January 2025 – Page 5 – The Tarbabys Blog

As Trump’s election is certified, Americans should declare war on stupidity

USA Today – Opinion

As Trump’s election is certified, Americans should declare war on stupidity

Rex Huppke – January 6, 2025

On the eve of Donald Trump’s election certification, the best thing sensible Americans who oppose him and the MAGA leadership can do is remember that stupidity should be embarrassing.

Trump exists in our political sphere because he persuaded people to forget that simple fact. He somehow turned dunderheads like Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and, of course, himself – public figures who routinely utter abject nonsense – into people who get taken seriously.

Following the New Orleans terrorist attack on New Year’s Day, Trump ranted about immigration when the suspect killed in the attack was a U.S. citizen. That was stupid and unhelpful. For a president-elect and elected leaders who protect him, it should be deeply embarrassing.

Trump has made stupidity acceptable. It shouldn’t be.

President-elect Donald Trump arrives on New Year's Eve at his Mar-A-Lago Club on December 31, 2024 in Palm Beach, Florida. — President-elect Donald Trump arrives on New Year’s Eve at his Mar-A-Lago Club on December 31, 2024 in Palm Beach, Florida.

When Greene hypothesized that Jewish space lasers started California wildfires, that was not a mistake or an “oops” moment. It was stupid, and it should have been the embarrassing end of her political career.

When Kennedy encourages people to drink bacteria-laden raw milk, he should be laughed out of the country. Instead, Trump has picked him to lead the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which is utterly stupid and should be profoundly embarrassing for Trump.

Opinion: What will happen in 2025? Trump will always be right – and more guaranteed predictions.

Yet here we are, waiting for Trump to return to the White House and install harebrained MAGA acolytes in all positions of power, confidently and without shame.

Bringing back shame may be powerful tool to deal with Trump

It’s that last bit that’s the problem: “without shame.”

We all do dumb things. There have been plenty of times I’ve said or written something stupid, made a dumb factual error or mouthed off about something I didn’t fully understand. And it’ll happen again, to be sure. No matter the room, I’d never claim to be the smartest guy in it.

Rep Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga) yells as President Joe Biden delivers the State of the Union address to Congress at the U.S. Capitol in Washington on March 7, 2024.

The difference, though, is that in those dumb moments, when I’ve realized my own blunder, I’ve felt embarrassed. When I’ve had to correct a column or admit I got out over my skis on something, I’ve been ashamed of the mistake.

Shame is what keeps us in check, or at least it should. It certainly used to.

If we tolerate stupidity in the public sphere, it will flourish

Trump, devoid of shame, has gone to great lengths to eviscerate that societal check.

How else do you explain politicians supporting him – a convicted felon, an inveterate liar, a man found liable of sexual abuse – for a third time? The decision to put someone like Trump back in the most powerful position in America should be embarrassing. It wasn’t.

Opinion: Trump picks Musk’s money over ‘forgotten’ Americans of MAGA. Sorry, xenophobes!

That’s enough to make people who dislike Trump, whether because of his politics or his personality, feel powerless. I get that.

However, I’d argue the best way to reclaim power in the age of Trumpism is to stop tolerating stupidity.

Stupidity isn’t about book smarts, it’s about choosing ignorance

Before I go further on that, let’s be clear what I mean by “stupidity.” I’m not talking about any level of education.

Heck, most of the people Trump surrounds himself with are highly educated but dumb as fence posts.

Stupidity is speaking authoritatively about things you don’t understand at all. It’s the willingness to say something objectively false and refuse to admit you’re wrong. It’s the lack of curiosity that allows our leaders to accept bologna conspiracy theories over provable facts.

Those, to me, are traits that should be embarrassing.

Stop giving elected officials embracing stupidity a pass

But since Trump’s first presidential win, some people have been afraid to call out such traits.

The argument is, essentially: “Well, he won people over, so we shouldn’t call him dumb lest we insult his voters, who we must do our best to understand.”

Then-Rep. Matt Gaetz, left, supports former President Donald Trump at his hush money trial in New York City on May 16, 2024.

That hasn’t worked out particularly well. If anything, proud ignorance has flourished.

So now, as we await whatever fresh hell a new Trump administration will bring, it’s time to stop pandering to politicians who have embraced a reality disconnected from actual reality.

Nobody’s job is to make fools feel comfortable

When Trump blames an act of domestic terrorism by a former U.S. Army soldier on immigrants, we should loudly call that what it is: stupid. It’s not a matter of differing opinions or “agreeing to disagree.”

It’s, “If you can’t accept basic facts, you’re a chucklehead who should be shunned.”

President-elect Donald Trump greets SpaceX CEO Elon Musk at a test flight of the Starship rocket on Nov. 19, 2024, in Brownsville, Texas.

Making people feel embarrassed for believing claptrap or speaking a bald-faced lie isn’t cruel. It’s corrective.

We don’t coddle our kids when they spew nonsense or think the truth is irrelevant. We correct them. And we do that to avoid the kind of chaos Trump has brought and continues to bring.

Do it for America: Make Stupidity Embarrassing Again

So I encourage you, as this year goes along, to make politicians who say stupid things feel uncomfortable. You may not think your voice matters, but the collective force of all our voices reminding people our society looks down on willful ignorance might matter.

Besides, we tried the other way, and things only got worse.

Comforting fools paves a path for more fools to follow. Do America a favor – mock stupidity at every turn.

