F. Left News

First Past the Post is no longer fit for purpose, writes Livvy Gibbs

The post Elections 2026: Britain’s electorate has changed – our voting system needs to keep up appeared first on Red Pepper.

Amid the war on Iran, UK economic policy allows the super-rich to profit while the public struggle with living costs, writes Jake Woodier

The post Corporate profiteering and the war on Iran appeared first on Red Pepper.

On Thursday, President Donald Trump nominated U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Jay Clayton to be Director of National Intelligence. Last year, former Attorney General Pam Bondi assigned Clayton to carry out Trump’s directive to investigate Jeffrey Epstein’s ties to Democrats—an investigation that legal experts have warned could be a pretext to withhold some of the Epstein files. After the recent elections in California, Clayton also recently encouraged conspiracy theories about voter fraud saying “the American people are right to question it.”

After Trump’s announcement, Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) said he has “great respect” for Clayton and Rep. Jim Himes (D-NH) said Clayton’s record “will make him a terrific DNI.” Both Warner and Himes have worked with Republican leadership to hand Trump warrantless surveillance powers through Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

The following is a statement from Demand Progress Executive Director Sean Vitka:

“No Democrat should find solace in the fact that Trump has once again named a partisan hatchet man to be the nation’s top spy. Just as Trump asked Bill Pulte to investigate Letitia James and Adam Schiff, he also has asked Jay Clayton to investigate Democrats’ ties to Jeffrey Epstein. The fact that Sen. Warner and Rep. Himes would gush so effusively over Clayton shows their clear desire to sabotage a deal on FISA privacy reforms and hand President Trump the unfettered surveillance powers that he is asking for. Both Pulte and Clayton have already shown that they will carry out Trump’s directive to weaponize the government against his political enemies. Putting either of them at ODNI at a time when Trump is asking for warrantless surveillance powers through FISA is too big of a risk.”

A robust set of resources on the need for privacy reforms for FISA are available here and here, and additional background, context, polling, reform demands, resources and other information is available here. A video on Pulte from Jessica Craven can be found here and a sample of the ways FISA has been used to wrongfully target protesters, journalists, politicians and others is available here. An explainer on why FISA won’t actually “go dark” on June 12 can be found here.

Today, Public Citizen released a new report analyzing the lobbying and political spending of 88 corporations that paid zero in corporate income taxes in 2025. The corporations in question were identified in a recent report by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), which found that at least 88 corporations paid no federal corporate income taxes last year, despite raking in millions — if not billions —in profits.

The American tax code already enshrines massive giveaways to wealthy corporations, thanks to decades of Republican efforts on their behalf. This report finds that those same corporate tax dodgers then poured millions into lobbying and political campaigns that yielded further tax breaks, which in turn bankrolled even more political influence. The result is a self-reinforcing loop where corporate cash buys policy, and policy pays cash back.

“The largest and richest corporations in the country are paying zero in federal income tax and that is a slap in the face to the American taxpayers who are struggling to afford necessities like groceries and health care,” said Eileen O’Grady, a researcher with Public Citizen and author of the report. “Meanwhile, these companies are spending money that could have gone to the public good on lobbying for even more special advantages and tax breaks. In this backwards, cash-fueled system, the deck is being stacked ever higher in favor of corporations, and against working people.”

Key findings from the report include:

• The 88 corporations that paid no federal corporate income tax in 2025 spent nearly $852 million on political spending over the last three election cycles. This total includes $712 million in lobbying and $140 million in campaign contributions.
  
• Comparing the taxes the corporations saved against the cost of their political spending, they collectively made a 3,000% return on investment.
  
• Coinbase Global spent the most of any company ($89 million) followed by CVS Health ($66 million), Honeywell International ($56 million), American Electric Power ($47 million), and Duke Energy ($35 million).
  
• On average each year, these companies together have sent 1,119 lobbyists to influence the federal government, including on tax issues and legislation that changed the tax code in favor of corporate giveaways.
  
• Since the beginning of 2025, these companies have collectively laid off at least 21,200 workers and announced plans to lay off thousands more.

The Trump administration has awarded nearly $103 million in federal contracts and grants for the nation’s 250th anniversary celebrations to a network of politicized entities under the control of Trump administration officials and political allies, according to a new report released today by Public Citizen and the Revolving Door Project.

Of the $126 million in grants awarded to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, over 80% of the awards have gone to build out a politicized series of events, at the public’s expense, according to the report. Among the recipients of the federal grants are entities controlled or influenced by Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, Trump’s former campaign manager Chris LaCivita, and Meredith O’Rourke, Trump’s former presidential campaign finance director.

Trump has spent the first years of his second administration turning the 250th celebrations into a celebration of his supporters and of himself — as evidenced by this weekend’s White House lawn cage match fight on Trump’s birthday.

After an unsuccessful attempt to take over the bipartisan, Congressionally-authorized America 250 nonprofit, the Trump administration bypassed the entity, creating a new, opaque organization known as Freedom 250.

Freedom 250 displaced America 250 as the Trump Administration’s preferred partner in the 250th anniversary celebrations, a preference made clear by actions like linking to Freedom 250 at the bottom of the White House’s landing page.

Freedom 250 is also gaining financial support from a host of large corporations. Among the donors to Freedom 250, corporations that face major federal regulatory issues, including ExxonMobil, Oracle, Lockheed Martin, Palantir, and United Airlines have contributed undisclosed sums with no oversight.

Freedom 250, for its part, has been directly allocated at least $79 million in federal funds, with one $10 million grant dispensed to the National Park Foundation to support a “Freedom Trucks” mobile museum exhibit created in partnership with conservative PragerU and Hillsdale College, a Christian university in Michigan. Another $5 million grant was originally obligated to the organization in December to support “A250 Events,” but increased to $68.3 million in obligated funds in March of 2026.

“This Trumpified version of the 250th anniversary is mostly about lionizing Trump and catering to his political base,” said Alan Zibel, research director with Public Citizen. “The 250th anniversary of the country should be a moment to reflect on the values of the nation. Apparently, the Trump administration is replacing those values with grift, self-dealing, and enriching friends with taxpayer dollars.”

“Donald Trump has spent his life obsessively scarring everything in his path with his likeness, his name, and his gaudy, dictatorial taste in faux gilding,” said Toni Aguilar Rosenthal, program director with the Revolving Door Project. “Ultimately, the rings of ethical impropriety cascading from Trump’s Freedom 250 contracting scandals are just another manifestation of elite impunity. The Trump administration has once again found an avenue to tilt the scales in favor of corporate interests even as millions struggle to believe in the dream of America 250 years after the signing of the Declaration.”

Tribal and conservation groups today sued the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to stop a land trade that would hand 715 acres of the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge in south Texas to SpaceX. In exchange for these lands, SpaceX is giving 683 acres to the Service.

