Braver Angels leaders John Wood, Jr. (red) and Ciaran O'Connor (blue) come together for a wide-ranging debate on the most critical issues animating the 2022 midterm elections, including the economy, abortion, and the future of American democracy. Throughout the discussion, John and Ciaran demonstrate how to embrace humility in the pursuit of deeper truth.
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According to the Federal Election Commission, the 2024 election cycle saw billions spent on campaigns, with PACs alone raising more than $15 billion.
(Pexels)
Michigan group pushes to get big money out of politics
Apr 25, 2026
A new push to limit corporate money in Michigan politics appears to be gaining traction.
There is strong bipartisan support for restricting political contributions from regulated monopolies and companies seeking government contracts, according to a survey commissioned by supporters of the proposal. Supporters said the measure would increase transparency and reduce “pay-to-play” politics, where political donations can influence government decisions.
Christy McGillivray, executive director of the group Voters Not Politicians, said the response from voters has been consistent across the political spectrum.
"It's wildly popular," McGillivray reported. "We are on track to meet our goal, and the bipartisan support is amazing with voters. Voters, regardless of political party, are furious about how money's corrupted politics."
Organizers must get nearly 360,000 valid signatures by May 27 to qualify for the ballot, aiming for closer to 450,000 to account for rejected entries. Critics of the proposal said even with limits in place, money will still find its way into politics, just through different, and sometimes harder-to-track, channels.
However, backers contended the effort is about fairness, arguing many Michiganders feel their voices are being overshadowed by big money in Lansing. McGillivray stressed the issue comes down to who lawmakers are ultimately responding to.
"Nothing in Lansing is changing, and they're not being held accountable because fundamentally, the money in Lansing is what lawmakers are answering to instead of their constituents," McGillivray underscored. "When that happens, that means people start losing faith in democracy."
Supporters said the proposal could help rebuild trust in government by increasing transparency and making sure elected leaders answer to voters, not big donors.
Chrystal Blair is a producer with Public News Service.
Michigan group pushes to get big money out of politics was first published on PNS and republished with permission.
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Veterans, military family members, and supporters occupy the Cannon House Office Building on Capitol Hill calling upon the Trump administration to end the war on Iran on April 20, 2026 in Washington, DC.
Getty Images, Leigh Vogel
Trump’s Iran “Victory” Echoes Iraq’s "Mission Accomplished"
Apr 24, 2026
It didn’t exactly end well the last time a president declared victory this quickly. On May 1, 2003, President George W. Bush landed on the USS Abraham Lincoln in a flight suit, strutted across the deck for the cameras, then changed into a suit and tie, stood in front of a banner that read “Mission Accomplished,” and declared the end of major combat operations in Iraq. It was 43 days after the invasion began. Over the next eight years, as the conflict devolved into a protracted insurgency and sectarian war, more than 4,300 Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis died.
On April 7, Trump—presumably not wearing a flight suit—declared in a telephone interview with AFP that the United States had achieved victory in Iran. “Total and complete victory. 100 percent. No question about it.” This was the day after the President threatened to destroy a “whole civilization,” hours after a two-week ceasefire was announced. It took six days for the whole thing to fall apart. By April 15, he was back on Fox Business: “We've beaten them militarily, totally. I think it’s close to over.”
In fact, Trump has been declaring some degree of victory since the first bombs. At a rally in Kentucky two weeks in, he told the crowd, “We won. We won the… in the first hour, it was over,” then seemed to catch himself and add, “We got to finish the job, right?” A few days later, he told reporters aboard Air Force One that the US had “essentially defeated Iran” while clumsily allowing they could “have a little bit of fight back.” After a call with Vladimir Putin, he said, “The war is very complete, pretty much.” When the Wall Street Journal's editorial board called it a premature win, he posted, “Actually, it is a Victory.” Asked about negotiations, he said, “Regardless what happens, we win.”
On February 28, 2026, the United States and Israel launched a coordinated air campaign against Iran, assassinating Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and striking military, nuclear, and civilian infrastructure across the country. Thirty-eight days later, Trump announced a ceasefire brokered by Pakistan, declaring that the US had “already met and exceeded all Military objectives.” The facts on the ground are harder to square with that claim, in part because the administration never settled on a clear definition of victory to begin with.
The war aims have shifted and contradicted throughout the conflict: freedom for the Iranian people, elimination of Iran’s nuclear program, regime change, the unconditional surrender of the Iranian government, and, as Trump put it in one post, peace “throughout the Middle East and, indeed, the world.”
