Governmental Overreach

Brendan Carr Isn’t Going to Stop Until Someone Makes Him

In the wake of Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension, experts say the FCC commissioner’s conduct is flatly unconstitutional. They also expect him to keep going.

In what has become an all-too-regular display from Brendan Carr, the Federal Communications Commission chairman used a podcast appearance Wednesday to flex his regulatory power. In this instance, he threatened action against broadcasters that refused to punish Jimmy Kimmel for remarks he made on his ABC show Monday night.

“We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” Carr said on former Turning Point USA contributor Benny Johnson’s podcast on Wednesday. “These companies can find ways to change conduct to take action, frankly, on Kimmel, or there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”

Since taking over the FCC at the beginning of the year, Carr has tested how far the agency can limit speech without ever quite formally censoring it. By leveraging his position as chairman, he has relied on informal threats and regulatory incentives to keep broadcasters in line with the Trump administration’s politics—and experts say Carr won’t end this campaign until someone stops him. For now, it’s not clear who’s even willing to try.

“He’ll push it until he’s stopped. Congress has been silent on this, and there hasn’t been a basis to get to court,” former FCC chair Tom Wheeler tells WIRED. “He’s been very artful in not making formal decisions that are appealable to the court, but instead having these informal, coercive activities that are not appealable, and so until Congress or the courts say he can’t, he’ll keep pushing.”

Over the past eight months, Carr—a formerly light-touch telecom regulator turned MAGA hardliner—has shown how far he’s willing to take this crusade. He has threatened to revoke broadcast licenses for outlets the administration sees as “distorting” news content, targeting Comcast outlets over news coverage of Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s deportation in April. He opened investigations into NPR and PBS underwriting announcements, alleging that they crossed into commercial advertising. Carr oversaw the merger between Paramount and Skydance and extracted concessions on CBS’s editorial work, pressuring the company to do away with its DEI policies and promise “viewpoint diversity” in coverage. (David Ellison, son of billionaire Trump supporter Larry Ellison, founded Skydance and became Paramount’s chair and chief executive officer following the merger.) At the same time, Donald Trump was suing CBS for having edited a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris; after Paramount paid out $16 million to settle the suit, CBS said it would end Stephen Colbert’s show next spring.

“The FCC under Brendan Carr uses mergers and business interests of media companies as leverage to extract concessions, extract bribes, and extract censorship,” says Seth Stern, director of advocacy at the Freedom of the Press Foundation.

Carr did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

While Carr’s threats have chased social media companies and cable networks, they’ve hit companies with business before the FCC the hardest. Nexstar, which owns dozens of ABC affiliate networks, was one of the companies to pull Jimmy Kimmel Live! just hours after Carr’s Wednesday threat. The company is currently seeking approval from the FCC for a $6.2 billion deal to buy Tegna, which owns networks in major markets including Austin, Texas, and San Diego, California. Sinclair, another major broadcasting company, also relies on the FCC to periodically renew its licenses and allocate the company spectrum.

To Genevieve Lakier, a professor of law at the University of Chicago whose research focuses on free speech, Carr’s threats against ABC appear to be “a pretty clear-cut case of jawboning.” Jawboning refers to a type of informal coercion where government officials try to pressure private entities into suppressing or changing speech without using any actual formal legal action. Since jawboning is typically done in letters and private meetings, it rarely leaves a paper trail, making it notoriously difficult to challenge in court.

This Kimmel suspension is a little different, Lakier says. During the podcast appearance, Carr explicitly named his target, threatened regulatory action, and within a matter of hours the companies complied.

“The Supreme Court has made clear that that’s unconstitutional in all circumstances,” says Lakier. “You’re just not allowed to do that. There’s no balancing. There’s no justification. Absolutely no, no way may the government do that.”

Even if Carr’s threats amount to unconstitutional jawboning, though, stopping him could still prove difficult. If ABC sued, it would need to prove coercion—and however a suit went, filing one could risk additional regulatory retaliation down the line. If Kimmel were to sue, there’s no promise that he would get anything out of the suit even if he won, says Lakier, making it less likely for him to pursue legal action in the first place.

“There’s not much there for him except to establish that his rights were violated. But there is a lot of benefit for everyone else,” says Lakier. “This has received so much attention that it would be good if there could be, from now on, some mechanism for more oversight from the courts over what Carr is doing.”

