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U.S. Reps. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) scream as U.S. President Joe Biden delivers the State of the Union address March 1, 2022 in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Evelyn Hockstein-Pool/Getty Images)
As much of the world watched with alarm as the fascist Fratelli d'Italia party led a far-right coalition to victory in Italy on Sunday, Republican lawmakers in the United States had a much different reaction: Open glee.
Pointing happily to the far-right's recent electoral surge in Sweden, U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) tweeted that "the entire world is beginning to understand that the Woke Left does nothing but destroy."
"Nov. 8 is coming soon and the USA will fix our House and Senate!" added Boebert, a loyalist to former U.S. President Donald Trump. "Let freedom reign!"
U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), a far-right ally of Boebert's in the U.S. House, also applauded Sunday's results, which position Fratelli d'Italia leader Giorgia Meloni to become Italy's next prime minister even though her party won just around 25% of the vote in a low-turnout contest.
"Congratulations to Giorgio Meloni and to the people of Italy," Greene wrote on Twitter, misspelling the right-wing leader's first name.
In her post, Greene linked to a 2019 speech in which Meloni--who was a youth member of the fascist Italian Social Movement--railed against supposed attacks on "national identity" and "religious identity" and vowed to "defend God, country, and family."
Rank-and-file House Republicans were hardly alone in applauding what's likely to be the most right-wing government in Italy since the death of fascist dictator Benito Mussolini.
U.S. Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.), the House minority whip, said in a Fox News appearance Sunday that "it's interesting to see that Europe is leading the way by throwing out socialists with conservatives--and great bold conservative women like Meloni and [U.K. Prime Minister Liz] Truss."
"We need to bring that kind of conservatism to the United States," Scalise added.
U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas.), for his part, hailed as "spectacular" Meloni's 2019 address to the World Congress of Families, a far-right Christian fundamentalist organization that campaigns against LGBTQ+ rights globally.
Meloni is well-known to the right wing in the U.S., having spoken at the Conservative Political Action Conference and met with former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon, a far-right provocateur who has correctly described Meloni's party--also known as Brothers of Italy--as "one of the old fascist parties."
"You put a reasonable face on right-wing populism, you get elected," Bannon said of Meloni in an interview in 2018, a year in which Brothers of Italy garnered just 4% of the vote.
Italy's election of Meloni, who is also president of the European Conservatives and Reformists party, marks a continuation of the worrying trend of rising far-right, xenophobic, and anti-democratic parties across Europe. In Hungary and Poland, far-right parties are already in power, a situation that has proven to be a nightmare for migrants and other vulnerable populations that have seen basic rights stripped away.
Meloni has voiced admiration for the U.S. GOP and right-wing parties in the United Kingdom and Israel, noting in a recent speech that she "shares values and experiences" with them.
"Hungary has a fascist leader. Sweden's far-right party just won. And Italy has now elected a fascist leader," Qasim Rashid, a human rights attorney, wrote on social media late Sunday. "Eighty years after WW2, fascism is rising across Europe. And if Americans aren't careful, the MAGA GOP will usher in that same fascism here. We cannot let that happen."
Trump and Musk are on an unconstitutional rampage, aiming for virtually every corner of the federal government. These two right-wing billionaires are targeting nurses, scientists, teachers, daycare providers, judges, veterans, air traffic controllers, and nuclear safety inspectors. No one is safe. The food stamps program, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are next. It’s an unprecedented disaster and a five-alarm fire, but there will be a reckoning. The people did not vote for this. The American people do not want this dystopian hellscape that hides behind claims of “efficiency.” Still, in reality, it is all a giveaway to corporate interests and the libertarian dreams of far-right oligarchs like Musk. Common Dreams is playing a vital role by reporting day and night on this orgy of corruption and greed, as well as what everyday people can do to organize and fight back. As a people-powered nonprofit news outlet, we cover issues the corporate media never will, but we can only continue with our readers’ support. |
As much of the world watched with alarm as the fascist Fratelli d'Italia party led a far-right coalition to victory in Italy on Sunday, Republican lawmakers in the United States had a much different reaction: Open glee.
Pointing happily to the far-right's recent electoral surge in Sweden, U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) tweeted that "the entire world is beginning to understand that the Woke Left does nothing but destroy."
"Nov. 8 is coming soon and the USA will fix our House and Senate!" added Boebert, a loyalist to former U.S. President Donald Trump. "Let freedom reign!"