Follow USA TODAY columnist Rex Huppke on Bluesky at @rexhuppke.bsky.social and on Facebook at facebook.com/RexIsAJerk

Inside the GOP plan that destroyed American jobs

RawStory

Inside the GOP plan that destroyed American jobs

Thom Hartmann, AlterNet – January 4, 2025

Construction worker in Manhattan (Shutterstock)

Trump says he’s going to imprison and then deport millions of brown-skinned immigrants. He’s going after the wrong people.

It seems that ever time a Republican goes on one of the national political TV shows, they make sure to get in the lie that “Joe Biden opened the southern border wide open,” or toss in a reference to “Biden’s open borders.”

It is, of course, a viscious lie — but one that’s almost never called out by the hosts because it’s peripheral or tangential to the topic being discussed. And, as is so often the case, this all started with Reagan (more on that in a moment).

While it’s true that two factors have driven a lot of migration over the past few decades (climate change wiping out farmland, and political dysfunction and gangs caused by the Reagan administration devastating the governments of El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala) the latest main driver of would-be immigrants and refugees is the Republican Party itself.

Lacking any actual, substantive economic issues to run on, the GOP decided after Biden’s election in 2021 to fall back on a familiar ploy: scare white people that brown people are coming for them and/or their jobs. Back in the 1950s and 1960s, I remember well how the GOP pitch to white people was that Black people wanted “our” jobs; now it’s brown people from south of the border.

Trump did this in the most crude, vulgar and racist way possible from his first entrance into the Republican primary through the end of his presidency. It frightened enough white voters that it got him into office once, and the GOP repeated that trick last November.

In doing so, they’re playing with fire. Their daily lies about American policies for the past four years are causing people to put their lives in danger.

The truth is that Joe Biden never “opened” our southern border.

“Open borders” have never been his policy or the Democratic Party’s policy or, indeed, the policy of any elected Democrat or Democratic strategist in modern American history.

Everybody understands and agrees that for a country to function it must regulate immigration, and it’s borders must have a reasonable level of integrity.

Republicans are playing a very dangerous game here. By loudly proclaiming their lie that Biden had “opened” the southern border and was “welcoming” immigrants and refugees “with open arms,” they created the very problem they’re pointing to.

Republican lies like this don’t stay in the United States.

As they get repeated through our media, even when most Americans realize they’re simply wild exaggerations (at the most charitable), the media of other countries are happy to pick up the story and spread it across Mexico and Central America.

This, in turn, encourages the desperate, the poor, and the ambitious to head north or send their teenage children northward in hopes for a better life. Meanwhile, criminal cartels have jumped into the human trafficking business in a big way, exploiting and aggressively repeating the GOP rhetoric to recruit new “customers.”

I lived and worked in Germany for a year, and it took me months to get a work-permit from that government to do so. I worked in Australia, and the process of getting that work-permit took a couple of months.

In both cases, it was my employers who were most worried about my successfully getting the work permits and did most of the work to make it happen. There’s an important reason for that.

The way that most countries prevent undocumented immigrants from disrupting their economies and causing cheap labor competition with their citizens is by putting employers in jail when they hire people who don’t have the right to work in that country.

We used to do this in the United States.

In the 1920s, the US began regulating immigration and similarly put into place laws regulating who could legally work in this country and who couldn’t.

Because there was so much demand for low-wage immigrant labor in the food belt of California during harvest season, President Dwight Eisenhower experimented with a program in the 1950s that granted season-long passes to workers from Mexico. Millions took him up on it, but his Bracero program failed because employers controlled the permits, and far too many used that control to threaten people who objected to having their wages stolen or refused to tolerate physical or sexual abuse.

A similar dynamic is at work today. Employers and even neighbors extract free labor or other favors of all sorts from undocumented immigrants in the United States, using the threat of deportation and the violence of ICE as a cudgel. Undocumented immigrants working here end up afraid to call the police when they’re the victims of, or witnesses to crimes.

Everybody loses except the employers, who have a cheap, pliable, easily-threatened source of labor that is afraid to talk back or report abuses.

It got this way in 1986, when Ronald Reagan decided to stop enforcing the laws against wealthy white employers hiring undocumented people, and directed the government’s enforcement activities instead toward the least powerful and able to defend themselves: brown-skinned immigrants.

The result has been a labor market in the US that’s been distorted by undocumented workers creating a black-market for low-wage labor that many of America’s largest corporations enthusiastically support.

For example, prior to the Reagan administration two of the most heavily unionized industries in America were construction and meatpacking. These were tough jobs, but in both cases provided people who just had a high school education with a solid entry card into the American Dream. They were well-paid jobs that allowed construction and meatpacking workers to buy a home, take vacations, raise their kids and live a good, middle-class life with a pension for retirement.

Reagan and his Republican allies, with healthy campaign donations from both industries, wrote the 1986 Immigration Reform Act to make it harder to prosecute employers who invited undocumented workers into their workplaces.

As Brad Plumer noted in The Washington Post:

“[T]he bill’s sponsors ended up watering down the sanctions on employers to attract support from the business community, explains Wayne Cornelius of the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at U.C. San Diego. ‘The end result was that they essentially gutted the employer sanctions,’ he says.”

So Reagan stopped enforcing our labor and immigration laws with respect to wealthy white employers, and the next 20 years saw a collapse of American citizens working in both the meatpacking and construction industries, among others.

Forty-dollar-an-hour American-citizen unionized workers were replaced with seven-dollar-an-hour undocumented workers desperate for a chance at a life in America for themselves and their children.

From the Republican point of view, an added bonus was that levels of unionization in both industries utterly collapsed. Reagan succeeded in transforming the American workplace, and set up decades of potential anti-Latino hysteria that Republicans could use as a political wedge.