Under the law, any exchanges of wildlife refuge lands must result in net conservation benefits to both the individual refuge where land will be exchanged and the wildlife refuge system as a whole. The wildlife habitat that SpaceX has sought to take ownership of has been degraded by SpaceX’s expanding operations and failed rocket launches. In its decision last week, the Fish and Wildlife Service chose to give those lands to SpaceX in exchange for fewer acres of private lands, the majority of which will be added to a separate wildlife refuge.

This land deal resulting in the loss of more than 700 acres of a national wildlife refuge is one of the largest exchanges of land in the refuge system’s history outside the state of Alaska.

“Our protected public lands are being gifted for the benefit of the world’s richest man, who could trash them while playing with his exploding rockets,” said Laiken Jordahl, national public lands advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity. “The Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge was built by decades of conservation work and funded by millions of taxpayer dollars to protect our vulnerable wildlife like ocelots and piping plovers. We’re not letting Trump and his political cronies lock the American people out of Texas’ cherished public lands just to give Elon Musk another payday.”

Today’s lawsuit alleges that the Fish and Wildlife Service violated the National Wildlife Refuge System Improvement Act of 1997 by taking action that will permanently reduce and degrade the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge. In approving the transfer, the Service also violated the National Historic Preservation Act by giving away hundreds of acres of a National Historic Landmark. The transfer approval also violated the National Environmental Policy Act.

Congress created this wildlife refuge in 1979 to protect its diverse wildlife, including rare species like ocelots, aplomado falcons, and migratory birds such as piping plovers, red knots, green jays and Altamira orioles. The refuge protects some of the best remaining habitat in the United States for the endangered ocelot.

In 2014 SpaceX chose the nearby Boca Chica area as the location of a rocket launch site and a test site, and it has rapidly expanded its operations and activities in the area. This included numerous rocket launches, some of which have resulted in catastrophic explosions that have propelled debris for miles onto refuge lands, including concrete and metal.

“Elon Musk has built his explosive SpaceX facility in the middle of a major wildlife corridor home to endangered and threatened species like ocelots and wetlands. There was never supposed to be space rockets blowing up here,” said Bekah Hinojosa, a Brownsville native, and co-founder of the South Texas Environmental Justice Network. “Our community opposes these latest hostile land grabs by SpaceX of our wildlife habitat and Boca Chica beach. This habitat land is meant to be preserved for future generations, not for billionaires to find later and destroy.”

In the years following SpaceX’s arrival, it has vastly expanded its operations around the wildlife refuge, increasing manufacturing facilities and adding a second launch pad. In 2025 the Federal Aviation Administration authorized SpaceX to conduct 25 Starship launches per year — a fivefold increase from the previous limit. Launch failures have triggered explosions and wildfires on refuge lands and scattered chunks of concrete and metal more than 6 miles from the launch pad.

Post-explosion surveys have revealed environmental damage to nearby lands on the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge. A 2024 study found that after one launch every single monitored shorebird nest near the launch site suffered egg damage or loss. Instead of taking any enforcement actions or working with SpaceX to reduce or eliminate its harm to the refuge, the Service accepted the damage to the lands and now points to the supposed lowered conservation value as justification for the land exchange.

The refuge lands being transferred to SpaceX also include significant portions of the Palmito Ranch Battlefield National Historic Landmark, which is the site of the final battle of the Civil War. Even though the site is listed in the National Register of Historic Places and protected as a historic landmark, these historic lands would be privatized and SpaceX could choose not to preserve their historic values or limit public access to the battlefield.

“The refuge is a national public treasure with immense ecological and cultural value. The tract being swapped to SpaceX, whose arrival here has been an unmitigated disaster, will permanently sever the very heart of the wildlife corridor established by Congress in 1979,” said Mary Angela Branch, board member at Save RGV. “This corridor, running along the Rio Grande River, is prime wildlife habitat, and nothing gained in this ‘swap’ will be equal. This will be a huge loss. The federal government should protect our public land for future generations, not turn them into hellscapes for soon-to-be trillionaire corporate interests.”

The proposed land exchange was first made public in March 2026, but records obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show internal agency planning began as early as April 2025. In those discussions with the regional director of the Fish and Wildlife Service, the Service developed “the most expedited schedule possible” for completing a transfer and recommended hiring additional staff to meet what they described as an “optimum timeframe.” This request came when Musk was leading his Department of Government Efficiency and publicly threatened to fire federal workers who failed to justify their jobs to him.

“SpaceX has been a nightmare of a neighbor to the Lower Rio Grande Valley wildlife refuge for years, callously harming wildlife that call these special places home,” said Jordahl. “It’s shameful and insulting that this sweetheart deal has been rammed through just to placate another billionaire in Trump’s orbit. We’ll fight this outrageous sell-out of our public lands with everything we’ve got.”

“This refuge is sacred to me and to the Carrizo/Comecrudo People,” said Juan Mancias, member of the Carrizo/Comecrudo Nation of Texas. “Our ancestors have lived with this land, these waters, and these migration pathways since time immemorial. We are not separate from this place — we are of this continent, and our connection to it cannot be bought, exchanged, or erased. The transfer of these sacred lands to SpaceX continues a long history of colonial dispossession and tribal erasure. We have survived centuries of colonial genocide, and we will continue to resist every attempt to erase our existence, our culture, and our responsibilities to the land. We are still here, and we will continue this fight for as many years and generations as it takes.”

The plaintiffs in the lawsuit are the Center for Biological Diversity, Save RGV, The Carrizo/Comecrudo Nation of Texas, Inc, and South Texas Environmental Justice Network.

Plaintiffs are represented by Center for Biological Diversity attorneys Marc Fink, Brandon Jones-Cobb and Ivan Ditmars.

On Wednesday, Demand Progress launched AI Money Watch, a new website that tracks campaign spending from Leading the Future, an AI Super PAC bankrolled by co-founders from OpenAI and Andreessen Horowitz. AI Money Watch launches as President Donald Trump, his Big Tech allies and congressional leaders are once again trying to push legislation that would ban states and localities from enforcing laws that regulate AI.

• Visit AI Money Watch

Leading the Future is poised to spend tens of millions of dollars on elections to kill regulatory safeguards for AI. They are doing this by spending money to support anti-AI safeguard candidates and attacking pro-AI safeguard candidates. AI Money Watch uses public FEC filings to show how much Leading the Future is spending on elections across the nation and lets Americans spread the word on X and Instagram. The website also flags which candidates have been endorsed by Leading the Future.

“AI Money Watch cuts through the dark money blizzard and shows you how some of the biggest names in AI are trying to buy politicians who will kill AI safeguards and attack anyone who dares to fight back,” said Demand Progress Action AI Policy Advisor Colin McGlynn. “AI chatbots have been accused of flirting with children, discouraging people in distress from seeking help and even offering instructions on how to plan a mass shooting—and billionaire AI CEOs are doling out millions to kill any safeguards that would stop this. With AI Money Watch, Americans can see which candidates the biggest AI Super PAC is buying, who they are trying to stop and how much they are spending.”

