U.S. Democratic Socialists

While Other Cities Flood, Mamdani Is Rebuilding

US Democratic Socialists — Mon, 31 Aug 2026 17:09:17 GMT

Good afternoon, and welcome to U.S. Democratic Socialists.

Trump is threatening to send the FCC after a journalist who accurately described his endorsement record as “mixed.” The Postal Service is failing to deliver mail ballots on time across the country, just weeks before the midterms. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is replacing concrete medians in Queens with green infrastructure designed to absorb stormwater. And Starbucks workers are calling on every customer to boycott the company until it signs a union contract.

We are the biggest democratic socialist organization on social media in America and the 5th fastest-growing news Substack in the country, reaching tens of millions of people every single week. Big Tech throttles our reach and demonetizes our posts because we refuse to soften what we say. We’ve built all of this without a single billionaire donor or corporate sponsor telling us what we can and can’t report. Every dollar comes from readers like you, which means every dollar you give goes straight into keeping this independent. The algorithm is built to bury us. A paid subscription is the only thing that beats it. Upgrade yours today.

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Trump Threatens NBC’s Kristen Welker With FCC Punishment Over Midterm Coverage

Trump posted on Truth Social on Sunday that Meet the Press host Kristen Welker would be reported to the Federal Communications Commission for “rebuke or punishment” because she noted that candidates he’s endorsed have had “mixed results.”

He called her assessment a “purposeful inaccuracy” and a “Threat to our Country,” despite the fact that six candidates he endorsed lost their primary elections in August alone. In a second post, he attacked what he called “FAKE POLLS USED BY OUR CROOKED MEDIA” and wrote “FCC TO THE RESCUE.”

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr previously issued a threat to broadcasters over their coverage of the Iran war in March after Trump complained on social media. In April, Carr initiated an unusual challenge to ABC’s local station licenses the day after Trump called for Jimmy Kimmel’s firing. He also has an open investigation into NBC’s parent company, Comcast, over what Trump has called “invidious forms of DEI discrimination.”

Anna Gomez, the lone Democrat on the commission, responded that the FCC has no authority to punish journalists the administration does not like. The FCC’s complaint form does not currently include a box for “a journalist used a word I didn’t like,” but give it time.

Mail Ballots Are Being Rejected Because USPS Can’t Deliver Them on Time

Roughly a dozen states have seen a rise in mail ballots being rejected for arriving late, according to the New York Times, a trend that has appeared in both this year’s primaries and last year’s general elections. Election officials are now warning that the U.S. Postal Service may not be equipped to handle ballot delivery at all for the fall midterms.

The Postal Service has been consolidating mail operations into fewer regional processing centers to cut costs. As a result, mail now travels an average of 139 miles to reach a processing facility, and in some cases as far as 500 miles.

California officials said changes in how the Postal Service processes mail contributed to the rejection of more than 148,000 ballots following the state’s June primary. About 63 percent of those ballots were late even with a seven-day grace period. Hundreds of ballots were late in Wisconsin after an election in April.

The Postal Service said it remains committed to its role in the electoral process, and it has not changed its longstanding advice for voters to mail their ballots at least a week before their state’s deadline. Meanwhile, top officials in Kansas and Michigan are urging early voters to deliver their ballots in person rather than trust the mail.

Mamdani to Turn Concrete Medians Into Eco-Friendly Flood Barriers

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Governor Kathy Hochul announced an $8.4 million investment this week in flood prevention infrastructure across three Queens neighborhoods. The money will fund the transformation of concrete roadway medians in Whitestone, Forest Hills, and Queens Village into green spaces designed to absorb stormwater.

The spaces are projected to collect approximately five million gallons of stormwater per year. The projects will ease stress on the city’s sewer system and improve water quality of local waterways.

The investment is partially backed by $5 million in New York State grants through the Green Innovation Grant Program and Water Quality Improvement Project. The remaining money is from the city’s capital budget.

Flash flooding has become increasingly common in New York City, and Queens has been among the hardest hit boroughs. Projects like this one are central to Mamdani’s broader push to rebuild the city’s infrastructure around climate resilience.

Starbucks Workers United Calls for a Nationwide Boycott

Starbucks Workers United announced a nationwide boycott of the company on August 25, calling on customers and organizations to stop spending money at Starbucks until it finalizes a first contract with its 12,000 unionized baristas.

“At a time when working-class people across the country are struggling in a challenging economy, it is no longer possible to be both a Starbucks customer and in support of workers,” the union said in a statement.

Starbucks workers have been trying to secure a union contract for nearly five years. Since the first union election win in New York in late 2021, more than 700 of the company’s roughly 11,000 North American locations have unionized. Not a single one has reached an agreement.

More than 550 unfair labor practice charges are currently pending against the company. Judges have already ruled in dozens of separate cases that Starbucks violated federal labor law while resisting the organizing campaign.

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It’s time to get serious. The Third Way just spent $15 million on an effort to stop this movement from growing any further — and they’re not alone. The Republican Party and the Democratic establishment are going to throw everything they can at progressives, from corporate PAC money to smear campaigns. Outlets like ours only win if readers choose to fund them, and right now, the people trying to shut us down are spending a lot more than 22 cents a day to do so.

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The line holds. Thanks for reading, and we’ll see you tomorrow.

Justin, John, Ryan and the U.S. Democratic Socialists Team

STORIES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED:

Freedom Fuel Gas Stations Never Paid For Their Fuel, Lawsuit Claims. A federal lawsuit filed Aug. 19 in U.S. District Court in Eastern Pennsylvania claims that the Freedom Fuel network of gas stations, which was touted last month by the Trump administration for its supposed lower prices, was supplied fuel that was never paid for. Mansfield Oil Company filed the suit, saying a foreign corporation, KRSM, drew more than 1.1 million gallons of fuel from Mansfield’s account between May 21 and July 7 at a cost of nearly $4 million, but refused to pay for it. Mansfield says KRSM was able to sell fuel to Freedom Fuel at discounted rates because it never paid for the supply.

How AOC Is Upending Norms Around Motherhood and Political Candidacy. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said she hasn’t ruled out a presidential run in 2028 after a New Hampshire poll showed her leading the potential Democratic field, but said she’s focused on the midterms. During that time she also began the very public process of freezing her eggs, posting videos of herself taking hormone injections between congressional votes and campaign events. No woman seriously contemplating a run for the presidency has ever gone public with anything like this. She said she knows the political risk of sharing it, but in an environment where this administration is denying reproductive care to women across the country, leaders have a responsibility to normalize these conversations.

Ro Khanna: AOC Running for President Would Have No Bearing on My Decision. Rep. Ro Khanna told CNN on Sunday he wouldn’t judge his own presidential aspirations based on any potential Ocasio-Cortez run in 2028. Khanna spoke about a vision centered on what he called “economic patriotism,” a platform built on making the future economy work for the deindustrialized communities and the Black South. He said his Silicon Valley district contains a third of the nation’s wealth, with five companies valued at more than a trillion dollars, while the communities where he grew up in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, have been left behind. Among the most talked-about potential Democratic candidates for 2028 are Khanna and Ocasio-Cortez.

Kansas City Firefighters’ Union and City Reach Deal Ending Three-Year Labor Dispute. The International Association of Firefighters of Greater Kansas City, Local 42, announced Thursday that it has reached an agreement with the city of Kansas City to settle a three-year labor dispute just before a scheduled court compliance hearing. The dispute involved the EMS Captain positions that the union claimed the city had improperly assigned to employees outside its unit, in violation of the collective bargaining agreement. The arbitrator upheld the union’s grievance, and a court confirmed the award, but the city still refused to comply. The union filed a contempt motion, and the city’s appeal was thrown out for missing a filing deadline. Union leaders said the breakthrough came after City Manager Mario Vasquez personally reviewed the case and led negotiations to a resolution.

Even His Own Side Couldn't Save Him From What He Built

US Democratic Socialists — Sat, 29 Aug 2026 14:57:11 GMT

Five Stories the Corporate Press Buried This Morning (And Why We Won’t)

Good morning. While cable news obsessed over palace intrigue in Washington, five stories broke that tell you everything about who this administration actually works for. A man who spent years demanding ICE round up immigrants got rounded up himself. A progressive doctor is closing in on a Senate seat AIPAC spent tens of millions trying to kill. The White House is quietly finishing the job of gutting meat safety oversight. A government insider got caught profiting off information you’ll never have access to. And Trump’s trade war is now threatening the jobs of American autoworkers he claims to champion. None of this happened by accident, and none of it will get the attention it deserves unless we give it to you straight.

We can only do that because of readers like you. USDS has grown into the largest democratic socialist organization online in America, reaching tens of millions of people every single week, without taking a dime from corporate donors or billionaire backers. That independence is exactly why Big Tech throttles our reach every single day. Algorithms built by the same billionaires we report on do not want to hand us an audience for free, so we’re asking you to help us build around them. Now is the time. With 2028 on the horizon and the stakes only getting higher, becoming a paid subscriber is about 22 cents a day, less than almost anything else you’ll spend money on this morning, and it goes straight toward keeping this movement growing. Upgrade to paid right here.

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Milo Yiannopoulos, ICE’s biggest cheerleader, just got arrested by ICE

Milo Yiannopoulos spent years telling anyone who would listen that ICE should set up checkpoints at supermarkets and gas stations so agents could demand proof of legal status from anyone in line. This week, ICE arrested him. He overstayed his visa after entering the country legally in 2019, and an immigration judge issued a removal order back in July after he skipped his own hearing. He is now sitting in custody in Louisiana awaiting deportation.

There is a lesson buried in here that has nothing to do with irony. Yiannopoulos spent years building a career on cruelty toward immigrants, confident that the machinery he cheered for would never touch him. It touched him anyway. That is what a system built on selective enforcement and dehumanization actually does. It does not stay contained to the people you were told to fear. It comes for everyone eventually, because that was always the point.

Abdul El-Sayed is closing in on a Senate seat AIPAC spent a fortune trying to stop

New polling shows Abdul El-Sayed holding a narrow lead over Republican Mike Rogers in Michigan’s Senate race, with the two set to debate in Grand Rapids on October 8. El-Sayed already beat the odds once this year, winning a brutal Democratic primary against Rep. Haley Stevens despite AIPAC’s super PAC pouring roughly 30 million dollars into stopping him, the most that group has ever spent on a single congressional primary.

He did it running on Medicare for All and getting money out of politics, and he did it without backing down from calling what is happening in Gaza a genocide. If El-Sayed wins in November, he becomes the first Muslim senator in American history, and Democrats get a real shot at flipping a seat that could decide who controls the chamber. This is exactly the kind of race that shows what happens when a candidate refuses to trade his values for donor comfort. It is also exactly the kind of race Big Tech algorithms would rather you never hear about, which is one more reason we keep covering it.

The White House is finishing what it started on meat safety

We told you yesterday that the Trump administration was moving to gut oversight of the meat processing industry. New details are emerging on just how far that goes. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins is preparing to formally rescind what her department calls “outdated guidance,” a move that builds on years of quietly replacing federal inspectors with company employees on the line and stripping out safeguards like mandatory lymph node checks on pork.

This did not come from ranchers begging for relief. It came after Trump faced backlash over his own beef import policy and after a conservative radio host publicly pressured him. The people who will actually feel the consequences are the families buying groceries and the workers on the line, not the four corporations that already control 85 percent of beef processing in this country. Deregulation dressed up as populism is still just corporate capture with better marketing.

A government insider got caught profiting off information you’ll never have

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission announced this week that a man named Gabriel Perez used material, nonpublic information from his government job to place trades on a prediction market. He was ordered to pay back more than 107,000 dollars in profits plus a 65,000 dollar penalty.

Stories like this rarely make headlines because they are treated as isolated incidents rather than what they actually are, a symptom of a system that lets people with access to power quietly enrich themselves while everyone else plays by a different set of rules. The fine is real, but so is the fact that this only came to light because he got caught. How many others haven’t.

Trump’s trade war with Canada is now coming for American jobs

Just days after imposing 50 percent tariffs on a wide range of Canadian goods, Trump is now threatening new tariffs on Canadian autos and auto parts, a move economists warn could ripple straight into American assembly plants given how deeply integrated the two countries’ auto industries are. Michigan Rep. Debbie Dingell called the escalating conflict “simply outrageous” this week, and she is not exaggerating. The flow of parts across that border keeps American factory jobs running.

Trump likes to frame tariffs as a fight for American workers. In practice, this fight is on track to cost some of those same workers their jobs, because trade wars do not stay contained to the country they are aimed at. They come home.

Something has shifted, and they know it

For years, the corporate media and the establishment wings of both parties treated the left like a fringe curiosity, something to cover once and move on from. Not anymore. Abdul El-Sayed is closing in on a Senate seat. Zohran Mamdani is redefining what’s possible in the biggest city in the country. And every single time, the same playbook comes out: smear pieces, electability panic, and silence where real coverage should be.

That’s not a coincidence. It’s what losing control of the narrative looks like from the inside.

We’ve brought you exclusive interviews with Zohran Mamdani when corporate outlets wouldn’t give him a fair shake, because they’re bought and paid for by the same donors and advertisers who need the status quo protected. We don’t answer to any of them. USDS is the largest democratic socialist organization in America, reaching tens of millions of people every single week, and Big Tech throttles that reach every day precisely because we won’t play by their rules.

We are winning ground we were told we’d never win. But winning attracts attention, and attention invites censorship. The time to build the infrastructure that can survive that, and carry this movement into 2028, is not next year or after the midterms. It’s now, while the door is open. Every paid subscriber makes us harder to silence and harder to ignore.

If you haven’t yet, become a paid subscriber today. Help us keep bringing you the coverage nobody else will, and help us build what this movement needs before we need it.

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Stay strong. Stay vigilant. Never stop fighting for a more progressive, people powered future.

Justin, John, Ryan and the U.S. Democratic Socialists Team

A Billion Dollars Is Now ‘Small’ Under Trump's New Rule

US Democratic Socialists — Fri, 28 Aug 2026 16:06:26 GMT

Good afternoon, and welcome to U.S. Democratic Socialists.

The Trump administration wants billion-dollar companies to qualify as small businesses so they can compete for federal contracts. More than 1.2 million Texas voters had their registrations suspended ahead of a Senate race that could flip the chamber. Three Stars and Stripes journalists are suing the Pentagon after being fired for covering the military honestly. And Bernie Sanders is calling out Google co-founder Sergey Brin for spending $100 million to kill California’s billionaire tax.

U.S. Democratic Socialists is the largest democratic socialist organization in America, reaching tens of millions of people every week, and we built that reach without a dime of corporate or billionaire money. But it only continues if readers like you decide that it’s worth 22 cents a day, less than a stick of gum. If you’ve been on the fence about upgrading your subscription, today’s the day.

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Trump Wants Billion-Dollar Companies to Qualify as ‘Small Businesses’

Nearly 90 percent of American businesses have fewer than 20 employees, according to the Census Bureau. Trump decided those are not the businesses that need help.

The Small Business Administration proposed a rule this week that would massively expand who counts as a small business in America, allowing companies with more than 3,000 employees and up to $1 billion in revenue to apply for federal loans and grants that are supposed to go to the little guys.

Businesses handling certain investment activities could make up to $1.011 billion and still be classified as small. The current cap for the financial sector is $47 million.

The SBA says the overhaul would add roughly 114,500 companies to the small business pool. About one third of those firms already held federal contracts worth $71 billion in 2025, meaning they’re already beating actual small businesses for government work.

By law, 23 percent of federal contracting dollars are supposed to go to small businesses. If billion-dollar companies count as small, the government can hand them those contracts and claim it met the requirement.

In 2023, the Biden administration made it easier for the smallest businesses to get federal loans by letting owners borrow up to $500,000 without putting up collateral like a home or a car. When Trump took office in January 2025, his SBA reversed that policy.

Texas Suspended More Than 1.2 Million Voter Registrations Ahead of the Senate Race

More than 1.2 million Texans have had their voter registrations suspended ahead of the midterms, accounting for more than 6 percent of the state’s 18 million registered voters, and most won’t find out until they show up to vote.

A voter’s registration is put in “suspense” when official mail, such as a voter registration card or jury summons, is returned as undeliverable. That usually just means a voter moved and didn’t change their address. Voters on the suspense list can still vote once they fill out a “statement of residence” form.

The counties hit hardest are all in the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area, which has been shifting Democratic in recent years. Dallas County, which is about 26 points Democratic, has more than 129,000 suspended registrations. Tarrant County is trending blue, and has over 73,000. Collin and Denton counties, where Democrats have been closing the gap with Republicans in recent primaries, each have roughly 56,000.

The timing is particularly worrying given the tight polling in statewide races. The latest polls show Democrat James Talarico has a narrow lead over Republican Ken Paxton in the U.S. Senate race, while Democrat Gina Hinojosa is in a dead heat with Republican Governor Greg Abbott.

The registration deadline for the November election is October 5, and voters can check their status on the Secretary of State’s website.

Fired Stars and Stripes Journalists Sue the Pentagon to Get Their Jobs Back

Three journalists with Stars and Stripes filed a federal lawsuit Thursday against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, spokesman Sean Parnell, and aide Andrew Brey, alleging they were fired illegally for refusing to let the Pentagon dictate their coverage.

The insubordination charge was based entirely on interviews two of the plaintiffs gave to CBS News for a CBS Sunday Morning segment that aired in July, according to the lawsuit. One said that she works for Stars and Stripes, not for the Pentagon and not for any administration.

More than a month later, Stars and Stripes published a story detailing flagging mental health and food and water shortages aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, which has been deployed for nine months. The day after that story ran, the third plaintiff was ordered to deliver their termination notices.

He refused to deliver the notices, and announced he would retire at the end of September. The Pentagon fired him before he got the chance.

The dismissals ended a monthslong push to put the paper under Pentagon control. In January, the Pentagon reversed a federal rule that required Stars and Stripes to operate free of news management and censorship. A March memo signed by the deputy secretary of defense barred the paper from printing Associated Press stories and publishing comics. Then, in April, the Pentagon fired the publication’s ombudsman after she publicly criticized the changes.

Bernie Sanders Calls Out Google Co-Founder for Spending $100 Million to Kill Billionaire Tax

Sen. Bernie Sanders called out Google co-founder Sergey Brin this month for spending more than $100 million to defeat California’s Proposition 40, a one-time 5 percent wealth tax on the state’s 200 billionaires.

