- Post author:dizzy
- Post published:21 March 2025
- Post category:Donald Trump/Fascism/genocide/Israel/Palestine/Trump/Zionism
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‘Completely Delusional’: Trump Calls for Reinvigorating Domestic Use of US Coal
Original article by Eloise Goldsmith republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
(Photo: Mandel Ngan / AFP)
“Donald Trump is not concerned with Americans’ health or economic wellbeing. He is only concerned with helping out his billionaire buddies in the fossil fuel industry,” said one climate advocate.
After U.S. President Donald Trump declared on Truth Social on Monday night that he is ordering his administration “to immediately begin producing Energy with BEAUTIFUL, CLEAN COAL,” a leader at the grassroots environmental group Sierra Club quickly hit back, calling the move “completely delusional.”
Trump said he was announcing the move as a means to counter China’s economic edge. The announcement comes “after years of being held captive by Environmental Extremists, Lunatics, Radicals, and Thugs, allowing other Countries, in particular China, to gain tremendous Economic advantage over us by opening up hundreds of all Coal Fire Power Plants,” Trump wrote.
It was not immediately clear what Trump’s directive was referring to or how his announcement on social media would impact U.S. policy, according to Bloomberg.
“There is no such thing as clean coal. There is only coal that pollutes our air and water so severely that nearly half a million Americans have died prematurely from coal in the last two decades,” said Sierra Club director of climate policy Patrick Drupp in a statement Tuesday. “Donald Trump is not concerned with Americans’ health or economic wellbeing. He is only concerned with helping out his billionaire buddies in the fossil fuel industry.”
Trump’s cabinet includes a number figures who are friendly to the fossil fuel industry, such as Energy Secretary Chris Wright, who was a fracking industry CEO, and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, a known ally of oil and gas companies.
On his first day in office, Trump declared a national energy emergency to ensure “an affordable and reliable domestic supply of energy,” called for expedited “permitting and leasing of energy and natural resource projects in Alaska,” and withdrew the United States from the the world’s main climate pact.
The U.S. is mulling using emergency authority to bring coal-fired plants back online and halt others from shutting, Burgum told Bloomberg Television in an interview last week.
“Under the national energy emergency, which President Trump has declared, we’ve got to keep every coal plant open,” Burgum said while at the energy sector gathering CERAWeek. “And if there had been units at a coal plant that have been shut down, we need to bring those back.”
Meanwhile, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin earlier this month announced a new effort to rollback a host of EPA regulations, including some that will impact coal producers.
The coal mining company Peabody Energy saw their stock rise 3.5% after Trump’s Monday post on social media about “clean coal,” according to Tuesday morning reporting from Schaeffer’s Investment Research.
As of 2023, coal accounted for 16.2% of U.S. electricity generation, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. That year, 21.4% came from renewables.
In its statement released on Tuesday, Sierra Club took issue with Trump’s assertion that investing in coal has provided an economic boost to other countries. “Trump refers to the ‘Economic advantage’ that burning coal has afforded other nations. In reality, renewable energy is quickly becoming more affordable and reliable than coal,” they wrote.
In 2023, the think tank Energy Innovation Policy & Technology released an analysis which found that 99% of coal plants are more expensive to run compared to replacing their generation capacity with either solar or wind power, when taking into account credits that were made available through the Inflation Reduction Act.
Original article by Eloise Goldsmith republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
US, Israel discuss settling Gazans in 3 African states, AP reports
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
The US and Israel have contacted officials of three East African countries to discuss using their territories to settle Palestinians who have been forcibly displaced from Gaza, the Associated Press reported today according to Reuters
US and Israeli sources cited by AP said officials from Sudan, Somalia and the breakaway region of Somaliland were contacted regarding the proposal.
However, Sudan officials said they rejected the proposal from the US and officials from Somalia and Somaliland said they were unaware of any contacts, reported AP.
The White House and the US State Department did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comment. The information ministers for Somalia and its breakaway region of Somaliland did not pick up Reuters’ telephone calls for comment.
Earlier this month, Arab leaders adopted a $53 billion Egyptian reconstruction plan for Gaza that would avoid displacing Palestinians from the enclave, in contrast to US President Donald Trump’s vision of a “Middle East Riviera“.