The following is a statement from Nancy Altman, President of Social Security Works, on the 2026 Social Security Trustees Report:

“This is the first Social Security trustees report that begins to take Donald Trump’s second term policies into account: A tax bill that largely benefited the wealthy, economy-wrecking tariffs, a needless war with Iran, and hostility to immigrants. All of these have reduced the amount of money going into Social Security, weakening the system’s finances.

Despite Trump’s damaging policies, Social Security remains fully affordable if the wealthy are required to contribute their fair share. Congress has only two options to address the projected shortfall: Bring more money into Social Security, or cut benefits. Any politician who refuses to raise revenue, including by making the wealthy pay their fair share into Social Security, is telling us that they support benefit cuts.

The American people, including Republicans, are overwhelming in their opposition to even a penny of benefit cuts. Support for means-testing and other benefit cuts (even if paired with revenue increases) is a betrayal of the American people.

Social Security’s future is on the ballot. Any of the U.S. Senators elected this November could become the deciding vote. Accordingly, all of them should tell the public how they would vote.

This is particularly important for Republican candidates, given that Speaker Mike Johnson just announced plans to ‘adjust and fix’ Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid next year. That’s DC-insider speak for ‘cut benefits.’ Outrageously, Johnson claims this is necessary to reduce the federal deficit — even though Social Security is an earned benefit that doesn’t add a single penny to the deficit!

As the Trustees Report plainly states, if there is insufficient revenue, Social Security benefits will be automatically cut. Johnson’s ‘solution’ is to cut them sooner (and likely by a larger amount) instead of making his billionaire donors pay their fair share. Sen. Ted Cruz and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent are more specific than Johnson, saying that the Republican plan for Social Security is privatization, handing Social Security over to Wall Street. Do Republican House and Senate candidates agree with Johnson, Cruz, and Bessent?

Ultimately, the Social Security shortfall is cause for action but not for undue alarm. Congress has acted to avert such shortfalls before and will again. When members of Congress act, they should listen to their voters who overwhelmingly value Social Security, not their ultra-wealthy donors who want to steal their voters’ hard-earned benefits out from under them.”

The following statement was issued by Richard Fiesta, Executive Director of the Alliance, regarding the Trustees’ reports on the Social Security and Medicare Trust Funds released today.

The report states that the Social Security Trust Fund is able to pay full benefits and expenses until 2032, while the Medicare Trust Fund is projected to remain solvent until 2033. If Congress does not make any changes, the Social Security Trust Fund will only be able to pay 78% of scheduled benefits to all current and future beneficiaries.

“The new Social Security Trustees Report serves as a warning. Congress must act to increase revenue into the Social Security system. This will prevent current and future beneficiaries from losing roughly $500 a month in Social Security benefits they have earned over a lifetime of work in just six years.

“The wrong response is to continue down President Trump and congressional Republicans’ path: passing tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans that undermine Social Security's finances, and implementing tariffs and policies that harm our economy and put Americans out of work, while laying the groundwork to gut the program through benefit cuts, a higher retirement age, and privatization.

“The right solution is simple, has broad support from the majority of Americans, and would fix Social Security's finances for the next 75 years. Today the wealthiest Americans benefit from a loophole that lets them stop paying Social Security tax after the first $184,500 they earn while the rest of us pay on every dollar we make.

“This loophole is indefensible. Millionaires and billionaires should pay into Social Security at the same rate as everyone else. Closing this loophole would mean a strong, solvent Social Security for the next 75 years.”

“A bankrupt Social Security system is not inevitable, and Americans should reject these scare tactics. However, any politician who refuses to make the wealthy pay their fair share is actively supporting cuts to earned benefits.”

“We also urge Congress and the Administration to strengthen Medicare’s finances by allowing Medicare to negotiate lower prices for more prescription drugs, holding Medicare Advantage insurance corporations accountable, and cracking down on practices that increase corporate profits without improving patient care.”

Radical alternatives to capitalism are being practiced across the world as everyday realities, writes Grace Wright-Arora

The post Real existing degrowth appeared first on Red Pepper.

Bad Men Behaving Badly Chap. 746: 'Cause it's not awful enough we have to endure the racist crap spewing from our home-grown jackasses, the rest of the world bore grim witness to it as dunk-tank Christofascist Pete Hegseth chose a D-Day remembrance to flip the script on World War 2, trash European allies for not being fascist enough, and liken (good-guy) Allies landing at Normandy to an "invasion" of brown people "with "dangerous ideologies." Fact: "This is repulsive and confused, unless you're a Nazi."

Speaking of: Last week, under cover of darkness, "shameful" Senate Republicans pushed through a "Secure America Act" (sic) gifting yet more billions to keep out more of the swarthy hordes Pete's so scared of. Without making any of the reforms Dems had demanded, they added to last year's obscene $191 billion gift to DHS another $75 billion for ICE and $65 billion for CBP, 4 to 7 times their previous budgets, with most allocated to expand detentions, deportations, facilities, goons - not, as it could, to fund free childcare for over a million kids, groceries for over 10 million households, a year of SNAP benefits to 31 million people, health care tax credits for a year etc etc ad nauseum. Their wise leader, meanwhile, was throwing tantrums on TV - "Dude is losing his shit" - because a reporter dared ask for evidence of his flood of unhinged claims.

And greasy, self-proclaimed Secretary of War (Crimes) Pete lurches along on his unholy quest to turn America into a white nationalist theocracy. A blood-lusting warmonger though (because?) he never saw combat, he acts the macho, racist buffoon at every turn. He posts klutzy videos of himself working out; in one, he prances in a t-shirt that reads, "This Is War." (No, this is reality TV). Sporting Crusader tattoos - Deus Vult, but whose God wills it? - he stripped 180 faiths from those the military recognizes - all the Christian ones remain - "a religious purge dressed up as paperwork (telling) thousands of service members their beliefs don't matter to the government they're risking their lives to protect." He cut dozens of female and Black Navy officers from leadership-approved promotions, dissing "historic so-called firsts” that make the military "less lethal."

And to mark this weekend's 82nd anniversary of the June 6, 1944 D-Day landing of Allied forces on the beaches of Normandy - perhaps the most pivotal moment in a long bloody fight to defend democracy against fascism - he gave a pro-fascism speech, embracing a Great Replacement theory that calls for a return to the racial ideology on which fascism is based. Speaking at the American Cemetery in north-west France where about 9,400 are buried, he'd barely recalled the courage of Allied Forces from multiple countries wading ashore in history's largest amphibious operation to liberate Europe before pivoting to warn "their legacy requires our active vigilance." European leaders may have grown too "comfortable," he said with the chutzpah of the deeply ignorant, and they may have somehow "forgotten that freedom is not free."

"Sadly, today, different European beaches are stormed by different, dangerous ideologies," he intoned. "On beaches in Spain, Italy, Greece and Bulgaria, boats and men arrive....When will European capitals do something about that invasion? Is it too late? I pray not, and I believe not." What a pompous asshole. So: On D-Day, Ugly Americans hawking xenophobia. Equating brown-skinned migrants who want to feed and keep safe their families with "dangerous ideologies." Also: Equating anti-fascism with "dangerous ideologies"? Wait, weren't the Allies the good guys? And wait, so the Nazis were...? Americans were horrified by so much repulsive and confused: "Sewage," "straight-up white nationalism," "a cheap suit full of hate and racism - what an evil shit," "Crystal Meth Rumsfeld strikes again," "We get it, dude. Just come out and say you hate black and brown people."

