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https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/04/trump-climate-change-punish-states-executive-order-greenhouse-gases-pam-pondi-co2/?utm_source=mj-newsletters&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=daily-newsletter-04-09-2025 New Trump EO Would Punish States for Combating Climate Change The order directs the government to “expeditiously” take action to “stop the enforcement of State laws” designed to reduce “greenhouse gas” emissions. Kevin Dietsch/Getty On Tuesday, President Donald Trump signed an executive order aimed at “protecting” American energy from “state overreach.” The move, some energy experts say, is a legally dubious federal overstep designed to undermine the rights of states and local authorities to combat climate change. The order claims “many States have enacted, or are in the process of enacting, burdensome and ideologically motivated ‘climate change’ or energy policies that threaten American energy dominance and our economic and national security.” It specifically points to Blue-state policies like Vermont’s Superfund rules, which require fossil fuel companies to pay for damage to the climate, and California’s cap-and-trade program as examples of efforts to “dictate national energy policy.” In Section 2 of the order, Trump directed Attorney General Pam Bondi to identify state laws or policies “burdening” access to “domestic energy resources that “are or may be…unconstitutional, preempted by Federal law, or otherwise unenforceable.” What might some of those state laws be? According to the executive order, that could include any effort to address “climate change,” support “environmental justice,” or reduce “greenhouse gas” emissions, among others. That’s not the end of it. The order also directs the attorney general to “expeditiously” take action to “stop the enforcement of State laws and continuation of civil actions” determined to be illegal. It’s unclear whether this will stand up in court. Michael Gerrard, the faculty director of Columbia University’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, told E&E News that the executive order is “toothless” and that Trump “has no authority on his own to nullify state laws.” Journalist David Roberts, who runs the clean energy newsletter Volts called the order on Bluesky, “wildly, unambiguously unconstitutional” and “dictator shit.” Others on social media noted the president’s contradiction of traditionally conservative values. As climate reporter and Drilled podcast host Amy Westervelt put it on Bluesky, “States rights! But only when the states agree with us[.]” Climate scientist and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) contributing author Zeke Hausfather posted, “So much for federalism…” And Tulane environmental studies professor Joshua Basseches wrote, “Federal overreach has historically been a crusade of the Right, but these times are wild and different.”

Lego says its billion-dollar factory in Vietnam will make toys without pumping out harmful emissions https://apnews.com/article/lego-vietnam-energy-climate-62c0710721fa383a65cd1f45f2bdb73d

Revealed: Big tech’s new datacentres will take water from the world’s driest areas | Water | The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/apr/09/big-tech-datacentres-water Revealed: Big tech’s new datacentres will take water from the world’s driest areas Amazon, Google and Microsoft are building datacentres in water-scarce parts of five continents Amazon’s three proposed new datacentres in the Aragon region of northern Spain are licensed to use an estimated 755,720 cubic metres of water a year, roughly enough to irrigate 233 hectares (576 acres) of corn, one of the region’s main crops. Composite: The Guardian/Getty Images Amazon, Microsoft and Google are operating datacentres that use vast amounts of water in some of the world’s driest areas and are building many more, the non-profit investigatory organisation SourceMaterial and the Guardian have found. With Donald Trump pledging to support them, the three technology giants are planning hundreds of datacentres in the US and across the globe, with a potentially huge impact on populations already living with water scarcity. “The question of water is going to become crucial,” said Lorena Jaume-Palasí, founder of the Ethical Tech Society. “Resilience from a resource perspective is going to be very difficult for those communities.” Efforts by Amazon, the world’s largest online retailer, to mitigate its water use have sparked opposition from inside the company, SourceMaterial’s investigation found, with one of its own sustainability experts warning that its plans are “not ethical”. In response to questions from SourceMaterial and the Guardian, spokespeople for Amazon and Google defended their developments, saying they always take water scarcity into account. Microsoft declined to provide a comment. Datacentres, vast warehouses containing networked servers used for the remote storage and processing of data, as well as by information technology companies to train AI models