U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), a far-right ally of Boebert's in the U.S. House, also applauded Sunday's results, which position Fratelli d'Italia leader Giorgia Meloni to become Italy's next prime minister even though her party won just around 25% of the vote in a low-turnout contest.
"Congratulations to Giorgio Meloni and to the people of Italy," Greene wrote on Twitter, misspelling the right-wing leader's first name.
In her post, Greene linked to a 2019 speech in which Meloni--who was a youth member of the fascist Italian Social Movement--railed against supposed attacks on "national identity" and "religious identity" and vowed to "defend God, country, and family."
Rank-and-file House Republicans were hardly alone in applauding what's likely to be the most right-wing government in Italy since the death of fascist dictator Benito Mussolini.
U.S. Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.), the House minority whip, said in a Fox News appearance Sunday that "it's interesting to see that Europe is leading the way by throwing out socialists with conservatives--and great bold conservative women like Meloni and [U.K. Prime Minister Liz] Truss."
"We need to bring that kind of conservatism to the United States," Scalise added.
U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas.), for his part, hailed as "spectacular" Meloni's 2019 address to the World Congress of Families, a far-right Christian fundamentalist organization that campaigns against LGBTQ+ rights globally.
Meloni is well-known to the right wing in the U.S., having spoken at the Conservative Political Action Conference and met with former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon, a far-right provocateur who has correctly described Meloni's party--also known as Brothers of Italy--as "one of the old fascist parties."
"You put a reasonable face on right-wing populism, you get elected," Bannon said of Meloni in an interview in 2018, a year in which Brothers of Italy garnered just 4% of the vote.
Italy's election of Meloni, who is also president of the European Conservatives and Reformists party, marks a continuation of the worrying trend of rising far-right, xenophobic, and anti-democratic parties across Europe. In Hungary and Poland, far-right parties are already in power, a situation that has proven to be a nightmare for migrants and other vulnerable populations that have seen basic rights stripped away.
Meloni has voiced admiration for the U.S. GOP and right-wing parties in the United Kingdom and Israel, noting in a recent speech that she "shares values and experiences" with them.
"Hungary has a fascist leader. Sweden's far-right party just won. And Italy has now elected a fascist leader," Qasim Rashid, a human rights attorney, wrote on social media late Sunday. "Eighty years after WW2, fascism is rising across Europe. And if Americans aren't careful, the MAGA GOP will usher in that same fascism here. We cannot let that happen."
As much of the world watched with alarm as the fascist Fratelli d'Italia party led a far-right coalition to victory in Italy on Sunday, Republican lawmakers in the United States had a much different reaction: Open glee.
Pointing happily to the far-right's recent electoral surge in Sweden, U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) tweeted that "the entire world is beginning to understand that the Woke Left does nothing but destroy."
"Nov. 8 is coming soon and the USA will fix our House and Senate!" added Boebert, a loyalist to former U.S. President Donald Trump. "Let freedom reign!"
U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), a far-right ally of Boebert's in the U.S. House, also applauded Sunday's results, which position Fratelli d'Italia leader Giorgia Meloni to become Italy's next prime minister even though her party won just around 25% of the vote in a low-turnout contest.
"Congratulations to Giorgio Meloni and to the people of Italy," Greene wrote on Twitter, misspelling the right-wing leader's first name.
In her post, Greene linked to a 2019 speech in which Meloni--who was a youth member of the fascist Italian Social Movement--railed against supposed attacks on "national identity" and "religious identity" and vowed to "defend God, country, and family."
Rank-and-file House Republicans were hardly alone in applauding what's likely to be the most right-wing government in Italy since the death of fascist dictator Benito Mussolini.
U.S. Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.), the House minority whip, said in a Fox News appearance Sunday that "it's interesting to see that Europe is leading the way by throwing out socialists with conservatives--and great bold conservative women like Meloni and [U.K. Prime Minister Liz] Truss."
"We need to bring that kind of conservatism to the United States," Scalise added.
U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas.), for his part, hailed as "spectacular" Meloni's 2019 address to the World Congress of Families, a far-right Christian fundamentalist organization that campaigns against LGBTQ+ rights globally.
Meloni is well-known to the right wing in the U.S., having spoken at the Conservative Political Action Conference and met with former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon, a far-right provocateur who has correctly described Meloni's party--also known as Brothers of Italy--as "one of the old fascist parties."