Especially in Europe, critics did not hold back, and we are here for it. English historian Simon Schama decried Hegseth's "special kind of loathsomeness, a blend of historical deafness, grotesque stupidity and comically ludicrous self-importance...As if the little people’s rage against immigration somehow is superior to the war against the 3rd Reich, and entitles this comic-book nobody to lecture the actual heroes." Others blasted "something profoundly ugly happening" in our right wing..."and on D-Day, D-Day!" and "an obscene desecration" of the memories of those who fell. Like many, French P.M. Sébastien Lecornu rightly paid tribute instead to the "3,000 men, barely 20 years old," who died, offering "the breath of their youth and the sacrifice of their lives."

Europeans also called bullshit on the faux drama and utter hypocrisy of Hegseth's angry claim that, after a united D-Day era when "each nation bled," Europe is not "standing with" a U.S. now run by a lying, racist, narcissistic, war-mongering toddler who does nothing but abuse them. "America will lead and we must, but capable allies must be Right. There. With Us...In the Breach. When It Matters," he bloviated. "The men who fought and died here restored freedom to Europe,. Now freedom must be maintained by this generation of leaders and war-fighters...We stand by our allies, and we expect our allies to stand beside us." "So much nonsense," retorted Swedish economist Anders Åslund. "'We stand by our allies!’ No you don’t. You just attacked them. Immigration policies are internal matters...Doesn’t Hegseth know the most unreliable ‘ally’ by far is the US?”

And now, in the name of their mythical, bigoted, white, male, Christian Republic, the US - Hegseth, Trump, Vance et al - have the audacity to be hectoring their European “allies” to “up their white supremacy game” to stop an “invasion” of what Trump has called the brown and black “vermin” who once flocked to our “shining city on a hill,” now a beacon of hate. Hamlet's ghost: “O, what a falling-off was there.” Last weekend, in France, Hegseth didn’t even stay for the international ceremony at the cemetery where so many are buried - per Trump, all those suckers and losers. Pete likely didn’t know the denizens of a nearby village had weeks earlier asked that his visit be cancelled. "It seems to us," they said in their request, "that this man does not share our democratic values." We feel your pain.

Today, more than 325 organizations including labor unions, advocates for seniors and people with disabilities, women’s rights organizations, and more, released an open letter to those seeking to reform the health care system, laying out why now is the time for Medicare for All.

The letter is led by Public Citizen, National Nurses United, People’s Action Institute, Social Security Works, Physicians for a National Health Program, Labor Campaign for Single Payer, and Healthcare-NOW. Other signatories include Indivisible, MoveOn, and several prominent labor unions, including UAW, APWU, IFPTE, AFA-CWA, UE, Actors Equity, and more.

Medicare for All is overwhelmingly popular and commands majority support nationwide, with 63 percent of all voters in favor, including 90 percent of Democratic voters. In Congress, more than half of the House Democratic Caucus now supports Medicare for All, and Senate legislation has added three co-sponsors since the last Congress.

Some D.C. insiders are urging members of Congress and health care advocates to think small and prioritize incremental health care tweaks. This letter is a clear warning that half-measures will not meet the scale of the health care crisis. As health care costs soar, affordability is top of mind for American families, and it's a particularly important kitchen table issue ahead of the 2026 midterms. The American people need, and demand, Medicare for All.

The letter reads, in part:

“We may face a once-in-a-generation opportunity to legislate on health care in 2029. We need to rally behind the boldest possible reform, Medicare for All, that brings together the broadest possible movement. Now is not the time for overly complex incremental measures that prop up the same systems we’re seeing fail under the weight of attacks by Trump and Republicans. The American people are hungry for bold ideas that will transform fundamental institutions that have failed them for too long. And they are looking for leaders who will take on powerful interests and fight for working people.

Now is the time to organize and inspire! Support for Medicare for All grows daily in our communities and in Congress. It’s our best path forward, and it’s rooted in real promise: everybody in, nobody out. A small minority of skeptical health care policy wonks may try to convince us to scale back, that structural change isn’t winnable.

The reality is that alternate proposals don’t move us towards Medicare for All, complicate our already broken system, and allow corporations to continue profiting off the sick.”

Check out the full list of organizations here.

"The massive momentum for Medicare for All should serve as a wakeup call to all who profit from our broken health care system and those who do their bidding," said Public Citizen Health Care Policy Advocate Eagan Kemp. "Everyday Americans are tired of watching the pigs at the health care trough gorge themselves day after day while hundreds of millions of people in the wealthiest country in the world suffer from inadequate access to care, delays and denials, and crushing medical debt. Medicare for All would end the ability of corporations to put greed ahead of people's needs and would finally guarantee than everyone in the U.S. can get the care they require. The movement for Medicare for All is growing by leaps and bounds because the people are demanding change. It is time those in power meet the moment and fight for the health care system we need and that the people are demanding, Medicare for All."

Exciting news, patriots! After cancelling his OG concert, Dear Leader will now celebrate our 250th birthday with "the Greatest Rally, EVER!" featuring the "fabulous" 83-year-old Lee Greenwood and “a fine and highly dignified gentleman," himself. Also, for some reason, "prune-face" Bruce Springsteen and a gazillion A-list performers are holding two concerts to honor America's "songs that shaped us." Reviews call it "a rare gift" in music history, but they're all losers and lunatics.

Taking time off from nodding off (again) in a meeting, Trump as predicted has finally cancelled his much-hyped “Freedom 250 concert of has-beens and never-weres after almost all nine acts bailed; poor Vanilla Ice, reportedly the only, desperate act still ready to go on. The concerts were set to kick off his equally-fab-sounding Great American State Fair, a "once in a generation...State Fair like no other" - "Dive into the fun and feel the energy" - hosting carnival rides, "hands-on partner activations" from each state, and daily workshops with titles like Land & Prosperity, Family Life and Community Support, Everyday Health and Well Being with MAHA Monday, and Faith, Values, and Inspiration.

Trump was his usual chivalrous self in defeat after the concert went down in tacky flames. "We don't want singers with no talent, but big fees to put you to sleep," he wrote. "We’ve told them all to stay home." Instead, he giddily announced “a Rally to end all Rallies!" in "magnificent Washington D.C, now totally beautified." Because, "All we want is you, me, a few speakers, and the Greatest Music ever played, the same Music you have listened to for years!" it will feature die-hard Lee Greenwood (again), with "one of the Greatest Hits of All Time," his 1984 God Bless the U.S.A, after which he will introduce "a fine and highly dignified gentleman known as President DONALD J. TRUMP!”

