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Month	Stories	All outlets
April 2026	8	3,706
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June 2026	0	none collected
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September 2026	0	598

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Articles served from peoplesworld.org

Ethics probe underway of scandal around Trump Labor Secretary Chavez-DeRemer

WASHINGTON—Two top House Democrats who deal with workers’ issues asked the Labor Department’s Inspector General to investigate yet another alleged scandal surrounding Trump Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer. If IG Anthony D’Eespito agrees to probe this scandal, involving the Labor Department’s advisory committee on pensions—or lack of an advisory committee, thanks to Chavez-DeRemer—it would be his second investigation into the secretary’s performance in office. Reps. Bobby Scott, D-Va., top Democrat on the highly partisan GOP-run House Education and the Workforce Committee, and Mark DeSaulnier, D-Calif., told the department IG, former GOP Rep. Anthony D’Esposito, that DeRemer put DOL’s advisory council on the Employee Retirement and Income Security Act (ERISA) “on ice.” Meanwhile, an outside ethics group, the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, says DeRemer’s prior scandal, using DOL staffers for personal errands and DOL grants to promote her political career, shows the need for effective congressional oversight over DOL. “As leadership is consumed by misconduct investigations, the department appears to have oriented away from its mission of protecting workers,” CREW said. “Oversight from Congress—rather than just from the agency’s scandal-plagued inspector general—is urgently needed.” The advisory panel is supposed to give DOL valuable, bipartisan advice on the key pension protection law, ERISA—a law unions pushed through Congress in 1974. The Secretary is supposed to call quarterly council meetings, but there were none last year and none scheduled so far for this year. One-third of the seats on the advisory panel are vacant, and it has no executive director to run daily operations, the two lawmakers added. And Trump’s DOL pulled all 2024 Biden-era advisory council documents from the DOL website. After a complaint, it restored them with no explanation. With ERISA and its protections becoming ever more important as the nation’s working population ages and its population of retirees grows, including retirees whose pensions are dumped on the federal government when firms go belly-up, having such advice is important, the two lawmakers said. ERISA also legally created Individual Retirement Accounts. And the scandal is that Chavez-DeRemer, daughter of a Teamster, has effectively shut the ERISA advisory panel down. “The ERISA Advisory Council was established by Congress more than five decades ago with the statutory mission of providing technical expertise to the department regarding complex issues relating to health care, disability, and retirement plans that cover more than 155 million workers, retirees, and their family members,” the two lawmakers wrote. “Its functions are clearly specified under ERISA, which, among other things, establishes the council as a permanent” advisory committee on pension issues. Chavez-DeRemer did not discuss the council in two House hearings last year and ignored a direct letter from committee members seeking a written response about what’s going on. The silence prompted Scott and DeSaulnier to push D’Esposito to open an investigation. If D’Esposito follows through, it would be his second investigation of the secretary. The first, which is ongoing, probes a culture of sexual harassment at DOL, including by Chavez-DeRemer’s husband. Two of the four named complainers also went to a federal police agency, the Executive Protective Service, which investigated but decided not to bring charges. But Chavez-DeRemer’s husband has been barred from the DOL headquarters. They also took their complaints to the federal Equal Employment Opportunities Commission, which enforces the Civil Rights Act’s ban on sexual discrimination on the job. Those women described DOL as “a toxic workplace” under Chavez-DeRemer’s tenure. The EEOC complaints “portray Chavez-DeRemer as an agency leader who fostered a hostile workplace where staff feared punishment for speaking out or resisting directives they considered inappropriate,” MSNOW, formerly MSNBC, reported. “One says the Labor Secretary also directed staff to perform personal chores for her, including cleaning out one of her clothing closets.” On her behalf, Chavez-DeRemer’s attorney denied all the toxic workplace and sexual harassment charges. Her husband’s attorney declined to comment. Reps. Scott and DeSaulnier didn’t mention those workplace complaints, nor that Trump White House personnel staffers had Chavez-DeRemer fire three top aides, including her own chief of staff, for questionable ethics. But Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington cited all the complaints as an example of how DOL desperately needs congressional oversight. Under Trump, 2,000 DOL workers were fired, and labor enforcement agencies saw spending and staff cuts averaging 14%. One, which ensures federal contractors comply with civil rights laws, would be abolished in his proposed budget for the fiscal year that begins October 1. “Against this backdrop of weakened capacity, scandals within the Labor Department’s leadership only deepened the crisis, and raised questions about how the agency could effectively advocate for workers,” CREW said. “An internal complaint filed with” D’Esposito in January “alleged Chavez-DeRemer and her closest aides used department resources for personal trips and attempted to use department grants to benefit the secretary’s political career.” Chavez-DeRemer is a former Oregon congresswoman. “A complaint also alleged Chavez-DeRemer was having an affair with a member of her security team. In interviews, more than two dozen current and former Labor Department employees described a toxic workplace—characterized by an absentee secretary, hostile aides, and a deeply demoralized staff,” CREW said. “As Trump continues to chill the ability of watchdogs to do their jobs,” including firing 17% of the Labor IG’s staff, “and replaces effective nonpartisan public servants with unreliable politicians like D’Esposito, stronger oversight from Congress is the best avenue to address the growing chaos within the Labor Department,” CREW concluded. We hope you appreciated this article. At People’s World, we believe news and information should be free and accessible to all, but we need your help. Our journalism is free of corporate influence and paywalls because we are totally reader-supported. Only you, our readers and supporters, make this possible. If you enjoy reading People’s World and the stories we bring you, please support our work by donating or becoming a monthly sustainer today. Thank you!

