SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
AFSCME’s Saunders: Self-called ‘DOGE person,’ Frank Bisignano is the wrong choice for the Social Security Administration
AFSCME President Lee Saunders released the following statement in opposition to Frank Bisignano’s confirmation to lead the Social Security Administration:
“The Senate just escalated threats to Social Security by confirming Frank Bisignano, another billionaire CEO, to lead the agency. He has spent his career catering to Wall Street elites. Bisignano could have stood up for working families and retirees by opposing efforts to roll back Social Security services, shutdown offices and lay off thousands of workers. Instead, he promises to provide more of the same failed, destructive leadership we have seen so far at Social Security. He describes himself as ‘fundamentally a DOGE person’ – even as Musk’s DOGE has jeopardized Americans’ private data.
“Their playbook is clearly to break Social Security so they can justify further cuts and privatization. AFSCME members won’t be fooled. We are keeping up the fight to protect our freedom to retire with dignity, and we will remember how our leaders voted and whether they stood with us in our battle to stop this hostile takeover of Social Security.”
AFSCME members provide the vital services that make America happen. With members in hundreds of different occupations, AFSCME advocates for fairness in the workplace, excellence in public services and prosperity and opportunity for all working families.
(202) 429-1000LATEST NEWS
Rubio Orders Abolishment of USAID's Entire International Workforce
All foreign assistance programs will now be managed by the secretary of state.
Jun 10, 2025
A cable from the U.S. State Department Tuesday showed that the Trump administration is eliminating the entire international workforce of the foreign aid agency that has provided lifesaving assistance in the Global South for over six decades.
"The Department of State is streamlining procedures under National Security Decision Directive 38 to abolish all USAID overseas positions," read the cable, referring to the U.S. Agency for International Development. The document was obtained by The Guardian.
USAID was one of the first targets of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), whose former leader, billionaire Elon Musk, has baselessly called the agency a "criminal organization."
Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced in March that 5,200 of the agency's 6,200 international initiatives had been eliminated and that the few remaining programs were now under the control of the State Department.
The announcement by Rubio on Tuesday means all foreign assistance programs will be managed by the department, with the administration firing hundreds of foreign service officers, contractors, and local employees across more than 100 countries.
USAID officials and international humanitarian experts have warned since the Trump administration first moved to freeze foreign assistance in January that cuts to the agency would leave at least 1 million children without treatment for malnutrition, leave 200,000 more children paralyzed from vaccine-preventable polio over next decade, and cause up to 160,000 deaths from malaria.
But President Donald Trump has persistently claimed the agency is "run by a bunch of radical lunatics" and Rubio has said USAID operates "independent of the national interest."
"Everything they do has to be aligned with U.S. foreign policy," said Rubio earlier this year.
The announcement of the elimination of USAID's entire workforce came as government watchdog Public Citizen released a new report on Trump's stop-work order affecting the agency in January. The order "likely affected 32 USAID-funded clinical trials conducted across 25 countries and as many as 94 thousand participants."
According to the report:
- More than half of the trials (17 of 32) were specifically researching the world's deadliest infectious diseases: human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection, tuberculosis, and malaria.
- For eight trials where contact persons provided additional information, seven trials were affected before participants were enrolled or after data analysis was complete; one trial reported minor patient safety issues.
- The trials were conducted across five continents, predominantly in Africa (13 countries) and in Asia (nine countries).
- The study sites most frequently mentioned across all trials were South Africa (9 times); Kenya and the United States (6 times each); and Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe (4 times each).
Due to the stop-work order, said Nina Zeldes, a health researcher at Public Citizen's Health Research Group, "researchers were unable to safeguard the welfare of participants and uphold their ethical obligations."
Public Citizen said that "the sudden, medically uncalled-for suspension of the clinical trials was a serious violation of research ethics, potentially jeopardizing the health of trial participants and the integrity of the trials."
The Center for Global Development also published an analysis Tuesday of estimates that have stated the White House's proposal of cutting global health and humanitarian aid funding by two-thirds would put 1 million lives at risk.
Researchers Charles Kenny and Justin Sandefur found that it was "implausible" that cuts to U.S. foreign assistance would only impact so-called "waste" and would preserve lifesaving assistance, as the administration has claimed.
"Using our estimates of costs per life saved for U.S. global health and humanitarian assistance based on available empirical evidence, we can calculate the potential number of lives at risk from such cuts," wrote Kenny and Sandefur. "The calculation suggests the cuts could lead to 675,000 additional deaths from HIV, and a combined 285,000 deaths from malaria and tuberculosis."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Trump 'Crossed the Line': House Dem Says Actions in LA Are Impeachable Offenses
Democratic Rep. Yvette Clarke of New York said that the president's deployment of Marines to Los Angeles is an "authoritarian escalation unlike any before in American history."
Jun 10, 2025
U.S. Congressional Black Caucus Chair Yvette Clarke, a Democrat from New York, said on Tuesday that U.S. President Donald Trump's moves to send in National Guard troops and Marines in response to protests in Los Angeles rise to the level of impeachable offenses.
Protests began on Friday to oppose federal immigration raids on workplaces.