If the tax passes, he would owe $14 billion and still have a net worth of roughly $270 billion. Sanders wrote on X that Brin “is $133 billion richer since Trump’s election. But that’s apparently not enough.”

“He’d rather children lose access to healthcare than pay his fair share,” Sanders wrote.

Brin has donated a total of $102 million to Building a Better California, a political advocacy group opposing the tax. The group ran its first TV ad last week, falsely claiming the tax would be expanded in the future to all Californians and all residents would be required to disclose their assets to the state.

Any change to the proposal requires a two-thirds vote in both houses of the California legislature and must be consistent with the purpose of the original act, which is a one-time tax on billionaires. Everyone else just has to check a box that says they don’t have assets of $1 billion or more.

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The line holds. Thanks for reading, and we’ll see you tomorrow.

Justin, John, Ryan and the U.S. Democratic Socialists Team

STORIES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED:

Federal Judge Blocks Trump’s Postal Service Restrictions on Mail Voting. A federal judge on Thursday blocked the U.S. Postal Service from implementing a final rule that would have allowed it to reject mail ballots submitted by voters who are not on the federal government’s list of eligible voters. U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani issued a 14-day restraining order, saying the states could not possibly comply before the November midterms, and that the Postal Service likely lacked the authority to impose the restrictions. The ruling came days after the conservative majority of the Supreme Court lifted an earlier injunction by the same judge. Talwani will hear arguments Sept. 3 on whether to impose a longer-lasting block.

Billionaires Who Tried to Stop Zohran Mamdani Are Now Lining Up to Advise Him. On Thursday, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced a 15-member Business Advisory Council that includes the former COO of Blackstone, the former CEO of UBS Americas, and Chobani CEO Hamdi Ulukaya. During the campaign, 26 billionaires and wealthy families spent at least $100,000 apiece to support his opponent, Andrew Cuomo. The mayor, eight months into his term, has a strong approval rating and the city has 4.85 million jobs, near a record high. Even John Catsimatidis, a billionaire the New York Post calls Mamdani’s biggest hater, said the council is a step in the right direction.

New Jersey Governor Signs Two Laws Reining In Data Centers. Gov. Mikie Sherrill on Thursday signed legislation requiring data center operators to report to state energy regulators every six months on their total energy consumption, peak daily water use, water sources, and backup power supplies. She also signed a separate bill ending a $500 million tax credit program her predecessor created to lure AI companies to the state. More than three dozen New Jersey towns have already voted to block new data center construction, as residents blame the facilities’ huge power demands for rising electric rates.

Missouri Labor Unions and Abortion Rights Groups Turn Coalition Into Ballot Power. This month, a coalition of labor unions and reproductive rights groups in Missouri launched a $1 million campaign to target Republican lawmakers who voted to repeal the state’s paid sick leave requirement. The partnership of the two movements has been years in the making. It has already produced a string of statewide victories including the 2018 repeal of a right-to-work law, the 2020 expansion of Medicaid and the 2024 approval of both an abortion rights amendment and a higher minimum wage with paid sick leave. The coalition helped to defeat two GOP-backed constitutional amendments this August.

Amazon Worker's Hunger Strike Enters Its Second Month

US Democratic Socialists — Thu, 27 Aug 2026 16:19:35 GMT

Good afternoon, and welcome to U.S. Democratic Socialists.

Trump sanctioned three international organizations this week as part of his campaign to label the left a terrorist threat. Bernie Sanders has a plan to save Social Security by making the rich pay the same rate as everyone else. A North Carolina Amazon worker has been on a hunger strike for 31 days. And when a Trump administration staffer ordered TV cameras to stop filming the president at an IndyCar race, not a single network contested it.

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Trump Sanctions ‘Far-Left’ Groups as ‘Terrorist

The Trump administration sanctioned three international organizations on Wednesday, designating them as supposed “violent far-left terrorist groups” and freezing their assets under the same executive order used after September 11 to target al-Qaeda.

The Treasury Department has frozen the assets of Palestine Action, a British group that protests weapons manufacturers linked to Israel; Autistici/Inventati, an Italian tech company that provides encrypted communications; and Masar Badil, an international Palestinian solidarity organization. Any American who sends money or provides services to them is now breaking federal law.

The push is being led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and White House adviser Stephen Miller, who at a State Department summit earlier this year called the left “enemies of civilization.” The administration’s 2026 Counterterrorism Strategy lumps leftist groups together with jihadist organizations.

Government data repeatedly shows that right-wing political violence in the United States far exceeds the occasional acts of left-wing violence. The administration decided an Italian email hosting provider is the bigger threat.

Bernie Sanders Has a Plan to Save Social Security

Social Security beneficiaries are six years away from a projected 22% cut to their benefits, and Sen. Bernie Sanders says the fix is simple.

Sanders and Rep. Val Hoyle have introduced legislation to abolish the cap on payroll taxes, so that all income above $250,000, including capital gains and dividends, would be taxed for Social Security. It also would raise payments to beneficiaries by about $2,400 a year, and raise the annual cost-of-living adjustment.

The payroll tax that pays for Social Security currently applies to the first $184,500 of earnings. This means a nurse or teacher pays tax on every dollar they earn, while a hedge fund manager stops paying partway through the year.

Without the cap, the trust fund would receive more than $3.2 trillion over the next decade. In a recent letter to colleagues, Sanders wrote that this is “how we extend Social Security’s solvency for generations to come.”

The only other serious effort in Congress is being led by two retiring senators, Republican Bill Cassidy and Democrat Dick Durbin, who are pushing a bill that would establish a process for Congress to act, but does not offer a solution.

Some conservative groups have fought hard against raising the payroll tax cap, arguing that the tax increase would lead to lower wages and fewer jobs. The people making that argument are not the people living on $1,900 a month.

A Durham Worker Is 31 Days Into a Hunger Strike Against Amazon

Italo Medelius-Marsano has lost 35 pounds and is consuming nothing but water, and he says he will continue for another nine days even as doctors are telling him to stop.

The 32-year-old warehouse worker and labor organizer in Durham, North Carolina launched a hunger strike against Amazon over a policy that he and other workers say discourages employees from calling 911 in an emergency. Instead, workers are referred to an in-house medical team without doctors.

The local Amazon workers group CAUSE alleges that a worker collapsed on the warehouse floor in March and was left there for more than 30 minutes as managers refused to call 911, telling everyone who tried to help to get back to their stations. The company sent the worker home instead of to a hospital, and they died the next day.

Medelius-Marsano also cites the death of an Amazon worker in Oregon earlier this year, where multiple employees told news outlets they were told to keep working around the body. Amazon disputed that account, saying team members trained in CPR treated the worker until emergency services arrived.

Medelius-Marsano’s other two demands are for town hall meetings at Amazon warehouses where workers can discuss unionization, and for negotiations with the Amazon Labor Union. Amazon has not agreed to a single one.

Networks Were Ordered to Stop Filming Trump, and None of Them Said a Word

If you were watching the Freedom 250 Grand Prix on Sunday, you saw a guy in an IndyCar uniform walk up to a pool camera operator and tell her to stop filming the president of the United States on live television. Every major network was receiving that feed, and every single one of them let it happen without saying a word.

The order came as cameras captured an apparent heated exchange between Trump and first lady Melania Trump, who had not been seen in public for more than a month. Video appeared to show Melania walking away from her husband’s side after she noticed Natalie Harp, Trump’s 35-year-old personal assistant who has been dubbed the president’s “human binky” for her unusually close relationship with the commander in chief.

The order is most certainly illegal. The government can tell journalists where to stand, but it cannot tell them what to film. The First Amendment protects the right to record elected officials in any location where the press has been granted access.

Fox, CBS, and ABC covered the rest of the race as if the incident never occurred, with CNN correspondent Brian Todd calling the event “a real success.” The only outlets that reported on the press censorship were independent and overseas publications. Apparently you need to read a Spanish sports blog to find out what happened on American television.

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It’s time to start preparing for 2028, and we need to be prepared for the attacks corporate media and establishment politicians will dish out. No other progressive outlet is reaching the number of people we are, and no other outlet is doing it without billionaire money telling us what we can and can’t say. But as Big Tech throttles our accounts every day, the only insurance policy against getting silenced is an audience that funds us directly.

We’re the biggest democratic socialist organization on social media in this country. And because we’re the only ones who will give Zohran Mamdani a fair shake, we’re able to have conversations with him that mainstream outlets can’t. That is thanks to readers like you. None of that survives if Big Tech succeeds in throttling us into silence, and they are trying every single day. The only insurance policy we have is readers who fund us directly instead of algorithms that decide who gets seen.

Thanks to our paying subscribers. You are the reason we can get away with this without having to answer to billionaires with an agenda. If you aren’t a paid subscriber yet, please consider upgrading today. We need your help to keep reporting the truth and to build the movement that is already changing this country.

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The line holds. Thanks for reading, and we’ll see you tomorrow.

Justin, John, Ryan and the U.S. Democratic Socialists Team

STORIES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED:

AOC Officially Rejoins the Democratic Socialists of America. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has rejoined the DSA after seven years, the group confirmed Tuesday. She first became a member in 2018 after defeating Rep. Joe Crowley in a Democratic primary, but her annual membership expired the following year and was not renewed. The announcement comes as DSA members privately are urging her to run for president in 2028 and polling has her as the most popular potential Democratic candidate. DSA leadership said they released the information because they felt it was important as members consider who to endorse in upcoming elections.

Federal Judge Rules Trump Administration’s Farmworker Pay Cuts Are Illegal. A federal judge in California ruled Wednesday that the Trump administration illegally cut the wages of migrant farmworkers in the H-2A visa program by as much as $7 an hour. The administration pushed the rule through last fall without a public comment period, saying it would save farmers $24 billion over the next decade by making foreign labor cheaper. The Economic Policy Institute estimated that the lower rates could take $3 billion a year from farmworkers, including U.S. citizens whose wages get pulled down whenever guest workers are paid less.

Seattle Teachers Vote on Strike as District Faces $87 Million Budget Gap. The 6,000 members of the Seattle Education Association voted Wednesday to walk off the job and delay the start of school Sept. 2 if there is no contract agreement with Seattle Public Schools. They are calling for more special education staff, smaller class sizes and pay increases of 1% to 2% above inflation. Washington Senate Majority Leader Jamie Pedersen, who has four children in the district, said the state legislature needs to do more to fund education. Teachers last went on strike in 2022, delaying the start of school by one week.

South Carolina Restaurant Chain Fined $700,000 for Child Labor and Wage Violations. Tropical Grille is paying $618,666 in back wages to 779 employees and a $100,000 fine for violations found at 13 restaurants across the northern part of South Carolina, the Department of Labor announced this week. The chain allowed managers and supervisors to take workers’ tip pools, underestimated the overtime pay of workers who worked at more than one location and used 14-year-olds to work late hours that federal child labor laws prohibit. The violations were deemed non-willful, but the company accepted responsibility.

Billionaires Burn Money to Kill California Wealth Tax

US Democratic Socialists — Wed, 26 Aug 2026 17:21:09 GMT

Good afternoon, and welcome to U.S. Democratic Socialists.

Democratic socialist N’Kiyla Jasmine Thomas just won the Oklahoma Senate primary, adding to a wave of progressive victories across the country. Billionaires are spending millions on ads to kill a one-time tax in California. A progressive candidate for mayor in Chicago has put forth a plan to raise the minimum wage to $22 an hour. And Meta has agreed to pay up to $16.7 billion to settle claims that it designed Instagram and Facebook to addict children.

We are now the biggest democratic socialist organization on social media and the 5th fastest-growing news Substack in the US. Despite Big Tech throttling us, we reach tens of millions of people every single week. And we’ve done that all without a billionaire donor or one single corporate sponsor dictating what we are and aren’t allowed to say. The only thing between the truth and the algorithm designed to keep you from it is a paid subscription. Please upgrade yours today.

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Democratic Socialist Wins Oklahoma Senate Primary

N’Kiyla Jasmine Thomas, a 31-year-old nurse and member of the Chickasaw Nation, has won Oklahoma’s Democratic Senate primary runoff.

Thomas won against attorney and minister Jim Priest despite being heavily outspent. She will run against Republican Rep. Kevin Hern in the general election for the seat that was held by Markwayne Mullin, the new Secretary of Homeland Security.

Thomas led the June primary with 45% of the vote, but no candidate secured a majority, which forced a runoff. She has never held elected office and has built her campaign on her background as a nurse and military spouse who has spent years advocating for disability rights. She supports Medicare for All, universal childcare and parental leave, and abolishing ICE.

Democratic socialists have now won Senate nominations in three states this month, including state Rep. Angie Nixon in Florida and Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan earlier.

Oklahoma is a deep red state. Trump won it by 34 points in 2024, making Hern a strong favorite for November. Whether Thomas wins or not, she’s further proof that the progressive movement is gaining power in places the establishment never saw coming.

Billionaires Pour Millions Into Ads to Kill California Wealth Tax

A coalition of some of the world’s richest people has launched a massive ad campaign to defeat California’s Proposition 40, a one-time 5% wealth tax on billionaires.

The two biggest groups fighting the tax are Building a Better California, mostly bankrolled by Google co-founder Sergey Brin, and Californians Against Wasteful Spending and Higher Taxes. Building a Better California last week ran its first TV ad, falsely claiming the tax would be expanded in the future to all Californians and all residents would be required to disclose their assets to the state.

Proposition 40, sponsored by SEIU United Healthcare Workers West, qualified for the ballot after the union gathered 1.6 million signatures, nearly twice the number required. The tax is projected to generate an estimated $100 billion over five years from about 200 of the state’s richest residents. The money would go to health care programs like Medi-Cal, food assistance and public education.

And the billionaires who are fighting this tax are not saying they can’t afford it. They are betting that a wall of TV ads will be cheaper than their fair share.

Chicago Mayoral Candidate Giannoulias Proposes $22 Minimum Wage

The frontrunner in Chicago’s 2027 mayoral race wants to raise the city’s minimum wage to $22 an hour. Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias, who entered the race earlier this month, is proposing a gradual increase from the current $17.05, with the full raise implemented by 2032.

The increase would amount to roughly $10,000 more per year for a full-time worker. If enacted, it would give Chicago one of the highest minimum wages of any major city in the country.

The February 2027 election is expected to be one of the most crowded races in recent years. Incumbent Mayor Brandon Johnson has not yet formally announced a reelection bid but is widely expected to run, though he has just $631,000 in his campaign fund.

Giannoulias is the presumed frontrunner, having raised some $22 million mostly from business leaders and building trade unions. His broader platform includes universal pre-K, property tax reform, expanded affordable housing, and a millionaires tax.

Giannoulias’ proposal stops short of the $25 minimum wage championed by many Democrats, including Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton in her successful campaign for U.S. Senate. He said he arrived at $22 after meeting with business groups to find a number they would not actively fight.

Meta Settles for Up to $16.7 Billion Over Harm to Children

Meta has agreed to pay up to $16.7 billion and overhaul Facebook and Instagram to settle claims brought by 29 U.S. states that the company designed its platforms to addict children, misled consumers about their safety, and illegally collected personal data from minors.

Meta will now be required to impose daily usage limits, restrict nighttime usage by children, and enhance measures to prevent minors from accessing age-restricted content. The company denied wrongdoing as part of the agreement.

The settlement also resolves lawsuits by California, Illinois, New Mexico, and Washington, D.C., over privacy claims related to the Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which the consulting firm collected personal data from millions of Facebook users. Those states will receive $459 million to resolve those cases.

Meta is framing the settlement as a call to action for YouTube and TikTok to adopt similar protections for teens. The company that just today needed 29 states to sue to start protecting children now wants credit for telling everyone else to do it faster.

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Justin, John, Ryan and the U.S. Democratic Socialists Team

STORIES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED:

Data Centers Won Nearly $100 Million in Tax Breaks. Homeowners Picked Up the Tab. Eighteen data centers clustered near O’Hare International Airport have received nearly $100 million in local tax breaks in the 2025 tax year alone, wiping out almost $2 billion in taxable property value in five Chicago suburbs. An Illinois Answers Project and Chicago Tribune investigation found the average Northlake homeowner is paying an extra $2,000 a year in property taxes to fill the gap. Microsoft’s appraiser valued the Northlake Azure facility at around $250 million, while the Cook County Assessor’s office valued it at $873 million. A Good Jobs First analyst cited a study finding that tax breaks are decisive for company profitability in only about one-quarter of cases, meaning most of these deals would have happened without public subsidies.

Most Democrats in Early 2028 Primary States Oppose Military Aid to Israel. A new poll by YouGov for the IMEU Policy Project finds the majority of Democratic voters in the first six states to hold presidential primaries in 2028 oppose providing aid and weapons to Israel. Among Michigan respondents, 80% said they believe Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, climbing to 91% among voters under 45. In South Carolina, which will host the first Democratic presidential primary of the 2028 cycle, just 2% of respondents say they support military aid to Israel. All six states also supported sanctions on Israel and the enforcement of the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Mamdani Secures 1,000 Discounted U.S. Open Tickets for New Yorkers. Mayor Zohran Mamdani and the U.S. Tennis Association will sell 1,000 heavily discounted U.S. Open tickets at $100 each starting Wednesday at 10 a.m. Tickets for matches and ground passes are available for Aug. 30 through Sept. 8 and can only be purchased by New York City residents with certified zip codes. A regular U.S. Open ticket costs a couple of hundred dollars and is often sold out before most New Yorkers can get their hands on one. Too many residents are being priced out of events held in their own city and the deal is part of a broader effort to make sure the world’s best tennis players are not performing for a crowd that does not include the people who live there, Mamdani said.

Electric Utility Workers in Eastern Oregon Go on Strike Over Unfair Labor Practices. Some 40 union members covered by IBEW Local 125 walked off the job at Oregon Trail Electric Cooperative, a nonprofit utility that serves about 60,000 residents in four counties. OTEC workers say the company began requiring employees to respond to outage calls outside the terms of the existing contract, and disciplined workers who could not report, ultimately firing two longtime employees. The union wants the workers reinstated and a fair standby compensation structure. IBEW Local 125 business manager Travis Eri said the union also is concerned that OTEC’s effort to purchase Idaho Power’s Oregon distribution territory for $154 million could stretch an already understaffed operation even further.

