From: Robert Reich

How California Can Neuter “Citizens United” and Improve Democracy for Us All. The Sunshine State has an opportunity to save American democracy from big corporate money.

Friends,

Good news.

You may remember that back in November I mentioned that Montana was considering a bill that would effectively negate the Supreme Court’s awful Citizens United decision, which held that corporations are people under the First Amendment and therefore entitled to spend unlimited amounts of corporate money in elections.

A similar bill has just been introduced in California.

Montana is a great and beautiful state. Some 1,145,000 people live there. But California! Almost 40 million people live in the Sunshine State. If California were an independent country, it would have the fourth-largest economy in the world (behind Germany and ahead of Japan).

So the possibility that California might pass this legislation is a very big deal.

As you know, corporate political spending was growing before Citizens United, but the decision opened the floodgates to the unlimited super PAC spending and undisclosed dark money we suffer from today.

Between 2008 and 2024, reported “independent” expenditures by outside groups exploded more than 28-fold — from $144 million to $4.21 billion. Unreported money also skyrocketed, with dark money groups spending millions influencing the 2024 election.

Most people assume that the only way to stop corporate and dark money in American politics is either to wait for the Supreme Court to undo Citizens United (we could wait a very long time) or amend the U.S. Constitution (which is extraordinarily difficult).

But there’s another way, and there’s a good chance it will work. It will be on the ballot next November in Montana. And there’s now a chance California could enact it!

As I’ve pointed out, individual states have the authority to limit corporate political activity and dark money spending, because states determine what powers corporations have.

In American law, corporations are creatures of state laws. For more than two centuries, the power to define their form, limits, and privilege has belonged only to the states.

Corporations have no powers at all until a state government grants them some. In the 1819 Supreme Court case Trustees of Dartmouth College v. Woodward, Chief Justice John Marshall established that:

“A corporation is an artificial being, invisible, intangible, and existing only in contemplation of law. Being the mere creature of law, it possesses only those properties which the charter of its creation confers upon it, either expressly, or as incidental to its very existence….The objects for which a corporation is created are universally such as the government wishes to promote. They are deemed beneficial to the country; and this benefit constitutes the consideration, and, in most cases, the sole consideration of the grant.”

States don’t have to grant corporations the power to spend in politics. In fact, they can decide not to give corporations that power.

This isn’t about corporate rights, as the Supreme Court determined in Citizens United. It’s about corporate powers.

When a state exercises its authority to define corporations as entities without the power to spend in politics, it will no longer be relevant whether corporations have a right to spend in politics — because without the power to do so, the right to do so has no meaning. (Delaware’s corporation code already declines to grant private foundations the power to spend in elections.)

Importantly, a state that no longer grants its corporations the power to spend in elections also denies that power to corporations chartered in the other 49 states, if they wish to do business in that state.

And what corporation doesn’t want to do business in California?

All a state needs to do is enact a law with a provision something like this:

“Every corporation operating under the laws of this state has all the corporate powers it held previously, except that nothing in this statute grants or recognizes any power to engage in election activity or ballot-issue activity.”

Sound farfetched? Not at all.

The argument is laid out in a paper that the Center for American Progress published last fall. (Kudos to CAP and the paper’s author, Tom Moore, a senior fellow at CAP who previously served as counsel and chief of staff to a longtime member of the Federal Election Commission.)

Which is exactly what the new California bill does. Here it is: AB 1984. (I kind of like the name.) You can find the text and status of the bill here.

The heroes of the day are Assemblymember Chris Rogers and Senator Mike McGuire, who have stepped up to sponsor and co-author the measure, respectively.

I hope Gavin Newsom gets 100 percent behind this effort. If he has his eye on the White House in 2028, this would be a feather in his electoral cap. The Citizens United decision is enormously unpopular. Some 75 percent of Americans disapprove of it.

It’s time to make Citizens United history. California (and Montana) can lead the way.

 

 

BREAKING: Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk sends a shiver down Trump's spine by announcing "Investigation Team No. 5" — a powerful task force designed to investigate the Epstein scandal.

Since the MAGA Justice Department won't take action, the rest of the world is stepping up...

“We cannot allow that any of the cases involving abuse of Polish children by the network of pedophiles and the organizer of this satanic circle, Mr. Epstein, be treated lightly,” stated Tusk.

