“Before we begin,” she says, “I just want to say that we acknowledge that we are standing on and benefiting from land that has been seized, expropriated, and stolen from the Ukrainian people. For thousands of years, this has been Ukrainian land. This is still the homeland of the Ukrainians. Their descendants are still living here among us.”

That’s what will happen if Russian leader Vladimir Putin gets his way—and gets his territory. He has never been discreet about his ultimate goal of absorbing all of Ukraine into the Russian federation, beginning with Crimea and the four provinces he has already annexed. It’s a classic colonial project, not substantially different from what settlers attempted to do to the Native Americans: seize their land and wipe them out as a people. The difference today is that Ukraine, recognized internationally as a sovereign nation, has received considerable international support for its defense. More than four years after Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, Ukrainians are not just fighting for territory or for a state but for the very survival of a people.

Let’s be clear: land acknowledgements wouldn’t exist in the United States if Native Americans had more successfully resisted the genocidal campaigns waged against them. That’s not to say that the tribes didn’t fight back, in some cases quite effectively. Take the case of Red Cloud, the Oglala Lakota war chief. As David Treuer writes in The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee:

In a series of brilliantly staged attacks and battles, he pushed the U.S. Army back hundreds of miles, forcing them to abandon forts, trading posts, and supply lines. The defeats Red Could heaped on the U.S. Army forced it to abandon all of its forts in the region and to sign the second Treaty of Fort Laramie, which created the Great Sioux Reservation, in 1968. The Lakota were also guaranteed the right to hunt in the unceded territory as far as the Sandhills of Nebraska.

Many of these gains, however, were eventually reversed. The U.S. government couldn’t be trusted to honor promises or treaties. The lust for land, coupled with an ideological belief in Manifest Destiny, drove the settlers to colonize everything from “sea to shining sea.”

Like Red Cloud, Ukraine also staged a brilliant counter-attack after Russia’s full-scale invasion. It, too, took back land that had been illegally seized. Of course, Vladimir Putin didn’t sign any peace treaties. Perhaps he has read his American history books (or been given a distorted summary by Donald Trump). The Russian leader believes that he can wipe out the Ukrainian people by continuing to slaughter civilians, as he has been doing since the start of the war.

As with the campaigns of conquest against Native Americans—and the massacres of civilians at Wounded Knee, Sand Creek, Bear River, Battle Creek, and elsewhere that focused on killing women and children to destroy the capacity of the tribes to resist and regenerate—civilian casualties in Russia’s war are not collateral damage. These deaths are a central objective. The Russian battle strategy is to clear the land of obstacles, current and potential. It is also to sap the public’s will to resist.

Russian attacks have killed over 15,000 Ukrainian civilians and displaced millions more. This May marked the highest casualty rate since the war began: over 2,000 dead and injured. In the areas under Russian control, the UN has documented the deaths of 32 Ukrainian civilians “as a result of torture, inadequate medical assistance or inhuman conditions of detention.” Many have disappeared, including public officials, never to be seen again. More than 100 prisoners of war have been executed. Those young enough to be assimilated have been sent by the thousands to Russia for adoption.

The Russian military has engaged the Ukrainian military to be sure, but the barrage of missile and drone attacks have indiscriminately killed civilians and discriminately targeted the infrastructure that sustains them. The most dramatic such massacre in the early days of the war was the attack on the Donetsk Regional Academic Drama theater in Mariupol. The theater served as a place of refuge for hundreds of people as Russian troops surrounded the port city in February and spent the next several months systematically crushing Ukrainian resistance. Those who took refuge in the theater clearly identified their sanctuary by writing “children” in big Russian letters in front of and behind the building. The desperate waited for caravans to escort them to safety, but those caravans never arrived. Instead, as individuals tried to make their own way out of Mariupol, Russian jets ignored the signs and dropped two bombs on the theater.

In his moving account of the tragedy, The Theater, James Verini estimates that up to 200 people died in that attack. Somewhere between 27,000 and 88,000 people—the vast majority of them civilians—died in the overall siege of Mariupol. The theater attack was a turning point for many Ukrainians. “That day, we realized the Russians had come to kill us,” one theater bombing survivor told Verini. “They didn’t come to fight with Ukrainian soldiers. They just wanted to kill us.”