Clarke made the remarks while speaking at a Tri-Caucus press conference on Tuesday that was convened to address Trump's recent actions around the protests. The Tri-Caucus includes the Congressional Black Caucus, Congressional Hispanic Caucus, and Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus.
Asked by a reporter if she believes Trump's actions around the Los Angeles protests rise to the level of impeachable offenses, Clarke said: "I do. I believe it is. I definitely believe it is, but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it."
According to an NBC News write-up of her remarks, Clarke also said that "this president has crossed the line" and called Trump's decision to deploy Marines to Los Angeles a "waste of taxpayer dollars."
On Monday, a day before the press conference, Clarke released a statement calling Trump's deployment of Marines an "authoritarian escalation unlike any before in American history."
"This all started with peaceful protests against the inhumane kidnapping of our immigrant neighbors. The LAPD had largely contained this situation before it was exacerbated by National Guardsmen whom the president illegally seized control over," said Clarke, referencing the Los Angeles Police Department. "And now, under the pretense of crushing the very chaos he created, the president has ordered 700 active-duty Marines to engage in so-called law enforcement, which they have no legal or ethical right to conduct."
Two House Democrats have launched impeachment efforts this year, though they have not gained traction with the broader Democratic caucus.
Trump was impeached twice by the House of Representatives during his first term, but in both cases he was acquitted by the Senate. Both chambers of Congress are now controlled by the Republican Party.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Tax the Rich, Cut Corporate Fraud: Khanna Details Progressive Path to Trim Deficit by $12 Trillion
"Do they think Americans can't do the math?" the California Democrat asked of Republicans in Congress. "We can—and we know their numbers don't add up. Ours do."
Jun 10, 2025
As congressional Republicans push a megabill that would add an estimated $2.4 trillion to the national debt while giving lavish tax breaks to the rich and gutting anti-poverty initiatives for the working class, Congressman Ro Khanna on Tuesday unveiled a progressive plan to cut the deficit by $12 trillion and enable investment in "essential programs for ordinary Americans: childcare, universal healthcare, affordable housing, free college, student debt cancellation, advanced manufacturing, and good-paying jobs."
The California Democrat's Progressive Deficit Reduction Plan, introduced in a report and floor speech, has five recommendations to cut spending: modernize the military ($850 billion), get rid of upcoding and fraud in Medicare Advantage ($830 billion), negotiate Medicare drug prices ($200 billion), end fossil fuel subsidies ($170 billion), and implement smarter procurement and contracting ($333 billion).
"There is absolutely no reason Americans should pay two to four times more for prescriptions than people in Canada, Germany, or the U.K."
Khanna's proposal points out that the Pentagon—which has a budget of nearly $1 trillion—has never passed an audit, and that getting ripped off by contractors is an issue not only at the Department of Defense but across the federal government. The document also emphasizes the need to crack down on fraud involving Medicare Advantage and argues that "there is absolutely no reason Americans should pay two to four times more for prescriptions than people in Canada, Germany, or the U.K."
On the fossil fuel front, the plan says that "we shouldn't be paying polluters to give our kids asthma and fleece the American public," and highlights that ending subsidies would not only save billions each year but also prevent 6 billion tons of carbon pollution.
The plan doesn't just advocate for spending cuts, it also features a trio of recommendations for generating revenue: tax corporations fairly ($2 trillion), tax billionaires ($4.7 trillion), and protect Social Security ($2.9 trillion).
Specifically, Khanna's proposal "restores the domestic corporate tax rate to 28%, collects international corporate taxes, closes loopholes like carried interest, and adds a 0.01% financial transaction tax." He also wants to make billionaires pay taxes on their wealth and loans on it, close inheritance loopholes, restore the top marginal tax rate to 39.6%, reinstate Internal Revenue Service funding to go after tax cheats, and remove a cap that allows them to pay into the program at a fraction of the rate that most working-class Americans pay.
Khanna, who is expected to run for president during the next cycle, also contrasted his plan with the budget reconciliation package currently moving through the GOP-controlled Congress. His report asserts that the Republican legislation is "not fiscal responsibility—it's a giveaway to the wealthy that sticks future generations with the bill."
In addition to increasing the deficit, the report says, "their bill risks driving up prices, pushing interest rates even higher, and making our tax code more convoluted. It could shake market confidence and ultimately drag down long-term economic growth—all while doing less for working families."
"Do they think Americans can't do the math? We can—and we know their numbers don't add up. Ours do," the document declares, laying out all of the figures for the next decade in a chart on the final page.
The congressman's blueprint—which resembles watchdog Public Citizen's January report responding to President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk's so-called Department of Government Efficiency—comes as Senate Republicans consider the controversial megabill recently passed by the House of Representatives.
On Tuesday, GOP leaders in the upper chamber sent their House counterparts a list of policies "that need to be erased" from the package, according toPolitico.
"If the flagged items aren't deleted, the bill won't enjoy special party-line treatment in the Senate and the filibuster would be enforced for passage of the 'big, beautiful bill' Republicans want to enact this summer," the outlet detailed. "In response, House GOP leaders plan to tee up a vote this week to nix specific provisions the Senate parliamentarian has identified as rule violations."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular