In Climate Speech Former VP Al Gore Draws Parallels between MAGA and Nazism

Pensito Editors
Former VP Al Gore in a speech during Climate Week in San Francisco in April 2025

Former Vice Pres. Al Gore was the keynote speaker at a special Climate Week event at The Exploratorium in San Francisco on April 21. He kicked off the event with a speech criticizing the Trump administration’s approach to climate change, comparing it to the Third Reich and highlighting the need for action.

AL GORE: It is abundantly clear, after only three months and one day, that the new Trump administration is attempting to do everything it possibly can to try to halt the transition to a clean energy future and a deep reduction in the burning of fossil fuels. The climate crisis is a fossil fuel crisis, basically 80% of it.

Many of you here today have likely felt the chilling effect of the policies and the rhetoric coming from Washington, D.C. and what the effect has been on businesses and investors and far beyond.

The Dow Jones, of course, today fell another thousand points and since Donald Trump’s inauguration it’s gone down six thousand points. But while the most visible impacts of what the new administration is doing may be in the market for stocks and bonds, that’s not the only thing that he has caused to crash.

[…]

Maddow on Trump’s Disastrous First 100 Days: ‘Oops!’

Jon Ponder

During her April 23, 2025, show, Rachel Maddow provided a run-down of the Trump regime’s destructive, mistake-ridden first 100 days. In describing the Trumpists’ authoritarian takeover of the country, she took us on a wild ride through the regime’s long list of blunders:

  • Oops! Freezing all federal funding/grants, then rescinding the order within 48 hours due to confusion and legal challenges.
  • Oops! Accidentally listing the wrong person as acting head of the FBI on the White House website and letting the error stand.
  • Oops! Accidentally sending names of hundreds of CIA officers in an unclassified email to the White House.
  • Oops! Announcing a policy that inadvertently halted all mail from China, then reversing it.
  • Oops! Accidental firing and attempted rehiring of nuclear security agency staff.
  • Oops! Misstating savings on a contract by billions of dollars.
  • Oops! Reversing a decision to remove legal aid for migrant children after public outcry.
  • Oops! Cutting, then restoring, the program for 9/11 first responders.
  • Oops! Elon Musk, Trump’s top campaign donor, sending out mass layoff threats to federal employees, then walking it back.
  • Oops! Cutting and then restoring burial services and cancer support for veterans.
  • Oops! Accidentally eliminating Ebola prevention measures, then reversing.
  • Oops! Cutting and then reinstating hires for the Veterans Crisis Line due to an “administrative error.”
  • Oops! Deleting and then restoring thousands of federal contracts in error.
  • Oops! Announcing mass firings of federal employees, then denying it happened.
  • Oops! Posting hundreds of federal properties for sale, including agency headquarters, then removing the listings without explanation.
  • Oops! Publicly releasing unredacted Social Security numbers and private information of hundreds, including Trump’s own lawyer, in JFK assassination files, then scrambling to mitigate.
  • Oops! Accidentally texting war plans to a journalist.
  • Oops! Admitting to mistakenly deporting a Maryland man to an El Salvador prison.
  • Oops! Tariffs inadvertently affecting remote islands, including one inhabited mainly by penguins.

At the end of the segment, Maddow suggested that we should keep this long list of Trump’s failures in mind as the mainstream media sane washes and glosses over of the chaos in its reporting on Trump’s first 100 days.

Ron DeSantis Steals $10 Million from Florida Taxpayers to Fund Casey’s Bogus Charity

Buck Banks

HERNDON/Tampa Bay Times

From a Tampa Bay Times investigative report:

The $10 million that Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration diverted to a state-created charity last year consisted of Medicaid dollars owed to state and federal taxpayers, contrary to what the governor and other officials have publicly asserted.

Three years ago, lawyers working with the state drew up a settlement agreement that said Florida’s largest Medicaid contractor, Centene, overbilled taxpayers $67,048,611 for medications, according to a copy of a draft agreement obtained by the Times/Herald.

That’s the exact amount DeSantis officials settled on with Centene last year. But instead of returning all $67 million to state and federal coffers, they sent $10 million of it to the Hope Florida Foundation, a charity overseen by first lady Casey DeSantis.

The money was then sent to two nonprofit organizations that aren’t required to report how they spend their funds. Those “dark money” groups later gave $8.5 million to a political committee overseen by DeSantis’ chief of staff in a series of transactions that some Republican lawmakers believe were illegal. How Medicaid is allocated, which pays for health care services for the poor, is highly regulated.

The document contradicts statements by DeSantis and state officials that the $10 million was a charitable contribution by Centene separate from what it owed to the state.

[…]

U.S. State Department Likely Violated Human Rights Law with $6 Million Payment for El Salvador Prison

Buck Banks

megavision.com
The U.S. State Department is paying El Salvador $6 million to house hundreds of immigrants deported from the United States in an immense and brutal prison there, Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, or CECOT, reports Florida Phoenix.

But a U.S. law bars State’s financial support of “units of foreign security forces” — which can include military and law enforcement staff in prisons — facing credible allegations of gross human rights violations. That has led those who wrote what’s known as the Leahy Law and enforced it for years to question the legality of the $6 million payment made as President Donald Trump carries out his campaign of mass deportation.

The Trump administration on March 15 sent 261 men to CECOT, after invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to apply to Venezuelan nationals 14 and older who are suspected members of the gang Tren de Aragua.

On March 30, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said another 17 nationals from El Salvador were sent to CECOT, again alleging gang ties. On Sunday, Rubio said 10 more men were sent to the prison in El Salvador, and noted how “the alliance between” the U.S. and El Salvador “has become an example for security and prosperity in our hemisphere.”