyond fossil fuels.

While Tisdel feels that organizing public opposition is most important at this moment, he said his organization will consider legal action to block the Trump administration proposal if necessary. WELC has a successful history of litigation efforts in the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals to limit oil and gas expansion.

“There will be options to challenge an unfavorable decision in federal court. We’ll be evaluating that, but I think more than anything, this is a moment to build power and to try to hold the line.”

For Antonio, the fight is ultimately about something more immediate than federal policy.

“I need a place to live. I want to know that I can have kids and that my kids will have [land].”

Her grandfather’s search for sacred medicinal plants is, for Antonio, inseparable from the larger fight over Chaco. He knows the plants, the weather, and the land through generations of experience. She worries that continued extraction will leave the next generation with fewer places to learn those traditions.

The post Inside New Mexico’s Oil and Gas “Sacrifice Zone”: The Fight to Protect Greater Chaco appeared first on Institute for Policy Studies.

What is voter suppression? 

Voter suppression is any attempt to discourage or create barriers to voter registration and casting ballots. These measures often target specific groups based on race, ethnicity, political affiliation, age, or other aspects of voters’ identities. 

What are the most widely used forms of voter suppression? 

Discriminatory voter ID and proof-of-citizenship restrictions, reduced polling place hours in communities of color, the elimination of early voting opportunities, restrictions on mail voting, and illegal purges of voters from the rolls are some of the most common forms of voter suppression.

Is there fraud in mail-in voting?

The U.S. Postal Service takes extraordinary measures to ensure secure delivery of election ballots. One conspiracy theory holds that ballots sent to deceased people are filled out by others. This is extraordinarily rare. One study of Washington State’s universal vote-by-mail program found only 0.0003% of ballots appeared to have been cast after the voter’s death. 

Are voting machines secure?

There is no evidence that voting machine manipulation has changed the outcome of a federal election. In reality, there are many guardrails to ensure security. Voting machines are tested and certified by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission and most states require additional testing. A tabulation of paper ballots most often supplies the final assurance of accuracy.

Do undocumented people vote?

Noncitizens face criminal penalties for even trying to register to vote. Documented cases of noncitizen voting — whether intentionally or mistakenly — are very rare. One study of 42 jurisdictions found that only 0.0001% of votes were flagged as even suspected noncitizen votes. 

The prevalence of double voting is also exceptionally rare — likely considerably less than 0.02%. 

What is the real intent of voter suppression efforts? 

The aim is to gain political advantage by shrinking the voting pool, particularly to undermine the growing political power of Latinos and other communities of color. Brennan Center for Justice research finds a consistent pattern linking support for voter suppression efforts and perceptions among some white Americans that they are losing power to other racial groups. 

What is the status of voter suppression efforts at the state level? 

• At least 19 states have enacted 44 restrictive voting laws since January 2025.
• Over 40 states have considered more than 300 voter-restriction bills so far in 2026. 12 have passed.
• Unprecedented mid-decade redistricting ahead of the 2026 midterm elections has potentially made voting less representative and more partisan.
• The Louisiana v. Callais Supreme Court decision has further weakened representation of Black and other minority voters by restricting the right to challenge racial gerrymandering.

What is the status of voter suppression efforts at the federal level? 

• The Trump administration is trying to impose restrictions on mail-in voting and voter registration through executive action. So far, federal courts have blocked these efforts. 
• 22 federal courts have rejected Trump’s efforts to obtain sensitive data in unredacted state voting rolls. 
• The U.S. House of Representatives has passed the SAVE America Act, legislation that would require proof of U.S. citizenship at voter registration and a specific government photo ID at the ballot box for federal elections.
• An estimated 21 million voters don’t have ready access — or in millions of cases, access at all — to the type of documents the Save America Act would require to vote.
• House leaders are attempting to force the Senate to pass the legislation — or elements of it — in broader budget bills. 
• Voters who would suffer disproportionately negative effects are rural, lower-income, older and people with disabilities, as well as married women whose legal names differ from their birth certificate name and younger voters who may not yet have passports, driver’s licenses, or government-issued IDs.

What other tactics might be used to subvert the 2026 midterm elections?

In addition to voter restrictions, analysts are raising serious alarms that the administration could:

• Deploy federal law enforcement to polling places for the purpose of intimidation.
• Attempt to illegally invoke the Insurrection Act or other emergency executive powers.
• Try to sow doubt in election results by calling the vote fraudulent as it’s occurring or launching countless lawsuits once the results are known.
• Pressure secretaries of state, state legislatures, and other state electoral bodies to change votes in close races.

What can I do to make sure my vote is counted? 

• Research your polling location, what forms of ID you will need to vote, and seek information about early voting and voting by mail.
• If you have the option of mail voting, pay attention to deadlines. The Postal Service recommends mailing your completed ballot at least 1 week before the deadline. 
• Even if you’re registered to vote, check your status online or with your local election office. This is especially important if you’ve recently moved or changed your name.

The post FACT SHEET: Voter Suppression and the 2026 Midterms appeared first on Institute for Policy Studies.

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On August 27, the Institute for Policy Studies released its 32nd annual Executive Excess report. The report takes an in-depth look at the 100 S&P 500 corporations with the lowest median worker pay — a group IPS has dubbed the “Low-Wage 100.” 

For each of these companies, the report provides data on CEO compensation, median worker pay, and stock buyback expenditures since 2019. The report also examines how the Low-Wage 100 have chosen to wield their considerable political power over the past year. 

Key findings:

1. CEO pay at Low-Wage 100 firms has soared since 2019 while median worker pay has lagged behind U.S. inflation.

• Between 2019 and 2025, average CEO compensation within this group rose more than twice as fast as these firms’ average median worker pay. 
• Average CEO compensation within the Low-Wage 100 hit $17.5 million in 2025, while average median worker pay sat at just $36,571.
• The average CEO-worker pay ratio of Low-Wage 100 firms has widened from 574 to 1 in 2019 to 614 to 1 in 2025. 
• The nominal value of median pay actually fell at 18 Low-Wage 100 corporations during this period.
• Lumentum, a company that manufactures AI data center technologies in China, recorded the widest pay gap in 2025. CEO Michael Hurlston made $27.7 million, 2,884 times as much as the company’s median pay of just $9,595.

