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Tag: Donald Trump

  • Trump wants to control Latin America, but he can’t even manage to sell oil to energy interests

    Trump wants to control Latin America, but he can’t even manage to sell oil to energy interests

    Donald Trump gathered U.S. energy executives on Friday to tell them of the nice crude, heavy oil he had procured for them by invading Venezuela — killing dozens of people and kidnapping President Nicolás Maduro and his spouse in the process — only for the men to respond that they couldn’t invest in that country because they’d spent all their money getting Trump elected.

    It was a twist right out of an O. Henry story. Call it, The Gift of the Megalomaniac.

    Well, not quite. While Big Oil did indeed spend at least around $500 million last year on the presidential campaign and other lobbying efforts, it fell short of the reported $1 billion Trump asked oil executives for during his run for the White House. And even that amount would hardly make a dent in industry profits, which in 2022 reached nearly $200 billion.

    I’ll get to Trump’s deranged, illegal attack on Venezuela and its larger implications for Latin America — which plays less like literature and more like a bad ‘80s sitcom episode (“The Dumbroe Doctrine,” Season 2, Episode 1) — in a bit. First, let’s talk oil.

    The reason why energy executives didn’t jump at Trump’s offer for them to spend $100 billion in Venezuela to boost oil production is that while there may be massive, untapped potential there, it’s going to take a long time to realize, said Harold York, a fellow at the Center for Energy Studies at Rice University’s Baker Institute.

    To start, York told me, companies need a technical assessment of the state of the Venezuelan oil industry’s infrastructure, which is believed to be in serious disrepair. Then, the U.S. must help establish a credible and trustworthy legal and fiscal framework for international companies to participate in Venezuela. After that, executives will begin to figure out what a development plan looks like.

    A local walks past a mural featuring oil pumps and wells in Caracas, Venezuela, on Jan. 6.

    While some have pointed to the current low price of oil as a roadblock, York doesn’t believe that’s an impediment, since the decision to embark on a yearslong project would consider what the price will be in the future, not what it is now.

    “I think there will be appetite precisely because they may not need the production today,” York said. “If you’re looking to keep your portfolio diversified, then Venezuela is something you would look at as one of your long-run assets.”

    What will most likely temper that appetite is that the requirements that need to be met for Big Oil to return in earnest to Venezuela also depend on the kind of stability no one can guarantee. You don’t even need to get to the unknown unknowns, as one former failed nation builder once coined. In Venezuela’s case, it is the known unknowns that will get you first.

    Trump is offering companies security guarantees, but can a president who routinely reneges on agreements promise a subsequent administration won’t do the same? Future leaders in Venezuela may decide to take back their oil with minimal compensation to U.S. companies, as the government did in 1976, and America could just shrug its shoulders. Or even a pro-U.S. Venezuelan government may decide it wants to renegotiate at some point.

    All of that to say, if Trump removed Maduro from power to gain control of Venezuela’s oil, the administration did not seem to give the plan much thought.

    What Trump was successful at, other than violating international law and the Constitution — no matter how coyly the administration insists that what it did was a law enforcement action and not an act of war — is in bringing the Monroe Doctrine back to bloody life.

    A man wears a T-shirt with a image of President Donald Trump during a government-organized rally against foreign interference, in Caracas, Venezuela, in October.

    As presented by President James Monroe in 1823, it was a warning to European powers to stay out of the Western Hemisphere, and an assertion of the United States’ sphere of influence. By the start of the 20th century, the doctrine was used as an excuse to exert power in Latin America to protect U.S. interests as Washington saw fit, including using the military.

    Trump allowing Venezuela’s authoritarian regime to continue in every way except having Maduro at the top is in keeping with Cold War U.S. interventionism in Latin America, when U.S.-friendly forces were backed at the expense of civil rights and liberties.

    Even before he ordered the kidnapping of Venezuela’s leader to kick off 2026, the president had already spent his first year back in the White House punishing his perceived enemies (imposing sanctions and tariffs on Colombia and Brazil, bombing alleged drug boats) and rewarding his friends (bailing out Argentina, paying for prisoners in El Salvador).

    In retrospect, the escalation to full military invasion should not be that surprising, even as the long-term consequences remain uncertain, both for America as a continent and for the system of laws and alliances that has kept the world from war for 80 years.

    After Venezuela, Trump threatened Cuba, Colombia, and Mexico. Hearing from friends from Latin America, the feelings that have emerged there in the last week over U.S. actions seem to be fear and loathing.

    There is much more to say about this in a future column, but ultimately, neither sentiment is in America’s best interest.

  • Trump cancels meetings with Iranian officials and tells protesters ‘help is on its way’

    Trump cancels meetings with Iranian officials and tells protesters ‘help is on its way’

    WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that he’s cutting off the prospect of talks with Iranian officials amid a protest crackdown, telling Iranian citizens “help is on its way.”

    Trump did not offer any details about what the help would entail, but it comes after the Republican president just days ago said Iran wants to negotiate with Washington after his threat to strike the Islamic Republic, where the death toll from nationwide protests has spiked to more than 2,000, according to human rights monitors.

    But Trump, with his latest message on social media, appeared to make an abrupt shift about his willingness to engage with the Iranian government.

    “Iranian Patriots, KEEP PROTESTING – TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS!!!” Trump wrote in a morning post on Truth Social, which he later amplified during a speech at an auto factory in Michigan. “Save the names of the killers and abusers. They will pay a big price. I have cancelled all meetings with Iranian Officials until the senseless killing of protesters STOPS. HELP IS ON ITS WAY.”

    Trump, in an exchange with reporters during the factory visit, demurred when asked what kind of help he would provide.

    “You’re going to have to figure that one out,” he said.

    He also said he didn’t have accurate numbers on the death toll in Iran but added: “I think it’s a lot. It’s too many, whatever it is.”

    The president has repeatedly threatened Tehran with military action if his administration found the Islamic Republic was using deadly force against antigovernment protesters. Trump on Sunday told reporters he believed Iran is “starting to cross” that line and has left him and his national security team weighing “very strong options” even as he said the Iranians had made outreach efforts to the U.S.

    And on Monday, the president’s team offered guarded hope that a diplomatic solution could be found.

    “What you’re hearing publicly from the Iranian regime is quite different from the messages the administration is receiving privately, and I think the president has an interest in exploring those messages,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Monday. “However, with that said, the president has shown he’s unafraid to use military options if and when he deems necessary, and nobody knows that better than Iran.”

    Also on Monday, Trump said he would slap 25% tariffs on countries doing business with Tehran “effective immediately,” but the White House has not provided details on that move. China, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Brazil and Russia are among economies that do business with Tehran.

    Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and key White House National Security Council officials began meeting Friday to develop options for Trump, ranging from a diplomatic approach to military strikes.

    Iran, through the country’s parliamentary speaker, has warned that the U.S. military and Israel would be “legitimate targets” if Washington uses force to protect demonstrators.

    More than 600 protests have taken place across all of Iran’s 31 provinces, the Human Rights Activists News Agency reported Tuesday. The activist group said about 1,850 of the dead were protesters and 135 were government-affiliated. It said more than 16,700 people had been detained.

    Understanding the scale of the protests has been difficult. Iranian state media has provided little information about the demonstrations. Online videos offer only brief, shaky glimpses of people in the streets or the sound of gunfire.

