The State Department is deepening the federal government’s official ties to the Ultimate Fighting Championship, effectively vowing to globally promote a company in which President Donald Trump has a financial interest.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio held an event Thursday to sign a memorandum of understanding that authorizes what the State Department is calling “a new public-private partnership to enhance sports diplomacy initiatives and collaborate on the global growth of mixed martial arts.”

Rubio hosted the event with UFC President Dana White, a close Trump ally. And the arrangement reeks of possible corruption.

Financial disclosure forms recently showed that Trump purchased thousands of dollars of stock in TKO, the UFC’s parent company, at the same time he was promoting this weekend’s UFC fights at the White House. The purchases are just one of the reasons plaintiffs suing to stop the event have called it a “volcano of corruption,” as my colleague Jordan Rubin explained.

The White House has called the lawsuit meritless. The case is pending in U.S. District Court.

But the same issue exists with the State Department’s arrangement as well, to say nothing of the labor crisis surrounding the union-busting UFC. I would argue this is ample reason to question this partnership — the fact that Trump holds TKO stock means his administration’s promotion of the UFC could ultimately line his pockets.

It’s one of several brazenly unethical ways Trump and his allies have helped enrich himself and his family during his presidency. And the fact that the State Department is rolling out this latest enrichment effort as Trump’s economy wreaks havoc on Americans’ wallets makes it all the more grotesque.

The post State Department’s deal to promote UFC worldwide raises corruption concerns appeared first on MS NOW.

Just days after saying the United States may “need another 9/11” to convince Democrats to support barring Muslims from participating in politics, Trump ally and a racist conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer traveled with press on a Defense Department trip to Cuba. 

Loomer made her remarks earlier this week when she condemned a video in which Michigan Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib defended demonstrators for wearing gas masks to protests against the Trump administration’s racist anti-immigrant crackdown, during which Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other law enforcement groups have used chemical agents against them.

Here’s Loomer’s quote, as Media Matters reported:

So, I think I’ve given enough evidence and enough examples. Maybe, just maybe, it’s not such a great idea to allow for Muslims to be involved in our political process in America. Maybe. Maybe. But I guess I don’t know. Maybe we need another 9/11 because I guess those clips right there and those people in their own words isn’t going to be enough to convince the Democrats.

In 2024, Trump invited Loomer, who has spread conspiracy theories about the 9/11 terrorist attacks, to join him at a ceremony memorializing victims of the attack. 

Earlier this week, Loomer announced she would be traveling with the Pentagon press corps on a Defense Department trip to Cuba. The trip comes as Trump and his administration have threatened to invade Cuba.

Loomer’s presence just underscores the extent to which the Defense Department has become a safe haven for extremists, as well as its heightened interest in promoting propaganda at the same time it has taken steps to limit reputable reporting on its activities.

Among the questions Loomer asked Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Wednesday, by her own account, was why the government had not executed some Muslim detainees at Guantanamo Bay. That line of questioning, in addition to her presence on the Pentagon press trip to Cuba, also highlighted the absurdity of the Trump administration’s claim that its counterterrorism strategy is targeting people who promote “anti-American” views, rather than merely an attempt to crack down on liberal groups and organizations.

It’s hard to imagine anything more anti-American than suggesting the U.S. should “need” to endure a scenario similar to one of the worst terrorist attacks in its history, in which thousands died during the attack and in the years following. But a top Trump ally did just that days before the U.S. military brought her on an overseas trip. 

The Pentagon did not immediately respond to MS NOW’s request for comment.

The post Before taking Pentagon press trip to Cuba, Loomer said U.S. may ‘need another 9/11’ appeared first on MS NOW.

Even the Republican county attorney in Arizona’s most populous locality is sounding the alarm on potential election meddling by MAGA world.

That’s the crux of a court filing submitted by Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell this week. For those unaware, Mitchell garnered national attention after Senate Republicans tapped her to question Christine Blasey Ford during Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation process after Ford alleged that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her as a teenager. Kavanaugh has flatly denied the allegation.

Two years later, Mitchell successfully ran for Maricopa County attorney, and she endorsed Donald Trump’s presidential campaign in 2024 — in other words, she is not an opponent of the MAGA movement. So it’s noteworthy that she and her legal team are accusing America First Legal, the right-wing activist group founded by White House adviser Stephen Miller, of effectively taking control of the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office, which helps administer elections.

