Democrat News

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The Trump administration has issued an order demanding that all national parks remain open amid severe staffing shortages — an action that one conservation group called “reckless and out of touch” as park personnel brace for millions of visitors this summer.

“This order is intended to ensure that all national parks and national historic sites, which are managed by the Department of the Interior …, remain open and accessible for the benefit and enjoyment of the American people and to ensure that the National Park Service (NPS) will provide the best customer service experience for all visitors,” Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum wrote in a memo Thursday.

The mandate requires that any closures or reduction in hours at park sites are first reviewed by the National Park Service director and assistant secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks for approval.

The order raised immediate concerns for Kristen Brengel, senior vice president of government affairs for the National Parks Conservation Assn. In a statement, Brengel called the order “yet another attempt by the administration to sideline the expertise of dedicated park staff.”

The association said any decisions to close park sites are determined by staffing levels, weather and maintenance needs. Requiring officials to first get approval before shuttering services would create an unnecessary network of bureaucracy for those who know the parks best.

“It’s micromanagement at its worst, creating more red tape when park staff are already stretched dangerously thin and dealing with peak visitation season,” Brengel said. “This order is reckless and out of touch.”

The National Park Service reported a record high of more than 331 million visitors last year to 433 individual park units and 63 national parks, the directive notes. But the order comes after President Trump slashed about 1,000 National Park Service workers this year, with many hundreds more taking buyouts.

Those reductions have put the popular federal agency — in charge of managing beloved California sites from the Golden Gate National Recreation Area to Joshua Tree and Yosemite National parks — at critically low staffing numbers that will make it exceedingly more difficult to both welcome visitors and maintain the parks. The cuts could mean fewer workers will be available to collect entrance fees, clean toilets or help with search and rescue operations.

The Assn. of National Park Rangers has warned that more cuts are possible, and will further hamstring the service’s ability to protect the lands and ensure they remain accessible to everyone.

“Despite the value and benefit being provided to Americans by national parks, [workers] are systematically being robbed of their abilities to meet their mission,” the association’s president, Rick Mossman, said in a March statement.

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Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) warned that “entire men’s teams across the country” were “turning trans” after Senate Democrats blocked a bill that would have banned transgender athletes in women’s sports.

Tuberville reacted to his bill being shot down during a Sunday interview on Fox News.

“Well, it’s the priority of the Democrats, the letter salad of LGBTQ groups, you can’t let one of them down,” the senator said. “And the Democrats know that transgender boys and women’s sports is wrong, but they can’t abandon them because the rest of their group would probably say, if you’re not going to stand with us, we’re out of here for you, Democrats.”

“We have entire men’s teams across this country now that are turning trans,” he added. “Women’s teams, they’re turning trans.”

“And that’s going to be a, uh, a situation where it’s going to pick up speed because these woke globalists are pushing these kids to say, if you can’t compete in men’s sports, let’s just transition and say, you’re a woman and, and, uh, participate in women’s sports.”

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Fox News host Alexis McAdams confronted White House trade adviser Peter Navarro over a possible “rift” with billionaire DOGE administrator Elon Musk.

During a Sunday interview, McAdams noted that Musk had attacked Navarro on his X social media platform over President Donald Trump’s tariffs.

“He also took a shot at you personally on X. And he’s going against the administration with respect to the tariff policy,” the Fox News host said. “The president has said in the coming months, he may leave the administration. Peter, is there a rift internally?”

“No, I mean, look, Elon, look, Elon, when he’s in his DOGE lane is great,” Navarro replied. “But we understand what’s going on here.”

“Elon sells cars, and he’s in Texas assembling cars that have big parts of that car from Mexico, China, the batteries come from Japan or China, the electronics come from Taiwan, and he’s simply protecting his own interests as any business person would do,” he continued. “We’re more concerned about Detroit building Cadillacs with American engines.”

Navarro assured the Fox News host there was “no rift” inside the White House.

“Look, Elon, he’s got X, he’s got a big microphone,” he pointed out. “We don’t mind him saying whatever he wants, but just the American people need to understand that we understand what that’s all about. And it’s fine. It’s fine.”

Watch the video below from Fox News.

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And if they had sent it on April 1 instead of April 3, you get the feeling they’d have called it an April Fool’s joke. Their e-mail left “parents shaken and children in tears.”