Without acknowledging that it was Reagan himself who set up the “crisis,” Republicans today hold serious-sounding conferences and press availabilities about how “illegals” are “trying to steal Americans jobs!” They’re all over rightwing hate radio and in the conservative media on a near-daily basis.

But it’s not poor people coming here in search of safety or a better life who are impacting our labor markets (and, frankly, it’s a small impact): it’s the companies that hire them.

And those same companies then funded Republican politicians who pushed under-the-radar social media ads at African Americans in 2016 and the last election saying that Democrats wanted Hispanic “illegals” to come in to take their jobs.

America, it turns out, doesn’t have an “illegal immigrant” problem: we have an “illegal employer” problem.

Nonetheless, to paraphrase Mitch McConnell, they persist. As the AP noted in a recent article:

“Black lawmakers accused Republicans on Tuesday of trying to ‘manufacture tension’ between African-Americans and immigrants as GOP House members argued in a hearing that more minorities would be working were it not for illegal immigration.”

Tossing even more gasoline on the flame they, themselves, lit, Republicans are now amplifying the warnings and “danger” of undocumented immigrants by pulling out the Bush/Cheney “terrorist” card along with Trump’s “diseased rapist criminals” and “they want to take your job” tropes.

Because the GOP has been playing these kinds of racist, xenophobic games with immigration since the Reagan era, our immigration and refugee systems are a total mess. Trump additionally did everything he could to take an axe to anything that wasn’t a jail or a cage…and turned those jail cells into sweet little profit centers for his private-prison donor corporations.

America needs comprehensive immigration reform and a rational immigration policy that’s grounded in both compassion and enlightened economic self-interest. We need an honest debate around it, stripped of the GOP’s racial dog-whistles. And our media needs to stop taking GOP lies about immigration and the southern border at face value.

Americans — and people who want to become Americans out of hope or desperation — deserve better. And throwing some of these rich white employers in jail instead of terrified immigrants would be a good start.

Do you value a free press?

We’ve just observed a historic first: the election of a president who called the media the “enemy of the people.” We don’t agree — and we hope you don’t either.

With Trump’s return, Raw Story is doubling down on investigative journalism, exposing authoritarianism, extremism, and threats to our democracy. We’re committed to the truth. No billionaires call the shots here.

The next four years promise dramatic implications for justice, reproductive rights, immigration and the climate— and it’s time for us to step up and hold those in power to account. It’ s going to be an enormous challenge. And we need your help.

Adam Kinzinger Brutally Sums Up The ‘Entire’ Republican Party With Just 1 Acronym

HuffPost

Adam Kinzinger Brutally Sums Up The ‘Entire’ Republican Party With Just 1 Acronym

Ben Blanchet January 5, 2025

Jeffries Zings House GOP

Former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) — a frequent Donald Trump critic after his 2020 election loss — revealed why it’s “interesting” that critics tag him with the “RINO” acronym, which stands for “Republican in name only.”

“The reality is the entire Republican Party today is the RINO. They’re Republicans in name only,” said Kinzinger in an interview with Salon shared Saturday.

“They hold the title to the Republican Party, a lot of them still think they’re holding a legacy, but that’s exactly right, it’s gone,” he continued.

Kinzinger, the focus of a new documentary, “The Last Republican,” from “Hot Tub Time Machine” director Steve Pink, added that “what it means now to be a Republican” is that you’re “driven by anger” and division.

“I think what they stand for is supporting culture war, rage, and one person, one personality, and that’s Donald Trump. Now, they’ll never admit it, but that’s the reality of it,” he said.

Kinzinger, one of 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump over his role in the deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, served on the House committee that investigated the insurrection.

He endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris in last year’s election and, in a speech at the Democratic National Convention, declared that he was “putting our country first.”

In a separate interview with Forbes published Friday, Kinzinger said he’s built “new alliances” in recent years and has realized he’s “probably closer to a Democrat now because of how the Republican Party has changed.”

“The Democrats are now the party that’s defending America’s role in the world, defending Ukraine, which I’m really passionate about,” said Kinzinger, who predicted that the GOP is “toast for a while” as “Trumpism” won’t “survive past these four years.”

The former congressman, in his interview with Salon, said he thinks Trump is “already a lame duck,” before noting that his control over his base could pose a “concern” for Republicans when the president-elect’s second term ends.

“If you think about George W. Bush toward the end of his second term, Republicans were falling away. That won’t happen with Trump,” Kinzinger said.

“All those Republicans who should be falling away will still have to face reelection even though Donald Trump doesn’t,” he continued.

Kinzinger added that he doesn’t think the GOP can be “saved in the near term,” but he hopes people don’t “give up on it.”

“Because the reality is that there’s probably forever only going to be two major parties in this country, and the Republican Party will be one of them,” he said. “We can either write it off and lose elections, with such consequences as we’ve just had, or we can continue to fight inside.”

Related…

Washington Post Cartoonist Ann Telnaes Quits After Bezos-Owned Paper Kills Trump Satire Piece

The Wrap

Washington Post Cartoonist Ann Telnaes Quits After Bezos-Owned Paper Kills Trump Satire Piece

Tess Patton – January 3, 2025

Washington Post editorial cartoonist Ann Telnaes quit after a satirical cartoon, which poked fun at the paper’s owner Jeff Bezos and other media and tech giants bending the knee to President-elect Donald Trump, was killed.

The Pulitzer Prize winner shared her decision in a Substack post Friday.