In another parallel to American history and the creation of Indian boarding schools, the Russians have sent thousands of Ukrainian children to orphanages and adoptive families in Russia. The UN has documented 1,200 cases, but other credible estimates run to more than 20,000. When in institutions or families, these abducted children have been stripped of their Ukrainian identity. As the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe points out, the problem extends to the 1.5 million children who live in Russian-occupied Ukraine: “These children are subjected daily to propaganda, militarization, restrictions on the Ukrainian language and culture, and severe violations of their fundamental rights and freedoms. Many live in constant fear and uncertainty, while their opportunities for free education, security and hope for the future are severely restricted.”

If Putin is taking a page from the U.S. colonial playbook, he should know that Native Americans did not disappear, despite the military campaigns, the forced migrations, the attempts to destroy the means of subsistence through the killing of the buffalo, and the Indian boarding schools that tried to “kill the Indian…and save the man” as school founder Richard Henry Pratt put it.

“In 1900, there were only 250,000 American Indians left in North America, and we were expected to become extinct by 1913,” says Rick Williams, who is Oglala Lakota/Cheyenne and founder of the People of the Sacred Land. “But we’ve continued to survive. We’ve continued to grow. And have opportunities.”

Today, there’s somewhere between 3.1 million and 8.7 million Native Americans, a more than tenfold increase. The last compulsory boarding school programs ended in the late 1930s. Native languages are making a comeback. Tribes are starting to get their land back.

Ukrainians want to avoid the fate of being pushed to the brink of extinction. They averted an immediate Russian victory after the invasion in 2022, and they aren’t willing to permit a slow-motion Russian destruction of Ukrainian sovereignty and culture. The spirit of Red Cloud—and the determination to resist by all means necessary—still inspires Ukrainians, even though four years of war have produced so much suffering.

I once debated someone who urged Ukrainians to conclude a peace agreement with Russia whatever the cost in land and dignity. Because we were speaking in the progressive enclave of Western Massachusetts, he began his remarks with a routine land acknowledgement to the Nonotuck, a local Algonkian tribe that suffered massacres, displacement, and assimilation. He then proceeded to minimize the brutal colonial designs of Vladimir Putin, thereby white-washing a present-day reenactment of the history encapsulated in the land acknowledgement.

For Ukrainians, it’s not the battle for land that justifies the sacrifice—it’s the battle for survival. But if they lose that land, Ukrainians will be left with nothing but land acknowledgements to mark a long-ago state and a once-proud culture.

The post Ukraine and the Spirit of Red Cloud appeared first on Institute for Policy Studies.

This past July 4th was one of the hottest in U.S. history. While Americans gathered to celebrate the country’s 250th birthday, dozens died from extreme heat — and the toll may still rise. In Europe, which has seen its own devastating heat wave, some 3,700 people have died. And the heat has become so extreme in Pakistan that people’s teeth are literally dissolving in their mouths.

This is only the beginning of extreme heat this summer — and if we don’t stop the climate crisis, for the rest of time. Scientists are warning that this marks “uncharted territory” in rising temperatures.

The good news? We know the solution. To build a better world, with cheaper and cleaner energy, we have to phase out fossil fuels and transition to green energy. This process is easier and cheaper than ever. Some 90 percent of renewable energy is now cheaper than fossil fuels, and renewables don’t heat our planet the way that fossil fuels do.

The bad news? Fossil fuel companies, and the politicians who support them, are trying to block this transition. Companies like Exxon have known for over 50 years that fossil fuels cause climate change — and that rising temperatures would cost lives. But they’ve tried to bury this information, stall the transition, and deceive the public that fossil fuels aren’t responsible.

I’ve seen this play out firsthand.

When I was 17, I spent a sunny week in Dubai at the 28th United Nations annual climate conference (COP28). I was so excited to attend the conference. I met other activists passionate about renewable energy and taking down the fossil fuel industry. I even attended lobbying meetings with the lead U.S. negotiators, Trigg Talley and Sue Biniaz.

Everything in Dubai felt larger than life — from the Burj Khalifa to the massive dome in the middle of the conference center. But over the week, the conference began to feel more and more dystopian. The fossil fuel industry had sent 2,456 lobbyists to that COP — and despite the loud cries of activists and scientists, their voices drowned ours out.

