A National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration data collecting buoy is moored in the Indian Ocean. (Photo by David Zimmerman/ NOAA)
At a time when ocean heat, the slowing of the Gulf Stream, and other major changes are sending shock waves through scientific and decision-making circles, we need greater understanding of what we’re facing, not self-imposed blind spots.
It’s easy for us land dwellers to forget that we live on a water planet, more than 70% of it covered by a vast ocean. But we are entering an age—or more accurately, have created an age—when that fact will be impossible to ignore. With global climate change, the seas are rising, yes, but they are also warming, slowly but steadily, and that warmth is now reaching levels that can drive profound changes here on land. Many of those changes have begun, many are on display this year, and some will have seismic consequences going forward.
Most recently, the administration ordered the “descoping” of the National Science Foundation’s Ocean Observing Infrastructure Project, a system of sensing and data gathering infrastructure distributed in the North Atlantic and Pacific. Information is still sparse about this dismantling; the process is not transparent. What’s clear is that, at a time when ocean heat, theslowing of the Gulf Stream, and other major changes are sending shock waves through scientific and decision-making circles, we need greater understanding of what we’re facing, not self-imposed blind spots. Sending taxpayer-funded ships on taxpayer-funded missions to essentially unplug functional taxpayer-funded ocean monitoring systems is baffling. Given the fossil fuel industry’s influence on the Trump agenda, it could look like a massive attempted cover up, except that the crime—warming the planet—is ongoing, and there’s really no covering up the changing climate, because we live here.
The ocean has become easy for the wealthier people of the world to ignore: a place to extract resources and dump waste. But this titan is now rumbling into a new kind of activation, more central character than backdrop. It’s hard to think of a more monumental failure than overheating an ocean planet and handing it off to younger generations. History won’t look kindly on the leaders of this time who ignore the science and the obvious signals. May it reflect that they were forced by their people, in time frames that made a difference, to phase out fossil fuels and invest in a safe and just climate future for all on this rare water planet. invest in a safe and just climate future for all on this rare water planet.
Edited since this article is not published under a CC licence
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People pray during an interfaith service, held adjacent to the Miami Immigration Court, on behalf of immigrants, on November 13, 2025 in Miami. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
“This ruling reaffirms a basic principle: The federal government cannot shut down lawful immigration pathways or discriminate against people based on where they come from,” said one advocate.
A federal judge in Rhode Island on Friday struck down a series of President Donald Trump’s policies that he ruled were rooted in “anti-immigrant sentiments” and ordered the administration to resume processing of asylum grants and immigration benefit applications of people from 39 targeted countries.
Last November, US Citizenship and Immigration Services indefinitely suspended asylum adjudications and froze immigration applications for people affected by a travel ban implemented after a man from Afghanistan allegedly shot two National Guard troops in Washington, DC.
Trump vowed to “permanently pause migration from all Third World countries” and expedite the removal of people his administration doesn’t consider “a net asset” to the United States. The administration’s move halted the ability of people from affected nations to obtain green cards, US citizenship, and other benefits.
US District Judge John J. McConnell Jr., an appointee of former President Barack Obama, said in his ruling that the administration’s policies are rooted in “anti-immigrant sentiments that it is forbidden from letting influence its decision-making” and have placed immigrants living in the United States in “indeterminate legal limbo.”
“The challenged policies placed the lives of countless individuals on hold—solely by virtue of their countries of birth,” McConnell wrote. “Over six months later, many of those individuals remain without work, without legal status, and without any meaningful ability to plan for their futures.”
“The government effectively invites the court to shut its eyes and ignore the strong evidence of anti-immigrant animus before it,” the judge added. “Doing so would require profound naiveté on the court’s part. Unfortunately for the government, that is an invitation that this court will have to decline.”
US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) General Counsel James Percival slammed McConnell’s ruling in a social media post accusing “the Left” of “running the same gambit with so-called ‘animus’ claims since 2017.”
“It is sabotage dressed in legal clothing,” Percival added. “It goes like this: (1) the admin is racist, (2) therefore a policy I don’t like is motivated by race, (3) therefore it is invalid. They have used it on virtually every Trump-era DHS policy.”
Plaintiffs and others involved in the case welcomed McConnell’s decision.
“This ruling reaffirms a basic principle: The federal government cannot shut down lawful immigration pathways or discriminate against people based on where they come from,” Democracy Forward president and CEO Skye Perryman said in a statement.
“These unlawful policies caused enormous harm to families, workers, asylum seekers, and communities across the country who were left in limbo, unable to work, access protections, or move forward with their lives,” Perryman added. “We are pleased that the court recognized the devastating human consequences of these policies. Our communities deserve a fair process governed by law, not political targeting rooted in fear-mongering and discrimination.”
Milagro Sique, CEO at the Dorcas International Institute of Rhode Island, said: “Today is a good day. On behalf of the thousands of immigrants we serve, we are grateful to Judge McConnell for his ruling.”
“These policies were wrong, plain and simple, and caused profound fear and uncertainty for so many of our friends, neighbors, and coworkers,” Sique added. “Having the judicial process work as intended—by upholding the rule of law—gives us some reassurance that all is not lost and allows those who have been impacted to move forward with their lives in a meaningful way.”