2. From 2019 through 2025, the Low-Wage 100 spent $718 billion on stock buybacks.

• In 2025 alone, Low-Wage 100 firms spent a combined $108.6 billion on buybacks, a financial maneuver that artificially inflates CEOs’ stock-based pay and siphons resources out of worker wages and long-term investments.
• Walmart ranked No. 1 in buyback spending among Low-Wage 100 firms in 2025. Their $8.1 billion in share repurchases could have funded a $3,851 bonus for each of the retailer’s 2.1 million employees. Walmart’s CEO raked in $29.2 million in 2025 compensation – 958 times as much as the company’s median pay of $30,520. 

3. At least 36 billionaires owe their wealth to Low-Wage 100 companies.

• Six of these firms have spawned multiple billionaires alive today: Walmart (eight), Estee Lauder (four), DoorDash (three), Public Storage (two), Carvana (two), and Tyson Foods (two).  

4. The Low-Wage 100 have wielded their political power to enrich CEOs while turning a blind eye to the harmful effects of government actions on their workers.

• Low-Wage 100 firms have a combined force of 1,282 registered federal lobbyists.
• In 2025, a major priority was passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, legislation that delivers huge tax cuts for the wealthy while slashing Medicaid and SNAP programs on which many of these firms’ employees rely.
• Report profiles of Walmart, DoorDash, Amazon, Home Depot, Target, and Dollar General document how Low-Wage 100 CEOs opted to not denounce aggressive ICE actions against their own personnel or on their property.
• Numerous leading Low-Wage 100 firms have rolled back DEI programs, including Amazon, Walmart, McDonald’s, Lowe’s, Tractor Supply, and Target.

“The Low-Wage 100 includes many of the world’s most influential CEOs,” said lead report author and executive compensation expert Sarah Anderson, director of the Global Economy Project at the Institute for Policy Studies. “They could be using their political and economic clout to defend their workers against multiple threats. Instead, at this precarious moment in our democracy, they’ve chosen to remain silent.” 

The report concludes with key policy changes to discourage excessive CEO payouts and wasteful stock buybacks, including taxing extreme CEO-worker pay gaps, increasing the stock buybacks tax, and restricting buybacks and CEO pay through federal contracts and subsidies.

Read the full report: https://ips-dc.org/report-executive-excess-2026

Press contacts:

Sarah Anderson, report author, sarah@ips-dc.org
Olivia Alperstein, Deputy Communications Director, olivia@ips-dc.org

About the author: Sarah Anderson directs the Global Economy Project at the Institute for Policy Studies and co-edits the IPS web site Inequality.org. She is a veteran executive compensation expert whose analysis has been featured in the Associated Press, the Financial Times, Reuters, The Guardian, New York Times, and many other outlets. Anderson has also testified on executive compensation before the Senate Budget Committee in 2012, 2021, and 2024.

About the Institute for Policy Studies: The Institute for Policy Studies is a multi-issue research center that has conducted path-breaking research on executive compensation for more than 30 years. IPS also provides a constant stream of inequality analysis and solutions through our Inequality.org web site and weekly newsletter.

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The post REPORT: CEO-Worker Pay Gaps and Political Priorities of the 100 Largest Low-Wage Corporations  appeared first on Institute for Policy Studies.

For the fourth year in a row, this 32nd annual Executive Excess report takes an in-depth look at the 100 S&P 500 corporations with the lowest median worker pay, a group we have dubbed the “Low-Wage 100.”

Over the past year, the CEOs of the Low Wage 100 pocketed huge paychecks while looking the other way as their employees grappled with fears of ICE actions, the loss of vital health care and food assistance programs, and attempts to roll back key protections against racial and gender discrimination.

When masked ICE agents grabbed their employees, CEOs declined to comment. When Congress made the largest cuts in history to Medicaid and SNAP food aid, top executives uttered not a word of concern about how this might affect the low-wage workers who rely on these programs. And when the administration attacked diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, Low-Wage 100 leaders, with few exceptions, rolled them back.

None of these government actions are positive from a long-term business perspective. Our economy — and low-wage service industries in particular — relies heavily on immigrant labor. Workers are obviously more productive when they’re healthy and secure. And study after study has shown that workforce diversity drives innovation and boosts profits.

But pushing back on the government’s anti-worker actions doesn’t appear to have been a priority for the Low-Wage 100. Instead, they deployed most of their political power in 2025 to win more tax cuts for the rich through the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Meanwhile, CEO pay at these firms continued to rise while their average median worker pay lagged behind inflation.

For each of these companies, we analyze CEO compensation, median worker pay, and stock buyback expenditures since 2019 — as well as how they’ve chosen to wield their considerable political power over the past year. We conclude with realizable policy solutions for pushing Corporate America in a more equitable direction.

Much more detail on these findings and our methodology can be found in the full PDF. A summary follows below.

Company Profiles

Recommendations

We highlight here three particularly promising areas for reform. Appendix 2 in the full PDF catalogs a much more extensive menu of options.

Subjecting corporations with excessive levels of CEO pay to higher tax levies.

Higher tax rates on companies with wide CEO-worker pay gaps would create an incentive to both rein in executive pay and raise worker wages, all the while generating significant new capital for vital public investments. Laws that share those goals are already generating revenue in two major cities, San Francisco and Portland, Oregon. Members of the U.S. Congress have also introduced several related bills, including the Curtailing Executive Overcompensation (CEO) Act and the Tax Excessive CEO Pay Act.

