Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) committed to block House floor proceedings unless House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) inserts the SAVE Act into a must-pass piece of legislation, Punchbowl News reported on Friday.Luna has pressed for the SAVE America Act – a bill that mandates voter ID and citizenship checks while adding new restrictions on mail-in ballots – to be folded into the annual defense policy bill."We should be doing all of the above," Luna told Punchbowl News for its report published Friday. "Why not try? It's crazy."Luna has already disrupted leadership's plans once – she helped defeat a rule that would have inserted SAVE Act language directly into the defense bill, despite House GOP leaders having spent three years working to keep unrelated amendments out of it.Meanwhile, Senate Republicans have grown frustrated with inter-party disputes. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) told Punchbowl that Republicans "need to be very careful" about how they message the standoff, arguing that Democrats – not Republicans – are the ones blocking the SAVE Act's passage.“The message we need to convey to our supporters – it’s not Republicans that are preventing the SAVE America Act from being passed. It’s Democrats,” Johnson told Punchbowl News.
The country's theocracy hopes to see millions flood the streets of the capital beginning Saturday in scenes reminiscent to the burial of the late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989.
Some 163 million people in the U.S. live in areas that experienced dangerous heat on Thursday, according to the National Weather Service — sending “heat risk” forecasts in major cities (including New York, Washington, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Atlanta) into the most extreme risk category through Saturday. Part of the reason is the planet is warming dangerously, but Trump calls climate change a “hoax” and is encouraging more use of fossil fuels. Especially endangered are workers toiling under the hot sun, or in stifling warehouses, or in delivery trucks with no AC.Yet Trump’s pick to run the Occupational Health and Safety Administration, David Keeling, is weakening the agency’s own heat standards by removing specific inspection goals. OSHA’s Heat National Emphasis Program expired on April 8. Its proposed heat standard has been stalled.For many workers, heat standards are literally a matter of life and death. Every year, workers collapse, suffer permanent injuries, and die while doing their jobs in extreme heat. Years ago, when I ran the Labor Department, we had the toughest Occupational Health and Safety Administration in history, run by a truly committed worker advocate named Joe Dear. We made workplaces safer — reducing worker deaths and injuries.Since its inception in 1971, OSHA has reduced workplace-related fatalities by almost 63 percent. It has slashed the rate of serious workplace injuries and illnesses by 75 percent. But OSHA under Keeling is retreating from worker safety. Before Trump picked him to head OSHA, Keeling was Amazon’s top safety executive. During Keeling’s tenure at Amazon, a Senate report found that Amazon warehouses were twice as dangerous as those of its competitors.This year, we’ve already seen reports of Amazon workers dying on the job on a near monthly basis, including incidents in Oregon and North Carolina. Why would we trust Amazon’s safety head with the country’s workers?Before he was at Amazon, Keeling was in charge of safety at UPS. How did he do there? OSHA repeatedly cited UPS for exposing drivers to excessive heat. Federal investigators found at least 100 drivers were hospitalized for heat-related injuries between 2015 and 2018. UPS delivery trucks had no air conditioning until 2024, when it was won in a landmark collective bargaining agreement with the Teamsters.Now Keeling is head of OSHA, and OSHA is weakening its heat protection standards. Workers are already paying the price. Reports of worker deaths during extreme heat continue to emerge across the country. Heat exposure can trigger heat stroke, organ failure, and chronic kidney disease. These are among the most predictable workplace hazards, which means they can often be prevented with strong safety standards and rigorous enforcement.But instead of strengthening those protections, OSHA under Keeling has weakened them. At a time when record-breaking temperatures are becoming more frequent, retreating from enforcement sends a dangerous message that worker fatalities are a cost of doing business.When he was in charge of safety at Amazon, Amazon became notorious for dangerous warehouse conditions. When in charge of safety at UPS, UPS resisted providing air conditioning for delivery vehicles. Now, when the agency responsible for protecting millions of workers should be leading the fight against preventable heat deaths — it’s backing away from its most basic responsibility to protect people over profits.Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/.
A 52-year-old man reportedly died in New York City on Thursday after setting himself on fire near the United Nations‘s headquarters. A protester with a Tibetan flag carried out the self-immolation, according to the New York Post. He was reportedly protesting China‘s occupation of Tibet. Papers that said “China Out of Tibet” were found at […]
The Senate voted for and against ending the war with Iran on two consecutive days, with President Trump lashing out at four GOP senators who had voted for a resolution barring any future U.S. military activities against Iran, and the administration arguing that the resolution is unconstitutional.
This week's Supreme Court ruling giving President Donald Trump a free hand in firing government regulators is less about Trump than it is about President Woodrow Wilson.