“I have had editorial feedback and productive conversations—and some differences—about cartoons I have submitted for publication, but in all that time I’ve never had a cartoon killed because of who or what I chose to aim my pen at. Until now,” she said.

Telnaes had worked at the Washington Post since 2008. She described the political cartoon that did not get published, saying it “criticizes the billionaire tech and media chief executives who have been doing their best to curry favor with incoming President-elect Trump.”

The Washington Post did not immediately respond to TheWrap’s request for comment.

The cartoon included Facebook and Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Los Angeles Times publisher Patrick Soon-Shiong, the “Walt Disney Company/ABC News” depicted as Mickey Mouse and Washington Post owner Bezos. A rough draft of the scrapped cartoon can be seen below.

A rough draft of Ann Telnaes' scrapped cartoon (Credit: Ann Telnaes/Substack) — A rough draft of Ann Telnaes’ scrapped cartoon (Credit: Ann Telnaes/Substack)

Telnaes criticized Bezos for his handling of the Washington Post in the months leading up to Trump’s election and those to follow. The paper did not endorse a presidential candidate in 2024 for the first time in decades, leading to three editorial board member resignations and widespread canceled subscriptions.

“Owners of such press organizations are responsible for safeguarding that free press— and trying to get in the good graces of an autocrat-in-waiting will only result in undermining that free press,” the cartoonist said of her former boss.

“As an editorial cartoonist, my job is to hold powerful people and institutions accountable. For the first time, my editor prevented me from doing that critical job. So I have decided to leave the Post,” she said. “I doubt my decision will cause much of a stir and that it will be dismissed because I’m just a cartoonist. But I will not stop holding truth to power through my cartooning, because as they say, ‘Democracy dies in darkness.’”

Avoiding This Type Of Drink Could Help Prevent Dementia—Plus, 13 Other Ways To Lower Your Risk, According To Doctors

Women’s Health

Avoiding This Type Of Drink Could Help Prevent Dementia—Plus, 13 Other Ways To Lower Your Risk, According To Doctors

Korin Miller – January 3, 2025

portrait of young woman lit by blue and red neon lights — 14 Things You Can Do To Lower Your Dementia Risk Maria Korneeva – Getty Images

Dementia is a devastating condition that can affect everything from your thinking to your personality. And while you can’t always control your risk of developing the disease, new research finds there are at least 14 things you can do now to lower your chances down the road.

These “modifiable factors” were spelled out in an August 2024 report published in The Lancet, and doctors say they’re worth paying attention to.

“Simple switches in lifestyle can make a big difference in dementia risk,” says Amit Sachdev, MD, MS, medical director in the Department of Neurology at Michigan State University.

Here’s what you should know, according to doctors.

Meet the experts: Amit Sachdev, MD, medical director in the Department of Neurology at Michigan State University; Heshan J. Fernando, PhD, a clinical neuropsychologist for Corewell Health in Michigan; Verna Porter, MD, a neurologist and director of the Dementia, Alzheimer’s Disease and Neurocognitive Disorders at Pacific Neuroscience Institute at Providence Saint John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, California.

What can you do now to lower your dementia risk?

These are the biggest lifestyle tweaks you can make now to lower your dementia risk, according to the report.

Take it easy with alcohol

Research finds that so-called “heavy” drinkers are more likely to develop dementia than “moderate” ones. But there’s good news: Even dropping your drinking levels from “heavy” to “moderate” will decrease your risk, a 2023 study found.

Avoid smoking

Smoking has been linked to dementia because it can increase the risk of problems with the heart and blood vessels, the Alzheimer’s Society says. Toxins in cigarettes also cause inflammation, which has been linked to Alzheimer’s disease.

Manage diabetes

“A growing body of research has implicated a strong link between metabolic disorders like diabetes and impaired nerve signaling in the brain,” says Verna Porter, MD, a neurologist and director of the Dementia, Alzheimer’s Disease and Neurocognitive Disorders at Pacific Neuroscience Institute at Providence Saint John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, California.

By managing your diabetes, you could by reduce “inflammation in the brain, which in turn helps to protect” it, she says.

Try to maintain a healthy weight

Several studies have linked obesity with a higher risk of dementia—in fact, a scientific analysis published in JAMA in 2022 named obesity as one of the top modifiable causes of it.

Stay on top of your blood pressure

Research has found that lowering blood pressure in people with hypertension can lower the risk of dementia by about 15 percent.

Try to minimize air pollution exposure

Studies have suggested that people consistently exposed to a type of air pollution called fine particulate matter are more likely to develop dementia than those who aren’t exposed to it. These can come from construction sites, unpaved roads, fields, smokestacks or fires, or can be the result of complex reactions of pollutants, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Protect yourself from head injury

Research finds that a history of a single prior head injury was associated with a 1.25 times increased risk of dementia compared to people with no history of head injury. A history of two or more prior head injuries was associated with over two times increased risk of dementia.

Be physically active

Studies show that being physically active can help lower your risk of dementia. “Daily physical exercise—such as 20-30 minutes of light aerobic activity—can include activities such as walking, biking or aquatic pool exercises,” says Heshan J. Fernando, PhD, a clinical neuropsychologist for Corewell Health in Michigan.

Try to manage your mental health

A 2023 study found that people diagnosed with depression were more than twice as likely to be diagnosed with dementia later in life. Medication, therapy, and healthy habits like eating right, exercising, and getting enough sleep can all play a role in treating mental health issues.