At the end of the conference, we had a small win — fossil fuels were mentioned in a COP text for the first time ever. But the language was so weak that the statement felt almost meaningless. The text did nothing to change the trajectory of the climate crisis.

The fossil fuel industry has propagated lies about climate change for years. They’ve tried to convince us that climate change is our fault instead of theirs, with campaigns around “carbon footprints” — a concept created by BP — and recycling, which was popularized by the plastics industry but has never managed to efficiently recycle plastics themselves.

They have also spent hundreds of millions of dollars on influencing climate decision making spaces — from United Nations conferences to Washington, D.C. Big Oil spent $445 million during the 2024 elections — and in return has gotten $40 billion in fossil fuel subsidies from the Trump administration.

The time has come for us to rise up against this deceptive and powerful industry, to finally kick them out of spaces with influence. It is high time for us to stop being manipulated by fossil fuel companies that are only out to make a profit and harm us.

As temperatures rise, we are now in a battle of people vs. fossil fuels. We must win — it’s a matter of life and death.

The post This Deadly Heat Wave Has a Culprit appeared first on Institute for Policy Studies.

Wanting to be a great cook like her, I would often watch closely as my mother went grocery shopping. Every item placed into the cart was intentional. I watched as she made precise price calculations and swapped between products. I quickly realized that every meal my mom whipped up came from a shopping trip that felt like mission impossible.

Growing up, my family relied on SNAP, or “food stamps.” The benefits were modest, and there were limits to what you can use them on — hence my mom’s careful shopping. But despite that, SNAP meant having food on the table — and impressive recipes that brought people together. It meant one less impossible choice at the end of the month.

I no longer rely on this vital program that kept my family afloat, but millions of other families do. However, a year after the passage of the Trump administration’s “One Big Beautiful Bill,” millions of families are now facing a future of impossible choices.

Since the bill’s passage in July 2025, SNAP participation has dropped by 10 percent across the country. In some states the effects are amplified. In Arizona, for example, SNAP participation fell by 51 percent. And in the coming months, those figures are likely to rise.

These statistics are not just numbers — they’re people not being fed.

Before the new law, SNAP helped feed 41.7 million low-income Americans per month, 62 percent of which were families with children. The program has been linked to improving child health, educational outcomes, and reducing child poverty.  SNAP also benefits local economies, with each dollar in federally funded SNAP benefits generating $1.79 in economic activity.

Yet the “Big Beautiful Bill” cuts nearly $190 billion from SNAP over 10 years. And it adds paperwork barriers like work requirements. Most SNAP recipients who can work already do — these requirements just make it easier for eligible people to lose benefits even when they still need help.

The effects of losing SNAP are devastating. “We lost our SNAP and my family struggled a lot,” one New York resident told me. They lost benefits for six months because of paperwork and logistical errors. “We had to make a decision between getting food or paying our rent.”

Joseph Myers, a 58 year old Minnesota resident, works 10-12 hours a week at the state’s Senior Community Service Employment Program. Under the expanded work requirements, adults up to age 64 (previously 54) must meet an 80-hour monthly work, volunteer, or training requirement to keep their benefits.

For Myers, who has struggled to find work he can physically do, that requirement puts his food assistance at risk. “It gives me a headache, big one,” he told Minnesota Public Radio. “We’re not doing real good.”

Even those still receiving benefits have seen dramatic reductions. Shelley Gaither, a 51-year-old mother of three in Cheltenham, Pennsylvania who has a disability that keeps her from working, saw her monthly benefits cut from about $400 to $200 while raising three sons. “Now, the money I used to pay for electricity and water has to go for food,” she told the Wilkes-Barre Times Leader. “This makes surviving more difficult.”

The drop in SNAP participation is expected to only worsen. The law will soon shift costs for the program to states, which will force many more people off the program. This is the largest reduction to the SNAP program in history — and some 4 million people a month are expected to lose some or all of their benefits.

SNAP helped keep my family fed, but it also helped provide joy and memories, despite the struggle. Cutting the program means empty fridges and cabinets — and skipping meals, stretching already stretched resources.

By taking this resource away, it means millions will be forced into impossible choices.

The post SNAP Cuts Take More Than Food Away appeared first on Institute for Policy Studies.