Abbey Koenning-Rutherford, staff attorney at Muslim Advocates, said that “today’s decision is an unsparing rejection of the government’s discriminatory and unlawful actions to gut access to immigration benefits under the false pretext of national security.”
“These policies unjustly revived the discriminatory logic of the first Muslim and African bans and expanded them widely to millions of community members already inside the United States,” she continued, referring to policies enacted during Trump’s first term.
“In vacating these unlawful policies, the court makes it unmistakably clear that the Trump administration cannot hold the lives of immigrants in legal limbo based on their countries of birth, and must continue processing their applications for status and benefits as required by law,” Koenning-Rutherford added.
Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.)—an immigrant from India—was among the Democratic lawmakers who applauded Friday’s ruling, writing on social media that “this is a BIG win.”
“A judge has now reaffirmed that Trump’s freeze on processing immigration applications for 39 countries is illegal and that processing must restart immediately,” she added. “Today’s ruling is not the end of the fight, but it is a major step in the right direction.”
Donald Fuhrump says that Amerikkka doesn’t bother with crimes or charges anymore, not being 100% Amerikkkan and opposing his real estate intentions is enough.Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.Orcas discuss rotting brain, front Orca says disinhibition and swearing are typical and common symptoms
Trump supporters clash with police and security forces as people try to storm the US Capitol on January 6, 2021 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Brent Stirton/Getty Images)
Among other things, the pardoned rioters have faced charges related to grand larceny, fraud, child sexual abuse, and plots to assassinate law enforcement officials and politicians.
On the first day of his second term last year, President Donald Trump delivered a mass pardon to more than 1,500 people who were charged with crimes related to the violent riot at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.
An analysis published Thursday by Lawfare associate editor Katherine Pompilio finds that at least 97 of these pardoned Trump supporters have been charged with other crimes, including serious alleged offenses such as grand larceny, fraud, and plots to assassinate law enforcement officials and politicians.
The analysis also documents 14 instances of pardoned Capitol rioters being “charged with sex crimes or crimes related to child sexual abuse material (CSAM),” while “at least six” have been charged with domestic violence.
Some of the pardoned rioters have been charged with more minor offenses, including public intoxication, possession of drug paraphernalia, and property damage.
The most notable finding is that at least five of the repeat offenders committed crimes after being freed from prison as a result of Trump’s actions, suggesting that his pardon “may have actively facilitated criminal conduct.”
The most infamous case involves Andrew Paul Johnson, a Capitol rioter who was freed from prison after receiving the Trump pardon and has since been sentenced to life in prison on charges related to child molestation.
“The criminal conduct for which he was convicted took place both before and after his pardon,” the analysis notes.
Other repeat offenders who committed crimes after being freed by Trump were Zachary Alam, who was convicted of felony and grand larceny months after being pardoned, and Ryan Nichols, who was arrest last month for allegedly “threatening a person with a gun in a church parking lot,” the analysis finds.
According to a Thursday report from The New York Times, the Lawfare analysis more than doubles the number of documented instances of pardoned rioters who have been charged with crimes beyond January 6-related offenses.
“A previous study of January 6 recidivism found that at least 40 defendants faced other criminal charges, with 12 taking place after Trump’s clemency order,” reported the Times. “The Lawfare study found 19 criminal cases that occurred after the clemency.”
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American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) president Everett Kelley speaks alongside Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) at a press conference on federal workforce rights outside the US Capitol on March 28, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
The head of America’s largest federal workers union called it “a blatant attempt to corrupt the federal government by eliminating employees’ due process rights so they can be fired for political reasons.”
Labor unions are warning that an executive order signed this week by President Donald Trump will allow his administration to replace thousands of career civil servants with “political loyalists.”
The order, signed on Wednesday, converts around 8,000 federal workers—most of whom are at senior levels in the civil service with major influence over policy decisions—to Schedule Policy/Career (P/C) status, formerly known as Schedule F, effectively making them “at-will” employees whom the president can fire at his discretion.
While a small number, around 4,000, of the roughly 2 million federal workers are considered political appointees, most federal employees cannot be removed purely for failing to serve the agenda of the president and can usually only be fired for issues like inadequate performance or misconduct, which involves an appeal process.
But as part of the Trump administration’s effort to dismantle what it’s described as a “deep state” of disloyal bureaucrats, a major objective of the Heritage Foundation’s right-wing manifesto Project 2025, those 8,000 employees may now be fired for “subversion of presidential directives.”
According to the US Office of Personnel Management, this could be just the beginning—with as many as 50,000 employees potentially in consideration to be rescheduled.
A fact sheet released by the White House said that despite the reclassification, “these remain ‘career’ positions and the non-partisan hiring processes, competitive status, and other aspects of these roles will not change,” while “removal decisions will also be made without respect to political affiliation.”
But Trump-loyal department heads—everywhere from the Department of Justice to the Pentagon—have systematically purged employees across executive departments that are perceived as Trump’s political enemies.