Be socially active

“Staying socially engaged may help protect against Alzheimer’s disease and dementia in later life,” Dr. Porter says, adding that it’s crucial to maintain a strong network of family and friends. “Social connections may also be enhanced through volunteer organizations, joining various clubs or social group, taking a group classes, or getting out into the community.”

Treat hearing loss

A 2024 study found that hearing loss is linked to a higher risk of developing dementia. However, hearing aid users were less likely to develop dementia than non-users.

Keep learning

Research has linked higher dementia risk to lower education levels. However, one study found that the odds of developing dementia fall in people who continue to learn.

“Education at any age may protect against cognitive decline,” Dr. Porter says.

Manage your cholesterol

Studies show that high cholesterol is linked with a higher risk of developing dementia and that the risk increases with age. Fernando recommends following a heart healthy diet like the Mediterranean diet that emphasizes fruits and vegetables, lean meats like chicken and fish, whole grains and healthy fats.

This “can help optimize blood flow to the brain,” he says.

Stay on top of your vision

Research has found that untreated vision loss increases the risk of dementia by about 50 percent, so go to the eye doctor when you can.

Biden to visit Coachella Valley Tuesday, expected to create Chuckwalla National Monument

Palm Springs Desert Sun

Biden to visit Coachella Valley Tuesday, expected to create Chuckwalla National Monument

Janet Wilson and Tom Coulter – January 3, 2025

(This story was updated to add new information.)

President Joe Biden will designate vast, ecologically rich swaths of southern California desert and of northern California woodlands as a pair of new national monuments in a visit to the state early next week, sources tell The Desert Sun.

One will be the Chuckwalla National Monument, encompassing more than 620,000 acres of desert woodlands and washes that provide critical habitat for millions of migrating birds, endangered desert tortoise, iconic chuckwalla lizards and other wildlife. It will stretch from south of Joshua Tree National Park and north of Interstate 10 across a confluence of two ecosystems, where the Mojave Desert meets the Colorado and the Sonoran Desert, a veteran conservationist with direct knowledge of the decision said.

A view of the sunset from the Painted Canyon/Ladder Canyon Trail in Mecca, a popular outdoor recreational area that's part of more than 620,000 acres of desert land President Joe Biden is expected to protect by designating it all as the new Chuckwalla National Monument. — A view of the sunset from the Painted Canyon/Ladder Canyon Trail in Mecca, a popular outdoor recreational area that’s part of more than 620,000 acres of desert land President Joe Biden is expected to protect by designating it all as the new Chuckwalla National Monument.

The designation, which will also protect sacred tribal sites used for thousands of years and broaden recreation opportunities for Latino farmworkers and other area residents, was achieved after a deal was struck with major solar industry groups last spring. Biden will visit the eastern Coachella Valley at the doorstep of the monument on Tuesday, a person familiar with planning for the visit who was not authorized to speak on the record confirmed to The Desert Sun.

The White House said Friday that Biden and First Lady Jill Biden will visit Los Angeles on Monday and the eastern Coachella Valley on Tuesday, but would not confirm the reason.

“We are guardedly optimistic that it will happen,” said Donald Madart, Jr., a councilmember with the Fort Yuma Quechan Indian tribe in eastern Riverside County, which would see portions of its ancestral homelands near the Colorado River protected, including active worship sites and thousands of sacred relics.

He said several new monuments either created or being considered by Biden “all provide us an opportunity to continue religious freedoms of the native people of this land … It’s a lot bigger than just the protection of a landscape for beauty purposes, it is for being able to continue … to practice that religious freedom by going out into the desert and still partaking in ceremonies that have been with us since time immemorial.”

The second new monument will be the 200,000-acre Sáttítla National Monument in northern California near the Oregon border, the person familiar with Biden’s visit confirmed. The designations were first reported by The Washington Post. A spiritual center for the Pit River and Modoc Tribes, the Sattlitla monument footprint also encompasses mountain woodlands, rare meadows and serpentine seeps that are home to rare flowers and wildlife.

Biden has been pushing to cement his environmental legacy before he leaves office, including by protecting public lands and designating hefty federal funds for conservation and maintenance of open space.

President-elect Donald Trump will be inaugurated on Jan. 20.

By preserving sites of extreme importance to California tribes, Biden will be fulfilling the original intent of the 1906 Antiquities Act. New mining, drilling, renewables and other industrial activity all would be banned.

Passed by Congress and signed into law by then President Teddy Roosevelt in June 1906, the Antiquities Act was the first U.S. law to provide broad legal protection of archeological, cultural and natural resources in an era when looting of tribal lands had become common.

Since then, it has also been used nearly 300 times by U.S. presidents to set aside public lands and protect their archeological resources. Many iconic national parks first were designated as monuments, including Grand Canyon National Park in 1908 and Joshua Tree National Park in 1936. In recent decades many presidents have created new monuments in the closing days of their presidencies, often over loud objections from state leaders and industry officials.

Trump’s first administration sharply reduced the footprint of Bears Ears National Monument, among others, and sought unsuccessfully to sharply modify or eliminate the Antiquities Act. Biden in turn restored Bears Ears and other monuments that shrunk under Trump. With Republican majorities in both houses, he could have more luck in his second term, though scores of national monuments enjoy wide popularity.

“We know for sure that the designation is just the very tip of the iceberg,” said Madart, when asked about what Trump might try to do. “We know that the real work begins after the designation happens, and we’re very, very well prepared to engage with all the other tribes, as well as the coalition involved with getting this Chuckwalla initiative over the finish line.”