such as ChatGPT, use water for cooling. SourceMaterial’s analysis identified 38 active datacentres owned by the big three tech firms in parts of the world already facing water scarcity, as well as 24 more under development. Datacentres’ locations are often industry secrets. But by using local news reports and industry sources Baxtel and Data Center Map, SourceMaterial compiled a map of 632 datacentres – either active or under development – owned by Amazon, Microsoft and Google. It shows that those companies’ plans involve a 78% increase in the number of datacentres they own worldwide as cloud computing and AI cause a surge in the world’s demand for storage, with construction planned in North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia. In parts of the world where water is plentiful, datacentres’ high water usage is less problematic, but in 2023 Microsoft said that 42% of its water came from “areas with water stress”, while Google said 15% of its water consumption was in areas with “high water scarcity”. Amazon did not report a figure. Now these companies plan to expand their activities in some of the world’s most arid regions, SourceMaterial and the Guardian’s analysis found. “It’s no coincidence they are building in dry areas,” as datacentres have to be built inland, where low humidity reduces the risk of metal corrosion, while seawater also causes corrosion if used for cooling, Jaume-Palasí said.‘Your cloud is drying my river’ Amazon’s three proposed new datacentres in the Aragon region of northern Spain – each next to an existing Amazon datacentre – are licensed to use an estimated 755,720 cubic metres of water a year, roughly enough to irrigate 233 hectares (576 acres) of corn, one of the region’s main crops. In practice, the water usage will be even higher as that figure doesn’t take into account water used to generate the electricity that will power the new installations, said Aaron Wemhoff, an energy efficiency specialist at Villanova University in Pennsylvania. Between them, Amazon’s new datacentres in the Aragon region are predicted to use more electricity than the entire r

https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/news/hands-off-santa-rosa-napa-sonoma/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=pd_required_reading&pupeml=5135 Thousands turn out for anti-Trump rallies in Sonoma and Napa counties as part of nationwide protest movement In communities large and small across the North Bay, people turned out to protest virtually every artifact of Trump’s first 10 weeks in office. April 5, 2025 In Napa, they marched across the river on the city’s Third Street Bridge, then poured back downtown from the First Street Bridge, more than 1,000 strong. In Sonoma, an estimated 3,000 people packed the historic downtown plaza chanting “Worst president ever” before marching down Broadway. In Sebastopol, hundreds lined the streets and waved signs as motorists honked in support. And in Santa Rosa, more than 5,000 people swarmed Courthouse Square as part of the national Hands Off 2025 “mass mobilization” to protest the policies of President Donald Trump. In communities large and small across the North Bay, people turned out to protest virtually every artifact of Trump’s first 10 weeks in office. For some it was immigration policies, and for others it was the loss of reproductive freedom. For still others it was the administration’s Gaza stance. Many were protesting the threats to Social Security and Medicare, along with economic policies that have led to the loss of nearly $10 trillion in the stock market since Inauguration Day. But for most, it was all of the above, summed up by the simple message on sign after sign at protest after protest: “Resist.” “I wanted to show that every single person’s voice matters,” said Gillian Kendall, who watched with pride as her one-person gathering in Cotati grew into a small protest through the afternoon. “The response from people driving and walking by gave us a lot of heart,” she said. “This kind of public, person-to-person action helps encourage us to keep calling our representatives, writing letters and, of course, voting to save our country and our democracy.” Few Trump supporters or counterprotesters were in evidence. A man wearing a “DOGE” T-shirt was spotted across from the Cotati gathering, while in Napa, a man in a red MAGA hat drove a pickup adorned with Trump flags up and down Third Street. In fact, demonstrators appeared to be co-opting Trump’s slogan, chanting “Make America great! No more hate!” In Sonoma, meanwhile, U.S. Rep. Mike Thompson said demonstrators were “on the right side of history” and urged them on. “It’s because of protests across this country that we have voting rights, that we have civil rights, and believe me, it’s because of turnouts like this across the country that got my ass home from Vietnam. This works,” Thompson said. Protesters then marched down Broadway with signs denouncing Trump’s actions on tariffs, deportations, government downsizing and other issues. Nearly 1,000 people showed up at a city of Napa protest, held downtown