Trump to strip protections from millions of acres of national forests

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2025/06/23/roadless-rule-public-lands-repeal/

The Agriculture Department said it would begin the process of rolling back protections for nearly 59 million roadless acres of the National Forest System.

June 23, 2025 at 6:23 p.m. EDTYesterday at 6:23 p.m. EDT

The Tongass National Forest on Prince of Wales Island in Alaska. Currently, 92 percent of the forest — 9 million acres — is protected from logging and roadbuilding. (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)

By Anna Phillips

and

Jake Spring

A decades-old rule protecting tens of millions of acres of pristine national forest land, including 9 million acres in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest, would be rescinded under plans announced Monday by the Trump administration.

Speaking at a meeting of Western governors in New Mexico, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said the administration would begin the process of rolling back protections for nearly 59 million roadless acres of the National Forest System.

If the rollback survives court challenges, it will open up vast swaths of largely untouched land to logging and roadbuilding. By the Agriculture Department’s estimate, this would include about 30 percent of the land in the National Forest System, encompassing 92 percent of Tongass, one of the last remaining intact temperate rainforests in the world. In a news release, the department, which houses the U.S. Forest Service, criticized the roadless rule as “outdated,” saying it “goes against the mandate of the USDA Forest Service to sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of the nation’s forests and grasslands.”

Environmental groups condemned the decision and vowed to take the administration to court.

“The roadless rule has protected 58 million acres of our wildest national forest lands from clear-cutting for more than a generation,” said Drew Caputo, vice president of litigation for lands, wildlife and oceans for the environmental firm Earthjustice. “The Trump administration now wants to throw these forest protections overboard so the timber industry can make huge money from unrestrained logging.”

The Roadless Area Conservation Rule dates to the late 1990s, when President Bill Clinton instructed the Forest Service to come up with ways to preserve increasingly scarce roadless areas in the national forests. Conservationists considered these lands essential for species whose habitats were being lost to encroaching development and large-scale timber harvests.

The protections, which took effect in 2001, have been the subject of court battles and sparring between Democrats and Republicans ever since.

The logging industry welcomed the decision.

“Our forests are extremely overgrown, overly dense, unhealthy, dead, dying and burning,” said Scott Dane, executive director for the American Loggers Council, a timber industry group with members in 46 states.

He said federal forests on average have about 300 trunks per acre, while the optimal density should be about 75 trunks. Dane said President Donald Trump’s policies have been misconstrued as opening up national forests to unrestricted logging, while in fact the industry practices sustainable forestry management subject to extensive requirements.

“To allow access into these forests, like we used to do prior to 2001 and for 100 years prior to that, will enable the forest managers to practice sustainable forest management,” he said.

Monday’s announcement follows Trump’s March 1 executive order instructing the Agriculture Department and the Interior Department to boost timber production, with an aim of reducing wildfire risk and reliance on foreign imports.

Because of its vast wilderness, environmental fragility and ancient trees, Alaska’s Tongass National Forest became the face of the issue. Democrats and environmentalists argued for keeping the roadless rule in place, saying it would protect critical habitat and prevent the carbon dioxide trapped in the forest’s trees from escaping into the atmosphere. Alaska’s governor and congressional delegation have countered that the rule hurts the timber industry and the state’s economy.

After court battles kept the rule in place, Trump stripped it out in 2020, during his first term, making it legal for logging companies to build roads and cut down trees in the Tongass. President Joe Biden restored the protections, restricting development on roughly 9.3 million acres throughout the forest.

Trump officials have gone further this time, targeting not just the rule’s application in Alaska but its protections nationwide. In her comments Monday, Rollins framed the decision as an effort to reduce the threat of wildfires by encouraging more local management of the nation’s forests.

“This misguided rule prohibits the Forest Service from thinning and cutting trees to prevent wildfires,” Rollins said. “And when fires start, the rule limits our firefighters’ access to quickly put them out.”

The Forest Service manages nearly 200 million acres of land, and its emphasis on preventing wildfires from growing out of control has become more central to its mission as the blazes have become more frequent and intense because of climate change. Yet critics of the administration’s approach have said Trump officials have worsened the danger by firing several thousand Forest Service employees this year.