    Iranian state television appeared to acknowledge the high death toll on Tuesday. A TV report said the country had ‘a lot of martyrs’ in the nationwide protests and quoted Ahmad Mousavi, the head of the Martyrs Foundation.

    The anchor read a statement that laid blame on “armed and terrorist groups, which led the country to present a lot of martyrs to God.”

    Trump’s push on the Iranian government to end the crackdown comes as he is dealing with a series of other foreign policy emergencies around the globe.

    It’s been just over a week since the U.S. military launched a successful raid to arrest Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro and remove him from power. The U.S. continues to mass an unusually large number of troops in the Caribbean Sea.

    Trump is also focused on trying to get Israel and Hamas onto the second phase of a peace deal in Gaza and broker an agreement between Russia and Ukraine to end the nearly four-year war in Eastern Europe.

    But advocates urging Trump to take strong action against Iran say this moment offers an opportunity to further diminish the theocratic government that’s ruled the country since the Islamic revolution in 1979.

    Russia’s Foreign Ministry on Tuesday called the threats “categorically unacceptable.”

    The ministry warned in a statement that any such strikes would have “disastrous consequences” for the situation in the Middle East and global security. It also criticized what it called “brazen attempts to blackmail Iran’s foreign partners by raising trade tariffs.”

    The statement noted that the protests in Iran had been triggered by social and economic problems resulting from Western sanctions. It also denounced “hostile external forces” for trying to “exploit the resulting growing social tension to destabilize and destroy the Iranian state” and charged that “specially trained and armed provocateurs acting on instructions from abroad” sought to provoke violence.

    The ministry voiced hope that the situation in Iran will gradually stabilize and advised Russian citizens in the Islamic Republic not to visit crowded places.

    The demonstrations are the biggest Iran has seen in years — protests spurred by the collapse of Iranian currency that have morphed into a larger test of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s repressive rule.

    Iran appeared to ease some restrictions on its people and, for the first time in days, allowed them to make phone calls abroad via their mobile phones on Tuesday. It did not ease restrictions on the internet or permit texting services to be restored as the death toll from days of bloody protests against the state rose to at least 2,000 people, according to activists.

    Although Iranians were able to call abroad, people outside the country could not call them, several people in the capital told The Associated Press.

    The witnesses, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said SMS text messaging still was down and internet users inside Iran could not access anything abroad, although there were local connections to government-approved websites.

    It was unclear if restrictions would ease further after authorities cut off all communications inside the country and to the outside world late Thursday.

    United Nations officials said Tuesday that the more than 500 U.N. staff members in Iran are safe and accounted for as of Monday.

    Stephane Dujarric, the U.N. spokesperson, told reporters that many staff were working from home given the unrest that has spread throughout the country and killed hundreds of protesters.

    The U.N. country team in Iran has 46 international staff and 448 national staff.

  • The other ‘insane’ thing about Trump and Venezuela | Will Bunch Newsletter

    The Eagles are who we thought they were. A team that consistently disappointed its fans despite winning the NFC East in defense of its Super Bowl crown put in a disappointing one-and-done playoff performance under a clueless offensive coordinator, with a banged-up O-line and some stars (cough, cough…A.J. Brown) perhaps past their peak. But this is what Philly fandom is all about: one battle after another.

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    Dirty, toxic oil from Venezuela is the last thing that America needs

    John Beard drives near a liquid natural gas facility in Port Arthur, Texas. In addition to LNG facilities, Port Arthur is surrounded by oil refineries and petrochemical plants. Beard says Black and brown communities like Port Arthur are having to bear much of the risk posed by the facilities.

    You could say that crude oil is in John Beard Jr.’s blood. His dad worked for more than 44 years at a giant Gulf Oil refinery in the heady 20th-century days of the South Texas energy boom, and Beard then followed his father’s footsteps by working 38 years at a rival Exxon facility in Beaumont, before heading home to sleep in the shadow of Port Arthur’s own dense row of dozens of refineries.

    But today, Beard — a longtime civic activist and political leader in Port Arthur’s large Black community — is fighting to keep oil out of his neighbors’ blood, literally.

    “It was nothing to wake up the next morning and find a yellow stain against the side of your house with something had been released in the air,” Beard told me last week on the phone as he talked about growing up surrounded by tall refinery stacks. “You may have smelled it, or you may have slept through it and all and come to find out that it stained your house or whatever.”

    Although the Gulf Coast city of 55,000 was dubbed Texas’ “cancer belt” decades ago, it wasn’t until 2010 — when Beard heard about a report that Port Arthur residents are 40% more likely to develop cancer than similar towns just 25 miles upwind — that Beard became a tireless environmental activist.

    “You know how you say when the refinery has a sneeze, we get pneumonia?” he asked. “But no, we don’t get pneumonia. We get cancer.” The most-feared disease has touched pretty much every family that Beard knows in the economically struggling town.

    This was all before last week’s lightning bolt of news: that the U.S. military had bombed Venezuela and seized its indicted strongman leader Nicolás Maduro. It was quickly followed by Donald Trump announcing a scheme to bring some 30-to-50-million barrels of oil to the United States — meaning the backyards of Beard and his neighbors.

    Indeed, experts have tagged Valero’s big refinery in Port Arthur that towers over Beard’s home — heavily invested in specialized equipment to process the sour, heavy crude that comes from Venezuela — as most likely to benefit from Trump’s proposed gambit.

    Environmentalists say any new refinery jobs and U.S. corporate profits will be swamped by increased pollution of both the toxic chemicals that have already sickened Port Arthur, and greenhouse gases that threaten us all through climate change.

    When America woke up 10 days ago to news that Trump had ordered the dead-of-night assault on Venezuela and seized Maduro, there was one word that echoed among Democratic lawmakers asked for a comment. “Is anyone going to just stop for a second and be honest?” U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton of Massachusetts told CNN. “This is insane. What the hell are we doing?”

    But the first wave of critics like Moulton focused mainly on the rank illegality of Trump’s maneuver — failing to get congressional approval or even consult its leaders, over an act of unlawful aggression that killed as many as 100 people on the ground, and which seemed to lack any planning for how to deal with the aftermath of taking Maduro.

    Those problems have been amplified in the days since Moulton and others branded the operation as “insane.” It is indeed insane when Trump declares to the world that the United States is “in charge” of Venezuela and a few days later his State Department says the country is unsafe for Americans because of violent roving gangs. For that matter, it’s also meshugana to upend the global order that has reigned since the end of World War II, when the U.S. led efforts to ban wars of aggression.

    But we’re not talking nearly enough about what’s maybe most whacked-out about Trump’s splendid little war in Latin America — that by making his operation all about taking the oil, he seeks to endanger the entire planet by accelerating climate change. One expert told the Associated Press that increasing production of Venezuela’s thick, dirty crude by a target of 1 million barrels a day would also add roughly 360 million metric tons of carbon dioxide a year from the production process — a significant spike in the gases that are warming our planet.

    That Trump made it clear that his goal in making war against Venezuela was all about grabbing its oil on the one-year anniversary of the deadly Los Angeles wildfires — perhaps the most dramatic of the floods, amped-up hurricanes, and other weather catastrophes exacerbated by a hotter planet — was especially disgusting.

    Michael E. Mann, director of the Center for Science, Sustainability and the Media at the University of Pennsylvania, told me that while Trump’s initial target for Venezuelan oil seems modest, experts believe the South American nation could harbor a whopping 300 billion barrels under ground. He has written that Trump aims to make America a “petrostate,” allied with other bad actors such as Russia and Saudi Arabia in working to undermine any global consensus around fighting climate change.

