Trump Administration Opens More than 50% of Protected U.S. Forest Land for Logging: What That Means
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins claims that turning trees into timber will help prevent wildfires, though experts have deemed it a harmful and inefficient method
Meredith Kile – April 7, 2025
Robert F. Bukaty/APMilan Lumber Co. in Milan, New Hampshire, on Thursday, March 13, 2025
More than 50% of the United States’ formerly protected national forests are now on-limits for the logging industry.
Following an executive order from President Donald Trump aimed at increasing U.S. timber production, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins has announced plans to remove environmental protections that will allow logging on millions of acres of national forest land.
In an April 3 memo titled “Increasing Timber Production and Designating an Emergency Situation on National Forest System Lands,” Rollins cites a goal to remove “heavy-handed federal policies and increase domestic timber production to protect our national and economic security.”
To comply with Trump’s directive to increase U.S. timber production by 25%, the Forest Service’s acting associate chief, Christopher B. French, sent an additional memo to regional National Forest System officials instructing immediate action.
According to the Department of Agriculture, French’s memo directs on-the-ground leadership to “increase timber outputs, simplify permitting, remove National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) processes, reduce implementation and contracting burdens and to work directly with states, local government, and forest product producers to ensure that the Forest Service delivers a reliable and consistent supply of timber.”
Millions of acres of that timber, Rollins’ Emergency Situation Determination explained, will come from land previously protected by the National Forest System.
Rollins’ office states that 66.9 million acres of NFS land have been designated “very high or high wildfire risk” and 78.8 million acres have been identified as “experiencing declining forest health” from insects, disease, invasive species and more.
Scott Olson/GettyA fire danger sign in Yale, Oklahoma, on March 17. 2025
Allowing for overlap, Rollins has now designated a total of nearly 113 million acres of NFS land — which amounts to 59% of the total forest land — as an emergency situation, making them candidates for logging and other “emergency actions” to supposedly ensure public safety.
“I am proud to follow the bold leadership of President Trump by empowering forest managers to reduce constraints and minimize the risks of fire, insects, and disease so that we can strengthen American timber industry and further enrich our forests with the resources they need to thrive,” Rollins, who co-founded the Trump-aligned America First Policy Institute think tank, said in a statement.
However, when Trump issued a similar logging directive during his first term — during a federal shutdown — experts warned that clearing trees does not necessarily reduce wildfire risks.
“We can’t log our way out of the fire problem — thinning all the forests is not possible,” University of Colorado Boulder Professor Jennifer Balch told TheWashington Post in January 2019. “And even if it were, it won’t stop fires in the extreme weather that is happening more frequently, and will in the future.”
Balch explained that thinning federal forests near homes makes sense, however, only 2% of lands treated by the Forest Service between 2004 and 2013 experienced a wildfire. The more serious issue, she wrote, was a shrinking snowpack in the western U.S. due to steadily rising temperatures.
Rollins’ April 3 memo made no mention of climate change.
JOSH EDELSON/AFP via GettyThe Pasadena Jewish Temple & Center burns during the Eaton fire in Pasadena, California on January 7, 2025.More
During his presidency, Democrat Joe Biden proposed new protections for some of the oldest trees on NFS land. Old growth trees store large amounts of carbon, provide needed animal habitats and are also more likely to survive forest fires.
“Protecting our old growth trees from logging is an important first step to ensure these giants continue to store vast amounts of carbon,” Randi Spivak, public lands policy director with the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement in December 2023. “The Forest Service also needs to protect our mature forests, which if allowed to grow will become the old growth of tomorrow.”
The 22 Most Clever Signs From The “Hands Off” Protests
Michaela Bramwell – April 6, 2025
This weekend, thousands of people participated in the “Hands Off” protests across all 50 states to express their opposition to the policies of the Trump administration and cuts being made by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.
“Hands Off” event organizers said in a recent statement, “They’re taking everything they can get their hands on — our health care, our data, our jobs, our services — and daring the world to stop them. This is a crisis, and the time to act is now.”
Anadolu / Getty Images
Demonstrators got very clever with their protest signs, so here are some of the most memorable ones:
Doge’s attack on social security causing ‘complete, utter chaos’, staff says
Michael Sainato – April 6, 2025
The Arthur J Altmeyer Social Security Administration building in Woodlawn, Maryland, on 19 February.Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images
Office closures, staffing and service cuts, and policy changes at the Social Security Administration (SSA) have caused “complete, utter chaos” and are threatening to send the agency into a “death spiral”, according to workers at the agency.
The SSA operates the largest government program in the US, administering social insurance programs, including retirement, disability and survivor benefits.
An average of almost 69 million Americans per month will receive a social security benefit in 2025, totaling about $1.6tn in benefits paid during the year and accounting for 22% of the federal budget. While expensive and challenged by an ageing population, social security remains overwhelminglypopular with Americans. But the agency has been dubbed a “Ponzi scheme” by Elon Musk, the billionaire whose so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) is currently slashing its staff and budgets.Advertisement
“They have these ‘concepts of plans’ that they’re hoping are sticking but in reality, are really hurting American people,” said a longtime SSA employee and military veteran who requested to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation. “No one knows what’s going on. They’re just coming up with ideas at the top of their head.”
The SSA website has crashed several times this month. Wired reported Doge staff want to migrate all social security data and rewrite code in months, which could cause system collapse and further outages.
The agency plans to eliminate the jobs of 7,000 workers at the agency through voluntary buyouts, resignations or firings, though the union representing SSA employees anticipate even more firings beyond cutting staff to 50,000 workers.Advertisement
Acting commissioner Leland Dudek has acknowledged to staff that Doge are making the decisions at the agency. Musk, Donald Trump and others have claimed action is being taken to tackle widespread fraud at the agency.
Dudek was appointed acting commissioner after he reportedly secretly shared information with Doge staff. He has threatened to shut down the agency in response to a court order barring Doge from accessing the data.
“It’s just been a lot of craziness, a lot of foolishness. Until they get rid of Doge and the person in office right now, and the Republicans actually get a backbone and stand up for something for once in their lives, things are just going to be complete chaos. That’s really the best word to describe SSA right now, just complete, utter chaos,” the worker added. “They couldn’t understand the coding, so everything they said SSA was doing illegally, they weren’t. Common sense is something they lack. They don’t know what they’re doing.”
Rich Couture, a spokesperson for the American Federation of Government Employees’ Social Security Administration general committee, the union representing roughly 42,000 social security workers, said Doge’s public targets for cuts make no sense.Advertisement
Why are they cutting 7,000 jobs, asked Couture. “It has never been explained with any degree of clarity how they came up with that figure. What’s being served by that by a loss of 7,000 jobs? How does any of that supposedly makes this operation more efficient? How does it improve service? How does it improve productivity? Our position is that losing 7,000 people doesn’t do any of those things,” he said.
“I don’t think they’re going to stop at 7,000 people lost. If they lose 10,000 or 12,000, they’re running up their high score. They’re able to brag about it.”
Departments at the agency have been closed and reorganized, with workers forced to take reassignments or risk firings, and all workers have been ordered to return to the office five days a week.
Couture noted the return to office order occurred a day before a buyout offer was set to expire, in violation of union contract agreements, and the offices were not prepared or equipped to handle it, as many workers had no desks or equipment to work.Advertisement
Phone services for the public have also been cut, and field and regional offices are slated for closure around the US.
“There is no safe office in this country,” added Couture. “It’s a concerted attack on the legitimacy of social security itself. The promise that this country has made to the public with respect to income security is being broken.”
The cuts come as staffing is already at a 50-year low despite the agency serving a record number of recipients as the US population above the age of 65 is growing.
The office of the inspector general at SSA reported in August 2024 that a record backlog of payment actions impacting social security beneficiaries was due to lack of staffing, increased workloads, and decreased funding for the agency, driving improper payments because staff weren’t available to update records.Advertisement
Couture noted the operating overhead of the agency, as a share of benefits paid out, has shrunk by 20% over the last 10 years and is now less than 1%. He disputed any claims of inefficiency or waste at the agency, claiming the agency is already a model of efficiency and as effective as possible under its fiscal and staffing constraints.
He said he was concerned the situation was creating a “negative feedback loop” where, as more employees leave, more work is put on those remaining, depressing morale and inducing more to leave “until the agency ends up in a death spiral with staffing, inducing office closures”.
