Politics

The Senate needs to stop the procedural delays and give these nominees an up-or-down vote immediately.

The Trump administration is touting letters the Food and Drug Administration just sent to 100 pharmaceutical companies, accusing them of misleading direct-to-consumer advertising. Would you like to know which ads are misleading, how they are misleading, which companies received letters, and which drugs are at issue? Lol, you cannot, because while the FDA and the White House are proudly waving these letters around, they contain literally no details.   The letters order pharmaceutical companies to cease and desist their misleading ads and “remove any noncompliant advertising and bring all promotional communications into compliance.” There’s also some fearmongering about social media and some vague threats about how “going forward, FDA intends to take aggressive action and ensure conformity with the law.”  What the letters don’t include is any explanation of what constitutes “noncompliant advertising,” either generally or specifically. There’s no reference to any laws or regulations, nor are the letters tailored to specific companies and specific advertisements. Pharmaceutical companies are apparently just supposed to guess at what they’re doing wrong and fix it, or face some as-yet-unknown consequences. Related | RFK Jr.’s plan to ‘Make Our Children Healthy Again’ is another miss While you do not, under any circumstances, have to give the benefit of the doubt to Big Pharma, Trump’s attack has nothing to do with actual, genuine concerns about deceptive advertising. Rather, this is about forcing pharmaceutical companies to treat Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s conspiracy theories as if they were science.  In the FDA’s press release about the ads, Kennedy complained that “Pharmaceutical ads hooked this country on prescription drugs” and that “only radical transparency will break the cycle of overmedicalization that drives America’s chronic disease epidemic.”  Hmm. Apparently “radical transparency” does not involve telling the pharmaceutical companies or the rest of the country what the problems are.  Kennedy, who is genuinely unhinged about this sort of thing, has said he wants to ban pharmaceutical advertising altogether. There is certainly a case to be made that direct-to-consumer advertising is problematic, but these letters don’t even pretend to make that case.  In part, that’s because these chest-thumping letters look nothing like actual regulations that companies are obliged to follow. During the Biden administration, we got things like this 84-page rule about “Presenting Quantitative Efficacy and Risk Information in Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) Promotional Labeling and Advertisements.” It included references to the governing laws, lengthy definitions, multiple examples of compliant and noncompliant advertising, disclosure requirements for social media influencers, and more. Or here is a lengthy guide for pharmaceutical companies about “Presenting Quantitative Efficacy and Risk Information in Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) Promotional Labeling and Advertisements.” The problem here is that Kennedy doesn’t believe in science. He’s an ideologue hell-bent on blaming every childhood illness, every chronic health condition, on the evilness of Big Pharma, and he’s absolutely furious that no actual scientists agree. Kennedy’s “Make Our Children Healthy Again” report meanders from complaint to complaint about fluoride, vaccines, and prescription drugs, but without any studies or references to governing laws. It’s just a laundry list of Kennedy’s favorite conspiracies.  Related | RFK Jr. is so mad that real doctors don’t have to listen to him Science, under Kennedy, consists of demanding that major medical publications retract a study he doesn’t like, even when that study was conducted outside of the United States and did not receive U.S. government funding. This is comic book villain stuff, not actual regulation.  What these fact-free letters are really about is signaling to pharmaceutical companies that they are in for the same treatment as universities and media companies: vague, unsupported assertions of wrongdoing that can only be resolved by giving the administration millions of dollars. And that sure doesn’t look like science.