    Less than a week after the Venezuela strike, the New York Times reported that Trump’s U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is dropping its longtime requirement to weigh the cost on human lives — early deaths, or chronic diseases like asthma — in regulating key air pollutants, including those from oil refineries. As a matter of policy, the U.S. government now values the dollars that Valero or Exxon can make from burning dirty oil over the very existence of Beard and his Texas community. That’s not surprising from the crew that’s dismantled an entire generation of EPA programs that once targeted the environmental racism that dumps pollutants on disadvantaged Black and brown communities like Port Arthur.

    Indeed, the 100 fatalities caused by the Trump regime’s militarism against Venezuela — although a human-rights outrage — will likely pale over time against the canopy of death and destruction that historians will blame on the president’s obsession with doubling down on fossil fuels while other nations focus on green energy such as wind or solar.

    A preview of the world’s coming attractions is arguably taking place right now on the blood-soaked streets of Tehran, where experts believe months of severe drought that sometimes left poorer neighborhoods in the Iranian capital with little or no running water has been a key trigger for the collapse of social order.

    While foreign policy experts aren’t wrong to worry about U.S. expansionism triggering World War III, Trump’s backward-looking energy policies could cause a similar or worse toll through civil war and mass migration. While top energy officials — including the Exxon Mobil CEO who called Venezuela “uninvestable” — say Trump’s Venezuela dreams are economically unrealistic, the time lost for America to reduce its greenhouse gas pollution is a clear and present danger for civilization.

    History is almost sure to judge that “insane” was far too generous a word to describe it.

    Yo, do this!

    • I’ve written about this before but I can’t say enough about the essentialness of Andrew Hickey’s long-running podcast, A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs, which currently is up to around 1969 on its long, strange trip. His latest episode — about Jimmy Cliff, “Many Rivers to Cross,” and the invention of reggae — proved unexpectedly prescient when Cliff died at age 81 just before its release. Now, the passing of the Grateful Dead’s Bob Weir has me dredging up his recent episode about the Dead, “Dark Star,” and the rise of an almost spiritual cultural phenomenon.
    • In the world of media, the mid-2020s will be remembered as the moment that intrepid independent journalists stepped up and did the work that traditional newsrooms are suddenly too cowed or too compromised to perform. Since ICE and the Border Patrol amped up their immigration raids last summer, I’ve become a big fan of Amanda Moore (@noturtlesoup17.bsky.social on Bluesky), who has birddogged Greg Bovino and his goon squad from the Big Easy to the frigid streets of Minneapolis. Check out her coverage of the far right for Mother Jones.

    Ask me anything

    Question: Please explain how the “anti-elite” [MAGA] base can continue to support all the elite personnel in charge of America’s economy in this regime? Just ONE recent example: [Pennsylvania Sen. Dave] McCormick’s wife’s Facebook promotion in charge of….“sovereign relations concerning AI…“. — @tim215.bsky.social via Bluesky

    Answer: Tim, I think the ascension of Dina Powell McCormick — the former Trump 45 aide who is also married to Pennsylvania’s Republican junior senator — to the job of president of Facebook’s parent company Meta has profoundly troubling implications. This is neither to say that Mark Zuckerberg’s new hire lacks qualifications, nor that Senate spouses should be barred from the private sector. But the move surely reflects Silicon Valley’s determination to curry favor with the personalist Trump regime by any means necessary. What bothers me even more, as a Pa. voter, is that I see the issues surrounding Meta — especially the currently unchecked rise of artificial intelligence, or AI — as requiring clear-eyed leadership. How can anyone now expect Sen. McCormick to be an honest broker?

    What you’re saying about…

    Last week’s question about the attack on Venezuela drew a robust response, as I expected, and — also as I expected — almost unanimous opposition to Trump’s policy for the troubled country. Most of you saw the military operation as illegal and unconstitutional, and share my befuddlement (see above) on the president’s assertion that taking Venezuela’s oil was the prime reason, except for Jon Elliott, who wrote: “I absolutely endorse Trump’s Pirates of the Caribbean excursion with one proviso — he performs Maduro redux in North Korea.” More typical was Tom Lees: “I was born in June 1945, two months before the dropping of the atomic bombs. The world order that has prevented WWIII seems to be in the process of being dismantled by people who should be imprisoned (Donald Trump) or institutionalized (Stephen Miller).”

    📮 This week’s question: Given the uproar over the killing of Renee Good, is “Abolish ICE” now the mainstream position, and do you support it? If so, how should the U.S. enforce its immigration laws? Please email me your answer and put the exact phrase “Abolish ICE” in the subject line.

    Backstory on the end of Newsom’s WH dreams

    California Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks during his State of the State address Thursday in Sacramento, Calif.

    One of the most anticipated stories of 2026 isn’t supposed to happen until the waning weeks of the year, when the votes from the midterm election have been counted and top Democrats beginning lining up for their shot at following Donald Trump as the 48th president. But the most consequential early moment in that Dem primary race may have already happened. On Monday, California Gov. Gavin Newsom faced a career-defining choice between the growing populism of his party’s anxious voters, or the Silicon Valley moguls who’ve been there for him in the past.

    Newsom chose the billionaires.

    At issue is a citizen initiative to place a wealth tax on California’s richest of the rich — those with a net worth of more than $1 billion — to pay a one-time levy equal to 5% of their assets, with most of the revenue targeted toward keeping troubled hospitals open and other healthcare costs. Backed by a powerful labor union, the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West, the ballot measure reflects growing global rage over economic inequality and the current zeitgeist among Democrats likely to vote in the 2028 primaries. Not surprisingly, the push has angered Silicon Valley’s increasingly right-wing tech titans and investors like Peter Thiel or Google co-founder Larry Page who’ve threatened to move to red states like Florida or Texas.

    Newsom, who is term-limited and leaves the governor’s mansion at year’s end, has long walked a tightrope between boosting his White House ambitions by relentlessly needling Donald Trump on social media while — with considerably less fanfare — catering to the high-tech poobahs who’ve funded his campaigns and who, Newsom insists, would damage the Golden State economy by leaving. On Monday, the governor told the New York Times that he firmly opposes the proposed wealth tax and will use his bully pulpit to fight the measure if it reaches the ballot.

    “Hey idiots: You’re rich,” the independent journalist Hamilton Nolan wrote in a riposte to Thiel and Co. posted hours before Newsom’s decision. “Enjoy your lives. Pay your taxes and count your blessings. Is this the perfect life that you dreamed of for yourself — performatively kissing the ass of a dictator, giving up your home to flee the taxman, earning the enmity of your fellow man, all in service of money you will never spend?”

    Nolan’s piece may have targeted the 0.1%, but it also seemed to carry a message that Newsom and any other Democratic presidential hopefuls need to hear. Running as a performative kind of center-left Trump with viral social media posts will get you attention but not the White House. The core of rank-and-file Democrats — especially the 7 million who took to the streets last summer for the No Kings protest — wants radical changes they’re not seeing in Newsom’s California. These include limits on artificial intelligence, a major overhaul of the Supreme Court, and — especially — an end to the gross unfairness of economic inequality. Hopefully Newsom’s pals in Silicon Valley can find him new work, because 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. already looks above his future pay grade.