Organizations like the the Freedom of the Press Foundation have sought novel means of limiting Carr’s power. In July, the FPF submitted a formal disciplinary complaint to the DC Bar’s Office of Disciplinary Counsel arguing that Carr violated its ethical rules, misrepresenting the law by suggesting the FCC has the ability to regulate editorial viewpoints. Without formal rulings, companies affected by Carr’s threats would be some of the only organizations with grounding to sue. At the same time, they have proven to be some of the least likely groups to pursue legal action over the last eight months.

In a statement on Thursday, House Democratic leadership wrote that Carr had “disgraced the office he holds by bullying ABC” and called on him to resign. They said they plan to “make sure the American people learn the truth, even if that requires the relentless unleashing of congressional subpoena power,” but did not outline any tangible ways to rein in Carr’s power.

“People need to get creative,” says Stern. “The old playbook is not built for this moment and the law only exists on paper when you’ve got someone like Brendan Carr in charge of enforcing it.”

This vacuum has left Carr free to push as far as he likes, and it has spooked experts over how far this precedent will travel. Established in the 1930s, the FCC was designed to operate as a neutral referee, but years of media consolidation have dramatically limited the number of companies controlling programming over broadcast, cable, and now streaming networks. Spectrum is a limited resource the FCC controls, giving the agency more direct control over the broadcast companies that rely on it than it has over cable or streaming services. This concentration makes them infinitely easier to pressure, benefitting the Trump administration, Carr, but also whoever might come next.

“If political tides turn, I don’t have confidence that the Democrats won’t also use them in an unconstitutional and improper matter,” says Stern. The Trump administration is “really setting up this world where every election cycle, assuming we still have elections in this country, the content of broadcast news might drastically shift depending on which political party controls the censorship office.”

Makena Kelly is a senior writer at WIRED focused on the intersection of politics, power, and technology. She writes the Politics Lab newsletter that helps you make sense of how the internet is shaping our political reality—sign up here. She was previously at The Verge, CQ Roll Call, and the … Read More

Useful Info & Resource

Understanding the Legal Framework Governing a Shutdown

September 17, 2025 | By Sam Berger

The government funding deadline is fast approaching. With the Trump Administration’s continued efforts to impound and rescind funding, complicating Congress’s ability to reach an agreement on funding bills for the upcoming year, it is important to keep in mind the legal framework that governs a shutdown, and the limits a shutdown places on the executive branch.

This primer focuses on the activities that can (and cannot) legally continue during a shutdown; it does not address the impacts of a shutdown on government programs or the people who use them.

Critically, while the executive branch has some discretion as to what activities continue during a shutdown — and it is impossible to predict whether the Administration will take unlawful actions under the pretext of a shutdown^[1] — a government shutdown does not provide the Administration any additional legal authority to fire federal employees, limit review of its actions by federal courts, or freeze funding once full-year appropriations are provided.

Activities That Can Continue During a Government Shutdown

Under the Antideficiency Act, agencies can neither spend, nor make commitments to spend, money without appropriations from Congress.^[2]

Some activities continue during a shutdown because they are separately or already funded. For example, activities funded by multi-year or indefinite funding, such as disaster relief, continue, with payments made as normal. Likewise, if some appropriations bills have been enacted prior to a shutdown, activities funded by those enacted appropriations also continue (a scenario sometimes described as a “partial” government shutdown). The Administration has no legal authority to impound or freeze these funds.

Based on long-standing Department of Justice (DOJ) guidance, there are also a limited set of activities for which the federal government can make commitments to pay — though it still cannot make payments — during a shutdown^[3]:

Activities expressly provided for in law to continue during a shutdown. Some laws expressly provide that certain activities can continue in the absence of appropriations, such as the Department of Defense’s “feed and forage” authority allowing it to obtain certain types of necessary supplies for military personnel.
Activities to protect against imminent threats to life or property. This includes activities related to law enforcement, national security, air traffic control, and federal prisons, among others.
Activities that are necessary to prevent significant damage to a funded program. For example, activities necessary to ensure Social Security payments (which themselves are funded under law) are made in a timely way can continue during a shutdown even if those activities themselves do not have funding.
Activities necessary to discharge the President’s constitutional duties. This includes, for example, the President’s Commander-in-Chief responsibilities.