Apr 20, 20266 votes

Ethics probe underway of scandal around Trump Labor Secretary Chavez-DeRemer

Apr 20, 20269 votes

How to impeach the bastard, for real

Speaking at a January 6 retreat for House Republicans, Trump stated, “You gotta win the midterms ‘cause, if we don’t win the midterms, it’s just gonna be—I mean, they’ll find a reason to impeach me. I’ll get impeached.” This was before Trump’s agents murdered Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, before the Justice Department released more Epstein files, before Trump’s disastrous war in Iran, before Trump threatened death to the entire Iranian civilization, before a gallon of gas hit $4 or more, before other prices also began rising because of the blockage of the Strait of Hormuz, and before additional price hikes associated with Trump’s tariffs had kicked in. It was also before Trump’s polls slid to record lows, before the MAGA faithful began complaining that Trump had betrayed his promise to avoid foreign entanglements, and before a slew of special elections in which Democratic candidates have won Republican districts (and even when they didn’t win, lost by far smaller margins than Trump won by in 2024). Until recently I thought impeaching Trump and convicting him in the Senate was a pipe dream. I was concerned that even talk of impeachment at this stage might distract attention from the affordability crisis brought on by Trump and could even fortify Republican charges of Democratic “extremism.” No longer. The president of the United States is stark-raving mad. He’s a clear and present danger to America and the world. The American public is beginning to see it. We’ve got to do whatever we legally can to remove him from office. The 25th Amendment would be useful if Trump’s Cabinet and key advisers had any integrity, but they don’t. They’re ambitious, unprincipled traitors. Which leaves impeachment. You may be skeptical. After all, he’s already been impeached twice, to no avail. How can the third time be the charm? Because it seems likely that Democrats will retake control of the House and the Senate in this fall’s midterm elections (unless Trump prevents free and fair elections). And because it’s also possible that there will be enough votes in the Senate starting next January to convict Trump of impeachable offenses and send him packing. I understand how difficult this may seem. Both times Trump was impeached in the House, he was saved by the Constitution’s requirement that two-thirds of the Senate (67 senators, assuming all 100 are present) convict in order to remove a president. The highest Senate vote count against Trump came in 2021, and it was 10 votes short of the constitutional requirement. Fifty-seven senators, including seven Republicans, voted to convict him of inciting an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. It was the most bipartisan impeachment vote in U.S. Senate history, but it still fell well short of the 67 votes needed to convict Trump. So why do I think it’s possible now? Because public sentiment has swung further against Trump now than it was in 2021. And it’s likely to swing even further against him, because he’s going out of his mind at a rapid rate. The way to accomplish this is to defeat enough incumbent Republican senators who are up for reelection in 2026 to create a Democratic majority in that chamber, totaling some 54 votes, and pressure at least 13 Republicans up for reelection in 2028 to vote to convict him. That’s not impossible. In the upcoming midterms it’s likely that Maine Republican Senator Susan Collins will be replaced by a Democrat (either Janet Mills or Graham Platner). I also assume that former North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper will replace Republican Senator Thom Tillis, who’s retiring. And I’d like to believe that the good people of Ohio will see the light and reelect Sherrod Brown over Jon Husted, the dullard who was appointed to fill the remainder of JD Vance’s term. James Talarico could take the Texas Republican Senate seat now occupied by John Cornyn. In Alaska, I’d put odds on Mary Peltola defeating incumbent Republican Senator Dan Sullivan. In Nebraska, assume that Dan Osborn prevails over incumbent Republican Senator Pete Ricketts. And so on. Republican senators last elected in 2022 who will be on the ballot in November 2028 include some who are vulnerable because they’re in swing states, such as North Carolina’s Ted Budd and Wisconsin’s Ron Johnson; or are in states that could be competitive, such as Indiana’s Todd Young; or are vulnerable to internal party shifts, such as Louisiana’s John Kennedy and South Carolina’s Tim Scott. Those vulnerabilities mean that their constituents could push them to vote to convict Trump in an impeachment, or else threaten to vote against them in 2028. So it’s possible to get the 67 Senate votes, my friends. And it’s absolutely necessary that we try. The vast No Kings demonstrations should be considered a prelude to targeting enough Republican Senate incumbents and open races to flip the Senate this fall, and pressuring Republicans up for reelection in 2028 to do their constitutional duty. Now is the time to show the size and intensity of America’s commitment to removing Trump from office, for the good of us all. As with all op-eds published by People’s World, the views expressed above are those of the author. We hope you appreciated this article. At People’s World, we believe news and information should be free and accessible to all, but we need your help. Our journalism is free of corporate influence and paywalls because we are totally reader-supported. Only you, our readers and supporters, make this possible. If you enjoy reading People’s World and the stories we bring you, please support our work by donating or becoming a monthly sustainer today. Thank you!