    What I wrote on this date in 2019

    One of the many similarities between today and the United States seven years ago is that Democrats and other progressives were already deeply divided over how best to respond to Donald Trump and threats against democracy. On this date in 2019, I put forth my own idea that I’m not sure I’d endorse in hindsight: that Bernie Sanders was the most inspiring figure in U.S. politics, yet should stand down from the 2020 election. I wrote about “a sense that white dudes from the baby-boomer-and-older generation have been running things for far too long, and that America needs some new blood.” Instead, we got the two oldest presidents in American history. Read the rest: “Bernie Sanders is the leader America needs now. Just NOT by running for president in 2020.”

    Recommended Inquirer reading

    • Late last year, I predicted that Trump’s plummeting popularity would cause him to double down on autocracy. For once, I was right. In my Sunday column, I wrote about the shocking ICE Minneapolis murder of 37-year-old poet and mom Renee Nicole Good and the broader war for the truth that was defined by the Trump regime’s instant smears against the victim. Over the weekend, I looked at how 2026’s shocking start from Caracas to the Twin Cities was punctuated by Trump’s jarring comments to the New York Times — that nothing can stop him but “my own mind” and “my own morality.” I stressed that he can and will be stopped — by our morality.
    • The nation remains on edge nearly one week after the ICE agent gunned down Good in the streets of Minneapolis, and already the resistance movement to ICE has seen some twists and turns. None has been more dramatic in Philadelphia than the unexpected return of the Black Panther Party for Self Defense, an iconic social movement that thrived in the late 1960s and early ‘70s before a government crackdown. When several armed members of the Black Power group demonstrated against ICE near City Hall on Thursday, The Inquirer’s Brett Sholtis jumped on the story and followed up with an in-depth profile of the small group, whose Philly leader, Paul Birdsong, said Good’s killing “wouldn’t have happened if we were there.” Sholtis is part of the paper’s jacked-up weekend news coverage that is supported by your subscription dollars. Local journalism is a bulwark against tyranny. Become a part of it by subscribing to The Inquirer today.

    By submitting your written, visual, and/or audio contributions, you agree to The Inquirer‘s Terms of Use, including the grant of rights in Section 10.

  • A Montgomery County office that’s ‘outlived DOGE’ has helped save the suburb $14 million

    A Montgomery County office that’s ‘outlived DOGE’ has helped save the suburb $14 million

    A Montgomery County office — which one county commissioner described as a far less controversial version of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency — has helped the county find $14 million in savings within the past year and reduce the deficit by half.

    Montgomery County’s Office of Innovation, Strategy, and Performance (OISP), announced in February 2025, spent the last year meeting with department heads to identify areas for cost cutting and streamlining services, such as eliminating almost a dozen vacant positions worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, saving $1.5 million on a prescription benefits provider, and conserving half a million dollars by bringing some county legal services in house.

    In 2026, the office could consider integrating artificial intelligence into county services, with the support of all three commissioners, aimed at cutting red tape for residents and county employees.

    “It’s kind of like DOGE,” said Commissioner Vice Chair Neil Makhija, a Democrat, noting that the office has “outlived” DOGE’s period of high activity when Musk was in charge before he stepped away last spring.

    “We didn’t just take the richest person in the county and tell them to cut, you know, benefits for poor people, which is what the federal DOGE was,” Makhija said.

    Also unlike DOGE — which under Musk’s leadership was responsible for the haphazard slashing of thousands of federal workers’ jobs during the first year of President Donald Trump’s second term — the office does not envision layoffs becoming part of its mission.

    The office’s work comes on the heels of the county’s $632.7 million operating budget and a roughly $25.5 million deficit, resulting in a 4% property tax increase for residents.

    Republicans have made looking for inefficiencies in government part of their brand. But Democratic leaders in Pennsylvania have also started taking on streamlining government. Gov. Josh Shapiro has touted how he’s cut processing time for licenses and accelerated the permitting process for building projects.

    And in blue Montgomery County, a bipartisan group of leaders says that responsible government efficiency should be a pillar of good government, regardless of political party.

    “What happened with DOGE at the federal level was hard to watch and certainly not the approach that we’re going to take in Montgomery County, but, any leader … has to go through this exercise of are we optimizing our resources?
Are we leaving money on the table? Are there opportunities to improve the performance of our people?” said County Commissioner Chair Jamila Winder, a Democrat.


    “Like all of those are just disciplines that are industry agnostic, and so I don’t think it’s a Republican or a Democrat thing,” Winder added.

    Commissioner Tom DiBello, the only Republican on the board, agrees, saying that he has high expectations for the office and its ability to oversee the adequate spending of taxpayer dollars.

    “I mean, that’s our job. It has nothing to do with Republican or Democrat. My feeling, it has to do with taxpayer money,” DiBello said. “We’re supposed to be stewards of taxpayer money.”

    Jamila H. Winder (from left), Neil Makhija, and Thomas DiBello are seated together on stage at the Montgomery County Community College gymnasium Wednesday, Jan. 3, 2024, during ceremonies before they were sworn in as Montgomery County’s new Board of Commissioners.

    Is artificial intelligence the next step?

    The OISP was launched in February 2025 after the office previously served as the county COVID-19 pandemic “Recovery Office,” ensuring approximately $161 million in funds from the American Rescue Plan Act were being used appropriately.

    When Stephanie Tipton, deputy chief operating officer, was hired in Montgomery County in September 2024 after more than 16 years in leadership in Philadelphia, county officials started discussing how to translate that oversight practice at the “Recovery Office” to every facet of county spending and performance.

    That mentality helped the OISP cut the county deficit in half and focus on ways to reduce it in the long term, such as eliminating longstanding vacant positions around the county, including on the board of assessment, which does real estate evaluations. The office also helped develop performance management standards for departments.

    “What we were really interested in is finding things that we could make repeatable year after year, and that would move forward, whether that was restructuring positions and eliminating vacancies that we don’t carry forward” to doing a trend analysis on spending, said Eli Gilman, project director of the 11-person office. He noted that the team was “kind of building a plane while we were flying.”

    County governments are always trying to be efficient with taxpayer dollars, said Kyle Kopko, executive director of the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania, especially in the aftermath of last year’s state budget impasse. But Montgomery County’s decision to have a dedicated office for efficiency is fairly unique, he said.

    “This is something that has become more and more of a focus of counties everywhere just because we’re not sure if we’re going to have the consistency of on-time state funds,” Kopko said.

    The next phase for the office? Cutting red tape for residents. And part of that may be through enlisting artificial intelligence, something the county has been examining through the commissioners’ “Advisory Council on Artificial Intelligence for Public Good” established in April 2025.

    “The goal here is like, how can we leverage this new and emerging technology to help us make it easier for residents to access services,” Tipton said. “Make it easier, reduce the burden on our frontline staff, so they can spend more time in sort of customer-facing, client-facing activities.”

    AI will be something that many counties across Pennsylvania will be grappling with moving forward, Kopko said. Though some counties are wary of using it for sensitive information.

    Everyone has a different idea as to what they would want to see AI used for in Montgomery County.

    Makhija wants to make court documents accessible by chatbot. Winder says she wants to see AI help county employees be more efficient in their roles. And DiBello, who worked in tech software, said as long as accuracy is prioritized, AI could one day be used in situations where residents don’t have to speak directly to someone.

    But first, Tipton said, the county wants to internally test AI tools to “make sure that we have the right sort of governance and guardrails” before launching it to the public.

    When Tipton joined Montgomery County she said she had a “clear mandate from the commissioners” to look at department spending. She also wants it to be a transparent process for residents and the office plans to launch an open data site to the public in the second half of 2026.

