What Poland can teach the Internet Right
A change in politics is coming. Until now, the progressives were the ones with networks, stemming from Joe Biden's White House, to think tanks, and the legacy media. For the right, politics was not a fair fight. The internet has changed that. Karol Nawrocki's win in Poland's presidential election marked a key moment in the translation of the new right from the internet to geographical reality. Donald Trump's backing was combined with that of Kristi Noem, the US Secretary of State for Homeland Security, at Poland's first ever Conservative Political Action conference (CPAC).
From the 1960s onwards, the progressives turned universities into a reproduction mechanism for their own political ideals in a 'long march through the institutions'. Conservative ideas were forced online. Right-wingers adapted to online systems of idea replication, becoming more aggressive to optimise for social media engagement. It took Trump's two elections to get the 'Internet Right' into the institutions.
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Reuters
an hour ago
- Reuters
Trump can abolish national monuments, US Justice Department says
June 10 (Reuters) - President Donald Trump has the power to abolish two national monuments in California established by his Democratic predecessor Joe Biden, as well as any others created by past presidents, according to a newly released legal opinion from a key adviser within the U.S. Department of Justice. The May 27 document, opens new tab, which was released on Tuesday, reversed a 1938 legal opinion and sets the stage for the Republican president to eliminate federal protections for potentially millions of acres of land previously designated as national monuments. National monuments are created by presidents in recognition of a site's cultural, historical or scientific importance, while national parks are created by Congress largely to protect outstanding scenic features or natural phenomena. Lanora Pettit, who heads the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, was asked by the White House to provide a new opinion as Trump considered whether to reverse Biden's decision in January in his final days in office to designate two California sites that hold significance to Native American tribes as national monuments. The Chuckwalla National Monument preserves more than 624,000 acres just south of Joshua Tree National Park. The Sattitla Highlands National Monument protects 224,000 acres where the dormant Medicine Lake volcano carved craters and lava tubes. Biden had relied on the Antiquities Act of 1906, a law that has been invoked by numerous presidents to designate over 100 national monuments. A 1938 opinion by Attorney General Homer Cummings, who served under Democratic President Franklin Roosevelt, has been long cited as constraining the ability of presidents to undo past designations. But in a 50-page legal opinion, Pettit concluded that the Antiquities Act gives presidents not only the power to establish national monuments on federal lands but also to determine that they never were or no longer are deserving of those protections. The White House has also asked Pettit to consider whether the Justice Department should disavow Cummings' prior opinion. She said it should, writing that the law's silence about whether a president could revoke a predecessor's designation of a monument should be understood as meaning he has such authority. "Thus, for the Antiquities Act, the power to declare carries with it the power to revoke," Pettit wrote. The legal opinion did note that since the earliest days of the Antiquities Act, presidents have 'from time to time diminished' the land set aside to protect monuments. Trump, in his first term, had reduced the size of the Bears Ears National Monument by 85% and the Grand Staircase-Escalante monument by half, both in Utah. Biden restored both monuments to their former size. But no president has abolished a national monument. It was unclear if and when Trump would revoke the monument status for the two California sites or any other monuments. Asked about the new legal opinion, White House spokesperson Harrison Fields in a statement cited the need to "liberate our federal lands and waters to oil, gas, coal, geothermal, and mineral leasing."
