House Dem says she needs more migrants in her area
Redistricting is the process of dividing up new electoral district boundaries. Therefore, Clarke's adversaries said her comment showed her desire to move more people, who would perhaps vote in her favor, into her constituency. Clarke's words were brought up during a Homeland Security Committee in March this year - in which President Joe Biden 's border security policies were discussed.
Rep. Reli Crane, an Arizona Republican, played the clip, saying: 'Her words outline Biden's failed plans for illegal immigration to gain political influence.' Her comments came at a time when Democrats in the state were passing a congressional map that redid district lines. Districts in New York City did not change.
After recently resurfacing, Clarke's previous comments have sparked fury online amongst conservatives, who blamed her for trying to 'import votes.' One person posted: 'So we're just saying the quiet part out loud now? Import votes. Manipulate districts. Call it equity.' They continued: 'This isn't representation, it's population engineering for political survival. And every American should be outraged.'
Another person posted: 'She's openly admitting to bringing in votes to cling to power. Did she think this wouldn't leak, or have Democrats become this brazen? This isn't democracy, it's blatant voter fraud on a massive scale. Shameful.' 'This has always been their game plan. They can't win on policy, so they must rig it', another added. President Donald Trump has been cracking down on illegal immigration after his return to the White House earlier this year.
An operation in New York in April saw 133 people arrested across Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Albany, Rouses Point and Massena. Stephen Miller, the president's deputy chief of staff and chief architect of his immigration policies, has set a target of at least 3,000 immigration arrests a day.
Miller and 'Border Czar' Tom Homan have both suggested that the numbers are not currently where they want them. Homan backed the ambitious new benchmark, insisting: 'We've gotta' increase these arrests and removals.'
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The Independent
an hour ago
- The Independent
The Daily Show jokes that Trump is going after famous Black people in an effort to deflect interest away from Epstein
The Daily Show lambasted President Trump for using a series of targeted verbal attacks to distract attention from the Jeffrey Epstein debacle. 'Trump is going to target every exceptional Black person he can think of,' returning correspondent Jessica Williams said on Jon Stewart 's show Monday night while highlighting that in recent weeks, Trump has singled out Beyonce, Oprah, and former Vice President Kamala with threats. 'We're about a week away from him saying that Urkel did 9/11? Urkel! 'Did he do that?' No, Jon, no, he didn't. He was nowhere near the towers that day,' an Emmy-nominated star joked about the famous child actor who appeared on the '90s sitcom 'Family Matters.' Steve Urkel, a character played by Jaleel White, became associated with the catchphrase 'Did I do that?' which typically followed acts of clumsiness. Williams joked that Trump may even start going after other notorious Black celebrities, including Michael Jordan and Michael B. Jordan. 'He better watch his back. I'm scared for him,' she teased about an imaginary 'Michael C Jordan' on the topic. Williams, an actor and a comedian, formerly appeared as a series regular on the Nickelodeon series 'Just for Kicks' in 2006, before becoming The Daily Show 's youngest correspondent at 22 years old in 2012. Earlier in the show, Stewart spoke on the Epstein scandal after the deputy attorney general, Todd Blanche, met with Ghislaine Maxwell last week. The former socialite is currently serving a 20-year sentence after being convicted for her role in helping Epstein recruit, groom, and abuse underage girls. The talk show host then suggested that the president is trying to downplay his relationship with Epstein and any mishandling of the documents relating to the disgraced financier's case. During the show, Stewart showed a Truth Social post, where Trump lashed out at Beyoncé, Oprah, and former Vice President Kamala Harris on Saturday, demanding that 'they should all be prosecuted!' for 'illegally endorsing' the Democrats in the 2024 presidential election. 'Kamala, and all of those that received endorsement money, BROKE THE LAW,' Trump wrote. Williams, who joined in at the end of the segment, called out the president's 'b*****t' before adding that she had 'had it with Trump.' 'He's got to come clean about Epstein,' she insisted. It was reported earlier this month that in May, Attorney General Pam Bondi told Trump that his name appeared in the files. The president has since filed a $10 billion defamation lawsuit against Rupert Murdoch and The Wall Street Journal 's parent companies, News Corp and Dow Jones, following the newspaper's publication of the president's alleged birthday letter to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The president has consistently denied any wrongdoing regarding his friendship with Epstein. On Sunday, Trump suggested that the Democrats are focused on conspiracy theories. He claimed that 'all they know how to do is talk and think about conspiracy theories and nonsense.' The president is currently on his final day of his visit to Scotland, where he told a reporter to scrap any ideas of his alleged involvement. "Oh, you gotta be kidding with that," Trump said. "No, had nothing to do with it. Only you would think that. That had nothing to do with it."