“You’re going to see a wholesale collapse in the agency’s service structure. Call wait times will skyrocket, wait times for appointments, processing times, all of it going to skyrocket because there won’t be enough people to do the jobs, which opens the door to privatization.”
Musk has called social security “the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time” and has consistently pushed false claims and conspiracies about the program.Advertisement
On senator Ted Cruz’s podcast last month, Musk repeated a white supremacist conspiracy theory that Democrats use entitlements to “attract and retain” undocumented immigrants as voters.
This week, Musk shared a chart of immigrants receiving social security numbers, falsely claiming they were receiving benefits, though the program of providing social security numbers to legal immigrants began under Trump’s first term as part of program to facilitate employment. He’s also falsely claimed dead people are receiving benefits, despite the acting commissioner of the SSA has dispelled the claim.
In 2024, social security direct deposit fraud was at a rate of 0.00625% and less than 1% of social security payments had been found to be incorrect.
US commerce secretary and billionaire Howard Lutnick claimed in an interview on a podcast earlier this month that only a “fraudster” would complain about missing a social security benefit check.Advertisement
“I worked there for 32 and a half years, and I rarely saw cases of fraud,” said John Oertel, a retired SSA employee for over 32 years in Redding, California.
“Because the agency is so understaffed that people who report their income, that’s not getting reported into the system. Musk and his group are saying look at all these people who are being overpaid, they must be committing fraud. They’re not committing fraud. They’re doing what they’re supposed to be doing, but because there are so few employees, none of that information is getting into the system.”
Oertel also dismissed false claims from Trump and Musk that dead people are getting social security benefits.
“They don’t understand or they don’t care. Those people aren’t collecting benefits, but the numbers are still technically active, because you can’t just erase social security numbers,” he said, noting that the numbers began being issued in the 1930s and are not deleted or reused, so they still remain in the system. “President Trump, Elon Musk and whoever the next commissioner is going to be, I really think their ultimate goal is just to destroy social security.”Advertisement
A spokesperson for the SSA deferred to press releases on the cuts and reorganization of the agency.
“We have listened to our customers, Congress, advocates and others, and we are updating our policy to provide better customer service to the country’s most vulnerable populations,” said Dudek, the SSA’s acting commissioner. “In addition to extending the policy’s effective date by two weeks to ensure our employees have the training they need to help customers, Medicare, Disability and SSI applications will be exempt from in-person identity proofing because multiple opportunities exist during the decision process to verify a person’s identity.”
They said in regard to office closures, that “to use our space more efficiently, we provided [the General Services Administration] a list of leases for termination,” and claimed that the return-to-office mandate was ordered to ensure “maximum staffing is available to support the stronger in-person identity proofing requirement”.
On claims of waste, fraud and abuse, a spokesperson said in an email: “The agency will continue to monitor and, if necessary, make adjustments to ensure it pays the right person the right amount at the right time while safeguarding the benefits and programs it administers.”
‘Hard to imagine a bigger betrayal’: AZ judge reveals men’s Russia aircraft parts scheme
Mary Jo Pitzl, Arizona Republic – April 6, 2025
An Arizona judge sentenced two Russian men to prison for sending aircraft parts to Russia in an illegal export scam.
U.S. District Court Judge Dominic Lanza handed Oleg Sergeyevich Patsulya an almost six-year sentence on April 2, while Vasilii Sergeyevich Besedin was handed a two-year sentence.
The two Florida residents presented themselves to U.S. companies, including one in Arizona, as brokers seeking aircraft parts on behalf of clients in other countries. However, they intended to send the parts to Russia, in violation of heightened export controls in the wake of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, according to court documents.
The two were charged with violating the federal Export Control Reform Act. Patsulya’s sentence also reflected his guilty plea to money laundering. He agreed to forfeit more than $4.5M in assets, including a luxury vehicle and a boat, to compensate for the money he made off of the scheme.
In a statement, Lanza identified Patsulya as the leader of the plot, which Patsulya hatched after he had been granted a visa to be in the U.S. legally.
“It’s hard to imagine a bigger betrayal of the United States than what you did,” Lanza said.
In his plea agreement, Patsulya acknowledged that by pleading guilty it was “a virtual certainty” that he would be deported from the U.S.
The duo’s efforts to obtain parts for a carbon disc brake system used on Boeing 737s led them to an Arizona firm, identified in court documents as “Arizona Company 1.”
During a Sept. 8, 2022 visit, the two said they were interested in buying brake parts for a Turkish client and signed forms indicating the transaction complied with export rules. Both actions were lies, court documents stated.
The Arizona deal never went through, but the two pursued other companies and ultimately were able to ship some of the brake systems to Russia, records show.
The case was investigated by the Phoenix field office of the U.S. Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security and Phoenix-based FBI agents. They were aided by federal investigators in Boston and Miami.
This week, they are targeting the man who gave him that role: President Donald Trump.
In coordinated demonstrations that organizers said took place across all 50 states, the “Hands Off!” protest accused Trump and his administration of championing policies that benefit the rich while making life harder for everyone else.
Business Insider sent reporters to protests in different parts of the country to hear from them directly. Many said they were most worried about the economy and their retirement investments, which have dwindled in tandem with Trump’s tariff announcements.
Trump says the tariffs will help jump-start US manufacturing, promote US goods, protect jobs and ultimately create more of them. He has urged Americans to wait out the initial market volatility and price increases.
That has, however, so far done little to alleviate fears. Here’s what protesters told us and what surprised us the most.
New York City
A large crowd protests the Trump administration in Midtown Manhattan.Bryan Bedder/Getty Images for Community Change Action
As I rode the train from Brooklyn to Midtown Manhattan, the subway car filled with protesters, their cardboard signs bumping up against umbrellas on a rainy Saturday in New York.
By 1 p.m., the 42nd Street station was even more crowded than usual. Older people clutched slippery canes, and young kids clutched their parents’ hands. One man wore a once trendy Harris Walz camo hat. Another waved a small American flag, an unusual display of patriotism at anti-Trump rallies.
The damp horde of protesters shuffled toward Bryant Park, and in some ways, it all felt familiar. There were chants about abortion, signs featuring the face of now-deceased Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a progressive icon, and a steady cacophony of car horns.
But some things were different this time.
For one, the crowd looked older, with middle-aged Americans seeming to outnumber the 20-somethings that dominated rallies during the pandemic. It makes sense since many Americans are watching their retirement savings dwindle in the face of crashing markets and worry that staff cuts to the Social Security Administration could impact the crucial safety net.
While the anti-government protests held during Trump’s first term focused on social issues — like abortion and civil rights issues — many of the signs today targeted the economy.
A protest sign at the Manhattan demonstration.Alice Tecotzky/Business Insider
Most of the people I spoke to didn’t want to share their last names because they worried about their privacy in the current political environment. Yet they weren’t shy about their rage and despair.
Dorothy Auer, 62, told me she wished people would get angrier.
“I’ve been working for over 40 years, and I looked at my investments yesterday — my retirement plan — and I literally don’t think I’ll ever be able to retire,” she said, starting to choke up.
Wiping her eyes with her free hand — the other held a black and white sign bashing Musk — Auer told me it’s distressing to see a man of such wealth “turn around and crap on us.”
Jian, 33, held a sign that read, “Tariffs are killing my 401(k),” but he told me he’s most upset about what’s happening to his retired father.
“My dad just lost about 25% of his savings in the last three days because of the tariffs,” he said.
It’s not just the economy, of course, that brought thousands of people out to Midtown Manhattan.
Penny, 54, said the Trump administration affected virtually every issue she cares about. Even so, we ended up talking about Musk.
“I’m horrified that a person who wasn’t born here, wasn’t elected, seems to be getting carte blanche to do whatever he wants in our government,” she said. “How did he get a security clearance?”
Most of those I talked to as they slowly trudged toward Madison Square Park didn’t think the protest would change Trump’s mind.
A few said they hoped Congress would pay attention, but more than that, people said they felt they needed to do something.
“Even if it’s sort of hopeless right now, at least it’s showing people that we’re here,” Pyare, 49, told me. “And that we don’t like it.”
Novi, Michigan
Another week, another protest.
On Saturday, I attended the Hands Off! rally in Novi, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit where 55% of the vote went to Kamala Harris during the election. Thousands of people showed up.