    “We want to make sure that moving forward, when we are making investments in the budget we can really understand more clearly how that is impacting service delivery, so we can tie that more directly to work that we’re doing,” Tipton said.

  • Trump’s efforts to control the Federal Reserve put the U.S. economy in jeopardy | Editorial

    Trump’s efforts to control the Federal Reserve put the U.S. economy in jeopardy | Editorial

    Donald Trump was elected twice on a slogan to make America great, but nearly everything he does makes the country worse.

    Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill increased U.S. debt and boosted healthcare costs. His tariffs have raised prices, while cuts to regulations have left workplaces more dangerous. Trump has also weakened higher education, slashed lifesaving medical research, damaged relationships with allies, and undermined the rule of law.

    In short, many of Trump’s policies are making people sicker, poorer, and less safe. In that context comes Trump’s latest attack on the Federal Reserve, which will ultimately hurt all Americans.

    Since returning to office last year, Trump has pressured Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell to speed up interest rate cuts in an effort to boost the economy. But the Fed has moved cautiously to avoid further inflation.

    Trump’s economic approach has been reckless and shortsighted.

    The killing of Renee Nicole Good and the moral rot of Trump’s reckless immigration enforcement plan | Editorial

    In July, he threatened to fire Powell. Last month, Trump said he may sue Powell for “gross incompetence.”

    On Friday, the U.S. Department of Justice opened a criminal investigation into Powell involving his testimony before the Senate Banking Committee regarding the increased costs of renovations to the Fed’s headquarters in Washington.

    Trump claimed not to know anything about the investigation, but he had previously criticized the renovation costs. Let’s be clear: Trump’s long-running attacks on the Fed chair are the only reason Powell faces any legal trouble.

    The Powell investigation shows yet again how Trump continues to pervert the once-independent Justice Department, using it as a political tool to go after his perceived enemies.

    Attorney General Pam Bondi continues to do Trump’s bidding. She has launched bogus investigations into other public officials, including former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James.

    Add Powell to the political hit list that is making a mockery of American justice.

    President Donald Trump shakes hands with Federal Reserve board member Jerome Powell after announcing him as his nominee for the next chair of the Federal Reserve, in the Rose Garden of the White House in 2017.

    In a rare sign of political courage, some Republican lawmakers mustered the nerve to criticize Trump’s attack on Powell.

    Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R., Alaska) said that “the administration’s investigation is nothing more than an attempt at coercion.”

    Sen. Thom Tillis (R., N.C.) said the “independence and credibility” of the Department of Justice “are in question.” He promised to oppose the nomination of a new Fed chair until the legal issues are resolved.

    But until more Republicans stand up to the president, expect more abuses of power.

    Trump’s attack is especially petty, since Powell’s term as Fed chair ends in May, though he can remain on the board through January 2028.

    Trump actually nominated Powell to be chairman during his first term in the White House. In a sign of Powell’s independence, former President Joe Biden renominated him to a second term.

    By most accounts, Powell has done an impressive job steering monetary policy through uncharted territory involving the pandemic, followed by inflation brought on by increased government spending.

    Trump’s pressure campaign on Powell has broader repercussions on America’s financial system.

    Five years on, a day that should live in infamy has instead propelled Trump’s grotesque return | Editorial

    The Fed’s independence is a cornerstone of U.S. financial markets, as it instills trust in investors, business leaders, economists, and other governments around the world that U.S. monetary policy is set without regard to political pressure.

    Without that firewall, presidents could push for rate cuts to boost the economy before an election, potentially causing higher inflation and instability down the road just for short-term political gains.

    In this instance, Trump clearly has his eye on revving up the economy before the midterms. (Trump would likely blame any subsequent inflation on Biden.)

    Politicizing the Fed creates instability and will harm investors and consumers in the long run. Reports of the Powell investigation already rattled financial markets, prompting investors to sell American stocks and bonds.

    To his credit, Powell has remained steadfast and made clear that the stakes surrounding the investigation are much bigger. “This is about whether the Fed will be able to continue to set interest rates based on evidence and economic conditions — or whether instead monetary policy will be directed by political pressure or intimidation.”

    But the damage to the Fed is already done, as Trump continues to place his political and financial interests ahead of those of the American people.

  • Dina Powell McCormick, former Trump official and Dave McCormick’s wife, will be president of Facebook’s parent company

    Dina Powell McCormick, former Trump official and Dave McCormick’s wife, will be president of Facebook’s parent company

    Dina Powell McCormick, a former Trump official and former member of Meta’s board, has been hired as the company’s new president and vice chair, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced Monday morning.

    “Dina has been a valuable member of our board and will be an even more critical player as she joins our management team,“ Zuckerberg wrote on Threads, one of Meta’s platforms alongside Facebook and Instagram. ”She brings deep experience in finance, economic development, and government.“

    He also noted that she will be involved in all of Meta’s endeavors, but will particularly focused on ”partnering with governments and sovereigns to build, deploy, invest in, and finance Meta’s AI and infrastructure.”

    Powell McCormick has extensive business leadership and government experience. She spent 16 years in different leadership roles at Goldman Sachs, according to her LinkedIn page. Powell McCormick was most recently the vice chair, president, and head of global client services at BDT & MSD Partners, a banking company.

    She worked in the White House and the U.S. Department of State under former President George W. Bush and was deputy national security adviser during President Donald Trump’s first term.

    The move also signifies what appears to be Meta’s intention to create stronger ties with the federal government as it develops artificial intelligence tools. Trump praised Zuckerberg’s decision Monday.

    “A great choice by Mark Z!!! She is a fantastic, and very talented, person, who served the Trump Administration with strength and distinction!” Trump said on Truth Social, his social media platform.

    U.S. Sen. Dave McCormick (R., Pa.), Powell McCormick’s husband, has been heavily involved with AI and tech policy. For instance, he convened an AI summit in Pittsburgh in July 2025 where billions of dollars in planned projects for Pennsylvania were announced.

    The senator is also a member of the Senate Banking Committee and the Subcommittee on Digital Assets, which, among other things, oversees cryptocurrency and stablecoins. Last spring, Fortune reported that Meta could return to the crypto space after scrapping its initial foray, Diem, in 2022.

    McCormick, in a post on X Monday, said he is “incredibly proud” of his wife.

    Asked about how he would mitigate potential conflicts of interest that arose from Powell McCormick’s position, a spokesperson for the senator said: “As he has from day one, Senator McCormick will continue to comply with all U.S. Senate ethics rules and honorably and enthusiastically serve the great citizens of Pennsylvania.”

    Powell McCormick is also the second former Trump official to be hired by Meta in recent weeks, CNBC reported. Earlier this month, Meta said that it had hired Curtis Joseph Mahoney, a former deputy U.S. trade representative, to be its chief legal officer.

  • The Trump administration is targeting ultra-processed foods. A Penn researcher explains why that might be complicated. | Q&A

    The Trump administration is targeting ultra-processed foods. A Penn researcher explains why that might be complicated. | Q&A

    On the same day President Donald Trump’s administration targeted ultra-processed foods in its new federal nutrition guidelines, Penn researcher Alyssa Moran published an academic journal article explaining why they’re hard to regulate.

    For starters, there’s no consensus on how policymakers should define the term, she and two coauthors said in a Nature Medicine commentary piece. (The publication timing was a coincidence, but she welcomed the attention to an underestimated challenge.)