The Independent
2 hours ago
- The Independent
With AI plan, Trump keeps chipping away at a foundational environmental law
When President Donald Trump rolled out a plan to boost artificial intelligence and data centers, a key goal was wiping away barriers to rapid growth. And that meant taking aim at the National Environmental Policy Act — a 55-year-old, bedrock law aimed at protecting the environment though a process that requires agencies to consider a project's possible impacts and allows the public to be heard before a project is approved. Data centers, demanding vast amounts of energy and water, have aroused strong opposition in some communities. The AI Action Plan Trump announced last week would seek to sweep aside NEPA, as it's commonly known, to streamline environmental reviews and permitting for data centers and related infrastructure. Republicans and business interests have long criticized NEPA for what they see as unreasonable slowing of development, and Trump's plan would give 'categorical exclusions' to data centers for 'maximum efficiency' in permitting. A spokeswoman for the White House Council on Environmental Quality said the administration is 'focused on driving meaningful NEPA reform to reduce the delays in federal permitting, unleashing the ability for America to strengthen its AI and manufacturing leadership." Trump's administration has been weakening the law for months. 'It's par for the course for this administration. The attitude is to clear the way for projects that harm communities and the environment,' said Erin Doran, senior staff attorney at environmental nonprofit Food & Water Watch. Here's what to know about this key environmental law, and Trump's effort to weaken it: What is NEPA and why does it matter? NEPA is a foundational environmental law in the United States, 'essentially our Magna Carta for the environment,' said Wendy Park, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, another environmental group, referring to the 13th century English legal text that formed the basis for constitutions worldwide. Signed into law by President Richard Nixon in 1970, NEPA requires federal agencies proposing actions such as building roads, bridges or energy projects to study how their project will affect the environment. Private companies are also frequently subject to NEPA standards when they apply for a permit from a federal agency. In recent years, the law has become increasingly important in requiring consideration of a project's possible contributions to climate change. 'That's a really important function because otherwise we're just operating with blinders just to get the project done, without considering whether there are alternative solutions that might accomplish the same objective, but in a more environmentally friendly way," Park said. But business groups say NEPA routinely blocks important projects that often taken five years or more to complete. 'Our broken permitting system has long been a national embarrassment,'' said Marty Durbin, president of the U.S. Chamber's Global Energy Institute. He called NEPA 'a blunt and haphazard tool' that too often is used to block investment and economic development. The White House proposal comes as Congress is working on a permitting reform plan that would overhaul NEPA, addressing long-standing concerns from both parties that development projects -- including some for clean energy -- take too long to be approved. What's happened to NEPA recently? NEPA's strength — and usefulness — can depend on how it's interpreted by different administrations. Trump, a Republican, sought to weaken NEPA in his first term by limiting when environmental reviews are required and limiting the time for evaluation and public comment. Former Democratic President Joe Biden restored more rigorous reviews. In his second term, Trump has again targeted the law. An executive order that touched on environmental statutes has many agencies scrapping the requirement for a draft environmental impact statement. And the CEQ in May withdrew Biden-era guidance that federal agencies should consider the effects of planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions when conducting NEPA reviews. Separately, the U.S. Supreme Court in May narrowed the scope of environmental reviews required for major infrastructure projects. In a ruling involving a Utah railway expansion project aimed at quadrupling oil production, the court said NEPA wasn't designed 'for judges to hamstring new infrastructure and construction projects.' "It's been a rough eight months for NEPA,' said Dinah Bear, a former general counsel at the Council on Environmental Quality under both Democratic and Republican presidents. John Ruple, a research professor of law at the University of Utah, said sidelining NEPA could actually slow things down. Federal agencies still have to comply with other environmental laws, like the Endangered Species Act or Clean Air Act. NEPA has an often overlooked benefit of forcing coordination with those other laws, he said. Some examples of cases where NEPA has played a role A botanist by training, Mary O'Brien was working with a small organization in Oregon in the 1980s to propose alternative techniques to successfully replant Douglas fir trees that had been clear-cut on federal lands. Aerially sprayed herbicides aimed at helping the conifers grow have not only been linked to health problems in humans but were also killing another species of tree, red alders, that were beneficial to the fir saplings, O'Brien said. The U.S. Forest Service had maintained that the herbicides' impact on humans and red alders wasn't a problem. But under NEPA, a court required the agency to redo their analysis and they ultimately had to write a new environmental impact statement. 