No formal authorization for the use of military force has been requested from or passed by Congress. The administration never provided the American people with anything resembling an imminent threat, the legal threshold that would allow a president to launch an attack without congressional authorization. The 60-day clock under the War Powers Resolution of 1973 expires next week on May 1. The Senate has now voted five times to block war powers resolutions, each attempt failing predictably along party lines, with Rand Paul the only Republican voting to end the war and John Fetterman the only Democrat voting to continue it. But cracks are beginning to show: Senators Susan Collins and Thom Tillis have both signaled they may not authorize continued operations past the deadline. It is an illegal, undeclared war, launched unilaterally by a man who seems to believe the presidency should have the power of a monarchy, and Congress has spent nearly two months proving him right.
The war has been costly to both countries. Thirteen American service members have been killed and approximately 373 wounded, many severely. The Pentagon has been actively manipulating those figures. During the ceasefire, it inexplicably subtracted 15 wounded-in-action troops from the official count without explanation, with two Pentagon spokespersons unable to account for the discrepancy. A defense official described the practice to The Intercept as a “casualty cover-up.” On the Iranian side, more than 3,500 people have been killed, including 1,665 civilians, according to the Human Rights Activists News Agency. On the first day of the war, a girls’ elementary school in Minab was struck, killing scores of children.
The Pentagon estimates it has spent roughly $28 billion, and the administration is still seeking up to $100 billion more from Congress. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which the International Energy Agency called the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market, has sent gas prices past $4 a gallon. The full extent of the damage to the global economy, from supply chains to food prices to markets that haven't yet absorbed the shock, probably won’t be known for years.
Adam Kinzinger, the former Republican congressman and Air Force veteran, put it plainly in a social media post: “The people of Iran aren’t free. Iran can now charge tolls. The nuclear material sits EXACTLY where it did, in the same amount, since June. The regime is still in place with a younger ayatollah. Iran was still launching missiles, now with more money to rebuild. Period.”
He’s right on every count. Trump declared “complete and total regime change,” but the assassinated Supreme Leader’s more hard-line son, Mojtaba Khamenei, was quickly installed as the new ayatollah, and the IRGC that runs the war still runs the country. Trump told the nation last June that Operation Midnight Hammer had already eliminated Iran’s nuclear capabilities, then went to war again over the same nuclear program. The uranium is still in the ground in Isfahan. As of the IAEA's last inspection in June of 2025, Iran had 440.9 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60 percent, enough for roughly ten nuclear weapons. That material remains unaccounted for. The IAEA has been denied access to Iran’s bombed nuclear facilities since February 28 and cannot verify the current status of the enriched uranium stockpile, meaning no one outside Tehran knows whether that material has been moved, used, or further processed. Trump himself acknowledged post-ceasefire that “nothing has been touched from the date of attack.” The authoritarian theocracy that imprisoned and killed thousands of protesters in January is still governing. Before the war, the Strait of Hormuz was international waters under de facto US Navy control. Under the ceasefire terms, Iran would coordinate passage and collect fees on every vessel.
Both sides are claiming they won, and when both sides claim victory after 38 days of war that has left thousands dead, and no measurable change in the nuclear threat that was one of the stated reasons for fighting, the word that comes to mind is stalemate, not victory. If anything, Iran may come out of this conflict stronger than it was before the war started.
Vice President Vance flew to Islamabad on April 12 to negotiate a permanent deal. The talks lasted 21 hours and, despite the vice president’s high-school debate champ energy, produced nothing. Vance told reporters that Iran had “chosen not to accept our terms” and flew home. Trump, six days removed from “total and complete victory,” responded by announcing a full naval blockade of Iran.
On April 19, he threatened to “knock out every single power plant, and every single bridge, in Iran” if the talks failed, then announced that the US Navy had fired on and seized the Iranian-flagged cargo ship Touska in the Gulf of Oman. U.S. Marines rappelled from helicopters onto the deck after a destroyer disabled it with gunfire, with Trump excitedly posting that they were “seeing what’s on board!” Iran called it piracy and vowed retaliation. The next day, Iran pulled out of a planned second round of talks in Islamabad, and two days after that, Iran seized two container ships in the Strait of Hormuz and attacked a third. On April 21, Trump extended the ceasefire, while keeping the blockade fully in place. Iran has called the blockade an act of war and said it won’t negotiate until it is lifted.
Despite the fragile ceasefire, I’m writing about this war in the present tense, and that’s intentional. If there’s anything we’ve learned from watching Trump since he first came to power, it’s that he says one thing, does another, lies constantly, backs out, and changes his mind on a daily basis. A ceasefire extension, a naval blockade, and dueling ship seizures in the same week say a lot about just how “over” this war really is—because it feels like we’ve seen this movie before. We all watched President Bush declare “mission accomplished” on May 1, 2003, 43 days after we invaded Iraq. In January of 2004, my infantry brigade deployed to Kirkuk to fight the growing insurgency. Over 4,300 Americans died after that banner came down.