The capital’s racial wealth gap continues to plague its Black residents, and is only expected to intensify with deep federal funding cuts to social safety net programs. Advocates of a wealth tax have argued that extracting more revenue from the city’s wealthy could have provided a consistent way to fund these critical programs.

While such a tax is still technically on the table, a budget without it does not meaningfully protect DC’s Black communities.

The council’s budget uses $600 million from reserves and a decoupling from new federal tax code revisions to plug cuts from outgoing Mayor Muriel Bowser’s budget. Some of the programs that will receive extra funding include:

• Early childhood educator pay equity fund: $61.5 million for early educators’ salaries ($73.5 million total)
• Childcare subsidy programs: $39 million to eliminate the enrollment freeze ($153.2 million total)
• Housing vouchers: $28.2 million to fully support 469 housing vouchers
• Education: $6 million for the University of DC, $2.7 million for Saint Coletta of Greater Washington

Some funding went to delaying the time limit on Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). Enrollees have a federal time limit of 5 years to stay in the program. However, DC helped extend that time through local funding. Bowser proposed to cut local funding, and the council prevented that cut until at least next year.

Council members also approved a contingency plan that will send excess revenue to different programs. The first $150 million in excess revenue will replenish the fiscal stabilization reserve.

The next $9 million will go towards housing vouchers; $3 million will go to the emergency rental assistance program; $2 million will go to the credible messengers program; and $36 million will go to the workforce investment account. The DC Fiscal Policy Institute’s (FPI) chief policy and strategy officer Tazra Mitchell told Inequality.org this list could potentially change after Tuesday, July 7’s council hearing.

These programs will have more funding than what the mayor initially proposed. Still, this money is on a one-time basis, meaning funding will expire next year. The council employed a band-aid approach that effectively punted the issue to next year’s budget.

Representatives from local advocacy organizations tepidly celebrated the final budget. However, they criticized the council for failing to implement a more consistent funding source.

“The DC Fiscal Policy Institute (FPI) definitely applauds the DC Council for finding revenue to fill significant holes the mayor left…but it’s just a one-time fix. By failing to take up the wealth proceeds tax, which would advance racial and tax justice, it means lawmakers are kicking the can down the road,” Mitchell said following the final budget hearing.

Fair Budget Coalition’s (FBC) senior advocacy strategist Katharine Landfield said political calculations and the primary election pushed the council to consider the wealth proceeds tax at a later date. DC’s poor Black citizens do not have the luxury to wait.

FBC and FPI held a press conference just before the budget hearing. They continued to advocate for a 3 percent wealth proceeds tax, which would raise $200 million in its first year according to Nadeau’s office.

“We don’t experience a partial cut as a partial loss. We experience it as an eviction, as a loss of healthcare, a loss to jobs…it is not a partial cut for us, our lives are on the line…Raising revenue by taxing wealth would have handed the next mayor a budget built on a stable foundation, instead of a structural deficit papered over with one-time money,” FBC executive director Niciah Mujahid said.

Mujahid said the advocacy campaign for a 3 percent wealth proceeds tax will continue.

Councilwoman Janeese Lewis George, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, recently won the Democratic mayoral primary and is virtually guaranteed to win the general election in November. Landfield said her victory reflects a hunger in the electorate for a budget that prioritizes working class needs.

“We just had an election that shows people want something different. They want a government that takes care of the people…I think there is a sense [Lewis George] may want to have her own [tax] package. I’m hoping they don’t wait until she’s mayor. I’m hoping they use the momentum of the election and actually do something in the fall,” Landfield said.

Lewis George has yet to comment directly on the wealth proceeds tax proposal. However, she said she supports a business activity tax, which is a tax on for-profit businesses operating in the city. This tax would include companies headquartered outside of DC, who often avoid local taxes.

Time will tell how the wealth proceeds tax proposal will play out next fall and during Lewis George’s first term next year. The proposal could raise millions in consistent funding for social safety net programs that Black DC residents need. If the DC Council takes their constituents’ needs seriously, they will vote accordingly in the coming months.

The post DC Council Punts Wealth Tax Debate to the Fall appeared first on Institute for Policy Studies.

As The New York Times pointed out in its investigation of the scheme, “Their sons were soon doing business with partners in a deal that their fathers were negotiating, continuing a pattern of self-enrichment in the second Trump administration that has few precedents in American history.”