A May 2024 survey suggests that such taxes would be enormously popular. Overall, 80 percent of likely voters favor a tax hike on corporations that pay their CEOs over 50 or more times more than what they pay their median employees.

Taxing and restricting stock buybacks.

A 1 percent federal excise tax on the repurchase of corporate stock went into effect in 2023. A Senate bill, the Stock Buyback Accountability Act, would quadruple this excise tax. If that 4 percent tax had been in place in 2023, 2024, and 2025, the Low-Wage 100 would have owed approximately $9.3 billion in additional federal taxes on their share repurchases, assuming no change in their buyback behavior. That increase would be enough to cover the cost of 352,598 public housing units each year for three years.

Another Senate bill, the ALIGN Act, would ban executives from selling their shares within a year of a stock buyback announcement. This would prevent CEOs from timing share repurchases to cash in personally on a short-term price pop they themselves have artificially created.

Using federal contracts and subsidies to discourage wide corporate pay gaps.

Under the Biden administration, the Department of Commerce gave preferential treatment in the awarding of $39 billion in CHIPS subsidies for domestic semiconductor production to firms that committed to refraining from all stock buybacks for five years. In response to pressure from Democratic Party lawmakers, Biden officials went even further to restrict buybacks for Intel, the program’s largest grantee, forbidding the use of any funds to repurchase company shares for the entire duration of the program, with limited exceptions.

Future administrations could do much more to leverage the power of the public purse against extreme pay disparities. The Patriotic Corporations Act could serve as a model. This bill would grant preferential treatment in federal contracting to firms with CEO-worker pay ratios of 100 to 1 or less, among other benchmarks. The Congressional Progressive Caucus has supported such incentives.

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The post Executive Excess 2026 appeared first on Institute for Policy Studies.

Despite all the controversies, ICE keeps killing people — a sentence that should never feel normal. We should never find ourselves counting the days between deaths or waiting for the next headline. But somehow, we have.

Earlier this year it was Renee Good, then Alex Pretti. This summer it was Lorenzo Salgado Araujo and Joan Sebastián Durán Guerrero. Before them were Silviero Villegas Gonzalez and Ruben Ray Martinez. Those are only the names we know— many others will never make national news.

The day I read about Durán Guerrero’s death, I was returning home from work. I glanced at the headline and kept going. That’s what scared me the most. I wasn’t shocked that ICE had killed someone — I expected it.

Only later, when I stopped and read the details, did it hit me: he was shot multiple times. His three-year-old daughter, wearing Bluey pajamas, was in the car when it happened. According to his family’s attorney, Durán Guerrero was lawfully present in the United States and had a work permit. And he wasn’t even the person ICE was looking for when he was shot.

After shooting Durán Guerrero, officers pulled him from the vehicle and handcuffed him. By then, he may already have been dead.

These are not tragic misunderstandings. These are choices.

Imagine seeing armed people in tactical gear — no body cam, their faces covered — surrounding your car. Most people would be terrified. Most people would try to get away. Durán Guerrero tried to stop, but it did not matter — the agents fired on him anyway.

ICE continues carrying out operations with masked agents in unmarked vehicles, creating confusion and fear before a single word is spoken. Immigration officers have fired on at least 30 people since President Trump returned to office. Eight of those people were killed.

Each time, the government tells us the agents acted in self-defense. Public statements quickly frame the victim as the threat. Witness testimony and video evidence often cast doubt on these accounts, but they still shift the focus away from the loss of human life and toward justifying why it happened.

Meanwhile, tens of thousands of people are still being detained every month.

In June 2026, ICE arrested more than 43,000 people, about 1,400 every day. By July, nearly 68,000 people were being held in immigration detention. The overwhelming majority of those arrested had no criminal convictions.

This includes over 6,000 children. Children who are spending their birthdays behind bars. Children who should be back in school, safe and protected. Many have been detained for 100 days or more — five times longer than the 20-day limit for detaining immigrant children.

They’re being held in facilities like Delaney and others, where human rights groups have warned repeatedly that dangerous conditions are leading to preventable deaths. ICE deaths reached their highest level in decades last year, and this year is on track to be no better.

These numbers matter. Every statistic was someone’s father, daughter, husband, neighbor, friend.

I’m afraid of how easy it has become to read another headline and move on. I know because I caught myself doing exactly that.

No matter where you were born, what political party you belong to, or whether you support stricter immigration enforcement, no government should have the power to kill or imprison people with so little accountability. No family should have to watch a loved one become another name on a growing list.

We cannot allow these deaths to become routine, and we cannot let them disappear into statistics. Every death should force us to ask what kind of country we are becoming. We cannot normalize these killings, and we cannot stop demanding justice and accountability.

We should never get used to counting ICE’s victims.

The post We’re Getting Dangerously Used to ICE Abuse appeared first on Institute for Policy Studies.

Take Godzilla, for instance. Thanks to U.S. atomic testing in the Pacific, the dinosaur-like sea creature has explosive, radioactive breath that can destroy everything in its path. His archenemy Rodan, meanwhile, is a pterodactyl-like bird that can fly at supersonic speeds, a skill useful in avoiding atomic bad breath. Since the 1960s, the two giant monsters have duked it out across a series of Japanese films, causing much mayhem in the process.

Originally the product of Cold War fears of nuclear peril, these archetypal monsters can stand in for the principal geopolitical antagonists of today. Like their monster kin, China and the United States have very specific and complementary superpowers. China controls the majority of critical minerals in the world, with a special focus on rare earth elements. The United States has a technological edge when it comes to the most sophisticated semiconductors needed for artificial intelligence applications.

Put bluntly: China has the rocks, and America has the chips.

With these superpowers on display, the two countries have clashed in a series of trade negotiations, tense military standoffs, and high-level political meetings. They are engaged in a prolonged tug-of-war not to save the world — as in some comic-book universe — but in the service of their own national aggrandizement and transnational greed. While they dicker, the world slouches toward bedlam.