There's more: The "amazing" opera singer Christopher Macchio, who has just 571 listeners on Spotify, will join in. "Not since the legendary Luciano Pavarotti has there been such a voice!” bragged Trump, though Pavarotti’s family has protested his use of the opera great's songs by arguing, "The values of brotherhood and solidarity which Luciano Pavarotti expressed throughout (his) artistic career are entirely incompatible with the worldview offered by Trump.” Also, the U.S. Army Band, Armed Forces Choir and "The President’s Own United States Marine Band" will perform “all your favorite Hits." Observers say the gig "sounds lame as fuck," but MAGA fans who go to every rally "like Deadheads with less weed and more racism" will probs love it.

Amidst other glad fails - even UFC fighters have trashed him with Star Wars rants of "Darth Vader gonna get took (sic) down" - many deem a more apt celebration of America's birthday the June 4 and 5 concerts in New Jersey by Springsteen and many fellow musicians. The guest list is so vast and illustrious - among them, Bon Jovi, Jackson Browne, Rosanne Cash, Kenny Chesney, Tom Morello, Gary Clark Jr., Dion, Dropkick Murphys, Shemekia Copeland, Keb’ Mo’, Nils Lofgren, Valerie June, Darlene Love, Public Enemy, David Sancious, Tony Trischka, Sister Sadie, Mavis Staples, Trombone Shorty, Steve Van Zandt, Jimmie Vaughan, the New Breed Brass Band - it's assumed Bruce called in favors: "They were beckoned, and graciously agreed."

Springsteen and the E Street Band just wrapped their Land of Hope and Dreams Tour - "No Kings" plastered below - in Philadelphia. Celebrating "hope over fear," it featured his most fiery political songs: Born in the USA, Death To My Hometown, No Surrender, Darkness On the Edge of Town, Streets of Minneapolis, Dylan's Chimes of Freedom. The two new concerts, titled Music America: The Songs that Shaped Us, are likewise unabashedly rabble-rousing. Held in Springsteen's Jersey backyard at Monmouth University, they will also launch the new Bruce Springsteen Center for American Music, which aims to preserve the Boss' legacy and offer "a journey through American music history" with ongoing exhibitions, archives and workshops.

This week's concerts, says Robert Santelli, "reflect everything the Center stands for" - the power of "a rich and diverse treasury of American music (to) bring people together (and) the inspiration to think about our shared history in divisive times." Casting a wide and joyful net, artists perform landmark songs from American music - blues, bluegrass, Native, rock, hip-hop, folk, jazz, country, gospel. Tickets are reasonably priced for an intimate venue, and brief narration before each performance offers context to the artist, song, and genre. Thursday night reviews praised "a magical, once-in-a-lifetime moment in music history" and a nod to "how powerful music is in telling our nation’s story." Both concerts sold out.

Bruce and the Dropkick Murphys' rousing rendition of American Land, based on a 19th-century poem by an immigrant steelworker, which asks and celebrates those "who will make his home in the American Land." In brief, all of us.

The McNicholases, the Posalskis, the Smiths, Zerillis, too
The Blacks, the Irish, Italians, the Germans and the Jews
They come across the water a thousand miles from home
With nothing in their bellies but the fire down below.

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In the second of our Breaking the Sword dispatches from the West Bank, Farah, Calico and Noah report on the Israeli practice of establishing Shepherding Outposts as an instrument for grabbing Palestinian land

The post Zionist pogroms and shepherding outposts in the West Bank appeared first on Red Pepper.

After Bill Pulte’s appointment, Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) has conspicuously failed to join the chorus of Democrats and Republicans calling for reforms to FISA that would protect privacy and democracy itself. Pulte’s history of weaponizing the government against President Donald Trump’s political enemies was jarring enough to move previous opponents of FISA privacy protections, like Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), to explicitly call for “reforms to ensure Americans’ privacy and rights are protected.” On the other hand, Warner, who is negotiating with Republicans and the Trump administration to renew FISA, has only commented on how bad Pulte is and notably stopped short of saying anything about FISA reform. This is particularly telling considering Warner’s history of promising future reforms to get FISA renewed and failing to deliver.

The following is a statement from Demand Progress Executive Director Sean Vitka:

“Sen. Warner’s opposition to Bill Pulte masks the fact that he is still the Democrats’ chief advocate for handing over unchecked spying powers to the Trump administration. Pulte obviously must go, but he’s also proof that this administration is eager and willing to use the Office of the Director of National Intelligence as a weapon. If Trump pulls Pulte, he can easily appoint another eager goon to fill the slot. By focusing on Pulte and not broader reforms, Sen. Warner is not standing up for Americans or the Constitution, he is disguising his work to engineer warrantless mass surveillance against us. We know this because he’s been doing it publicly for months. An unprecedented, bipartisan movement is demanding privacy reforms but Sen. Warner’s machinations threaten to derail this progress and hand Trump the surveillance powers he needs to threaten Americans and democracy itself for the rest of his administration.”

A robust set of resources on the need for privacy reforms for FISA are available here and here, and additional background, context, polling, reform demands, resources and other information is available here. A video on Pulte from Jessica Craven can be found here and a sample of the ways FISA has been used to wrongfully target protesters, journalists, politicians and others is available here.

Responding to a new warning from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) that El Niño conditions are strengthening and likely to drive more extreme weather in the coming months.

Anne Jellema, Executive Director of 350.org, said:

El Niño is a naturally occurring climate pattern , but its impacts are now being intensified by human-driven climate change caused by burning fossil fuels. As global temperatures rise, El Niño events are becoming more dangerous, amplifying heatwaves, floods, droughts and wildfires, and putting lives and livelihoods at greater risk around the world.

El Niño is not new , but the conditions we are experiencing today are. Fossil fuel pollution is loading the dice, turning a natural climate cycle into a far more dangerous force. Now is the time to prepare. But preparedness alone is not enough. We must urgently tackle the root cause by phasing out fossil fuels and holding polluters accountable.

A permanent windfall tax on fossil fuel companies could help countries protect lives and livelihoods as climate impacts intensify. This is also a moment for global cooperation , because no country can face this crisis alone.”

350.org is calling for urgent global action to rapidly phase out fossil fuels, scale up support for climate adaptation, and ensure those most responsible for the crisis contribute to the solutions.

The online industry feeding off the anger of young men hides a deeper structure of digital capitalism, writes Alison Phipps

The post The political economy of the manosphere appeared first on Red Pepper.

Amidst the ongoing awful, we take wary solace in the modest routs newly inflicted on our wannabe Great Dictator. He lost yugely in multiple courts as judges reopened his bogus IRS suit, froze his slush fund, ripped his name from a D.C. landmark and, in Kenya, told him to take care of his own. Meanwhile, his trashy shitshow of a 250th celebration has devolved into "red-meat-for-the-rubes" blood sport and a dud of a concert after most of the low-rent performers bailed because, "Nobody wants the stink."