Different administrations have interpreted these exceptions to apply more or less narrowly, meaning that the activities that continue during a shutdown have differed to some extent from administration to administration. The first Trump Administration took a more expansive view of the public services that should continue.^[4] However, to date, a core set of services — such as defense, law enforcement, transportation safety, Social Security, and Medicare — have continued during every shutdown.

Executive Branch Restrictions During a Government Shutdown

While the executive branch has some latitude in what activities it continues during a government shutdown, there are clear limits on its actions.

If an activity is not funded, no actual payments can be made during a shutdown.

Even for activities that continue during a shutdown because they are subject to one of the exceptions described above, funding to pay for them cannot be provided without appropriations. The federal personnel required to work — including law enforcement, prison guards, and the staff that process Social Security benefits — only receive IOUs that will be paid when appropriations are enacted. Federal contractors required to work or provide services also go unpaid during the shutdown.

Under current law, when the shutdown ends all federal employees receive backpay for the time the government was shut down regardless of whether they were working on an activity that could continue during a shutdown or were forced to stop work until the shutdown ended. However, federal contractors do not receive pay for this time period except for any work they were required to perform during it.

Each branch of government determines which of its activities can legally continue during a shutdown.

Congress and the judiciary make their own independent determinations about what activities continue during a lapse. The executive branch is not involved in those determinations.

In prior shutdowns, the judiciary has had sufficient funding in the absence of new appropriations to continue normal operations for the duration of the shutdown. Courts have said in previous shutdowns that in the event they ran out of funding during a shutdown, they would continue to hear cases and otherwise fulfill their constitutional responsibilities.^[5] Thus, litigants who are suing in federal court would be able to bring suits against the Administration during a shutdown.

When DOJ does not have funding during a shutdown, its lawyers may request extensions from courts for filing deadlines and other procedural steps. Individual courts have the discretion to determine whether to provide such extensions, and courts have both granted and denied such requests depending on the circumstances.

A shutdown would not provide the Administration with any additional legal authority to engage in widespread firing of federal employees.

A temporary lapse in funding does not provide grounds for an agency to fire employees. In addition, during a shutdown most agencies will not be able to legally conduct personnel actions unrelated to the shutdown itself because their HR departments will not be funded and these types of actions do not fall under any of the available exceptions.^[6]

A shutdown would not impact the Administration’s legal obligations to spend money once full-year appropriations are provided.

While many activities would cease during a shutdown because of a lack of funding, the shutdown would not provide the Administration with any authority to impound or freeze funds once appropriations are provided.

While this primer focuses on the legal framework that governs during a shutdown, the Administration has shown itself willing to take actions that are inconsistent with the law, which presents major challenges for the country at all times, not just during a shutdown.

Topics: Federal Budget, Budget Process

End Notes

^[1] Sam Berger, “Trump is ignoring the law to keep the shutdown from causing him political pain,” The Washington Post, January 15, 2019, https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/01/15/trump-is-ignoring-law-keep-shutdown-causing-him-political-pain/.

^[2] Government Accountability Office, “Antideficiency Act,” https://www.gao.gov/legal/appropriations-law/resources.

^[3] Walter Dellinger, “Government Operations in the Event of a Lapse in Appropriations,” Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel, August 16, 1995, https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/olc/opinions/attachments/2014/11/10/1995-08-16-lapse-in-appropriations.htm.

^[4] Juliet Linderman, “Selective shutdown? Trump tries to blunt impact, takes heat,” Associated Press, January 13, 2019, https://apnews.com/article/66b50739f4b84063a2ff56dff3156712.

^[5] United States Courts, “Judiciary Has Funds to Operate Through Jan. 31,” January 22, 2019, https://www.uscourts.gov/data-news/judiciary-news/2019/01/22/judiciary-has-funds-operate-through-jan-31.

^[6] Office of Personnel Management, “Guidance for Shutdown Furloughs,” January 2024, https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/furlough-guidance/guidance-for-shutdown-furloughs.pdf.

Clips about the democratic party and the leaders of the party from The Majority Report.