In the lead-up to the Iraq War, President Bush stood at a podium and tried to deliver a simple proverb: “Fool me once, shame on—shame on you…” He paused, lost the thread, and landed on “fool me, you can’t get fooled again.” We all laughed and laughed and then spent a decade watching caskets come home. Some of those caskets had my friends in them.
Maybe the ceasefire holds. Maybe the talks resume, and something real comes out of them. I genuinely hope so. But we’ve elected Donald Trump twice, believed his promises twice, and now we’re watching another victory banner come down over another unfinished war in the Middle East. We should know better by now, but despite whatever W was trying to say, history suggests you absolutely can get fooled again.
***
As this piece was going to press, a third aircraft carrier, the USS George H.W. Bush, arrived in the Middle East, joining the USS Gerald R. Ford and the USS Abraham Lincoln—the same ship President George W. Bush stood on when he declared mission accomplished in Iraq… apparently, history has a sense of humor. Meanwhile, US forces seized a second tanker in the Indian Ocean, and Trump ordered the Navy to "shoot and kill" Iranian boats laying mines in the Strait of Hormuz and said there is "no time frame" on ending the war.
Nick Allison is a writer and editor based in Austin, Texas. His work has appeared in Slate, HuffPost, The Fulcrum, The Chaos Section, and elsewhere. Find him on Bluesky @nickallison80.bsky.socialEditor's Note: This story was updated on 4/24 to reflect several timely developments.
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CBP Chief Rodney Scott (left), Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons (middle) and USCIS Director Joseph Edlow (right) testify at budget hearing.
Jamie Gareh/Medill News Service)
ICE Director Requests Additional $5.4 Billion at Congressional Budget Hearing
Apr 24, 2026
WASHINGTON- The acting director of ICE on Thursday told Congress that while the Trump administration pumped $75 billion extra into ICE over four years, many activities remain cash starved and the agency needs about $5.4 billion in additional funding for 2027.
There’s misinformation with the Big Beautiful Bill that ICE is fully funded,” said Todd Lyons, acting director of ICE, whose resignation was announced later that day.
He added that the recent influx of money funds adequately funds detaining and deporting immigrants. But everything from “putting gas in the vehicles” to special unit investigation teams remained underfunded. He cited growing needs, in particular, to fund their intelligence network and victim specialist teams.
“We just don’t have that [money],” he said.
With the passing of the One Big Beautiful Bill in July 2025, ICE had already become the largest law enforcement agency in the U.S.. The administration’s request for even more money came amid intense and continuing controversy over agents’ tactics, which have caused mass protests across the country.
“They [ICE] have been out of control,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders, D-Vt., to Medill News as he walked through the tunnels of the U.S. Capitol. “They have acted grossly, illegally and unconstitutionally.”
Democrats at the hearing argued that funding for law enforcement agencies like ICE should not increase without significant reform and oversight. These same demands from Democrats spurred a partial government shutdown that began in February - now the longest in U.S. history. The hearing, however, focused on next year’s funding.
Lyons argued that the agency needed more money to continue its efforts. He said that 451,000 people had been detained by ICE under the Trump administration. Including “281,000 with criminal histories, 8,400 gang members and 1,600 known and suspected terrorists,” he said.
Immigration advocacy groups and academic researchers challenged that data, finding that 71% of current ICE detainees have no criminal conviction.
Republicans at the hearing echoed Lyons, highlighting ICE’s role in national security, while some Democrats expressed their concerns about the prospect of additional funding. Among other things, Democrats pointed to the 44 detainees who have died in ICE custody during the Trump administration.
“That is a 20-year high for an agency that was only formed in 2003,” said Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn.
She spoke about ICE agents arresting US citizens without warrants, tear-gassing a family on their way home from a basketball game, sexual abuse in detention centers and one Cuban man who recently died while in detention due to excessive force. His death was ruled a homicide, according to an autopsy report.
“In January of this year, ICE violated nearly 100 federal court orders,” she said, “which the chief federal judge in the state of Minnesota estimated was more violations than some federal agencies have committed during their entire existence.”
Rep. Lauren Underwood, D-Ill., questioned the pattern of “reckless, incompetent, cruel, illegal, corrupt and unconstitutional behavior,” she has seen from ICE agents. “These are leadership problems, not funding problems,” she said, later declaring that she would not give the agency “another penny.”
Colleen Putzel, a spokesperson from the D.C. based think tank the Migration Policy Institute, expressed frustration with the potential of an increased ICE budget, describing what she sees as a “mismatch” in funding in the immigration system.
She explained that while the budget for immigration enforcement operations like ICE remains at “large and growing levels,” other immigration agencies, such as the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and the Executive Office for Immigration Review, have seen drastic cuts.