The buffoon who would be king keeps trying and flailing to rise to the authoritarian task in a spiraling presidency in free fall. Seeking to regain control of the narrative, he continues lashing out in increasingly deranged ways: After months of courts blocking his efforts to get state voter lists to steal elections, his Postal Service has proposed a Hail Mary move of only sending mail-in ballots to voters registered with the feds; he's proposed sweeping changes that would allow his toadies to kill NIH and other grants vaguely not "aligned with" his "priorities"; fighting for the dubious right to go after enemies like sacking James Comey's daughter from a New York U.S. Attorney’s Office, he's argued he has the power to fire anyone, even for pure political malice, which the latest court to shut him down called "a novel and breathtaking theory" about presidential power.

To deflect from the stubbornly enduring issue of pedo bestie Epstein, he's reflexively pivoted to his once-winning scapegoat of immigrants with maybe the most racist and "lamest shit ever": A website declaiming, "THEY WALK AMONG US" of "millions of illegals who have arrived under the cover of darkness and embedded themselves directly into our society." Complete with "alien arrest map” and more AI slopaganda - a UFO lifts a man over a wall as YMCA plays WTF - the text hisses that, for years, "Aliens (have) shopped in the same stores, attended the same classes (and) and lived seemingly normal human existences. With one exception — They do not belong here," all until when one "bold" bigot had "the courage (to) call out the real danger Aliens pose" to every American family and community. Alas, notes Dem. Gov. Ned Lamont, "We are still looking for intelligent life in the White House.”

Other horrors go on. Agriculture Sec. Brooke Rollins - net worth $15 million - boasted thanks to $186 billion in long-term cuts they’ve “lifted” 4 million hungry people off SNAP benefits so they can now achieve “the American Dream”; though cuts were in the name of “fraud,” she admitted they “don’t have actual data” (in reality zilch) got people “kick(ed) down the elevator shaft.” "Testifying" before the House, Pam Bondi threw her deputy under Epstein's bus, refused to answer questions and argued it was "not appropriate" to acknowledge survivors standing behind her. Bald mini-Nazi Stephen Miller sneered Texas' James Talarico (cis, straight, meat-eating) was the Dems' "first transgender Senate candidate." When Dems retorted, "Shut up you ugly fuck,” Miller's wife blasted "violent rhetoric." Chill Talarico: "I'm an 8th generation Texan - I've been eating BBQ since before Ken Paxton's first indictment."

Sadist Greg Bovino crawled out of his fetid cave to tell Nazis at a “Remigration Summit” in Portugal he is now “in battle” against MAGA cowards who have “lost their will” to deport brown people: “Mullin’s a great plumber...But a hundred million illegal aliens is not a leaky faucet.” Vietnam has had to exhume bodies from ancestral gravesites to make room for a shitty new Trump golf course and hotel supposedly at another site; one 72-year-old is “outraged” the U.S. paid him just $2,660 compensation for the grievous removal of his son and parents. Always classy, Trump also just posted more AI garbage, literally: He throws Colbert into a dumpster and portrays Obama’s presidential library as a giant trash can. And displaying their usual lofty priorities, Minnesota Republicans at their state convention held a moment of silence to honor...George Floyd's killer Derek Chauvin.

In glad contrast, many judges are holding the line against the darkness and stupidity. The law, and the justice it can bring, inevitably moves more slowly and quietly than the atrocities we're daily bombarded with. But it is moving, and last week several judges took the ball and damn near ran with it toward MLK's blessed arc of justice. In perhaps the least substantive but most killingly symbolic move, Judge Christopher Cooper of the U.S. District Court in D.C. ruled the boy-king can't just slap his name on the Kennedy Center when his fragile ego needs a boost. Rejecting a final, desperate board "argument" the removal of the world's most despised name would render the Center "financially nonviable" (add many LOLs here), Cooper found "no competent evidence" and ruled the Center's statute "makes crystal clear" no name can be added to it without Congress' approval.

In his decision, a response to a lawsuit brought by much-abused Dem ex-officio Board member Rep. Joyce Beatty after Trump brazenly hijacked the Board and chairmanship in 2025 - prompting pretty much any sensible performers to abandon it - Cooper ruled the foul Trump stain must come off everything - building facade, website, materials - within two weeks. An unexpected cherry on top: Cooper also found the Board was "derelict in discharging (its) responsibilities to the Center” when it voted to close it for two years of Trump's suddenly announced "renovations," and no they can't exclude Dem members, like Beatty from decisions, because democracy. Kennedy niece Maria Shriver offered a "Translation: "Due to the name change...no one wants to perform there any longer, so it's best to close it and build a new one so everybody will stop talking about that."

Ever gracious, the world's worst loser responded with a fuming, whining, 700-word tantrum. "There has never been a (boy-king) treated so unfairly by the Courts as I,” he wailed. "Unless I am free to do what I do better than anyone else, and bring this failing Institution" - rust, rot, rats oh my! - back," he has "no interest" and will transfer said empty shell back to Congress. He also attacked both "Trump-Hating Barack Hussein Obama Judge Cooper" and his wife, a former Dem federal prosecutor, who "probably told him to do so!" Cooper "has a total Conflict of Interest," he raved, "and should be brought up on charges for not revealing these facts." God, still a prince among men. Former Rep. Joe Kennedy III: JFK "would remind us it is not buildings that define the greatness of a nation. It is the actions of its people and its leaders...and our commitment to the rights of all.”

Now judges are also coming down hard on his "felon-to-felon" slush fund. A federal judge in Virginia just froze its scuzzy $1.8 billion until a June hearing; Judge Leonie M. Brinkema barred any action “pursuant to (its) creation or operation" because "taxpayer dollars should not reward blind, and sometimes violent, loyalty to a single politician." Her ruling came as Democracy Forward filed another legal challenge charging "blatant abuse of power." Too bad, so sad: Now MAGA cronies, including dozens of convicted Jan. 6 thugs since charged or convicted for serious new crimes - child sex abuse, rape, burglary, home invasion, death threats against officials, fatal DUI crashes - may have to wait for their payouts. Even then, state Dem lawmakers - New York and New Jersey Assembly members, Gavin Newsom et al - plan to slap 100% taxes on them, with the House and Senate to wisely follow suit.

Digging even deeper in the Southern District of Florida, Judge Kathleen Williams just re-opened Trump's bullshit $10 billion lawsuit against himself - his DOJ vs IRS - after three dozen bipartisan retired judges filed a motion against his "fraud on the Court." Friday, Williams ordered Trump to respond to charges his suit, from which he laundered his billion-dollar-plus payout and lifetime audit immunity, was "premised on deception" to "avoid judicial scrutiny of a lawsuit collusive from the start." Even Kenyan courts are rejecting his outrageous schemes. After gutting international aid and facing an Ebola outbreak in DRC that's killed hundreds, Trump moved to simply bar immigrants or Americans who might have it and send them to...Kenya? As they scrambled to replicate in days care the US built over decades, the day the clinic was set to open a Kenyan court blocked a plan that, like all his others, "raises grave constitutional concerns."