AFL-CIO president Liz Shuler said on Thursday that “Schedule P/C is the next phase in Trump’s anti-worker agenda to replace government workers with political loyalists who answer only to him.”
“As we’ve seen from his first day in office, the president is determined to tear down the architecture of our federal government and replace it with a system of corruption to benefit powerful CEOs and billionaire union-busters,” she said.
It’s part of a broader attack on the federal workforce in Trump’s second term. Through a combination of firings, layoffs, and forced resignations, he has reduced the number of government employees by nearly 300,000, causing chaos and understaffing at many agencies. He’s also stripped more than 1 million unionized federal workers of their right to collective bargaining, though courts have blocked the implementation for some workers.
Everett Kelley, the president of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), which represents more than 800,000 federal workers, said Wednesday’s order was “a blatant attempt to corrupt the federal government by eliminating employees’ due process rights so they can be fired for political reasons.”
“The practical implications of this action are clear. Workers who once felt comfortable reporting waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement at their place of employment because they were protected from retaliation will now be afraid for their jobs if they speak out,” he said. “That is a disservice to them and to the millions of Americans who rely on the federal government every day.”
William Shackelford, president of the National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association, added that the order “threatens expanded political cronyism, increasing the risk that executive actions will be decided by the size of political contributions rather than the faithful execution of the law.”
“That increases the risk of politically motivated enforcement of laws, threatening individual liberty; politically determined tariff exceptions and contract and grant awards, threatening greater corruption and waste of taxpayer dollars; and politically selective provision of services, threatening failure of government operations for disfavored groups or localities,” he said.
The legal watchdog Democracy Forward has filed a lawsuit against Trump’s rebranding of Schedule F as Schedule P/C at the start of his second term, which the group argued allowed several positions in the traditional nonpartisan civil service to be effectively recast as political appointees.
“For generations, our country has relied on a professional, nonpartisan civil service,” said Skye Perryman, the group’s president and CEO on Wednesday. “The people responsible for protecting our public health, safeguarding our environment, delivering our mail, managing our airports, protecting our public lands, and enforcing our laws should be allowed to do their jobs, not targeted by the same government they serve.”
“When government experts can be fired without cause,” she added, “it’s not just federal workers who are harmed—it’s the people across the country who rely on these essential services every day.”
Donald Fuhrump says that Amerikkka doesn’t bother with crimes or charges anymore, not being 100% Amerikkkan and opposing his real estate intentions is enough.Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.Orcas discuss rotting brain, front Orca says disinhibition and swearing are typical and common symptoms
People join in a “Hands Off!” protest against the Trump administration on April 5, 2025 in Riverside, California. (Photo by David McNew/Getty Images)
One critic accused the Trump administration of plotting “financial murder” against millions of people.
A federal whistleblower has revealed plans by the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency to falsely list millions of people in the Social Security database as dead in a scheme to pressure them to leave the US.
In an interview published Friday by The Washington Post, former Social Security Administration (SSA) executive Jeremiah Schofield outlined a DOGE-concocted scheme that would have potentially cut people off from wages, banking, and government benefits by falsely listing them as dead.
Schofield said a DOGE employee told him in a phone call that they wanted to add 2.7 million living people to SSA’s “Death Master File,” cutting them off from essential financial services so they would either leave the country voluntarily or show up to local SSA offices to complain, where they would be promptly arrested.
“That call was one of the most disappointing calls I’ve been in in my 25-year career,” Schofield, who left the SSA in October, told the Post. “I was shocked. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.”
While immigrants were the primary target of the scheme, Schofield said that the list of people created by DOGE included some US citizens and lawful permanent residents.
One anonymous former SSA employee who spoke with the Post outlined the serious ramifications for the 2.7 million people had they been added to the Death Master File.
“If you’re on the [Death Master File] you can’t have a bank account,” they explained, “you can’t get credit, so no apartment, no way to save money, no way to get paid, no way to get on insurance or carry health insurance. It has a ton of devastating effects.”
Schofield said he refused to carry out the DOGE employee’s request after consulting with SSA lawyers who said falsely marking living people as dead would likely be illegal.
The plan was ultimately shelved, and the Trump administration claimed in recent court filings that it has revoked DOGE employees’ access to SSA data.
Nancy Altman, president of Social Security Works, said that Schofield’s whistleblower report was yet another example of President Donald Trump’s administration abusing its power and weaponizing the federal government.
“Trump ran on a promise to protect Social Security,” Altman said, “but this whistleblower report is the latest evidence of how he really views it: As nothing more than a weapon to wield against his enemies.”
Altman added that removing living people from the database is essentially “financial murder.”
“It means losing access to your bank account, your health insurance, and your credit cards,” Altman explained. “It means getting kicked out of your home. It means that your life is destroyed.”
Whistleblower Aid, the nonprofit legal assistance organization representing Schofield, said their client’s claims show “no one is safe from this type of weaponization of our Social Security data.”
“If the administration is permitted to ‘kill people off’ and ruin their lives to pursue its anti-immigrant agenda,” the group added, “it will be able to use the same cruel and illegal tactics against anyone who has a Social Security number.”
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