'It's a fundamental concept: 'Don't just roar ahead.' Think about your options,' O'Brien said. O'Brien, who later worked at the Grand Canyon Trust, also co-chaired a working group that weighed in on a 2018 Forest Service proposal, finalized in 2016, for aspen restoration on Monroe Mountain in Utah. Hunters, landowners, loggers and ranchers all had different opinions on how the restoration should be handled. She said NEPA's requirement to get the public involved made for better research and a better plan. 'I think it's one of the laws that's the most often used by the public without the public being aware,' said Stephen Schima, senior legislative counsel at environmental law nonprofit Earthjustice. 'NEPA has long been the one opportunity for communities and impacted stakeholders and local governments to weigh in.' Schima said rolling back the power of NEPA threatens the scientific integrity of examining projects' full impacts. 'Decisions are going to be less informed by scientific studies, and that is one of the major concerns here,'' he said. Ruple said uncertainty from NEPA changes and competing opinions on how to comply with the law's requirements may invite even more litigation. "And all of this will fall on the shoulder of agencies that are losing the staff needed to lead them through these changes," he said. ___ Follow Melina Walling on X @MelinaWalling and Bluesky @ ___ The Associated Press' climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at
The Guardian
3 hours ago
- The Guardian
Trump's attempts at damage control on Epstein are just making things worse
Donald Trump's evident panic over his intimate relationship with Jeffrey Epstein is a case study in damage control gone haywire. If he is trying to keep a scandal clandestine, Trump has instead shined a klieg light on it. His changeable diversions constantly call attention to what he wishes to remain hidden. His prevarications, projections and protests have scrambled his allies and set them against each other. His inability to remain silent on the subject makes him appear as twitchy as a suspect in the glare of a third-degree police interrogation. The supine Republican Congress abruptly adjourned for the summer to flee the incessant demands for the release of files in the possession of the Department of Justice. But three Republicans broke to vote with Democrats on the House oversight committee to demand the Epstein files. The speaker, Mike Johnson, abandoning his assigned role as a Trump echo chamber, blurted, 'This is not a hoax,' directly contradicting Trump. Johnson's plain statement prompted widespread jaw dropping. With every rattled excuse, Trump throws his administration into further chaos. His cabinet members are pitted against each other – the attorney general, Pam Bondi, versus the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, a pair of scorpions in a bottle. Trump has succeeded in driving Bondi from her regular perch on Fox News, as his reliable apologist, into virtual seclusion. She has reportedly engaged in a screaming match with the deputy director of the FBI, Dan Bongino, a former far-right talkshow jock who made his bones parroting that the Epstein files held the secrets of a vast conspiracy to blackmail deep state actors. After she issued a statement that there was no such 'client list', he apparently sulked at home, declining to come into the office, upset that his reputation was being sullied with his former Maga listeners. Bondi accused him of leaking unfavorable stories to the media that blamed her for the Maga backlash against her announcement. The manosphere bigmouth, sensitive about his hurt feelings, was in a tizzy, oh dear. 'No, no, she's given us just a very quick briefing,' Trump said on 15 July about whether Bondi had told him his name was in the files. 