Apr 17, 202620 votes

Cashing in on ICE: DHS paying local police millions for immigration enforcement

The Trump administration’s immigration enforcement often appeared calibrated for public attention and maximum spectacle under former Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. For much of the administration’s first 14 months, operations commonly included highly-produced videos, bombastic social media rhetoric and staged photo ops. Noem became the public face of the crackdown, but that also made her a convenient scapegoat as public disapproval of the campaign ballooned, especially after federal agents killed two U.S. citizens during Operation Metro Surge in Minneapolis. Noem’s successor, Markwayne Mullin, has charted a different trajectory, telling senators during confirmation hearings last month that his goal was to prevent the department from being “the lead story every single day.” Part of that posture appears to be scaling back the visible involvement of ICE agents in enforcement activity, with Mullin telling senators he’d “love to see” ICE spend more of its time doing “transport” and less time on the “front line.” One way to do that is by paying local police to take on more of the investigations and arrests of immigrants. Last fall, DHS announced that agencies participating in the 287(g) task force program — which allows local police to conduct immigration enforcement — could be reimbursed for the salaries and benefits of officers who are trained to participate. If DHS follows through on those promises, the program, which was funded by last year’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, would become the largest federal police funding effort in the country by far, according to a February report from Fwd.us, a progressive think tank. The same report estimated that between 13,800 and 15,800 local officers and deputies have been trained for taskforce work so far, more than the roughly 12,000 new ICE agents that DHS says it’s hired since Trump returned to office. Readers may be familiar with 287(g) primarily as a program that allows local jails to hold people with active deportation orders so that ICE can process them for removal. The task force version works on similar legal authority, but rather than being limited to people already in custody for alleged crimes, the agreements allow trained local officials to investigate and arrest people for suspected immigration violations during routine patrol and to seek the arrest of people targeted by ICE. In Vinita, in northeast Oklahoma, Police Chief Mark Johnson told The Oklahoman last week that seven of his 16 officers have completed task force training, and that it has streamlined their work. They now regularly take people directly to ICE offices and detention facilities themselves, instead of waiting for an ICE agent to show up. Johnson rejected the idea that his department’s budget is shaped by the number of people his officers detain. “These folks are being picked up in the same way they always have,” Johnson said. But an ICE financial ledger initially obtained by independent journalist Ken Klippenstein revealed that, in fact, nationwide, there are huge financial incentives for local police completing immigration arrests. A FWD.us analysis of the ledger found that ICE paid — or at least earmarked — more than $170 million in “incentives” to local law enforcement for “the successful location of illegal aliens provided by ICE.” The sum included nearly $6 million for “conducting immigration enforcement activities related to the locations of UACs [Unaccompanied Alien Child].” Payments per person are also flowing to some jails outside the 287(g) system. According to reporting this week from Spotlight PA, five local jails in Pennsylvania billed the federal government more than $21 million in 2024 and 2025 for using their facilities as detention space for ICE. While these agreements precede the current administration, sometimes by decades, the number of people detained this way has increased, according to the outlet. The detention population at the jail in Clinton County, in central Pennsylvania, nearly doubled from Jan. 2024 to Dec. 2025. Local police and jails are not the only ones being paid to expand ICE’s reach. Private contractors are receiving large federal awards to help identify and locate people the government wants to detain. According to a January Scripps News investigation, late last year, DHS awarded contracts potentially worth $1.2 billion to 13 private companies to provide the government with “skip-tracing” services — “a process described as using government data, the web, and physical surveillance to confirm the location of targeted immigrants” — increasingly alongside artificial intelligence technology. According to January reporting from The Washington Post, ICE officials have told contractors that “the overall desire is to complete cases as quickly as possible,” and the pay structure is designed to reward speed. Critics have increasingly described that arrangement as a bounty system. In January, Illinois Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi introduced the “No Private Bounty Hunters for Immigration Enforcement Act,” aimed at barring DHS from outsourcing civil-enforcement functions like skip-tracing to private firms. “Turning immigration enforcement into a profit-seeking enterprise crosses a dangerous line,” Krishnamoorthi said in a statement. But profit-seeking turns up at nearly every corner of the administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement, especially among firms with close ties to President Trump and his allies. Last month, OpenSecrets reported that a relatively small cluster of private prison operators, charter airlines and transportation contractors dominated ICE’s largest contracts in 2025, and that several of those companies, or their executives, had also made significant contributions to Trump-affiliated political committees. Last year, The Associated Press found many politically connected firms had been granted no-bid contracts, whereby the administration had circumvented normal competitive processes, citing vague emergency powers. This troubles Dylan Hedtler-Gaudette of the Project on Government Oversight, a nonpartisan government watchdog organization. “This isn’t an example of one or two bad apples,” Hedtler-Gaudette said during congressional testimony last month. “The problems in federal acquisition are deeply rooted at all federal agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security.” The Marshall Project We hope you appreciated this article. At People’s World, we believe news and information should be free and accessible to all, but we need your help. Our journalism is free of corporate influence and paywalls because we are totally reader-supported. Only you, our readers and supporters, make this possible. If you enjoy reading People’s World and the stories we bring you, please support our work by donating or becoming a monthly sustainer today. Thank you!