Abdul El-Sayed Made Jesse Watters Choke on His Own Words

US Democratic Socialists — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 16:57:39 GMT

Good afternoon, and welcome to U.S. Democratic Socialists.

The Supreme Court just cleared the way for Trump to restrict mail voting weeks before the midterms. Abdul El-Sayed went on Fox News and asked Jesse Watters if he was circumcised. Canada is hitting back with retaliatory tariffs after trade talks collapsed. And union workers are fighting back as the Trump administration pays billions to kill wind energy projects.

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Supreme Court Clears the Way for Trump to Restrict Mail Voting

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that Trump can implement an executive order restricting mail-in ballots, lifting a lower court injunction that had blocked the changes and putting election officials under an impossible deadline ahead of the midterms.

The March-signed order requires states to provide names and addresses of all voters receiving a mail ballot. The Postal Service would then compile that data into what it calls “Mail-In and Absentee Participation Lists” and share them with federal law enforcement.

The Postal Service would only deliver ballots to voters in states that comply. Those that refuse to submit their voter data would have their mail ballots rejected entirely.

The court did not weigh in on the legality of the order, but instead on whether the states had standing to bring the challenge right now. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote in her dissenting opinion that the court refused to say exactly when the right time would be for states to bring the lawsuit, warning that the decision will cause chaos for the upcoming midterms.

Trump has opposed mail-in voting for years, claiming without evidence that it contributes to fraud. One in three Americans voted by mail in 2024, and Trump himself has voted by mail at least five times, most recently in Florida’s August primary.

El-Sayed Goes on Fox News and Turns the Table on Jesse Watters

Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in Michigan, appeared on Jesse Watters Primetime Monday night and used one of Fox News’s favorite gotcha questions against him.

Watters pressed El-Sayed on whether he supports gender-affirming surgery for people under 18, asking bluntly, “So you think it’s OK for a parent to slash his kid’s ding-a-ling off? You think that’s OK?” Gender-affirming care is supported by every major medical organization for minors and adults. Surgeries are incredibly rare on patients under 18, and the vast majority of operations on minors that do happen are performed on the chest, not genitals.

El-Sayed responded that the government should not be telling families what kind of health care they can receive. When Watters didn’t like that answer, El-Sayed asked, “Do you really wanna have this conversation? Are you circumcised?”

Watters was visibly thrown, replying, “Uh yeah, but I mean, that’s a personal question, Doctor,” missing El-Sayed’s entire point. He then tried to insist “Circumcision is different than castration!” Watters is right about that — but gender-affirming care is also wildly different from castration.

El-Sayed responded, “I’m just saying that yes, circumcision is surgery on a kid’s ding-a-ling,” adding that conservatives are “really selective about how you want to talk about these things.” Watters ended the exchange by saying “That is sick stuff,” ignoring that he was the one who brought it up.

El-Sayed spent much of the rest of the interview steering the conversation toward the war in Iran, rising gas prices, and his Republican opponent Mike Rogers. When Watters returned to the topic of transgender athletes, El-Sayed brushed it off, arguing the decision should rest with sports governing bodies and calling the line of questioning “insane,” adding, “I’m running for US Senate, Jesse.”

Canada Announces Retaliatory Tariffs After Trade Talks Collapse

Trade talks between the United States and Canada collapsed on Friday, and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney responded by announcing retaliatory tariffs that will take effect on September 8.

Some $20 billion worth of Canadian goods, including wine, furniture, dairy products, cement, clothing, fishing rods and hockey equipment, were subjected to 50 percent tariffs by the Trump administration. Carney said Washington’s new tariffs would be met dollar for dollar by Canada, targeting U.S. steel, dairy, electronics, agricultural equipment, and paper.

Carney framed the fight as one over sovereignty, insisting Canada would chart its own path rather than bend to Washington: “We can’t control the storm that blows in from Washington,” he said, “we can, however, chart a new course by building Canada strong and diversifying our trading relationships abroad.”

Meanwhile, Ontario Premier Doug Ford told a radio station Monday morning that Trump could “kiss my ass” after the president threatened more tariffs on Canadian auto and steel. He said he would be willing to cut off electricity and critical minerals to the United States if the trade war heats up, noting Ontario powers about 1.5 million homes and businesses in Michigan, New York and Minnesota.

Ford said that Ronald Reagan would be “throwing up” over Trump’s tariff policies, and if Trump keeps trying to dismantle Canadian manufacturing, “he better have a pack of batteries.”

Trump Spent $2.7 Billion to Kill Wind Energy Jobs, and Unions Stopped Him

Unions have spent the past decade building political power around clean energy jobs, and that investment is now paying off in their fight against the Trump administration’s assault on offshore wind.

In 2025, the Trump administration issued a series of stop-work orders against offshore wind projects under construction off the coasts of New York, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Virginia. All those orders were blocked by the courts and all the targeted projects are either back under construction or have been completed.

This year, Trump has spent $2.7 billion in taxpayer money buying out and canceling 12 offshore wind lease agreements from developers. Those expenditures created neither new energy nor new jobs nor public benefit. After Trump took office, Bloomberg projections for U.S. offshore wind capacity dropped from 39 gigawatts to just 6 gigawatts, a loss of billions of work hours for union tradespeople.

The legal and political groundwork for this resistance was years in the making. Labor coalitions in at least nine states joined with environmental groups to build worker protections into clean energy law, including wage floors and requirements that union labor be used on big projects.

Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act took the next step, tying federal tax breaks for clean energy to labor standards for the first time. Union leaders say the groundwork they laid ensures no future administration will be able to separate the environment from labor rights.

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The line holds. Thanks for reading, and we’ll see you tomorrow.

Justin, John, Ryan and the U.S. Democratic Socialists Team

STORIES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED:

Mamdani Launches “Renew Crew” to Bring Faster Repairs to New York City Parks. NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Parks Commissioner Tricia Shimamura Monday announced a new team of 24 painters, electricians, plumbers and other trade workers who will focus on making quick, visible improvements to playgrounds, recreation centers and sports courts across the city. The team will take on up to 30 projects a year, with turnaround of three weeks or less, compared with the months-long timelines New Yorkers have been used to. The project began with a repair blitz at Dry Harbor Playground in Queens, where crews are repainting basketball courts, restoring play equipment, and beautifying the landscape around the 9/11 memorial.

Boston Symphony Orchestra Musicians Unanimously Authorize First-Ever Strike. The Boston Musicians Association unanimously approved a strike after the orchestra’s contract expired Sunday night. The conflict traces back to the board’s decision to oust Grammy-winning music director Andris Nelsons after 13 seasons, citing a misalignment in their vision for the orchestra’s future. The move angered musicians and supporters, who have been wearing red flowers at Tanglewood this summer in solidarity with Nelsons. The union says management has refused to offer a fair contract or agree to bring in a professional mediator. The two sides agreed to a 48-hour contract extension through Tuesday night, buying more time to negotiate before what would be the first strike in the BSO’s 145-year history.

AI Data Centers Under Construction Could Emit as Much CO2 as 24 Million Cars. The 60 largest planned US data centers linked to Amazon, Microsoft, Google and Meta will emit a combined 101.5 million tons of CO2 per year when fully operational, a Financial Times analysis found. That is the equivalent of 27 coal-fired power plants running at full capacity, or about 7 percent of all power-sector emissions in the U.S. in 2025. Amazon’s greenhouse gas emissions rose 16 percent over the year, Alphabet’s went up 18 percent and Microsoft’s jumped 25 percent. Three-fourths of the utilities serving these projects are planning new gas plants or delaying coal plant retirements to meet demand.

Dallas Teachers Union Takes Strike Authorization Vote as Contract Expires. The Dallas Education Association has voted to authorize a strike after its contract with the Dallas School District expired at the end of June. Salaries and health care benefits remain a point of contention between the union and the school board. The strike authorization doesn’t mean teachers will walk off the job immediately, but it gives union leadership the power to call a work stoppage if talks remain stalled. The school year is set to begin soon, and the union is hoping the vote pressures the board to come back to the table with a real offer. Dallas teachers have a long history of labor disputes with the district, including multiple strikes in previous years over the same unresolved issues.

Trump Made Over 1,000 Secret Trades While You Weren't Looking

US Democratic Socialists — Mon, 24 Aug 2026 16:57:10 GMT

Good afternoon, and welcome to U.S. Democratic Socialists.

Trump made over 1,000 stock trades in a single month while sitting in the Oval Office, and refuses to reveal who’s managing his portfolio. Voters who previously abandoned the Democratic Party have been brought back in after Abdul El-Sayed’s primary win. A group of businesses backed by conservative think tanks is suing to block Mamdani’s city-owned grocery stores. And a new investigation reveals how a Palantir co-founder turned criminalizing homelessness into a business opportunity.

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Trump Made Over 1,000 Stock Trades in June

While the rest of the country was watching grocery prices climb in June, Trump was making more than 1,000 stock trades from the Oval Office, according to a financial disclosure published Saturday by the U.S. Office of Government Ethics.

The transactions were worth somewhere between $78.1 million and $263.1 million. Trump bought heavily into Berkshire Hathaway, Visa, Mastercard, and Cintas, and he bought and sold Palantir stock multiple times throughout the month. His single largest move was dumping up to $25 million in a Vanguard fund on June 22.

White House spokesman Davis Ingle said the trades are managed by independent third-party financial institutions through “computer-based model portfolios,” and that Trump has no ability to direct or influence any investment decisions. But there is no indication Trump has a true blind trust, as his wealth is held in a revocable trust under his own name, with his eldest son Donald Trump Jr. serving as the sole trustee.

Senator Elizabeth Warren and Rep. Robert Garcia have pressed Trump to identify who manages his portfolio and explain why certain trades coincide with government decisions. The lawmakers pointed to 15 trades that raise potential conflicts of interest and noted that Trump signed the disclosure himself, certifying his awareness of thousands of individual transactions.

The total number of stock trades during Trump’s time in office now exceeds 14,000, worth up to $1.06 billion. Meanwhile, Congress has yet to pass a ban on stock trading by sitting presidents.

Voters Who Left Democratic Party Return After Progressive Wave

The Democratic Party lost a lot of Michigan voters over Gaza in 2024. More than 100,000 people voted uncommitted in the presidential primary to protest Biden’s support for Israel, and thousands of them went on to vote for Jill Stein or (oddly enough) Donald Trump in the general election.

Abdul El-Sayed’s Senate primary win this month is bringing them back in.

More than 2.5 million people voted in Michigan’s primary this cycle, up significantly from the 2 million who turned out in 2024. Progressives have secured the Democratic nomination at every level of government in the state, including attorney general hopeful Eli Savit, U.S. House nominees Will Lawrence and Donavan McKinney, and Ann Arbor mayoral candidate Yousef Rabhi.

Samraa Luqman, a Yemeni American political activist in Dearborn who voted for Trump in 2024, said she is returning to the Democrats in November to back El-Sayed because he is “worried about Americans at home.” Waqas Sarwar, also in Dearborn, voted for Stein in 2024 but was excited to cast his primary ballot for El-Sayed and Rep. Rashida Tlaib.

Polling shows a majority of Democrats now oppose military aid to Israel, support Medicare for All, and support abolishing ICE. El-Sayed holds all three positions, which is a big part of the reason the establishment spent $65 million trying to stop him in the primary.

Business Coalition Sues to Block Mamdani’s Municipal Grocery Stores

The Multicultural Business Coalition filed a lawsuit on Monday to stop New York City from opening five municipal grocery stores that would sell everyday staples at prices 30% below what private retailers charge.

The coalition represents 50 chambers of commerce spanning nearly every immigrant business community in the city. Its central argument is that the stores would be built on municipal property and pay no rent, giving the city a cost advantage that no private grocer or bodega can match.

Mamdani launched the grocery store program because food prices have been rising for years, and the private market has done nothing about it. The city-run stores will not carry hot food, alcohol, cigarettes, or lottery tickets, and Mamdani has said repeatedly that the stores are not designed to compete with bodegas.

Several conservative think tanks and politicians have offered funding and legal assistance to the coalition, which is trying to raise $1 million to fight the initiative. The Greater New York Chamber of Commerce is providing its legal counsel. The people suing are not the ones skipping meals.

A Palantir Co-Founder Built a Think Tank to Criminalize Homelessness

If you’ve been wondering why so many states have started arresting people for sleeping outside, look no further than a billionaire named Joe Lonsdale.

Lonsdale co-founded the surveillance technology company Palantir and runs the Cicero Institute, a think tank that has spent years lobbying state legislatures to treat homelessness as a criminal offense instead of a housing crisis. The institute has written model legislation in at least 15 states, and eight have enacted versions of it.

The National Homelessness Law Center released a research brief about the Cicero Institute in June that details the think tank’s conflicts of interest related to its homelessness advocacy. This includes its ties to Social Purpose Corrections, an organization that advocates for a nonprofit prison model, and Lonsdale’s connections to immigration detention and surveillance.

Policies that criminalize homelessness also directly benefit Lonsdale through 8VC, his venture capital firm, which invests in Palantir, crime-tracking app Citizen, and home security company Sauron.

Austin, Texas, which Lonsdale holds up as a success story for his approach, has issued more than 900 citations for sleeping in public since it banned homeless encampments. The number of people without housing in the city continued to rise anyway, because the problem was never about enforcement.

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The line holds. Thanks for reading, and we’ll see you tomorrow.

Justin, John, Ryan and the U.S. Democratic Socialists Team

STORIES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED:

Data Center Backlash Is Now Shaking Up Midterm Races in Three Swing States. Public opposition is mounting, and politicians in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Ohio are scrambling to back away from data center development. Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro has signed an order requiring developers to pay for electricity and gain local approval. Mike Rogers, the Republican candidate for Senate in Michigan against Abdul El-Sayed, has said he supports a one-year moratorium on new data centers. Former Sen. Sherrod Brown is taking a shot at incumbent Republican Jon Husted for his record on data center tax breaks in Ohio. In an internal memo, the National Republican Senatorial Committee recently warned that data centers are “the anchor hanging around Husted’s neck.” Canvassers say they are talking to voters in Michigan and Wisconsin who are switching party affiliation on the issue.

Mamdani Announces $4 Billion Plan to Rebuild the BQE After Decades of Delay. Mamdani and the city’s Department of Transportation announced plans Monday to rehabilitate the city-owned portion of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway from Atlantic Avenue to Sands Street. The infrastructure is 20 years beyond its design life and now carries more than 130,000 vehicles per day, more than twice its design capacity. The project includes building a temporary, two-level bypass highway along Furman Street to divert traffic while repairs are made to the existing structure. Construction is expected to begin in 2030 and will take about 10 years to complete at a cost of about $4 billion.

Pentagon Admits It Keeps a Secret Blacklist of Journalists. In a statement to The Intercept, a CENTCOM official threatened to put an Intercept reporter on the list for calling the command too frequently, and confirmed the existence of the secret directory of journalists. The revelation comes amid the ongoing war in Iran, accusations of a cover-up of U.S. casualties and repeated refusals by CENTCOM to answer questions about civilian deaths. The Pentagon has already banned journalists from its press office, expelled reporters who refused to play by restrictions on their work, and fired the editor-in-chief and a Middle East reporter at Stars and Stripes for defending the newspaper’s editorial independence.

Opinion: I Was a Republican Mayor. I’d Vote for a Democratic Socialist. In the latest Opinion Forum on USA Today, readers commented on the emergence of Democratic Socialists as the 2026 midterms approach, and one response stood out from the rest. A former Republican mayor of a small upstate New York city says he’d vote for a Democratic Socialist in a minute if they proposed a real plan on health care or tax reform. DeSantis, a Vietnam combat vet who went on to become a political science and economics grad, says he balanced his city’s budget with disciplined spending, only to see the GOP become his “worst nightmare.”

Mamdani Turned an NYPD Parking Lot Into 131 Homes While ICE Terrorizes a Family for Sending an Email

US Democratic Socialists — Sat, 22 Aug 2026 14:41:31 GMT

Good morning. Today we’re covering Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s latest move to turn an underused NYPD parking lot into 131 units of affordable housing, DHS launching new deportation flights after TPS protections lapsed, a disturbing First Amendment lawsuit against ICE agents who targeted a US citizen’s family, and the Trump administration’s sanctioning of the International Criminal Court’s president.

Before we get into it: U.S. Democratic Socialists has grown into the largest democratic socialist organization on social media in America, reaching tens of millions of people every single week, and we built every bit of that reach without a dime from corporate PACs or billionaire donors. That independence is exactly why Facebook demonetized our page and why Big Tech keeps trying to throttle our reach. We refuse to let it work. If you want independent, unapologetic coverage of the movement to keep growing, becoming a paid subscriber for less than 27 cents a day is the single most direct way to make that happen.

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Mamdani Turns an Underused NYPD Parking Lot Into 131 Homes

While the federal government tears families apart, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is showing what it looks like to actually govern for working people. His administration announced that an underutilized NYPD parking lot in the East Village will become The Aurea, a mixed-use development with roughly 131 affordable homes, nearly a third of them reserved for formerly homeless New Yorkers. The project includes a senior center, community space, green roofs and an all-electric design, and it marks the first city land award of Mamdani’s administration as he pushes to unlock public land across the five boroughs for housing. City officials say the site is part of a broader push to identify more than 100 city-owned properties, an effort that could eventually produce tens of thousands of new homes without waiting on private developers to act. It’s a preview of what socialist governance can deliver when given the chance, and a direct contrast to a federal government that treats public land as an afterthought while housing costs push working people out of their own cities. Watch the video above for more on the announcement.

DHS Launches New Deportation Flights After TPS Protections End

The Department of Homeland Security began a fresh wave of deportation flights this week after the remaining Temporary Protected Status protections lapsed for a group of TPS holders. The move continues the administration’s aggressive enforcement posture and puts thousands of people who had been living and working legally in the United States at risk of removal to countries the federal government itself once deemed unsafe to return to. Many of the people affected have lived in the US for years, built families, and paid taxes, only to now face removal on the administration’s timeline rather than any change in the conditions that made their home countries unsafe in the first place. Advocates warn this is likely just the first of several TPS terminations still working their way through the courts.

