BS Summary: This article contains 30 faulty reasoning types, including Appeal to Emotion, Hasty Generalization, and Appeal to Authority, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 48.4% saturation with 1,095 hits. Analysis detected 5,748 faulty-reasoning hits from 2,262 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 63.9% and a BS Rank of 71% (6,173 of 21,189 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 70.90% of the article peer group.
The Trump administration's EPA is once again showing its disdain for Americans' health and the natural world.
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS)—which have been used in not only pesticides but also fabrics, firefighting foam, nonstick cookware, and other household products—are widely known as forever chemicals because they don't break down naturally.
They're also linked to a range of health issues, including various cancers.
"This is the PFAS presidency brought to you by Donald Trump and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin," Nathan Donley, environmental health science director at the Center for Biological Diversity, declared Wednesday.
As with his Tuesday critique of the Trump EPA approving diflufenican and epyrifenacil, Donley pointed to the Supreme Court's recent ruling in favor of Trump-backed Bayer, rather than the thousands of Americans who argue that Monsanto's glyphosate-based weedkiller Roundup caused their cancer.
"Waiting to open the floodgates on new pesticide approvals until after the Supreme Court granted immunity to pesticide companies takes a special kind of callousness," he said.
Bill Freese, science director at Center for Food Safety (CFS), similarly said Wednesday that "with yesterday's pesticide approvals, the Trump administration's EPA is once again showing its disdain for Americans' health and the natural world."
"The EPA's pesticide division is seemingly no longer able to recognize evidence that a pesticide causes cancer, even when it's the pesticide company's own studies that show it," he continued.
"And as per usual, EPA dismisses out of hand incriminating independent studies by scientists not affiliated with the pesticide industry."
In addition to the PFAS pesticides, the EPA is under fire this week for approving new uses for chlormequat, a non-PFAS pesticide tied to reproductive issues, and the fungicide fluoxapiprolin.
CFS co-executive director Sylvia Wu pointed out that the agency dismissed studies showing that fluoxapiprolin and epyrifenacil both produce tumors in laboratory rodents and classified both as "not likely to be carcinogenic to humans."
"The EPA's illegitimate rejection of the evidence that these two pesticides cause cancer is very similar to the tricks it pulled in denying glyphosate could cause cancer," Wu said.
"These blatant violations of the agency's own cancer guidelines are unacceptable."
As for chlormequat, Freese said that "EPA should never have approved this endocrine-disrupting pesticide, particularly since its persistence and potential for widespread use on wheat and other widely consumed grains will mean universal exposure."
Already, "chlormequat is found in the urine of 90% of Americans, thought to come mostly from residues on imported foods where the pesticide has been used," the Center for Biological Diversity noted Wednesday.
Like Freese, the group warned that approval of its use on US wheat and oats ensures that exposure to the US population will increase dramatically.
In a ruling hailed by democracy defenders, a federal court on Wednesday halted the US Postal Service's implementation of President Donald Trump's March executive order targeting mail-in ballots as part of his administration's broader attack on voting rights.
Judge Emmet Sullivan of the US District Court for the District of Columbia granted a request by the NAACP to enforce a 2021 settlement agreement requiring the USPS to protect mail-in voting and prioritize delivery of mail related to elections through 2028.
The request followed the Postal Service's publication last month of a proposed rule that would block the delivery of mail-in ballots to voters in states where election officials refused to provide certain information to USPS or use a specific envelope design.
That proposal came after Trump's March executive order directing federal agencies to create a nationwide list of eligible voters using federal data.
The directive also requires the Postal Service to verify that mail-in ballots are sent and returned only by eligible voters, preserve election-related records for a longer period, and exercise heightened oversight of mailed ballots.
The Public Citizen Litigation Group and Legal Defense Fund (LDF) filed a motion on behalf of the NAACP asserting that the proposed rule "manifests USPS’ intent not to deliver certain mail-in ballots, establishing a process that directly violates its obligations under the agreement."
"The court today correctly recognized that USPS’ plan to create roadblocks to mail-in voting was inconsistent with its commitment to timely deliver election mail,” Public Citizen Litigation Group director Allison Zieve said in a statement following Sullivan's ruling.
