#politics

In the summer of 2025, Congressional Republicans passed a reconciliation bill providing $170.7 billion dollars to the Department of Homeland Security for immigration enforcement related activities. According to Office of Management and Budget, of the $75 billion specifically for ICE, $63 billion remains unspent while of the $65 billion for CBP, $37 billion remains unspent.

Or, to put it another way, ICE and CBP, despite receiving no annual appropriations this year, still have $100 billion dollars in funding to spend.

So, obviously, what Congress needs to do this year is appropriate still more money to ICE and CBP (another $70 billion to ICE and CBP together through 2029). Last night, in a 52-47 vote, that’s just what the Senate did.

Deficits are large by historical standards. The deficit totals $1.9 trillion in fiscal year 2026 and grows to $3.1 trillion in 2036. Relative to the size of the economy, the deficit is 5.8 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2026 and increases to 6.7 percent in 2036. Deficits averaged 3.8 percent of GDP over the last 50 years (see Chapter 1).

Debt held by the public rises from 101 percent of GDP in 2026 to 120 percent in 2036, well above the previous record of 106 percent just after World War II.

Outlays are large by historical standards—and growing. They total 23.3 percent of GDP in 2026, exceeding their 50-year average of 21.2 percent. After being adjusted for shifts in the timing of certain payments, outlays remain at about that level through 2028 but then grow steadily, boosted by rising spending on mandatory programs and increasing net interest costs. Outlays in 2036 are 24.4 percent of GDP (see Chapter 3).

the cumulative deficit over the 2026–2035 period is $1.4 trillion (or 6 percent) greater (see Chapter 5). Three major policy developments contribute to those changes: The 2025 reconciliation act (see Appendix A) increased deficits by an estimated $4.7 trillion; higher tariffs reduced deficits by an estimated $3.0 trillion; and administrative actions related to immigration increased deficits by an estimated $0.5 trillion.

The law’s most significant tax changes were those that extended certain provisions of the 2017 tax act (P.L. 115-97) that had expired or were scheduled to expire after 2025. The reconciliation act lowered statutory tax rates and changed the amount of individual income subject to tax, thus reducing individual income tax liabilities for most households and for pass-through businesses (that is, businesses for which income is taxed under the individual income tax system). It also accelerated deductions for business investment and thus reduced effective marginal tax rates on that investment. (The effective marginal tax rate measures the tax burden on returns from a marginal investment—that is, one that is expected to earn just enough, after taxes, to attract investors.) The reconciliation act modified eligibility and financing for Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and altered the terms of federal student loans, reducing federal spending on those programs. It also provided additional funding for defense, homeland security, and immigration-related activities.

The 2025 reconciliation act is estimated to increase total deficits over the 2025–2034 period by $4.2 trillion relative to CBO’s January 2025 baseline projections (see Table A-1).

To account for the effects of the 2025 reconciliation act, CBO increased its estimate of total deficits over the 2025–2034 period by $4.2 trillion relative to the agency’s January 2025 baseline projections (see Table A-1). That amount reflects CBO and JCT’s conventional estimate of the law’s effects on primary deficits (which exclude net outlays for interest) as well as effects of increased net outlays for interest and of budgetary feedback from macroeconomic changes. In total, the reconciliation act increases CBO’s estimate of federal debt as a percentage of GDP in 2034 by 9.0 percentage points, from 117.1 percent of GDP to 126.0 percent.

Judge Leo Sorokin decided those fees violated the Constitution and the Administrative Procedure Act. Twenty states filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration over the fees. The judge agreed with the states that the fee is a tax, which the president cannot levy on his own. “The tax can only be levied by Congress, and so he crossed the line when he entered into this area of charging $100,000 for a particular type of visa,” Hing said.

The Trump administration has already said they plan to appeal this ruling. The district court is the lowest-level court in the federal system, with the next stop likely to be the court of appeals.

In the meantime, companies are not required to pay the fee.

As for the companies that have already paid the fee, they will likely seek reimbursement from the government. However, any refunds will likely have to wait until the appeals process is completed, which will take some time.

On March 21, 2026, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz announced that “all houses and villages near the Lebanese border will be destroyed, in accordance with the model used in Rafah and Beit Hanoun in Gaza.” That model, the systematic demolition of thousands of homes, including after the end of active hostilities and without discernible military justification, is being carried out using the D9 Armoured Bulldozer, manufactured by Caterpillar Inc. Within the Occupied Palestinian territories, the Palestinian population lives under military law, and the Israeli military utilizes Regulation 119, Defense (Emergency) Regulations (1945) which allows military commanders to order the demolition of any home or structure utilized by a convicted or suspected terrorist.