From CBPP re Food Security

Research Note: Nearly 2 Million Young Children in the U.S. Lived in Food-Insecure Households in 2023

September 15, 2025

| By Joseph Llobrera and Luis Nuñez

Food is an essential human need, and even more so for infants and toddlers during the critical early months of rapid growth and development. The United States has the resources to ensure everyone has enough to eat. Yet millions of people across the U.S. experience food insecurity, meaning they struggle to afford enough food for an active, healthy life year-round. In 2023, the most recent data available, 33.6 million adults and 13.8 million children — including nearly 2 million children under 3 years old — lived in food-insecure households, meaning more than 1 in 8 households (13.5 percent) in the U.S. had difficulty acquiring food due to lack of resources.^[1]

Millions of Children in Households Struggling to Afford the Basics — Figure 1

Households with young children are more likely to experience food insecurity. More than 1 in 7 (15.5 percent) households with infants and toddlers under 3 were food insecure in 2023, compared to 11.9 percent of households without children and 13.5 percent of all households. Nationally, more than 1 in 6 (17.1 percent) children under 3 lived in food-insecure households in 2023 and this share varies across states. (See Table 1.) These shares also vary by race and ethnicity, with children under 3 in American Indian or Alaska Native (30.3 percent), Hawaiian or Pacific Islander (26.3), Black (25.9), and Hispanic (22.4) households more likely to live in food-insecure households than those in Asian (5.5) or white (10.9) households.^[2]

Roughly half of the children under age 3 who lived in food-insecure households didn’t experience food insecurity themselves, but the adults in those households were food insecure. Parents often find ways to maintain normal meal patterns for their children, even when they are food insecure themselves; these families often face other challenges as a result of their precarious financial circumstances. And in many households, food insecurity among children is so severe that caregivers report that children were hungry, skipped a meal, or did not eat for a whole day because there was not enough money for food.

Children are especially vulnerable to poverty, financial strain, and hardship. For infants and young children, the lack of access to good nutrition can lead to less favorable life-long outcomes. Caregivers’ struggles paying for food and other bills are linked to worse child outcomes.^[3] Material hardship such as the lack of food also increases the risk for child welfare involvement due to neglect and abuse.^[4] There is growing awareness among researchers that the consequences of adversity — poverty, abuse or neglect, parental substance use disorder or mental illness, housing instability, and exposure to violence — during the early years of life can extend well beyond childhood and affect people’s physical, mental, and economic well-being as adults.^[5]

Conversely, when public policies provide economic security for their families, children tend to have better educational, health, and behavioral outcomes.^[6]

Positive Health and Well-Being Effects of SNAP and WIC Last a Lifetime

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) delivers more nutrition assistance to low-income children than any other federal program, making it the nation’s largest child nutrition program. In 2024, SNAP helped about 16 million children each month — about 1 in 5 U.S. children — including 2.8 million children under the age of 3.

While SNAP provides only a modest benefit — just $6.20 on average per person per day — it forms a critical foundation for the health and well-being of children in the U.S., lifting millions of families and their children out of poverty and improving food security. Food insecurity among children fell by roughly a third after their families received SNAP benefits for six months, a USDA study found.^[7]

For young children in particular, SNAP’s benefits last a lifetime. Studies have found children have improved birth outcomes and better health, education, and employment outcomes as adults if they had SNAP access during early childhood or if their parent had SNAP access during pregnancy.^[8] Access to SNAP among families with children is associated with reductions in child maltreatment reports and child welfare involvement.^[9] Emerging evidence also suggests that SNAP helps decrease decades-long racial inequities in food security, reducing the gap between white households and Black and Hispanic households, who are more likely to experience food insecurity because of starkly unequal opportunities and outcomes in education, employment, health, and housing.^[10]

The federally funded WIC program — more formally known as the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children — also improves lifetime health for low-income pregnant and postpartum parents, their infants, and young children. Among other health and developmental improvements, WIC participation is associated with reduced risk of premature birth, low birthweight, and infant mortality. This is especially important because pregnancy-related complications and mortality, as well as infant mortality, are higher for families of color than for white families, again due to unequal access to health care and broader inequities in health, economic, and other systems for people of color.

Despite these benefits, only about half of all people eligible for WIC were enrolled in 2022. Less than half (46 percent) of eligible pregnant parents participated in WIC. Only 64.1 percent of eligible infants and children under the age of 3 participated.^[11] And participation declines as children grow older. While nearly 4 in 5 (78.4 percent) infants eligible for WIC participated in the program in 2022, the rate drops to 65 percent, 50 percent, 44 percent, and 25 percent among children 1 to 4 years old, respectively.^[12]

There are many opportunities for state agencies to reach more eligible families with low incomes, and these efforts are showing promise, with take-up and participation increasing in recent years. While data on WIC coverage rates for 2023 and 2024 are not yet available, nationwide average monthly participation increased by 7.1 percent between fiscal years 2022 and 2024, suggesting that coverage rates may have increased modestly.^[13]

Increasing WIC take-up across the board — and for pregnant parents of color and their infants in particular — can be an important part of a strategy to improve pregnancy-related and child health, mitigate the large pregnancy-related health disparities affecting these communities, and advance racial equity in other aspects of pregnancy-related and child health and food security.^[14]

Megabill Cuts Threaten Access to Nutrition Assistance

The harmful Republican megabill, H.R. 1, enacted on July 4, 2025, will dramatically raise costs and reduce food assistance for millions of people by cutting federal funding for SNAP by $187 billion (about 20 percent) through 2034, the largest cut to SNAP in history. These cuts will increase poverty, food insecurity, and hunger, including among children.

The bill includes a major structural change that will cut billions in federal funding for most states’ basic food benefits, with a new requirement that most states will have to pay between 5 and 15 percent of SNAP benefits. This amounts to billions of dollars each year that states across the country would now be required to pay. If a state can’t or won’t make up for some or all of these massive federal cuts with tax increases or spending cuts elsewhere in its budget, it will have to cut its SNAP program or it could opt out of the program altogether, terminating SNAP food assistance entirely in the state, including to households with young children.

If children lose SNAP, they will also experience harmful ripple effects in other child nutrition programs, such as free school meals and summer EBT, due to the loss of automatic eligibility that comes from receiving SNAP. To make up for the federal cuts and avoid cutting nutrition assistance as well as other priorities affecting young children, such as health care or education, state policymakers will need to either raise new revenue or rollback recent tax cuts to raise the funds needed to prevent harmful cuts.

TABLE 1
Nearly 2 Million Children Under 3 Years Old Lived in Food-Insecure Households, Thousands Across Every State
	Children Under 3 Years Old in Food-Insecure Households
State	Number	Share
Alabama	38,000		21%
Alaska	5,000		16%
Arizona	55,000		23%
Arkansas	21,000		20%
California	172,000		13%
Colorado	27,000		14%
Connecticut	17,000		15%
Delaware	5,000		16%
District of Columbia	3,000		11%
Florida	102,000		16%
Georgia	60,000		16%
Hawai‘i	6,000		13%
Idaho	14,000		19%
Illinois	45,000		10%
Indiana	45,000		17%
Iowa	15,000		12%
Kansas	16,000		14%
Kentucky	39,000		25%
Louisiana	35,000		20%
Maine	8,000		21%
Maryland	28,000		12%
Massachusetts	25,000		12%
Michigan	63,000		19%
Minnesota	32,000		14%
Mississippi	21,000		20%
Missouri	38,000		17%
Montana	5,000		14%
Nebraska	15,000		19%
Nevada	18,000		18%
New Hampshire	NA		NA
New Jersey	35,000		13%
New Mexico	16,000		22%
New York	95,000		14%
North Carolina	67,000		18%
North Dakota	6,000		17%
Ohio	59,000		14%
Oklahoma	29,000		20%
Oregon	19,000		15%
Pennsylvania	58,000		16%
Rhode Island	NA		NA
South Carolina	28,000		16%
South Dakota	5,000		14%
Tennessee	34,000		14%
Texas	237,000		19%
Utah	23,000		15%
Vermont	NA		NA
Virginia	36,000		11%
Washington	36,000		13%
West Virginia	11,000		18%
Wisconsin	27,000		15%
Wyoming	5,000		23%
Total	1,808,000		16%

Note: Sum does not equal total due to rounding. Counts are rounded to the nearest 1,000, and shares to the nearest whole number. “NA” refers to states whose sample size was too small to calculate reliable estimates. These estimates rely on ten years of data due to small sample sizes in many states. However, for the 13 states that had large enough sample sizes, their five-year estimates of the share of children under 3 in food-insecure households were similar to the ten-year estimates presented here.
Source: CBPP analysis of 2014-2023 Current Population Survey Food Security Supplement

Topics: Food Assistance

This Was In The News September 10th-

I saw a few headlines about it on Monday, and meant to post it but didn’t get it done, then Tuesday was what it was. So, it’s been a week, but here it is: there is universal childcare in New Mexico, and they are heroes for getting that done. -A

New Mexico will be the first state to make child care free

Chabeli Carrazana of The 19th. Meet Chabeli and read more of her reporting on gender, politics and policy.