The office is led by Justin Heap, who has egged on the Trump administration’s push to acquire sensitive voter data in Arizona. And the disturbing context to all this is Trump has openly declared that Republicans should nationalize voting processes and “take over the voting” in several cities — like Phoenix, perhaps.

According to The Arizona Republic:

In a June 8 legal filing, Mitchell’s lawyers asked Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Scott Blaney to rein in Recorder Justin Heap’s politically connected firm, the America First Legal Foundation, which it said has undertaken “an unprecedented power grab.”

“The Recorder lacks any explicit or implicit statutory authority to hire outside counsel — let alone a partisan organization — to serve as in-house counsel on ‘all’ matters under his ‘purview,’” Mitchell’s lawyers wrote.

America First Legal is advising Heap’s office as he battles the Republican-controlled Maricopa County Board of Supervisors in an attempt to claim official powers for himself. As Democracy Docket reported, the dispute at one point allegedly involved Heap seizing election equipment and provisional ballot envelopes while votes were being cast in a local election in March, causing county supervisors to warn about “grave chain-of-custody concerns.”

The Arizona Republic said Mitchell listed several examples of America First Legal wielding unauthorized power in Heap’s office amid the dispute with the board:

Mitchell’s request, handled by the law firm of Snell and Wilmer, identified six examples of what she contends involves America First Legal going beyond Blaney’s intended role for them: litigating the power-sharing agreement with the board.

Now, Mitchell argues, America First Legal has claimed authority over all matters relating to early voting, told election officials to disregard directives from or seek advice from Mitchell’s office, threatened prosecution over drop boxes and sent a warning letter signaling new litigation against the board.

Let’s not downplay the crisis playing out here. The GOP-controlled Board of Supervisors and the Republican county attorney overseeing the largest county in Arizona, where the majority of the state’s voters live, are calling out the pro-MAGA county recorder, who stands accused of allowing a right-wing activist group, founded by a White House official, to have unchecked power over electoral processes. (Heap’s office did not immediately respond to MS NOW’s request for comment.)

The fact that even conservative officials are sounding the alarm here shows how extreme, unprecedented and potentially threatening to democracy this situation could prove to be.

The post Maricopa County official fears Stephen Miller’s group has taken over election office appeared first on MS NOW.

Republican lawmakers continued their efforts to downplay and obscure the crisis of racist extremism during yet another hearing centered on the Southern Poverty Law Center. 

I’ve been documenting the Republican Party’s dubious crusade against the SPLC, the organization known for assisting law enforcement with investigating racist extremist groups. The Trump administration’s recent indictment of the SPLC on allegations the group defrauded investors by financing the extremist groups they claim to fight has ramped up that attack and fits a long tradition of white conservatives denying the origins, existence or extremism of racist organizations like the Ku Klux Klan. (The SPLC has denied any wrongdoing.)

That propaganda effort continued Tuesday at a House hearing where Republicans accused the SPLC of “manufacturing hate” despite the organization having been an important partner to the federal government for decades in rooting out white supremacist extremism — a national security threat acknowledged by officials from both the Biden administration and President Donald Trump’s first administration.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan’s line of questioning left little doubt about his effort to portray the SPLC as nefarious and the impetus for various acts of racism. At one point, Jordan asked SPLC CEO Bryan Fair whether his organization’s work was “all about the money.” At another, Jordan said the SPLC’s fundraising had increased after the deadly white supremacist rally in Charlottesville in 2017, to which Fair replied by saying the group’s funding went up after Trump became president. 

The sentiment fueling the Republican Party’s resentment toward the SPLC appears to be the same angst-ridden sentiment expressed on Tuesday by Trump’s Medicare and Medicaid administrator, Mehmet Oz, when he complained to Fox Business about critics who have called the administration racist for making racist generalizations about Somalians. Which is to say, Republicans’ anger seems rooted in the fact that they or their allies aren’t free to engage in racist behavior without facing scrutiny. 

Dr Oz: "You're not allowed to complain about Somalians, because that's racist. And the worst thing you can be in Minnesota is a racist." pic.twitter.com/1WAhx1ABoi

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 9, 2026

“You’re not allowed to complain about Somalians because that’s racist,” Oz complained. “And the worst thing you can be in Minnesota is a racist.”

The post House Republicans hold another hearing to deny the existence of racist extremism appeared first on MS NOW.