The announcement from Tusk, a conservative, comes as the Trump administration refuses to even acknowledge that Epstein was running a child trafficking network. At this point, it's an undeniable fact of the case, clearly laid out in the documents. But Trump — who is accused of sexual abuse and rape in the files — won't acknowledge that reality because doing so would increase the pressure for a full investigation. He's desperately hoping that this entire scandal will just evaporate into thin air. Poland is making sure that doesn't happen.

Tusk said that the possibility of Polish victims gives their government the authority to dig through the 3 million pages of documents, images, and videos released so far. He pointed specifically to a group of individuals from the Polish city of Krakow who informed Epstein that they had "women or girls" for him, a clear indication that Poland was a nexus for Epstein's network.

"There are more such leads,” said Tusk.

Investigation Team No. 5 will now proceed with preliminary inquiries into "an organized criminal group of an international nature." This is an incredibly welcome development and exactly the kind of police work that the United States federal government should be conducting. Every single person in the Epstein files should be questioned. Once authorities start pulling on these threads, more leads and evidence could come tumbling out.

The Polish task force is composed of three highly experienced prosecutors, denoting a high level of priority for the government. Once they conclude their preliminary probe, a decision will be made on opening a full-blown criminal investigation.

On top of that, the Polish Justice Ministry announced a separate task force led by Justice Minister Waldemar Zurek to review the Epstein files, synthesize the data, and present the relevant parts to the Polish public.

“It is our duty to provide a reliable and impartial explanation of all Polish aspects in the so-called Epstein affair,” said Zurek. "The Polish state must check whether crimes have taken place on the territory of the Republic of Poland and whether Polish citizens were involved in the case."

They will also request access to all of the classified materials currently being held by the American government.

This is exactly what people have been screaming in vain for the Trump administration to do. Finally, the world is taking a major step towards justice.

 Say goodbye to fertilizers.

Dr. Mariangela Hungria, a microbiologist from São Paulo, has been named the 2025 World Food Prize Laureate for transforming how crops get their nutrients. Instead of relying heavily on synthetic nitrogen fertilizer, her work harnesses soil bacteria to feed plants naturally.

Nitrogen is essential for plant growth, but manufacturing synthetic fertilizer is energy-intensive and expensive. Hungria focused on biological nitrogen fixation, a process where microbes convert nitrogen from the air into forms plants can use. She studied rhizobia, bacteria that live in nodules on legume roots, and showed that inoculating soybean seeds annually could raise yields by up to 8 percent compared to synthetic fertilizer alone.

Over four decades at the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation, known as Embrapa, she helped scale these treatments nationwide. Today, her microbial inoculants are used on more than 99 million acres (40 million hectares) of farmland in Brazil. The impact is enormous. Farmers save an estimated $25 billion per year in input costs, and the shift away from chemical fertilizers avoids more than 230 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions annually.

She also pioneered commercial strains of Azospirillum brasilense, bacteria that improve nitrogen uptake and stimulate plant growth. Combining these microbes has doubled yield gains in some soybeans and common beans. Her latest work restores degraded pastureland, increasing grass biomass by 22 percent to support cattle production.

When Hungria began her career, few believed microbes could compete with industrial fertilizers. Today, Brazil’s soybean production has grown from 15 million tons in 1979 to a projected 173 million tons in the upcoming harvest.

Her work shows that feeding the world does not have to mean exhausting it. Sometimes, the smallest organisms can drive the biggest revolutions.

Learn more:

"Dr Mariangela Hungria Named 2025 World Food Prize Laureate." FarmingFirst, 2025

America's "Lactating Testicle of Venom" speaks

 The State of the Union as Authoritarian Display

By Tony Pentimalli

Donald Trump did not deliver a State of the Union. He staged a demonstration of power.

For nearly two hours, the presidency was not describing the country’s condition but asserting control over its narrative. Applause functioned as allegiance. Silence marked deviation. The chamber was not operating as a coequal branch engaged in oversight; it was a live audience being sorted in real time.

He opened by declaring conquest rather than progress. America was in a “golden age,” “bigger, better, richer, and stronger than ever,” and the country had “seen nothing yet.” There was no acknowledgment of limits, no admission of tradeoffs, no recognition of complexity. The picture was total and unquestionable. Doubt was preemptively disqualified.

Then came the absolutes.