“USPS’ plan was unwise, unlawful, and a threat to the millions of voters who rely on mailed ballots to participate in our democracy.”
LDF associate director-counsel Sam Spital said, “Today’s decision recognizes that USPS cannot disregard its legal obligation to timely deliver mail-in ballots to all voters."
"We are glad that the court blocked a blatant attempt to renege on this commitment through a proposed rule that ran the risk of undermining the fairness of our national elections, creating particular dangers for Black voters," Spital continued.
"LDF will continue to defend our democracy and combat unlawful restrictions of the right to vote.”
Anthony P.
Ashton, senior associate general counsel at the NAACP, called the decision “a critical step in protecting the rights of voters who rely on the timely delivery of mail-in ballots to participate in our democracy.”
Ashton continued:
“These actions are cruel and un-American,” Castro said of the post-quake deportations.
“I am calling on the Trump administration to halt all deportations to Venezuela and to shut down the Dilley trailer prison.”
Camp East Montana, the nation's largest immigrant detention center, is operated by private prison profiteer Amentum Services Inc., which “has a history of health, safety, and other violations of federal law,” according to the consumer advocacy watchdog Public Citizen.
Kyle Virgien, senior staff attorney at the ACLU’s National Prison Project, called Camp East Montana “nothing short of a civil rights catastrophe.”
“Since the day it opened, the facility has repeatedly made headlines for horrific rights violations and even the deaths of three detained people, yet ICE has still evaded accountability for its conduct,” Virgien said.
Castro, who has visited Camp East Montana several times, said after touring the facility in May that “when we look back at this era in American history, we will look back in shame… of the human rights abuses, most particularly against children.”
Activists, including Japanese Americans interned by the US during World War II—one of which was located at Fort Bliss—have called for the closure of Camp East Montana and other ICE facilities, which many have compared with the concentration camps in which they were imprisoned in the 1940s.
After the earthquakes, advocates have also renewed demands for the US to end its economic sanctions, which have devastated Venezuela's economy and have been blamed for the deaths of tens of thousands of Venezuelans.
Earlier this year, President Donald Trump ordered an illegal invasion of Venezuela and the abduction of President Nicolás Maduro, who the US administration accuses of dubious narcoterrorism-related crimes.
While the Trump administration has issued narrow exemptions from sanctions to companies seeking to profit from Venezuela’s political crisis and copious natural resources—primarily oil—these waivers have not delivered broad relief to the people who need it most.
As Republicans rammed their so-called One Big Beautiful Bill through Congress last year on the way to President Donald Trump's desk, opponents of the legislation sounded the alarm over the pain it would inflict upon working families for the benefit of the wealthiest Americans.
One year in, those warnings have borne out—and experts say the worst is yet to come.
The GOP budget reconciliation package that Trump signed into law last July 4 ushered in the biggest cuts to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) in the programs’ histories in order to fund trillions of dollars in tax reductions that disproportionately benefit the wealthiest Americans.
Senate Democrats said Wednesday that “Republicans stole from the working class to give to the rich,” highlighting how “millions of families are going hungry and how the law's cuts 'are endangering lives.'"
“When Republicans passed their ‘Big, Ugly Bill,’ they chose the wealthy elite over working Americans,” US Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said Wednesday in a statement marking the law's looming anniversary.
“It wasn’t beautiful; it was a betrayal."
“Republicans gutted healthcare, SNAP, and low-cost clean energy to benefit billionaires and big corporations," he added.
"Now, Americans are dealing with a cost-of-living crisis, and they have Donald Trump and Republicans to thank for it.
While Trump says, ‘I love the inflation’ and affordable housing is ‘a big yawn’ between rounds of golf, Democrats are fighting tooth and nail to lower costs, expand housing, and make life more affordable.”
The law's Medicaid eligibility restrictions and paperwork requirements are expected to dramatically increase the number of uninsured Americans.
The advocacy group Protect Our Care estimates that, since the passage of the GOP legislation, 3.8 million people have lost coverage they previously had under Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program.