As the Republican Party copes with the pitfalls of its allegiance to a historically unpopular president ahead of the midterm elections, conservative lawmakers are scraping the barrel of desperate tactics and resorting to brazen racism.

Rep. James Comer, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, demonstrated this when he lobbed a deluded accusation on Fox News that “minority communities” in blue states are “especially” responsible for “rampant fraud.” It’s the sort of racist remark one might expect from a Ku Klux Klansman, not the leader of a congressional committee.

Comer: "What we're seeing especially in the blue states is there is rampant fraud, especially in the minority communities" pic.twitter.com/fkmHORqDGV

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 9, 2026

To state what should be obvious, Comer’s racist claim is also baseless. It aligns with bigoted claims that President Donald Trump — someone who has been found liable for fraud — has made while his administration has pushed debunked claims to portray the Somali community as rife with fraudsters. (Trump is appealing in his civil fraud case.)

Rep. Tom Emmer, R-Minn., echoed Trump’s racism back in December when he made the false claim that Somalians were responsible for “80%” of crime in Minnesota’s Twin Cities. The fundamental conceit behind these baseless attacks — apparent attempts to portray nonwhite people as more prone to crime — is a tired trope that has been deployed by white supremacists for centuries.

But with regard to Comer’s remarks, there’s no evidence that “minority communities” are responsible for rampant fraud. The term “minority” is a nonspecific one that can essentially mean whichever group the person uttering it wants to include, but in this case it’s effectively useless for all purposes except racist scapegoating.

To be clear: Racial or ethnic groups cannot be collectively responsible for fraud — individuals can be.

Otherwise, one could look at the growing list of fraudsters Trump has pardoned, note the large number of white dudes on that list and draw a conclusion that this data — along with Trump’s own history — proves there is a rampant fraud crisis among the white community.

I suspect Comer isn’t as interested in opening that can of worms as he is in peddling racist rhetoric to the masses.

The post Blaming ‘minority communities’ for fraud, James Comer spews vile racism appeared first on MS NOW.

Happy Tuesday. Here’s your Tuesday Tech Drop, the past week’s top stories from the intersection of technology and politics.

Treasury insecurity

The Trump administration’s choice to deepen the Treasury Department’s involvement in its racist anti-immigrant crackdown may have exposed taxpayers’ personal information, according to a new report from the Treasury’s inspector general. 

The IG’s report “raises concerns about Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s ability to safeguard taxpayer information,” The Associated Press reported Monday. The IG report found the administration’s arrangement for the IRS to share data with ICE was error-prone and unreliable.

Under this arrangement, ICE can submit the names and addresses of people the agency says are in the United States illegally, and the IRS cross-references that information with tax records. 

The arrangement has been challenged by lawsuits and led former acting IRS Commissioner Melanie Krause to resign from her role in February.

Any errors that result from this information sharing are important to spotlight, as the Trump administration increasingly looks to the Treasury for help with its immigration crackdown. 

According to the AP: 

The report states that after the agreement was signed, ICE requested address information on more than 1.2 million people, and the IRS ultimately provided last-known addresses for about 47,000 people. [The inspector general] concluded that the IRS’s automated matching process was flawed. Inconsistent formatting in ICE’s data led to questionable matches, including in cases where incomplete or inaccurate addresses were labeled as valid, the report says. Representatives from Treasury and the IRS did not respond to an Associated Press request for comment.

Read more in the AP. 

New York turns to AI for help with food aid

New York City is using an artificial intelligence tool developed with help from consulting firm McKinsey & Company to administer SNAP benefits. The tool will reportedly be used to identify payment errors, as the Trump administration has vowed to withhold vital food aid funding from states with higher error rates. Given AI ethicists’ concerns about algorithms meting out discrimination, this tool certainly requires oversight to ensure it doesn’t facilitate harm. 

Read more in the New York Daily News. 

Miller’s spy fantasies spook conservatives

Some prominent conservative influencers and lawmakers had a conniption after White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller publicly objected to efforts to limit the Trump administration’s spy powers. 

Read my report on the backlash to Miller on MS NOW. 

Trump’s AI orders for the military

President Donald Trump, who’s reportedly made investments in AI companies and whose sons are linked to drone companies, issued an executive order Friday calling on the military to accelerate its use of AI. 

Read more in the AP. 