In 2002, B’tselem documented IDF D9s destroying 60 homes in the Rafah refugee camp, displacing over 600 Palestinians five years before Hamas took power.

Since October 2024, IDF D9 bulldozers, in controlled demolition, demolished 8,218 homes in Gaza, many after ceasefires and without military rationale.

A 2026 UN report documented the destruction as systematic, occurring in neighborhoods cleared of combatants and posing no ongoing military threat.

A New York Times report detailed 50 social media accounts of Israeli soldiers demolishing houses, schools and other civilian buildings.

September 2024: West Bank Raid

The IDF deployed D9s as collective punishment following the October 7th, 2023 attacks. In the West Bank IDF raids caused an estimated $135 million in damages: 20km of water, sewage, electricity, and communication networks were destroyed; 70% of the road network was demolished along with 40 residential buildings and 10 businesses being damaged.

Following the 2024 ceasefire in Lebanon, IDF D9s demolished entire villages and leveled cemeteries, obliterating headstones and burial markers.

The IDF demolished or heavily damaged at least 850 structures across refugee camps of Nur Shams, Jenin, and Tulkarem continuing acts of collective punishment. Resulting in the displacement of some 40,000 people in the largest mass displacement of Palestinians in the West Bank since the Israeli occupation began in 1967.

In November, it was reported that the Biden administration was holding up the sale of the D9 bulldozers due to the IDF’s use of them to raze homes in Gaza. The IDF has said the homes were used by Hamas and accuses the terror group of using civilians as human shields.

US President Donald Trump, upon entering office, walked back on several measures by the previous administration meant to curb arms sales to Israel.

Since the beginning of the war on October 7, 2023, the Defense Ministry says, 870 transport planes and 144 ships have delivered more than 100,000 tons of armaments and military equipment to Israel, mostly from the US.

For 2026, across 312 insurers participating in the ACA Marketplaces from the 50 states and the District of Columbia, this analysis shows a median proposed premium increase of 18%, which is about 11 percentage points higher than last year. This is the largest rate change insurers have requested since 2018, the last time that policy uncertainty contributed to sharp premium increases.

key factor driving costs in 2026. Insurers cite increasing cost and utilization of high-priced drugs as well as general market factors, such as increasing labor costs and inflation, as contributing to premium increases.

In addition to rising healthcare costs, the majority of insurers are also taking into account the potential expiration of enhanced premium tax credits in their premium rate increases for the next year. The expiration of enhanced tax credits will lead to out-of-pocket premiums for ACA marketplace enrollees increasing by an average of more than 75%, with insurers expecting healthier enrollees to drop coverage. That, in turn, increases underlying premiums. Other federal policy changes, like the implementation of tariffs and the ACA Marketplace Integrity and Affordability rule were also discussed, though to a lesser extent.

Enrollment in the Affordable Care Act continues to erode as some customers struggle to make premium payments, with the declining numbers churning market uncertainty for insurers. In response, insurers are likely to raise rates again next year, following this year’s larger-than-typical hikes.

A KFF analysis released May 19, for instance, found that the average ACA plan deductible saw the steepest increase in history — growing by 37%, or over $1,000, from $2,759 in 2025 to $3,786 in 2026 as enhanced premium tax credits expired.

Those rising costs pose a political challenge for President Donald Trump and the broader GOP, which has opposed enhanced subsidies to help people purchase Obamacare coverage. Republican lawmakers also passed a spending package last year — enacted as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act — that included provisions expected to reduce ACA enrollment and was cited among factors fueling higher premiums this year.

GDP, broadly speaking, is a measure of the value of an economy. Analyzing the debt in context of GDP makes it easier to track the debt alongside changes in economy and inflation, allowing for comparisons of the debt over time; it can also indicate a country's ability to repay its debt. When debt reaches 100% of a nation's GDP, it indicates that the country owes about as much as its economy generates annually.

How about you give me my share and let me invest it myself?

AIPAC used a complicated web of political committees to influence the Illinois primary elections in March. Whether or not it is using the same tactics in Michigan — the group did not respond to a request for comment — observers expect it to continue to hide its campaign spending in the months to come, as primary candidates battle over AIPAC’s influence.

A NEW YORK state oversight board raised ethics concerns about a trip by state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli to Israel that a local pro-Israel Jewish group sponsored.

The revelation comes amid renewed scrutiny of DiNapoli’s spending spree on Israel Bonds, a financial instrument that directly funds the state of Israel.

The trip was paid for by the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, which has a financial relationship to Israel Bonds, the organization that issues Israeli government debt securities in the U.S.