The phrases “self-enrichment” and “few precedents” are interesting ways of characterizing this latest instance of the administration’s corruption. Isn’t self-enrichment a good thing, in the sense of profiting from your own hard work? By contrast, the article doesn’t mention the word “corruption” at all. Perhaps the Times is worried about getting hit by yet another Trump legal challenge (in October last year, Trump refiled a $15 billion defamation suit against the paper for its coverage of his 2024 presidential campaign).

There are indeed several precedents in American history for what Trump is doing. These previous corruption scandals—Credit Mobilier, Whiskey Ring, Teapot Dome—wrecked the reputations of presidents and cast long shadows over American politics. They also helped to produce the kind of safeguards that Trump is now destroying.

As with much of Trump’s disrespect for norms, his corruption has been massive and largely in full view. The two outstanding questions are: will Trump and company ever be held accountable for their graft and will this corruption have an enduring impact on political institutions in the United States?

Tracking the Damage

If scandalous behavior unfolds in full view of everyone, is it still a scandal? “Scandal” suggests something hidden, something whispered about, something revealed. Trump’s actions are full-frontal. They are both brazen and matter-of-fact.

According to the Trump administration and its extended family, the money skimmed off the top of economic transactions is just smart politics. The administration has endeavored to negotiate every peace deal, trade agreement, investment arrangement, and mineral pact in such a way as to deliver Trump, his family, and their circle of close supporters a good chunk of change.

This is Trump’s interpretation of the American dream: folks would be downright foolish not to profit from their position. All the great tycoons made their money, from railroads to AI, by being in the right place at the right time with the right amount of ruthlessness. In Trump’s case, however, he is using taxpayer money to cover the risk. And most the time, given the terms of the arrangement, there is hardly any risk because Trump is using his presidential power to game the system. That’s what he really means by the “art of the deal.” Trump only deals from a marked deck of cards.

The graft is not secret, though sometimes the actual amounts involved are obscured by layers of complex finance. Trump’s recent mandatory financial disclosure offers some details. But thanks to a number of websites, it’s become quite easy to track in real time the growing amount of Trump’s slice of the pie.

The Center for American Progress runs Trump’s Take, which estimates that the president has received a little over $2.6 billion in cash and gifts since he took office in January 2025. Much of this money has come from various crypto schemes, including the Trump meme coin, but also such dubious ventures as the documentary about Melania Trump and a number of legal settlements (more colloquially known as shakedowns). Corruption Counter puts the value at $2.2 billion and includes such recent items as the $100 million savings for Trump from the recent effort to bar the IRS from auditing the president. (Courts blocked the overall $1.8 billion “settlement fund,” but the Justice Department is upholding the IRS amnesty.)

If you want to keep track just of the crypto deals, the Democrats on the House Oversight Committee maintain the Trump Family Digital Grift Wealth Tracker. Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) keeps his own list, which highlights the insider trading around the Iran War and a defense contract with Dell after the president invested in the company. David Kirkpatrick, at The New Yorker, has been keeping a running total of Trump’s ballooning assets. In January, he updated his total to $4 billion, which details, among other things, the Gulf money flowing into Trump pockets. Meanwhile, at RepresentUS, you can find a timeline of shady deals, from the no-bid contract to a presidential supporter for the Reflecting Pool “upgrade” to an Air Force contract for drones awarded to a company backed by Trump’s eldest sons.

In May, Campaign Legal Center published a rundown of influence peddling—what Trump supporters get in return for their contributions—that includes Elon Musk’s DOGE appointment, ICE contracts for the Trump-supporting GEO Group, and the cessation of various lawsuits for Trump-friendly entities (Gemini, Robinhood, Coinbase). Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington has its own tracker that keeps up with the number of major events held at Trump’s properties and the number of Trump-branded foreign projects developed during his second term (with a new Trump Tower planned for Tbilisi, Georgia, it’s now up to 25).

Sometimes it seems as though Trump administration policy is just a front for making money, much as a shell company provides a legitimate façade for organized crime.

Getting His Percentage

One of the sticking points in the current war with Iran is the latter’s attempt to control shipping in and out of the Strait of Hormuz. Tehran wants to charge a toll on ships passing through the Strait. Given that the strait is an international waterway—and not a canal—Iran’s bid violates international law.