Trump eyes U.S. stake in AI companies

Speaking of Trump and AI, my colleague Steve Benen wrote about the president’s proposal for the government to take a stake in AI, continuing his quasisocialist (arguably, authoritarian) trend of having the government take a stake in supposedly free-market enterprises. 

Read more on MS NOW. 

Meta’s security problem

Meta spokesperson Andy Stone said the social media company fixed a security issue that allowed hackers to use its AI chatbot to access Instagram users’ account passwords. 

Read more at Tech Crunch. 

More Meta, more (alleged) problems 

A new report from the Center for Countering Digital Hate, a digital watchdog group, found that violent threats and hate speech toward lawmakers spiked last year after Meta rolled back some content moderation policies designed to protect users from harassment, bullying and threats of violence. After Meta made its decision, human rights groups warned the move risked fueling violence. Last year, Meta’s oversight board issued a ruling that found the company acted “hastily” and with little regard for global impact when it made those content moderation changes. 

In a statement to MS NOW, a spokesperson for Meta said:

We regularly issue public reports tracking violating content on our platforms, and the prevalence of hateful conduct did not increase throughout 2025. We cannot address the claims in this report as we were not provided it in advance of publication.

Read more on the CCDH’s “Safety Off” report here. 

Santos scandal saga continues

My colleague Erum Salam got the scoop on a federal insider trading probe related to alleged online betting by scandal-plagued former Republican New York Rep. George Santos, whose prison sentence for fraud was commuted by Trump last year. Santos called the insider trading claims “preposterous” in a social media post. 

Read more on MS NOW. 

The post Treasury inspector general warns of errors in IRS sharing taxpayer info with ICE appeared first on MS NOW.

It can be hard to regain footing after losing a job. It’s a reality many Americans have been forced to face under Donald Trump’s authoritarian rule and in the wretched economy he’s created. And it would seem former U.S. Border Patrol chief Gregory Bovino can relate.

That might explain Bovino’s desperate search for relevance since the far-right former immigration official, who promoted neo-Nazi propaganda and faced accusations of cosplaying as a Nazi during his stint leading Trump’s racist immigration crackdown, was ousted from his role as the Border Patrol’s “commander at large” in January. (Bovino has denied intending to convey Nazi ideology.)

Since his ouster, Bovino has tried to keep himself in the limelight — an effort that includes his recent attendance at a pro-extremist, Nazi-aligned conference in Portugal, and one that appears to be fueling Bovino’s consideration of a presidential bid. 

At least he said he’s exploring a 2028 bid in a social media post on Monday. That the post includes the phrase “men fight back” suggests Bovino’s potential bid is likely to be rooted in the cringeworthy masculinity rhetoric we’ve heard out of the MAGA movement over the past few years in particular. 

NewsNation is reporting I’m exploring a run for President in 2028.

Here’s the truth: My one and only priority is deporting the 106 million illegals who are here. That’s it.

The grassroots support I’m seeing tells me the polls are completely wrong…

If I’m getting this much… https://t.co/L0bttQYgEG

— Gregory K Bovino (@GregoryKBovino) June 8, 2026

Bovino seems to be carving a lane for himself to emerge as a stalwart of the furthest-right fringe of the MAGA movement. At the conference in Portugal, he attacked the Trump administration for purportedly not being extreme enough in its mass deportation agenda and made the same baseless claim he made in the tweet above: that there are at least 100 million undocumented immigrants in the United States. To be clear, this would mean about one-third of all U.S. residents are undocumented, which is a fanciful assertion. 

What’s not clear is whether there’s much of a constituency for a Bovino presidential bid, even among the MAGA movement. His mass deportation proposals align with beliefs espoused by the far-right “Mass Deportation Coalition,” a group of right-wing organizations that want Trump to ramp up his assault on immigrants. But Bovino’s rhetoric and tactics are arguably a key reason why polls at the start of the year showed a majority of Americans believed the Trump administration’s anti-immigration strategy had gone too far. And as my colleague Steve Benen noted in January, Bovino racked up a list of scandals and controversies so long during his time as border chief that even Trump was forced to admit he’s a “pretty out-there kind of guy,” seemingly alluding to his extremist tendencies. 

But if there’s anything to take away from Bovino’s floating of a presidential bid, it’s that he’s among a list of conservatives jockeying to lead the MAGA movement after Donald Trump is no longer president.

The post After attending pro-Nazi conference, Bovino floats presidential bid appeared first on MS NOW.