Apr 16, 20269 votes

Dearborn, Michigan says ‘NO’ to war

DEARBORN, Mich.—The U.S.-Israeli war on Iran and the recent brutal attacks in Lebanon have been raging on as the everyday cost-of-living crisis continues to also ramp up here at home. As the Trump regime continues to send money and weapons to Israel at the behest of the war economy, the working class in Dearborn and Detroit is demanding an end to the war and a new economy built on peace and humanity. This sentiment was strongly reflected at an emergency Anti-War Town Hall in Dearborn late Monday evening, organized by Layla Elabed, the lead organizer of the Uncommitted Movement from the 2024 elections, and featuring Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, Dearborn Mayor Abdullah H. Hammoud, and state Senate candidate Abbas Alawieh. They addressed Dearborn residents about the undemocratic policies of the Trump regime and what communities across Michigan can do to resist war profiteering from the ground up. “So many folks across my district and our region are anti-war,” Congresswoman Tlaib told People’s World, speaking on why hosting this town hall was needed at a critical moment. “People see how the U.S. is prioritizing weapons, bombs, ethnic cleansing, and war crimes, meanwhile, here at home, we see costs going up, and inaccessibility to healthcare. People are frustrated. They don’t want our country going into another endless war, nor money going to things they don’t support.” Congresswoman Tlaib outlined how members of Congress who own half a million dollars in stock in companies like Lockheed Martin and Raytheon directly profit from the industry of war, and how this war profiteering influences them to vote “yes” on sending weaponry to support the bombings in Iran, Gaza, and Lebanon. Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib speaking at Dearborn Anti-War Town Hall| Noelle Belanger/ People’s World Both Congresswoman Tlaib and Mayor Hammoud emphasized that divesting from weapons manufacturing companies is not only a moral and economic duty—it is possible. “We have passed resolutions time and time again condemning the wars and sales of bombs, but we’ve taken it a step further,” said Mayor Hammoud. “We might be the only city in Michigan that didn’t just pass a resolution about divesting from weapons manufacturers—we actually divested.” During the question-and-answer portion of the town hall, a resident stepped up to the microphone and laid out the economic crises we are facing: “This war has always been about money; the petrodollar. We’re going to see inflation increase at a rate where we can no longer afford things that we used to.” “The $39 trillion debt is 120% of our GDP. We have crossed a line, thanks to the disastrous bills Trump has passed to give money to the billionaire class. We are now at a stage where we will have a truly unpayable debt.” Trump has recently requested $200 billion more from Congress to continue the illegal imperialist war on Iran. Congresswoman Tlaib laid out plainly what this funding could be used for instead: $11 billion per year can be used for universal school meals $9.6 billion per year can eradicate homelessness in the U.S. $19.6 billion can be used for universal pre-K for every child at 4 years old $10.5 billion can be used for 8 weeks of paid leave for new parents $79 billion can eliminate tuition and fees at public universities $10.9 billion per year can be used for tuition-free community college for every student $30 billion per year can be used for extending the ACA Tax Credits Dearborn is home to one of the largest Arab-American populations in the United States. Over 50% of its residents are immigrants, mostly from war-torn countries whose crises are manufactured by U.S. imperialism, and whose people are astronomically displaced or annihilated. Many residents at Monday’s town hall had families and homes recently destroyed by U.S.-manufactured bombs. The war in Iran and Lebanon impacts our neighbors directly, extending beyond the economic crises that have arisen since the fighting began. Nabil Sater, an organizer active with Jewish Voice for Peace, shared his story with People’s World about how the U.S./Israel bombings in Lebanon were personal for him. “My story is the story of hundreds of thousands, and millions of people,” Sater stated to People’s World. “Members of my family from my home village of Baalbek, Lebanon, were bombed, and several of them were killed. When Israel bombed Beirut, they hit my late sister’s building. We lost friends in that building.” “America puts more value at the pump than the value on human lives,” Sater pointed out. “We’re at the point where we are losing our lives, our land, our culture. We are paying tax dollars here to kill our families back home.” He continued, “Hit them where it hurts the most; the pocketbook.” “People have lost loved ones here and are impacted directly,” Congresswoman Tlaib told People’s World. “But we’re here to support them, even if the President doesn’t.” We hope you appreciated this article. At People’s World, we believe news and information should be free and accessible to all, but we need your help. Our journalism is free of corporate influence and paywalls because we are totally reader-supported. Only you, our readers and supporters, make this possible. If you enjoy reading People’s World and the stories we bring you, please support our work by donating or becoming a monthly sustainer today. Thank you!

Apr 15, 202613 votes

Congressional candidate Chris Rabb talks labor organizing and American workers’ future