Trump has opposed Iran’s gambit not so much because it violates the Law of the Seas but because Iran has borrowed a page from the Trump playbook. How dare they try to trump Trump! Indeed, the president has threatened a toll of his own if the ceasefire doesn’t hold: a take of 20 percent of regional revenues if the United States becomes “the guardian of the Middle East” by using military force to protect shipping in the region.

Foreign policy is a tool by which the administration levies a toll on any entity that has the temerity to be a country other than the United States. The Kazakh deal on tungsten is but one of several ways that the administration has cashed in on critical minerals. The Trump sons have a financial interest in 14 companies working with the U.S. government on mineral deals that involve nearly $9 billion in federal funding. This includes $620 million Pentagon loan, fast-tracked by the White House, to a North Carolina rare-earth magnet company in which Donald Trump Jr.’s venture capital firm has invested. Several Trump associates stand to gain from any future deal involving Greenland minerals.

Trump has used tariffs to extract various concessions. In some cases, countries have responded by appealing to Trump’s self-interest. Vietnam, for instance, approved a Trump golf course and received a tariff reduction. Switzerland also enjoyed such treatment when it gifted Trump “a special Rolex desktop clock, a 1-kilogram personalized gold bar, and loads of flattery.” The message is clear: U.S. trade policy is for sale.

Even peace agreements are not immune from the Trump treatment. The Gaza peace deal offers potentially lucrative opportunities for outside businesses to profit from the reconstruction of the rubble-strewn area. “Everybody and their brother is trying to get a piece of this,” one long-time contractor told The Guardian. “People are treating this like another Iraq or Afghanistan. And they’re trying to get, you know, rich off of it.” The executive board of Trump’s Board of Peace is dominated by titans of industry—Marc Rowan, Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner—all salivating at the prospect of using their insider position to profit (though, with progress stalled on the ground, the Board of Peace may end up doing corruption the old-fashioned way by just siphoning off the money up front and granting itself legal immunity to escape the consequences).

The deal that created a “Trump corridor” between Armenia and Azerbaijan was similarly projected to provide commercial opportunities to Trump cronies. But it has yet to get off the ground, another victim of Trump’s propensity to make a big splash with his agreements and neglect to secure the follow-through. Trump’s peace deal with Russia, negotiated on the backs of the Ukrainians, would have also meant a huge windfall for Trump cronies—in opportunities for reconstruction contracts in Ukraine and even larger profits for the commercial reengagement with Russia.

In The Atlantic, several months after Trump took office, David Frum summed up the corrupt activities of the administration this way:

Nothing like this has been attempted or even imagined in the history of the American presidency. Throw away the history books; discard feeble comparisons to scandals of the past. There is no analogy with any previous action by any past president. The brazenness of the self-enrichment resembles nothing seen in any earlier White House. This is American corruption on the scale of a post-Soviet republic or a postcolonial African dictatorship.

Frum served in the George W. Bush White House. A NeverTrumper, he nevertheless knows a little something about corrupt conservatives. Upwards of $20 billion of post-war reconstruction aid for Iraq disappeared into the ether of corruption (and the pockets of U.S. firms, including Halliburton). Trump stands on the shoulders of giants.

Immunity and Impact

Donald Trump knows that he is a living, breathing violation of the law. That’s why he has gone to such lengths to ensure immunity—the Supreme Court decision providing presidents with immunity from criminal prosecution for their official acts, the attempt to secure exemption from IRS audits. Trump has also promised to pardon preemptively “everyone who has come within 200 feet of the Oval Office.”

Let’s tackle Trump first. His immunity is not absolute. First, it does not cover “unofficial acts.” Depending on how courts define this category, Trump (and certainly his family) could be prosecuted for corrupt business dealings that are deemed “private.” Second, immunity doesn’t apply if it can be demonstrated that criminal prosecution poses no “dangers of intrusion on the authority and functions of the Executive Branch.” That’s another tough one to parse, and it will probably fall to future courts to define. But if something is demonstrably corrupt, then it should by definition fall outside the legitimate authority and functions of the Executive Branch.

Trump has already used his broad powers to pardon the January 6 rioters and other malefactors, including 22 corrupt politicians. Trump cronies must look at this record and feel pretty safe from future prosecution.