Inflation was plummeting. Illegal admissions were zero. Gas prices were below two dollars and thirty cents in most states. Investment commitments totaled eighteen trillion dollars. These claims are exaggerated, misleading, or unsupported. When success is framed as total, correction begins to sound like sabotage.

The structure repeated with discipline. Victory was declared complete. Internal enemies were identified. Critics were portrayed as corrupt. Resistance was exposed. Authority was elevated above constraint.

When Trump said members of Minnesota’s Somali community had “pillaged” billions and labeled them “Somali pirates,” he did not isolate alleged misconduct. A community was cast as suspect from the presidential podium. Allegation became identity.

The election rhetoric followed the same pattern. Cheating was described as widespread, and those who resist new restrictions were accused of wanting fraud. Opposition was framed as criminality. Loss was rendered illegitimate before ballots were cast because authority was presumed rightful.

The ceremony shed its final veneer of normalcy when he demanded lawmakers stand in affirmation of his framing of citizenship and immigration. When Democrats remained seated, he mocked them, ridiculed them, and attempted to shame them in full public view. It was not persuasion. It was humiliation deployed as governance.

That demand was tied to a declaration that the administration was choosing to “protect citizens over illegal aliens.” The phrasing constructed a moral hierarchy in which one group was inherently deserving and the other inherently suspect. Remaining seated was cast not as policy disagreement but as siding against Americans. Immigration was converted from legislation into loyalty test.

Authoritarian politics advances through normalization of dominance and moral sorting.

Where measurable progress exists, language still erased limits in favor of conquest. Crime reduction became eradication. A reported strike on Iranian nuclear sites, known as Operation Midnight Hammer, was described as obliteration. Military activity in Venezuela, which generated serious legal and constitutional debate, was recast as destiny fulfilled. When outcomes are framed as complete victories, accountability appears unnecessary.

World leaders should not dismiss this address as partisan theater. They should read it as a stress test of American institutional reliability. The speech fused national legitimacy to a single individual, recast oversight as hostility, and described alliances in transactional, coercive terms. Stability depends on the rule of law outlasting any one president. This address implied the opposite.

The foreign policy boasting reinforced that shift. The president celebrated forcing America’s “friends and allies” to pay five percent of GDP, as though alliances were tribute systems rather than strategic partnerships. Alliances built on coercion prompt hedging. In recent months, key allies have reduced exposure to U.S. Treasuries, expanded alternative trade frameworks, and accelerated conversations about economic autonomy. Treasuries function as confidence instruments. Diversification away from them is not symbolism; it is insulation.

The invocation of divine purpose removed the final restraint. When authority is framed as providential, it ceases to appear temporary and begins to feel ordained.

The address conditioned its audience to equate correction with hostility and constraint with betrayal. Courts become obstruction. Journalists become adversaries. Oversight becomes sabotage. Limits become aggression.

The speech tied national stability to the individual delivering it. Legitimacy flowed from applause rather than law.

If economic promises falter, blame will expand outward. If elections disappoint, legitimacy will be denied. If courts intervene, judicial review will be branded political warfare. The groundwork has been laid.

For those who watched, the pattern was unmistakable. The absolutism insulated. The scapegoating consolidated. The public shaming rehearsed.

For those who did not watch, understand this plainly: the address was not an assessment of the nation’s condition. It was a demonstration of how power will be exercised and how resistance will be treated.

Democratic failure becomes possible when truth is downgraded, when institutions are mocked into submission, and when loyalty to power replaces loyalty to principle.

When accountability thins, permanence begins to sound reasonable.

And when authoritarian behavior is displayed openly from the highest office and absorbed as normal political theater, the display itself becomes the warning.

*Tony Pentimalli is a political analyst and commentator fighting for democracy, economic justice, and social equity. Follow him for sharp analysis and hard-hitting critiques on Facebook and BlueSky

@tonywriteshere.bsky.social

2/25/26

 

Under Tennessee law, homicide can carry the death penalty. Now, Tennessee Republican lawmakers have introduced House Bill 570 / Senate Bill 738—legislation that declares life must be protected “from fertilization to natural death.”

By revising homicide statutes to include abortion under the same legal framework, this bill enables capital punishment for women who receive abortion care and for physicians who provide it. While the bill has not yet been formally filed, if it is filed and passed, its provisions would take effect July 1, 2026—that’s just a few months away. Here’s what you need to know about this bill, the five white Republican men behind it, and how you can do your part to help stop this bill from advancing.