PHILADELPHIA—Candidate for Pennsylvania’s Third Congressional District, Chris Rabb, secures major endorsements from key progressive organizations. Late last month, Justice Democrats and Working Families Party (WFP) gave Rabb the nod, adding to his impressive list of supporting organizations, which already includes OnePA, Reclaim Philadelphia, Sunrise Movement, the Philly chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), and others. Along with the list of supporting organizations, progressive elected officials have also lent their support. Both independent WFP City Council members, Kendra Brooks and Nicolas O’Rourke, highlighted Rabb’s commitment to working people in their endorsements. “Rep. Rabb has taken on Republicans and the billionaire class in Harrisburg to improve the lives of working people,” Brooks said in her endorsement comments. He also secured endorsements and support from progressive members of the Democratic Party. “Philadelphia deserves a representative who will unapologetically fight fascism, take on corporate power, and demand an end to US imperialism abroad,” said Patrick Wargo, a DSA member and Democratic Party Committee person for the 46th Ward, of Rabb’s candidacy. State Representatives Rick Krajewski and Elizabeth Fielder, State Senator Nikil Saval, and, perhaps most notably, U.S. House Representative Summer Lee from the western half of Pennsylvania have all given their endorsement. This latest wave of endorsements represents a turning point for the campaign, as they’re coming off the heels of serious financial woes. Earlier this year, the campaign reported their former campaign treasurer, Yolanda Brown, to the Federal Election Commission for unauthorized withdrawals of funds. But that hasn’t stopped Rabb and the base of enthusiastic supporters who have mobilized to help him secure this seat. “Yes! Our people-powered campaign for Congress has been building incredible grassroots momentum every day. Our amazing team of 300 field organizers and volunteers from across the district collected over 7,000 Philly voter signatures for our campaign for Congress in PA-03! This was more than triple the number required to get on the ballot.” Rabb said in a conversation with People’s World. The campaign raised over $300,000 last quarter from small-dollar donors to make up for lost funds. One area where Rabb hopes to gain support is organized labor. So far, he’s received an endorsement from the Community College of Philadelphia staff and faculty union, organized with AFT. He’s also been recommended by AFSCME DC47. Whereas State Senator Sharif Street, another leading candidate in this race, has been endorsed by a number of local unions and, most recently, was recommended by the Philly AFL-CIO. Rabb, however, still views himself as a pro-labor candidate, pointing to his own history and involvement in the labor movement. Rabb is the only leading candidate who has been fired for exercising the right to organize your workplace. He told People’s World, “In my fourth year of teaching at Temple, I helped to successfully unionize 1,500 fellow adjunct professors in a landslide victory for worker rights. In retaliation for my work as a union organizer, I was fired by Temple University, but if I had the chance to do it all over again, I wouldn’t change a thing.” He also discussed the importance of new organizing. “A strong and vibrant labor movement is built on a real commitment to new organizing that helps to bring democracy to every workplace and ensure that all workers, no matter which industry or state they are in, can exercise their rights.” The number of workers covered by a union contract reached a 16-year high in 2025 at 16.5 million. However, that number still only covers 11.2% of workers. Rabb says the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, a labor reform legislative priority for many unions, would “be one of my first priorities in Congress to strengthen the ability of every worker to form a union and stand up for their rights”. The AFL-CIO calls the PRO Act “the key to America’s future” and “a landmark worker empowerment, civil rights and economic stimulus legislation, and an essential part of any plan to build back better from the COVID-19 pandemic and recession.” Rabb says a full repeal of Taft-Hartley is also needed. “Strengthening our country’s unions and worker rights also requires repeal of Taft-Hartley,” he told People’s World. Building on Bernie Sanders’ Workplace Democracy Act, he says he would introduce legislation that would “would go even further and enact a full repeal of Taft-Hartley, creating strong penalties against employers that violate the law, strengthening regulation of unfair labor practices, and ending the power of the President to enjoin strikes.” So far, Rabb is the only candidate in the race who has said labor reform legislation is a top priority for them in Congress. The “Labor for Rabb” affinity group, composed of union members and labor activists, is encouraged by these policies and has planned canvases to discuss them with other union members throughout the city. The progressive labor coalition forming around Rabb has made winning over union support more competitive than his opponents may have expected. Rabb is focused on letting his policies and history win over rank-and-file union members. We hope you appreciated this article. At People’s World, we believe news and information should be free and accessible to all, but we need your help. Our journalism is free of corporate influence and paywalls because we are totally reader-supported. Only you, our readers and supporters, make this possible. If you enjoy reading People’s World and the stories we bring you, please support our work by donating or becoming a monthly sustainer today. Thank you!

