The Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles generated about $25 million in revenue from selling driver data two years ago. (Adobe Stock)

The American people are once again taking to the streets to protest what the Trump regime is doing to our country.

This Thursday marks five years since the passing of Rep. John Lewis, the civil rights icon who coined the phrase “good trouble” for peaceful, non-violent action that challenges injustice and creates meaningful change.

George Mason University President Gregory Washington Credit: Bill O’Leary/The Washington Post via Getty Images

When the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights notified George Mason University on July 1 that it was opening an antisemitism investigation based on a recent complaint, the university’s president, Gregory Washington, said he was “perplexed.”

In the Trump 2.0 era, media conglomerates aren’t just reporting news but making it as well—and for all of the wrong reasons.

Grants to reduce racial health inequities.

Scholarships for Black and Hispanic students.

Racial bias training.

A camping initiative for Black Hoosiers.

Indiana Public Broadcasting Stations is cutting its statewide reporting team after state lawmakers ended funding. (IPBS logo)

Indiana Public Broadcasting Stations will be eliminating its entire statewide team of reporters and editors at the end of the year after the Indiana General Assembly defunded the organization.

Meet the Press host Kristen Welker (6/29/25) showed courage by interviewing Zohran Mamdani, the winner of the Democratic mayoral primary for New York, after he’d been widely attacked by corporate media. But unfortunately, she fell into a trap that has been set repeatedly in recent months to smear Mamdani.

And so it has come to pass: US President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” has set the stage for tax cuts for the rich, slashed services for the poor, and a host of other things that qualify as “beautiful” in the present dystopia. Some cuts, like those to Medicaid, have been heavily covered by the corporate media.

Close to half of all American whiskey, bourbon and rye is sold internationally, primarily to Canada, Mexico and the European Union. (Adobe Stock)

President Trump's massive tax and spending bill could have a dire impact on food and health benefits for low-income Hoosiers.

Francesca Albanese speaks during the gala of the Publico 2025 Awards in Madrid on June 25, 2025. Photo By Matias Chiofalo/Europa Press via Getty Images

Louise Hays Park in Kerrville, Texas, was damaged by a deadly flood in the area on the Fourth of July. Credit: Brenda Bazán for The Texas Tribune

Student journalists keep college students informed. Unfortunately, universities are distancing themselves from student newspapers, exacerbating the challenges young people face in finding trustworthy information.

When Rosalyn Sandri returned to teach English at her high school alma mater, she never imagined it would end in a forced resignation. Only three years after stepping into her Texas classroom, she walked out of it for the last time. She’d never see her students again.

“They didn’t even let me say goodbye,” she said.

Last week, Robert Rubin and I warned of the many macr

ASL interpreters have all but disappeared from press briefings and live events. Above is from last year's 34th Anniversary Celebration of the passing of the American Disabilities Act. (John McDonnell / Getty Images)

The National Association of the Deaf (NAD) and two individual plaintiffs are suing the Trump administration, claiming the White House violated federal disability law by quietly ending American Sign Language (ASL) interpretation during presidential press briefings.

Public colleges across Indiana are phasing out or merging low-demand degree programs as part of a statewide higher education reform. (Getty Images)

Six of Indiana’s public colleges and universities are cutting or consolidating more than 400 academic degree programs ahead of a new state law that takes effect this week, the Indiana Commission for Higher Education (CHE) announced Monday.

Soldiers guard an entrance to the Reichstag in Berlin during the Kapp Putsch in 1920. Photo by Getty Images

A century ago in Germany, radical-right insurrectionists who had tried to topple the government during the failed Kapp Putsch were set free by a blanket amnesty. What ensued was not law and order but political violence that rocked the fragile young democracy and ultimately led to Adolf Hitler’s rise to power.

Questions are mounting over local authorities’ failure to prepare and warn residents ahead of the disaster. Texas officials have pointed the finger at federal authorities. The chief of the Texas Division of Emergency Management claimed during a weekend press conference that the National Weather Service did not give proper warning of the catastrophic flash floods.

W. Nim Kidd: “Go back and look at your own forecast, and the amount of rain that fell in this specific location was never in any of those forecasts.”

The Trump administration has scrubbed government websites of congressionally mandated reports on the climate, making it harder for state and local governments to plan for heat waves, forest fires, floods and rising seas. Federal law requires the executive branch to publish the U.S. National Climate Assessment every four years, along with a yearly update for Congress, yet last week websites hosting the assessment went dark. Climate scientists have condemned the Trump administration’s censorship.

On this 4th of July, America is reeling under the combined threats of official ignorance and pervasive stupidity.

James Carville isn’t a man prone to panic, but when he says, “I would not put it at all past [Trump] to try to call martial law or declare that there’s some kind of national emergency,” around next year’s elections it’s time to sit up straight.

Mother Jones illustration; National Archives; Getty