On Sunday, DiNapoli and other state and local electeds marched in the parade again, joined by an array of extremist Israeli political figures including Bezalel Smotrich, the current finance minister and a far-right champion of illegal settlements.

In his 18 years as comptroller — and particularly in the months and years following October 7 and the launch of Israel’s genocide in Gaza — DiNapoli has turned the state’s pension fund into one of the largest holders of Israel Bonds nationwide. Since the February 2024 trip, Dinapoli has invested $120 million of the state’s common retirement fund in the instruments, bringing the total investment of state pension funds in Israel Bonds to $332.5 million.

Critics of the investments also point to a fiscally responsible argument against the bonds. Unlike traditional foreign-debt assets, Israel Bonds cannot be sold on a secondary market and instead must be held until they mature. That makes them a potentially unsound bet, especially considering the rapid decline of Israel’s credit rating in recent years.

In 2024, the Republicans narrowly retained control of the House with 220 seats to the Democrats' 215, the slimmest majority since 1930. That razor-thin margin is why the redistricting battle matters so much.

Every 10 years after the US census, the country’s 435 House seats are reapportioned based on population shifts, triggering a nationwide redrawing of congressional districts. The number of seats in the House has been 435 since 1912, and the only exception was made in 1929 to allow the admission of Alaska and Hawaii into the US.

The most recent census was in 2020, and states completed their redistricting by 2022. Since 2024, however, several states have redrawn their congressional maps again - some successfully, some blocked by the courts - with accusations of gerrymandering.

Gerrymandering is the practice of drawing electoral district boundaries to favour one political party over another. The tactic exists in many countries with district-based voting systems but is most closely associated with the US.

Florida’s new congressional map is expected to strengthen Republican control of the state’s 28 House seats and could help the party gain up to four additional Republican-leaning districts before the midterms.

Texas Republicans redrew congressional districts before the midterms as Democrats fled the state, leaving lawmakers missing during key votes. The new map added five more seats for the Texas Republicans.

Missouri Republicans redrew congressional maps before 2026, aiming to gain one extra House seat for their party.

In October, the North Carolina Senate approved a new congressional map that is expected to make one more US House seat Republican-leaning by reshaping several previously competitive or Democratic-leaning districts.

California voters approved a new Democratic-backed map under Proposition 50, known as the Election Rigging Response Act, in a 2025 special election.

The new boundaries are designed to help Democrats protect and potentially expand their existing 43-seat majority in the state.

Ohio was once considered a major presidential swing state, but Republicans now hold 10 of its 15 House seats, and the redraw is expected to further strengthen the party’s advantage.

...these systems sit squarely in the center of a recent high-stakes battle between the US government and AI startup Anthropic. Anthropic is seeking to preserve two “red lines”: bans on domestic mass surveillance and on weapons that can identify, track, and kill targets with zero human involvement. Since the start of the year, it’s emerged as the only military AI contractor to place meaningful limits on what experts call one of the final frontiers of AI warfare.

At the center of the debates is DOD Directive 3000.09, one of the only policies governing the use of lethal autonomous weapons. Originally written in 2012, it defines such a system as one that, “once activated, can select and engage targets without further intervention by an operator.” And it decrees that both fully autonomous and semi-autonomous weapons be designed to allow humans to “exercise appropriate levels” of judgment over the use of force.

The directive set up the “first policy on the use of autonomy in warfare,” said Hamza Chaudhry, who leads AI and national security at the Future of Life Institute.

Depending on how you interpret the definition, however, certain missile defense programs may have crossed that line decades ago. Take the Phalanx CIWS, for instance. It’s an automated weapon system resembling a very large gun, built to defend naval vessels from incoming missile attacks. That type of system wouldn’t work if there were a human in the loop, since it has to respond in milliseconds.

The difference, some experts say, is that these systems operate solely in a defense-only, fixed environment. They’re engaging, this interpretation goes, but not deciding — just reacting to an incoming threat. “The ‘and’ is doing a lot of work inside of that statute — we have systems that can decide and systems that can engage but you can’t have a system that does both,” Reddie said.

They're also "killing" missiles not humans.

Google employees argued their company should take a stand — and it did, choosing not to renew its contract amid the controversy in mid-2018. But Amazon and Microsoft quickly swooped in to pick up tens of millions of dollars in contracts for the same work. Palantir soon took over, and Project Maven became the Maven Smart System (MSS), which not only allows for object detection and tracking but also analyzing surveillance data on a large scale.

The sheer volume of targets could make any meaningful human supervision difficult, said Shoker. “What we know about MSS is that it reduces the number of human beings in the targeting cycle — and that’s actually by design.”