in front of the city’s historic courthouse. Protesters filled the area between the courthouse and Third Street, and stood in areas across the surrounding streets as well, armed with signs and protest slogans. The crowd applauded and cheered in support of a series of speakers — including government representatives, local leaders in the immigrant and LGBTQ+ communities and others — who took to the steps of the courthouse facing Third Street shortly after noon. Blanca Huijon, executive director of Puertas Abiertas Community Resource Center — a local advocacy and support organization focused on the local Latino community — said many Latino community members are living in fear of the administration and immigration authorities. “Life has become filled with anxiety and uncertainty” Huijon said. “This is not the way anyone should have to live.” Huijon called on the crowd to not just stand with the Latino community, but to act as well, to fight for justice and safety and “a future where everyone’s voice is heard.” Napa County Supervisor Joelle Gallagher said she understood people in the crowd were tired — of fighting

Why California and the West could face a ‘big fire season’ later this year - The Washington Post https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2025/04/07/california-southwest-wildfire-season-high-risk-outlook/?utm_source=cordial&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=hp-us-reg-morning-email_2025-04-08&email_hash=f064be6284fa1ba75012386552774282e416916a Why California and the West could face a ‘big fire season’ later this year Hot and dry conditions in the region could accelerate yet another wildfire season, with high risks of concerning conflagrations even for areas that had rain and snow this winter. April 7, 2025 Firefighters watch a helicopter drop water on the Palisades Fire in Mandeville Canyon in Los Angeles on Jan. 11. (Jae C. Hong/AP) As California continues to recover from devastating January wildfires and extreme dryness that reached deep into winter, there are early signs that the state and surrounding region could face a troubling fire season in the months ahead. The rainy season in the West is winding down, but much of the region remains well behind on rainfall. The Southwest is in deep drought after largely missing out on storms this winter. Much of the broader West is forecast to have unusually hot and dry weather in the coming weeks and months. And that heat — along with the recent proliferation of additional fire-fueling vegetation — could accelerate the turnaround into yet another wildfire season, with high risks of concerning conflagrations even for areas that had adequate rain and snow this winter.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/07/us/politics/trump-administration-immigrant-detention-facilities-services.html?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email Trump Administration Aims to Spend $45 Billion to Expand Immigrant Detention A request for proposals for new detention facilities and other services would allow the government to expedite the contracting process and rapidly expand detention. April 7, 2025 CoreCivic signed a five-year, $246 million contract to reopen a family detention center in Dilley, Texas, seen in 2015. The company is one of several private detention operators to have already signed new contracts since President Trump took office.Ilana Panich-Linsman for The New York Times The Trump administration is seeking to spend tens of billions of dollars to set up the machinery to expand immigrant detention on a scale never before seen in the United States, according to a request for proposals posted online by the administration last week. The request, which comes from the Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement, calls for contractors to submit proposals to provide new detention facilities, transportation, security guards, medical support and other administrative services worth as much as $45 billion over the next two years. ICE does not yet have that much money itself. But if funded, the maximum value would represent more than a sixfold increase in spending to detain immigrants. It is the latest indication that President Trump and his administration are laying the groundwork to rapidly follow through on his promise for a mass campaign to rid the country of undocumented immigrants. The sprawling request to contractors was posted last week with a deadline of Monday. In the last fiscal year, D.H.S. allocated about $3.4 billion for the entire custody operation overseen by ICE. ICE is already expecting a large windfall from the G.O.P. budget plan, which Senate Republicans approved on Saturday. That measure lays out a significant spending increase for the administration’s immigration agenda — up to $175 billion over the next 10 years to the committees overseeing immigration enforcement, among other things. The $45 billion request to contractors would put ICE in a position to more readily spend those funds. The request also invites the Defense Department to use its own money for immigrant detention under the same plan.