White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller faced a torrent of right-wing backlash over the weekend amid his push for the federal government to obtain virtually unfettered powers to spy on Americans.

The Trump administration has been pressuring Congress to authorize a long-term extension of the spying program known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. It’s a controversial program that has allowed the government to collect Americans’ communications with targeted people and entities abroad.

Multiple Republicans in Congress had already sided with Democrats in raising concerns about reauthorizing these spying powers. And Donald Trump’s nomination of Bill Pulte — a MAGA loyalist who has launched dubious probes into the president’s political opponents while leading the Federal Housing Finance Agency — has put a reauthorization of Section 702 further in doubt.

That’s the context for Miller’s post on X below, in which he peddled falsehoods about the spying program.

“FISA 702 is the authority for surveillance on foreign soil — the core of all US security,” Miller wrote. “A libertarian demand to make SecWar get approval from liberal DC judges (the ones who targeted Trump) is madness. No conservative aim is ever served through subservience to leftist DC judges.”

FISA 702 is the authority for surveillance on foreign soil—the core of all US security. A libertarian demand to make SecWar get approval from liberal DC judges (the ones who targeted Trump) is madness. No conservative aim is ever served through subservience to leftist DC judges.

— Stephen Miller (@StephenM) June 6, 2026

As you can see, Miller’s claim about liberal judges on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court was hit with a community note after X users noted that the judges come from across the country, and that all but three of the 11 judges were appointed by Republicans.

And while some of the outrage toward Miller naturally came from liberals, some conservatives didn’t seem all that happy either.

Love this community note. Stephen Miller trying to gaslight the American people.

This Trump administration hasn’t done a dag on thing about the weaponization of government and now they want to extend FISA so the government can spy on Americans without a warrant. https://t.co/NOb2wmLze9 pic.twitter.com/5nOKOmnY1R

— Derrick Evans (@DerrickEvans4WV) June 7, 2026

Get a warrant. Tyrant. https://t.co/JH1pcvDiiF

— Libertarian Party of Tennessee (@LPTN1776) June 6, 2026

“If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary,” Federalist 51. At least Trump's elevation of Bill Pulte to head the spy apparatus reminds us that governance by angels is nowhere on the horizon.https://t.co/7b917BRByv https://t.co/Oejf2ZFnk0

— Jason Willick (@jawillick) June 6, 2026

The MAGA backlash over the White House’s push to reauthorize Section 702 boils down to a point I made on MS NOW’s “Morning Joe” last week, in which I talked about the electoral backlash to Big Tech. As I mentioned, the fact that artificial intelligence skeptics span the ideological spectrum — with people as ideologically diverse as Steve Bannon and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y. — shows how even allies of the MAGA movement are wary of the ways Big Tech can infringe upon American life.

And it almost goes without saying that dismissive statements from Miller aren’t likely to assuage many folks’ concerns.

Check out my segment alongside Jonathan Lemire, Molly Jong-Fast and Sam Stein here:

The post Stephen Miller’s push for spy powers faces right-wing backlash appeared first on MS NOW.

💾

Conservative Mormons, much like conservative Catholics, may be starting to realize they are not exempt from the Trump administration’s religious bigotry. 

President Donald Trump and his administration’s crusade to cut off funding to Catholic groups that provide aid to immigrants, the condemnation by Trump officials of Catholic leaders for urging sympathy toward immigrants and Trump’s repeated attacks on Pope Leo for opposing his deadly war with Iran have created an environment in which even some right-wing Catholics have had to reckon with hostility toward Christians coming from some of their presumed allies in administration. 

Lawmakers and members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints may be having a similar realization after the Pentagon, which is led by Christian nationalist Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, excluded the church from its list of recognized religions, along with 179 other faith traditions. The move was apparently a part of the Pentagon’s controversial push to slash the number of religious faiths it recognizes.

The move comes amid a long-standing resistance among some conservative evangelicals to classify Latter-day Saints as a branch of Christianity. 

Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee, who is Mormon and a staunch Trump ally, was taken aback by the exclusion of his faith from the Pentagon’s list of Christian denominations.

Can anyone tell me why The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was left out of the list of Christian churches? pic.twitter.com/t4u6PI29ON

— Mike Lee (@BasedMikeLee) June 6, 2026

Republican Sen. John Curtis and Rep. Mike Kennedy, also both Utah Republicans who are members of the church, objected to the new classification as well. 