For example, the office, which runs immigration courts, has seen a quarter of their immigration judges fired in the past year. This has helped create a back-log of 3.8 million cases.
Rep. Delia Ramirez, D-Ill., who held office during the height of Operation Midway Blitz at the end of last year, sees a country where family budgets decline while ICE budgets grow.
“It would be a travesty for taxpayers," she said to Medill News Service, and for many across the country asking “Why is my gas price so expensive? Why can’t I buy a home? Why is my life so hard?”
Jamie Gareh is a graduate student at Medill.
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A policy-driven look at AI-era job displacement and how “Transition Launch Pads” can speed reemployment through local hubs, retraining, and employer collaboration.
Getty Images, Bill Pugliano
Layoff Headlines Keep Coming, Policy Answers Don't. Here’s One Solution
Apr 24, 2026
Every week brings another round of displacement announcements. Tech companies, logistics firms, financial institutions, retailers — cutting headcount at a pace that no longer surprises anyone. The headlines are routine. What isn't routine — in fact, what is conspicuously absent — is any serious account of what comes next. Not for the companies. For the workers.
That absence is a policy failure, and it is getting more expensive for us all by the quarter. The longer folks remain unemployed, the greater the costs. The individual and their loved ones obviously suffer. The community does as well due to that productive individual sitting on the sidelines and the high costs of sustaining unemployment.
AI-driven economic change has strained the infrastructure built to manage workforce transitions. Unemployment insurance was designed for temporary dislocation in stable industries. Retraining programs were built for a labor market that shifted over years and decades. Both remain valuable. But neither was designed for the AI economy.
We need new approaches to tackle a labor market problem that’s moving faster than policymakers anticipated. The policy gap most worth closing is the one that opens immediately after separation — before detachment hardens, before professional confidence drains, before the network that generates the next opportunity quietly dissolves. That window is narrow. Current policy barely touches it.
That’s where Transition Launch Pads can play a pivotal role in helping the unemployed become the re-employed ASAP.
Launch Pads would involve local employers, community colleges, state workforce agencies, and civic organizations partnering to establish physical, office-like hubs where recently displaced workers apply for temporary desk access and enter a structured period of retraining, networking, and job searching. Participants are placed into skill tracks driven by local labor demand, taught by community college instructors and employer-sponsored practitioners. They attend employer sessions. They join peer cohorts. They meet with workforce coaches. They interview. They build portfolios. They meet people — which is, more than any credential or course completion, how most workers find their next job.
The upshot is that Launch Pads provide folks with repeated, structured exposure to the people and opportunities that make reemployment possible, sooner.
Timing matters more than most workforce programs acknowledge. Research on unemployment duration shows that detachment compounds fast. The longer a worker stays outside a professional environment, the harder re-entry becomes — economically, socially, psychologically. Routine disappears. Confidence erodes. The weak ties that generate job leads dissolve without a shared context to sustain them. With that in mind, Launch Pads should require applicants to apply within fourteen days of job separation to qualify for the primary intake pool.
A few more recommendations for designing Launch Pads could make them even more effective.
On priority: the program should be oriented around workers zero to three months out of their last job. Those unemployed for longer periods of time face compounded challenges that no single hub can fully address. That tradeoff should be stated plainly — and paired with an honest acknowledgment that a complete response to long-term unemployment requires a different policy response.
On employer involvement: local employers could sponsor seats in the Launch Pad and, as a result, have more influence on curriculum input and recruiting access. Yet, steps should be taken to not turn the Launch Pad into a de facto recruiter for one employer alone so that a wide range of individuals can benefit from its programming and find their next chapter.
On accountability: stakeholders in a Launch Pad should actively and publicly track time to reemployment, earnings recovery relative to prior wages, and job persistence at eighteen months. This will give the public, workers, and employers the information required to see if the Launch Pad needs to undergo any key changes to realize its goals.
On funding: no single actor should carry the full weight. Local employers benefit from better-prepared candidates and should therefore chip in. States benefit from faster reemployment and reduced pressure on downstream services. The federal government has a standing interest through the existing workforce investment architecture that Launch Pads can integrate with rather than replace. Each funder has a self-interested reason to participate, which suggests this may be a promising model.
The displacement headlines are not slowing down. The policy response to them should not remain calibrated to an earlier era's assumptions about how workers transition and how long that takes. Launch Pads are not a complete answer. They are a faster, more structured, more human first response to a problem that existing institutions address too slowly, too passively, and often too late.
That is enough to make them worth building.
Kevin Frazier is a Senior Fellow at the Abundance Institute, directs the AI Innovation and Law Program at the University of Texas School of Law.
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