Trump, Hegseth promise record $1 trillion Pentagon budget https://www.politico.com/news/2025/04/07/hegseth-trump-1-trillion-defense-budget-00007147?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

River flooding in US South after heavy rains https://apnews.com/article/severe-weather-flooding-tornado-cda0e8803e4e692d162de856ccc6ef9e

Report: Public Lands Sale Will Destroy Endangered Species Habitat, Protected Landscapes625 square miles of BLM land could be lost forever to help pay for Billionaire tax cuts WES SILER APR 7 READ IN APP An analysis conducted by the Center for Biological diversity finds that the Trump administration’s plans to sell off 400,000 acres of public land managed by the Bureau of Land Management includes 500 separate areas deemed worth of protection by the agency itself. Areas within the potential sale include national monuments, protected waterways, and critical habitat for endangered species. According to a report in Bloomberg Law, following up on the Department of the Interior’s announcement last month that it would like to sell (or maybe give away?) public lands under the transparently false guise of building affordable housing, the agency is looking at disposing of 400,000 acres of BLM land. “The agencies are looking at all federal lands that could be used for housing within a radius of up to 10 miles of all cities and towns with a population greater than 5,000 people,” Reports Bloomberg, based on an interview with the acting director of BLM. BLM manages 245 million acres of public land, mostly west of the Mississippi. Its common rhetoric amongst Republican politicians to refer to BLM land as “unappropriated,” or “underused,” or similar, but in fact the agency is responsible for producing $252.1 billion in total economic output each year(2023 numbers), directly supporting 949,000 jobs, and distributed $578.8 million directly to county treasuries across the United States in Payments in Lieu of Taxes, all on a budget of $1.6 billion. BLM land is managed for multiple use and sustained yield—a system which sees resource extraction balanced with the needs of both recreational users and the environment. Industries that rely on BLM land include outdoor recreation, renewable energy, mining, oil and gas, livestock grazing, coal, and timber. And while 400,000 acres may not sound like a huge chunk of 245 million (or the 640 million total acres of federally-managed public land), our public lands are a finite resource. Every acre lost is lost forever. Now, the Center for Biological Diversity has mapped all BLM land that falls within 10 miles of any city with a population of 5,000 people or greater. You can view the interactive map at this link. Comparing those areas with critical habitats, conservation areas, and protected waterways reveals that a lot of sensitive, important areas may be impacted by the plan. “Trump’s ham-fisted plan could destroy some of America’s most treasured places and imperiled wildlife habitat so fat cat developers can build malls, McMansions and data centers,” explains Randi Spivak, public lands policy director at CBD. “It’s appalling that the Trump administration wants to steal these public lands from the public, and even more galling that these billionaires think people will stand for it. No one voted to have their favorite campsite paved over and rare animals driven to extinction.” I’ve previously explained why public lands are unsuitable to the construction of affordable housing, and the lies Secretaries of the Interior and Housing and Urban Development, Doug Burgum and Scott Turner, are using to conceal plans to develop our public lands for commercial use. Why don’t you take a look through the map, and call out in comments the areas you see targeted for development that will most impact your enjoyment of the outdoors, or uniquely damage the environment.

https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-tax/republican-agendas-triple-threat-to-low-and-moderate-income-family-well-being Republican Agenda’s “Triple Threat” to Low- and Moderate-Income Family Well-Being April 4, 2025 The Trump Administration and Republican majorities in both houses of Congress are advancing a policy agenda that deeply threatens millions of families’ ability to afford the basics by making it harder for them to secure health coverage, buy groceries, or afford everyday goods — all while pursuing expensive tax cuts that are skewed toward the wealthy. The centerpiece of that agenda is far-reaching tax and budget legislation intended to be passed through the fast-track budget “reconciliation” process. But that legislation works hand-in-hand with other Administration policies, both accelerating and deepening the damage to families with modest incomes. It includes an executive action agenda that unlawfully stops funding for public services and investments, hollows out and politicizes the civil service, and undermines basic governance. It also includes sweeping tariffs — the highest in more than a century and eight times higher than they were last year — that will cost low- and moderate-income families hundreds if not thousands of dollars, more than offsetting whatever modest tax cuts they may receive from tax legislation. This three-part agenda — legislation, executive action, and tariffs — the Trump Administration and congressional Republicans are pursuing will reduce the living standards and raise costs for millions of families with modest incomes while helping pave the way for tax cuts skewed to the wealthy. And it’s important to understand that the justification for this upward income redistribution — faster economic growth — is unlikely to materialize. In fact, the sweeping tariffs that Trump has imposed have heightened the risks of a recession — and low-paid workers