Apr 14, 202612 votes

Demands rising to push Trump out, but advocates split on how

WASHINGTON—Congress returns to Washington with a crowded and controversial agenda, including more anti-Iran war resolutions and more dollars for Donald Trump’s violent and vicious ICE agents. But now there’s a new element in the mix: Rising demands, from the public, progressive lawmakers, and even a few right-wing voices, that President Trump be pushed from the Oval Office, now. The advocates agree on the goal, but they split on how to achieve it. And whichever method they plump for, a Cabinet vote or invoking the 25th Amendment, is unlikely to succeed in the current GOP-run Congress. Reasons given for ousting Trump, who will turn 80 on June 14, range from his uninhibited and often incoherent late-night rants on social media—leading critics to say he’s losing his marbles—to Trump’s bloody war of choice on Iran without congressional consultation. That war includes his vow to destroy Iranian civilization and bomb the nation back to the Stone Age. Given Iran has 93 million people, doing that, foes say, amounts to genocide. Other evidence includes Trump’s past constitutional crimes and the Internet poster/meme, thanks to artificial intelligence, comparing Trump to Jesus Christ, complete with a halo and white vestments trimmed with red. It was posted just before Easter, and hullabaloo forced it to be quickly taken down. But there are problems the advocates of ousting Trump now face. One is which method they choose: Using the 25th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution or impeachment by a majority in the House and a Senate trial (again), or, as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., advocates, either. A recent poll showed just over half of Americans say lawmakers should impeach Trump now. And the big problem is that while 80 rank-and-file congressional Democrats are on board with the push to oust Trump, their establishment leaders, Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, both D-N.Y., aren’t. So far, organized labor as a movement isn’t on board either. A check of websites of likely unions to join the oust-Trump drive, such as the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, its Oakland-based Local 10, and the Teachers/AFT—whose president, Randi Weingarten, is a New York City civics teacher-shows no call for impeachment, yet. Neither does its most anti-Trump local, in Chicago. The independent United Electrical Workers comes closest, with a ringing denunciation of Trump’s war on Iran, which followed UE’s prior demand for the abolition of ICE. “The U.S. Constitution is clear: Only Congress has the authority to declare war. Iran poses no imminent threat to the U.S. that would justify military action without consulting Congress, and attacking Iran is not supported by the American public. Trump’s actions betray a contempt for democracy and the Constitution, as if he were a ‘supreme leader’ whose will trumps the will of the people,” leaders said. As for the Democrats, Schumer is waffling, calling Trump “an extremely sick person,” but stopping there. Jeffries told MSNOW, formerly MSNBC, that “In terms of impeachment and things that matter, we’ve said we’ve ruled nothing out, and we’ve ruled nothing in.” But he then added that a party-line vote in the narrowly GOP-controlled House would defeat an impeachment resolution. Left unsaid: Trump would again crow that it was a victory. That doesn’t stop the advocates from trying. “We cannot risk the world or the well-being of our nation any longer,” Ocasio-Cortez posted on Facebook on April 9. “None of these considerations should be partisan, but shared in good faith by Americans of all backgrounds who care for the safety and stability of the United States.” “Whether by the Cabinet or Congress, the president must be removed from office. We are playing with the brink.” The problem with the Cabinet ouster—one of two methods the 25th amendment lists—is the Cabinet. In Trump’s first term, 2017-21, his Cabinet pushed his policies and kowtowed to him in its first meeting. But it also had some independent minds, most of whom he later ousted. Several more resigned on principle and in disgust before and after Trump’s Jan. 6, 2021, invasion, insurrection, and attempted coup d’etat in the U.S. Capitol. Then-Vice President Mike Pence refused to rubber-stamp the attempted overthrow. This Trump Cabinet seems completely sycophantic, with current Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Secretary of War—Trump’s term—Pete Hegseth in the lead. Hegseth’s taking a religious tack, too. Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., a constitutional law professor on leave and lead House prosecutor for the Senate trial in Trump’s second impeachment, for the president’s ordering, aiding, and abetting the insurrection, briefed his colleagues on alternatives in a closed-door meeting on April 9. He, too, favors impeachment, but played it straight, at Jeffries’ request, briefing colleagues on all the methods to oust Trump and their drawbacks. Others were more voluble. “When somebody threatens a genocide and has the nuclear codes, there is a problem,” Rep. Linda Sánchez, D-Calif., a former Executive Secretary-Treasurer for the Orange County AFL-CIO and a member of Electrical Workers Local 441, told NewsNation. “We go to war with governments or terrorists; we do not go to war with civilians,” she stated. “And knocking out infrastructure like power plants and water facilities is a war crime.” If Trump’s Cabinet doesn’t act by invoking the 25th Amendment, Sánchez added, “We need public sentiment to create the pressure to have them remove him from office.” The 314 Action Fund, a campaign finance committee dedicated to electing more Democratic scientists and MDs to Congress, supports both paths to ousting Trump. Multiple petitions on Change.org to get the Cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment have garnered more than 200,000 names—half of them since Trump began the Iran War. “Donald Trump is unfit, unstable, and undeserving of the privilege of the presidency,” the 314 fund declared in an e-mail seeking signers to its Trump-must-go letter. “Just yesterday, he compared himself to Jesus and depicted himself as such. Add your name if you believe the 25th Amendment should be invoked against him.” “The world should not be waiting with bated breath to see whether or not a deranged, 80-year-old unstable madman who can barely walk in a straight line or sputter a complete sentence will plunge the world into a global war…This petition calls on all Americans to come together, to make our voices heard, and to demand the impeachment of Donald Trump.” We hope you appreciated this article. At People’s World, we believe news and information should be free and accessible to all, but we need your help. Our journalism is free of corporate influence and paywalls because we are totally reader-supported. Only you, our readers and supporters, make this possible. If you enjoy reading People’s World and the stories we bring you, please support our work by donating or becoming a monthly sustainer today. Thank you!

Apr 14, 202620 votes

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Democrats push War Powers Resolution, but are they actually pro-peace?