Source: Washington Post

The Trump administration mistakenly sent an urgent notice this week to some Ukrainians who fled the Russian invasion saying it was terminating their provisional legal status in seven days and ordering them to leave the United States “immediately,” frightening immigrants and advocates across the country.

“A message was sent in error to some Ukrainians” who entered the United States under the Uniting for Ukraine program, said Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin in a statement.

She said the “parole program has not been terminated.”

The terse and threatening email stunned Ukrainians across the country when it landed in their inboxes Friday, advocates for immigrants said, leaving parents shaken and children in tears. It arrived on the same day that a Russian ballistic missile landed near a playground in Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s hometown, killing at least 16 people, including six children, despite a partial ceasefire.

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On Thursday, Sen. Ron Johnson spoke with Amna Nawaz for PBS Newshour to discuss the Felonious Kumquat’s tariffs. Nawaz pointed out that manufacturing and agriculture were very important to Wisconsin and asked RoJo what he thought of the markets closing by four or five points. Warning: His answer could produce a spit take by the unsuspecting reader:

Well, obviously a 5 percent decrease in the markets would heighten my concern. I would assume that got the president and his advisers’ attention as well.

But at the same time, it’s interesting as I talk to manufacturers and farmers in Wisconsin that they agree with what President Trump is trying to accomplish here. They realize that we have not been treated fairly by our trading partners. They realize that there are many crucial and vital products that are vital to our national security that we don’t manufacture here, and in some way, shape, or form, we’re going to have to reshore them.

So they agree with what President Trump’s trying to accomplish, but I think everybody’s kind of bracing to see what the fallout and really how painful this experience is going to be.

Does he really expect us to believe that is true? And when has he talked to anyone? Oh, he’s had a town hall meeting or two, but they have been virtual and without a question-and-answer session. Otherwise, he’s been too afraid to meet with his constituents.

Apparently, RoJo read some of his emails and listened to some of his voicemails after his interview, because by the next morning, he was singing a whole different tune:

Ron Johnson: “What’s also indisputable is the markets are down about 8% in just two days, and I’m getting all kids of reactions from businesses, farmers in Wisconsin that are highly concerned about what’s happening. Those are the facts … it’s a bold, risky move.” pic.twitter.com/vTnDWs9Wcp

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 4, 2025

What President Trump is initiating here, this is a long-held belief that he believes that tariffs will correct those problems, but what’s also indisputable is the markets are down about 8% in just two days, and I’m getting all kinds of reaction from businesses, farmers in Wisconsin that are highly concerned about what’s happening. So those are the facts. I don’t know. All I can really do is kind of report the reality to the administration, let them know how these actions are impacting my constituents, and it’ll be pretty much up to President Trump and his administration to determine exactly how long they’re going to go down this road, you know, when they can start negotiating with our trading partners.

I just wonder if RoJo has actually heard from any of his constituents or if he just looked at his own portfolio and the meltdown that he’s having his own reaction to his Dear Leader throwing the entire nation under the bus.

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White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett insisted that President Donald Trump did not intend to “tank” the stock market, even though his boss suggested otherwise on social media.

In a Sunday interview on ABC’s This Week program, Hassett defended Trump’s tariffs by pointing to the president’s campaign.

“President Trump, true to his word, just like he promised during the campaign, just like he put into his campaign platform, he’s delivering on his word,” he insisted.

“But you also he also said prices were going to come down, and he just conceded the prices are going to go up,” host George Stephanopoulos pointed out. “Also, on Truth Social, the president retweeted a post that said the market drop was part of a deliberate strategy to force the Fed to lower interest rates.”

“Is that the president’s strategy?” the host asked. “If not, why did he post it?”

“You know, the bottom line is the president has been talking about tariffs for 40 years,” Hassett said dismissively. “And, you know, the cyclical cycle of the Fed, it comes and goes. That’s a different matter.”

“So the President’s allowed to have an opinion,” he added.

“So that is his strategy?” Stephanopoulos pressed. “Tank the markets so the Fed lowers interest rates.”

“No, no, no!” Hassett exclaimed.

“Well, you just said the President’s allowed to have an opinion,” the host noted. “Is that his opinion or not?”

“He’s not trying to take the market,” Hassett replied. “I mean, what would you have him do?”

“I’m just trying to get some clarity,” Stephanopoulos explained. “Is that the President’s strategy?”