Trump has proposed a US takeover of Gaza, where Israel’s military assault in the last 17 months has killed nearly 50,000 Palestinians, to reconstruct the destroyed enclave, after earlier suggesting that Palestinians should be permanently displaced.
Trump’s plan reinforced long-standing Palestinian fears of being permanently driven from their homes, and was met with widespread international rejection and warnings that it amounted to ethnic cleansing.
Israel continues to ban the entry of building materials and diggers into the besieged enclave, leaving the over 2.3 million Palestinians in the Strip to live among the ruins.
READ: Israel’s use of human shields in Gaza is part of its genocide against Palestinians
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Jewish Americans and Allies Occupy Trump Tower Demanding Release of Mahmoud Khalil
Original article by Julia Conley republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Common Dreams is publishing many quality articles.
(Photo: Timothy A. Clary/AFP via Getty Images)
“We know what happens when an autocratic regime starts taking away our rights and scapegoating and we will not be silent.”
This is a developing story… Please check back for possible updates…
Nearly a year and a half after the advocacy group Jewish Voice for Peace began leading nationwide demonstrations against Israel’s U.S.-backed assault on Gaza, hundreds of organizers and supporters of the group risked arrest Thursday as they assembled in the lobby of Trump Tower in New York City, demanding the release of Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil.
“Three hundred Jews and friends in Trump Tower, because we know what happens when an autocratic regime starts taking away our rights and scapegoating and we will not be silent,” said Sonya Meyerson-Knox, communications director for Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP). “Come for one—face us all.”
The latter phrase was emblazoned on banners that were displayed by campaigners, who chanted, “Never again for anyone, never again is now!” and, “Free Mahmoud, free them all!”
New York City police officers began arresting participants in the sit-in early in the afternoon.
Jane Hirschmann, a Jewish New York resident whose grandfather and uncle were abducted by the Nazis in Germany as Adolf Hitler rose to power, said Khalil’s detention “is further proof that we are on the brink of a full takeover by an authoritarian regime.”
“As Jews of conscience, we know our history and we know where this leads,” said Hirschmann. “This is what fascists do as they cement control. This moment requires all people of conscience to take bold action to resist state violence and repression. Free Mahmoud now.”
Actors Morgan Spector, Debra Winger, and Arliss Howard were in attendance at the sit-in, along with writer and artist Molly Crabapple and New York City Council member Alexa Aviles.
Khalil was abducted by plainclothes Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents last Saturday night as he was returning home to his Columbia-owned apartment with his wife, who is eight months pregnant. He was a graduate student at the university until this past December, and took a central organizing role in student-led protests and negotiations against Columbia’s investment in companies that profit from Israel’s apartheid policy in Gaza, including the bombardment it began in October 2023 in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack.
Khalil, a legal U.S. resident and a citizen of Algeria, was detained under the State Department’s “catch and revoke” program, with the Trump administration revoking his green card and threatening to deport him. Administration officials have admitted that they are not accusing Khalil of breaking any laws by participating in Palestinian solidarity protests, but they said he is viewed as “adversarial to the foreign policy and national security interests of the United States of America.”
After a hearing Wednesday, a federal judge is considering whether Khalil should be sent back to New York, where he was detained, from the Louisiana ICE facility where he is being held. The same judge blocked Khalil’s deportation this week.
Original article by Julia Conley republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Common Dreams is publishing many quality articles.
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- For many American Jews protesting for Palestinians, activism is a …
- Jewish American Calls for a Ceasefire Highlight Divisions | TIME
RAF fighter jets have taken part in joint bombing exercises over western Asia with the US Central Command (CENTCOM) and F-15 and F-35 fighters of the Israeli air force, believed to be preparation for attacks on Iran.
The 4 March exercise – the third in two weeks – involved giant US B-52H ‘Stratofortress’ bombers that took off from Fairford RAF base in England and conducted the exercise in CENTCOM’s ‘area of responsibility’, which comprises the ‘Middle East’ and parts of southern Asia.
The latest exercise follows a live-weapon drop on 20 February that the US military said involved B-52s conducting “multiple missions over the Arabian Peninsula and Red Sea”. With typically Orwellian language, the Pentagon said that these missions ‘promote security and stability’ in the region. In the past twelve months the US has used the B-52s, along with B-1 and B-2 bombers, to bomb Iraq, Syria and Yemen.
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