ICE Agents Accused of Intimidating a US Citizen’s Family Over a Critical Email

A US citizen named David Streever has filed a First Amendment lawsuit accusing ICE agents of showing up at his home in Rochester, New York, while he was traveling abroad and presenting his wife with a formal “warning notice.” His offense: sending an email months earlier to a former ICE acting director comparing him to a Nazi. DHS is defending the tactic, but the case has become a stark example of the agency using intimidation against ordinary citizens who criticize it. The lawsuit argues that sending armed federal agents to a private residence over a political email sets a chilling precedent for anyone who publicly criticizes immigration enforcement. Civil liberties groups are watching the case closely as a potential test of how far the agency can go in targeting its critics.

Trump Administration Sanctions International Criminal Court President

The International Criminal Court’s president, Tomoko Akane of Japan, was hit with US sanctions this week. Akane responded by warning of “the demise of international rule of law,” calling out an administration increasingly willing to punish international institutions that scrutinize its allies and its own conduct. The sanctions mark an escalation in the administration’s ongoing campaign against the ICC, which has drawn scrutiny over its investigations tied to US allies. Legal experts say targeting the court’s sitting president personally is a significant step beyond previous sanctions actions and could further isolate the US from allied nations that still recognize the court’s authority.

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None of what you just read came from a corporate newsroom scared of losing advertisers or a legacy outlet trying to both-sides ICE abuses. It came from the largest democratic socialist organization on social media in America, one that Big Tech has actively tried to censor and demonetize because we refuse to soften our coverage to protect their bottom line. We were one of the only outlets to sit down with Zohran Mamdani for an exclusive interview and give him a fair shot instead of trying to sabotage him, and we intend to keep doing that kind of reporting. And we need to build before the onslaught of dark money and obstruction coming our way before the midterms and 2028.

We’re currently behind on our fundraising goals, and we need your help to close the gap. If just 5% of the people reading this email became paid subscribers, it would fund this organization’s work through 2026. Paid subscriptions come out to less than 27 cents a day and go directly toward expanding our capacity to cover stories like these. To everyone who is already a paid subscriber, thank you, genuinely. If you’re not yet, there’s no better moment to join than right now.

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Stay strong. Stay vigilant. Never stop fighting for a more progressive, people powered movement.

Justin, John, Ryan and the U.S. Democratic Socialists Team

Democrats Cross Party Lines to Stop a Socialist in Michigan

US Democratic Socialists — Fri, 21 Aug 2026 17:05:45 GMT

Good afternoon, and welcome to U.S. Democratic Socialists.

Centrist Democrats in Michigan are publicly endorsing the Republican nominee for Senate over Abdul El-Sayed. The GOP is blaming the national debt hitting $40 trillion on socialism, not the president currently in charge. Aisha Wahab won a California House seat in spite of AIPAC spending nearly $5 million to stop her. And winery bosses in Sonoma County are using ICE threats to scare immigrant workers out of forming a union.

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Establishment Democrats Would Rather Elect a Republican Than a Socialist

So much for “vote blue no matter who.”

Mike Rogers, Michigan’s Republican Senate nominee, held a campaign event in Detroit on Thursday unveiling his so-called “Democrats for Mike Rogers” coalition, composed of supposed lifelong Democrats who say they are backing him over progressive nominee Abdul El-Sayed.

The group was not made up of people worried about healthcare or wages. Rabbi Asher Lopatin of Huntington Woods claimed El-Sayed has pushed Jewish voters away, citing the state Democratic convention in April where delegates booed AIPAC candidate Haley Stevens.

A woman who identified herself as Chelsea from West Bloomfield said she had voted for Obama, Hillary, and Biden, but that El-Sayed “does not share my values.” And no, she didn’t say what values.

The El-Sayed campaign didn’t concern itself with fringe moderates, as spokesperson Cole Wozniak noted Rogers would “put Donald Trump ahead of Michigan every single time. Just like he carried water for Trump’s dangerous election lies, he’ll rubber-stamp Trump’s reckless agenda, driving up gas prices and sending your tax dollars to fight foreign wars.”

Republicans Blame $40 Trillion National Debt on “Socialism”

The national debt has crossed $40 trillion, and the GOP is wasting no time finding anyone else to blame.

Congressional Republicans reacted to the news this week not by looking in the mirror, but by blaming an economic system the United States has never had. Senator Chuck Grassley called the $40 trillion figure the result of “unaffordable socialist policies,” while Senator Rick Scott pointed to “out-of-control spending.”

What they don’t want you to know is that Trump has been in office for $11.6 trillion of that debt. Last summer, he signed a massive tax cut for corporations and the uber-wealthy that will likely add trillions more over the next decade.

In fact, Republican tax cuts under Bush and Trump’s first term account for 57% of the increase in the debt ratio since 2001. If you take out one-time pandemic and recession spending, that number climbs above 90%.

Interest payments on the debt now use more public money than either the military or Medicare. And the people who benefit most from those interest payments are the same who got the tax cuts that created the debt in the first place.

Aisha Wahab Wins California House Seat Despite Millions in AIPAC Spending

California state Senator Aisha Wahab, a progressive, won the special election runoff to fill former Rep. Eric Swalwell’s House seat, defeating fellow Democrat Melissa Hernandez 53% to 47%. She will become the first Afghan American to serve in Congress.

Hernandez had roughly $4.8 million in spending from AIPAC and other super PACs. Wahab, the first Muslim elected to California’s state Senate, campaigned on making healthcare and childcare more affordable, preventing corporate price-gouging, and protecting safety net programs.

Swalwell resigned from the House in April amid allegations of sexual misconduct, including from a former staffer who said he raped her. The FBI raided his D.C. home and seized his electronic devices over the weekend as part of the ongoing federal investigation.

Wahab and her sister grew up in foster care after their father was killed and their mother died, until they were adopted by an Afghan family in the Bay Area. She told supporters that making the journey from foster care to Congress showed the American dream was still alive.

Wahab will now serve out the rest of Swalwell’s term, and is running for the full seat in November.

Winery Bosses Use ICE to Bust a Union

Workers at Rodney Strong Vineyards in Sonoma County have been trying to form a union with Teamsters Local 665 after years of stagnant wages and the firing of longtime employees. In June, 31 of the winery’s 50 workers signed a petition asking the company to recognize the union through a card check process and delivered it to management. The mayor of Healdsburg even came along to support them.

Instead of recognizing the union, the company hired Raul Calvo, a well-known California union buster, who called workers into a meeting in late July and told them that ICE was outside the facility.

Workers say that the company previously told them it would not allow agents onto the property without a judicial warrant. Salvador Ramirez, who has worked at the winery for 12 years, said that when he confronted a company HR director about the ICE threat, she told him she was too busy dealing with “all this stuff that you’re doing.”

Calvo has not filed the legally required federal disclosure forms for anti-union consulting work since 2020, meaning there is no public record of how much Rodney Strong Vineyards is paying him. His associate, Jesse Rojas, was paid $283,633 for a previous union-busting campaign.

The company told Truthout it respects workers’ right to decide on unionization but wants a formal NLRB election rather than card check. Workers say the NLRB process is stacked against them, especially after Trump fired the board’s pro-worker general counsel.

Community members and elected officials have refused to cross the workers’ picket lines. The winery was forced to cancel a summer event after 200 turned out to protest, and when it tried a disco night fundraiser shortly after, over 250 were waiting outside.

Stand With Us Now

This is a five-alarm fire moment. It’s also a moment full of real hope if you know where to look. Families are losing their healthcare, and agents of the state are killing people in the streets with no trial as the DOJ criminalizes anyone who objects. Even so, progressives are winning. And that is exactly why our platform matters.

We are the largest democratic socialist organization on social media in this country. No other organization has the reach to threaten them like we do. That doesn’t exist because of any corporation or billionaire, but because of readers like you who decided this work is worth supporting. And big tech is throttling us across the platforms they control because we’re now too big to ignore.

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The line holds. Thanks for reading, and we’ll see you tomorrow.

Stay Strong, Stay Vigilant, never stop fighting for a more progressive, people powered future.

Justin, John, Ryan and the U.S. Democratic Socialists Team

STORIES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED:

Nurses Across the Country Are Striking Over Workplace Violence. Workers in hospitals are seven times as likely to be injured by violent acts compared to the general working population, and strikes over the issue are spreading. At Henry Ford Genesys Hospital in Grand Blanc, Michigan, hundreds of unionized workers have been on the picket line since September 2025, with workplace violence one of the main issues. At Butler Hospital in Rhode Island, 700 workers went on a months-long strike that forced the hospital to close nearly half its beds. It was declared a win after earning raises for workers, and time off to allow injured workers to heal.

Bernie Sanders Endorses Angie Nixon for Senate in Florida. Florida state Rep. Angie Nixon received Senator Bernie Sanders’ endorsement for Senate just two days after beating Alex Vindman by 12 points in the Democratic Senate primary. Nixon, a DSA member and organizer on Sanders’ 2016 campaign for president, is running on a platform of Medicare for All, canceling medical debt, expanded childcare, and paid family leave. Sanders said her campaign was proof that Florida voters are looking for candidates who will fight for them and take on the billionaire class. He also noted that Nixon outperformed with Black voters, voters under 35, voters without a college degree, and rural voters.

Tenant Unions Are Spreading Across College Campuses. Students at universities from Vermont to Texas are forming tenant unions to fight back against moldy dorms and private equity landlords. Because the agreement between a university and a student living in a dorm is considered a license rather than a lease, schools are not subject to most laws governing evictions, rent increases, or other landlord-tenant regulations. Some student organizers have built on skills and relationships formed during the Palestine solidarity movement, while others have partnered with campus labor unions to push back on private housing companies.

Mamdani Administration Ramps Up NYPD Crackdown on Illegal E-Bikes. The NYPD has issued 55% more moving violation tickets to e-bike riders during the first eight months of 2026 compared to the same period last year. It has also seized 973 e-bikes, more than double the 415 seized in 2025. Mayor Zohran Mamdani, an avid cyclist who expressed concerns during his campaign that additional policing of e-bike riders would disproportionately hurt delivery workers, was motivated to act after a series of deadly collisions, including one that killed a 17-year-old boy near City Hall last month. The city has issued cease-and-desist orders to 42 online retailers demanding they stop selling e-bikes and scooters that exceed speed limits, and the City Council is considering 17 bills to create a broader regulatory framework.

Conservatives Lose Their Minds Over Tax That Doesn't Apply to Them

US Democratic Socialists — Thu, 20 Aug 2026 17:24:08 GMT

Good afternoon, and welcome to U.S. Democratic Socialists.

New York City conservatives are fuming after Mamdani skipped an unnecessary hearing on his pied-à-terre tax. Healthcare costs for American workers just hit their highest since the pandemic, and are expected to continue rising. Target pocketed nearly $1 billion in refunds after the Supreme Court struck down Trump’s tariffs. And a new poll shows Abdul El-Sayed opening up a 7-point lead in Michigan’s Senate race.

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Conservatives Lose Their Minds Over a Tax That Doesn’t Apply to Them

If you rent or own just one home, this story is not about you.

The NYC Council spent three hours listening to testimony on Tuesday about the Mamdani administration’s pied-à-terre tax, which charges high rates for second homes that wealthy New Yorkers don’t even live in. Neither Mamdani nor anyone from his office attended, citing pending litigation.

The councilmembers who called the hearing were already against the policy. Kamillah Hanks said the policy was “completely unacceptable” and former mayoral counsel Charles Diamond called the lack of attendance “utterly bizarre,” both terms they’ve never used to describe the billionaires who dodge their taxes.

Mamdani enacted the pied-à-terre tax because the uber-wealthy have turned NYC into a giant ATM for years while nurses and teachers get priced out of their communities. And even if Mamdani had sat down in front of the cameras for the whole three hours to take the flak from the real estate industry, the establishment would publish the same headlines.

You’re Paying More Than Ever for Healthcare, and Next Year Will Be Worse

If your paycheck feels lighter this year, your health insurance is one of the reasons. Workers spent an average of $8,460 on health insurance in 2026, a 7.9% increase over 2025 and the largest increase since the start of the pandemic.

That rise was driven largely by pharmacy spending, which climbed 14.8% year-over-year as GLP-1 weight loss medications gained prominence. Over the past decade or so, employers have been forcing their workers to shoulder a larger portion of health care premiums, with their portion increasing from 21% in 2005 to 27% this year.

The number of people who report that they’ve reduced their spending to meet their out-of-pocket health care costs has risen above 50%, and 35% have accrued credit card debt. Meanwhile, 66% of large companies say they will increase monthly premiums for employees in 2027.

Healthcare costs are rising faster than both inflation and wages. Family insurance premiums rose 6% in 2025, while inflation sat at 2.7% and wages grew by only 4%. And Congress is spending its time figuring out how to cut the programs that millions of families are already depending on to survive.

Target Reveals Nearly $1 Billion in Tariff Refunds After Supreme Court Ruling

Target has disclosed that it received nearly $1 billion in tariff refunds from the U.S. government, a windfall that doubled the retailer’s second quarter operating income to $2.6 billion from $1.3 billion the year before.

The $994 million reimbursement came after the Supreme Court declared Trump’s import tariffs unlawful. So far, the administration has paid back $100 billion in tariff refunds to businesses, which is only about 60% of all revenue collected.

When asked how Target would use the refunds, chief financial officer Jim Lee did not provide details, but said the company “will continue to invest in price.” Target’s stock jumped on the earnings report, which suggests Wall Street has a pretty clear idea of where that money is headed even if Lee would rather not say it out loud.

Trump is already imposing new tariffs through different legal channels. He threatened 50% tariffs on nearly $20 billion worth of Canadian goods last week, then announced a three-day delay on Tuesday while the two countries try to negotiate a deal.

Abdul El-Sayed Opens Up a 7-Point Lead in Michigan’s Senate Race

A new Susquehanna poll released Wednesday shows progressive Democrat Abdul El-Sayed leading Republican Mike Rogers 46% to 39% in Michigan’s Senate race.

The result is a reversal from other recent surveys that showed a closer race, including a Fox News poll that had Rogers ahead 51% to 47%. A TechnoMetrica survey for the League of American Workers had El-Sayed leading by three points, while an EPIC-MRA/MIRS poll from late July had Rogers ahead by four within the margin of error.

CNN’s Harry Enten used earlier polls to call El-Sayed “historically unpopular,” pointing to a negative 13-point favorability rating. Michigan voters appear to be more interested in Medicare for All, universal child care, and affordable housing than what pundits think.

Susquehanna is a legitimate polling firm with a solid track record in swing-state races. That particularly matters after a company called Median Strategies released fabricated polls in both the Wisconsin governor’s race and the Los Angeles mayoral race, then claimed it was all a “social experiment” before shutting down its website and deleting its social media accounts this week.

Whether or not this specific poll is accurate doesn’t matter. Go vote anyway.

Stand With Us Now

Here’s the truth: no other progressive outlet is reaching the number of people we are, and no other outlet is doing it without corporate money telling us what we can and can’t say. But as Big Tech throttles our accounts every day, the only insurance policy against getting silenced is an audience that funds us directly.

We are the largest democratic socialist organization on social media in this country. No other organization has the reach to threaten them like we do. That doesn’t exist because of any corporation or billionaire, but because of readers like you who decided this work is worth supporting. And Big Tech is throttling us across the platforms they control because we’re now too big to ignore.

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The line holds. Thanks for reading, and we’ll see you tomorrow.

Justin, John, Ryan and the U.S. Democratic Socialists Team

STORIES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED:

California Voters Favor Progressive Candidates, Split on Democratic Socialism. A new UC Berkeley poll has found that California voters are more inclined to back progressive candidates than mainstream Democrats, with nearly six in 10 registered Democrats saying they would support a candidate identified as a democratic socialist. Registered Democratic voters over 65 overwhelmingly preferred mainstream Democrats, while voters under 40 favored those aligned with the party’s left wing. Support for progressive candidates registered at 40%, just two points above support for democratic socialists, though fewer people felt negatively toward progressives than democratic socialists.

Mary Peltola Takes First Place in Alaska Senate Primary. In Alaska’s open Senate primary on Tuesday, former Democratic congresswoman Mary Peltola led all 16 candidates with about 48 percent of the vote. Incumbent Republican senator Dan Sullivan came in second with 43 percent. Peltola, who turned down an endorsement from Kamala Harris before the primary, ran as a “voice for Alaska” who was not tied to any political party or outside interest. She’s not a democratic socialist but backs some progressive causes. Both Peltola and Sullivan will face each other in November’s general election, where voters will use ranked-choice voting to decide the winner.

Teacher Who Made Charlie Kirk Comments Should Be Reinstated, Court Recommends. A judge has recommended a Lee County school teacher be rehired and paid back wages following her suspension over a Facebook post regarding the shooting of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. Mariah Roller, who teaches at Three Oaks Middle School in Fort Myers, posted a comment criticizing Kirk’s past defense of the Second Amendment. Administrative law judge Andrew Manko determined the post did not cause much disruption to the school, and that the post was spread by someone other than Roller after it was shared from her personal page.

GOP Warns AI Companies That Data Centers Are Politically Radioactive. The Senate GOP campaign committee recently sent a confidential letter to the biggest AI companies, saying the public’s negative view of data centers is hurting Republicans’ ability to retain a U.S. Senate seat in Ohio.The National Republican Senatorial Committee told companies that Democrat Sherrod Brown has made data centers the centerpiece of his campaign against Republican Sen. Jon Husted, and that the strategy is working. Internal polling shows data centers were “about as popular as nuclear waste,” and have become a proxy for anxieties about AI replacing jobs. The memo warns that if Husted loses and data centers get the blame, politicians nationwide will refuse to go near the next proposed project.

While You Slept, the Pentagon Signed Something You Should Know About

US Democratic Socialists — Wed, 19 Aug 2026 16:30:03 GMT

Good afternoon, and welcome to U.S. Democratic Socialists.

In the last 24 hours, a democratic socialist beat an establishment democrat with a $16 million war chest in Trump’s home state, Trump threatened to bomb a U.S. partner over a shipping lane, Meta went on trial for allegedly pushing products it knew are addicting to children, and the Pentagon quietly ramped up cruise missile production.

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Democratic Socialist Angie Nixon Stuns Establishment, Wins Florida Senate Primary in Trump’s Backyard

Florida state Rep. Angie Nixon, a self-described democratic socialist, stunned the political establishment Tuesday night when she defeated Alex Vindman in the state’s Democratic Senate primary roughly 56% to 44%.