Biden’s latest actions will cap a lengthy and broad-based battle to protect the lands. In April, a petition with more than 800,000 signatures supporting the proposed two monuments and others was presented to the White House and unveiled in front of the U.S. Capitol. Members of Congress, led by Rep. Raul Ruiz, D-Indio, U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla of California, also a Democrat, and former U.S. Sen. Laphonza Butler of California pushed hard but unsuccessfully to pass bipartisan legislation to create the Chuckwalla monument.

Ruiz had no comment on the designations, simply saying in an email, “I’m thrilled to welcome President Biden to (the) Coachella Valley next week. His visit is a testament to the great people of California’s 25th district.”

But in an interview last year with The Desert Sun, Ruiz spoke about his ties to the Chuckwalla area, particularly Painted Canyon in the east Coachella Valley, where he proposed to his wife. He also led Interior Secretary Deb Haaland and others on tours through areas proposed for the designation.

He, like many residents at the edges of the monument, grew up hiking in area slot canyons on the Mecca Hills northeast of the Salton Sea.

Having those lands and far more designated as uninterrupted wilderness in a monument will protect and widen recreational opportunities for working-class and-low-income farmworkers and others in the Coachella Valley and eastern Riverside County, according to environmental justice groups and others.

Some of this land south of Eagle Mountain, near Desert Center, could be incorporated into the proposed Chuckwalla National Monument.

Scores of area tribal leaders, agencies, environmental justice and conservation groups and area elected officials strongly supported the Chuckwalla and Sáttítla efforts.

Responding to the news reports of Biden’s expected action, Joseph Mirelez, brand-new tribal chairman of the Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indians, said in an email, “For thousands of years, the Torres Martinez Desert Indians have called the lands in the Chuckwalla National Monument home. We are happy to see the designation to protect this area that contains thousands of cultural places and objects of vital importance to (our) history and identity.”

Mirelez, who took office on New Year’s Day, said he had not received official confirmation from federal officials. The tribe is one of the nine nations of Cahuilla Indians, which include the first known inhabitants of the Coachella Valley as well as Riverside and San Diego counties and the San Jacinto and Santa Rosa Mountain areas.

Two exceptions to the broad support were the city of Blythe, whose officials said it could interfere with economic development, and the Coachella Valley Water District, which said in a Nov. 15, 2023, letter to Padilla and Butler that the boundaries as drawn could interfere with the agency’s ability to maintain the large Coachella Canal and to construct new facilities to serve future developments. After buffers were included, the agency chose to remain neutral.

Solar industry concessions

There were other concessions made to win presidential approval: To placate major solar companies, 40,000 acres were removed from the original Chuckwalla monument map last spring to steer clear of solar development and transmission zones along Interstate 10. The boundaries were adjusted to avoid and keep a buffer between solar development focus areas identified in the Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan.

Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indian Bird Singers sing as women dance following a 2023 press conference in Coachella to announce the collaborative efforts of tribal community leaders and local elected officials to push for the designation of Chuckwalla National Monument.

In an email in April, Pedro Pizarro, president and CEO of Edison International, gave his blessing to the revised plan, saying “Achieving California’s decarbonization goals by 2045 requires rapidly expanding the energy grid to connect solar, wind and other renewables. The Chuckwalla National Monument will protect environmental resources and tribal lands while creating an energy corridor for the electric power lines essential for the state’s clean energy future.”

It is unclear if Biden will approve a related request to expand Joshua Tree National Park, which continues to surge in popularity.

Trip will be Biden’s first reported visit to desert as president

While Biden has visited many regions of the Golden State during his time in office, the visit on Tuesday will mark his first reported trip to the California desert since he was sworn into office in January 2021.

The president’s trip to the valley comes just a few months after Trump held an October campaign rally near Coachella, where he bashed California’s policies and its leading elected officials.

Biden’s visit to the desert also comes nearly a year after his wife, first lady Jill Biden, was the headlining speaker for a private Democratic fundraiser in Rancho Mirage. At the time, in March 2024, Biden was still several months away from announcing he wouldn’t seek re-election in the presidential election.

The March visit marked her second stop in the valley as first lady, after her plane touched down at the Palm Springs International Airport in March 2021. She made that stop just before traveling to visit with military spouses and children based in Twentynine Palms as part of a relaunch of an Obama-era program aiming to support U.S. service members, veterans and their families and caregivers.

Biden’s upcoming visit will be yet another moment in a long history of visits to the valley from commanders-in-chief. Several presidents — both Democrats and Republicans — have vacationed in the valley, dating back to the late former President Dwight Eisenhower, while former President Gerald Ford lived in Rancho Mirage for decades after his presidency until his death in 2006.

Former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama stayed at a private Thunderbird home in Rancho Mirage several times, both during and after Obama’s presidency.

It’s not Biden’s first action aimed at environmental conservation around the Coachella Valley. Among other things, his administration allocated $250 million in 2022 to help restore the Salton Sea, California’s largest but dwindling and polluted lake, near the western edge of the new Chuckwalla monument.

History series: The Coachella Valley considered ‘Playground of Presidents’

Janet Wilson is senior environment reporter for The Desert Sun, and co-authors USA Today Climate Point, a weekly newsletter on climate, energy and the environment.

Biden to create two new California national monuments protecting tribal lands

Los Angeles Times

Biden to create two new California national monuments protecting tribal lands

Clara Harter – January 3, 2025

In one of his final acts as head of state, President Biden is set to declare two new national monuments in California honoring tribal lands. The sites are in the rocky, mountainous desert near Joshua Tree and amid dense forests and pristine lakes near the Oregon border.