While Anthropic might have been all right reducing human intervention, it’s pushed back against setting it to zero. As Google found with Project Maven, though, competitors are more than willing to fill the gap.

OpenAI quickly signed onto the terms Anthropic had spurned. And in the months after snubbing Anthropic, the Department of Defense signed deals with eight companies to deploy their AI on classified networks: Google, Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, Nvidia, OpenAI, Reflection, Oracle, and SpaceX.

Silicon Valley executives are aggressively pushing back against employee organizing and speaking out, including by using AI to identify leakers. And many tech workers already fear for their jobs in an era when AI is set to replace entry-level roles at their own firms.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has held firm on mass surveillance for Americans, but he’s demonstrated no problem with — and in fact expressed his support for — such surveillance for everyone else.

Anthropic’s “very narrow” red lines “do not go far enough to protect human rights or to comply with international law,” said Tech Justice Law’s Batt. “Anthropic specifically talks about mass domestic surveillance of US persons as posing grave civil liberties concerns, but the same civil liberties concerns apply with equal force to non-US persons,” she added.

In a blog post, he said that “fully autonomous weapons (those that take humans out of the loop entirely and automate selecting and engaging targets) may prove critical for our national defense.” Amodei even said he was happy to “work directly with the Department of War on R&D to improve the reliability of these systems” and speed up the timeline for the company’s help in deploying them.

A panel of federal judges blocked Alabama from using Republican-supported congressional district maps that would dilute the votes of Black people in November’s midterm elections.

The ruling in U.S. District Court in Birmingham, Alabama, which found that the maps “intentionally discriminated based on race,” sets the stage for the U.S. Supreme Court to determine whether the maps, which were first proposed in 2023, can be used by Alabama this year.

Earlier this month, the Virginia Supreme Court blocked maps for Democratic-leaning congressional districts in that state, which had been approved in a statewide referendum in April.

Republicans last year began a series of congressional redistrictings in an effort to retain their ultra-thin majority in the House. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on May 4 signed a law creating a new congressional map that is projected to help Republicans add control of four House districts from the state.

Two judges on the panel were appointed by President Donald Trump: Anna Manasco and Terry Moorer. The third judge, Stanley Marcus, was first nominated to a federal district court by President Ronald Reagan and then was nominated to the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, where he currently sits, by President Bill Clinton.

“We do not lightly intrude in state affairs, but our previous review of the undisputed evidence left us in no doubt that Alabama’s legislatively enacted plan (the ’2023 Plan’) intentionally discriminated based on race in violation of the Constitution,” the panel said. “Our re-examination in light of Callais yields the same conclusion. We again cannot understand the 2023 Plan as anything other than intentionally discriminatory.”

“Every cycle, AIPAC shows just how broken our democracy is and how corrupt our political finance system is,” said Usamah Andrabi, a spokesperson at Justice Democrats, a progressive group.

“Every cycle, they are at the forefront of exploiting those gaps for their right-wing donors and at the expense of voters.”

While the Chicago Progressive Partnership — the group whose name appeared on the Amiwala advertisement — was widely believed to be linked to AIPAC, it did not have to reveal the source of its funding until after the elections, which took place in March.

Now that the vote is over, Federal Election Commission receipts show that the sole funder of Chicago Progressive Partnership was Elect Chicago Women (ECW), another PAC. It contributed $1m to the partnership.

In turn, ECW had raised more than $4m from United Democracy Project (UDP), the election arm of AIPAC, and another $1m from investor Blair Frank, one of UDP’s largest donors.

AIPAC also contributed $1.3m to a third PAC, Affordable Chicago Now, in what critics call an effort to conceal its spending in Illinois.

Palestinian rights advocates say this use of “shell PACs” is evidence of how the pro-Israel group has become “toxic” among the US electorate. They argue AIPAC has taken a Russian doll approach — hiding its spending by funnelling funds from one PAC to another — to hide its involvement in primary races.

“They are so unpopular amongst the Democratic Party that they have to hide themselves,” Andrabi told Al Jazeera. “We have to keep exposing them and looking under every rock to see whether or not this shell PAC or that shell PAC is funded by AIPAC.”

Just this week, The New York Times and Siena College released a survey showing that 37 percent of US voters now sympathise with Palestinians, while 35 percent sympathise with Israelis.

That number was even higher among Democratic respondents, 57 percent of whom felt greater sympathy for the Palestinians.

The Pew Research Center suggested an even stronger left-wing backlash. Its survey earlier this year found 80 percent of Democratic respondents said they have unfavourable views of Israel.