“It’s not a strategy for the markets to crash,” Hassett repeated despite Trump’s posting. “It’s a strategy to create a golden age in America for the American worker.”

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If you were wondering how Fox was going to cover the large #HandsOff protests all across the country over the weekend, here you go.

After showing some footage of Fox & Friends Weekend cohost Charlie Hurt out talking to protesters in New York, and mocking them for not having some consistent message on exactly what they were protesting (while also claiming that a bunch of them were just paid Soros plants) Rachel Campos-Duffy wrapped things up by pushing the lie that “undocumented immigrants are siphoning away billions of dollars’ worth of entitlements as part of a Democratic scheme for votes.”

CAMPOS-DUFFY: Well, you know what’s interesting, I saw some of the signs. They said hands off my schools. I’m like, what? Like literally Donald Trump is trying to give the schools back to the parents.

HURT: We agree, okay.

CAMPOS-DUFFY: And then they said hands off Medicaid, which DOGE just uncovered massive amounts of illegals raiding our Medicaid funds.

So that’s just, I thought that was kind of ironic as well.

We’ll see how long this level of gaslighting remains tenable.

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Jefferson Griffin narrowly lost North Carolina’s Supreme Court race against Allison Riggs, and even though there have already been two recounts favoring the Democrat, Republicans aren’t giving up. If you live in N.C. like I do, check the Griffin List here to see if you’re one of the 65,000 voters Republicans want to disenfranchise.

A North Carolina appeals court sided Friday with the trailing Republican candidate in a close state Supreme Court election, a ruling that could flip the result of the nation’s only 2024 race that is still undecided, CNN reports.

In a 2-1 decision, a panel of the intermediate-level Court of Appeals ruled that ballots — likely tens of thousands of them — were wrongly allowed in the tally, and it gave some of those voters about three weeks to provide additional information or see the ballots get removed. The disputed ballots are believed to favor Democratic Associate Justice Allison Riggs, who, after two recounts, held a 734-vote lead over Republican Jefferson Griffin in their race, which saw over 5.5 million ballots cast.

The panel of judges consisted of two Republicans siding with Griffin and one Democrat backing Riggs.

House Democratic leader Robert Reives said in a statement that “The North Carolina Republican Party is one step closer to stealing an election in broad daylight.” He’s not wrong. The votes Griffin and Republicans are trying to throw out are from Democratic-leaning counties. If you live there, don’t just check the list for your name — look for friends and family.

Voters have only 15 days to cure their voter registrations. That’s not much time. Allison Riggs’s parents were among those that Griffin wanted to toss out. You can’t make this shit up.

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More than 50 years ago, a catastrophic oil spill along Santa Barbara’s coastline served to galvanize the modern environmental movement and also helped to usher in one of the state’s strongest conservation laws: the California Coastal Act.

Now, as the Trump administration seeks to encourage oil and gas production within federal lands and waters, that watershed conservation law is being tested along the same stretch of coastline — and in a way it never has before.

For months, a Texas-based oil company has rebuffed the authority of the California Coastal Commission — the body tasked with enforcing the act — and has instead pushed forward with controversial plans to revive oil production off the Gaviota Coast.

Ten years after another spill brought oil production here to a halt, Sable Offshore Corp. has begun repairing and upgrading the network of oil pipelines responsible for that 2015 spill, without Coastal Commission approval and ignoring the commission’s repeated demands to stop its work, officials say.

“This is the first time in the agency’s history that we’ve had a party blatantly ignore a cease and desist order like this and refuse to submit a permit application,” Cassidy Teufel, deputy director of the California Coastal Commission, told a packed town hall recently.

Aggressive and impactful reporting on climate change, the environment, health and science.

Sable has accused the commission of “overreach” and insists that it has acquired the necessary approvals for its work.

The company intends to revive operations at three oil platforms known as the Santa Ynez Unit, which connects to pipelines that have been the focus of the ongoing repair work after a corroded section of those pipes ruptured near Refugio State Beach in 2015. That pipeline failure, which occurred under different ownership, spewed an estimated 140,000 gallons of crude oil, harmed hundreds of miles of coastline and cost millions to clean up.

In a new report, Coastal Commission staff allege that Sable’s activities — which include excavation, grading, removing vegetation and placing cement bags on the seafloor — “have adversely impacted, and continue to adversely impact, coastal resources as a result of Sable’s outright refusal to comply with the Coastal Act.”