A Pause in Hostilities

When President Donald Trump met with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Beijing in mid-May, the exchanges were unexpectedly cordial. The two countries had been engaged in an on-again, off-again war of tariffs since Trump had begun his second term, a conflict that threatened to spiral out of control. At the same time, the Chinese were deeply concerned about the impact of the U.S.–Israeli war against Iran on international stability, given spiking oil prices and their ripple effects on the global economy.

Yet, at this meeting in China, the two leaders converged on a common goal of “constructive strategic stability.” In order to forge this condominium of superpowers — a G2 — Trump was willing to delay arms deliveries to Taiwan. He also greenlighted the sale of sophisticated (though not the most advanced) Nvidia computer chips to China. In turn, China agreed to increase its purchases from the United States, including 200 Boeing aircraft and $17 billion of agricultural goods each year through 2028.

The hoopla surrounding the summit, generated by press offices on both sides, obscured the reality that the two countries completed few concrete bilateral deals. Trump did not secure long-term access to the critical minerals that China controls — specifically the rare earth elements that are essential to U.S. high-tech manufacturing and sophisticated military hardware — and the tech giants that accompanied Trump on the trip didn’t win any major concessions in the form of enhanced access to the Chinese market. Meanwhile, China failed to alter U.S. security policy in the Asia–Pacific region. The leaders of the new G2 might be expected to rethink or rework the global rules of the road, but this was not on the agenda in Beijing.

Still, the two superpowers stepped off the path of escalating confrontation. Perhaps more importantly, Trump has seemingly abandoned his earlier goal of decoupling the United States from the Chinese economy, which, along with ratcheting up containment of the “strategic competitor,” had become something of a bipartisan imperative.

For the time being at least, the world’s superpower monsters are not laying waste to the landscape around their feet. Given how much firepower they command, that’s no small achievement. The battle, however, continues to rage further afield in the mineral world.

Grabbing the Rocks

Rare earth elements, or REE, aren’t rare. But it can be quite difficult to extract any of these 17 unusual metals from their surrounding ores. The United States used to be the world’s leading extractor and processor of these resources, from a mine in California near the Nevada border. But that was back when REE were mostly used for such products as black-and-white televisions. The environmental damage caused by the extraction and processing — as well as the labor costs involved — impelled the United States, over time, to outsource operations to China.

By the time REE had become indispensable to the manufacture of very powerful magnets used in everything from wireless iPhone chargers to the F-35 fighter jet, China was controlling upward of 60 percent of the extraction and 90 percent of the processing. It has filed more patents for the latest processing techniques than any other country. It has also expanded beyond digging up its own territory and, through its Belt and Road Initiative — a globe-spanning collection of interconnected infrastructure projects — secured access to mines overseas.

In Tanzania, for instance, an Australian firm Peak Rare Earths discovered what may well be the largest untapped supply of REE in 2010. This is exactly what the United States and its allies had been looking for: ore that can be extracted and processed outside of China. Except that last year, the Chinese firm Shenghe Resources bought the Australian company — and the rights to the Tanzanian deposits — for a little more than $100 million. China is further cornering the market by importing ore from rare earth mines in Myanmar, exploiting new deposits in Brazil, and eying Malaysia and Indonesia for potential processing operations.

To guarantee access to the minerals that both the Pentagon and U.S. industry need, the Trump administration has ramped up the exploitation of U.S. REE deposits. Mountain Pass, the California mine previously shuttered after environmental lawsuits and Chinese outsourcing, restarted production in 2012, but it still couldn’t compete against China, which had flooded the market with REE to drive down prices. Last year, the Pentagon acquired a majority stake in MP Materials, the company that owns the mine, which now produces over 10 percent of the global supply of REE.

Trump has also pumped money into USA Rare Earths, which is developing the Round Top mine in Texas, which promises to rival the REE production of Mountain Pass. Even with an accelerated timeline, however, the new mine won’t start production before 2028. Meanwhile, the administration is playing the field: pouring money into a REE processing facility in Arizona, contracting with a similar operation in France, and hammering out supply contracts with a mining firm in Australia. This frenzied activity may lessen dependency on China but not eliminate it.

And it’s not just rare earth elements. China controls 95 percent of magnesium production, over 80 percent of tungsten, over 70 percent of graphite and silicon, and three-quarters of cobalt — minerals that are critical to pretty much all modern manufacturing. On the processing end, China is the leading refiner of 19 out of 20 of the most coveted minerals, with an average market share of 70 percent. And instead of being reliant on its control of raw materials and processed ores, China is also in command of the downstream production. For instance, it’s responsible for 94 percent of the manufacturing of the most powerful magnets that go into cars, computers, and medical equipment.

The new rush for “critical raw materials,” many of them essential for building out the infrastructure of a “clean energy” transition but also indispensable for the entire range of advanced military products to which the United States is addicted, has sharpened the competition between China and the United States throughout the mineral-rich Global South. Those countries generally see China as a willing provider of capital and finance. They view Trump — who has dismissed so much of the Global South as “shithole countries,” deported huge numbers of their citizens, and subjected nearly all of their governments to punishing tariffs — with considerable skepticism.

How long will it take for the United States to catch up and neutralize China’s mineral superpower? In the best-case scenario, America will only be able to meet half its need for rare earth elements by 2028, and it currently produces less than 1 percent of those powerful magnets. Until America catches up — or forges partnerships with other countries to meet its demand through initiatives such as the U.S.-led Pax Silica — China will be able to pinch off the supply of those key minerals more easily than Iran can close off the Strait of Hormuz.

Controlling the Chips

Silicon Valley has long been a byword for innovation: Apple’s iPhones, Google’s search engine, Facebook’s social media platform. But the heart of Silicon Valley was, at least originally, made out of silicon. Chips made the valley. In the 1980s, Japan produced semiconductors that were superior to anything American companies could get to market. Competition spurred Silicon Valley to leapfrog over Japan.