Despite its well-documented clout, AIPAC’s organisational structure remains murky, as well as its spending.

On Wednesday, DAWN, the rights group, released a report that relied on LinkedIn disclosures to track the group’s current and former staff members and their professional connections.

It found that many people who worked for AIPAC also held jobs with the US and Israeli governments.

“DAWN’s analysis shows that 66 former AIPAC staffers currently work in the US government, from Congress to the White House to various branches of the military; nearly two dozen current AIPAC staffers previously worked in US government bodies,” the report said.

“The personal and professional relationships that result from this type of revolving door form the backbone of political influence in Washington, which is indicated in the hundreds of professional connections between AIPAC staffers and US federal and state employees.”

Trump's second presidency was described by political commentators as having fewer prohibitions on business activity and guardrails against potential conflicts of interest than his first, and for having more opportunities to directly influence Trump.[567][568] Trump repealed and rolled back anti-corruption measures and ethical standards for himself and his allies, dropped corruption charges against political figures with ties to him, and fired inspectors generals investigating fraud and abuse.

His second presidency was described as breaking with decades of ethical norms,[570] and raising substantial corruption concerns.[571][572] Congressional Republicans largely downplayed or ignored the concerns.[573][570]

Federal judges found many of the administration's actions to be illegal and unconstitutional,[13][14][15] and by mid-July, a Washington Post analysis found he defied judges and the courts in roughly one third of all cases against him, actions which were described by legal experts as unprecedented for any presidential administration.[16] His defiance of court orders and a claimed right to disobey the courts raised fears among legal experts of a constitutional crisis.[574] By August 2025, several grant terminations and spending freezes were found by judges and the Government Accountability Office as being illegal and unconstitutional.[575][576]

The Department of Justice formally announced the fund in a filing on May 18, 2026.[30] The fund, known as the Anti-Weaponization Fund, would compensate individuals who claim that the Department of Justice had been weaponized against them, and is set to end in December 2028. As part of the settlement, Trump dismissed complaints filed against the government over the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago and the Mueller special counsel investigation. According to the Justice Department, Trump and his sons would receive a formal apology, but not monetary payment or damages[31], though the publicly available terms of the fund do not prohibit Trump or his family from receiving payments from it, according to some legal observers.

The following day, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche gave Trump and his family permanent immunity from inquiries into their taxes.[33] According to The New York Times, the settlement likely eliminated a dispute over a US$72.9 million tax refund Trump claimed as the host of The Apprentice (2004–2017).

In response to the settlement, Brian Morrissey, the general counsel for the Department of the Treasury, resigned.[40] The settlement fund was met with skepticism from Maine senator Susan Collins and Kansas senator Jerry Moran, who oversee the Senate Committee on Appropriations.[41] Senate Majority Leader John Thune cast doubt on the fund.

The incident comes amid heightened Islamophobia in the US, where politicians and commentators have repeatedly launched broadsides targeting the Muslim community.

US Congressman Randy Fine, an ally of President Donald Trump, said late last year that Muslims should “be destroyed”.

Later on Monday, Laura Loomer, a right-wing activist close to Trump, said the ICSD should be raided by the FBI and immigration authorities.

She shared a 2023 social media post by the wife of the mosque’s imam, accusing Israel of killing children.

“The mosque that was ‘supposedly’ shot up today,” Loomer wrote in an accompanying post. “Just remember the people who attend this mosque want us all to be killed.”

The justice department announced on Monday it was creating a loosely controlled and secretive $1.776bn fund to compensate Donald Trump allies as part of an agreement in which Trump and his sons dropped a $10bn longshot lawsuit against the IRS.

The money, which critics said was essentially a slush fund, will be overseen by five commissioners – four of whom would be appointed by the attorney general and removable by Trump – who would oversee the body’s work. A fifth commissioner will be appointed “in consultation” with congressional leadership. The fund also has the power to issue “formal apologies” and will send a quarterly confidential report to the US attorney general outlining who has been paid from the fund. There is no requirement that the fund’s work be made public.

There did not appear to be any restrictions on who can seek compensation from the fund. A copy of the agreement released on Monday evening says that claims will be evaluated based on a number of factors, including “the strength of the claim and supporting evidence, the claimant’s actions, any time the person making the claim spent in prison, attorney’s fees, and “other factors the Anti-Weaponization Fund deems just and appropriate”.

Any money left in the fund at the end of Trump’s term would be returned to the federal government.

The agreement was signed by Stanley Woodward, the associate attorney general, and number three official at the justice department. Woodward represented January 6 defendants as well as many Trump allies who came under scrutiny for their efforts to overturn the 2020 election and in the classified documents case.