Latter-day Saints are among the most patriotic, service-oriented individuals in our country. They are also unequivocally Christian—just look at who is in the name of the Church.

It is unacceptable for a government entity to characterize a faith in a manner that contradicts the… https://t.co/ywqk59ZtRz

— Senator John Curtis (@SenJohnCurtis) June 6, 2026

Amid backlash, Sean Parnell, assistant to the defense secretary, said in a social media post that the reclassification “is not designed to make any claims on the legitimacy of any faith or religious belief, nor is it intended to provide a list of ‘officially approved’ religions.”

The outcry seems to have prompted a reversal from the Defense Department. On Monday, a social media post from the department included a new list with a caption that said the previous one “included redundant and unnecessary labeling, and the mistake has been fixed.”

Last week, a proposed list of simplified faith codes was released to the media. The Pentagon list included redundant and unnecessary labeling, and the mistake has been fixed.

The goal of this effort is to simplify a previously out-of-control “belief” coding system that had… pic.twitter.com/yCsQDhZcGp

— DOW Rapid Response (@DOWResponse) June 8, 2026

The new list’s codes no longer identify which of the recognized faiths are considered Christian, which raises the question of whether Pentagon officials consider the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to be a form of Christianity, or if they would simply prefer not to flaunt their beliefs on the topic in public.

The post Pentagon backtracks after Mormons protest its delisting of their religion appeared first on MS NOW.

The threat of a potential labor crisis at Los Angeles’ SoFi Stadium continues to loom just days before the World Cup kicks off, after a union representing more than 2,000 hospitality workers voted to authorize a strike.

The union representing concession workers, servers, bartenders, dishwashers, cooks and other SoFi Stadium workers voted overwhelmingly Friday in favor of a strike. In the lead-up to the vote, union leaders voiced concerns about the possible presence of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents at games, worker compensation and the potential automation of some services using artificial intelligence.

According to a Washington Post/University of Maryland poll released last week, Americans broadly oppose ICE agents being present at stadiums during the World Cup, which is also being held in Canada and Mexico.

The findings are unsurprising, given that ICE agents have garnered comparisons to the Ku Klux Klan and are central to President Donald Trump’s deadly, racist anti-immigrant crackdown. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin has vowed that “every single” federal agency will be on-site at the games, “not for immigration, but for terrorist threats.”

The Athletic reported that 96% of union voters voted to authorize a strike, effectively permitting workers to walk off the job at the first game at SoFi Stadium — Paraguay vs. the U.S. — on Friday if a labor deal isn’t reached before then.

The company that operates concessions at SoFi Stadium said it has a “contingency staffing plan” in place, according to The Wall Street Journal. But one of the union co-presidents painted an unflattering picture of how the games could play out if a strike happens — particularly for wealthier attendees.

Per the Journal:

“I guess soccer can be played” if workers go on strike, said Kurt Petersen, co-president of the local union, in an interview. “But someone paying $100,000 for a suite, and they’re ending up getting bottled water and Doritos, I’m not sure that’s what they’re expecting.”

The Wall Street Journal noted that a strike would be embarrassing for Los Angeles and FIFA:

A strike at SoFi Stadium would be an embarrassment for Los Angeles as it gears up to host eight World Cup matches, the 2027 Super Bowl and the 2028 Olympics. It would also be a black eye for FIFA, soccer’s global governing body, which has advertised high-end food and beverage service in the stadium’s suites while charging thousands of dollars for tickets.

I would argue that a strike would also amount to an embarrassment for Trump and his allies. The president has basically adhered his brand to this tournament, having named himself chair of the 2026 World Cup task force he created and having appointed Andrew Giuliani — Rudy Giuliani’s son — as the task force’s executive director.

A strike stemming in part from his administration’s policies would only add to Trump’s toxic influence at this year’s World Cup.

The post Workers at LA’s SoFi Stadium authorize strike ahead of Trump-infused World Cup appeared first on MS NOW.

Donald Trump’s administration has been a boon to gun traffickers, and a new lawsuit seeks to shed more light on the illegal guns being used in crimes.

To those who followed along as the GOP attempted to kneecap the Obama administration with its “Fast and Furious” inquiries back in 2012, the fact that Republicans firmly support Trump despite his being a major enabler of gun trafficking will reek of hypocrisy.