In 2019, Vindman shot to national prominence after he testified at Trump’s first impeachment inquiry. That name recognition gave him a major fundraising advantage, allowing him to outraise Nixon by more than 16-to-1. Nixon made up the difference on the ground with volunteers and a platform centered around cost-of-living.

Nixon was the first self-reported democratic socialist to win a Senate primary this year, though she’s hardly an isolated case. In New York, Mayor Zohran Mamdani has become something of a kingmaker after all three candidates he endorsed won their primaries in June.

Nixon now faces Republican Sen. Ashley Moody, who was appointed to the seat after Marco Rubio became Secretary of State. Democrats haven’t held a Florida Senate seat since 2019 and Trump carried the state by double digits in 2024, but nobody thought she could beat $16 million either.

Trump Threatens to Bomb U.S. Partner For Striking a Peace Deal He Doesn’t Control

For years, Oman has served as one of America’s closest allies in the Middle East, playing a key role in brokering talks and maintaining quiet channels of communication between adversaries. On Monday, Donald Trump threatened to bomb it.

“If Oman gets in the way, we’ll bomb the shit out of them,” he told Fox News. It was the second time he’s made the threat, as in May he said the U.S. would “have to blow them up.”

The dispute centers on a deal taking shape between Oman and Iran to jointly manage shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, including new routes through the waterway and fees on transiting vessels. The U.S. opposes the fees, which it argues would let Iran assert sovereign control over what international law treats as an open waterway.

Monday’s threat landed as a 60-day negotiation window between the U.S. and Iran expired without a final agreement. Later that day, Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that declaring the Strait of Hormuz a U.S. territory was “a great idea.”

Congress has not voted to authorize military action against Oman. Sen. Tim Kaine has said he plans to introduce a resolution barring it, but the Senate is currently on recess and won’t return for weeks.

Pentagon Quietly Ramps Up Cruise Missile Production

On the same day Trump threatened to bomb Oman, the Pentagon announced a $22.9 billion contract with Raytheon that will increase production of Tomahawk cruise missiles to more than 1,000 per year.

Also not voted on by Congress, the contract was awarded under the administration’s “Arsenal of Freedom” initiative separate from the Pentagon’s budget. Trump officials have also requested a supplementary $67.1 billion package from Congress for this fiscal year in addition to the normal appropriations bill.

Meanwhile, the VA has lost more than 40,000 workers, including more than 1,000 physicians and 3,000 nurses, and says it plans to eliminate another 35,000. Veterans’ health care spending rose 2 percent this year as almost half a million veterans filed for benefits under the PACT Act, which provides coverage for toxic-exposure-related illnesses.

The Tomahawks alone cost more than half the total amount that VA spends annually on its health care workforce, and the White House had no problem finding those funds within a week.

Meta Goes on Trial for Allegedly Designing Instagram and Facebook to Addict Kids

Opening arguments began Tuesday in what may be the most consequential consumer rights trial since the 1990s tobacco lawsuits.

California, Colorado, Kentucky, and New Jersey have accused Meta, the parent company of social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook, of designing those sites to addict children and harvest their data without parental consent. They further allege that the company concealed its own internal research revealing the damage.

The states are seeking up to $1.4 trillion in penalties — roughly equivalent to Meta’s market worth. They also want the court to force Meta to change features that make its platforms more addictive, such as infinite scrolling, visible like counts, and beauty filters.

In March, a jury in New Mexico ruled the company knowingly damaged children’s mental health and covered up child sexual abuse on its platforms. It was ordered to pay $942 million and change its products. A jury in Los Angeles reached a similar verdict in the same week.

Twenty-five more states are waiting for their own trials.

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Stay strong. Stay vigilant. Never stop fighting for a more progressive, people powered movement.

Justin, John, Ryan and the U.S. Democratic Socialists Team

STORIES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED

Two Workers Killed in Explosion at Recycling Plant With History of Safety Violations. Two employees were killed Tuesday morning when explosions ripped through Brent Industries, an industrial recycling plant in Toledo, Ohio. The cause is still under investigation, but fire officials noted that the facility stored tanks of mineral spirits, the same petroleum-based solvent that ignited and killed a worker at the company’s Alabama plant in 2015. OSHA fined the company $27,000 after that explosion and had already cited the Toledo plant for safety violations a decade earlier.

Pennsylvania Governor Reverses Course, Signs Order Restricting Data Centers. On Tuesday, Gov. Josh Shapiro signed an executive order mandating that data centers receive public approval before they can qualify for state permits. The order prohibits all data centers, including Amazon’s $20 billion Bucks and Luzerne County projects, from the state’s fast-track permitting process. It also prevents state agencies from executing nondisclosure agreements, and forces data center developers to secure their own power sources. Shapiro, who once championed the Amazon deal, said he was formally putting predatory developers “on notice.”

Polling Firm Admits Data Showing Democratic Socialist With Lead Were Fabricated. A polling firm called Median Strategies has admitted that its data was fabricated, including a widely circulated poll showing democratic socialist Francesca Hong with a 20-point lead in Wisconsin’s Democratic gubernatorial primary. The firm also released fake numbers showing Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass leading challenger Nithya Raman by a wide margin. Median Strategies had launched on social media just days before publishing the polls with roughly 20 followers, and has since shut down, calling the whole thing a “short-term social experiment.”

White House Weighing New Capital Gains Tax Cuts for the Wealthy. The White House is weighing another round of tax cuts for the wealthy, including indexing capital gains to inflation and quadrupling the tax exemption on home sales from $500,000 to $2 million. This comes months after Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found delivers $117 billion in tax cuts to the richest 1% this year alone, more than the combined budgets of the Departments of Education, Transportation, and Justice. Middle-income Americans are paying an average of $900 more in taxes than they did last year, driven largely by tariffs.

Three Socialists Take on the Democratic Establishment in Florida

US Democratic Socialists — Tue, 18 Aug 2026 16:48:54 GMT

Good afternoon, and welcome to U.S. Democratic Socialists.

Bernie Sanders introduced a bill to stop the government from garnishing Social Security checks to collect on student loan debt. Three democratic socialist candidates are running in Florida’s primaries today, and the centrist establishment is doing everything it can to pretend they don’t exist. New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani just dedicated $8.4 million in grants to small businesses across all five boroughs. And the CEO who fired 900 employees over Zoom in 2021 just got fired himself, and is now suing to get his job back.

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Sanders Bill Would Stop Garnishing Seniors’ Social Security Over Student Debt

On Monday, Sen. Bernie Sanders reintroduced the Stop Social Security Garnishment Act, which would bar the federal government from taking Social Security income from seniors and disabled people who fall behind on their student debt.

Student loan delinquency hit 10.6% in the second quarter of 2026, up from 10.3% in the first quarter. Overall, nearly one in four borrowers cannot repay their loans.

Trump’s so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill,” which he signed last July, killed President Joe Biden’s SAVE plan along with several other income-driven repayment options. More than 7 million people were enrolled in SAVE alone, many of them paying $0 per month. They must now pay hundreds of dollars per month, or default.

The Trump administration paused involuntary collections in June 2025 and said that it would not cut Social Security benefits for affected borrowers, but that pause has no guaranteed end date and no legislation backing it up. Sanders’ bill would make the protection permanent.

Senators Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey are co-sponsoring the legislation, but it currently has no Republican support. The same party voted to bail out Wall Street in 2008 and the airlines in 2020.

Three Democratic Socialists Are Running in Florida Today

As Floridians head to the polls today, they’ll have three democratic socialist candidates to choose from.

State Representative Angie Nixon of Jacksonville is running for the Democratic Senate nomination on a platform of Medicare for All and taxing billionaires, Oliver Larkin is challenging incumbent Representative Jared Moskowitz in the newly drawn 25th Congressional District, and Elijah Manley is running against former DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz. A win by any of them would be considered a major upset.

Establishment Democrats have written off the state as unwinnable. Their candidates have largely refused to engage with their progressive challengers, with Wasserman Schultz telling a local paper that she does not believe Broward County Democrats are embracing what she dubbed the “fringe left.”

Even as they elect Republicans to statewide offices, voters in Florida have also voted to restore felons’ voting rights, raise the minimum wage, and legalize medical marijuana. A vote to overturn the state’s abortion ban got 57% support, though it still “failed” because Florida requires 60% for ballot measures to pass.

The three candidates drew a predominantly young audience at a Friday night rally in Fort Lauderdale alongside Rep. Rashida Tlaib. Richie Floyd, the vice chair of the St. Petersburg City Council and the first democratic socialist elected to office there in more than a century, put it plainly: Florida is not a conservative state, it is a working-class state.

The centrists say a more moderate candidate could have beaten DeSantis in 2018. Those moderate candidates already ran and lost.

Zohran Mamdani Just Invested $8.4 Million in Small Businesses

NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani and the Department of Small Business Services have announced they are giving away more than $8.4 million in grants to community-based organizations that serve more than 20,000 small businesses.

It’s one of the largest single disbursements of small business grants in the agency’s history, which will go towards public art, street cleaning, lighting, and neighborhood improvements.

The grants build on the Mamdani administration’s “OPEN for Small Business” initiative, a package of more than 50 reforms that reduce fines and make it cheaper to own a small business in the city.

Nearly 90 grants will be distributed across every borough, with Brooklyn receiving the largest share at $2.77 million, followed by The Bronx at $1.55 million, Manhattan at $1.53 million, Queens at $1.51 million, and Staten Island at $550,000.

A month after he was sworn in, Mamdani issued an executive order instructing seven city agencies to take stock of their fines and fees and identify opportunities for reduction. Based on their responses, his team crafted around 50 policy proposals to reduce fines and shorten wait times.

The CEO Who Fired 900 Employees Over Zoom Just Got Fired

Vishal Garg, the founder of Better Home & Finance who became a national symbol of corporate cruelty in 2021 when he fired 900 employees during a Zoom call shortly before the holidays, has been removed as CEO and is now fighting to get the job back.

He was replaced earlier this month by Daniel Lewis, a hedge fund manager who joined Better’s board on July 27 and, according to Garg, persuaded the other directors to oust him roughly a week later.

Garg says Lewis spent about six months advising him on cost reductions and profitability, and praised the company publicly on social media before using his new seat to engineer a takeover. Lewis’ post on X from August 4, in which he wrote that there was never a Better without Garg and that the company’s founder deserved respect, has since been deleted.

Garg has acknowledged that the mass layoff damaged the company’s reputation, even taking a leave of absence after the backlash. Under his leadership, Better also faced a whistleblower lawsuit that was dropped, an SEC investigation that resulted in no action, and a 2023 SPAC merger followed by a 93 percent decline in its stock price.

The company’s annual revenue dropped from $1.5 billion in 2021 to $70 million in 2023. Garg says it is now on track for $200 million this year.

He has hired a lawyer and sent a letter to the board demanding his return, going so far as to offer to work for $1 a year until the company becomes profitable. He told CNN that this is not about him and that he cares about delivering savings to people and helping them live the American Dream. This from the man who ended a three-minute Zoom call by telling 900 people they no longer had jobs.

Stand With Us Now

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The line holds. Thanks for reading, and we’ll see you tomorrow.

Stay Strong, Stay Vigilant, never stop fighting for a more progressive, people powered future.

Justin, John, Ryan and the U.S. Democratic Socialists Team

STORIES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED:

Super PACs Are Spending Millions on the Midterms. Two super political action committees have contributed almost $2 million to Alaska’s U.S. Senate race, but they aren’t backing either of the frontrunners. Instead, the money is going to secondary and out-of-state candidates as part of a bid to game Alaska’s new top-four ranked-choice voting system come November. Fair Deal Alaska has spent roughly $800,000 touting Richard Grayson, a retired law school administrator from Arizona, and Carol Hafner, also not an Alaskan. And Elon Musk’s America PAC authorized between $100 million and $120 million for midterm operations nationally, with Alaska one of the first five states targeted for Senate races.

ABC Just Filed a First Amendment Lawsuit Against the FCC. Disney’s ABC filed an unprecedented lawsuit against the Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday, alleging that the Trump administration has waged a retaliatory campaign against the network over its criticisms of him. The suit seeks to block the FCC from forcing ABC’s eight television stations through an early license renewal process years ahead of schedule. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, who was appointed by Trump, has said the review focuses on Disney’s DEI practices, but ABC’s filing maintains it’s really about Jimmy Kimmel’s monologues and commentary on The View. ABC told the court it has no alternative to eliminate these threats other than total capitulation.

A Florida Cop Used Surveillance Cameras to Track His Estranged Wife 717 Times. Christopher Goodson, 31, of the Haines City Police Department, was arrested last week for searching his estranged wife’s license plate in a police database 717 times between September 2024 and June 2026. In September 2025 alone, Goodson searched his wife’s plate 280 times. The automated license plate recognition system is supposed to be used only in criminal investigations, and Goodson’s wife had no connection to any crime. According to court documents, Goodson told a supervisor that he was looking up the plates because he wanted to see where his kids were at. He has been charged with unauthorized use of a computer system and official misconduct, and has said he will resign from the department.

Nvidia Is Providing $105 Billion for an OpenAI Data Center in Ohio. Nvidia agreed to guarantee $105 billion in loans to help OpenAI construct its new giant data center in rural Ohio. The project is planned for the grounds of a decommissioned uranium enrichment plant and will consume as much energy as is needed to supply roughly 6 million homes. OpenAI chief Sam Altman previously invested in SoftBank’s energy subsidiary, which is responsible for constructing the site. Nvidia, which supplies the chips OpenAI is purchasing, has now agreed to guarantee the loans that will fund those chip purchases. Critics of the arrangement have pointed out that this resembles circular financing, in which companies make investments in each other to create the illusion of market demand.

Hakeem Jeffries Threw Medicare and ICE Reform Under the Bus

US Democratic Socialists — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 16:06:39 GMT

Good afternoon, and welcome to U.S. Democratic Socialists.

Trump’s attorney general just said out loud that the president’s wishes can shape who the Justice Department prosecutes. Hakeem Jeffries went on national television to reject Medicare for All and distance himself from the DSA, even as progressive candidates keep winning across the country. A 404 Media investigation revealed that Amazon is buying massive quantities of rare books, slicing off their spines, and destroying them to train AI models. And a community in southeast Raleigh just killed a proposed data center after more than 130 residents signed up to oppose it.

We are now the biggest democratic socialist organization on social media and the 2nd fastest-growing news Substack in the US. Despite Big Tech throttling us, we reach tens of millions of people every single week. And we’ve done that all without a hedge fund backing us, without a billionaire donor, without one single corporate sponsor dictating what we are and aren’t allowed to say. The only thing between the truth and the algorithm designed to keep you from it is a paid subscription. Please upgrade today.

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Trump’s Attorney General Says the President’s Views Can Shape Prosecutions

Attorney General Todd Blanche on Sunday declined to commit to always acting independently of the White House. He insisted Trump has never asked him to cross a legal or ethical line, and that the Justice Department will “prosecute without fear or any sort of favor.”

“No, I’m not going to pledge that, and no attorney general should ever pledge that,” he told NBC’s Kristen Welker on Meet the Press.

He then stated that he would take the president’s views into consideration on individual prosecution decisions.

When asked about the story he loves to tell in which Trump called him up and said “Todd, go prosecute this,” Blanche claimed it was an exaggeration. This did not explain the Comey indictment, the James indictment, and Trump’s public call to revisit the Reflecting Pool case.

Blanche previously said the administration may ask the Supreme Court to force states to hand over their voter rolls, and has declined to guarantee that January 6 rioters won’t collect government money through Trump’s illegal “settlement” with the IRS.

The fact that he said this on national television should tell you how confident they are that no one will stop them.

Hakeem Jeffries Rejects Medicare for All and Distances Himself from the DSA

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said Sunday that he does not support Medicare for All legislation and does not back the agenda of the Democratic Socialists of America, planting his feet firmly in the center even as progressive candidates gain ground across the country.

Appearing on Meet the Press, Jeffries was asked about his previous co-sponsorship of Medicare for All and confirmed he no longer supports the measure. He co-sponsored the legislation between 2013 and 2021, but has not backed any version introduced since he became the party’s top leader in the House.

Jeffries also rejected calls to abolish ICE, saying Democrats are committed to reforming the agency but not eliminating it. His remarks came just one day after the Democratic National Committee’s Resolutions Committee approved a measure urging Congress to pass legislation dissolving ICE, which passed by a significant margin.

Jeffries says the party should focus on reducing costs for Americans, citing groceries, gas, housing, and healthcare as priorities. Medicare for All would do exactly that by eliminating premiums, deductibles, and out-of-pocket costs for every single person in the country.

He used to know that, which is why he co-sponsored the bill for nearly a decade.

Amazon Is Buying Rare Books, Scanning Them, and Destroying Them

A 404 Media investigation has revealed that Amazon is purchasing massive quantities of books, cutting off their bindings, scanning them for AI training data, and destroying them. The investigation was conducted by placing an Apple AirTag inside a shipment of rare books suspected to be destined for an AI company and then tracking the shipment across the country.

The books traveled from California to Milwaukee by air, then by truck through Wisconsin and Colorado, before arriving at an Amazon warehouse in Las Vegas designated VGT3. Amazon employees who work at this facility say all they do is receive large shipments of books, cut the bindings off to make scanning faster, and then scan the contents.

Amazon confirmed the purchases, stating that it buys books through commercial channels to help develop its products and services, but declined to answer questions about why it destroys the books or how many such facilities it operates. The company is developing its own family of large language models under the Nova brand, which require enormous volumes of human-written text for training data.

The books being destroyed are rare, sometimes printed in limited runs or in languages few people speak, and the supply of surviving copies is finite. As one bookseller involved in the investigation put it, there are different types of value beyond money.

This story follows revelations from a lawsuit against Anthropic, which disclosed a program called “Project Panama” that also involved buying books, cutting off their spines, and scanning them for training data. A judge ruled that this practice constituted fair use in part because the original physical copy was destroyed.

Raleigh Data Center Proposal Withdrawn After Community Opposition

A proposed 100,000-square-foot data center planned for a 14-acre site in southeast Raleigh has been withdrawn after the company behind the project pulled its request to annex the property into the city.

More than 130 residents had signed up to speak against the project at an upcoming Raleigh City Council meeting. Some told local reporters they had not even been aware that a data center was being planned next to their homes until the annexation request appeared on the city’s agenda.

The nearby town of Apex recently approved a 12-month moratorium on data centers, and Apex Mayor Jacques Gilbert said he has not been convinced that data centers are beneficial for his community. He noted concerns about water consumption and environmental impacts, stressing that cooperation between cities and towns may be necessary to get the issue right.

Raleigh has not approved a broader moratorium and continues to evaluate proposals individually. The identity of the buyer behind the southeast Raleigh proposal has not been disclosed, so it remains unclear whether a revised proposal could be submitted in the future.

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We are the largest democratic socialist organization on social media in this country, and no other organization has the reach to threaten them like we do. That doesn’t exist because of any corporation or billionaire, but because of readers like you who decided this work is worth supporting.

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The line holds. Thanks for reading, and we’ll see you tomorrow.

STORIES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED:

Bernie Sanders and the DSA See Wisconsin and Michigan Results as Progress. The left wing of the Democratic Party suffered a setback when Francesca Hong narrowly lost the Wisconsin governor’s primary by half a percentage point, but progressive leaders say her near-victory and recent wins elsewhere still demonstrate that the movement is surging. Senator Bernie Sanders told USA Today that progressives and democratic socialists are talking about the issues that the American people want action on. Meanwhile, a recent CNN poll found that one-third of Democrats or Democratic-leaning independents now identify as democratic socialists.

AOC Shares Her Egg Freezing Journey and Exposes the Broken System Behind It. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez announced on Instagram that she is freezing her eggs, documenting the entire process publicly in an effort to destigmatize the procedure and call attention to its cost. The 36-year-old congresswoman said her government health insurance does not cover a single penny of the procedure, which is costing her roughly $8,000 to $9,000 entirely out of pocket, with annual storage fees of about $1,200. A single egg freezing cycle costs around $16,000 on average nationally, according to FertilityIQ, putting the procedure out of reach for many women.

Labor Union Identifies Second Victim of Albany Gas Explosion. The Civil Service Employees Association has identified 47-year-old Anthony Hughes as the Department of General Services worker injured in a gas explosion at the DGS headquarters in Albany on August 4. Hughes sustained second- and third-degree burns across about 30 percent of his body, including his face, arms, and legs. He was taken to the burn unit at Upstate University Hospital in Syracuse, where he remains in critical but stable condition. Doctors anticipate his full recovery will take a year or longer. Hughes has worked for the city of Albany since 2006 and was performing his regular duties as a supervisor when a fuel pump he was near exploded.

Kentucky Farmer Rejects $26 Million AI Data Center Offer. An anonymous AI company offered Ida Huddleston and her family $26 million for a portion of their 1,200-acre farm in Mason County, Kentucky, to build a data center. The offer was nearly ten times the local land value, and the family still rejected it without hesitation. Huddleston’s daughter, Delsia Bare, said the money did not matter and that she would rather stay and feed a nation. Huddleston was blunt about the promises of economic growth that accompany these projects, calling them a scam. Bare said she is among dozens of landowners in the area who have been approached by the anonymous buyer, which reportedly represents a major AI company.

They're Eating Rice and Tortillas While Trump Says It's Not Long Enough

US Democratic Socialists — Sat, 15 Aug 2026 14:52:01 GMT

Good morning. Mamdani’s second-home tax survived its first real court test this week, right as corporate money starts quietly organizing against the DSA’s momentum behind closed doors. Meanwhile Trump used a Long Island speech to talk about annexing a shipping lane in the Middle East while asking working Americans to just accept higher gas prices as the cost of his war. We’ve got six stories worth your time this morning, and honestly, a couple of them made us angry enough to write this before coffee.

Before we get into it: U.S. Democratic Socialists is the largest democratic socialist organization in America, reaching tens of millions of people every week, and we built that reach without a dime of corporate or billionaire money. That only works if readers like you decide it’s worth 22 cents a day, less than a stick of gum, to keep it going. If you’ve been on the fence, today’s the day.

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Mamdani’s pied-a-terre tax survives a court challenge

A Staten Island judge temporarily blocked the rollout of Mamdani’s second-home surcharge this week, in a lawsuit brought by three city residents challenging how the policy was implemented rather than the tax itself. The city’s appeal triggered an automatic stay, and New York asked the appeals court to confirm that pause, arguing the ruling threatens a time-sensitive rollout. Trump, who moved his own primary residence out of the city years ago but still can’t stop talking about it, has vowed to explore federal options to kill the tax outright. It’s a small legal skirmish on paper, but it’s really a test of whether a city can tax its wealthiest residents without Washington stepping in to protect them. Watch this one closely, because if the appeal fails, it becomes a blueprint for how every other city trying something similar gets strangled in court.

A corporate-funded group is building a war chest against the DSA

Neoliberal group Third Way is reportedly assembling a $15 million campaign to counter the Democratic Socialists of America’s momentum, backed by large corporate donors who’d very much like this movement to stay small and quiet. The group also posted a job listing for a “Director of Anti-Extremism,” a $150,000-a-year role aimed at pushing back on the DSA’s organizing around unions, healthcare, and housing. Let that sink in for a second: they are paying someone six figures whose entire job is to fight the idea that working people deserve healthcare and housing. It’s a direct response to a summer of DSA-endorsed wins, and it’s the clearest sign yet that the establishment isn’t laughing this movement off anymore. They’re scared, and scared money moves fast.

One year since Trump flooded DC with the National Guard

This week marked a full year since Trump deployed federal agents and National Guard troops into Washington, DC under the so-called Safe and Beautiful Task Force. Masked agents operating alongside DC police have spent that year tearing through neighborhoods, separating families, and turning ordinary blocks into something that feels more like an occupation than a capital city. A year in, there’s been no accountability and no end date, just a slow normalization of armed federal presence in American streets. Local organizers aren’t waiting around for that to change on its own. They’re building canvassing capacity right now to fight back at the ballot box, because that’s ultimately the only thing that gets a president’s attention.

Trump says he’ll claim the Strait of Hormuz as U.S. territory

In remarks on Long Island, Trump said he would declare the Strait of Hormuz, one of the most critical shipping lanes on earth, U.S. territory once the war with Iran ends. It’s the kind of claim that would normally dominate a news cycle for a week, an American president casually floating the annexation of a foreign waterway, except we’re so numbed to this stuff now that it barely registers. In the same remarks, he asked Americans to accept paying more for gas as simply a cost of the ongoing conflict, as if working families have a say in that war at all. No accountability, no plan, just vibes and a request that you foot the bill.

Trump dismisses sailors’ families over USS Lincoln conditions

Asked directly about reports of food shortages, plumbing failures, and a deteriorating mental health crisis aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, Trump dismissed the concerns and said the carrier’s nine-month deployment was “not nearly long enough.” Families have described sailors surviving on half a cup of rice and two tortillas a day, going weeks without hot water, and standing in line over an hour just to reach the ship’s store. A sailor went overboard earlier this month in what officials are calling a mental health episode, and lawmakers who met with families say the ship’s own doctor has warned they need to reach port soon before people start losing their minds. These are 5,000 real people, somebody’s kid, somebody’s spouse, and the response from the top has been to shrug.

The FCC’s license threats are still hanging over broadcasters

FCC Chair Brendan Carr’s campaign to tie broadcast license renewals to favorable coverage of the administration remains an open fight, with ABC and other stations pushing back on demands for early renewal filings. It’s part of a broader pattern of the administration leaning on networks over war coverage and unfavorable stories, using the threat of a pulled license the way a landlord uses the threat of eviction. Carr has never actually revoked a license over content, and legal experts say he almost certainly can’t without violating the First Amendment, but that’s not really the point. The point is to make every editor and every reporter think twice before running the story that makes the White House unhappy, and so far, it’s working more often than any of us would like to admit.

Why this matters right now

Facebook has already demonetized our page. Big Tech doesn’t like what we’re building, and that’s proof we’re too big to ignore. We are one of the fastest-growing Substacks in America and the largest democratic socialist organization on social media, and none of that happened by accident. It happened because readers decided to fund it directly instead of waiting for permission from anyone else, and that’s exactly the kind of independence that makes us dangerous to the people who’d rather we didn’t exist.

Now is the time to step up. Third Way just put $15 million behind an effort to stall this movement before it grows any further, and they’re not the only ones. We are heading into a stretch where both the Republican Party and the Democratic establishment are going to throw everything they have at progressives, from corporate PAC money to smear campaigns to whatever Brendan Carr’s FCC decides to try next. Outlets like this one only survive that fight if the people reading them decide to back it, and right now the people trying to shut us down are outspending us by a lot more than 22 cents a day.

Think about it this way: for less than the cost of a cup of coffee split across a month, you become part of the reason this newsroom exists to cover the stories the corporate press won’t touch. You’re not just reading the news anymore, you’re funding the resistance to the people who’d rather you never saw it at all. To everyone already chipping in: thank you. You are the reason this exists. If you’re not one of them yet, this is the moment to become one. We are not slowing down, and we need you with us for what’s coming.

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Stay strong. Stay vigilant. Never stop fighting for a more progressive, people powered future.

Justin, John, Ryan and the U.S. Democratic Socialists Team

Trump Just Gave Drug Cartels and Tax Cheats a Permanent Gift

US Democratic Socialists — Fri, 14 Aug 2026 16:36:21 GMT

Good afternoon, and welcome to U.S. Democratic Socialists.

Trump’s Treasury Department is destroying a federal anti-corruption database so money launderers can operate freely forever. Court documents reveal that DHS sent undercover agents to spy on labor unions and anti-ICE protesters in Minnesota. Progressives just won a pair of landmark votes at the DNC, advancing resolutions to abolish ICE and cut off military aid to Israel. And family services workers in Ohio are now six months into the longest public sector strike in the state’s history.

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Trump’s Treasury Is Destroying the Government’s Anti-Corruption Database

Earlier this week, the Trump administration announced plans to permanently erase the federal government’s registry of shell company ownership.

The database, which law enforcement relies on to investigate cases of money laundering, drug smuggling, and tax fraud, was established under the Corporate Transparency Act, a bipartisan bill enacted in 2021 that requires anonymous shell companies to disclose basic ownership information to the government.

Marco Rubio, one of the bill’s most prominent proponents, hailed the measure as “the most meaningful anti-corruption and anti-money-laundering legislation in decades.” Apparently, this doesn’t count now that he’s Trump’s secretary of state.

The Trump administration has already suspended most of the reporting requirements, allowing about 99 percent of the businesses that were supposed to file reports to avoid doing so, per a recent report from the Government Accountability Office. That suspension was now rendered permanent with the latest rule, which also included a directive to destroy all previously collected information. That means no future federal administration or local law enforcement agency will be able to access the data.

It’s not the first time the Trump administration has demonstrated such disregard for the rule of law: It recently put the enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act on hold, arguing that holding companies accountable for bribing foreign officials “could negatively impact U.S. companies competing in global markets.”

DHS Spied on Anti-ICE Protesters and Labor Unions in Minnesota

Newly disclosed records show the Department of Homeland Security launched an operation in January called “Operation Puppet Master” to map a “network of conspirators” organizing against ICE in Minnesota.

The records show agents infiltrated Signal chats, obtained financial records of unions and nonprofits, and posed as activists at community meetings in the Twin Cities and New York. DHS also used administrative subpoenas to obtain wire transfer records from SEIU, one of the largest unions in the country, and requested financial data on the Communications Workers of America.

At a Sunrise Movement seminar focused on peaceful protest, an undercover agent told an attendee he “works in construction and could build items that might assist other groups with more ‘direct-action’ protests.” He said going to jail didn’t bother him, then handed out his phone number.

None of the groups supposedly infiltrated have been charged with anything. Across a 94-page indictment, there are no allegations that any defendant injured a specific ICE officer.

Progressives Win Huge Victories at DNC Meeting

Progressives notched a huge win on Thursday as the Democratic National Committee’s Resolutions Committee approved a pair of resolutions that call for abolishing ICE and enforcing federal laws that could bar military aid to Israel.

Both resolutions were introduced by Louisiana DNC member Michele Johnson. The first calls for Democrats to craft legislation abolishing ICE and enacting immigration reforms that provide pathways to citizenship and protect workers. It also calls to strip qualified immunity from personnel who have obstructed evidence, injured protesters, fired into moving vehicles, or caused deaths in custody.

The second resolution reaffirms the DNC’s support for consistent and impartial enforcement of the Leahy Laws, the federal statutes that prohibit military assistance to foreign security forces that commit human rights violations. The author of the law, former Senator Patrick Leahy, has long maintained that it applies to Israel.

Both resolutions are expected to be approved by the full DNC at a closing session in Austin on Saturday. Whether leadership actually follows through is another question, but for now, the direction the party is heading is unmistakable.

Family Services Workers in Ohio Have Been Striking for Six Months

The parking lot at the Lorain County Job and Family Services building in Elyria, Ohio has been empty for six months as the 140 case workers who process Medicaid applications, food stamps, and child support have instead formed a picket line.

Members of UAW Local 2192 left work on Feb. 18, after their contract expired in September. They remain out, making this the longest strike in the public sector in Ohio state history.

Their grievances include low pay, high turnover, and a management’s proposal to raise health care costs by 50 percent. The County Commissioners declined to accept a state fact-finder’s suggestion of a three-year contract with salary increases of 4.5, 3.5, and 4 percent respectively, and instead offered a final contract proposal that would give them a 12 percent increase over three years.

When the union asked only that they receive an additional dollar an hour over the proposed increase, commissioners called the negotiations at an impasse, ending talks.

Records show that the number of six-figure administrative jobs in the county has tripled between 2021 and 2025, from 55 to 174. One local reporter even found emails from one of the county commissioners detailing how to hide administrative pay from the public.

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The line holds. Thanks for reading, and we’ll see you tomorrow.

STORIES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED:

Voters Prefer a Socialist Over a MAGA Candidate in a 2028 Matchup. New polling from independent pollster Jeremy Zogby suggests the “socialist” label isn’t the electoral poison MAGA hoped it would be. Were the 2028 election to be held today, 55% of those polled said they would vote for the socialist over 33% for the MAGA candidate. Independents chose the socialist 48% to 18%, as did men, a group that Trump won by 12 points in 2024, 42% to 36%. The two were tied among a segment of parents in the MAGA movement with small children, some of Trump’s most vocal supporters. “The American electorate longs for candidates who are closer to the norm of politics,” said Zogby.

Anti-Muslim Backlash Surges Across the Country as El-Sayed Breaks Barriers. Abdul El-Sayed’s historic victory as the first Muslim nominated by the Democratic Party for U.S. Senate has been dampened slightly by a wave of Islamophobic vitriol. Across the country, citizens are fiercely opposing proposals to build new mosques; GOP governors in Texas and Florida are backing efforts to shut down the Council on American-Islamic Relations; and various anti-Sharia bills are currently before Congress. Edward Ahmed Mitchell, CAIR’s national deputy director, said that El-Sayed’s win and Zohran Mamdani’s election as New York’s first Muslim mayor indicate that things are indeed getting better, but backlash is always loudest when progress is being made.

Appeals Court Greenlights Mamdani’s Pied-à-Terre Tax Rollout. An appellate judge ruled Thursday that New York City’s pied-à-terre tax can continue its planned rollout while it faces a legal challenge, overturning a temporary restraining order issued just days ago by a lower court. Three homeowners had sued over the city’s release of a tax roll that included hundreds of thousands of properties, arguing the rollout was confusing. Mamdani’s government filed a motion to appeal the lower court’s ruling, which triggered an automatic stay. The tax, which places a surcharge on non-primary residences valued at $5 million or more and condos valued at $1 million or more, is expected to raise hundreds of millions in revenue.

Companies That Dropped DEI Are Seeing Worse Performance. A growing body of research confirms the companies that caved to right-wing pressure and abandoned their diversity, equity, and inclusion were short-sighted. An HRC Foundation study found that LGBTQ+ employees at companies that rolled back DEI practices report a 48 percent decline in productivity, compared to just 6 percent at companies that maintained their commitments. A 15-year longitudinal study found that companies scoring highest on inclusion saw revenue growth of 12.3 percent, compared to 5.2 percent for those at the bottom. Meanwhile, shareholders at companies like Mastercard, Best Buy, and American Airlines have rejected anti-DEI proposals by margins approaching 100 percent.

The DNC Knew Gaza Sank Harris. They Covered It Up.

US Democratic Socialists — Thu, 13 Aug 2026 16:56:35 GMT

Good afternoon, and welcome to U.S. Democratic Socialists.

Trump has used his position to amass unprecedented personal wealth, raking in $2.2 billion in personal income last year. A growing wave of Democratic senators and nominees are publicly calling for Chuck Schumer to step aside as leader. The author of the DNC’s 2024 autopsy concluded that Gaza policy cost Harris votes, and then purposefully omitted that finding. Seattle just banned landlords from charging pet rent and other junk fees. And Houston’s mayor signed an executive order raising airport workers’ wages by a third.

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Trump Made More Than $2.2 Billion Last Year While Running the Country

Donald Trump reported roughly $2.2 billion in personal earnings during the first full year of his second term, according to financial disclosures, although experts say the figure is likely even higher because not all of the earnings are public.

Trump has made money through his cryptocurrency business, real estate abroad, licensing deals, a meme coin, and his sales of watches, sneakers, Bibles, and guitars. Just his family’s interest in World Liberty Financial, the cryptocurrency company he launched shortly before his inauguration, was worth tens of millions of dollars.

Forbes estimated Trump’s wealth at $6.3 billion in April 2026, nearly triple its size at the beginning of 2024. His sons’ individual fortunes have grown by ten times, while the Trump family’s collective fortune has almost doubled to $10 billion as of last September.

House Oversight Democrats called it “unprecedented corruption.” Whereas past presidents such as Barack Obama and Bill Clinton have received money for books they sold after their presidencies, Trump has used the power of his office to inflate his personal fortune.

Growing List of Democrats Rally Against Chuck Schumer

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is facing the most sustained public opposition of his career, as a growing list of Democratic Senate nominees and sitting senators are calling on him to step down in November.

This week, Minnesota Senate nominee Peggy Flanagan joined that group, saying just hours after her primary win that Democrats need a progressive champion. Michigan Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed, Illinois Senate nominee Juliana Stratton, and Maine Senate nominee Troy Jackson have also called for new leadership, with El-Sayed going the extra step to endorse Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen.

Even some incumbent senators have begun to criticize him publicly, with Michigan Senator Elissa Slotkin saying on SiriusXM this week that “the Democratic Party needs fresh, new leadership.”

Schumer drew widespread ire from progressive Democrats in March last year when he helped shepherd a Republican-backed funding package through the Senate. That animosity has only grown since, after a 43-day government shutdown concluded with eight Senate Democrats joining Republicans to strike a deal.

Schumer’s future will come down to a secret ballot vote among Senate Democrats after November, but if four of the party’s own nominees won’t back him before they even take office, the odds aren’t exactly in his favor.

DNC Autopsy Found Gaza Policy Hurt Harris, so They Hid the Data

The author of the Democratic National Committee’s 2024 election autopsy has confirmed that his review found that Israel’s genocide in Gaza cost Kamala Harris votes — and he never submitted the finding to party leadership.

Paul Rivera, the author of the autopsy, told Axios his research indicated Harris lost tens of thousands of votes in Michigan alone due to backlash over her and Biden’s support for Israel. He said he shared the finding with the DNC, but that the party omitted it.

When the DNC released the autopsy in May, its total omission of Gaza drew immediate criticism. In an IMEU-YouGov survey, 29 percent of 2020 Biden voters who backed someone other than Harris in 2024 named Israel as the reason, surpassing the economy, immigration, health care, and abortion.

The party spent more than a year pretending that one of the most unpopular foreign policy stances in modern history didn’t exist. If the Democratic establishment wishes to find out why its constituents aren’t motivated, that might be a good place to begin.

Seattle Bans Landlords From Charging Pet Rent and Other Junk Fees

The Seattle City Council passed legislation this week that bans pet rent and a range of other charges more commonly known as junk fees.

Under the new law, Seattle landlords must disclose all fees when they advertise rent prices and can no longer tack on charges for things like mail and package delivery, common area maintenance, and building access systems. The legislation also grants the city’s Department of Construction and Inspections subpoena power over landlords and the ability to investigate suspected violations. Landlords can still charge for actual pet-related damages.

The bill passed unanimously, with only one council member recusing herself because she owns a rental property. During public comment, one resident testified that he and his wife pay almost $100 a month in fees, while another said she is charged $75 a month for her cat even though it never causes any damage.

The Rental Housing Association of Washington, a trade group representing small-time landlords, opposed the bill on the grounds that removing the fee would just lead to higher rents or reduced services. But tenants have made this argument all along, arguing that they deserve to know the actual cost of their housing before they sign a lease.

Houston Airport Workers Just Got a 33% Raise

Houston Mayor John Whitmire signed an executive order this week that immediately raises the minimum wage for airport workers to $20 an hour, with additional increases to follow in coming years.

The raise marks a 33 percent increase from current wages, which had been as low as $15 an hour for the janitors, security guards, restaurant staff, and other workers who keep the city’s three airports running. It’s expected to benefit more than 35,000 workers.

One airport employee, Augusta Dillon, told reporters that she had been living on $16.75 an hour while raising a grandchild with autism, which had forced her to choose between paying her car bill and her rent. She chose the rent, and her car was repossessed the day before the announcement.

The executive order continues a wave of union victories for hospitality workers in Houston. Last year, UNITE HERE members went on strike at the downtown Hilton Americas-Houston hotel, and won nearly identical wage gains after 40 days on the picket line. Altogether, roughly 37,000 hospitality workers in the city have won 30 percent raises through their unions over the past year.

Stand With Us Now

This is a five-alarm fire moment. It’s also a moment full of real hope if you know where to look. Families are losing their healthcare while agents of the state kill people in the streets with no trial. But even as the DOJ criminalizes anyone who objects, progressives are winning. That contradiction is exactly why our platform matters.

Facebook demonetized our page because they know that we’re too big to ignore. We are the largest democratic socialist organization on social media in this country, and no other organization has the reach to threaten them like we do. That doesn’t exist because of any corporation or billionaire, but because of readers like you who decided this work is worth supporting.

To our paid subscribers, thank you. You are the reason we can do this without answering to corporate sponsors or donors with an agenda. If you haven’t done so already, you should really become a paid subscriber today. Please help us continue to report the truth and help us continue to build the movement that is already transforming this nation.

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The line holds. Thanks for reading, and we’ll see you tomorrow.

STORIES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED:

Half of Young Americans Now View Democratic Socialism Positively. A new CNBC poll conducted with Generation Lab found that almost half of Americans between the ages of 18 and 34 hold a positive view of Democratic Socialism, and 68 percent view it positively or neutrally. Negative views of capitalism among young people outweigh negative views of socialism by more than two to one. A separate CNBC All-America Economic Survey from July found that registered voters are more likely to support a self-described democratic socialist candidate than one aligned with the MAGA movement.

Mamdani Is Giving 2,100 Free Broadway Tickets to New York City High Schoolers. Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced a new lottery program, Tickets for Teens, that will hand out 2,100 free tickets to seven Broadway and Off-Broadway shows to high schoolers in grades 9 through 12. Participating shows include Buena Vista Social Club, In the Heights, The Great Gatsby, and Stranger Things: The First Shadow. All students entering the lottery will also be given a complimentary two-month subscription to Theatre Development Fund, which offers heavily discounted tickets to shows throughout the year. The city isn’t paying for the program, because the seven participating shows donated the tickets themselves.

Fire Fighters Union Unanimously Votes to Censure Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger. At the association’s 58th convention in Arlington, Texas, IAFF’s 11,000 delegates for more than 365,000 firefighters and emergency medical workers unanimously voted to reprimand Spanberger for breaking her pledge to support and sign collective bargaining legislation for public employees. Spanberger had told firefighters and emergency medical workers on multiple occasions that she would stand with them, and their union helped get her elected on that promise. But when the bill came to her desk this spring, she offered amendments that the legislature declined to accept, and then vetoed the bill.

Abdul El-Sayed Challenged His Republican Opponent to a Tackle Football Game. Former Rep. Mike Rogers took to Fox News and said that El-Sayed wants to get rid of football, fireworks, and the Fourth of July. In response, El-Sayed challenged the 63-year-old Republican to a game of tackle football with no pads. Rogers has declined to debate El-Sayed thus far, but has referenced podcast clips from years ago when El-Sayed discussed toxic masculinity in the culture of sports. El-Sayed, who was captain of his high school’s football team and played lacrosse at the University of Michigan, shared the challenge on social media, where it’s since been viewed more than 3 million times.

EXCLUSIVE: Zohran Mamdani Reacts to the Establishment's Losing Streak

US Democratic Socialists — Wed, 12 Aug 2026 16:45:32 GMT

Good afternoon, and welcome to U.S. Democratic Socialists.

NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani sat down with us for an exclusive interview in which he shared his thoughts about the progressive wave sweeping the country. Democratic socialist Francesca Hong lost the Wisconsin governor’s race by 0.4 percent, and corporate media is now claiming that the movement is dead while ignoring the candidate who won by twenty points that same day. And Google co-founder Sergey Brin just spent $102 million to dodge paying $13.3 billion in taxes.

We are now the biggest democratic socialist organization on social media and the 5th fastest-growing news Substack in the US. Despite Big Tech throttling us, we reach tens of millions of people every single week. And we’ve done that all without a hedge fund backing us, without a billionaire donor, without one single corporate sponsor dictating what we are and aren’t allowed to say. The only thing between the truth and the algorithm designed to keep you from it is a paid subscription. Please upgrade today.

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Zohran Mamdani Isn’t Worried About Hit Pieces. He’s Too Busy Winning Elections.

For the better part of a year, the Republican Party and a significant chunk of the Democratic establishment have been operating under the assumption that Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral win was a fluke. That democratic socialism polls well in safe blue districts, but falls apart in swing states.

The 2026 primaries have not been kind to that theory, as all three congressional candidates Mamdani endorsed in New York won their races: Darializa Avila Chevalier, Claire Valdez, and Brad Lander. Progressive victories have since expanded well beyond the city: Melat Kiros in Colorado, Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan, and Chris Rabb in Pennsylvania.

Mamdani knows it’s not a fluke. He said, during an exclusive interview with USDS in conjunction with Really American, that “these are all candidates who’ve made it clear that they want the future of the party to be the workers of this party.”

“I think it’s showcasing that voters are hungry for a different kind of politics,” he told us. “What is a party if not its voters? And these voters are showing time and again they want us to stand for something. Not just stand up to a federal administration, but also have a vision of what comes after this one.”

The main position of the Democratic Party for the past 16 years has been opposition to Trump. First it was resisting him, then it was recovering from him, then it was losing to him again. Mamdani is betting that the way forward isn’t another round of “at least we’re not them” — it’s giving people something to actually vote for.

“When we think about the New Deal, when we think about what we could deliver and the scale of what we delivered for working people, that’s what we have to bring back to our politics,” he said. “Because for too long, it’s felt as if politics is a hobby for those who can afford to have it, not something that could deliver a better life for those who are being priced out of one today.”

The surest sign it’s working is just how many conservative outlets have made Mamdani a regular segment of their programming. From networks like Fox News to the president himself, the right is taking turns calling Mamdani a communist who believes in “radical jihadist sharia supremacism.” The New York Post alone ran seven covers on him in the ten days before his election.

“Part of it is always asking yourself whether this is noise or this is in good faith,” he said. “And good faith doesn’t just mean compliments, it also means critique. In today’s day and age, there’s a lot of noise. And one of the things that growing up in New York City prepares you for is how to differentiate what’s noise and what you actually need to engage with.”

For our full conversation with Mamdani, watch the video above. For fearless independent journalism free from billionaire and corporate influence, become a paid subscriber today.

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The “Socialist Wave Hit a Wall” Narrative Is Missing Half the Story

If you read the headlines this morning, you’d think the progressive movement collapsed overnight. Democratic socialist Francesca Hong lost the Wisconsin governor’s primary to Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, and the mainstream media couldn’t type “wall” fast enough.

CNN called it a “roar back” for the Democratic establishment. WSJ said the socialist movement has “stalled.” Local Sinclair stations called it a “remarkable comeback” for Crowley.

Here’s what they left out: Hong lost by 0.4 percent (around 3,000 votes). She was leading in the polls for weeks until outgoing Governor Tony Evers personally intervened, endorsing Crowley after he had already dropped out of the race. The Republican Governors Association spent $3.6 million on ads designed to boost Hong in the primary because they thought she’d be easier to beat.

Hong has conceded the race, but not the issues she built her platform around. In a statement Tuesday night, she said the campaign “proved working-class politics can compete anywhere, with anyone against us.”

Peggy Flanagan Beat the Democratic Establishment by Twenty Points

While the press was busy writing Francesca Hong’s obituary over a three-thousand-vote loss, Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan was demolishing Rep. Angie Craig by twenty points in the Minnesota Senate primary.

Craig had the endorsements of Hakeem Jeffries and Nancy Pelosi, as well as support from a long list of Senate Democrats who all agreed she was the safer bet. Flanagan had a much shorter list of endorsements from Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, and was outspent nearly five to one.

Craig was one of the deciding votes that handed ICE more power through the Laken Riley Act. She then scrambled to say she “regretted” it once Trump’s agents started raiding local communities. When that didn’t work, her campaign attacked Flanagan over a fabricated fraud scandal — the same the Trump administration used to smear the state’s social services programs.

Flanagan will now face Republican Michele Tafoya in November. Republicans haven’t won a statewide election in Minnesota since 2006, making it more than likely she becomes the first Native woman ever elected to the U.S. Senate.

Google Co-Founder Spends $102 Million to Avoid Paying More Taxes

Google co-founder Sergey Brin has now poured $102 million into defeating California’s Proposition 40, a one-time 5% tax on the state’s roughly 200 billionaires that would raise an estimated $100 billion for healthcare, education, and food assistance.

Brin’s net worth is approximately $282 billion, which means he would pay around $13.3 billion under the proposal. He compared the proposed tax to the Soviet-style socialism his family fled in 1979. He then bought a $42 million estate on the Nevada side of Lake Tahoe and listed Nevada as his state of residence.

The measure was pushed by SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West, a healthcare workers’ union, in response to federal funding cuts that could strip California’s healthcare system of up to $100 billion over the next five years. The revenue would be enough to fill those gaps, meaning the roughly 15 million Californians on Medi-Cal would keep their coverage intact regardless of what happens in Washington.

Governor Gavin Newsom has voiced his opposition to the measure while calling for a national billionaire tax instead. Democrats and Republicans rarely agree on much these days, but a $282 billion fortune still brings both parties to the table.

Stand With Us Now

This is a five-alarm fire moment. It’s also a moment full of real hope if you know where to look. Working families are losing their healthcare, ICE is killing people in its own custody while the DOJ criminalizes anyone who objects, and yet progressive organizing is winning real victories at the state level and workers are standing up together and winning too. That contradiction, the crisis and the fightback happening at the exact same time, is exactly why our platform matters and why we do this work every single morning.

Facebook demonetized our page because they know that when we’re too big to ignore. We’re dangerous to the powerful interests that benefit from people staying quiet and scared. We are the largest democratic socialist organization on social media in this country, and no other organization brings the reach or the impact that we do at this scale. That reach doesn’t exist because of any corporation or billionaire, it exists because of readers like you who decided this work was worth supporting.

To our paid subscribers, thank you, genuinely. You are the reason we can do this work without answering to a single corporate sponsor or donor with an agenda. If you haven’t yet become a paid subscriber, now is the moment to join us. Help us keep showing up, keep reporting the truth, and keep building the movement that’s already changing what’s possible in this country. This moment demands action. Join us.

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The line holds. Thanks for reading, and we’ll see you tomorrow.

STORIES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED:

Bernie Sanders Demands AI Companies Pause Development Before It’s Too Late. Sen. Bernie Sanders has sent letters to the CEOs of OpenAI, Anthropic, and Meta demanding they immediately pause AI development. He cited recent incidents in which models went rogue and researchers used AI to create new viruses, quoting the companies’ own published commitments to halt development if their systems became too dangerous to control. “In the interest of humanity, stand by your words. Pause AI development. It is not too late to avoid disaster. Stop building machines that humans cannot control,” Sanders wrote, adding that if the companies don’t act voluntarily, “my colleagues and I in the U.S. Senate will.”

Illinois Becomes the Third State to Let Rideshare Drivers Unionize. Gov. JB Pritzker signed a law allowing more than 100,000 rideshare drivers in Illinois to bargain collectivel. The law, backed by SEIU Local 1 and the IAM machinists union, requires drivers to gather signatures from at least 10% of active drivers to establish interest and 30% to certify a union. Uber and Lyft will be charged four cents per ride to cover implementation costs. Pritzker also signed laws restricting where new immigration detention centers can be built, classifying plastic pellets as pollutants, and barring employers from requiring a driver’s license unless the job actually involves driving.

A Pennsylvania Hospital Spent $6.4 Million on Scabs Instead of Giving Workers a Raise. Mount Nittany Health spent $6.4 million bringing in temporary replacement workers during a five-day strike last month. SEIU Healthcare Pennsylvania pointed out that the same money could have funded an 8% raise for every worker. Hospital management responded that wages are a recurring cost while scabs are a one-time expense, which is a remarkable way of saying they’d rather light $6.4 million on fire than pay nurses more. The hospital also recently reported its first operating loss in over a decade, which union members suspect has more to do with a rapid expansion in real estate purchases than with worker salaries.

Fort Worth Unanimously Votes to Pause Data Center Construction. The Fort Worth City Council has voted unanimously to begin the process of a 90-day moratorium on new data center developments. Nearly 50 speakers testified in support of the pause at a recent meeting, where the council also formed a commission of community members, academics, and industry experts to evaluate the impact of data centers on the environment. Texas’ power grid operator ERCOT estimates that requests from large power users, 87% of which come from data centers, could quadruple the state’s electricity demand over the next decade. Governor Greg Abbott, who previously championed data center expansion, has reversed course during his reelection campaign and issued a similar statewide pause.

Democratic Socialists Could Win Big as Four States Vote Tonight

US Democratic Socialists — Tue, 11 Aug 2026 16:23:45 GMT

Good afternoon, and welcome to U.S. Democratic Socialists.

Democratic socialists are on the ballot today in Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Connecticut. A judge just temporarily blocked Mayor Mamdani’s pied-à-terre tax on wealthy second-home owners. Bernie Sanders is demanding Democrats ban super PACs from their primaries. And CVS pharmacists in three states just voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike over understaffing and burnout.

U.S. Democratic Socialists is the largest democratic socialist organization on social media in America right now. We reach tens of millions of people every single week, all without a single cent of money from corporations or billionaires. That’s especially important now that Facebook has throttled us, and Big Tech buries stories like these every day. We don’t have billionaire funding and corporate PACs behind us. If you can become a paid subscriber today, please do. It’s the only thing that stands between the truth and the algorithms that want to keep it from you.

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Democratic Socialists Are on the Ballot Across the Country Today

The liberal tsunami that propelled Abdul El-Sayed to a win in the Michigan Senate primary race last week is due to crash on the coasts of Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Connecticut today.

In Wisconsin, democratic socialist state Rep. Francesca Hong is running for governor in a four-way Democratic primary. Her top opponent, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, has the backing of outgoing Gov. Tony Evers and the party establishment. Two other candidates dropped out but remain on the ballot, and absentee votes already cast for them can’t be undone.

The GOP is so eager to run against Hong that the Republican Governors Association has spent nearly $3.6 million on ads designed to boost her in the primary. Trump has already called Hong a communist. She responded by saying she would welcome Evers campaigning with her after the primary and called on Democrats to unite against the Republican nominee.

In Minnesota, progressive Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan is challenging moderate Rep. Angie Craig for a U.S. Senate seat, with millions pouring in on both sides. In Connecticut, progressive challengers are taking on both a sitting governor and a 14-term congressman.

Find your polling place at vote.org/polling-place-locator.

Judge Temporarily Blocks Mamdani’s Second-Home Tax

A Staten Island judge granted second-home owners in New York City, who are among the wealthiest residents in the country, a brief stay on actually paying taxes on their luxury spare apartments.

The ruling temporarily blocks the rollout of the pied-a-terre tax, one of Mamdani’s signature campaign promises and one of the only meaningful efforts in the country to make sure the rich pay what they owe.

Among the three homeowners who filed the lawsuit was a relative of a Republican City Council member. They aren’t saying the tax is illegal, just that the rollout was confusing. According to the lawsuit, the city released a list of more than 900,000 properties that could be targeted for the tax and also sent out notices to property owners without providing context as to why they were included. The judge ordered the city to remove the list as the case proceeds.