'I would say that, you know, these files were made up by [the former FBI director James] Comey, they were made up by [Barack] Obama, they were made up by the Biden administration.' The next day he posted on Truth Social that 'Radical Left Democrats' and 'the Fake News' were behind 'the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax'. A week later, on 23 July, the Wall Street Journal reported that Bondi had briefed Trump in May that his name appeared in the Epstein files. Which also raised the question: what did Elon Musk know and from whom did he know it when he tweeted in June that Trump's name was in the files, a tweet he quickly deleted after he had played arsonist? Did Bondi and the FBI director, Kash Patel, inform him about Trump's presence in the Epstein documents? Where else would he have gotten the idea? Into the death valley of parched alibis stepped Tulsi Gabbard to win Trump's affection with a press conference orchestrated at the White House on the same day the Journal punctured Trump's lie about Bondi briefing him on the Epstein files. Gabbard was there to expose a 'treasonous conspiracy' of Obama administration officials who supposedly plotted to manufacture the 'Russiagate' scandal that Putin sought to help Trump in the 2016 election, which was a fact. Her presentation was a farrago of falsehoods. She conflated Russian interference with false claims that Obama fabricated information about Russian hacking of voting machines and other fairytales. Gabbard also triumphantly unveiled a report that Hillary Clinton was on a 'daily regimen of heavy tranquilizers', which was sheer propaganda concocted by Russian intelligence long debunked as 'objectively false' by the FBI. Gabbard's performance unselfconsciously portrayed herself as a useful idiot for Russian spies. Trump was ecstatic. 'She's, like, hotter than everybody. She's the hottest one in the room right now,' he said. He posted that the Democrats 'are playing another Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax but, this time, under the guise of what we will call the Jeffrey Epstein SCAM'. Bondi was reportedly frustrated with Gabbard. Bondi had been given little warning that Gabbard's work would be dumped in her lap 'for criminal referral', apparently in order to satisfy Trump's appetite for revenge. Bondi had been the catalyst of the 'client list' pseudo-scandal, claiming it was sitting on her desk. Always ready to gratify Trump's whims, she was not prepared to be sideswiped by Gabbard. In the pursuit of Trump's favor, one lackey lapped another. Bondi finessed the situation by appointing a special 'strike force' to examine and undoubtedly dismiss yet again Trump's attempt to blot out the conclusive official reports, from the Mueller report to the report by the Senate intelligence committee, chaired by then senator Marco Rubio, that had documented his campaign's involvement with Russian agents in 2016. Bondi appeared to be seething in announcing the 'strike force', going out of her way to describe Gabbard as 'my friend'. The grueling Trump cabinet dance marathon goes round and round until they drop. To demonstrate Obama's supposed guilt, Trump posted an AI-generated video showing Obama forced to his knees and shackled in chains by federal agents before a seated and smiling Trump in the Oval Office to the soundtrack of the song YMCA. Trump apparently thinks that depicting himself as an enslaver, President Simon Legree, is a positive image that can deflect questions about his sexually predatory behavior and Epstein relationship. 'He's done criminal acts,' said Trump about Obama, and he mused, 'There's no question about it, but he has immunity. He owes me big.' Trump was referring to the supreme court's ruling granting him 'absolute' immunity for 'official acts' that wound up relieving him of prosecution for the January 6 insurrection. As Trump explained it, he was responsible for the decision, at least through justices he had appointed, and Obama was indebted to him over 'crimes' that Trump himself had made up to make the Epstein shadow disappear. Sign up to This Week in Trumpland A deep dive into the policies, controversies and oddities surrounding the Trump administration after newsletter promotion Then, after Trump tried the certain loser of a gambit of requesting the release of the Epstein grand jury material, which would almost certainly contain nothing new and was inevitably denied by the judge, he turned to another tactic. Suddenly, the deputy attorney general, Todd Blanche, who had been Trump's personal attorney in the Stormy Daniels hush-money trial, in which Trump was convicted of 34 felonies, was sent racing to Tallahassee to interview Epstein's imprisoned co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell. No mere professional prosecutor would do for this high-level mission. Instead, in an unprecedented move, the deputy attorney general would conduct the interrogation. The case, in fact, was closed after Maxwell's indictment for perjury, conviction for sex-trafficking minors and 20-year sentence. Yet Blanche stated, sloppily misspelling her first name in his haste, 'If Ghislane Maxwell has information about anyone who has committed crimes against victims, the FBI and the DOJ will hear what she has to say.' He said that Maxwell can 'finally say what really happened', as if she would perhaps prove the existence of the fictional 'client list' or some version of it to incriminate the enemies it contained, or clear Trump as a gentleman beyond reproach. Blanche's remark seemed to dangle a pardon or clemency. Asked about the possibility, Trump said, 'I'm allowed to do it.' Curiously, on 14 July, the solicitor general, D John Sauer, who was Trump's lawyer in the presidential immunity case before the US court of appeals, had filed a brief to the supreme court opposing relief that Maxwell had requested. 