George Retes is a 25-year-old U.S. Army veteran who served a tour in Iraq. On July 10, while on his way to work as a security guard at a Southern California cannabis farm, he was detained by federal immigration agents, despite telling them that he is an American citizen and that his wallet and identification were in his nearby car, Retes told me. While arresting him, the agents knelt on his back and his neck, he said, making it difficult for him to breathe. Held in a jail cell for three days and nights, he was not allowed to make a phone call, see an attorney, appear before a judge, or take a shower to wash off pepper spray and tear gas that the agents had used, according to the Institute for Justice, a public-interest law firm that is representing Retes. He worried about his two young children and missed his daughter’s birthday. Mistreatment of American citizens by immigration authorities is not new. According to a 2021 Government Accountability Office report, the best available data indicate that Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested 674 “potential” U.S. citizens, detained 121, and removed 70 during a five-year, six-month period that ended in 2020. We don’t yet know if detentions of U.S. citizens are becoming more common in President Donald Trump’s second term, but news outlets have documented more than a dozen such cases. And the Trump administration has ramped up immigration raids, rolled back due-process protections, and secured funding to quickly hire 10,000 additional ICE officers, all of which creates the conditions for more erroneous detentions—and raises the question of whether ICE can violate the rights of citizens with impunity. “There must be some avenue to hold the federal government or its officers liable for violating George’s constitutional rights,” Marie Miller, one of Retes’s attorneys, told me. Her strategy is to seek relief for Retes under the Federal Tort Claims Act, a law that allows private parties to sue for negligent or wrongful acts committed by federal employees acting within their job. The government has six months to resolve a claim, after which the claimant can sue. The hope is that the case “will chart a path to holding federal officers or their employer accountable,” Miller explained, “and that blazing the path to accountability will discourage this kind of treatment.” She said that ICE has acknowledged receiving Retes’s claim but has not yet responded. [Listen: How ICE became Trump’s secret army] ICE did not respond to my request for comment about the claim. But a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security put out a statement after the raid in which Retes was swept up, saying that the “US Attorney’s Office is reviewing his case, along with dozens of others, for potential federal charges related to the execution of the federal search warrant in Camarillo.” Retes was one of more than 360 people who were detained in the operation—“a mix of workers, family members of workers, protesters and passersby,” according to the Los Angeles Times. Late last month, I spoke with Retes, who detailed his story, starting with the day that his employer, Glass House Farms, one of California’s largest legal-cannabis companies, was raided. What follows has been edited for length and clarity. You were driving to your job as a security guard when you encountered a bunch of men, some with ICE vests on, blocking the road. You’ve described the scene as chaotic. Can you tell me what you saw? Cars bumper to bumper, people getting out walking down the street to try to see what’s happening, really a logjam. Making my way through was a task, and eventually I drove up to where a line of agents was just in the middle of the street keeping everyone away and blocking the road. They were raiding your workplace. Were there signs or instructions on what to do? Nothing. So I pull up a good distance away. I put my car in park. I get out. I say, I’m a U.S. citizen. I’m just trying to get to work. I have a job just like you guys. I have a family to feed. I got bills to pay. I’m not here to fight you guys. I’m not part of the protest. I’m literally just trying to get to work. They didn’t care and immediately got hostile. No one seemed to be in charge. Just all of them yelling at once. Yelling what? They were all yelling different things: Work is closed. You’re not going to work today. Get the fuck out of here. Leave, get back in your car. Pull over to the side. And then they started walking toward me in a line. I didn’t want to escalate. I wasn’t there to argue or to fight them. So I decided to get back in my car. I didn’t want any conflict. They surrounded my car. I’m telling them, “I’m leaving.” I’m trying to leave. And agents are banging on my driver’s- and passenger’s-side windows. Agents in front are telling me to reverse, pull over to the side, while other agents are trying to open my door and telling me to do something completely different, contradicting each other. I reversed out of the lane I was in to get out of the way. Then they let a bunch of their vehicles pass by.  How did the arrest happen? They re-approached my car. I don’t know why they decided to re-approach, but they end up throwing tear gas behind my car. Now I’m kinda just trapped there, with tear gas filling up my car, choking. They’re banging on my window, telling me to reverse again, and I’m trying to tell them, How do you expect me to reverse when I can’t see? You hear me coughing. They just weren’t listening; they were still telling me to reverse, still trying to pull my car door open, still contradicting each other. Then one of the agents shatters my driver’s-side window, and another agent sticks his

PoliticusUSA is committed to reporting the truth about what your government is doing. Please support us by becoming a subscriber. Subscribe now The Trump administration’s policies represent a historic transfer of national wealth and resources to the top 1%. The scope and degree of this take from everyone else to give to the very rich policymaking was revealed in a new study by the Center For American Progress (CAP). CAP found: The combination of new tariffs announced by the Trump administration in 2025 and new policies implemented in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) will cause Americans’ incomes after taxes and transfers to decrease across the board in 2027, relative to 2025. Indeed, only the top 1 percent of U.S. households by earnings will see an increase. Despite some lawmakers’ attempts to rebrand the bill as a “working families tax cut,” middle-income households will experience a net income decrease of 1.2 percent, or $1,300, in 2027. Meanwhile, the top 1 percent will receive a net income increase of nearly $5,000. … In 2027, the poorest 20 percent of American households will be $160 worse off because of the new policies in the OBBBA and will lose $1,490 in income to tariffs, for a net decrease of $1,650, or 3.4 percent of their income. (see Figure 1) At the same time, the middle 20 percent of American households, who have an average income of $109,000, will see that income decrease by $1,300 after they receive a tax cut (net of spending cuts) of $950; but the Trump administration’s massive tariffs increase their costs by $2,250. In contrast, new provisions in the OBBBA give the top 1 percent a $17,800 benefit, which exceeds their average $12,800 tariffs costs by $5,000. The real-life impact on the wallets of Americans who aren’t the one percent is going to be brutal. The Trump administration rejects the findings of the study by claiming that the tariffs and tax cuts for the rich are going unleash a wave of job growth and prosperity, just like in Trump’s first term. However, Trump’s first round of tax cuts for the rich did not unleash prosperity and growth. PoliticusUSA is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. The Center For Budget and Policy Priorities found that Trump’s first round of tax cuts actually decreased business investment and consumption. Overall, economic growth only ticked up due to increased government spending, which was eliminated in the second round of Trump’s tax cuts for the rich. The CFBPP wrote: Rigorous research into some of the law’s key provisions also shows the lack of evidence for the Trump Administration’s claims. For example, despite Republicans’ promises that the special 20 percent deduction for pass-through business income would boost investment and create jobs, researchers have found no evidence that the deduction significantly increased investment, wages for non-owners, or employment. Similarly, though the Trump Administration promised the corporate rate cut would “very conservatively” lead to a $4,000 boost in household income, a study by economists from the Joint Committee on Taxation and the Federal Reserve Board found that workers in the bottom 90th percentile of their firm’s income scale saw “no change in earnings” from the rate cut. In addition, the authors find that the revenue loss from the decrease in corporate tax revenues far outweighs any boost in output from the tax cut. When taxes are cut for the wealthy and corporations, the money stays at the top. There is no “trickle-down effect” to everyone else. Trump’s economic policies are just getting started, and they are about to do some major damage to everyone in the US economy who isn’t already rich. What do you think about the CAP study? Share your thoughts in the comments below. Leave a comment