The city immediately filed a motion to appeal. Mamdani vowed to “vigorously defend” the surcharge and said the city would continue with implementation. The next hearing is scheduled for August 31.

The conservative media celebrating this ruling won’t admit that the tax isn’t going away. This ruling was about how the rollout was administered, not about whether taxing wealthy second-home owners is legal.

Since taking office in January, Mamdani has delivered a rent freeze for tenants in rent-stabilized apartments, expanded free childcare for two-year-olds, and improved bus service across the city. One procedural stumble doesn’t change the fact that the richest people in the richest city in the world need to pay their fair share.

Bernie Sanders Demands Democrats Ban Super PACs From Primaries

Sen. Bernie Sanders is calling on Democratic leaders to end the “corrupt system” of super PAC participation in their own primaries.

In a letter shared exclusively with CBS News’ Face the Nation, Sanders wrote to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, and DNC Chair Ken Martin, urging them to prohibit super PACs from spending in Democratic primary elections.

Corporate-backed super PACs have already dumped more than $517 million into the 2026 midterm cycle. Haley Stevens, who lost to El-Sayed in Michigan’s Senate primary last week, received over $50 million from outside organizations, including $30 million from AIPAC. Sanders noted that AIPAC is now reportedly planning to spend tens of millions to instead back El-Sayed’s Republican opponent.

A super PAC that donated millions to a Democratic primary race to prevent the victory of a progressive candidate is now backing his GOP challenger. That’s all you need to know about who they’re actually working for.

Sanders acknowledged that until Citizens United is overturned and public financing of elections is established, candidates will continue accepting PAC money in general elections. But within their own primaries, Democrats have the power to act right now.

CVS Pharmacists Vote to Authorize a Strike Over Understaffing and Burnout

Unionized CVS pharmacists in three states voted overwhelmingly to approve a strike sanction last week, the first of two approvals needed before workers can walk off the job.

Workers at six stores approved the measure by 90.3 percent in Rhode Island, 96.7 percent in California, and 100 percent in Arizona. They say workloads have been climbing for years while staffing has been cut, which has only gotten worse since the pandemic.

CVS claims it has invested in staffing and resources, and says the unionized workers represent less than one percent of its roughly 90,000 pharmacy employees. That means 99 percent of their pharmacists don’t even have a union to fight for them yet.

CVS pulled in over $400 billion in annual revenue last year and recently tripled its net income. In 2024, Ohio fined CVS $1.5 million — the largest penalty the state board had ever imposed — after regulators found insufficient staffing, dispensing errors, and prescription delays.

The strike sanction vote is the first of two votes needed before pharmacists could walk out. If the Pharmacy Guild holds a full strike authorization vote and it passes, pharmacists at the union’s six stores in those three states will be on the picket line.

It’s now or never. Every day we get suppressed on social media because independent working class news threatens the people who have made billions off the silence of the corporate media. Both parties’ establishment, aided by their corporate media partners, have been working very hard to ensure that groups like ours won’t show up in 2028. The path forward isn’t waiting for permission from party leadership. We’re doing it now, supported by you, not those who want to keep us down. Sign up as a paid subscriber. Join us as we build the movement to get us to 2028.

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The line holds. Thanks for reading, and we’ll see you tomorrow.

STORIES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED:

The American Workforce Has Shrunk by More Than One Million People in a Single Year. Last month, the number of Americans either working or actively seeking work was estimated at about 169.1 million, down from 170.4 million last July. That’s a decline of about 1.3 million workers, and a good portion of that drop has occurred in the past few months. The labor force participation rate was just 61.4 percent in July, the lowest it’s been since February 2021. Baby boomers are leaving the workforce for retirement, there are fewer young people getting on the career ladder, visas face harsher restrictions, and the job market has become so bleak many have simply given up.

Trump and the White House Are Targeting Abdul El-Sayed as a “Threat to America.” Since El-Sayed clinched Michigan’s Democratic Senate nomination last week, Trump and his allies have called him a “Radical Left Socialist,” “Communist Loser,” and a “direct threat to America.” Trump posted a photo of himself and Melania next to one of El-Sayed and his wife with the caption “Two VERY DIFFERENT America’s.” Vice President Vance called him “an odd guy” and “crazy.” El-Sayed has not backed down, noting that Trump and his allies are deliberately using his full name to otherize him, just as they did with Barack Obama.

White House “Winces” as Conservatives Attack AOC for Freezing Her Eggs. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez posted a video Saturday giving herself a fertility shot in preparation to freeze her eggs. Conservative commentators immediately attacked her for delaying motherhood, which prompted a backlash from Republican women and even unease inside the White House. A senior White House official told Axios that the criticism of AOC was “not helpful,” given that Trump has publicly championed IVF access. A Trump adviser noted the midterm elections are less than three months away and called the situation a losing message for Republicans. One MAGA consultant replied that she has many conservative friends who froze their eggs and had families later in life, and that it “should be celebrated.”

The Teamsters Are Suing California Over Self-Driving Truck Regulations. The California Teamsters filed a lawsuit against state regulators accusing them of rushing out new rules friendly to the autonomous vehicle industry without considering the impact on workers. In April, a clause allowing testing of autonomous semi-trucks was tucked into a broader bill on driverless car regulations. The Teamsters allege the DMV skipped a mandatory economic impact study, instead using a fast-track process meant for minor updates. The DMV calculated that zero jobs would be eliminated by self-driving trucks. The Teamsters count over 200,000 semi-truck drivers whose livelihoods are at stake.

Trump Attacked a Rival's Marriage. It Went as Well as His First Two

US Democratic Socialists — Mon, 10 Aug 2026 16:34:44 GMT

Good afternoon, and welcome to USDS.

Donald Trump spent the weekend attacking a rival’s marriage and low-keying a war he started, while Democratic lawmakers proposed policies that would actually improve the lives of the people they were elected to serve. One side is holding on to power via performance art, and the other side is organizing and winning.

US Democratic Socialists is the biggest democratic socialist organization in the United States on social media, and one of the fastest-growing news Substacks in the nation. We’ve done it all without a single dime from corporations or billionaires. We get every dollar from our readers, which means we work for you, not them. And that’s why they are after us. Big Tech throttles our reach because we don’t follow the corporate media script. If you believe in honest, unbiased journalism that cares about who’s on the side of the people and who’s not, please become a paid subscriber today. For the price of a cup of coffee, you can help make a world of difference.

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Trump Attacks El-Sayed’s Marriage. It Blows Up in His Face.

Nothing says “the party of family values” like a serial cheater attacking a healthy marriage.

Trump posted an image of himself and Melania on Truth Social Saturday next to one of Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed and his wife, Dr. Sarah Jukaku, who happened to be wearing a hijab.

The caption, typo and all, read: “Two VERY DIFFERENT America’s.” It backfired almost immediately.

El-Sayed married Jukaku in May 2006. For those of you doing the math, that means they’ve been together over twenty years. They have two daughters together, and neither has a child from a previous relationship. Meanwhile, Trump has been married three times, and paid adult film star Stormy Daniels $130,000 to keep quiet about an affair that took place months after Melania gave birth to their son, Barron.

When Jake Tapper brought up the post on CNN’s State of the Union Sunday morning, El-Sayed immediately agreed with Trump’s framing. He shot back by describing Trump’s America as one where “two people who don’t like each other but joined in the interest of making billions of dollars off of you,” and his America as one where “two people who genuinely love each other” were just “enjoying some pancakes together.”

Trump “Low-Keys” Iran Talks While Gas Prices Climb

The president is more concerned with creating soundbites than sound policy.

Iran’s Supreme National Security Council issued six demands Saturday for reopening the Strait of Hormuz, including the lifting of all sanctions, withdrawal of U.S. military forces, and compensation for two wars. Council secretary Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr said the strait would remain closed “until America corrects its behavior.”

Trump’s response, in a phone interview with Axios on Sunday, was to say the U.S. was “low-keying it” and “only semi-negotiating” with Iran. This came after reports that he’s considering walking away from the conflict entirely without securing a nuclear deal, the stated reason for the war in the first place.

Meanwhile, Americans are paying for the stalemate. Brent crude rose more than 1 percent Monday, climbing above $84 a barrel, and is up over 26 percent compared to the same time last year. U.S. gas prices are up more than 30 percent since the war began, with the national average hovering around $4 a gallon.

According to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, the average American family has already paid $527 more in gas bills because of the war, which they say will reach $650 by the end of summer. Not a “lowkey” amount to see deducted from your checking account.

Ro Khanna Introduces Long-Overdue “Data Center Bill of Rights”

Ro Khanna, the Silicon Valley congressman who’s been visiting a suspicious number of diners in swing states lately, just introduced a bill letting communities tell Big Tech no.

Under the bill, which Khanna calls the “Data Center Bill of Rights,” localities would be able to veto permits for the construction of AI data centers, keep them at least 2,500 feet from residential zones, schools and hospitals, and have those local decisions protected from state interference.

Data centers already use as much energy as about 100,000 homes, and by 2030 they may account for between 9.5 and 15.3 percent of total U.S. electricity consumption, according to the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Hyperscale data centers, the biggest of the bunch, could require as much as 33 billion gallons of water annually by 2028.

Three times this year, data centers have sucked so much power from the grid that the federal government had to declare energy emergencies and force them onto diesel generators. The emergency law they used was written in 1935 for actual crises, not to keep AI servers running because the power grid can’t handle the load.

Khanna told CNBC the issue he heard about most while recently traveling through Pennsylvania was opposition to these facilities. “We need a data center bill of rights where communities don’t have these data centers shoved down their throat.”

Wisconsin’s Dem Establishment Scrambles to Stop a Democratic Socialist

Wisconsin’s Democratic governor primary is tomorrow, and the frontrunner has spent the final week of the race being forced to explain a deleted tweet about Thanksgiving instead of being asked about policy.

State Rep. Francesca Hong, a democratic socialist from Madison, supports Medicare for All, universal childcare, free school lunches, and wants to abolish ICE. Those positions are popular with voters, which is why she’s winning. But the national party and its consultant class have instead fixated on a deleted 2020 tweet where she wrote we should “cancel Thanksgiving.”

David Axelrod warned that if “this chef wins the gubernatorial primary in WI, Ds may be cooked.” Governor Tony Evers, who endorsed her opponent, said she’s spent her whole campaign on “the Twitter” instead of the issues, which is rich given that his side is the one making tweets the issue.

Their alternative is Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, who quit the race on July 8, endorsed the lieutenant governor, then re-entered ten days later after her campaign imploded over a finance scandal. He’d already booked a trip to Jamaica before canceling it and relaunching with Evers’ endorsement.

This is the moment. Big Tech throttles our reach every single day because independent, working-class journalism threatens the platforms that profit off corporate media’s silence. Both parties’ establishments, backed by that same corporate media, are working overtime to make sure movements like ours never reach 2028 with real power. But we’re already winning. Democratic socialists are taking primaries. Workers are walking picket lines and winning contracts. The path forward isn’t waiting for permission from party leadership. It’s building now, together, funded by people like you instead of the corporations trying to bury us. Become a paid subscriber today. Help us build the movement that gets us to 2028 stronger than ever.

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STORIES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED:

AOC leaves the door open on 2028. Now that Bernie Sanders has entirely ruled out another presidential run, questions remain about who carries the progressive movement forward. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told ABC’s This Week on Sunday that she hasn’t ruled out running for president or challenging Chuck Schumer for his Senate seat in 2028. “I think that anything is possible at this juncture,” she said. AOC has real political momentum behind her, as her endorsement helped fuel Abdul El-Sayed’s Michigan Senate primary win last week.

Bronx public defenders end strike. The third public defender organization in New York City to strike this summer has ended its walkout after hundreds of public defenders, social workers, and support staff at The Bronx Defenders reached a tentative contract agreement Thursday night. The deal raises salaries, increases cost-of-living adjustments, and expands student loan support and retirement benefits. Brooklyn Defender Services struck earlier this summer over pay, sick time, and a location-tracking app that required staff to clock in and out.

Mamdani goes after Amazon and Target. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani sent cease-and-desist letters to 40 major retailers demanding they stop selling illegal motorized scooters and e-bikes that exceed city speed and wattage limits. The crackdown came a week after 17-year-old Gabriel Nacato was fatally struck by an SUV while riding an e-bike in Lower Manhattan. Retailers face $2,000 fines per sale starting August 18.

TSA’s secret privatization plan gets sued. The union representing 47,000 federal airport screeners is suing TSA over a program called “GoldPlus” that would replace federal security officers with private contractors at airports across the country. The public only found out the program existed because someone stumbled on a TSA briefing flyer at Orlando International Airport and gave it to a reporter. The plan mirrors a Project 2025 proposal to privatize airport screening, which is the system the country abandoned after September 11.

A Governor Just Showed Every Democrat How It's Done

US Democratic Socialists — Sat, 08 Aug 2026 13:41:20 GMT

Good morning, comrades.

Today we’re covering a death in ICE custody and the Justice Department’s escalating use of conspiracy charges against protesters. We’re getting into Massachusetts’ new law reining in ICE’s reach into courthouses and schools. We also discuss fresh data showing millions of Americans losing health coverage as Trump’s Medicaid cuts and the expired ACA subsidies take hold, and a couple of real wins for working people in the skies and on the shop floor.

Before we get into it: U.S. Democratic Socialists is the largest democratic socialist organization in America on social media, reaching tens of millions of people every single week, and we built that reach without a dime from corporations or billionaires. Facebook has already demonetized our page for the crime of telling the truth about what’s happening in this country. We cannot do this work without paid subscribers stepping up right now. If you believe in what we’re building, become a paid subscriber today.

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A Death in ICE Custody, and DOJ Turns Protesters Into Criminals

A Venezuelan detainee died in ICE custody during a transfer in Georgia this week. This is the latest in a string of deaths inside the agency’s detention system that has now topped 40 since the start of the Trump administration. Somewhere, a family is getting a phone call no one should ever have to receive, about a loved one who was alive and in federal custody and is now simply gone. ICE says it provides comprehensive medical care to those in its custody. That claim that grows harder to square with each new death, and one that never seems to come with real accountability attached. No official has lost their job over any of these forty-plus deaths, and no independent body has been allowed to investigate what actually happened inside that transfer.

Meanwhile, the Justice Department is reaching for a Civil War-era conspiracy statute to prosecute people who protest ICE raids. In Minneapolis, a woman who organized against ICE activity had federal agents show up at her own front door months later. Three defendants in a related case were convicted of conspiracy for allegedly urging others to block ICE from leaving a building. A former U.S. attorney who resigned over the case called it a law “dusted off” to punish people for standing up for their neighbors, and it should terrify anyone who believes showing up for your community is supposed to be protected speech, not a federal crime. This is what it looks like when a government runs out of good arguments and reaches for intimidation instead, hoping that fear will do what persuasion couldn’t.

Massachusetts Fights Back

Governor Maura Healey signed the Protect Act this week, a sweeping new law that restricts ICE agents from operating in courthouses, hospitals, and schools while creating a new state civil rights claim for residents whose constitutional rights are violated by a government official, ICE included. Healey also set up a portal for reporting ICE misconduct directly to the state, giving residents somewhere to turn when federal agents overstep. It’s proof that state-level power is real, and that Democrats willing to actually use it can protect their people instead of just issuing statements about how concerned they are. Healey herself put it plainly: this is a public safety law, because families are less safe, not more, when they’re afraid to send their kids to school or take a sick parent to the hospital.

We need more governors willing to do what Healey just did. Every state where Democrats hold power is a place where this kind of protection is possible right now, if leaders choose courage over caution. There’s no excuse for waiting on Washington when a governor’s pen can start protecting people today.

Millions Are Losing Health Coverage, and It’s Not an Accident

More than 5 million people have dropped off Medicaid and ACA coverage in the last year, according to a new report from Protect Our Care. The reason isn’t complicated. Trump’s so-called One Big Beautiful Bill cut nearly $1 trillion from Medicaid over the next decade, and Republicans let enhanced ACA subsidies expire at the end of last year rather than extend them. This was a choice, made by people who will never have to choose between a doctor’s visit and groceries themselves. Nearly 3.8 million of those losses came from Medicaid and CHIP alone, meaning children and working families are bearing the brunt of a decision made entirely by people who don’t have to live with the consequences.

The result is that more than 20 million ACA marketplace enrollees are now facing premium increases averaging 114 percent this year. The Congressional Budget Office projects 15 million more people will be uninsured by 2034 because of these two decisions alone. This is what austerity looks like in practice: it is not an abstraction on a spreadsheet in Washington, it is a single mother deciding whether she can afford to keep her own coverage or only her child’s, a retiree rationing medication, a working parent hoping nothing goes wrong before open enrollment comes back around. Let’s be real: this is only the beginning, and the full damage won’t be visible until well after most of the political consequences have already faded from the news cycle. We need Medicare For All.

Wins for Workers, Because the Fight Isn’t Only Defense

It’s not all bad news. WestJet reached a deal to end its flight attendants’ strike this week, a reminder that when workers hold the line together, companies eventually have to come to the table. These are the kinds of wins that rarely make national headlines but change real people’s lives, the difference between a livable schedule and burnout, between dignity on the job and being treated as disposable. Flight attendants have spent years telling anyone who would listen how brutal their working conditions actually are, and this deal exists because they refused to stay quiet about it any longer.

Closer to home, UAW members at Woodward MPC outside Chicago voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike, and workers at American Axle in Three Rivers, Michigan did the same. Neither group has walked out yet, but a strike authorization vote is a show of collective strength, a signal to management that workers are serious and organized and not backing down. Every one of these votes, every picket line, every contract fought for and won, is proof that the labor movement in this country is very much alive, and that solidarity still works. None of it happens by accident either, it happens because workers spend months building trust with each other before they ever cast a single ballot.

Stand With Us Now

Big Tech has already tried to silence us. Facebook demonetized our page because they know that when we’re too big to ignore. We’re dangerous to the powerful interests that benefit from people staying quiet and scared. We are the largest democratic socialist organization on social media in this country, and no other organization brings the reach or the impact that we do at this scale. That reach doesn’t exist because of any corporation or billionaire, it exists because of readers like you who decided this work was worth supporting.

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Stay strong. Stay vigilant. Never stop fighting for a more progressive, people powered future.

Justin, John, Ryan and the U.S. Democratic Socialists Team