ProPublica recently reported that Trump has gutted many of the policies the Biden administration implemented to combat illegal sales of guns — a crackdown that experts have said contributed to a decline in violent crime that occurred during Biden’s term and has continued into Trump’s.

One of the Trump administration’s regressive moves was to repeal a zero-tolerance policy of pulling licenses from gun sellers who engaged in illegal sales. Per ProPublica:

But the Trump administration, driven both by gun-lobby advocacy and its own political priorities, quickly set about undoing much of its predecessor’s moves to combat gun violence. It repealed the zero-tolerance policy, going so far as to invite revoked dealers to reapply for new licenses. It shifted hundreds of ATF agents to immigration work. And it scaled back on prosecutions for gun trafficking. The White House declined to comment, referring questions to the ATF and the Department of Justice.

ProPublica’s report noted that the effect of Trump’s moves could be felt in the years ahead:

The homicide rate fell further last year, but criminologists warn against complacency, because the illicit gun trade is a classic pipeline problem: The harm can take a while to make itself felt. Research has found that the typical “time to crime” for trafficked firearms ranges up to about three years, which means that any positive lag of the anti-trafficking efforts of the Biden years would still be in effect now, with any negative effects of the Trump pullback lying in the years to come.

The Trump regime’s trafficker-friendly agenda is at the heart of a new lawsuit from the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence.

The suit stems from the withholding of federal requests for information from gun dealers who have sold weapons that were used in violent crimes. These requests, which are known as DL2s and issued by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, have been decried by the firearm industry.

“Americans deserve to know about the sources of firearms that are driving crime in our communities and what ATF is doing, or not doing, about it,” Brady Center President Kris Brown said in a statement.

The ATF did not immediately respond to MS NOW’s request for comment.

The post Trump administration’s enabling of gun traffickers spotlighted in new lawsuit appeared first on MS NOW.

Despite Donald Trump’s campaign vows in 2024 that he would fix the housing crisis that’s affecting more than a million Americans across the country, the president’s administration has been doing seemingly all it can over the past year to cut off assistance to people without homes. 

The New York Times reported on a policy announced this week by extremist-friendly Housing and Urban Development Secretary Scott Turner, which will gut “Housing First” programs by diverting $1.2 billion from programs that support long-term living arrangements for people without homes and route that money instead toward short-term housing programs that focus on addiction and mental health. 

The Times explained the dire picture that could play out as a result:

The plan, which seeks to promote “law and order,” is a scaled-back version of one the administration issued last fall. Congress and a federal court blocked that proposal after critics warned it could send as many as 170,000 formerly homeless people back to the streets. The administration’s revised plan is still a frontal assault on the longstanding model of homelessness aid known as Housing First. The move is likely to shift about $1.2 billion away from housing programs, with the risk of displacing current tenants. It constitutes the sharpest change in homelessness policy in a generation.

In a press release announcing the policy, Turner said “the ‘housing first’ experiment failed Americans by warehousing the vulnerable without results,” and that the change, which threatens housing options for many Americans, will help promote “self-sufficiency.” This is the same illogic the administration is using to justify cuts to food aid, which have put millions of Americans at risk of going hungry.

I would argue that another phrase for “warehousing the vulnerable” is “housing the vulnerable,” and that it does have results, namely that people have homes, at least for as long as they’re allowed to benefit from such policies. There is no evidence that cutting Americans off from housing programs, as Turner’s preferred short-term programs inevitably do, improves their prospects for finding long-term housing. 

Turner also said this shift to short-term housing programs is about stemming a housing crisis “driven by addiction and mental illness,” promoting stereotypes that experts for years have noted don’t apply to the majority of unhoused people. Experts typically cite other causes, like rapid increases in housing costs and poor wage growth, which have nothing to do with drug addiction or mental health.

Trump has openly said he doesn’t want housing prices to come down. 

Turner is not unlike Ben Carson, who was HUD secretary during Trump’s first term. Both are Black conservatives who have denounced federal programs that help others escape poverty, even as they have touted their personal stories of having done so. Neither Turner nor Carson entered their position with any experience in leading a large bureaucracy like a federal agency, much less directing housing policy. This lack of expertise is especially important, given the fact that Turner is proposing ideas rooted in bias that stand to worsen America’s housing crisis rather than improve it. 

The post HUD secretary touts new policy that could lead to more homelessness appeared first on MS NOW.