The chip-designer Nvidia began in the 1990s as a supplier of graphic processing units, or GPUs, for the video game industry. These Nvidia chips became, literally, the brain behind Microsoft’s Xbox. Later, they came to power Sony’s PlayStation 3, signaling that Silicon Valley had definitively surpassed its Japanese competitors.

Then Nvidia began developing the kind of hardware necessary for the next big tech revolution: artificial intelligence. The first major AI platform available to the public — ChatGPT — was built on the foundation of Nvidia’s next-generation GPUs. Suddenly, Nvidia was the most sought-after supplier and the most valuable company in the world, now worth more than $5 trillion.

It’s one thing to corner the market on the graphics necessary to play “Grand Theft Auto” or make the special effects of the 2021 “Godzilla vs. Kong” movie look terrifyingly real. It’s quite another to create the building blocks of the AI technology that is creeping into every corner of the economy, not to mention the military.

To maintain its economic and military edge, the United States has placed controls on the export of Nvidia’s most advanced semiconductors to China. It’s no surprise that, over the last six years, the People’s Liberation Army attempted hundreds of times to acquire those precious chips. To prevent China from producing their own, the Dutch also placed restrictions on the export of the machines used to print the chips.

There are two challenges to this strategy of restriction. The first is that, despite its name, Silicon Valley doesn’t actually manufacture the vast majority of these fancy computer chips. For more than 90 percent of advanced semiconductors, the world depends on Taiwan. It’s as if another monster has appeared on the scene with a superpower that can bring both Godzilla and Rodan to their knees.

The United States harbors a fear that the Chinese response to their chip dependency will be simply to invade Taiwan and take over its semiconductor industry. For its part, the Biden administration pushed through the CHIPS Act to re-shore computer chip manufacturing, which is turning Arizona into a real Silicon Valley. Intel and Taiwan’s TSMC are among the more than 75 firms building factories there, which will require considerable water (in a desert) and produce tons of “forever chemicals,” the synthetic compounds that do not break down naturally, polluting the environment and accumulating within people (amid a growing population).

Given Russia’s failure to seize Ukraine and the inability of the United States and Israel to achieve regime change in Iran, China is not likely to attempt a takeover of Taiwan any time soon. Instead, it has pursued a different approach, and this is the second problem with a restriction strategy. Prevented from acquiring Nvidia’s best chips, China is pouring money into making its own chip sector the best in the world.

Those considerable state investments produced a Sputnik moment in January 2025 when the Chinese company DeepSeek released its ChatGPT competitor. The big breakthrough, however, was behind the scenes: China was able to use its own domestically produced chips to create comparable AI results at a cheaper cost.

Private sector expenditures on AI in the United States still exceed China’s investments by a considerable margin. But the Trump administration’s cuts in science funding and restrictions on work visas will handicap U.S. technological progress for years and possibly decades. China, meanwhile, will likely have machines ready to produce what its AI models need by 2030, the target date Beijing has set to close the advanced chip gap.

The Sequel

Both China and the United States have landed a number of punches in their monster battle. The Trump administration has maintained export controls on its most advanced chips and has created a blacklist of Chinese companies it accuses of working with the People’s Liberation Army, including the car company BYD and the tech firm Baidu. China has retaliated by putting two American and 14 European companies on its own blacklist for the “dual use” of rare earth elements for both civilian and military applications. These come on top of Chinese export restrictions imposed in 2025 on seven rare-earth metals and an announcement that five more elements will be added in November.

These tit-for-tat exchanges might suggest that the two sides are evenly matched. And that may have been the case a decade ago. Today, however, despite its iconic status and devastating powers, the American Godzilla looks pretty wobbly. Trump’s fixation on cutting government and his failure to staff the remaining positions with competent officials has meant that the effort to deny China the most sophisticated chips has been compromised. Simply put, the Commerce Department has failed to enforce the export restrictions on U.S. companies, and thousands of those powerful chips have likely made their way into Chinese hands.

Even without government incompetence, the United States would be hard-pressed to maintain its advantage. The bottom line: China will be able to make its own chips sooner than America can acquire its own rocks.

The real superpower that China possesses, in other words, is its government’s ability to marshal resources to make the technological leap forward and maintain a substantive defense of its own material advantages. Thanks to this superpower, as Evan Osnos points out in The New Yorker, “China produces at least 70 percent of the world’s drones, electric vehicles, lithium-ion batteries, and solar cells.” So confident is China in this superpower that it has recently rolled out a sodium-ion battery that needs none of the critical minerals of the lithium battery that powers electric vehicles. Beijing is thus negating its own mineral advantages. Instead, the Chinese government is relying on its industrial prowess to prepare for a world where rocks no longer rule.

The Biden administration tried to copy this superpower with the CHIPS Act and the additional targeted subsidies of the Inflation Reduction Act. Trump, too, has attempted to pursue a similar industrial policy with investments in critical minerals alongside scattershot tariffs and export controls. But he has also weakened the underlying superpower of government action through funding cuts and mass layoffs at critical government agencies. As a result, a lot of the shots that the Trump administration fires at China are actually blanks.

If this were a film, Godzilla would be teetering on the edge of a precipice, harried by a triumphant Rodan. In the final shot, Godzilla would live to fight another day, setting the scene for a sequel.

In real life, the United States is wasting billions of dollars on a war in Iran, the Trump administration is laser-focused on stuffing its own pockets from insider deals, and U.S. universities and companies are hemorrhaging funds and talent. At the same time, China is cornering the global market on renewable technology and consolidating its trade and investment relationship with the nearly 150 countries in the Belt and Road Initiative. The newer superpower seems to be making better use of its superpowers.

Another great movie trope is enemies quickly morphing into friends when faced with an existential threat. Godzilla and Rodan eventually team up to fight King Ghidorah, a hydra-like extraterrestrial beast with three heads. Is it too late for China and the United States, inveterate frenemies, to do the same in response to the very terrestrial threat of climate change?

