Today
THE HOUSE PASSED $73 BILLION FOR THE WAR AND $10 BILLION FOR VOTING RESTRICTIONS — BY TWO VOTES, THE EEOC ENDED WORKPLACE DEMOGRAPHIC REPORTING, EXPERTS SAY THE SAUDI DEAL COULD PRODUCE BOMB MATERIAL — AND AN APPEALS COURT SENT A PALESTINIAN ACTIVIST BACK TO JAIL

Seventy-three billion dollars for a war no one voted for. Ten billion dollars to make it harder to vote against the people who fund it. On Wednesday night, the House passed a $95 billion budget framework by a vote of 216 to 214.

Every Democrat voted no. Only two Republicans broke ranks… Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Warren Davidson of Ohio. The bill bundles three things into one package: $73 billion for the Iran war and intelligence, $12 billion in farm aid, and $10 billion for a fund that pressures states to adopt the SAVE America Act… voter ID requirements that could strip ballot access from millions who lack the right paperwork.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries called it “Operation Epic Failure” and said the bill “wastes tens of billions of dollars more” on a war that has made Iran stronger. Rep. Pramila Jayapal said: “Months after Hegseth claimed victory, Iran continued to strike American assets, kill American service members, and close the Strait of Hormuz.”

None of the $95 billion is paid for by cuts elsewhere. Budget hawks in the GOP warned about the deficit impact. Some Republicans voted yes only because the voter ID provision was attached… not because they support the war funding.

The bill now goes to the Senate. The margin was two votes. The war gets $73 billion. Voting rights get a $10 billion squeeze. And the farm aid was the glue that held the coalition together. That is how the machine builds its bills… by making sure everyone gets just enough to say yes.

$73 BILLION FOR THE WAR. $10 BILLION TO RESTRICT VOTING. $12 BILLION FOR FARMS. ALL IN ONE BILL. PASSED BY TWO VOTES.

BREAKING

The EEOC Just Ended the Requirement for Employers to Report the Race, Gender, and Ethnicity of Their Workers

For more than 50 years, employers with 100 or more workers have been required to file a report each year with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission showing the racial, gender, and ethnic makeup of their workforce. On Tuesday, the EEOC ended that requirement.

The report is called the EEO-1. It is the main tool the government uses to spot workplace bias at scale. Without it, there is no federal count of who gets hired, fired, or passed over by race or gender. The data has been used in thousands of lawsuits. Lawyers and civil rights groups rely on it to prove what one person alone cannot see.

Andrea Lucas, the acting EEOC chair, said the reporting change is part of a broader effort to “reduce unnecessary regulatory burdens.” She has also pushed to roll back protections for LGBTQ workers and narrow the definition of workplace harassment.

You cannot fix what you cannot measure. And as of this week, the government has stopped measuring. Discrimination did not end. The reporting did.

EXPOSED

Experts Say the Saudi Nuclear Deal Could Produce Weapons-Grade Plutonium — “Tantamount to Giving Up on Nonproliferation”

The uranium deal the U.S. signed with Saudi Arabia on Wednesday is worth tens of billions to one firm: Westinghouse. Its AP1000 reactors are the only ones the deal allows. Each one powers hundreds of thousands of homes. Each one also makes plutonium as a byproduct.

That waste can be reprocessed into material for nuclear warheads. James Acton of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace wrote that if the deal allows enrichment without the strongest safeguards, it is “tantamount to the United States’ giving up on nonproliferation.”

The deal does not require Saudi Arabia to sign the IAEA’s Additional Protocol… the toughest level of checks that the UAE agreed to in 2009. It limits what inspectors can see. And it bars the Saudis from buying enrichment tech elsewhere for only 10 years. After that… the limit ends.

Senator Ed Markey said the deal “could potentially explode the conflict between Iran and Saudi Arabia.” MBS has said publicly that Saudi Arabia will pursue a nuclear weapon if Iran ever builds one.

The U.S. is bombing Iran’s nuclear program. The same week, it signed a deal that could put bomb-grade material on Saudi soil. The difference between the two countries is not the technology. It is the relationship.

“This is tantamount to the United States’ giving up on nonproliferation.”

— James Acton, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

DEVELOPING

An Appeals Court Reversed the Release of a Palestinian Activist and Ordered Him Back to Detention — He Was Arrested for Protesting the War

Mohsen Mahdawi was a graduate student at Columbia University. He helped organize campus protests against the war in Gaza. In March 2025, ICE arrested him during his citizenship interview. He spent months in detention. A federal judge ordered his release. This week, an appeals court reversed that decision and sent him back.

Mahdawi was born in Palestine and raised in a refugee camp. He came to the U.S. on a student visa, earned his degree, married an American, and applied for citizenship. The government says his protest work makes him a security risk. His lawyers say the charge is made up… meant to scare anyone who speaks out.

“Enough is enough,” Mahdawi said in a statement released through his lawyers. “This deportation threat is not about who I am. It is about silencing everyone who dares to speak.”

Mahdawi is the second Columbia student targeted for deportation over protest activity this year. The first, Mahmoud Khalil, filed a lawsuit under the KKK Act two weeks ago. Both were graduate students. Both were arrested during the citizenship process. Both were told their speech was a national security threat. The machine does not need to silence everyone. It only needs to silence enough people that the rest stay quiet.

 Connecting the Dots 

▸ The Bigger Picture

Four stories from one week. The House bundled $73 billion for a war with $10 billion to restrict voting… and passed it by two votes. The government ended 50 years of workplace data on who gets hired and who gets fired. The Saudi nuclear deal comes with a plutonium risk the White House did not mention. And a grad student was sent back to jail for organizing a protest.

The press covers each on its own page. A “budget vote.” A “regulatory change.” A “nuclear deal.” An “immigration case.” But the thread is the same in every one.

The machine does not just act without checks. It removes the tools that check it. War money gets bundled with voting rules so you cannot vote against the war. Race and gender data gets erased so you cannot prove bias. A nuclear deal gets signed without the safeguards that catch weapons work. And students who protest get locked up so the next one stays quiet. Every story this week is about the same thing: the machine taking apart the tools that measure what it does.

When the machine removes every tool used to hold it accountable… the only thing left to measure it is memory. That’s the Seventh Floor.

They rely on the shadows.
It’s time to turn on the lights.