Rebecca Solnit: We Are Firefighters: A Talk About the Climate and the Trees

… Breath by breath from our first to the last we take this atmosphere, this sky into where our lungs separate out the oxygen and our hearts send it coursing through our bodies and we exhale the rest, the nitrogen and the carbon dioxide. We think we are solids, but we are two thirds liquid, and survive through taking these sips of sky into our lungs.

Trees on the other hand, take in the carbon dioxide, making their bodies of it or sending it into the ground, and excrete oxygen, so the breaths each and all of us are taking in at this very moment are full of oxygen released into the atmosphere by plants, dating back to the origins of life and the blue-green algae that radically changed the composition of the atmosphere by giving it this oxygen. Then came billions of years in which plants pulled carbon dioxide out of the earth and buried it in the ground, where some of over the ages became coal, became petroleum, became the methane marketed as natural gas.
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Heather Cox Richardson: Letters from an American – April 25, 2025

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These actions to seize power and to hammer into place extremist MAGA immigration policies are dramatic demonstrations of the Trump administration’s attempt to destroy democracy. Indeed, the attempt to attack the judges could well be a reaction to the major losses the administration took from the courts this week.

As Jacob Knutson of Democracy Docket wrote, Trump suffered at least 11 legal setbacks this week as judges blocked Trump from gutting the Voice of America media outlet, blocked the administration from removing people in Colorado and New York under the Alien Enemies Act, ordered the administration to comply with discovery requests from Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s lawyers, told the Department of Education not to implement anti-DEI measures, blocked Trump’s executive order about elections, stopped the administration from impounding money from cities that don’t comply with its mass deportation orders, and blocked the administration from ending collective bargaining rights for federal workers.

The dramatic actions against ActBlue and immigrants are also signs of weakness as administration officials attempt to distract supporters not only from the disastrous tariffs, but also from the growing evidence that Trump is not functioning as a president should.
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Bulwark: Trump Might Finally Make Voters Care About Climate Change

The White House’s actions are making the issue relevant in ways they aren’t considering.

CLIMATE CHANGE DID NOT RANK HIGH among policy concerns heading into the 2024 election, according to a far-reaching Gallup survey. Just 21 percent of registered voters called it “extremely important,” while 29 percent said it was “very important.” The rest characterized the existential threat to humanity as either “somewhat important” (24 percent) or “not important” (26 percent).

But there are new factors that could make climate change—or at least climate-related issues—more pressing for the average voter. Take, for example, President Donald Trump’s clampdown on job-providing green-energy initiatives.
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AP: International students stripped of legal status in the US are piling up wins in court

Anjan Roy was studying with friends at Missouri State University when he got an email that turned his world upside down. His legal status as an international student had been terminated, and he was suddenly at risk for deportation.

“I was in literal shock, like, what the hell is this?” said Roy, a graduate student in computer science from Bangladesh.

At first, he avoided going out in public, skipping classes and mostly keeping his phone turned off. A court ruling in his favor led to his status being restored this week, and he has returned to his apartment, but he is still asking his roommates to screen visitors.
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Ken Klippenstein: Is a Military Coup Unfolding at the Pentagon?

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“As much as Hegseth’s detractors might be right that he is chaotic and ‘unqualified,’” a senior serving officer said in an email exchange with me this week, “he is Senate confirmed. It’s up to Donald Trump to remove him, not the uniformed military because they want someone else to lead them.”

Hegseth is, of course, a dumbass. He vows to bring back a “warrior culture” but all I see is a culture warrior. His focus on fighting “wokeness” in the military is a tedious detour into AM radio slop, especially while the U.S. is engaged in real wars in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and here at home.

Uniformed military officers and Pentagon officials I’ve talked to agree with this assessment, and they agree that those trying to defeat Hegseth are operating dangerously outside their lane. As one said to me over the weekend, “you can’t say you’re defending your oath and the Constitution while working to undermine it.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Monday that “the entire Pentagon is working against” Hegseth. Whatever you think of Hegseth or the hyperbole, this is not good for America.
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Heather Cox Richardson: Letters from an American – April 21, 2025

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The stock market plunged again today after President Donald J. Trump continued to harass Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell. The threat of instability if Trump tries to fire Powell, added to the instability already created by Trump’s tariff policies, saw the Dow Jones Industrial Average fall 971.82 points, or 2.48%; the S&P 500 dropped 2.36%, and the Nasdaq Composite fell 2.55%. The dollar hit a three-year low, while the value of gold soared. Journalist Brian Tyler Cohen noted that since Trump took office, the Dow has fallen 13.8%, the S&P 500 is down 15.5%, and the Nasdaq is down 20.5%.

Hannah Erin Lang of the Wall Street Journal reported that “[t]he Trump rout is taking on historic dimensions.” She noted that the Dow Jones Industrial Average “is headed for its worst April performance since 1932,” when the country was in the midst of the Great Depression. Scott Ladner, chief investment officer at Horizon Investments, told Lang: “It’s impossible to commit capital to an economy that is unstable and unknowable because of policy structure.”
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Beat of Hawaii: Why These Hawaii Travelers Were Jailed And Deported

Two young German travelers expected their Hawaii trip to be the highlight of a months-long world adventure. Instead, their visit ended in handcuffs, jail time, and deportation — a stark reminder of the risks some international visitors face at U.S. borders.

This story was first reported in Germany’s Ostsee-Zeitung newspaper, a major regional daily that has been published for over seventy years. The German Foreign Office confirmed its involvement in the case, providing consular support after the travelers were detained in Honolulu.
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Fox News: Protesters target Trump administration policies with march to White House, demonstrations throughout country

As families gathered for Easter egg hunts Saturday, thousands of protesters took to the streets in what organizers called “A National Day of Action.”

From Anchorage to Atlanta, demonstrators rallied in all 50 states and U.S. territories, targeting President Donald Trump’s policies.
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Charlotte Clymer: Authorities Detain and Execute Non-Citizen

JUDEA — Today, local authorities executed a non-citizen just outside the walls of Jerusalem on the vague charge of treason against Caesar.
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Tristan Snell: The ICE Man Cometh

Trump’s Gestapo is here. It operates throughout the country. It can suddenly arrest anyone, with no crime alleged, and deport them for permanent imprisonment overseas. Will anyone stop this?

Last year, I did a series called Decoding Project 2025 — and one of the most jarring Trumpian proposals was, from my point of view, the planned degradation of the existing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) into an immigration Gestapo to detain undocumented immigrants and deport them without any legal due process.

I was wrong.

It turns out ICE is not a Gestapo for undocumented immigrants.

It is a general Gestapo — a secret national police force not just for undocumented immigrants but for any immigrants, even legal ones with documents, even permanent residents (green card holders), and if Trump has his way, soon, even U.S. citizens.
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