    Ultra-processed foods are generally understood to be those with industrially produced ingredients not found in home cooking, but experts have long debated how best to classify the foods for regulation. The wording would need to encompass all the possible variations, without being so rigid that the industry finds loopholes.

    The U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Agriculture Department have said they are working on developing a federal definition to provide “increased transparency to consumers about the foods they eat.” It’s a key goal of the nation’s top health official, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who blames ultra-processed foods for the United States’ “chronic disease epidemic.”

    Roughly 60% of an American child’s daily calorie intake is estimated to come from ultra-processed foods, which comprise up to 70% of the U.S. food supply. Studies have linked their consumption to a higher risk of obesity, diabetes, cancer, heart disease, and other harms.

    This is the first time U.S. dietary guidelines have explicitly called out ultra-processed foods, also called highly processed foods, and told Americans to limit consumption, Moran said. The guidance was part of a broader update by the Trump administration the first week of January that flipped the longstanding food pyramid on its head to promote consumption of whole foods, proteins, and some fats.

    Though health experts questioned changes, such as the vague guidance on drinking alcohol, the crackdown on ultra-processed foods mirrors what many health organizations and consumer advocacy groups have been saying for years.

    “I thought it was a bold move, and I was glad to see it,” she said.

    Moran talked with The Inquirer about what people should know about ultra-processed foods and the challenges that remain in regulating the products.

    This conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

    Health & Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks during a press briefing with leading health officials and nutrition advisors at the White House in early January.
    What are ultra-processed foods?

    It’s a term that’s been used for decades and has been used, I think, interchangeably with ‘the Western diet’ or ‘junk foods’ or ‘highly processed foods.’

    Most foods are processed in some form, whether it’s physical processing, like slicing fruit before you eat it, or adding some chemical preservatives to foods that increase food safety. What changes with ultra-processing is the intent of the processing.

    With ultra-processing, the intent isn’t just to make the food safer or to extend shelf-life. It is to make it more cosmetically appealing and more likely to be overconsumed by individuals. They’re formulated in a way that makes them addictive, and they’re also aggressively marketed.

    What does it mean to make a food ‘cosmetically appealing’?

    It’s the overall sensation of eating the product.

    Companies are manipulating levels of highly palatable ingredients like sugar, salt, and fat to be at levels that are not naturally occurring and that are extremely palatable to consumers.

    They also add additives that enhance the naturally rewarding properties of things like sugar, salt, and fat. Some additives are added to food, for example, to mask a bitter flavor or prevent an aftertaste. They also add emulsifiers to change the mouth feel of a product. They pay attention to how the product sounds — even the crunch of a product when you’re chewing it — and add dyes to make them more visually appealing, especially to kids.

    There are all kinds of strategies that can take advantage of all of the senses to make the product almost irresistible.

    Why is there so much debate over how to define the products?

    The current administration has talked more than any prior administration about potentially limiting the production, marketing and sale, and availability of ultra-processed products. So, to be able to formulate policy to limit intake of these products, we have to be able to identify them.

    Many people have proposed going down the route of defining ultra-processed foods according to a list of additives. And there are many reasons why I don’t think that’s a good approach.

    What are the reasons?

    We need to really be thinking about how companies are going to respond to whatever definition we create.

    If we use a list of specific additives that makes something ultra-processed, companies are going to look at that list and they’re going to say, ‘How can we get around this. How can we skirt regulation?’ They’re either going to increase their use of additives that exist already but aren’t on that list, or they’re going to create new additives with very similar structures and functions as the existing additives.

    We see this happen all the time with commercially regulated products. When policies tax sugar, we see that companies increase their use of non-nutritive sweeteners, so the food supply is just as sweet, if not more. When Red Dye No. 2 was banned (in 1976), companies created Red Dye No. 3, which is almost identical and was also banned (in 2025), but 50 years later.

    Plus, we have hundreds of thousands of products on the marketplace and there are constantly new ones being added. And currently under FDA policy, companies don’t even need to notify the FDA when they add new ingredients to the food supply. So we don’t even have a complete list of every single additive in the food supply right now.

    What approach did you propose in your Nature article on this topic?

    Right now, it has been proposed to use a list of ingredients that would make a food ultra-processed. Everything else is non-ultra-processed.

    Our recommendation is really to flip that.

    We would say, ‘Here are all of the ingredients that make a food non-ultra-processed. Everything else is ultra-processed.’

    There are very few additives that make a food non-ultra-processed. The purpose (of the additive) would have to be for food safety or preservation, and that’s one reason why this is also a much simpler approach. Our approach is saying, for example, your yogurt is considered non-ultra-processed if it contains things like milk, live cultures, fruit, nuts, seeds, and honey, as well as some preservatives, vitamins, and minerals.

    If it has anything else, it’s an ultra-processed food and is in scope for regulation. Then, if companies introduce new additives, they’ll still be considered ultra-processed because they still fall into the ‘everything else’ bucket.

    Are there any other challenges that you see in terms of regulating the industry?

    The biggest one is the pushback from the food industry. They spend a lot of money fighting against policies to regulate production, marketing, and sale. We see it with sweet and beverage taxes that have been enacted in Philadelphia and other places. We see it with front-of-package labeling, which the FDA had been trying to pass.

    The lack of resources at our federal agencies is another barrier. This administration, early on, really dismantled the FDA, which I think would be the main regulatory body involved in creating this definition and potentially developing policy to regulate these products.

    If we don’t have people at those agencies, and they don’t have the resources they need to do their work, you could have a law on the books, but it’s not going to go anywhere.

    What are your tips for consumers?

    Shop on the grocery store perimeter and avoid the center aisles. Avoid ingredients that aren’t familiar to you.

    Classic examples of ultra-processed foods are box macaroni and cheese, many frozen pizzas or frozen prepared meals, and many boxed cookies, candies, cakes, and packaged foods.

    I would never tell consumers in this environment that you have to avoid every single ultra-processed food to be healthy. These products are everywhere. They’re cheap. They’re super convenient. Many people don’t have access to minimally processed whole foods.

    That’s why I think policy is so important — policies that both put limits on ultra-processed foods, but also promote and incentivize the production and sale and marketing of non-ultra-processed products.

  • ‘A turning point’: Anti-ICE protests reach the Philadelphia suburbs

    ‘A turning point’: Anti-ICE protests reach the Philadelphia suburbs

    Legions of suburbanites decried federal ICE actions on Sunday in a series of vigils and protests across the Philadelphia area, signaling the breadth of opposition to a central part of President Donald Trump’s agenda.

    Expressions of anger, sadness, and resistance poured out into the streets of major cities nationwide this weekend in response to the killing of 37-year-old Renee Good by an ICE officer in Minnesota. But that dysphoria also spilled into small towns — including in places like Gloucester County, New Jersey, where voters favored Trump in 2024.

    ‘ICE out’ protesters take to the streets in Philly and around the country

    “I’ve been quiet and timid my whole life, and now I’m just trying to speak up,” said Cristen Beukers, one of more than 100 people who attended a demonstration in Gloucester’s county seat, Woodbury, a city of about 10,000. Gathered along North Broad Street, near the Gloucester County Courthouse, participants’ signs, whistles, and bullhorn-led protest chants were met with beeping car horns and the supportive shouts of drivers.

    Beukers, 40, of nearby Paulsboro, called for a proper investigation into the shooting death of Good, a mother and poet, on Wednesday.