"You put a reasonable face on right-wing populism, you get elected," Bannon said of Meloni in an interview in 2018, a year in which Brothers of Italy garnered just 4% of the vote.
Italy's election of Meloni, who is also president of the European Conservatives and Reformists party, marks a continuation of the worrying trend of rising far-right, xenophobic, and anti-democratic parties across Europe. In Hungary and Poland, far-right parties are already in power, a situation that has proven to be a nightmare for migrants and other vulnerable populations that have seen basic rights stripped away.
Meloni has voiced admiration for the U.S. GOP and right-wing parties in the United Kingdom and Israel, noting in a recent speech that she "shares values and experiences" with them.
"Hungary has a fascist leader. Sweden's far-right party just won. And Italy has now elected a fascist leader," Qasim Rashid, a human rights attorney, wrote on social media late Sunday. "Eighty years after WW2, fascism is rising across Europe. And if Americans aren't careful, the MAGA GOP will usher in that same fascism here. We cannot let that happen."
"In Vance's America, the police can knock on any immigrant's door, deport him to a dictatorship without due process, and then wash their hands of his fate," said Rep. Ro Khanna.
U.S. Vice President JD Vance came under fire late Tuesday after penning a lengthy social media post defending the Trump administration's assault on the fundamental right of due process, which the Constitution affords to everyone in the United States—including the immigrants currently being targeted for detention and deportation.
In his post on X, Vance—who has a law degree from Yale University—placed due process in scare quotes and claimed that "what process is due is a function of our resources, the public interest, the status of the accused, the proposed punishment, and so many other factors," not the U.S. Constitution.
The vice president went on to mock those "weeping over the lack of due process" and suggested it would be too burdensome to hold legal proceedings for immigrants the administration is trying to remove from the country. Vance accused the Biden administration of allowing "approximately 20 million" undocumented immigrants into the U.S., a figure that one expert said is "totally made up."
New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie wrote that the post underscores that Vance "is a detestable liar and an open enemy of the Constitution."
"The central load-bearing factual claim here is completely false, and even if it wasn't, the Constitution contains two explicit guarantees of due process," Bouie added, referring to the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. "I am absolutely serious when I say that they hate our freedom."
Journalist Matt Novak added that "if undocumented people have no due process rights, nobody does."
"Guys like Vance know that but they don't care," he added. "If anyone can be declared 'illegal' without due process, they can declare anyone illegal and you don't get an opportunity to prove otherwise. It's the simplest fucking concept."
"Without due process, Vance is as likely to destroy the life of an innocent man as he is to punish the guilty."
The Trump administration has shown utter disdain for due process as it has moved ahead with arrests and deportations of immigrants without providing evidence that they're guilty of a crime. A Times investigation published Tuesday uncovered "little evidence of any criminal background" or gang associations for most of the hundreds of men the administration deported to El Salvador last month.
Among those now languishing in a notorious Salvadoran mega-prison is Maryland resident Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Top Trump administration officials, including homeland security adviser Stephen Miller, have claimed Garcia was not entitled to due process.
"The only process he was entitled to was deportation," Miller wrote on social media earlier this month.
But in a unanimous 9-0 decision last week, the conservative-dominated Supreme Court ruled that the Trump administration must "facilitate" Abrego Garcia's return to the U.S. The high court also held that "detainees subject to removal orders under the [Alien Enemies Act of 1798] are entitled to notice and an opportunity to challenge their removal"—directly contradicting Vance and other White House officials.
In a speech at Vance's alma mater on Tuesday, U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) issued a chilling warning of the threat posed by the vice president's open rejection of due process rights.
"Without due process, Vance is as likely to destroy the life of an innocent man as he is to punish the guilty. And he does not seem to care," said Khanna. "In Vance's America, the police can knock on any immigrant's door, deport him to a dictatorship without due process, and then wash their hands of his fate, pretending that America is powerless to free someone outside our border."
"Your support has allowed us to rally people together at record scale to organize their communities. All with an average donation of $21," wrote the congresswoman from New York.
Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York closed the most recent quarter with her most successful fundraising haul yet, bringing in $9.55 million in the first three months of 2025, according to a Federal Election Commission report filed Tuesday.
Ocasio-Cortez's campaign manager, Oliver Hidalgo-Wohlleben, touted the haul and wrote on Tuesday that she brought in donations from 266,000 individual donors. "AOC doesn't take a dollar from lobbyists or corporate PACS. Our top donor professions are teachers and nurses. 64% were first time contributors," he said.