Other woes, born of his boundless incompetence, beset him: At a DOJ rapidly spiraling down, the lead prosecutor for the absurd James Comey Seditious Seashell case just withdrew; experts agree it'll never make it to court. His grifty, flaking, no-bid paint job on Lincoln's Reflecting Pool - from sober grey to tacky motel pool blue - has soared from $1.8 to $13.1 million skimmed from National Park entrance fees and is getting trashed. Five countries from his Board of Peace (sic), which promised 20,000 troops to help "ease Gaza’s transition to a peaceful Jared Kushner theme park," has delivered no troops, no money, nada. His beloved gazillion-dollar ballroom remains a rubble-strewn hole in the ground amidst "a busted-ass trash palace" after another judge ruled "no statute comes close" to giving him the authority to build it. And Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin rocket exploded on its Florida launchpad; NYT Pitchbot warns of new layoffs at The Washington Post.

Finally, whaaa, nobody wants to come to his birthday party and "testament to his vision to celebrate America’s monumental 250th anniversary" with the lamest, trashiest, most corrupt and barbarous show on earth, even though after heedlessly turning the White House environs into a hoarders' trailer park he then plastered the city with banners proclaiming, "We are making D.C. safe and beautiful" Maybe the whole, crude debacle, "our latest national concussion," stems from the fact - just hear us out - a Malignant-Narcissist-In-Chief has made America's anniversary "about one hideous thing - himself." Starting with the grotesque call to mark the date by "watching men beat each other senseless in a cage on the same grounds where Lincoln walked." It's gladiatorial bread and circus - food and fun to dispel questions about empire - but "he's keeping the circus and taking away the bread."

His UFC match, with day-trading on the side, will feature combatants pummeling each other often to bloody pulp in a "sport" so violent John McCain called it “human cockfighting"; many states banned it at its inception, though its almost non-existent rules now prohibit gouging out opponents' eyes. It's an unsettling but unsurprising choice from a long "violence-curious" (except in Vietnam) bully who weirdly wears more makeup and hairspray than your average drag queen while urging supporters to beat up protesters, joking about extrajudicial killings, and injecting inane bing-bong noises into descriptions of missile strikes. Decades ago, he tried to create a mixed-martial-arts brand with a brutal fighter named Fedor the Russian: "His thing is inflicting death on people." It became Affliction Entertainment - really - but crashed after two fights, because everything he touches, even that, dies.

As a ghastly arena rises on the White House lawn, Trump is clearly hyped by the approaching blood-fest: "I have never seen anybody want anything so much as people want those tickets.” So is his wife-slapping accomplice and $3-million donor UFC CEO Dana White, who admits, "It’s really big for the brand." About 4,000 supporters will watch in person, with Trump as usual likely close enough ringside to be splattered by blood and sweat. Another 85,000 can watch on giant screens from the Ellipse, home to the Jan. 6 "rally." The Pentagon is reportedly recruiting hundreds of troops to attend in uniform, but no fatties please; they must meet height and weight requirements to "look good on camera." They also have to pay for their own travel. In another classy move, sharp-eyed observers note that renderings of the event show an American flag with just 48 stars.

At last count the other big event, a Freedom 250 concert kicking off a 16-day "Great American State Fair," will feature just two stars - or more accurately two bargain-bin, has-been-or-never-were performers, the only survivors of nine originally announced of which seven quickly dropped out. (Oof. Was it something/everything he said?) They were Young MC, Flo Rida, Bret Michaels, Morris Day & The Time, The Commodores, Vanilla Ice, "real” Milli Vanilli Fab Morvan, Martina McBride and Freedom Williams of C+C Music Factory. Full Disclosure: We haven't heard of any of them. Michaels evidently won Celebrity Apprentice in 2010, McBride's a four-time CMA Award winner who's sold 23 million albums and performed for multiple presidents, Morvan's the surviving member of a pretty pair of guys brought low by a lip-syncing scandal. Honestly, we dunno who the others are.

Within 48 hours of them being announced, most had cancelled. They cited “misleading information,” “divisive” or partisan politics, miscommunication; a couple said they’d never been contacted in the first place. Reportedly remaining are Flo Rida, Fab Morvan and possibly Freedom Williams, or, per Dean Blundell, "one nostalgia rapper, one lip-syncer with intellectual-property issues, and a guy ranting from a toilet" - that would be Williams, who filmed a seven-minute rant about "niggers," "motherfuckers," and how he doesn't give a fuck about Trump or the rest of us but after the Internet told him to bail he thought he'd fuck them all and play. Despite a broad consensus that watching the entire show as planned would be akin to "staring into a septic tank for hours," MAGA was pissed at the drop-outs, especially McBride, the headliner, railing she'd even performed for "the Obama regime."

Trump was gracious about the changes. Just kidding. In "prime wallow," he railed against "these highly paid, Third Rate ‘Artists'...getting the yips," and said he's thinking instead about "bringing the Number One Attraction anywhere in the World, the man who gets much larger audiences than Elvis in his prime, and he does so without a guitar...the man who some say is the Greatest President in History" to give a speech at a "wild MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN RALLY" with "Only Great Patriots invited." While even supporters griped another speech instead of a concert would be "lame and boring," nobody knows what latest chaos will befall the event. What many of us do know is that all the detritus of this shameful historic moment - the names, arches, gimcracks, breaches, endless cruelties of a tyrant's resolve to "impose himself on the world" must go. With a nod to Walter White, we look to Ozymandias, a poem "to outlast empires," for hope and guidance.

Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

The right to strike is under attack throughout the world, including in the United States. Labor strikes are currently forbidden or restricted in the majority of countries.

Now, in a landmark 43-page advisory opinion issued May 21, the International Court of Justice (ICJ, or World Court) has determined that the right to strike is protected under the International Labour Organization’s (ILO) Convention No. 87 on Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise.

“At a moment when workers’ organizations face sustained attacks around the world, this opinion reaffirms that the freedom to withhold one’s labor is not a privilege granted by the powerful, but a fundamental human right grounded in international law,” AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler said in a statement.

The ILO is the United Nations agency that sets global labor standards. It has 187 member states and has adopted 191 conventions since its founding in 1919. The ILO considers Convention No. 87 to be one of its 11 fundamental conventions.

In 2023, the ILO asked the ICJ to settle an internal dispute about whether Convention No. 87 gives workers the right to strike, which is not specifically addressed in the convention. Although advisory opinions of the ICJ are not legally binding, many courts accept them as authoritative legal decisions.

The ICJ ruled in its 10-4 opinion that a strike “is one of the main activities engaged in and tools used by workers and their organizations to promote their interests and improve conditions of labour, thereby ensuring the effective exercise of the freedom of association protected under Convention No. 87.”

The Court found “that protection of the right to strike is encompassed in the protection of the freedom of association provided for in Convention No. 87.”

In reaching that conclusion, the Court considered provisions in two 1996 Covenants that contain relevant rules of international law regarding the right to strike. Both refer to Convention No. 87.

Article 8, paragraph 1 (d) of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) expressly protects the right to strike, if it is exercised in conformity with domestic laws.