Senate Democrats are moving—again—to force a vote on a War Powers Resolution that would require congressional authorization before President Donald Trump can continue or expand his war against Iran. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer declared this week, “Congress must reassert its authority, especially at this dangerous moment. No president, Democrat or Republican, should take this country to war alone. Not now. Not ever.” The push comes after more than five weeks of war and just after Trump announced a supposed ceasefire. So far, at least 3,500 have been killed in Iran by U.S. and Israeli strikes, another 1,400 or more in Lebanon by Israeli bombs, dozens of civilians in Israel due to Iranian retaliation, and 13 U.S. service members lost. The human toll is already staggering enough, but then there’s the economic fallout. Schumer tallied some of the economic damage: $44 billion spent on weapons and mobilization and $4-a-gallon gas. There’s also the fact that Trump is pushing deep domestic spending cuts to fund an updated $1.5 trillion Pentagon war budget, but that went unmentioned. His colleague, Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., has been more detailed in his accounting, saying in late March that “as money disappears overseas, Americans are feeling the consequences here at home: cuts to health care for millions, rising energy costs, billions stripped from veterans’ services, and deep cuts to school meals and support for children with special needs.” The effort to reassert congressional authority over matters of war and peace is constitutionally correct, morally necessary, and overdue. And the War Powers Resolution itself is an important, if limited, tool to achieve that goal. A war poorly executed? Some Democratic leaders are concentrating their criticism of Trump’s Iran war on how it’s being fought rather than whether it is legitimate. Here, a still image shows U.S. aircraft destroyed during the mission to find a downed airman in Isfahan, Iran, April 5, 2026. | Social media Several attempts have been made to pass one over the last several weeks in both the Senate and the House, with each try being shot down by the ruling Republicans. The attack on Venezuela in January prompted the first, and the war on Iran intensified the campaign. If passed, the measure would order a stop to Trump’s unauthorized war and ensure that any further U.S. military action be explicitly authorized by Congress. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., another of the initiators of the war powers effort, has called Trump’s Iran bombing campaign “a dumb war,” saying after a classified briefing that he found no justification for continued action and warning his colleagues: “I mean, have we really learned nothing?” That bluntness is welcome, but honest analysis also requires honesty about the motivations of some of the war’s Democratic opponents. Schumer’s critique centered on what he saw as Trump’s failures: the Strait of Hormuz left even more firmly under Iranian control, the Iranian regime still standing, gas prices higher, Iran’s nuclear ambitions “unchecked, if not accelerated,” and U.S. credibility with allies “down the drain.” Schumer declared that “Iran’s ongoing campaign of terrorism, regional destruction, and oppression of the Iranian people must be met with a coherent strategy built on strength and clarity.” This is not the language of an anti-war opponent, but rather of a would-be better war manager. The implicit message is not “this war is wrong;” it’s “this war is being fought badly.” The leader of the Democratic minority is, in effect, positioning his party as a more competent custodian of imperial foreign policy. The same logic was on display when Schumer pushed back against Trump’s critiques of the NATO war alliance. Angry that the Europeans didn’t help him bomb Iran, the president threatened, again, that the U.S. might abandon the Cold War-era pact. But Schumer stood firm on the matter, declaring that the Senate would never vote to leave NATO and “abandon our allies just because Trump is upset they wouldn’t go along with his reckless war of choice.” His initial statement after Trump launched the strikes on Iran made his framework explicit. He said, “Iran must never be allowed to attain a nuclear weapon,” and simultaneously argued that Trump’s “fitful cycles of lashing out” are “not a viable strategy.” In every case, the demand is not for peace. Instead, it’s a pitch for a smarter path to the same ends. This matters because it dodges a more fundamental question: Is the United States’ posture toward Iran—decades of sanctions, sabotage, assassination, and encirclement—itself just or productive for the cause of peace? Schumer wants the American people to weigh in on the war’s wisdom, while the deeper matter of its legitimacy is not addressed at all. To be clear, forcing the War Powers vote is the right thing to do. It’s exactly what this publication has been urging its readers to demand of Congress again, again, and again. But the labor movement, peace organizations, and working people more broadly should be clear-eyed about what is being offered here. The War Powers Resolution is a procedural check, not a peace platform. Though opposed to Trump’s style of war, leaders like Schumer aren’t coming at the issue from the same angle as some of their other congressional colleagues. Sen. Bernie Sanders said that, as with the wars in Vietnam and Iraq, the American people are again being “lied to” about the true aims of the bombing. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez declared the war “unlawful… unnecessary… catastrophic.” The clarity about the nature of the war has been even sharper outside the halls of the Capitol. Rev. William Barber denounced it as “unholy” in execution as well as intent. Claire Valdez—a New York State Assembly member, United Auto Workers organizer, and candidate for the U.S. House—is critical of the “throat-clearing and process critique” of Schumer and others. She’s adamant that “Democrats should speak clearly and with one voice: no war.” The Communist Party USA has been similarly unequivocal: “The working class of the United States has no interest in this war. It is the children of working people who are sent to fight and die in the service of oil profits, military contractors, and imperial ambition.” The party was also clear about who the real opponents of peace are: “The peoples of West Asia —Iranian, Palestinian, Lebanese, Yemeni—are not our enemies. Our enemies are the war profiteers and the political class that serves them.” That point cannot be stressed enough. The war crimes threatened this week by Trump ahead of the ceasefire—destroying Iran’s power plants, bridges, and civilian water infrastructure—did not emerge from a vacuum. Though extreme, they are the product of a bipartisan consensus, decades in the making, that U.S. power in the Middle East must be maintained through force. Democratic leaders who now object mostly to the execution of that project are not offering an alternative; they are auditioning to manage it better. The War Powers Resolution must pass. Republicans who have blocked it four times must be held accountable. But working people, the labor movement, and the peace movement cannot let procedural victories be the final word on the matter. The question before the country is not whether Trump is conducting this war incompetently. It is whether this war—and the imperial logic that produced it—was right in the first place. As with all op-eds and news analysis articles published by People’s World, the views expressed above are those of the authors. We hope you appreciated this article. At People’s World, we believe news and information should be free and accessible to all, but we need your help. Our journalism is free of corporate influence and paywalls because we are totally reader-supported. Only you, our readers and supporters, make this possible. If you enjoy reading People’s World and the stories we bring you, please support our work by donating or becoming a monthly sustainer today. Thank you!