    Mi Casa Woodbury and Cooper River Indivisible hold a “roadside rally” in downtown Woodbury, N.J., in support of immigrants and to protest ICE on Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, as protests against Trump administration actions spread in the suburbs.

    Thousands of ICE agents and federal troops have swarmed blue American cities as part of Trump’s unprecedented campaign to arrest and deport millions of immigrants. Good was shot three times in the driver’s seat of her SUV after a brief confrontation with ICE agents on a residential Minneapolis street. Trump administration officials insist ICE agent Jonathan Ross fired out of self-defense; video footage appears to show he was not in the vehicle’s path when he fired.

    As Minneapolis shooting stirs fears of state violence, several Black Panther Party members made their presence known in Philly

    “It’s an S.O.S.,” said Alex Baji, 31, of Woodbury, who said he’s a former IRS auditor laid off last year by the Department of Government Efficiency, overseen by billionaire Elon Musk. “Masked goons murdering U.S. citizens — and the vice president says it’s perfectly justified.”

    The turnout in Woodbury suggested a new level of urgency for the tight-knit suburban community, said Kaitlin Rattigan. Rattigan is a community organizer with Mi Casa Woodbury, a group that formed in response to ICE activity in their neighborhoods. Mi Casa has held a demonstration every Sunday since mid-November, even if just a few people attended.

    “I think it’s a turning point for many people — and frankly for white people,” Rattigan, who is white, said.

    According to a recent poll conducted by Pew Research Center, 50% of American adults surveyed in October disapproved of the Trump administration’s approach to immigration, while 39% approve. (Some participants responded “neither.”) While 53% of respondents said the country is doing “too much” when it comes to immigration enforcement, a large majority continue to say at least some people living in the United States should be deported.

    Trump has derided and propagandized protesters as “paid insurrectionists,” “domestic terrorists,” or radical leftists — people who are not representative of mainstream Americans, Steve McGovern, a political science professor at Haverford College, said in an interview. Anti-ICE rhetoric in the suburbs threatens Trump’s narrative, according to McGovern. Trump’s 2024 win was fueled by key gains in Philadelphia’s suburbs, an Inquirer analysis found.

    Five charts that explain how the Philly suburbs helped Trump win

    “The popular image of suburbia continues to be a place where lots of middle-class, mainstream people live and work,” he said. “If suburbanites take to the streets and in large numbers, that would send — I think — a powerful message that a strong majority of the country is increasingly fed up with the outrageous, lawless, and even murderous behavior of ICE agents.”

    At least one Republican observer was skeptical. Guy Ciarrocchi, a GOP analyst, said in a statement these protests no longer influence independent voters, nor intimidate Republicans.

    “Unfortunately, these ‘rallies’ are political theatre — plug [and] play crowds with professional signs for any ‘cause.’ Tools to rally extremist Democrat voters,” he said. “Ms. Good’s death was a tragedy. And, ICE’s work is important and necessary. No ‘rent a rally’ will change either of those truths.”

    Outside the Delaware County Courthouse in Media, hundreds shouted into the bitter wind: “United we stand, divided we fall.” The voices came from attendees of all ages — older people in wheelchairs, young parents pushing babies in strollers, and children holding crayon-drawn signs etched with messages like “ICE Cream, not ICE” and “NO ICE because it’s cruel.”

    “The entire nation is watching Pennsylvania,” said U.S. Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon, a Delaware County Democrat. “We can reject Trumpism at the state and federal levels this year. … We will not be bullied out of the future that we and all our children deserve.”

    Area residents hold what organizers called a “vigil for peace on our communities” on Jan. 11, 2026, in Media, Pa.

    In the increasingly blue suburban county — that not long ago was solidly red — the vocal opposition to Trump has grown louder in recent years, said Cathy Spahr, coleader of Delco Indivisible, which organized Sunday’s vigil for Good.

    “We didn’t have this during the first [Trump] administration,” she said of the event’s turnout. Spahr said she was especially heartened by the attendance given that the vigil was announced only days before — and ended an hour before the Eagles’ first playoff game of the year.

    But Spahr and several attendees said there’s something special about coming together closer to home. And logistically, it’s easier.

    Corinne Fiore, 75, of Media, and her 4-year-old Doberman, Laser, cherish the opportunity to be involved in the anti-Trump movement in Delaware County.

    Corinne Fiore, 75, of Media, poses with her 4-year-old Doberman, Laser, who wears a “Defend Democracy” vest to local rallies and events, on Jan. 11, 2026, outside of the Delaware County Courthouse in Media, Pa.

    “I just can’t get in a car and go for 10 hours somewhere,” she said. She’s thankful she doesn’t have to. “Delaware County has a lot of responsible people in it. They’re good and kind people. Patriotic people.”

    For families with young children, the Media vigil also presented a convenient opportunity to teach their children the importance of standing up for their neighbors.

    “I want to show them it’s important to stand up to a bully,” said Candice Carbone Bainbridge, 42, of Wallingford. Nearby, her 8-year-old daughter, Cora, held a sign with pink and purple lettering that read: “Be a good human. It’s not that hard!”

    Sixteen miles southeast, in Bellmawr, N.J., dozens gathered along Black Horse Pike, hoisting signs, cheering on supportive honks from passing commercial trucks, and dancing to the Rascals’ 1968 anthem, “People Got to Be Free.” One poster read, “American foundations are being destroyed, no one is safe, stand up now.”

    Karen Kelly, 72, who drove 40 minutes and DJed the demonstration, said she’s frustrated by apathy and disengagement.

    “All the people staying home — doing nothing — have to get the heck up,” Kelly said.

    Congress is debating possible consequences for ICE and Noem after Renee Good’s killing

    Residents in the outskirts of Philadelphia expressed similar sentiments to their suburban counterparts.

    “This is not law enforcement, this is brutality,” said Susan MacBride, 84, at a protest in Roxborough, which was largely attended by residents of Cathedral Village, a retirement community in Northwest Philadelphia. Tired of what she described as the Trump administration’s cruelty and disrespect, MacBride felt compelled to put a pause on her retirement and join the 160-person rally at Ridge Avenue and Cathedral Road.

    “Kids need to know this isn’t normal; it’s a period of disruption, but we can’t let them get used to this,” she said.

    Nearby neighbor Lorraine Webb, 73, agreed with MacBride.

    “This isn’t what we are about, we need to do better,” Webb said. “We need to show up because this isn’t just a Center City issue; it’s a Philadelphia issue.”

  • Greenland, Denmark, NATO: Breaking the world we built

    Greenland, Denmark, NATO: Breaking the world we built

    Out of the ashes of the Second World War, the United States led the creation of several global institutions to ensure we would never again have to fight such a war. We created the United Nations, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and, most importantly, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

    Decades ago, NATO’s first secretary general, Hastings Ismay, remarked that the purpose of the alliance was “to keep the Soviet Union out, the Americans in, and the Germans down.” Then, aside from the threat of Soviet aggression, the other major threat was that the U.S. would turn its back on European allies and return to the isolationist posture it disastrously pursued in the early 20th century.

    Today, NATO faces its greatest threat from an entirely new source: a belligerent United States that may attack a fellow NATO nation.

    The White House has said President Donald Trump is weighing “a range of options,” explicitly including the use of the U.S. military, in his efforts to control Greenland. If that threat ever becomes reality, NATO as we know it will not survive.