It would certainly make for a Hollywood happy ending. But the Trump administration, insisting that carbon emissions are no problem, is attempting to reenergize the country’s fossil fuel sector. And despite its buildout of renewal energy infrastructure and its expanding exports of solar panels and wind turbines, China remains heavily dependent on fossil fuels, especially coal.

Let’s face it: Monsters are going to be monsters. If they’re not fighting each other directly, they’re laying waste to the environment and poisoning the communities that live atop precious resources. In the world of entertainment, Godzilla and Rodan learn how to use their superpowers for good when a planet-wide emergency pushes the monsters together to fight against an external threat.

The real world faces just such a red alert. Our monsters, however, just keep doing monstrous things.

The post The New Cold War of Rocks vs. Chips appeared first on Institute for Policy Studies.

In Riverside County, California, a School Resource Officer was alerted to a confrontation between two students a block from their school. When the armed officer arrived on the scene, one of the female students was walking away from the confrontation. The officer told her to stop. Video of the incident then showed her on the ground with three officers around her as she was trying to get up, and the SRO is seen yanking her around and pushing her back onto the ground.

In a North Carolina high school, an SRO was trying to break up a fight and tased the students. In the ensuing commotion, a student struck a teacher. The SRO then body-slammed the female student to the ground. She fell unconscious and had a seizure.

Another North Carolina SRO grabbed an 11-year-old boy and body-slammed him into the floor, picked him up and body-slammed him again, knocking him unconscious.

In a Broward County, Florida school for children with emotional disabilities, an SRO grabbed a student by her neck and threw her on the floor of a classroom.

Stories like these are all too common.

At a time when school districts are investing billions of dollars annually to put armed law enforcement officers in schools, we should ask whether this approach promotes student safety or threatens it. How could even a fraction of that money be invested to better promote student well-being and safety? 

The criminal juvenile system, much like the adult system, is coordinated around punishment and incarceration. Youth who have misbehaved, been involved in misdemeanors, crimes, or otherwise transgressed are processed through the courts and sent to juvenile detention centers. 

Such criminalization is part of a retributive system known as the school-to-prison pipeline, in which students are pushed out of the education system and into the criminal legal system, — often for minor infractions and misbehavior.

In schools, armed law enforcement officers known as School Resource Officers (SROs) patrol campuses across the country, at a cost of $2.6 billion annually. A growing body of evidence suggests that the presence of SROs in schools is resulting in more suspensions, expulsions, arrests, referrals to juvenile criminal systems, and violence against children, contradicting the claim that they make students safer. Meanwhile, there is no credible evidence to show that SROs deter school shootings. 

Alongside SROs, zero-tolerance policies in schools and “school disturbance” laws in several states criminalize juvenile misbehavior. These policies increase students’ proximity to the criminal legal system and incarceration, which is proven to be detrimental to their educational outcomes and future prospects.   

Students in already vulnerable populations are disproportionately harmed. Black, Latinx, Native American, disabled, and LGBTQ students receive harsher punishment than their white peers for the same offenses. And Black, Latinx, and other students of color broadly are more likely to be funneled into the criminal legal system when SROs are present in schools.

A punitive approach to juvenile justice is actively hurting children across the country. A wealth of research suggests Restorative Justice is a more effective alternative. This report outlines findings on Restorative Justice and argues that an expanded transition to Restorative Justice is the best way to help children succeed.

Youth Incarceration: An Ongoing Crisis

While youth incarceration has dropped in the last two decades, it remains a pertinent issue nationwide. Youth incarceration has coincided with lower high school graduation rates and further interactions with the school-to-prison pipeline. The American Civil Liberties Union defines the pipeline as “the policies and practices that push our nation’s schoolchildren, especially our most at-risk children, out of classrooms and into the juvenile and criminal legal systems.” 

The presence of SROs, zero-tolerance policies, and laws criminalizing juvenile behavior are all key components to the school-to-prison pipeline. In 2023-2024, 48% of U.S. public schools had an SRO, and 92% of them carried a firearm. They are there for public safety, but their effectiveness is questionable. According to a review published by the Campbell Collaboration, the evidence does not support the claim that the presence of School Resource Officers deter school violence. A report by the Urban Institute found no correlation between the presence of armed SROs and a reduction in the severity of school shootings. In fact, it cites a study that finds deaths during a school shooting increases nearly three-fold when armed SROs are present. And Everytown USA finds that there is no reduction in school-based gun incidents due to the presence of armed SROs.

Yet while there are few demonstrable signs that SROs contribute to safety, there is a growing body of evidence that their presence can actually be harmful for students in other ways.

• Black students are substantially more likely than white students to experience exclusionary discipline: a 2024 analysis found Black students were 3.6 times more likely to receive out-of-school suspensions, 2.5 times more likely to receive in-school suspensions, and 3.4 times more likely to be expelled. 
• The likelihood of students being arrested for in-class behavior increases as the presence of SROs on campus increases 
• Students at schools with SROs on campus are 5 times more likely to be arrested for disorderly conduct than students at schools without them.

Zero-tolerance policies are severe predetermined consequences that are applied “regardless of the gravity of behavior, mitigating circumstances, or situational context.” There was widespread adoption of these zero-tolerance policies in U.S. public schools in the 1990s in an attempt to create safer school environments. 

However, the American Psychological Association found little data to support these assumptions — and the data that did exist indicated a detrimental effect on student well-being. 

In a 2008 paper, they cite a story in which a 10-year-old girl found a small kitchen knife in her lunchbox that her mother had included for her to cut her apple. Even though the little girl promptly turned the knife over to a teacher, she was expelled from the school for “possessing a weapon.”

Zero-tolerance policies disproportionately impact different populations, such as Black students and LGBTQ students. According to a 2019 report from the Southern Education Foundation, Black girls in secondary schools were suspended at rates 45 times higher than white girls. For LGBTQ students, if they are being bullied for their gender or perceived sexual presentation and they try to defend themselves, they are often punished even more harshly than the bully, according to the ACLU.