Combined with the loss of Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies that Trump and congressional Republicans let expire late last year, approximately 8 million more people are now uninsured.
Health insurance premiums have more than doubled for nearly 22 million families, with further increases expected in 2027.
Since enactment of the Republican law, more than 1,000 hospitals, clinics, and nursing homes have been forced to either close or face the prospect of closure, with rural healthcare services hit particularly hard.
“A mind-boggling number of Americans have found themselves joining the ranks of the uninsured.
And this is just the beginning," Protect Our Care president Brad Woodhouse said on Tuesday.
"As working families continue to get squeezed left and right by GOP-driven healthcare cost hikes and bureaucratic red tape, millions more Americans will lose the care they rely on to stay alive and healthy."
Meanwhile, more than 3.5 million people have lost food assistance, including 770,000 children, due at least in part to the law's SNAP cuts.
According to a Center on Budget and Policy Priorities analysis of SNAP caseload data, enrollment in the crucial food aid program plummeted by 4 million between the OBBBA's enactment and March 2026.
The result has been what the New York Federal Reserve Bank in late May called a “remarkable increase in food insecurity, particularly among lower-educated and lower-income households and households with young children."
Lindsay Owens, executive director of the progressive economic advocacy group Groundwork Collaborative, said Wednesday that “President Trump promised to lower costs.
Instead, his signature legislative achievement has left Americans to foot the bill for tax cuts for his wealthy friends and donors."
“Millions have lost healthcare coverage and food assistance, hundreds of nursing homes and clinics have shuttered, and the prices for basics like groceries continue to climb," Owens added.
"One year later, the Republican tax law has proven to be a callous bill that punishes working families to reward billionaires.”
There is much more pain to come.
The research organization RAND estimates that impending Medicaid cuts under the OBBBA will result in 7.6 million fewer program enrollees by 2034.
Overall, roughly 15 million people are projected to lose health coverage and become uninsured by 2034 due to Medicaid and ACA marketplace cuts in the OBBBA, according to estimates from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
“We weren’t being hysterical.
We knew this would happen," Congresswoman Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.) said this week.
"When Republicans passed the Big Ugly Bill and cut funding for healthcare, they literally signed away millions of Americans’ ability to afford health insurance.
And now it’s happening."
As Common Dreams reported, the OBBBA is expected to give the wealthiest 1% of Americans $1 trillion in tax cuts while adding $4.6 trillion to the federal deficit over the next decade.
“Even so, its tax cuts were not paid for," the Washington Center said of the law.
"By increasing the federal budget deficit, the law not only limits the nation’s ability to invest in future needs but also drives up interest rates on mortgages, car loans, and business loans."
“Thus far, implementation guidance from the Trump administration has been faster and harsher than anticipated, with looming consequences for state budgets—which will necessitate further cuts to state initiatives that support families and that lead to longer-term state economic growth," the center added.
The American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME)—a union representing 1.3 million public sector workers and retirees—said Monday that the year of harm wrought by the OBBBA "is only the beginning."
“Some of the law’s cuts hit immediately, while extreme changes and cuts to Medicaid, for example, won’t happen until after November this year.
But working families are already feeling its impact," the union said.
“You feel it when you ask yourself whether the energy bill gets paid or the rent does—because you can’t always do both," AFSCME continued.
"You feel it when you watch your health insurance premiums climb while your neighborhood clinic cuts its hours."
“For AFSCME members, you feel it at work too—when you talk to families and have to break it to them that new policies mean they will lose food assistance, Medicaid, and other life-sustaining support," the union said.
"You feel it when low pay drives high turnover, so you’re forced to work mandatory overtime.
And you feel it when states, cities, and towns say they don’t have the resources to compensate you fairly for your work or invest in our schools, hospitals, and roads."
AFSCME asserted that the Republican law and its harms should sound “a nationwide call to action for working families to get organized and demand more."
“The labor movement is how working people have always asserted that we are not spectators in our own lives," the union added.
"That we have a voice, a vote, and the power to drive change."
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