The report recommends that commissioners fine Sable almost $15 million, issue another cease and desist order for all development along the pipelines and require restoration work.

The requested sanctions will be considered next week at a public hearing — one of the first such venues for citizens to weigh in on reactivation of the offshore oil rigs and how that could affect the local environment, which has long concerned Santa Barbara residents and climate activists.

Sable insists it does not need to comply with the latest Coastal Commission requests.

“The repair and maintenance work done to ensure the safe condition of the Santa Ynez Unit and onshore pipelines was fully authorized by coastal development permits previously approved by the California Coastal Commission and Santa Barbara County,” Steve Rusch, Sable’s vice president of environmental and governmental affairs, said in a prepared statement. “Commission staff’s unreasonable overreach is an attempt to exert influence over the planned restart of the Santa Ynez Unit oil production operations.”

In a statement of defense submitted to the Coastal Commission, Sable noted that due to updated requirements, “this pipeline will meet more stringent environmental and safety requirements than any other pipeline in the state.”

The company called the commission’s findings on environmental impacts exaggerated, and noted that it has “implemented several construction best management practices to limit impacts to coastal resources, biological resources, and archaeological resources,” Sable wrote.

Cleanup workers pile bags of oil-soaked sand at Refugio State Beach in Goleta after a 2015 oil pipeline rupture.

(Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)

So who’s in charge of such projects?

If Sable succeeds in restarting operations, it would mark a surprising reversal for California’s oil and gas industry in recent years, as climate-focused policies have slowly reduced the state’s production of fossil fuels.

The Houston-based company estimates that once the Santa Ynez Unit is fully online, it could produce an estimated 28,000 barrels of oil a day, according to an investor presentation.

The unit has three offshore platforms — Hondo, Harmony and Heritage — located in federal waters a few miles off the coast. These platforms are connected to the Las Flores Canyon processing facility, inland from El Capitan State Beach, and other distribution lines that run onshore. The 2015 Refugio oil spill was caused by the rupture of a buried onshore pipeline.

Sable has said it anticipates restarting offshore oil production in the second quarter this year, but the company acknowledges that some regulatory and oversight hurdles remain. Most notably, its restart plan must be approved by the state fire marshal.

Though Sable has already cleared some of that agency’s major regulatory steps, State Fire Marshal Daniel Berlant has said the company’s final restart plan wouldn’t be approved without agreement from a handful of other state agencies, including the Coastal Commission.

“Before we would ever sign off on a pipeline, [we will make] sure that each of these departments has agreed that all of the rules have been followed,” Berlant said at the March town hall.

Berlant also assured Santa Barbarans that since the 2015 spill, the fire marshal’s office has implemented more stringent standards for oil infrastructure, which are part of Sable’s plan. He said his office requires 67 new conditions focused on safety and corrosion protection, stricter and more frequent monitoring and repair standards.

Sable, however, has most heavily relied on recent approval from Santa Barbara County Planning & Development, which in October said the company could proceed with its corrosion repair work under the pipeline’s original county permit from the 1980s. The company contends it is still relevant because its work is only repairing and maintaining an existing pipeline, not constructing new infrastructure.

After concern from the Coastal Commission and environmental groups, county officials confirmed its position in February, concluding that Sable’s repair work on the corroded pipeline “is authorized by the existing permits … [and] was analyzed in the prior Environmental Impact Report/Environmental Impact Statement.”

A worker cleans oil from the rocks and beach at Refugio State Beach in Goleta, Calif. in 2015.

(Mark Ralston/AFP via Getty Images)

Coastal Commission staff have questioned how a permit from nearly 40 years ago can adequately take into account current technology, requirements to remedy corrosion issues and environmental conditions.

“The removal of the pipeline’s insulation and implementation of this new strategy for managing corrosion risk represents such a fundamental shift in the pipeline’s design and operation that resuming operations under this new system would not be consistent with the existing permit,” the staff report said. It also argues that old permits don’t take into account current habitats or sensitive species in the area, including those newly considered endangered or threatened, such as the steelhead, the tidewater goby and the California red-legged frog.

Ultimately, the matter may be determined in court. In February, Sable sued the Coastal Commission claiming it doesn’t have the authority to oversee its work.