Alongside zero-tolerance policies are “school disturbance” laws that criminalize student misbehavior. In 2022, the American Criminal Law Review found 20 states that have at least one of these laws. 

An example of a “school disturbance” law is in the 2025 Maryland Education Code. It states, “A person may not willfully disturb or otherwise willfully prevent the orderly conduct of the activities, administration, or classes of any institution of elementary, secondary, or higher education… Any person who violates any provision of this section is guilty of a misdemeanor and on conviction is subject to a fine not exceeding $2,500, imprisonment not exceeding 6 months, or both.”

This broad language allows for the possibility that students who misbehave by interrupting class or talking loudly could be subject to legal repercussions.

Zero-tolerance policies and school disturbance laws are sending thousands of children to juvenile facilities and away from the classroom. Children of color are particularly vulnerable; while overall youth detainment is decreasing, the share of Black youth detained has increased, from 38% of all youths detained in 2003 to 46% in 2023. 

In fact, Black youth are 5.6 times more likely to be detained or committed to juvenile facilities than their white counterparts. In FY25, Black youth in Maryland were almost 5 times more likely to face adult criminal charges than white youth for the same offenses.   

Youth of color in general experience disproportionately higher arrest and placement in juvenile detention centers rates than white youth. 

Queer youth and youth of color with disabilities are also overrepresented in youth incarceration. While an estimated 9.5% of U.S. youth identify as LGBTQ, 28% of incarcerated youth are LGBTQ. It’s estimated that up to 70% of youth in juvenile detention facilities have physical, mental, or emotional disabilities. The odds of neurodivergent youth reporting abuse by facility staff are nearly 70% higher than their neurotypical peers, and the odds of detained Black youth reporting abuse by facility staff are nearly 80% higher than their white peers. 

In October 2023, juvenile facilities held 29,314 youths in a total of 1,277 detention centers, residential treatment centers, group homes, and youth prisons across the United States. 

The violence youth incarceration inflicts upon children is twofold: they face abuse inside the facilities and are cut off from vital educational opportunities outside the facilities. The Brookings Institution found that a student’s arrest may increase their likelihood of dropping out by 25%, obstructing their path toward graduation and higher education. 

Schools, governments, and other institutions must recognize that a punitive approach to juvenile justice is not working. Restorative Justice provides institutions an effective, efficient, and empathetic approach to achieving justice and better outcomes for youth. 

Restorative Justice: An Effective Alternative to Zero-Tolerance

Restorative Justice (RJ) is a collaborative process in which a person who has committed harm takes accountability in a structured and mediated process with those affected by the harm. This process has proven to effectively address trauma, mend communal relationships, and guide the restoration of the harm by working with those involved to ensure that those who commit harm meaningfully take accountability for their actions and successfully reintegrate into the community. 

The U.S. has a punitive criminal legal system in which someone who has committed harm is punished and locked up, with no attention to restoration, rehabilitation, and resolution with those affected by their actions. The public school system largely operates the same way. Studies show that once a student is criminally punished in this way — often for infractions subjectively labeled by authority figures as “bad behavior” — they are more likely to end up in the prison system as adults. 

It doesn’t have to be this way.

Restorative Justice in schools is an effective alternative to incarceration, one much more favorable to those who care about children’s future outcomes.It’s designed to hold the person committing the harm to account in a way that keeps that person from committing harm again and restores well-being to those who have been harmed.

While an exact number is difficult to quantify, the Sentencing Project estimates there are 150 RJ diversion programs across the country, concentrated in Washington, D.C., Maine, Connecticut, Nebraska, Colorado, North Dakota, and Vermont. 

In diversion programs such as RJ, people have the opportunity to participate in alternative programs rather than be processed through the courts. 

Restorative Justice programs in schools center the person who was harmed and hold the person who committed harm to account. Alongside the person who was harmed, the person who committed the harm and community members participate in the conversation. Trained facilitators help coordinate with other stakeholders and mediate the discussions. 

Programs usually target youth accused of committing minor offenses, though some programs target youth accused of committing more serious crimes. Restorative Justice tools include mediation, community conferencing, and circles, which are structured, curated discussions meant to make all participants feel equal and valued.    

Restorative Justice participants aim to achieve healing, understanding, and accountability. Success can take the form of contracts that stipulate specific steps youth who committed harm must take following the RJ program.  

The Sentencing Project found most youth in RJ programs participate in a conference and “forge an agreement to repair the harms of their offense and complete other activities that help them avoid reoffending.”

Results from RJ programs across the country are encouraging. For example, research has found that the rate of reoffending for those who participated in RJ is one-third lower than those who didn’t, and any subsequent offenses are typically less severe.

Those who have experienced harm consistently report higher rates of satisfaction with RJ programs than with the criminal legal system, as it more acutely tends to their needs for emotional restoration, a genuine apology from those who committed the harm, and restitution in the form of returned property or other value.

RJ programs have led to significant reductions in PTSD, a desire for revenge, negative emotions, and a “greater sense of security and empowerment.” Finally, the 12-month recidivism rate was 4% for those diverted to RJ, compared to 29% for those who went through the traditional court process. 

The Office of the Ramsey County Attorney in Minnesota studied the effects of Restorative Justice programs they began in 2021. They completed the study by comparing the outcomes of two equally sized groups of children — one group that was processed traditionally through the court system and another group that was diverted to RJ programs. 

Their results follow national trends: youth diverted to Restorative Justice programs consistently showed lower recidivism and re-referral rates compared with youths processed traditionally through the court.

Studies on RJ programs, both nationwide and at the local level, reaffirm its viability as an alternative to retributive justice. It professes that justice is more than punishment; it is a collaborative process in which accountability for wrongdoing, healing from trauma, and reintegration into the community are key strategies for addressing harm and moving forward together. Retributive justice rejects this framework. 