Advocates for the roadless rule said ending it would do little to reduce the threat of wildfires, noting that the regulation already contains an exception for removing dangerous fuels that the Forest Service has used for years.

Chris Wood, chief executive of the conservation group Trout Unlimited, said the administration’s decision “feels a little bit like a solution in search of a problem.”

“There are provisions within the roadless rule that allow for wildfire fighting,” Wood said. “My hope is once they go through a rulemaking process, and they see how wildly unpopular and unnecessary this is, common sense will prevail.”

BREAKING: Stephen Miller’s Financial Stake in ICE Contractor Palantir Raises Conflict Concerns

https://migrantinsider.com/p/stephen-miller-palantir

POGO report shows top Trump adviser owned six-figure stock in company profiting off deportations.

Pablo Manríquez

Jun 24, 2025

Stephen Miller, the influential Trump administration aide behind its hardline immigration policies, holds a substantial financial stake in Palantir Technologies — a key tech contractor for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement — raising new ethics questions, according to a report published Tuesday by the Project on Government Oversight.

Miller, who served as President Donald Trump’s senior advisor on immigration and homeland security, disclosed owning between $100,001 and $250,000 of Palantir stock as of mid-March, according to financial disclosure forms obtained by the watchdog group. Ethics experts told POGO that Miller’s dual role crafting enforcement policy and investing in Palantir, which provides “mission-critical” data services for ICE, could amount to a troubling conflict of interest.

“Given Miller’s deep involvement in ICE policy and operations, this is more than just a bad look — it could easily become a serious ethics issue,” Don Fox, former acting head of the Office of Government Ethics, told POGO. “You don’t want to be in a position to say, ‘Mr. President, I can’t work on that because I have a conflict.’”

Virginia Canter, chief counsel for ethics and anticorruption at Democracy Defenders Fund and a former federal attorney, added that Miller appeared to be “just on the verge” of breaking ethics rules.

Palantir’s ICE contract and political connections have long been controversial. The company’s tools have enabled ICE agents to identify, detain and deport people, including through recent enhancements that give officers near-real-time data on self-deportations. Meanwhile, Palantir stock has surged more than 80% this year, making it one of the top performers on the S&P 500.

Miller’s disclosure also revealed that the Palantir stock is held in one of his children’s brokerage accounts, but federal ethics rules apply the same legal standards to assets owned by spouses or minor children.

In a statement to POGO, the White House defended Miller’s disclosures and said he will continue to recuse himself from decisions that could directly impact his personal investments. Palantir did not respond to POGO’s request for comment.

The report follows a pattern of Trump appointees and allies with financial interests in Palantir. POGO previously documented that at least 10 other current or former White House and Department of Homeland Security staffers also owned stock in the company. Four Trump appointees at DHS have reported owning Palantir shares, including Paul Ingrassia, White House liaison to DHS, who was recently nominated to lead the U.S. Office of Special Counsel.

Let’s talk about Trump, tips, overtime, and the taxman….

Some good, bad, and really ugly news from Joe My God.

Trump Loses Yet Another Round Against Harvard

Senate Parliamentarian Nixes GOP’s Food Stamps Plot

Senate Parliamentarian Nixes Limits On Suing Trump

Hawley: Medicaid Cuts Present “Nightmare Scenario”

Dodgers Donate $1M To Families Impacted By ICE

Trump Reverses Again On ICE Raids At Farms: I Don’t Want To Hurt Our Farmers, They Keep Us Happy And Fat

Trump Demands Special Prosecutor Over 2020 Election

GOP Rep. Randy Fine Compares Mamdani To Iranian Supreme Leader: He’ll Turn NYC Into Shiite Caliphate

“Zohran Mamdani would do to New York City what Khomeini and Khamenei did to Tehran,” Fine said. “We cannot let radical Muslims turn America into a Shiite caliphate.”

HHS Threatens To Defund California Over Sex Ed

Perkins: If We Don’t Attack Iran, God Will Smite USA

Loomer: You’re Not MAGA If You Don’t Hate Muslims

Vance Mocks Sen. Alex Padilla By Calling Him “Jose”

So much for saving government money which they all claimed while shredding our government with the illegal doge. Hugs

Megabill Would Trash $10B In New USPS Electric Trucks

The proposal is unlikely to generate much revenue for the government; there is almost no private-sector interest in the mail trucks, and used EV charging equipment — built specifically for the Postal Service and already installed in postal facilities — generally cannot be resold.

“The funds realized by auctioning the vehicles and infrastructure would be negligible. Much of infrastructure is literally buried under parking lots, and there is no market for used charging equipment,” Peter Pastre, the Postal Service’s vice president for government relations and public policy, wrote to senators this month.

Read the full article. $10 billion into the sewer to please their Glorious Leader. Something something DOGE.

Stephen Miller’s Fingerprints Are on Everything in Trump’s Second Term

https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/stephen-miller-trump-immigration-c1e0e924?st=yCayfj&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

The deputy chief of staff has played an outsize role in immigration—and amassed more power than almost anyone else at the White House

By

Josh Dawsey

Follow

and

Rebecca Ballhaus

Follow

June 20, 2025 9:00 pm ET

Stephen Miller spoke at an April event in Warren, Mich., marking President Trump’s first 100 days in office. Photo: Jeff Kowalsky/AFP/Getty Images

Stephen Miller wanted to keep the planes in the air—and that is where they stayed.

When a federal judge in March told the Trump administration to turn around flights of deported migrants headed to El Salvador, senior officials hastily convened a Saturday evening conference call to figure out what to do.

If they didn’t return the passengers, they would be defying a court order, some administration officials worried. Miller, who is President Trump’s deputy chief of staff, pushed for the planes to keep flying, which they ultimately did. The judge would later say that allowing officials to defy court judgments would make a “solemn mockery” of the Constitution.

The 39-year-old immigration hawk, who has been by Trump’s side since the 2016 campaign, has emerged as a singular figure in the second Trump administration, wielding more power than almost any other White House staffer in recent memory—and eager to circumvent legal limitations on his agenda.

He has his own staff of about 30 and a Secret Service detail, which White House officials said was because he had received death threats and serves as homeland security adviser. He has been responsible for the administration’s broadsides against universities, law firms and even museums. He has written or edited every executive order that Trump has signed.

Miller had considerable sway in Trump’s first term. But when aides at the time suggested promoting Miller to a leadership role at the Department of Homeland Security, Trump declined, according to a former administration official, telling aides he thought Miller wasn’t leader material.

His influence has expanded sharply since, thanks largely to his steadfast loyalty to Trump. This account of Miller’s tenure is based on interviews with current and former White House officials, Trump advisers and other prominent Republicans.

Some of Miller’s colleagues said they were alarmed by some of the legal maneuvers that Miller has proposed for executing the administration’s anti-immigrant agenda, and Trump has gently ribbed him for being too “happy” about deportations.

Miller, who has written or edited every executive order signed by Trump in his second term, attended a May event of the Make America Healthy Again Commission. Photo: Jacquelyn Martin/Associated Press

Miller, who isn’t a lawyer, is the official who first suggested using the wartime Alien Enemies Act to deport migrants, which the Justice Department pursued. He also privately, then publicly, floated suspending habeas corpus, or the right for prisoners to challenge their detention in court, which the administration hasn’t tried. That prompted pushback from other senior White House and Justice Department officials.

His orders to increase arrests regardless of migrants’ criminal histories set off days of protests in Los Angeles. Miller coordinated the federal government’s response, giving orders to agencies including the Pentagon, when Trump sent in the Marines and the National Guard, according to officials familiar with the matter.

Miller’s portfolio covers almost every issue Trump is interested in. In recent months, he talked to CEOs about a coming tariff announcement; joined a meeting between Meta Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg and Trump about the company’s antitrust case; and met with other tech companies on artificial intelligence.

Even some posts at cabinet agencies have been described by administration officials as reporting directly to Miller, effectively bypassing cabinet secretaries.

There are some limits to his influence. He was supportive of Meta’s push to settle its antitrust case, which fell flat. Trump last week signaled concerns that the administration’s deportation policies were too aggressive, calling for a pause in some deportations that he has since rolled back. Trump, asked how Miller’s directives on deportations squared with his own, declined to put distance between the two of them. “We have a great understanding,” Trump said.

The aggressive posture has started to spark some voter backlash, with polls showing Trump’s approval rating on immigration and deportations has turned negative.

Several White House staffers said Miller always takes the most “extreme” view of any issue, and his positions have cost the administration in court. In Trump’s first 100 days back in office, courts issued nationwide injunctions in 25 cases against the federal government, compared with six in his entire first term and four during the Biden administration, according to a report by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. Several cases have already reached the Supreme Court, which has ruled against Trump on some immigration cases.

“I think the administration has miscalculated and overstepped,” said Skye Perryman, who leads Democracy Forward, an organization that has repeatedly sued Trump.

Miller has responded to the courts’ intervention by denouncing it as “judicial tyranny.” His allies argue illegal border crossings are down to almost zero because his aggressive proposals are deterring migrants.

“Stephen Miller is one of President Trump’s most trusted and longest serving aides for a reason—he delivers,” said Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary.

In the wilderness

Miller stuck by Trump when many staffers quit their jobs after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. He had helped draft Trump’s speech that morning, and worked until 12 p.m. on Jan. 20—the day Trump’s first term ended—telling the officer taking his badge he would be back in four years.

“Sixteen Hundred Pennsylvania Avenue is the greatest address in the world, and though we now leave these gates, rest assured, this is not goodbye,” he wrote to colleagues.

Three months later, Miller launched a nonprofit, America First Legal, aimed at countering what Miller described as a “years-long, one-sided legal assault” by the left. “Now, we must turn the tables,” he said at the time.

Over the next four years, it filed dozens of lawsuits, many of which are ongoing, categorized on its website under topics including “DEI,” “Woke Corporations” and “Women’s Sports.” The group’s targets are now under fire from the Trump administration, too.

Miller speaking with reporters outside the White House in January. Photo: Francis Chung/Press Pool

In 2022, the group called on the Education Department to stop distributing federal funds to universities where it alleged antisemitism was festering. Three years later, the Trump administration would do just that at universities including Harvard, Columbia and Northwestern.

In 2024, Miller’s group helped 16 Republican-led states sue the Biden administration over a policy that protected illegal immigrants married to U.S. citizens from deportation. A judge ruled in the states’ favor, and the Trump administration overturned the policy this year.

By the time Trump returned to the White House, the group had about two dozen lawyers on staff and had raised more than $60 million from donors, whose identities it doesn’t disclose. The group paid Miller more than $500,000 last year, according to his financial disclosure.

Meanwhile, Miller continued to play an active role across the Republican Party, even if his outreach wasn’t always welcome.

Congressional aides fielded lengthy calls from Miller about illegal immigration, often without any specific requests. One likened him to a grandmother who wouldn’t stop talking and said his calls were akin to listening to a podcast. Others said he would call to scold aides about how they had framed a social-media post on a particular issue or criticizing the way they had worded a press release.

As a House committee prepared for then-Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to testify, Miller came to the Hill to play the role of Mayorkas, aides said. During the prep, he answered questions as the secretary—but also chimed in to give lawmakers advice on questions.

Miller was determined to kill a bipartisan bill pushed by Republican Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma in 2024 on the border and regularly called House Speaker Mike Johnson.

He also called the Republican National Committee to offer his advice on how the party should communicate on immigration, sometimes offering his thoughts on what the RNC chairman could tweet, people familiar with the discussions said.

He was a regular visitor to Mar-a-Lago during the campaign, meeting with Trump above his ballroom. Campaign aides say Miller always wanted to talk more about immigration. Trump’s top pollster, Tony Fabrizio, and his other aides wanted to keep the message on the economy. Trump staffers started displaying ominous photos of migrants at his events.

Some posts at cabinet agencies have been described by administration officials as reporting directly to Miller. Photo: Win McNamee/Getty Images

Hundreds of orders

In the first term, Trump was largely unprepared to govern. Miller regularly complained then that others in the administration tried to block his immigration decisions, and outside lawyers would stymie their efforts. This time, Miller came in determined to correct that.

He brought hundreds of proposed orders to the White House as well as his own staff. Russell Vought, the onetime treasurer of America First Legal, is now the White House budget chief. Reed Rubinstein, the group’s senior vice president, was nominated as legal adviser of the State Department. Matt Whitaker, a board member, is the U.S. permanent representative to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

He now tells other staffers how to behave around Trump, people who have heard his comments say, and upgraded his office from one on a different floor to one steps from the Oval Office.

During the first term, Miller would push for hard-line policies that others blanched at, including advocating for several dozen countries to be added to the travel ban list of seven, a former administration official said. People laughed, but he was serious, the official said. This time, Trump announced a ban that covered a dozen countries.

He keeps in Trump’s good graces by giving Trump ideas—but more importantly, helping the president carry his own out.

Administration officials noted how Miller shut down discussion about whether the U.S. should bomb Houthi targets in a Signal chat that was accidentally shared with The Atlantic’s editor in chief. As the vice president and top national security officials discussed options, Miller weighed in.

“As I heard it, the president was clear,” Miller said. “Green light,” he added.

Earlier this month, Leavitt, the press secretary, interviewed Miller at a private event for Republican donors at the Four Seasons in Washington.

Miller, who grew up in Santa Monica, Calif., said large swaths of Los Angeles were engaged in a “rebellion,” according to people present.

Los Angeles had become like Cancún, he said—it was fine to visit, but not good for its own citizens. To conclude the event, Leavitt told the crowd that Miller needed to return to his work of deportations.

Miller smiled in response, and then left to return to the White House.

Write to Josh Dawsey at Joshua.Dawsey@WSJ.com and Rebecca Ballhaus at rebecca.ballhaus@wsj.com

Pride Month display at NYC’s Stonewall National Monument excludes transgender flags

https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/stonewall-national-monument-transgender-flags-missing/#originhttps3A2F2Fwwwgooglecom2Fcapswipeeducationwebview1dialog1viewportnaturalvisibilityStateprerenderprerenderSize1viewerUrlhttps3A2F2Fwwwgooglecom2Famp2Fs2Fwww-cbsnews-comcdnampprojectorg2Fc2Fs2Fwwwcbsnewscom2Fnewyork2Fnews2Fstonewall-national-monument-transgender-flags-missing3Fusqpmq331AQIUAKwASCAAgM25253Damp_kit1

The transgender flags that usually adorn the Stonewall National Monument in New York City during Pride Month were missing this year, so some New Yorkers are taking matters into their own hands.

This comes as the National Park Service is accused of actively erasing transgender visibility and history.

“It’s a terrible action for them to take”

During June, Pride flags are placed around the park’s fence. They usually include a mixture of rainbow LGBTQ+ flags, transgender flags and progress flags, which have stripes to include communities of color.

Photographer and advocate Steven Love Menendez said he created and won federal approval for the installation nine years ago. Within a few years, the National Park Service was picking up the tab, buying and installing flags, including trans ones.

Pride flags fly in the wind at the Stonewall National Monument in Manhattan’s West Village on June 19, 2023 in New York City.Spencer Platt/Getty Images

This year, however, Menendez said the National Park Service told him to change the protocol.

“I was told … only the traditional rainbow flag would be displayed this year,” he said.

Now, no transgender or progress flags are among the 250 rainbow flags installed around the park.

“It’s a terrible action for them to take,” Menendez said.

Earlier this year, the National Park Service removed references to transgender and queer people from the Stonewall National Monument’s website.

“I used to be listed as an LGBTQ activist, and now it says ‘Steven Menendez, LGB activist,'” Menendez said. “They took out the Q and the T.”

“I’m not going to stand by and watch us be erased from our own history”

Many visiting the monument said they are opposed to the change.

“I think it’s absurd. I think it’s petty,” said Willa Kingsford, a tourist from Portland.

“It’s horrible. They’re changing all of our history,” Los Angeles resident Patty Carter said.

Jay Edinin, of Queens, brought his own transgender flag to the monument.

“I’m not going to stand by and watch us be erased from our own history, from our own communities, and from the visibility that we desperately need right now,” he said.

The transgender flags that usually adorn the Stonewall National Monument in New York City during Pride Month were missing this year, so some New Yorkers are taking matters into their own hands.CBS News New York

He is not the only one bringing unauthorized flags to the park. A number of trans flags were seen planted in the soil.

National Park Service workers at the park told CBS News New York they are not authorized to speak on this subject. CBS News New York reached out by phone and email to the National Park Service and has not yet heard back.

Dave Carlin

Dave Carlin has covered major national news stories and events in the past four decades including Superstorm Sandy and its tri-state impacts, Hurricane Hugo in South Carolina and Iniki on Kauai, Hawaii. He also covered the Space Shuttle Program, 1989 San Francisco Earthquake, numerous Southern California wildfires, the trial and execution of serial killer Ted Bundy in Florida, the 1994 police shooting death of Tyke the eacaped Cirus Elephant on the streets of Honolulu, 2009’s Miracle on the Hudson, the NYC Mayoral administrations of Bloomberg through Adams and more.

Bill White: In Trump’s world facts are inconvenient, irrelevant

Bill White: In Trump’s world facts are inconvenient, irrelevant

My wife and I recently returned from a Danube River cruise — no, it’s not blue, the waltz notwithstanding — and we had a wonderful time.

One of the many pleasures of these relatively small river cruises is all the interesting people you get to meet from around the world. This time around, we spent most of our time with Canadians and Australians, who seemed to enjoy our company once they determined we shared their low opinion of our president.

When one of the Canadians we dined with several times learned that we had signed on for a “Sound of Music” tour of Salzburg, Austria — featuring fountains, mountains, cityscapes, trees, a church and other locations from the movie — he told a nice story about an Austrian who emotionally described to him his love for their traditional folk song, “Edelweiss.”

I had read that the song actually was written just for the movie and had no significance for Austrians, which our guide confirmed the next day. So when our new friend repeated his story at dinner that evening, I politely corrected him, explaining that although some Austrians may have embraced the song — the Edelweiss is their national flower — it was a Rodgers and Hammerstein creation.

I won’t say our friend was crestfallen, but he did seem disappointed. I should add that I have a long tradition of spoiling people’s favorite stories, in part through the urban legend columns I used to write semiregularly.

So here’s the question. Is the truth really that important, if it spoils a good narrative?

After all, we’re in what some people have characterized as the Post-Truth Era, ushered in most recently by Donald Trump, his congressional lapdogs and Fox News but immortalized much earlier by Adolf Hitler and his Nazi regime. Falsehoods abound, not just in the White House but all over social media.

Here’s how the European Center for Populism Studies explained the Big Lie technique.

The big lie is the name of a propaganda technique, originally coined by Adolf Hitler in “Mein Kampf,” who says “The great masses of the people … will more easily fall victim to a big lie than to a small one,” and denotes where a known falsehood is stated and repeated and treated as if it is self-evidently true, in hopes of swaying the course of an argument in a direction that takes the big lie for granted rather than critically questioning it or ignoring it.

Pssst. If that doesn’t sound familiar, wake up.

Hitler used it to blame his country’s problems on his best available scapegoat, Jewish people. Trump and company have broadened this approach to encompass multiple scapegoats — immigrants, foreigners, transgender people, people who are “woke” because they encourage social justice and care about the future health of our planet — and to big lies involving the 2020 election and so many other subjects that we’re numb to it. He lies about everything, and his supporters don’t seem to know or care.

I remember when the idea of act checking first emerged in political coverage. Instead of just quoting politicians who were fudging the truth, the fact-checkers would point out when they were lying or exaggerating, in the case of The Washington Post by assigning up to four Pinocchios for the most egregious falsehoods.

Some politicians would correct themselves in future pronouncements. Others wouldn’t bother.

Trump, the ultimate Pinocchio, is oblivious to Fact Checking. He just plows ahead — “They’re eating the dogs, they’re eating the cats!” — repeating the same misinformation over and over at rallies, news conferences, debates. Facts are irrelevant.

Perhaps most amazingly, his long-since-debunked fraud allegations regarding the 2020 election are being incorporated into Oklahoma’s public-school curriculum. Elsewhere, facts about racial injustice, climate change and our nation’s history have been altered or eliminated from public school curricula to suit the MAGA agenda. Kinglike, Trump even is punishing colleges, states and others who won’t go along with his determination to impose “1984”-style Newspeak.

I think at least some Trump followers — particularly Republican elected leaders — know he is lying. But because it suits their preferred narrative, they go along. That’s frightening enough. Even scarier, though, are the people who are too dim, lazy or Foxcentric to figure out that we’re not being overrun by bloodthirsty killer immigrants or that non-straight men and women aren’t a threat to our military, our children or anything else, not to mention that Trump really lost the 2020 election, that the rioters storming the Capitol weren’t the true victims of Jan. 6, that indiscriminate ICE goon squads aren’t the best solution to illegal immigration and that vaccinating our children continues to be a very good idea.

They don’t just accept the lies. They spread them. That’s why we must be advocates for the truth, correcting and even confronting falsehoods, at rallies, on social media, in conversations. Ignorance is not bliss. It’s fueling our country’s descent into unrecognizable autocratic chaos.

“Eidelweiss” may be trivial. But innocent people being demonized? Trust in our elections destroyed? Our constitutional guarantees shredded? Our planet’s climate threatened? Long-dead diseases given new life?History rewritten?

Speak up. The truth is worth defending.

This is a contributed opinion column. Bill White can be reached at whitebil1974@gmail.com. His Threads handle is whitebil2000. The views expressed in this piece are those of its individual author and should not be interpreted as reflecting the views of this publication. For more details on commentaries, read our guide to guest opinions at themorningcall.com/opinions.

ICE Is Beating Up Pregnant Women Now

Records dump shows hundreds of letters sent to Starbase residents warning possible loss of property rights

The leopards eating faces party won’t eat my face when I join it. They were told they could lose their homes before they voted to make Musk the king of his own town. The right gets so star struck they will vote for things they know will hurt them. Hugs

https://myrgv.com/alerts-vms/2025/06/18/records-dump-shows-hundreds-of-letters-sent-to-starbase-residents-warning-possible-loss-of-property-rights/

A view along St. Jude Street at SpaceX’s Starbase at Boca Chica Beach on Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2024. (Miguel Roberts/The Brownsville Herald)

The newly incorporated city of Starbase has sent out hundreds letters to property owners and individuals who reside within its city limits notifying them about the possibility that they may lose their property pending the city’s adoption of a zoning ordinance.

A Texas Public Information Act request filed by MyRGV.com has revealed that hundreds of such letters were sent.

The letters, which are dated May 21, invite the recipients to attend a public hearing scheduled for Monday in which the proposed comprehensive zoning ordinance will be discussed and possibly adopted.

Recipients of the letters were informed that they either live or own property that is listed in areas that could be impacted by the zoning ordinance if it is approved.

“Our goal is to ensure that the zoning plan reflects the City’s vision for balanced growth, protecting critical economic drivers, ensuring public safety, and preserving green spaces,” the letters read.

The letters each follow the same format, notifying recipients that the properties in question are listed in areas that the city says will be located in either the “Heavy Industrial District,” the “Open Space District,” or the “Mixed Use District.” They also include proposed zoning maps showing the areas that could be affected.

The city’s intentions with each of the districts are briefly explained in the letters.

“The Heavy Industrial District is intended for large-scale industrial and manufacturing activities that, by their nature, require robust infrastructure, significant space, and larger buffers from non-industrial uses,” one letter explained.

“The Open Space District is designed to preserve and enhance lands for recreation, conservation, environmental protection and ensure public safety from critical operations,” another read.

“The Mixed Use District allows for a blend of residential, office, retail, and small-scale service uses,” read another.

This map illustrates the city of Starbase’s proposed zoning map. The blue is designated for the Mixed Use District. The Open Space District is in green. And in red is the Heavy Industrial District. (Courtesy graphic)

The letters then go on to inform the recipients that the upcoming hearing could result in the loss of property.

“The city of Starbase is holding a hearing that will determine whether you may lose the right to continue using your property for its current use, please read this notice carefully,” the letter reads in all caps and bolded letters.

The letter ends encouraging recipients to contact Starbase City Administrator Kent Myers with any questions or comments for the public hearing, which must be submitted by 3 p.m. on June 22.

The public hearing is scheduled for 9 a.m. Monday the city of Starbase temporary city hall, which is located at 39046 L B J Boulevard. The agenda for the meeting has yet to be posted on the city’s website, which according to state law must be posted 72 hours before the scheduled meeting.

DHS issues new guidance for lawmakers visiting ICE facilities after tense confrontations

The fact is ICE and the DHS want to not have accountability because they are clearly breaking the law. Random people not in uniform or showing identification with masked faces is not detaining or arresting. It is out right kidnapping. And any movement of that person from that point on is trafficking. So this is a lawless government who feels it is above the laws and doesn’t have to answer to any other branch of government. Scary times. Hugs

https://www.cnn.com/2025/06/19/politics/dhs-ice-visits-congress-lawmakers

By Shania Shelton, CNN

3 minute read

Published 10:16 AM EDT, Thu June 19, 2025

Mayor Ras Baraka of Newark confronts ICE agents at a demonstration outside an immigrant detention centre in Elizabeth, New Jersey in May 2025. The Mayor arrived at the gates of Delaney Hall to inspect the previously vacant prison that is being converted into an immigrant detention center.

Timothy A. Clary/AFP via Getty Images

After a spate of tense encounters involving lawmakers at Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities, the Department of Homeland Security is asking members of Congress to provide 72 hours of notice before visiting detention centers, according to new guidance.

Under the annual appropriations act, lawmakers are allowed to enter any DHS facilities “used to detain or otherwise house aliens” to inspect them as part of their oversight duties. The act outlines that they are not required “to provide prior notice of the intent to enter a facility.”

The agency’s new memo also seeks to differentiate ICE field offices from detention facilities, noting that “ICE Field Offices are not detention facilities” and therefore do not fall under the appropriations act provision.

Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, the top Democrat on the Homeland Security Committee, called the move “unprecedented” and an “affront to the Constitution and Federal law.”

“This unlawful policy is a smokescreen to deny Member visits to ICE offices across the country, which are holding migrants – and sometimes even U.S. citizens – for days at a time. They are therefore detention facilities and are subject to oversight and inspection at any time. DHS pretending otherwise is simply their latest lie,” Thompson said in a statement.

Previous DHS language for lawmaker visitations said “ICE will comply with the law and accommodate Members seeking to visit/tour an ICE detention facility for the purpose of conducting oversight.”

The recent memo now says the department “will make every effort” to comply with the law and accommodate members, while listing circumstances like “operational conditions, security posture, etc,” that could impact the time of entry.

CNN has reached out to DHS for comment and further information.

The recent changes come as Democratic lawmakers have had run-ins with law enforcement after showing up at the facilities as they push back against the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

Rep. LaMonica McIver exits the grounds at Delancey Hall ICE detention prison, Friday, May 9, 2025, in Newark, N.J,

Angelina Katsanis/AP/File

Democratic Rep. LaMonica McIver was indicted last week on federal charges alleging she impeded and interfered with immigration officers outside a New Jersey detention center as McIver and other Democratic lawmakers, Reps. Robert Menendez Jr. and Bonnie Watson Coleman, tried to visit the Newark facility last month.

Newark Mayor Ras Baraka was arrested at the scene after attempting to join the three members of New Jersey’s congressional delegation in entering the facility. He was charged with trespassing, which was later dropped.

Other lawmakers have faced similar treatment in recent weeks while protesting President Donald Trump’s immigration policies.

Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla was forcefully removed from a news conference in Los Angeles last week and coerced to the ground after attempting to ask Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem a question.

He interrupted Noem as she was giving remarks at the FBI headquarters in Los Angeles on the administration’s response to the anti-ICE protests in the city. He was quickly removed from the room, brought to the ground by law enforcement, and placed in handcuffs during the rapidly unfolding incident.

New York City Comptroller Brad Lander is placed under arrest by ICE and FBI agents outside federal immigration court on Tuesday, June 17, 2025, in New York.

Olga Fedorova/AP

In another instance, New York City comptroller and mayoral candidate Brad Lander was arrested at Manhattan’s immigration court on Tuesday after he tried to escort a migrant whom officers were attempting to arrest.

Multiple videos showed the New York politician standing next to a man and locking arms with him as federal officers approached. The officers asked Lander to step aside so they could arrest the man, and when he and other bystanders tried to block the arrest, a scuffle broke out between them.

CNN’s Holmes Lybrand and Karina Tsui contributed to this report.