will bear the brunt. To illustrate the distributional consequences of this triple threat policy agenda, we show in Figure 1 below that the combination of extending the 2017 tax law, deep cuts to Medicaid and SNAP consistent with the House budget, and the tariffs announced in 2025 would reduce the income of households in the bottom 60 percent of the income distribution by an average of $1,550, or the equivalent of about three months of groceries. Meanwhile, the package would increase the income of households with incomes in the top 1 percent by an average of $29,630. The chart in some ways understates the potential harms for families because it does not include the effects of the Administration’s extraordinary executive actions. These policies would affect families of all races by reducing assistance or access to assistance while raising costs, but would particularly affect communities of color given their lower incomes due to past and ongoing discrimination in areas like housing and hiring. Far from shared sacrifice, this fiscal policy agenda hurts the people, families, and communities the President pledged to serve during the campaign. It reduces the living standards of low- and moderate-income people across the U.S., who need more support, to finance unnecessary tax cuts for the wealthiest people. Figure 1 The Trump Administration’s Main Goal: Tax Cuts for the Wealthy Financed by Cutting Health Coverage and Food Assistance That Millions of Families Need The centerpiece of the Trump Administration’s economic agenda is legislation enacting large tax cuts skewed to the wealthy and corporations while making deep cuts to programs low- and moderate-income people rely on and a wide range of public services. The Trump Administration’s main policy priority is extending the expiring provisions of the 2017 tax cuts as part of a party-line bill using the fast-track reconciliation process. The annual cost of extending the individual and estate tax provisions of the 2017 tax law is about $400 billion, which would severely erode the revenue base.[1] The economic benefits of the law fell far short of the proponents’ claims, failing to significantly boost econ

IRA funding freeze has put ‘many’ clean energy projects on pause | ESG Dive https://www.esgdive.com/news/ira-funding-freeze-caused-clean-energy-projects-to-pause/741940/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email IRA funding freeze has put ‘many’ clean energy projects on pause The uncertainty created by the funding freeze has affected projects at “various stages of development,” a clean energy executive said on a recent press call. A sign advises travelers about high winds near wind turbines operating at a wind farm, a key power source for the Coachella Valley, on February 22, 2023 near Whitewater, California. Mario Tama/Getty Images via Getty Images The Trump administration’s funding freeze for programs related to the Inflation Reduction Act has led to a number of clean energy projects hitting the pause button, as the industry waits to understand the full scope of planned changes to existing programs, clean energy company CEOs said in a recent press call. President Donald Trump paused funding disbursements related to the IRA and parts of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act in an inauguration day executive order titled “Terminating the Green New Deal.” The order — and uncertainty around what changes could be in store for the laws’ programs as part of Congressional Republicans’ planned reconciliation bill — has pushed renewable energy projects around the country to pump the brakes, executives said on the Feb. 26 call coordinated by 501(c)4 Clean Energy for America. The nationwide network advocates for boosting the clean energy economy and accelerating the energy transition. A number of industry stakeholders, including speakers present on the call, went to Capitol Hill last month to lobby Congress members directly to maintain the renewable energy tax credits in the IRA. Trade group the Solar Energy Industries Association and other groups held over 100 meetings with representatives. Until the industry gets more certainty on the policy environment it will operate in, “everything’s kind of put on the back burner,” according to renewable energy developer and operator NXTGEN Clean Energy Solutions CEO Russ Bates. Bates said he attended meetings with several House and Senate Republican leaders during the trip, and — though members expressed understanding — the primary pushback he received was that Congress will have to find ways to fund an extension of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act in the reconciliation process. “There are so many projects in various stages of development, and a lot of them have hit the pause button because they want to know what [policies are] going to pencil out?” Bates said on the call. “Are the tax incentives going to be around, or are they not? Because that really is going to play into if a project moves forward or not.” At least two billion-dollar U.S. battery plant projects have been canceled since the inauguration, with Kore Power abandoning a plan to build a $1.2 billion facility in Arizona and Freyr Battery dropping a plan to build a $2.6 billion factory in Georgia in the past month. Freyr altered its plans and bought a solar panel plant in Texas instead, according to reports. Keep up with the story. Subscribe to the ESG Dive free daily newsletter Though the Environmental Protection Agency announced this week it had unfrozen funds related to the Inflation Reduction Act’s $7 billion Solar for All program, uncertainty about the program created hesitancy among solar developers and prompted a lawsuit from Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro. Additionally, recipients of the IRA’s $20 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund have said the freeze of its awarded funds endanger their operations and argue the action is illegal. Litigating the pauses may take time in court, but the uncertainty it’s created for clean energy project developers is “creating turmoil” in the meantime, according to Steph Speirs, co-founder and former CEO of community solar developer Solstice. “Anytime there’s uncertainty in the financial model of these projects, that slows down building the projects that can scare investors away from investi