Disparities and negative outcomes persist for children in the criminal legal system. Restorative Justice says these disparities are not inevitable, and we can begin addressing them by bringing the community together. 

Recommendations

Restorative Justice is a crucial strategy for combating the school-to-prison pipeline and preparing students to achieve and thrive. Currently, only a handful of states offer RJ programs — and even there, they often aren’t made equitably available.

The Sentencing Project found that multiple factors, including inequitable policing practices in minority neighborhoods and harsher comments from judges against minority youth, have led to a high disparity in RJ diversion rates between white youth and youth of color. Even within a proven alternative framework for justice, plenty of work remains to make the realities of our children’s lives more equitable. 

School systems and local and state governments should:

• End zero-tolerance programs in schools.
• Eliminate School Resource Officers from schools.
• Reinvest that funding into Restorative Justice programs and stabilize them through legislation and consistent funding.
• End zero-tolerance programs in schools.
• Remove “school disturbance” laws from state statutes. 
• Equitably refer children of all backgrounds to Restorative Justice programs.

Research has proven RJ is preferable to zero-tolerance policies, which are harmful to children and their future outcomes. Institutions should consider RJ a powerful tool in addressing the school-to-prison pipeline, combating inequitable outcomes across demographic lines and setting youth on a path towards educational success.  

Conclusion

The criminal legal system is a counterproductive and often violent force against children, particularly Black and brown children, LGBTQ children, and children with disabilities. We must work to make justice meaningful and transformative, rather than simply punitive. The zero-tolerance system doesn’t improve student well-being — it results in youth suffering from the criminal legal system with little chance to set their life back on track. 

Restorative Justice is an effective alternative to the current system. Children and community members report high levels of satisfaction with RJ programs. The outcomes for children diverted to Restorative Justice programs far exceed the outcomes for children processed through the courts. 

If the goal is to limit children’s interactions with the criminal legal system and dismantle the school-to-prison pipeline, schools, governments, and other institutions should strongly consider a proven, thoroughly researched alternative to retributive justice. Restorative Justice, if implemented in communities across the country, will help keep children on the path toward brighter, more equitable, and safer futures.

The post Making Schools Safer with Restorative Justice  appeared first on Institute for Policy Studies.

How much has the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran cost U.S. taxpayers?

An independent estimate found that the first four months of the war, through June 27, cost $103 billion. That includes at least $2.9 billion in military aid to Israel.

Instead of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, that $103 billion could pay for a year of…

• Medicaid health care for more than 12 million people,
• Head Start child care for almost 6 million new children, or
• SNAP food assistance to more than 45 million people

For the cost of one single Tomahawk missile — the U.S. missile that destroyed a girls’ school on the first day of the
war, killing more than 150 people, including 120 schoolchildren — the U.S. could have instead provided one year of…

• Medicaid health care for 300 people,
•  Head Start pre-school for 150 children, or
• SNAP food assistance for 1,100 people.

Will a ceasefire stop the costs from rising higher?

• No. Ongoing U.S. military aid to Israel supports assaults on Lebanon and Gaza even during ceasefires. And U.S. ships, planes, and troops remain stationed in the region. For example, during the April 2026 ceasefire, the U.S. still had 15 Navy destroyers in the region, with each one costing $4 million per week to operate.
• President Trump and the Pentagon are seeking a $1.5 trillion war and weapons budget for next year, including tens of billions of dollars to replace weapons they used in the Iran war. That’s an increase of $610 billion, or 68 percent, since two years ago. The Pentagon has also suggested that it may ask for as much as $200 billion more for the Iran war, bringing the total war budget as high as $1.7 trillion next year if Congress does not stop it. 

How is this war affecting the economy and families?

The war has caused prices to skyrocket. Even after a ceasefire, it could take months for prices to come back down. 

• As of June 18, higher fuel costs due to the war had cost Americans more than $53 billion, or $402 per household. By the end of the year, that’s projected to reach $978 per household.
• Food prices have gone up too. Thirty percent of the world’s fertilizer travels through the Strait of Hormuz, which was closed for weeks. Farmers around the world were forced to plant crops without enough fertilizer, which will keep prices higher for longer.
• The impact on families in the poorest nations has been the most devastating, with severe food shortages, and children particularly at risk of malnutrition. 

Do Americans support the war on Iran?

• As of early August 2026, 75 percent of people in the U.S. say the war is not worth the cost.

How many civilians have been killed in the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran?  (February 28 – June 1, 2026)

• TOTAL: at least 7,131 civilians killed 
• Iran: at least 3,375 civilians killed 
• Lebanon: at least 3,412 civilians killed 
• Gaza: at least 314 killed during Iran war (Israeli-U.S. impunity through 2½ years of the Gaza genocide created conditions for the U.S.-Israel war on Iran, so Israel’s killings in Gaza during that time are linked to Iran war)
• West Bank: 4 women killed 
• Israel: 26 civilians killed 
• United States: no civilians reported killed. 

How many people have been displaced from their homes as a result of the Iran war?

• Iran: 3.2 million displaced 
• Lebanon: 1 million displaced (20% percent of Lebanon’s population) 
• Syria: 130,000 Syrians who had found safety in Lebanon fled back to Syria 
• Israel: 6,295 displaced 

Does Iran have nuclear weapons?  

No. Iran has never had a nuclear weapon. The U.S., United Nations, and virtually every intelligence agency in the world continue to state that Iran does not have, is not trying to build, and has not even decided to try to build a weapon 

Does anyone in the Middle East have nuclear weapons?

Yes. Israel has had a nuclear weapons monopoly in the region since the mid-1960s. Israel is believed to have more than 90 nuclear weapons, but has never acknowledged their existence. They have never been inspected by the UN’s watchdog agency, the IAEA.

The post FACT SHEET: What has the Iran War Cost So Far? appeared first on Institute for Policy Studies.