The Trump administration forbid any U.S. funds from being used to provide legal counsel to hundreds of Venezuelans sent to the notorious El Salvador megaprison known as CECOT, according to a newly-revealed deal between the U.S. and El Salvador. The five-page agreement between the countries, secured by Democracy Forward in a lawsuit, placed no conditions on…

Michael deAdder Speedy Bob. The post Faster Faster appeared first on The Nation.

 PoliticusUSA is an independent alternative to billionaire-controlled mainstream media. Please support our work by becoming a subscriber. Subscribe now Finally, somebody with some authority said it. While it is true that there has been no evidence linking Trump to Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes, each new revelation supports investigating Trump’s relationship with Epstein and adds smoke that suggests fire around Trump and Epstein. Rep. Dave Min appeared on CNN on Tuesday morning and said that there is reason to think that Trump was involved in wrongdoing with Epstein. CNN’s John Berman said, “I do want to say we have no reason to think that he was in any way involved with that check itself. Also, no reason to think he’s conducted any wrongdoing involving Jeffrey Epstein.” Rep. Min, who is a former prosecutor and a lawyer, responded, “I would think we have lots of reasons to think he was involved in wrongdoing. I, at this point, there’s a lot of smoke. There may be some fire, but I would just say, push back and say, I think there’s a lot of reason to think Donald Trump was involved with what…” (Video below) Read more

Jeet Heer The problem of gerontocracy includes the donor class. The post Old, Wealthy Democrats Are Sabotaging Their Own Party appeared first on The Nation.

The White House does not need approval from the National Capital Planning Commission to begin demolition and site preparation work for President Trump’s new ballroom project.

PoliticusUSA is fighting for democracy and truth. Please consider joining our fight by becoming a subscriber. Subscribe now The Trump administration has been bringing half-baked cases to federal court since it began its military takeover of Washington, DC. The result has been a string of unprecedented failures and Judge Zia Farriqui unloaded on the DOJ and the Trump administration after their latest case fell apart. Scott MacFarlane of CBS News posted on X: Judge erupts at hearing as Justice Dept reveals dismissal of yet another recent DC criminal case Judge Zia Farriqui: “We’re past the point of Constitutional crisis” “embarrassment & shame for the govt” “This is just a rush to get stats on Twitter or truth social” … Judge apologizes to Dana for his treatment by feds and uncorks a 10 minute, raised-voice stemwinder at Justice Dept prosecutor … saying “We’re acting like this is all normal” Judge says Trump Admin “is playing cops and robbers like children” … Judge Farriqui about Justice Dept: “It’s not that they’re ‘losing credibility’…. We’re past that point” … Judge Farriqui about the wave of cases filed during Trump police surge in DC, “the volume of ‘motions to dismiss’ raise grave concern” “People like Mr Dana are suffering the consequences” PoliticusUSA is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. … Judge to Justice Dept: “You created this mess” “Too many misfires” He says Feds are operating under the concept of “we’ll arrest people .. then see what happens” … Finally.. judge looked at Edward Dana and said “the government’s message to people who look like Mr Dana is … ‘be very afraid!” Judge says.. “I’m afraid right now” The entire theory of this administration is not to question whether an action is legal, but to act first and then force others to fix it. Whether it is immigration or crime, Trump is only interested in compiling numbers that create the appearance of effectiveness, but in reality, the administration is trampling individual rights and ruining lives for propagandistic purposes. As federal prosecutors bring more flimsy cases to court in Washington, DC, they will continue to lose at an unprecedented rate. Federal prosecutors used to only bring cases to trial if they were iron-clad. A politicized DOJ is bringing cases to lend the appearance of political success by Trump, and that is why so many of them are failing, and it is starting to look like judges have had enough. What do you think about Judge Farriqui’s remarks? Join the discussion in the comments below. Leave a comment