    I write this as the lead Democrat for the U.S. congressional delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, which brings together lawmakers from every NATO member country to provide democratic oversight of the alliance and coordinate on shared security threats.

    I also write as someone who believes deeply that NATO is the bedrock of the post-World War II world. It is why Americans and Europeans have avoided a great-power war for nearly 80 years.

    NATO endures because of trust: The shared belief that allies do not threaten one another, and that borders are not rewritten by force.

    Greenland is a part of the Kingdom of Denmark, a founding member of NATO. A U.S. attack on Greenland would mean the United States using military force against a member of its own alliance.

    Danish military forces participate in an exercise with hundreds of troops from several European NATO members in the Arctic Ocean in Nuuk, Greenland, in September.

    There is no playbook for that scenario because it was always unthinkable. The moral authority of Article 5 — the pledge that an attack on one is an attack on all — would collapse overnight.

    No country on NATO’s eastern flank would ever again fully trust American guarantees. Estonia, Latvia, Poland, and others would be forced to reconsider their security in a world where Washington seizes territory from a smaller ally.

    The Trump administration’s rhetoric also plays directly into the hands of our fiercest adversaries.

    Beijing and Moscow have spent years trying to fracture the transatlantic partnership through disinformation, coercion, and intimidation. Every hint that America might use force against an ally becomes propaganda for authoritarian regimes that insist the rules-based order is a fiction, and that power — not law — is what matters.

    The administration argues that Greenland is strategically vital because of rising Russian and Chinese activity in the Arctic. But that reality is precisely why the United States must deepen cooperation with Denmark and Greenland — not threaten them.

    America already maintains a robust security presence in Greenland. A critical U.S. base supports missile warning, missile defense, and space surveillance under a long-standing defense agreement with Denmark that grants extensive U.S. access.

    Danish leaders have made clear they are open to strengthening cooperation with the U.S., writes Brendan F. Boyle. Pictured here is Mette Frederiksen, Denmark’s prime minister, at the European Political Community summit in Copenhagen, in October.

    Danish leaders have made clear they are open to strengthening that cooperation, and Greenland’s elected government has welcomed dialogue conducted with respect for international law and democratic self-determination.

    That is the path forward. The United States must expand joint Arctic operations, invest alongside Denmark in new capabilities, and work directly with Greenland’s leaders to protect shared security interests. Partnership strengthens deterrence while preserving the alliance that makes deterrence possible in the first place.

    This moment is a choice between partnership and coercion. America must choose partnership.

    The consequences of coercion would be devastating: European allies would begin preparing for a world in which U.S. commitments no longer carry weight. Some nations would pursue independent nuclear deterrents. Others would seek alternative security arrangements. Critical partnerships — including Trump’s own agreement with Finland to build polar icebreakers vital to deterring Russian aggression in the Arctic — would collapse.

    The alliance that has underpinned global stability since 1945 would fracture, not because of Moscow or Beijing, but because of decisions made in Washington.

    After the disastrous Iraq War, Americans are already uneasy about another prolonged foreign war. Now they are being told military force against a NATO ally is under consideration, an act that would inevitably risk escalation and could drag the United States into a costly, dangerous occupation.

    At home, families are trying to afford healthcare, keep their jobs, and provide for their children. They do not want to bankroll another unnecessary conflict that risks American lives and diverts attention from urgent needs here.

    Congress must draw a clear line. No funding for military action against a NATO ally. No ambiguity about America’s commitments. The United States must reaffirm — in law and in action — that its power is exercised through its alliances, not against them.

    An invasion of Greenland would not make America safer. It would end the alliance that has kept Americans safe for generations and plunge us into a new, dark world.

    Brendan F. Boyle represents Pennsylvania’s 2nd Congressional District and is the lead Democrat for the U.S. congressional delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. He is also a visiting lecturer at Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs.

  • Why touring ‘Suffs’ in Philadelphia under Trump is a ‘radical act’

    Why touring ‘Suffs’ in Philadelphia under Trump is a ‘radical act’

    Broadway playwright, composer, and actor Shaina Taub knows the power of theater to make a political statement. As an enthusiastic teen in Vermont, Taub staged a teach-in to protest the Iraq War at her high school — a bold move inspired by the anti-war musical Hair.

    About a decade later, when she was approached to write a musical about the suffrage movement, Taub recognized another meaningful opportunity to blend activism with theater.

    The one challenge: She was pretty unfamiliar with the American women who fought for the right to vote.

    “I really didn’t know anything,” Taub said.

    She was stunned, but her feelings turned into frustration as she concluded that her American public school education had been seriously lacking. “I was blown back by the scope of this history,” she said.

    That fueled her to create Suffs, the hit musical about the suffrage movement centered on South Jersey Quaker activist Alice Paul, a radical and charismatic organizer played fittingly by Taub herself in the Off-Broadway and Broadway runs.

    Alice Paul, seated second from left, sews the 36th star on a banner, celebrating the ratification of the women’s suffrage amendment in August 1920. The 36th star represented Tennessee, whose ratification completed the number of states needed to put the amendment in the Constitution. (AP Photo, File)

    After premiering in 2022 at New York’s Public Theater for a sold-out run — following the trajectory of another history musical box-office success, Hamilton — Suffs opened on Broadway in 2024. It went on to earn six Tony Award nominations.

    Taub took home two, for best book and best score, making history as the first woman to win in both categories independently on a night where Hillary Clinton, a Suffs coproducer, introduced Taub and the cast.

    Now on its first North American tour, Suffs has landed at Philadelphia’s Academy of Music this week (running through Jan. 18) to help kick off a year of events commemorating the 250th anniversary of the nation’s founding. The musical graces the same stage where suffragist Susan B. Anthony once spoke some 150 years ago advocating for the right to vote.

    Though mostly set in the District of Columbia, Suffs has some local shout-outs, too: The show mentions Swarthmore College, where Paul studied before pursuing her master’s at the University of Pennsylvania, and Bryn Mawr College, where President Woodrow Wilson (Suffs’ main antagonist) once taught history and politics.

    “Suffs” on Broadway.

    On opening night at the Academy of Music, director Leigh Silverman nodded to Philadelphia’s history in the suffrage movement, mentioning the protests Paul organized at Independence Hall, only a mile away, and across the city.

    “The suffs you met tonight, and the many, many others … were here in Philadelphia, and they remind us of our collective strength and what is possible when we stand up and fight, despite how far it might seem like we have to go, or for how long we have to keep marching,” she said.

    Taub echoed that sentiment in an interview.

    She believes the tour has been especially significant to stage under President Donald Trump following his policies canceling millions in federal grants for arts organizations nationwide and targeting historical institutions (particularly in Philadelphia) to alter the information they present to the public about slavery.

    “This is the first year of Suffs being performed under this president, and [it feels like] a radical act to get together in the theater and tell these stories,” Taub said.

    She added that it’s acutely meaningful to see the show in Philadelphia as the city reflects on the nation’s history for America250 this year.

    Though the actor/playwright grew up in Vermont, she saw shows in Philadelphia as a kid when she visited family in South Jersey; her mother, Susan Taub, was raised in Cherry Hill, just a few miles down the road from Paul’s childhood home in Mount Laurel.

    Today, it serves as the location of the Alice Paul Center for Gender Justice.

    Despite her connections to the region, Taub admitted that she has not yet visited Paul’s home. She plans to march over there soon.

    “Suffs.” Through Jan. 18, Academy of Music, 240 S. Broad St. ensembleartsphilly.org