@Acyn@SecRubio Don’t you have anything better to do as Secretary of State? Maybe the Iran thing. And comparing a fight club to the moon landing is asinine. You have no self-respect or credibility. Grow up and be a man.
This week, DHS waived every one of our nation's most important environmental laws to bulldoze new border barriers and roads through Big Bend National Park. This marks the first time in U.S. history these laws have been waived in a national park.
With these laws gutted and a $1.7 billion construction contract already issued, very little stands in the way of DHS contractors plowing into the park, permanently destroying countless archeological sites, blocking off river access and turning this peaceful national park into an industrial construction zone.
We will continue to fight this project every step of the way... more on that soon.
Audio from NPR's fantastic Studio 1A program, which aired across the country last week.
Hawaii just passed the first state law in the country banning corporations from making political donations in state elections.
Now a Koch-backed legal group is suing to overturn it.
Big Money won't get out of our politics without a fight — one that we the people must win.
(via @LeverNews)
❌❌❌ DO NOT BE DISTRACTED ❌❌❌
DONALD TRUMP & JEFFREY EPSTEIN ARE SEX TRAFFICKERS and I’m gonna post this every day so nobody forgets exactly who these monsters are and why the incriminating portions of The Epstein Files have suddenly disappeared
I’m sick and tired of people mocking those who care about the planet. Clean air matters. Living forests matter. Healthy oceans matter. Animals matter. Biodiversity matters. Wanting a livable world for future generations should not be controversial.
@atrupar Or they could have just funded the existing programs that basically eradicated them.
Why do we need AI drones when we had effective solutions already?
Let's walk through what actually happened here, in order.
DOGE cut the USAID program specifically designed to prevent screwworm from crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. DOGE cut USDA's animal disease control and prevention funding. That funding had supported more than 180 outbreak investigations in 22 countries and capacity-building in more than 160 laboratories. The screwworm monitoring and response program that watched the border for exactly this parasite - cut.
Then screwworm showed up in Texas cattle. Texas Governor Greg Abbott declared a disaster for Zavala and Uvalde counties this week.
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins went on CNBC this morning and blamed the Biden administration, 17 months out of office.
Her specific words: "obviously not much had been done to push back."
The program that was supposed to push back existed. DOGE eliminated it in March 2025. Rollins has been Agriculture Secretary since February 13, 2025. The cuts happened on her watch.
Beef prices are already high. Ranchers in south Texas are now dealing with a flesh-eating parasite that was eradicated in this country in the 1960s - eradicated, specifically, using the sterile fly program her department defunded.
The flies existed. The program existed. The budget existed.
Until it didn't.
A huge AI data centre is proposed on countryside by Auchtertool village in Fife - to guzzle an estimated 20% of Scotland’s energy consumption.
Please sign this petition calling for the Scottish government to stop this. Over 1,200 signatures already.
https://t.co/gqlk4AjhrF
In 2009, dozens of cedar waxwings dropped dead in a Georgia yard. A lab opened them up and found their stomachs packed with one thing: bright red berries picked off the shrub by the porch.
That shrub was nandina, sold all over the South as "heavenly bamboo."
It's not bamboo, but an Asian barberry relative, and its berries contain cyanide compounds. A bird that eats a few is usually fine. But cedar waxwings don't eat a few. They descend in flocks and strip plants bare, and in late winter, when those berries are one of the few foods left hanging, a whole flock can swallow a deadly dose in minutes.
The Georgia birds were found dead beneath the shrubs they had been feeding on. It's happened since, including more cedar waxwings found dead at UNC Chapel Hill.
The berries are also how the plant spreads. Birds eat the fruit and scatter the seeds. Nandina has escaped gardens into woods across much of the South, from Virginia to Texas.
It tolerates deep shade, which means it doesn't stop at the trail edge. It can establish in intact forests and crowd out native plants. State after state lists it as invasive. It's still sitting on the shelf at the big-box nursery.
It's easy to recognize. An upright evergreen shrub three to eight feet tall, with lacy leaves that turn red in cold weather, clusters of white flowers in spring, and bunches of glossy red berries that hang on all winter.
So yank it. Get the roots, because it resprouts. If you can't remove the whole thing this year, at least cut off every berry cluster before the birds find it.
Then plant something that actually feeds them: winterberry, American beautyberry, chokeberry, or native hollies.
The birds deserve better.
Trump's attacks on Iran yesterday have destroyed a drinking-water facility near the Strait of Hormuz, leaving thousands without drinkable water.
Striking water facilities and other civilian infrastructure is a war crime.
@atrupar "MARKWAYNE MULLIN: We're not gonna allow people that are perceived to have criminal ties to come into this country."
Someone needs to point out Trump's record.
Six weeks ago I told you they were coming for Big Bend. Yesterday a court cleared the way for border wall construction in the Big Bend National Park region.
Here's what makes this so enraging:
Big Bend National Park is one of the quietest stretches of the entire southern border. In FY2025, the Big Bend sector recorded just 3,096 apprehensions — 1.3% of all crossings nationwide. Border encounters there have dropped 74% since 2023. The land is remote, rugged, and brutal. It has always been its own deterrent.
And yet — a 30-foot steel wall is coming anyway.
What that wall will actually do: fragment critical habitat for black bears, mountain lions, and the endangered black-capped vireo. Sever one of the last wildlife corridors connecting the U.S. and Mexican Chihuahuan Desert — an ecosystem that doesn't recognize borders.
Block the natural movement of over 450 bird species that pass through Big Bend. Flood one of the darkest night skies in North America with construction lights. Slice through 100+ miles of the Wild and Scenic Rio Grande.
To stop 1.3% of border crossings. On land that was already stopping them on its own.
The administration has now waived the Endangered Species Act, the National Park Service Organic Act, and the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act — all at once — to make this happen. The first time in U.S. history any of that has been done inside a national park.
They awarded $4.3 billion in contracts. Steel bollards are already on the ground near Van Horn. Construction starts this summer.
Who do YOU think this wall is actually for?
#DemsUnited