But presidential pardons also have their limits. Such pardons can’t violate the Constitution or criminal law—though Trump has challenged these strictures—and they don’t cover future crimes. More to the point, Trump’s pardons only apply to federal prosecution. Individuals can still be tried in various states (and overseas if their misconduct took place in other countries).

The impact of Trump’s misconduct is directly related to this question of immunity. If the president and his coterie “get away with it,” then the corruption they initiated will be much harder to root out of political institutions. Unprosecuted acts can harden into precedents. Throwing Trump and company into prison would be satisfying. Ditto clawing back their ill-gotten gains. From the point of view of democracy, however, even a plea bargain in which the malefactors stay out of jail and pay a nominal penalty in exchange for pleading guilty would be a victory.

It’s best to think of Trump as an aberration, however much his behavior can be traced to past scandals, the authoritarian tendencies of previous presidents, and the oft-corrupt workings of American capitalism. Democracy, like any fiction, requires the willing suspension of disbelief. Trump’s truly an unbelievable character. Once he’s gone, it will be time to pretend that the monster has been vanquished and the rule of law restored. Only in this way will America escape its semiquincentennial with its clothing muddied but its presumably good intentions intact.

The post Trump Enrichment Syndrome appeared first on Institute for Policy Studies.

The proposed $87.6 billion supplemental would hand $67 billion directly to the Pentagon, including $21 billion to restock munitions like those the U.S. military used to kill 170 teachers and children at an Iranian elementary school in February. It also includes $2 billion for the Coast Guard to support the Department of War’s violence in Iran and in the Western Hemisphere, where the U.S. military continues to conduct illegal strikes on unarmed vessels. These funds could also be used to support the militarization of the Southern Border as part of Trump’s deeply unpopular and inhumane mass detention and deportation campaign.

The massive human and financial costs of Trump’s wars are already hurting working people at home and globally, and will continue to climb for years to come. Trump has already boosted the Pentagon’s budget over $1 trillion – more than they can even manage to spend this year – while cutting food aid and critical health services to millions of families. Now the President and his MAGA allies want to shift even more taxpayer dollars away from working families to fund their wars during the worst affordability crisis in recent history.

The $88 billion Trump is requesting for endless war to profit weapons contractors and his cabal of corporate cronies should be helping people instead. This harmful and unnecessary war supplemental could pay for all of the following in FY 2027:

• Restore ACA healthcare subsidies to save millions of families from devastating insurance premium increases and loss of healthcare ($35 billion); AND
• Adequately fund veterans’ medical care ($18.81 billion); AND
• Restore SNAP benefits that were cut under HR 1 ($18.6 billion); AND
• Double the EPA’s budget to protect clean air and water and clean up toxic Superfund sites ($8.8 billion); AND
• Provide free school lunch to all participating children ($6.38 billion).

Our tax dollars should be supporting families at home, not bombing them abroad. We are proud to stand with more than 250 groups across the country urging members of Congress to vote against any additional funding for President Trump’s unconstitutional and immoral wars. Contact your elected officials and let them know they should: 1) Oppose this $88 billion supplemental request and 2) vote NO on any more money for war and weapons.

The post Another $88 Billion for the Iran War? Fund Human Needs, Instead. appeared first on Institute for Policy Studies.

Nevada-based Kappes, Cassiday & Associates lost their international arbitration suit against Guatemala in December, 2025. The company was seeking damages because Guatemala’s courts had halted extraction at their gold mine there.

The Guatemalan government built its legal strategy in the case based on the legitimacy of the struggle of Peaceful Resistance La Puya, a social movement of Indigenous land and water defenders. Peaceful Resistance La Puya has maintained a 24-hour camp by the side of a road at the entrance to the mine for fourteen years.

The government’s case also relied on the wealth of information La Puya had gathered. La Puya provided information on the company’s failures to uphold Guatemalan environmental regulations, its shoddy environmental studies, incomplete permits, and the overwhelming social opposition to the project from the start. 

…

Read the full article on Earthworks.

The post “We Have to Do Whatever We Can” appeared first on Institute for Policy Studies.

For fourteen years, the social movement Peaceful Resistance La Puya has maintained a 24-hour camp on the side of a dusty road just north of Guatemala City. The camp sits at the entrance to an open pit gold mine owned by Nevada-based Kappes, Cassiday & Associates (KCA).