Article 22, paragraph 1 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) provides for the right to freedom of association. The ICJ noted that for more than 25 years, the Human Rights Committee — which monitors the implementation of the ICCPR — has considered the right to strike to be encompassed in the protection of freedom of association.

Due to the high degree of overlap between the states parties to the ICESCR and ICCPR, and Convention No. 87, the ICJ determined there was a common understanding among them on the right to strike. The Court thus concluded “that an interpretation taking into account the relevant rules of international law contained in the ICESCR and the ICCPR indicates that the protection of the right to strike is encompassed in the protection of the freedom of association provided by Convention No. 87.”

No Right to Organize Without the Right to Strike

“For generations, working people have understood a simple truth: The freedom to join a union means nothing if you cannot withhold your labor when bosses refuse to listen. Now, the world’s highest court has affirmed that truth,” said Jeffrey Vogt, director of the International Lawyers Assisting Workers (ILAW) Network, which issued the call for the ILO referral of this case to the ICJ.

The ICJ decision “affirms decades of judicial precedent and what workers around the world know: there is no right to organize and bargain collectively without the right to strike,” Shuler said in her statement. “When workers are barred from taking collective action on the job, they cannot defend their rights and demand the workplace conditions and contracts they are owed. The freedom to join a union becomes an empty formality.”

“This is an important day for the International Labor Organization [ILO], and for its continued relevance in the world of work. However, the significance of this opinion extends well beyond the institutional context in Geneva,” the ILAW Network wrote in a statement.

The ICJ advisory opinion came “at a moment of acute pressure on the international labour rights system,” ILAW stated. “Across the world, the right to strike is under sustained attack — through restrictive legislation, expansive judicial interpretation of essential services, the criminalisation of trade union activity, and the use of dismissals, injunctions, and damages claims to deter collective action.”

Legal restrictions on the right to strike are increasing. In 2022, strikes were outlawed or stringently restricted in 129 of the 148 countries tallied by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), one of the six organizations with consultative status at the ILO Governing Body.

The ITUC, which represents 191 million workers in 169 countries and territories, is dedicated to trade union democracy and independence. It has regional organizations in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The ICJ decision “is important not only for workers and trade unions, but also for governments and responsible businesses,” ITUC stressed.

This decision “will serve as a powerful interpretive tool before national constitutional and labour courts, before regional human rights bodies, and before the ILO’s own supervisory bodies,” ILAW noted. “It strengthens the hand of every worker and union challenging strike bans, broad essential-services designations, criminal sanctions against strikers, prohibitions on solidarity and political strikes, and the dismissal and blacklisting of workers who exercise this right.”

Ruling Will Affect Tens of Millions of Workers

In October, 18 countries and five international organizations, including the ILO, presented oral testimony before the ICJ, and other nations filed written contributions. The majority of participants supported the right to strike, which is guaranteed in most European countries.

Harold Koh, who represented the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) before the ICJ, told the judges that the case would “affect the real rights of tens of millions of working people around the world.” If the Court ruled that the Convention didn’t protect the right to strike, Koh warned, “National employer groups would contest the right to strike country by country, focusing first on nations with compliant courts, weak civil societies and ineffective media.”

Jeffrey Vogt worked with the legal team of the ITUC on the briefs and oral arguments presented to the ICJ. Vogt’s co-authored book, The Right to Strike in International Law, provided a legal roadmap for the case.

Vogt told Truthout that “the written view of the US (under the Biden administration) was to support the right to strike, albeit on narrower grounds than what we had argued. When the Trump administration came in, they withdrew the Biden era brief but fortunately did not appear for oral arguments and take a contrary view.”

“The decision deals with the right to strike in the abstract — does the convention protect it — but does not go into the modalities,” Vogt added. The Court wrote that its “conclusion that the right to strike is protected by Convention No. 87 does not entail any determination on the precise content, scope, or conditions for the exercise of that right.”

“That was a conscious decision,” Vogt noted. “We did not want the court to attempt to define the scope, especially since we believe that is the proper role of the ILO supervisory system.” Vogt said that “the ICJ gave ‘great weight’ to the views of the supervisory system, which is helpful.” And although “the ILO has supported secondary strikes,” in which workers strike in solidarity with other workers at a different employer, the ICJ decision didn’t opine on that specific issue.

The Right to Strike in the US

“The right to withhold one’s labor, inherent in the right to strike, belongs to all workers, but it has been restricted,” Jeanne Mirer, a labor lawyer in private practice working with the International Commission for Labor Rights, told Truthout. “Many unions have agreed never to strike while a collective bargaining agreement is in effect.”

Most private sector workers in the US have the right to strike under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). Employees, including international and undocumented workers, cannot be fired or disciplined for participating in a lawful strike.

“Those exempted from the NLRA, such as agricultural and domestic workers, are not restricted in the right to strike but have no protections against discharge if they strike and do not have the power to prevent such retaliation,” Mirer added.

Some states have their own laws granting protection to domestic workers and 14 states guarantee farmworkers collective bargaining rights.

Railroad and airline workers are not covered by the NLRA, but they come under the Railway Labor Act, which has several limitations on the right to strike.

In recent years, Congress and the courts have narrowed the definition of “protected concerted activity” under the NLRA. Union membership is dropping. Nevertheless, strike actions in the US increased by almost 50 percent in 2022, according to the Economic Policy Institute.

In 2023, the US Supreme Court weakened the legal protections for striking in Glacier Northwest, Inc. v. International Brotherhood of Teamsters, making it easier for employers to sue unions in state courts. Only Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, writing, “The right to strike is fundamental to American labor law.” She noted:

Workers are not indentured servants, bound to continue laboring until any planned work stoppage would be as painless as possible for their masters. They are employees whose collective and peaceful decision to withhold their labor is protected by the [National Labor Relations Act] even if economic injury results.

The NLRA’s protections for private sector workers don’t extend to public sector employees. “Public employees in the United States have been restricted in many ways from striking,” Mirer said.

Federal workers are legally prohibited from striking. Thirty-six states prohibit public sector workers from striking. Three other states that haven’t addressed the issue would likely outlaw public sector strikes as well. In the 12 states where strikes are not per se unlawful, various preconditions must be met before workers can engage in strikes.

The World Federation of Trade Unions, which played a decisive role in the creation of Convention No. 87 in 1948, applauded the ICJ’s decision:

[I]t is clear that the existence of a class-oriented and militant trade union movement is the essential, decisive, and irreplaceable factor to ensure that the right to strike, as well as conventions, collective bargaining, labor laws, and workers’ achievements, are not merely empty words on paper but are implemented in practice. The WFTU reiterates its call for struggle in every country, sector, and workplace to safeguard the sacred right to strike in practice.

“It is up to workers and their organizations to build on the ICJ decision to ensure the right to strike can be an effective tool to build worker power,” Mirer said.

This article was originally published at Truthout

Robin Mann reports on how support for both Plaid Cymru and Reform is transforming the Welsh political landscape

The post Elections 2026: The political shifts reshaping Wales appeared first on Red Pepper.