Let’s Address This.

Who Is Behind This Bill?

Sponsored by Rep. Jody Barrett (R-Dickson) and backed by Reps. Bud Hulsey, Monty Fritts, and Ed Butler — with a Senate companion bill sponsored by Sen. Mark Pody — this proposal revises Tennessee’s assault and homicide statutes to apply the same legal standards to abortion as existing homicide laws. As you can see below, it is quite a diverse bunch sponsoring this barbaric piece of legislation.

Last year, I sounded the alarm about South Carolina introducing a bill redefining personhood to criminalize abortion as homicide. At the time, I warned that even if such bills failed, their repeated introduction would shift the Overton Window and embolden lawmakers in other states to follow suit.

This bill in Tennessee is an example of this possibility materializing into reality. Let’s be clear about what this means. The legal architecture they are constructing makes abortion legally indistinguishable from homicide. This is draconian. And, worse, this bill is being introduced in a state that already leads the nation in maternal mortality.

The Facts Tennessee Lawmakers Cannot Ignore

According to data from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), Tennessee ranks number one in the nation for maternal mortality between 2018 and 2022. During that five-year period, there were 166 pregnancy-related deaths in Tennessee, giving the state a maternal mortality rate of 41.1 deaths per 100,000 births — more than double the national average of 18.6.

Tennessee Republican lawmakers could have some humanity and meaningfully addressing this crisis—which might include expanding access to prenatal care, investing in rural hospitals, or funding maternal health programs. Instead, they are proposing legislation that will escalate criminal penalties against women experiencing pregnancy complications and those seeking reproductive care.

This is not about protecting life. It is about exerting control.

When a state with the highest maternal mortality rate in America proposes legislation that would treat abortion as homicide, it is not “pro-life.” It is reckless governance. When I wrote about South Carolina’s bill, thousands of you mobilized. Calls were made. Pressure was applied. The bill was stalled.

But I cautioned then that the introduction itself was strategic. The goal was not necessarily immediate passage. The goal was normalization. The goal was to move the conversation further toward criminalization so that what once seemed unthinkable would become merely “controversial.”

Now Tennessee is following that path.

This is how coordinated national strategies operate. Introduce extreme legislation in one state. Gauge reaction. Refine the language. Introduce similar bills elsewhere. Repeat until one advances far enough to reach federal courts.

If we treat each bill as an isolated anomaly, we will continue playing defense. If we recognize this as a coordinated effort, we can respond accordingly.

If you’re finding value in this analysis and insight, I invite you to join our community of 170,000+ activists and subscribe.

What You Can Do — Nationwide

This is not only a Tennessee issue. It is a national test case. If these bills advance in one state, others will follow.

You can act right now.

Contact the bill sponsors and make clear that criminalizing women and exposing them to capital punishment for seeking abortion care is unacceptable. Below I provide their publicly available contact numbers, address, emails, and a script to help guide your remarks.

Rep. Jody Barrett

425 Rep. John Lewis Way N.

Suite 596 Cordell Hull Bldg.

Nashville, TN 37243

Phone: (615) 741-3513

Fax: (615) 253-0244

Email: rep.jody.barrett@capitol.tn.gov

Rep. Bud Hulsey

425 Rep. John Lewis Way N.

Suite 519 Cordell Hull Bldg.

Nashville, TN 37243

Phone: (615) 741-2886

Fax: (615) 253-0247

Email: rep.bud.hulsey@capitol.tn.gov

Rep. Monty Fritts

425 Rep. John Lewis Way N.

Suite 430 Cordell Hull Bldg.

Nashville, TN 37243

Phone: (615) 741-7658

Fax: (615) 253-0163

Email: rep.monty.fritts@capitol.tn.gov

Rep. Ed Butler

425 Rep. John Lewis Way N.

Suite 578 Cordell Hull Bldg.

Nashville, TN 37243

Phone: (615) 741-1260

Fax: (615) 253-0328

Email: rep.ed.butler@capitol.tn.gov

Sen. Mark Pody

425 Rep. John Lewis Way N.

Suite 754 Cordell Hull Bldg.

Nashville, TN 37243

Phone: (615) 741-2421

Fax: (615) 253-0205

Email: sen.mark.pody@capitol.tn.gov

You can use this simple script:

Subject: Vote NO on HB 570 / SB 738

My name is ________, and I am writing to urge you to reject House Bill 570 / Senate Bill 738.