In the coming days, Biden will sign proclamations creating the 644,000-acre Chuckwalla National Monument in Southern California and the 200,000-acre Sáttítla National Monument in Northern California, a source who requested anonymity confirmed to The Times. The news was earlier reported by the Washington Post.

In taking this action, the president will be fulfilling the wishes of tribal members and environmentalists who have fought for generations to protect these sacred Indigenous lands and their rich natural resources from industrialization, development and degradation.

“It gives you new faith that the process is working and that people are listening to Indigenous voices,” said Brandy McDaniels, a member of the Pit River Tribe who helped lead the effort to establish the Sáttítla National Monument. “We’ve spent a lifetime fighting to protect this area, and it’s hard to put into words how important this is to us.”

The efforts have not been without criticism, however. Biden’s upcoming actions could upset groups who want to use the Chuckwalla monument area for mining and off-roading and those who want to use the Sáttítla area for geothermal energy, mining and timber. He will also be frustrating conservatives who believe that presidents have abused their authority in creating monuments.

The Blythe City Council, which represents a community of 18,000 people near Joshua Tree, stated its position over the summer that it opposed restrictions that the monument would place on the development of solar farms, which provides economic opportunity to the city and bolsters their sustainability goals.

However, the main solar energy industry groups working in the region — Solar Energy Industries Assn. and Large-scale Solar Assn. — decided to support the designation after the conservation groups worked with them to craft the monument boundaries to suit their needs.

Those in support of the monuments, can now breathe a sigh of relief after winning what may have seemed like a race against the clock to protect these lands.

Although Biden has already used his executive authority under the Antiquities Act of 1906 to create six national monuments and expanded several others — including two expansions in California — Trump has shown far less enthusiasm for the program. During his first term, Trump created no new national monuments and slashed almost 2 million acres in total from two national monuments in Utah.

Three California Democrats, Sens. Alex Padilla and Laphonza Butler and Rep. Raul Ruiz, introduced legislation to Congress in April to designate the Chuckwalla National Monument. Then in September, Padilla and Butler introduced legislation to establish the Sáttítla National Monument. Neither bill advanced in a a divided Congress, prompting Biden’s executive action.

The Chuckwalla National Monument will be located southeast of Joshua Tree National Park. The push to protect the site was led by the Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indians, who have lived in the desert regions of Southern California, including the Coachella Valley near Joshua Tree, for thousands of years.

Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla Tribal Council Chairman Thomas Tortez — Thomas Tortez, chairman of the Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla Tribal Council, stands near the entrance to the Painted Canyon, a sacred cultural site for Indigenous Californians. (Tyrone Beason / Los Angeles Times)

The monument’s name comes from the stocky Chuckwalla lizards that frequent the area, which is also home to bighorn sheep, desert tortoises, kangaroo rats, burrowing owls and jackrabbits.

“For thousands of years, the Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indians have called the lands in the Chuckwalla National Monument home,” said Joseph DL Mirelez, chairman of the Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indians. “We are happy to see the designation protect this area that contains thousands of cultural places and objects of vital importance to the history and identity of the Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indians.”

The monument will begin at Painted Canyon near the eastern edge of the Coachella Valley, where rocky hills and canyon walls are washed in light pink, red, gray, brown and green hues. To the Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indians, the red color of the hills represents the bleeding heart of their creator god Mukat, who was exiled in this land and whose remains became the native vegetation that nourished his people.

Some 750 miles to the north, the newly created Sáttítla National Monument will also protect a land linked to an Indigenous creation story. The 11 bands of the Pit River Tribe consider the Medicine Lake Highlands area near Mount Shasta as their ancestral homeland.

“For the Pit River people, it’s the actual place of our creation and is a very sacred place for us in the narrative of our peoples,” said McDaniels. “In addition to that, it is a very unique and spectacular biodiverse area that supports habitats, ecosystems and fisheries.”

The monument extends over a landscape of jaw-dropping natural beauty in parts of the Shasta-Trinity, Klamath and Modoc national forests. There are rich, green forests, abundant wildflowers, intricate cave systems and drinking water that can be sipped on site.

It is often referred to as the headwaters of California because its lakes and aquifers help provide clean drinking water to the rest of the state.

The Pit River Tribe has long been involved in litigation to prevent the development of geothermal energy systems in the area. The new landmark designation will help prevent similar efforts from moving forward in the future, McDaniels said.

“We’ve spent a lifetime fighting to protect this area being a tribe and a socially, economically suppressed community that doesn’t have a lot of resources,” said McDaniels. “It’s really important to protect this area for future generations so that they can heal without constantly having to defend our natural resources from the ongoing threats.”

Some renewable-energy advocates say the monument will result in the loss of an important clean-energy source that would advance the Biden administration’s agenda to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

One third of workers say they are considering a job change in 2025

The Hill

One third of workers say they are considering a job change in 2025

Amanda Kavanagh – January 3, 2025

Twenty-twenty-five is set to see seismic change in the workforce, if the findings of a new report are anything to go by.

According to the Global Talent Barometer from Manpower Group, 35 percent of workers are considering a job switch this year.

The report, which surveyed more than 12,000 workers across 16 countries, found that for younger workers (aged 18-27) that number is even higher at 47 percent.

And perhaps surprisingly, 41 percent of remote workers report themselves likely to change jobs, despite reporting higher wellbeing and work-life balance.

So whatever age bracket or working model you fall into, know that if you’re feeling stuck, you’re not alone.