The eye-popping fundraising numbers come as Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) have traveled the country as part of their "Fighting Oligarchy" tour in recent weeks. At tour events, which have drawn massive crowds, the duo has lambasted the Trump administration and derided the influence of billionaires in the American political system.
A recent poll also showed Ocasio-Cortez besting Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) by double digits in a hypothetical head-to-head race for Schumer's Senate seat in 2028, stirring talk among supporters about Ocasio-Cortez running for higher office—although she herself has said little about any future plans for higher office
Following the fundraising announcement by her campaign manager, Ocasio-Cortez took to X to thank supporters.
"I cannot convey enough how grateful I am to the millions of people supporting us with your time, resources, and energy," she wrote. "Your support has allowed us to rally people together at record scale to organize their communities. All with an average donation of $21."
With the latest fundraising haul—which is more than double her second best quarter, according to Politico—she now has $8.2 million in cash on hand.
Longtime progressive strategist Faiz Shakir, who managed Sanders' 2020 presidential campaign, wrote on Tuesday: "The people are sending Democrats a message about the direction they would like to see."
Other Democratic lawmakers who have been leading voices countering the Trump administration had successful fundraising quarters as well. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) raised $8 million in Q1 and Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) brought in over $1.6 million. For Crockett, that's the first time she's secured over a million in an individual fundraising quarter and the haul is nearly double her previous quarterly record, according to CNN.
"Extending negotiation delay periods is nothing but a total capitulation to the demands of drug corporation lobbyists," said one advocate.
U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order that aims to delay Medicare negotiations for a broad category of prescription drugs, handing the deep-pocketed pharmaceutical industry a major win as it lobbies aggressively against efforts to rein in its pricing power.
Trump's order, titled "Lowering Drug Prices by Once Again Putting Americans First," instructs Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to work with Congress to "modify" the Medicare drug price negotiation program that was established under the Biden administration and has already yielded significant results despite pharma companies' best efforts to block it in court.
Specifically, Trump calls for a four-year extension of the period during which small-molecule prescription drugs are exempt from price negotiations with Medicare. Under the Inflation Reduction Act, small-molecule drugs—which are typically taken in pill form and represent 90% of medications currently in circulation—are not subject to the price negotiation process until at least nine years after their Food and Drug Administration approval date.
Steve Knievel, a drug policy advocate at Public Citizen, warned in a statement that by pushing back the negotiation date for many drugs, Trump's order could do the opposite of its stated goal, potentially reversing recent progress on an issue that has long plagued the United States.
"Further delaying Medicare drug price negotiation would lead to higher prices for patients and taxpayers, not lower ones," said Knievel. "Empowering Medicare to negotiate drug prices is the only significant legislative measure taken to address Big Pharma price gouging in the last 40 years. Now Trump proposes to undermine that singular achievement."
"Extending negotiation delay periods," Knievel added, "is nothing but a total capitulation to the demands of drug corporation lobbyists that want to continue to overcharge Medicare beneficiaries and taxpayers."
The advocacy group Protect Our Care said following the order that "Trump just caved to Big Pharma—again."
"His new executive order pushes to delay Medicare drug price negotiations, giving drug companies four extra years to price gouge seniors," said Protect Our Care. "The only winners here are the drug companies."
The president's new order echoes language that pharma lobbyists have used in their messaging against the Medicare price negotiation program, which the industry has opposed from the start.
The first section of the order states that the four-year difference between when small-molecule drugs and biologics are subject to Medicare price negotiations under current law is known as the "pill penalty"—a label that the pharmaceutical industry's largest lobbying organization has invoked repeatedly in its attacks on the Biden-era program.
The "pill penalty" language was also used in ads run by a group called Seniors 4 Better Care, which—as Sludge's Donald Shaw and David Moore revealed—"is not really a seniors group, but rather a front for a lobbyist-led shell group called the American Prosperity Alliance."
"Seniors 4 Better Care has ramped up its spending on ads that appear to be targeting Trump and his inner circle," Shaw and Moore reported in February.
Earlier this year, Republican lawmakers in the House and Senate—including leading recipients of pharmaceutical industry campaign cash—introduced legislation that would delay the price negotiation process for small-molecule drugs, signaling GOP support for the objectives laid out in Trump's executive order.
"Make no mistake," Patients for Affordable Drugs executive director Merith Basey said of the legislation, "this is yet another attempt by Big Pharma to rig the system in its favor—at the expense of patients."