'From about 1994 to 2004, petitioner 'coordinated, facilitated, and contributed to' the multimillionaire financier Jeffrey Epstein's sexual abuse of numerous young women and underage girls,' Sauer wrote. She could not be exempt from her conviction on the basis of Epstein's first trial agreement as she claimed; she had been fairly tried, convicted and the matter was closed. But the acceleration of the Epstein backlash apparently flipped the administration's position. Now, Blanche gave Maxwell a grant of limited immunity. Her attorney, David O Markus, was a good friend of Blanche's. In the Stormy Daniels hush-money case, he had offered Blanche the advice that he should impeach Michael Cohen, Trump's former personal attorney, as a witness against him, by characterizing him as 'GLOAT' –the 'Greatest Liar of All Time'. In 2024, Blanche appeared twice on Markus's little-watched podcast. 'I consider you a friend,' said Blanche. Blanche asked Maxwell over two days about 100 people, according to Markus. Who those people might be, what she was asked and what she said remain unknown. One wonders, for example, if Blanche inquired about her knowledge of Trump's adventures in the dressing rooms of underaged models and beyond. One prominent model agent, quoted in a 2023 story in Variety, 'Inside the Fashion World's Dark Underbelly of Sexual and Financial Exploitation: 'Modeling Agencies Are Like Pimps for Rich People,'' said that Trump was 'certainly' a 'fixture'. 'I would see Donald Trump backstage at [Fashion Week home] Bryant Park, and I'm like, 'Why is he standing there when there's a 13-year-old changing?' In 1992, Trump got George Houraney, a Florida businessman, to sponsor a 'calendar girl' competition with 28 young models who were flown to Mar-a-Lago. But there were reportedly only two guests. 'It was him and Epstein,' Houraney said to the New York Times. 'I said, 'Donald, this is supposed to be a party with VIPs. You're telling me it's you and Epstein?'' One of those models, Karen Mulder, who had appeared on the cover of Vogue the year before and was considered among the most elite supermodels, described her experience with Trump and Epstein as 'disgusting', according to the Miami Herald. A year later, in 1993, Epstein brought a Sport Illustrated swimsuit model, Stacey Williams, to Trump Tower. She had met the future president at a Christmas party in 1992. 'It became very clear then that he and Donald were really, really good friends and spent a lot of time together,' Williams told the Guardian. 'The second he was in front of me,' she recounted to CNN in 2024, 'he pulled me into him, and his hands were just on me and didn't come off. And then the hands started moving, and they were on the, you know, on the side of my breasts, on my hips, back down to my butt, back up, sort of then, you know – they were just on me the whole time. And I froze. I couldn't understand what was going on.' While Trump groped her, he kept talking to Epstein, and they were 'looking at each other and smiling'. Markus said: 'We haven't spoken to the president or anybody about a pardon just yet.' Still, he added: 'The president this morning said he had the power to do so. We hope he exercises that power in the right and just way.' The House oversight committee has subpoenaed Maxwell for a deposition on 11 August, but she has not decided yet whether to cooperate, her lawyer said. While Blanche hurried back to Washington, Trump appeared to have depleted his armory of conspiracy theories, at least for the moment. He tried a novel tack, his most audacious projection yet. 'I'm not focused on conspiracy theories that you are,' he admonished the White House press corps. Then he made a remark that he had never made before, something contrary to his entire character, which underscored the depth of his anxiety. 'Don't,' he said, 'talk about Trump.' But Trump quickly recovered from the tension of his momentary reticence, and on the evening of 26 July, from Scotland, where he was touring his golf courses, he posted that Beyoncé, Oprah Winfrey and Al Sharpton should be prosecuted for their endorsement of Kamala Harris in exchange for payments of millions of dollars. 'They should all be prosecuted!' he demanded. Though a bogus accusation, it accurately reflected Trump's crudely transactional worldview. A few hours later, in the early morning of Sunday 27 July, he posted a Fox News clip of the rightwing talker Mark Levin, writing in capital letters: 'THIS IS A MASSIVE OBAMA SCANDAL!' Sidney Blumenthal, a former senior adviser to President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, has published three books of a projected five-volume political life of Abraham Lincoln: A Self-Made Man, Wrestling With His Angel and All the Powers of Earth. He is a Guardian US columnist and co-host of The Court of History podcast