Apr 10, 202615 votes

Postal pension problems: Letter Carriers blame lawmaker inaction for payment pause

WASHINGTON —The nation’s two big postal unions, the Letter Carriers (NALC) and the Postal Workers (APWU) reacted in different ways to Postal Service’s suspension of its financial contributions to their pension plans, which began April 10. Workers will continue to contribute to the two plans, the Federal Employees Retirement System, and the Thrift Savings Plan, a 401(k)-style arrangement, USPS said. But it won’t match those amounts, at least through Sept. 30. NALC blamed congressional inaction for the lack of a fix to that multibillion-dollar yearly drain. APWU planned an April 14 Zoom forum at 7 p.m. Eastern Time for its members, and anyone else interested in the Postal Service’s future. It’ll unveil its own ideas at the hour-long session, then throw the lines open for questions and suggestions. The two unions were confronted on April 9 with the Postal Service’s announcement. Its pension pre-payments are $2.5 billion yearly, the USPS said. “There will not be any immediate detrimental impact to our current or future retirees if normal FERS (Federal Employees Retirement System) cost payments are temporarily withheld” through the end of fiscal 2026 on Sept. 30, Postal Service Chief Financial Officer Luke Grossmann said. But the cash crunch is coming fast, he added. Grossmann also raised the possibility of USPS asking the Postal Rate Commission, which sets stamp prices, for another, immediate hike in the price of the first ounce of a first-class letter, which now costs 78 cents. One report said USPS seeks a hike to 95 cents. Before this, new Donald Trump-named Postmaster General David Steiner, who came over to the USPS from the private sector and admitted he didn’t know about the depth of its financial ills, warned Congress it could literally run out of available cash by February. The USPS contributes to two retirement systems for its workers and the yearly cost runs into the $2.5 billions or more, adding to its red ink. Overall, USPS employs 600,000+ workers, 80%+ unionized and a majority of them workers of color, women, veterans, or combinations of those characteristics. For people of color, the Postal Service, like the rest of federal, state, and local government, has long been recognized as a route to safe and stable middle-income employment. NALC President Brian Renfroe moved to assure his members, the city letter carriers. Then he said Congress is responsible for its inaction on the issue. The pension payment “pause has no immediate impact on any current or future retired Letter Carriers,” he said. “This move is necessitated by the Postal Service’s current financial situation and is a direct result of continued inaction by Congress to fix the legislative constraints that inhibit the Postal Service’s ability to invest in its infrastructure and modernize to meet the needs of its employees and the people. “If Congress were to allow for a new investment strategy for USPS retiree health and pension funds, a fair recalculation of the agency’s Civil Service Retirement System pension obligations, and an increase in the agency’s borrowing authority, this pause in FERS contributions would not be necessary.” In his statement, Grossmann advocated both those moves. Currently, the law governing the Postal Service mandates investment of its funds only in federal securities, rather than a higher-paying mix of private and public bonds. And its borrowing authority—credit limit—is $15 billion, which hasn’t increased in more than 30 years. USPS wants to double it. “It is time for Congress to act on these commonsense policy changes to protect our jobs, retirements, and the essential and reliable service we provide to every American,” said Renfroe. The unions, along with their chief congressional champion, Sen. Bernie Sanders, Ind-Vt., also advocated letting the Postal Service loose to provide more revenue-raising services other than just selling stamps and shipping goods, especially “the last mile” for private delivery firms such as FedEx, UPS and especially Amazon. Those services would include reviving postal banking, which ended in 1967, and would not only bring in revenue but allow people who now have no bank branches to turn to the USPS banking, rather than expensive private payday lenders and moneychangers. The Postal Workers will discuss the union’s plan for fixing the Postal Service’s budget hole at a livestream session at 7 p.m. on April 14, new APWU President Jonathan Smith said. A signup form is on the union website, and it’s open to all. The forum is entitled “Are we broke or is there hope?” “Yes, the USPS is facing financial challenges, but APWU has been warning about this for decades,” the union said. Smith will share “the real fixes” that are available and the union proposes “to fix this in a way that works for Postal Workers and America” in the first half of the hour-long session, then throw it open for discussion, Smith said. The Postal Service has lost $118 billion, cumulatively, since 2007, the agency said. It blames an enormous slump in its chief money-maker, first-class mail, as people shifted to the Internet, along with prior congressionally imposed pre-funding requirements for both present and future pensioners, which cost billions of dollars. That pre-funding was in a decade-old GOP-passed “reorganization.” Another “cost” it claims is from the congressional mandate for six-day delivery to every address in the country. That sixth day, Saturday, costs $400 million yearly. The USPS has already cut back pickups from post offices on what it says are “money-losing” routes, most of them rural, and it chafes at being allowed to raise postage rates only once a year. It also wants to close many of those post offices. And the red ink was worsened by global tariff wars, USPS said. Though it didn’t say so, GOP President Donald Trump set off those wars with his yo-yo tariff hikes and retreats. Gasoline price spikes for USPS fleets—the largest in the U.S.—hurt, too, as did inflation. And the private package carriers, again principally Amazon, are now hiring part-time and “at will” low-paid drivers and delivery services to go those “last miles” they had entrusted to the USPS. We hope you appreciated this article. At People’s World, we believe news and information should be free and accessible to all, but we need your help. Our journalism is free of corporate influence and paywalls because we are totally reader-supported. Only you, our readers and supporters, make this possible. If you enjoy reading People’s World and the stories we bring you, please support our work by donating or becoming a monthly sustainer today. Thank you!

Apr 10, 202617 votes

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