The Independent
an hour ago
- The Independent
Trump administration says he has the authority to cancel national monuments that protect landscapes
Lawyers for President Donald Trump 's administration say he has the authority to abolish national monuments meant to protect historical and archaeological sites across broad landscapes, including two in California created by his predecessor at the request of Native American tribes. A Justice Department legal opinion released Tuesday disavowed a 1938 determination that monuments created by previous presidents under the Antiquities Act can't be revoked. The department said presidents can cancel monument designations if protections aren't warranted. The finding comes as the Interior Department under Trump has been weighing changes to monuments across the nation as part of the administration's push to expand U.S. energy production. The Republican in his first term reduced the size of two Bears Ears and Grand Staircase Escalante National Monuments in Utah, calling them a 'massive land grab." He also lifted fishing restrictions within a sprawling marine monument off the New England Coast. Former President Joe Biden reversed the moves and restored the monuments. noting that Bears Ears was the first national monument to be established at the request of federally recognized tribes. The two monuments singled out in the new Justice Department opinion were designated by Biden in his final days in office: Chuckwalla National Monument, in Southern California near Joshua Tree National Park, and Sáttítla Highlands National Monument, in Northern California. The Democrat's declarations for the monuments barred oil and natural gas drilling and mining on the 624,000-acre (2,400-square-kilometer) Chuckwalla site, and the roughly 225,000 acres (800 square kilometers) Sáttítla Highlands site near the California-Oregon border. Chuckwalla has natural wonders including the Painted Canyon of Mecca Hills and Alligator Rock, and it is home to rare species of plants and animals like the desert bighorn sheep and the Chuckwalla lizard. The Sáttítla Highlands include the ancestral homelands of and are sacred to the Pit River Tribe and Modoc Peoples. All but three presidents have used the 1906 Antiquities Act to protect unique landscapes and cultural resources, and about half the national parks in the U.S. were first designated as monuments. But critics of monument designations under Biden and Obama say the protective boundaries were stretched too far, hindering mining for critical minerals. Deputy Assistant Attorney General Lanora Pettit wrote in the Trump administration opinion that Biden's protections of Chuckwalla and the Sattítla Highlands were part of the Democrat's attempts to create for himself an environmental legacy that includes more places to hike, bike, camp or hunt. "Such activities are entirely expected in a park, but they are wholly unrelated to (if not outright incompatible with) the protection of scientific or historical monuments," Pettit wrote. Trump in April lifted commercial fishing prohibitions within an expansive marine monument in the Pacific Ocean created under former President Barack Obama. Environmental groups have anticipated more actions against monuments by Trump since his first days in office. They said Tuesday's Justice Department opinion doesn't give him the authority to shrink monuments at will. 'Americans overwhelmingly support our public lands and oppose seeing them dismantled or destroyed,' said Axie Navas with The Wilderness Society. Since 1912, presidents have issued more than a dozen proclamations that diminished monuments but did not outright revoke them, according to a National Park Service database. Dwight Eisenhower was most active in undoing the proclamations of his predecessors as he diminished six monuments, including Arches in Utah, Great Sand Dunes in Colorado and Glacier Bay in Alaska, which have all since become national parks. Trump's moves to shrink the Utah monuments in his first term were challenged by environmental groups that said protections for the sites safeguard water supplies and wildlife while preserving cultural sites. The reductions were reversed by Biden before the case was resolved, and it remains pending. President Theodore Roosevelt signed the Antiquities Act after lobbying by educators and scientists who wanted to protect sites from artifact looting and haphazard collecting by individuals. It was the first law in the U.S. to establish legal protections for cultural and natural resources of historic or scientific interest on federal lands.
Reuters
19 hours ago
- Reuters
US business group says Washington should treat Taiwan like partner not adversary
TAIPEI, June 10 (Reuters) - The United States should treat Taiwan like a partner and not an adversary, remove new and proposed tariffs, restore high-level cabinet visits and agree a double taxation deal, the American Chamber of Commerce in Taiwan said on Tuesday. Taiwan, which China views as its own territory, enjoyed strong support from U.S. President Donald Trump's first administration, which regularized arms sales that President Joe Biden continued. But Trump, as part of his sweeping tariffs on countries around the world, in April said he would put a 32% tariff on Taiwan, before pausing them for 90 days. Taiwan and the United States are still in talks to resolve the issue. AmCham Taiwan President Carl Wegner, releasing the group's 2025 White Paper, said he would be leading a delegation to Washington later this month to have "door knock" talks with officials on concerns about the tariffs and how to boost Taiwan-U.S. business ties. "Taiwan is a reliable friend of the United States, an essential democratic partner in the Indo Pacific, a major investor in American industry and a critical contributor to supply chain resilience," he told reporters in Taipei. Trade measures that were initially designed to address unfair practices by strategic competitors like China are now being targeted at friends like Taiwan, Wegner said. "It is in America's interests to ensure Taiwan is treated like a partner, not like an adversary." The White Paper said an agreement to avoid double taxation, currently stalled in the U.S. Senate, should urgently be resolved to remove investment barriers, while high-level visits by U.S. cabinet members should resume. Neither Taiwan nor the United States have provided substantive public updates on the tariff talks. The U.S. Department of Commerce did not respond to requests for comment sent outside of Washington office hours.