A lot can happen in that time. Kids who grew up at the encampment left home and went to college. Elders who spent their days supporting La Puya passed away, their commitment memorialized in photos displayed on a banner.

This winter, what started as a handful of brave women risking their lives to physically block the entrance to the project in March 2012 contributed to a critical step in defense of land and water.

…

Read the full article on Earthworks.

The post A Mining Company Loses Its Bet appeared first on Institute for Policy Studies.

As Heidi Altman and Ben D’Avanzo write, the new ICE funding law should be called the ICE First, Families Last Act because it prioritizes Trump’s mass deportation agenda and neglects a primary concern of families in the United States: the cost of living crisis. Not only does this law avoid addressing what people need to get by, such as rent, groceries, electric bills, and medical bills, this law places ICE and Border Patrol further above the law. With this money, ICE and Border Patrol have been given the green light to continue to lock people up in inhumane detention centers and to send them to countries against their will, often without due process.

The combination of these funding laws is a staggering $240 BILLION for the systematic separation of families and disruption of communities through 2029. This sum is greater than the GDP of 161 countries. If masked mass deportation agents were a country, they would be the 57th wealthiest country in the world. Trump’s mass deportation agenda was implemented only a year ago, but it has quickly become flush with funds. The $240 billion combined total equates to eight typical years of funding for ICE and Border Patrol authorized in a single year.

Both bills have become law through the fast-track process of reconciliation, which only requires a simple majority (51 votes) to pass the Senate, as opposed to the normal 60 votes. Both funding laws ensure that ICE and Border Patrol have a money pot to fall on through September 2029 and were passed without accountability measures, allowing these agencies to continue to recklessly harm countless families. 

The ICE First, Families Last Act ($70 billion) includes:

• $38.5 billion for ICE to hire more agents and continue to detain and deport families;
• $26 billion to CBP to hire more agents and scale up surveillance and enforcement at entry points; and
• $5 billion to the Department of Homeland Security to support mass deportations and detention.

The $240 billion windfall from these two pieces of legislation don’t come from just anywhere. They are paid for by deep cuts to Medicaid and SNAP – two essential and popular programs that respectively provide healthcare and food aid to millions of working families. The impact of the Big Ugly Bill is seismic, estimated to strip away health insurance from an estimated 16 million people by 2034. Some of the worst effects are already being felt – at least 4 million people have lost access to SNAP aid since the Big Ugly Bill was enacted in July 2025.

At the National Priorities Project at the Institute for Policy Studies, we found that $240 billion to fuel the deadly mass deportation machine could do all of this, instead:

• Fully restore Medicaid cuts from the Big Ugly Bill ($91 billion),
• Fully restore SNAP cuts from the Big Ugly Bill ($18.6 billion),
• Provide medical care for more than 1 million veterans through 2029 ($71.6 billion),
• Power over 10 million households with solar energy through 2029 ($17 billion),
• Establish universal preschool for kids across the U.S. ($35 billion), and
• Make school lunches free for all 30 million children served ($6.38 billion).

And the not-so cherry on top? In addition to the $240 billion boost for mass deportations and detention from these two funding laws, House Republicans are asking for nearly $30 billion more for fiscal year 2027.

Families need to be put first. We can’t let ICE and Border Patrol continue to harm our communities while we struggle to pay our bills and afford groceries. Congress should claw back the $240 billion for mass deportations and detention, and not consider a dollar more.

Read more in detail about the contents of the ICE First, Families Last Act:

• What’s in Congress’s New ICE Funding Law? – National Immigration Law Center
• What’s in the Secure America Act? – American Immigration Council

The post Our Federal Budget is Showing Us That Congress is Putting ICE First and Families Last. It Should Be the Other Way Around. appeared first on Institute for Policy Studies.

Under the Israeli law, passed on March 30, Palestinians found guilty of acts of deadly attacks intended to “negate the existence of the State of Israel” will be executed within 90 days of conviction (with a possible 180-day extension).Because doctors in the Israel Medical Association refuse to participate in lethal injections, the law explicitly requires death by hanging. At the end of 2025, as the legislation worked its way through the Knesset, far-right lawmakers showed their support by wearing a lapel pin in the shape of a noose — a chilling symbol to anyone familiar with America’s history of lynching.

…

Read the full article on Hammer & Hope.

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