United States | News & Politics

Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders on Friday called for a total ban on dark money a day after the Democratic National Committee voted down a resolution that would have condemned the leading US pro-Israel lobby, which has spent nine figures on US elections over the past five years.

The DNC Resolutions Committee rejected the resolution, which condemned “the growing influence” of dark money and corporate-backed outside spending on Democratic races, specifically calling out the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee. United Democracy Project, AIPAC’s dark money arm, unleashed a $100 million blitz targeting progressives during the 2024 election cycle.

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“Billionaire-funded super PACs—AIPAC, AI, crypto, and others—are spending hundreds of millions to defeat any candidate who crosses them,” the senator added. “They should be banned from Democratic primaries. Period.”

The DNC is worse than useless at fighting fascism/Republicans.

Gift link — uses URL shortener because lemmy removes the gift token from the URL

A new analysis released Thursday estimates that the average American taxpayer shelled out over $4,000 to the federal government last year “for militarism and its support systems” such as the Pentagon, whose already-massive annual budget is poised to surge to $1.5 trillion if President Donald Trump gets his way.

The National Priorities Project (NPP) at the Institute for Policy Studies found in its latest annual Tax Receipt report that, through their federal taxes, the average US taxpayer contributed $4,049.35 to Pentagon contractors, military personnel, nuclear weapons, aid to foreign militaries, and last year’s bombing of Iran’s nuclear energy facilities. That’s significantly more than the average US taxpayer contributed to healthcare for low-income Americans through Medicaid—$2,492.

Federal agents arrested a man whose mother served as a spokeswoman for the Islamist embassy captors during the hostage crisis that began in 1979.

April 11, 2026

A State Department statement on the matter did not accuse the three arrested of any specific unlawful or harmful acts but stated that the Trump administration “will never allow America to become a home for foreign nationals tied to anti-American terrorist regimes.”

Mr. Hashemi is the son of Masoumeh Ebtekar, who served as the English-language spokeswoman for the Islamist embassy captors during the 444-day hostage crisis. Mr. Hashemi had been the subject of recent reports in conservative media outlets that portrayed him as living comfortably in Los Angeles while working as a psychology professor.

Every September since 2012, thousands of volunteers have come together around a shared goal: getting more Americans registered to vote. They’ve channeled attention and energy into a single day, dubbed “National Voter Registration Day.”

While having coffee with the founder of National Voter Registration Day, Montana native Matt Singer, Montana Free Press founder and executive director John Adams had a lightbulb moment: Maybe local news could benefit from that kind of national focus.

About a year later, that idea has become the first “Local News Day.” On April 9, more than 1,300 local newsrooms, around 200 partners, and 15 sponsors are participating in the “national day of action to celebrate and strengthen trusted local news and information.”

Just like the SS using the Totenkopf

there’s simply no way for the Pentagon to productively absorb that scale of resources on that timescale. Again, almost a 50% increase on a budget that is already massive in absolute and relative terms. If you think about what that scale of diversion means, you still won’t really quite grasp it, just as I’m not able to fully grasp it.

So who are they going to levy war against?

A 20-year-old man was arrested for throwing a Molotov cocktail at the home of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.