Ups and downs

The inaugural talent barometer measures worker wellbeing, job satisfaction and confidence around the world, and it recorded many highs and lows.

Though globally, 80 percent believe their work has meaning and purpose, and this rises to 82 percent for U.S. respondents, the report also found that nearly half of workers (49 percent) experience daily stress.

A further third (34 percent) say they lack opportunities to achieve their career goals with their current employer.

At an almost direct match to the job seeking figure, it becomes clearer why so many are reevaluating their professional paths. If this is you, look for job specs that emphasize training, mentorship, and clear advancement paths.

Lack of career development is a sizable issue. Some 59 percent of workers say they have not received any skills training in the past six months, and only 39 percent have a mentor or coach for their current roles.

However, in the U.S. specifically, there is a more optimistic mood. Some 76 percent of respondents say they had values alignment with their organization, 70 percent have work-life balance, and at 68 percent the American wellbeing index is above the global average of 64 percent.

Also, some 42 percent of Americans said they experienced minimal daily stress, close to the global average of 41 percent.

Sector spotlight and working models

Contradictions continue as the report drills down into industry-specific wellbeing.

Unsurprisingly, healthcare and life sciences employees find the most meaning in their work (87 percent). And though IT workers report the highest daily stress levels, they also report the highest work-life balance (74 percent). Other high scoring work-life balance industries are financials and real estate (73 percent).

The barometer also looked at the connections between job roles, working models, and overall wellbeing.

Fully or mostly remote and hybrid workers (both 72 percent) report the highest levels of work-life balance, compared to mostly onsite (68 percent), onsite by choice (62 percent), and onsite without choice trailing in at 57 percent.

Workers who report feeling the highest levels of daily stress are middle managers (61 percent), but this was followed closely by essential front-line workers (60 percent), then “white collar” workers and executives or senior employees, which are all 59 percent. Of those dubbed “blue collar” workers, 47 percent reported minimal daily stress.

Executive and senior workers reported the highest satisfaction with values alignment and work-life balance

Taking control

If you’re intent on meaningful change this year, start by evaluating your priorities. Is career growth the most important thing to you? Or at this life stage, is it work-life balance? Perhaps you’re looking for more meaning so a mission-driven organization or healthcare setting might be where you land next?

Whatever direction you go in, most employers value candidates who are proactive about their development, so if you’re part of the 59 percent of workers who have not received training in the last six months, take matters into your own hands. Seek out training opportunities or certifications that will strengthen your offering.

And if you’re ready to start looking, The Hill’s Job Board is the perfect place to start. Here you’ll find new roles updated daily across all industries and levels.

Here are the top 10 California employers who hired H-1B visa workers in 2024

Palm Springs Desert Sun

Here are the top 10 California employers who hired H-1B visa workers in 2024

Jason Hidalgo and James Ward – January 3, 2025

The H-1B visa program for skilled foreign workers is in the spotlight nationwide after causing a split among President-elect Donald Trump’s supporters.

The visa program is fueling a debate within the conservative MAGA faction even before Trump takes office for a second time, pitting H-1B supporters such as Elon Musk on one side against H-1B critics like Steve Bannon on the opposing side.

At the crux of the issue is immigration.

Immigration is one of the key cornerstones of Trump’s agenda — which includes pushing for a border wall between the United States and Mexico — and remains a focus for the Republican leader as he gets ready for another term as U.S. president.

That leads to a question: How many H-1B workers were hired in California last year?

Here’s what you need to know about the H-1B program both nationwide and in California.

Who were the top California employers for new H-1B visa workers in 2024?

In California, the H-1B program was used to hire just more than 78,000 workers in 2024, according to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services agency.

https://flo.uri.sh/visualisation/21015878/embed

Most 2024 H-1B recipients were in the tech industry, with Silicon Valley powerhouses Google, Meta (Facebook’s parent company), and Apple leading the hires.

Since 2009, California has had the highest number H-1B recipients of any state, with just over 1 million workers, driven by the tech industry.

https://flo.uri.sh/visualisation/21016359/embed

Since 2009, India-based IT services company HCL has led all California employers with just over 41,000 H-1B recipients, followed by Google with just over 40,000. The other leading H-1B-hiring companies include Silicon Valley-based companies Google, Apple and Meta.

https://flo.uri.sh/visualisation/21016715/embed

The place where Trump can do the most permanent damage

NC Newsline – Opinion

The place where Trump can do the most permanent damage

Rob Schofield – January 3, 2025

Republican presidential nominee, former President Donald Trump, speaks to attendees during a Sept. 25, 2024, campaign rally in Mint Hill, North Carolina. Trump’s victory in Tuesday’s election could set the stage for wide-ranging changes to policy. (Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images)

Donald Trump’s second administration is poised to soon do a great deal of damage in several important areas. Whether it’s health care, education, the federal courts, reproductive freedom, immigration, foreign policy or the economy, millions of people will suffer needlessly if Trump follows through on all of his campaign promises.

That said, when it comes to the damage that will be truly irreparable, no pledge looms darker or more ominous than Trump’s plan to scuttle efforts to combat climate change.

As Katharine Hayhoe – a scientist and lead author of the National Climate Assessment under the last Trump administration – put it in a recent interview, quote “the situation is dire… on many fronts [and… it’s] already getting worse.”

In other words, there’s absolutely no time to waste. Even a mere four years of backtracking will greatly worsen results for our children and grandchildren.

The bottom line: No problem poses a greater threat to the near and long-term wellbeing of Americans than climate change. And no matter what he’s said previously, Trump simply must listen to the experts and act.