“Sable’s representatives have told us that they’ll only stop if a court makes them, so we’ve been working with the attorney general’s office for the past month to move in that direction,” Teufel said at a town hall last month in Santa Barbara. The event drew hundreds of attendees — clearly divided between those donning Sable hats and others holding signs that read, “No polluting pipeline” and “No coastal permit, no restart.”

But as of yet, California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta hasn’t weighed in. A spokesperson for the office declined to respond to questions from The Times, referring inquiries to the Coastal Commission.

A controversial legacy

Since 1969, when the blowout of on an offshore oil platform spewed more than 3 million gallons of crude oil into the Santa Barbara Channel and devastated the coastline, environmentalists have fought to shut down offshore oil rigs along the Gaviota Coast. In their view, Sable’s behavior has been beyond the pale.

“So far this has been happening with no environmental review,” said Alex Katz, the executive director of the the Environmental Defense Center, which was founded after the 1969 spill. “For a project that’s this big and has this much risk, it’s very strange.”

At the same time, other residents see economic value in oil extraction.

Santa Barbara County Supervisor Bob Nelson has called much of the concern around the pipeline “political theater.” He said he generally agrees that Sable has the necessary permits to restart oil production, and noted that local oil is better than the alternative, especially when there’s still demand for such fuel.

“If you really cared about climate change, you’d want to use this oil,” Nelson said in an interview, arguing that it’s better to use local resources than oil shipped from around the world, where there are likely fewer environmental regulations and no local tax revenue or jobs. Sable has reported it expects the project to initially generate $5 million a year in new taxes for the county and, upon restart, would support an additional 300 jobs.

At the town hall last month, Assemblymember Gregg Hart (D-Santa Barbara) called on California’s attorney general to get involved in this process to uphold the state’s environmental laws, noting that there are clear risks, as with any offshore drilling project.

“It is a false choice to say we have to choose between protecting our environment and growing our economy,” Hart said at the packed hearing that included representatives from at least eight state agencies.. “We have experience here in this community of the tragedies that come from companies that don’t operate responsibly. … We have some serious concerns about what’s being proposed with the Sable pipeline.”

Some of those state agencies, including the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, the State Water Resources Control Board and the California Department of Parks and Recreation, have also raised concerns about Sable’s work. The regional water board in December issued Sable a noncompliance notice for unauthorized discharge into waterways, while wildlife officials alerted the company of a potential Fish and Game Code violation. Sable’s response to those issues remain under review.

Yet, the full extent of completed or possible environmental damage from this project remains unclear, the Coastal Commission argues, because Sable hasn’t shared detailed plans or applied for permits. And that’s a precedent that should be concerning for all Californians, said Linda Krop, chief counsel for the Environmental Defense Center.

“This is the biggest threat to the California coast,” Krop said. “They should not be allowed to operate when they’re violating state laws.”

Staff writer Tony Briscoe contributed to this report.

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Sen. John Kennedy from Louisiana admitted that Trump’s global tariffs have not been good for the country and if it doesn’t change soon Trump has to recalibrate.

That was surprising.

Fox News host Harris Faulkner soft-peddled her first question to the faux folksy senator by claiming Demented Donald is asking for a little bit of time. The market is not going to make up 5000 points in a week. We are not talking about days, or months, it may take years to get back what he’s already given up on a whim. Seniors and many Americans do not have that kind of time when they depend on the 401K’s investments and Social Security to live on.

Kennedy opened by saying pig Trump’s goals are laudable and then offered some reality. ( I didn’t even bother commenting on Harris Faulkner because she’s a useful idiot for Trump)

KENNEDY: But the stock market does matter. About 62% of Americans have money in the market. The wealth effect is real– there’s reliable data that shows that for every one dollar that the stock market, holdings in the stock market go down, people spend twenty-five cents less.

Well, we’re a consumer-driven economy and if people are spending less, that’s gonna affect your GDP.

So I’m not going to bubble wrap it. What’s happening is not good. Now will it continue? Will we find the bottom and then it will start to go back up? I hope so. That’s what I’m pulling for. But if it doesn’t, we’ll have to recalibrate.

It is good to hear some complaining by Republicans, but the country needs more.

If we take Trump at his word, he has no intention of reversing course on his devastating tariffs.

Is Kennedy willing to join Democrats and have Congress step up to curtail Trump’s megalomania?

Will he help make Congress do their jobs and reign in Trump’s madness?