In an unprecedented move, New Mexico is making child care free.

Beginning in November, it will be the first state in the nation to provide child care to all residents regardless of income, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham announced this week.

The state has been working to lower child care care costs since 2019, when it created the Early Childhood Education and Care Department and started to expand eligibility for universal child care. This latest change removes income eligibility requirements from the state’s child care assistance program altogether and waives all family copayments.

The initiative is expected to save families $12,000 per child annually.

“Child care is essential to family stability, workforce participation and New Mexico’s future prosperity,” Lujan Grisham said in her announcement. “By investing in universal child care, we are giving families financial relief, supporting our economy, and ensuring that every child has the opportunity to grow and thrive.”

The United States allocates some federal funding to states to lower the cost of child care for low-income kids, but eligibility for that funding is very limited and by and large, most families are paying an average of $13,000 on child care annually. It’s much higher in many states.

In the absence of a federal universal child care system, some states have worked to build their own systems, and New Mexico has been a leader in that effort over the past several years.

The state’s Early Childhood Education and Care Department got a budget increase of $113 million in the most recent legislative session, taking its total operating budget to nearly $1 billion. Half of that money goes specifically to child care payment support.

The state also established a fund in 2020 with money earmarked for early childhood education. Thanks to tax collections from the oil and gas industries, the fund has grown from $320 million to $10 billion. Latinas in New Mexico led the charge in 2022 to help pass a constitutional amendment in 2022 that ensured a portion of that fund went specifically to universal child care. Funding for the new initiative will come at least in part from there, and Lujan Grisham will also be requesting an additional $120 million in state funding next year, a spokesperson for the governor said.

The news also comes with improvements for child care facilities and, potentially, raises for their staff. As part of the rollout, the state will establish a $13 million loan fund to construct and expand facilities, launch a recruitment campaign for home-based providers and incentivize programs to pay staff a minimum of $18 an hour.

The state hopes the initiative will lead to the creation of 55 new child care centers and 1,120 home-based child care options.

Still, response to the initiative so far has been mixed. Republican state Rep. Rebecca Dow told the Albuquerque Journal that she believes child care vouchers should be reserved for children most at risk for child abuse and neglect. Since the state’s child care assistance program expanded eligibility over the past five years, fewer low-income families have participated in the program, the Journal reported.

But Thora Walsh Padilla, the president of the Mescalero Apache Tribe, praised the initiative, saying during a press conference Monday that it addresses various challenges the tribe has struggled with, including raising wages for providers. There are only three child care facilities on the 463,000 acre reservation.

“It is so timely and it answers so many needs,” she said. “A building? Oh my goodness, we’ll be one of the first to apply.”

Zohran Exposes Trump Family’s Disconnect From Voters

Trump Slump So Bad Fox Host Turns To Communism

Some Diverse Stuff

I had a little wait time yesterday, and these were lined up on my phone. I saved the best for first!

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This one hurts my heart.

A decades-long peace vigil outside the White House is dismantled after Trump’s order

WASHINGTON (AP) — Law enforcement officials on Sunday removed a peace vigil that had stood outside the White House for more than four decades after President Donald Trump ordered it to be taken down as part of the clearing of homeless encampments in the nation’s capital.

Philipos Melaku-Bello, a volunteer who has manned the vigil for years, told The Associated Press that the Park Police removed it early Sunday morning. He said officials justified the removal by mislabeling the memorial as a shelter.

Philipos Melaku-Bello gestures the peace sign at the White House Peace Vigil in Lafayatte Park across the street from the White House in Washington, Friday, Sept. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

“The difference between an encampment and a vigil is that an encampment is where homeless people live,” Melaku-Bello said. “As you can see, I don’t have a bed. I have signs and it is covered by the First Amendment right to freedom of speech and freedom of expression.”

The White House confirmed the removal, telling AP in a statement that the vigil was a “hazard to those visiting the White House and the surrounding areas.” (snip)

The vigil was started in 1981 by activist William Thomas to promote nuclear disarmament and an end to global conflicts. It is believed to be the longest continuous anti-war protest in U.S. history. When Thomas died in 2009, other protesters like Melaku-Bello manned the tiny tent and the banner, which read “Live by the bomb, die by the bomb,” around the clock to avoid it being dismantled by authorities. (snip-MORE)

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This is very good. Wish more people had thought of this earlier in time.