Tennessee already has the highest maternal mortality rate in the nation. Criminalizing abortion as homicide will not protect women — it will endanger them.

Revising homicide statutes to apply to abortion creates a pathway to capital punishment for women and providers. That is extreme, reckless, and harmful.

I urge you to vote NO and instead focus on policies that actually reduce maternal deaths and improve access to health care.

Sincerely,

[Your Name]

Mobilization matters. Legislators track call volume. They track email spikes. They measure opposition. We have stopped similar bills before. We can do it again.

This Is Not Going Away

These efforts will continue unless we respond with equal persistence. They are coordinated, strategic, and designed to escalate. Silence enables that escalation.

I will continue to monitor these developments and elevate them in real time. State-level extremism often receives minimal national coverage until it is too late. As a human rights lawyer, I believe it is essential to track these patterns early, explain their implications clearly, and mobilize before damage becomes irreversible.

If you value that work, I ask you to support it.

Subscribe to Let’s Address This. Share this article. Help grow this platform so that we can continue exposing and organizing against these threats—especially at the state level, where many of the most consequential battles are unfolding quietly.

As these barbaric pieces of legislation spread, we must match and exceed that escalation with sustained, organized resistance. My gratitude to each of you who are in this fight for human rights. Let’s continue to support each other to elevate our impact.

___________________________________________________

Read the full article with links and receipts: https://www.qasimrashid.com/.../tennessee-gop-intro-bill...

Consider becoming a free or paid subscriber to Let's Address This. Join our community of 170,000+ activists: https://www.qasimrashid.com/subscribe

 

The Business Plot of 1933 was an alleged conspiracy in which a group of wealthy American industrialists and financiers sought to overthrow President Franklin D. Roosevelt, whose New Deal policies threatened their economic interests.

According to retired Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler, the conspirators planned to recruit him to lead a massive veterans’ organization, modeled on European fascist movements, and use it to pressure or forcibly remove, Roosevelt from office. Butler testified under oath in 1934 before the McCormack–Dickstein Committee, revealing that the plotters intended to install him as a figurehead dictator while they controlled the government behind the scenes.

Although the committee found Butler’s testimony credible, no one was prosecuted, and major newspapers at the time downplayed or dismissed the story. Later investigations and historical analyses suggest the plotters underestimated Butler’s loyalty to democratic institutions; instead of joining them, he exposed the scheme.

The Business Plot remains one of the most striking examples of how economic elites, threatened by sweeping reforms during the Great Depression, considered extreme measures to preserve their power.

#plot #thehistoriansden

 

 

BREAKING: “MADE ME PHYSICALLY SICK!” A federal grand juror just broke her silence on what she heard while serving on a grand jury involved in Epstein trials, and every American needs to hear what she said.

A former federal grand juror who served for the last year and a half spoke out on a recent video, sharing from her car the raw toll of hearing cases involving depravity and child exploitation. Bound by secrecy rules not to discuss specifics, she made one powerful point clear: the horrors in the Epstein files are NOT fiction.

She said: “I think that there are a lot of you out there who look at some of the stuff in the Epstein file releases and you say there's no way this happened. This is not a real thing. This is a figment of someone's imagination, but I want to tell you that stuff does happen.”

The juror described leaving grand jury sessions deeply disturbed and nauseated by the evidence she heard. “On more than one occasion when I left the grand jury I was physically sick from the things that I had to hear while I was there. These memories of some of those things that will always be with me.”

She said she learned that evil exists: “There are people in the world that are this depraved. There are people in the world that hurt children. There are people in the world that are just wired so screwed up or had so much trauma. I don't know what causes these things, but for whatever reason they are capable. Maybe they're just soulless.

Her summation cut deep: “There’s nothing that I have read in the Epstein files that is that far-fetched to me.”

This is not speculation from a pundit on TV. It is testimony from a real person who sat through real evidence, real testimony, real pain. The Epstein files are not conspiracy theories or tabloid fantasy. They document crimes against children by powerful people who thought they were untouchable. When a grand juror says the depravity is believable and leaves her physically ill, it demands attention.

The administration’s selective releases, redactions, and delays only deepen the wound. Survivors and the public deserve full transparency, not half-measures and excuses. Evil thrives in darkness. Light is the only cure.

If this grand juror’s words shake you to the core, like and share to demand the full truth be released.