* I WATCHED ONE OF 4 EPISODES OF THIS DOCUMENTARY TONIGHT, & I HIGHLY RECOMMEND WATCHING!!!!!! https://thedesk.net/2025/02/cnn-twitter-documentary-breaking-bird/ CNN to debut four-part documentary on history of Twitter The social media platform's co-founders Evan Williams and Biz Stone are among those participating in the series. , mkeys@... Share: A sign attached to Twitter’s global headquarters is viewed from a sidewalk on Market Street in San Francisco, California. June 18, 2014. (Photo: Matthew Keys/The Desk/Creative Commons) CNN in March will start airing a new documentary series that looks at the founding and evolution of the social media platform Twitter, now known as X, the company said on Thursday. The series, called “Twitter: Breaking the Bird,” is produced by Candle True Stories and Bitachon 365 in association with CNN’s documentary unit “CNN Original Series” and the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). The four-part documentary will explore the founding of Twitter as a social media platform, featuring new interviews from co-founders Biz Stone and Evan Williams, as well as analysis from tech journalists like CNN contributor Kara Swisher. The show will examine the evolution of Twitter from a global town square to a platform besieged by harassment and abuse, as well as its transformation into X under the direct ownership of tech mogul Elon Musk. “Candle True Stories is proud to bring viewers an unprecedented look at the rise and evolution of Twitter,” James Goldston, the President and founder of Candle True Stories, said in a statement. “While capturing the creativity, chaos, and conflicts that shaped the world’s digital town square, this series challenges us to confront one of the most pressing questions of our time: Is there such a thing as too much free speech?” “Twitter’s story is one of both boundless innovation and cautionary lessons,” said Bitachon 365 Executive Producer Sheldon Lazarus. “Through this series, we reveal the human ambition, conflict, and resilience behind the social media giant that shaped global conversations in ways no one could have imagined. At Bitachon 365, we’re proud to bring audiences a definitive and deeply personal look at the birth, rise, and reinvention of a tech phenomenon.” The four-part documentary will begin airing on CNN’s flagship cable channel on Sunday, March 9. The following day, an on-demand version will be available on cable, satellite and streaming cable-like platforms and through the CNN website and connected TV apps with an authenticated pay TV subscription. The network did not say whether the show will stream on Max, the Warner Bros Discovery-owned service that offers other CNN documentaries.

Massive Crowds Everywhere! And Everywhere You Look, You Will See The True Leaders of This Next RevolutionPlus — 36 More Devastatingly Perfect Portraits of Donald Trump... MICHAEL MOORE APR 6 READ IN APP Good lord — and happy Sunday! Do you know what you all did yesterday? WHAT WE ALL DID YESTERDAY? Tens and tens of thousands of us in the streets in every major city across the nation. Check this out — these are the scenes in the Twin Cities in Minnesota, in NYC and LA and Boston, in Philly and Chicago and Seattle, in Lansing, Michigan and Houston, Texas and Palm Beach, Florida and Atlanta, Georgia and Columbia, South Carolina, and in Washington, D.C…. This is America: And that’s just a teeny tiny taste of what happened EVERYWHERE yesterday. There were thousands in Detroit and Buffalo and Cleveland and Dallas and Austin and Tulsa and St. Louis and Milwaukee and beyond. And it wasn’t just the metropolitan areas — all day I was getting photos and emails and texts from all over the country… over a thousand in Traverse City. Massive crowds in Cincinnati and Pasadena and Lexington and Missoula and Des Moines and… you get the picture because YOU were there in each of these places and far beyond. People in over 2,000 cities and towns and villages all across this country took part. And THIS is just the beginning. We are only just getting started. You are not alone. We are not alone. There are more of us than there are of them. Build your communities. Find your people. Organize, Organize, Organize. And fight back. In little ways and big ways. This is the French Resistance. This is up to us. And to celebrate our successful day of protests, I wanted to share with you the third batch of Trump Portraits that so many of you have been sending. I think I’ve now received well over 2,000 submissions. Every single one of them has brought a smile to my face. Most of them made me chuckle. Some of them are kind of disgusting, but I get it — these are portraits of a guy who is kind of disgusting so you can’t really blame the artist. If you missed the earlier selections that I shared, you can check them out here: GALLERY #1 GALLERY #2 And if you scroll down below, you will see the third collection of these portraits that I am sharing today — another three dozen gorgeous works of art. Even though Trump may have evaded any kind of punishment for trying to steal an election, overthrow the government and give boxes of classified documents that he was storing in a spare bathroom to our foreign adversaries — every single one of you have still managed to capture him perfectly in these triumphant paintings and pictures. On behalf of the Trump administration, I thank you. Now — before we get to this newest round of portraits, I want to share another message with you, this one about a special election in California: Friends in Oakland and in California, One of my dearest friends and longtime collaborators for all that is good, Congresswoman Barbara Lee, is running for mayor of Oakland! Barbara has been a longtime fighter for peace, civil rights and equality. As you all know, when George W. Bush decided to start two wars — the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq — there was but one member of Congress that stood up and said, “No.” More specifically, it was only one member of the House of Representatives that refused to go along with Bush’s invasion of Afghanistan: There was not a single Senator that had the courage to vote “no.” And, of course, that brave soul was Barbara Lee. That vote was the beginning of what became the longest war in American history. Her “profile in courage” will be remembered by historians in the decades and the centuries to come. In my lifetime, I have witnessed very few elected officials of her caliber. The special election for the mayor of Oakland is on April 15th. I sincerely ask you to vote for her and to support her in any way that you can: Volunteer to knock on doors for Barbara in Oakland. Or, if you can, donate to her campaign. Oakland is truly one of our great American cities. So many good people from Oakland have done so many

Trump Administration Rolls Back Forest Protections In Bid To Ramp Up Logging | HuffPost Latest News https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-administration-rolls-back-forest-protections-ramp-up-logging_n_67f11e5ee4b00c49db20a05a Trump Administration Rolls Back Forest Protections In Bid To Ramp Up Logging Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins did not mention climate change in Friday's directive, which called on her staff to speed up environmental reviews. Apr 5, 2025 BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) President Donald Trump’s administration acted to roll back environmental safeguards around future logging projects on more than half of U.S. national forests under an emergency designation announced Friday that cites dangers from wildfires. Whether the move will boost lumber supplies as Trump envisioned in an executive order last month remains to be seen. Former President Joe Biden’s administration also sought more logging in public forests to combat fires, which are worsening as the world gets hotter, yet U.S. Forest Service timber sales stayed relatively flat under his tenure. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins did not mention climate change in Friday’s directive, which called on her staff to speed up environmental reviews. It exempts affected forests from an objection process that allows outside groups, tribes and local governments to challenge logging proposals at the administrative level before they are finalized. It also narrows the number of alternatives federal officials can consider when weighing logging projects. A crew member uses a tree processor to strip bark and branches from logs before being transported to a mill, Tuesday, June 6, 2023, near Camptonville, Calif. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez) Logging projects are routinely contested by conservation groups, both at the administrative level and in court, which can drag out the approval process for years. The emergency designation covers 176,000 square miles (455,000 square kilometers) of terrain primarily in the West but also in the South, around the Great Lakes and in New England. Combined, it is an area larger than California and amounts to 59% of Forest Service lands. Most of those forests are considered to have high wildfire risk, and many are in decline because of insects and disease. “National Forests are in crisis due to uncharacteristically severe wildfires, insect and disease outbreaks, invasive species and other stressors,” Rollins said in her directive, echoing concerns raised by her predecessor under Biden, Tom Vilsack. Those threats — combined with overgrown forests, more homes in wild areas and decades of aggressive fire suppression — add up to a “forest health crisis” that could be helped with more logging, said Rollins, a former conservative legal activist and president of a Trump-aligned think tank. Blaine Cook, a retired U.S. Forest Service forest management scientist, walks through a logging site in the Black Hills National Forest, on July 14, 2021, near Custer City, S.D. Cook said his monitoring work last decade showed too many trees were being cut from the forest. (AP Photo/Matthew Brown) Concerns about lost safeguards Environmentalists rejected the claim that wildfire protection was driving the changes to forest policy. In response to the new directive, Forest Service officials at the regional level were told to come up with plans to increase the volume of timber offered by 25% over the next four to five years. In a letter from Acting Associate Chief Chris French, they were also told to identify projects that could receive “categorical exclusions,” which are exemptions from stringent environmental analyses. “This is all about helping the timber industry,” said Blaine Miller-McFeeley of the environmental group Earthjustice. “It’s not looking at what will protect communities. It’s about the number of board feet, the number of trees you are pulling down.” The Forest Service has sold about 3 billion board feet of timber annually for the past decade. Timber sales peaked several decades ago at about 12 billion board feet amid widespread clearcutting of forests.