The crowd was emotionally charged and united by the spirit of collective action. Many attendees said they were first-time protesters. The Tesla Takedown protests I attended last weekend seemed somber by comparison. Protesters here got loud.
The artist calls herself the “Old Lady Army Fighting for Democracy” or “OLAFFD.”Lakshmi Varanasi
“Call me Old Lady Army Fighting for Democracy,” one 66-year-old woman, who didn’t want to give her real name, told me. She held up a sign she had made. It was a charcoal drawing of the Statue of Liberty, whose hands covered her eyes in shame.
“I just copied this off of Facebook,” she said. But to her it symbolized that “everything that our country stands for is being destroyed, and the world is looking at us.”
A pin that said “Keep your laws off my body” was of several Liana Gettel, 58, was wearing at the Hands Off! rally in Novi, Michigan.Lakshmi Varanasi
Liana Gettel, 58, said she was outraged for several reasons, including the administration’s stance on abortion. She said she had an abortion 29 years ago.
“I had lost a child. The child would not come out on its own. So I had to have a procedure. Had I not had that procedure, I wouldn’t be here,” she said. “And that’s what they want to block, is things like that?”
Protesters targeted many different issues, including abortion, trans, and minority rights. One protester holding up a sign for trans rights said, “Trans people are just the appetizer, but everyone will be on the menu now.”
The line echoed remarks made by human rights advocate Channyn Lynne Parker at the Rally for Trans Visibility in Chicago last weekend.
Protesters at the Hands Off! rally fought for many causes, including trans rights.Lakshmi Varanasi
Unlike protests during Trump’s first term, which focused on social issues, however, many people today were also worried about the president’s economic policies.
Matt Watts said he was protesting Musk’s takeover of Social Security and Trump’s tariffs on “countries that don’t deserve it.” After the stock market began to take a hit from all the talk of tariffs, Watts said he took his money out of his 401(k) and invested it into a more stable fund. “I’m getting ready to retire pretty soon. I’ve got to count on that savings,” he said.
Most protesters were middle-aged or older, but they captured some younger activists with their energy.
Yajat Verma, 18, and Patricia, 53.Lakshmi Varanasi
Yajat Verma, 18, said he hadn’t known about the protest but was driving by with a friend when he saw the crowd. He decided to join in and started handing out water bottles to protesters.
“Everyone should be protesting,” he said.
San Francisco
Thousands of protesters gathered at Civic Center Plaza near San Francisco City Hall.Lloyd Lee
Protesters crowding together near the San Francisco City Hall had much to be angry about.
On one end of the 150,000 square-foot Civic Center Plaza, a man’s voice boomed through the microphone about the dangers of fascism and how it was time for people to go “on the offensive.”
On the other end was Michelle Gutierrez Vo, president of the California Nurses Association, warning folks about Trump’s move to strip federal workers of their union rights.
With so many grievances against the current administration in the air, some protesters resorted to bullet-point lists of the issues on large signs.
Protesters hold signs listing several issues they have with the Trump administration.Lloyd Lee
That spoke to one of the concerns for Maria, a 67-year-old San Francisco resident who declined to provide her last name.
“My focus has been a lot about the environment,” Maria told BI, later adding, “There’s so much going on right now, but I know it’s important to try and stay focused on one thing and hope other people are focused on the other things.”
Maria’s friend chimed in, saying she was worried about her Social Security, which she said she had been paying into for six decades.
For Frida Ruiz, 18, a student at the University of San Francisco who held a sign that read “Billionaire Cucks,” Trump’s stance on immigration hits close to home as a daughter of Mexican immigrant parents.
For George Chikovani, a 42-year-old SF resident, who came to protest with his wife Lisa Isola, 40, and their three-year-old and 10-months-old children, his most personal issue was the Ukraine war.
“My grandmother is from Ukraine and then I grew up in Georgia, so that cause has felt very personal to me. I still have family and friends there,” Chikovani said.
At least 7,500 people gathered near city hall on Saturday afternoon, according to an officer with the San Francisco Police Department.
Some protesters were in full-body costumes.Lloyd Lee
As my colleague observed in New York, older millennials and seniors made up large swaths of the crowd. Some came out in full costumes, sticking true to SF’s colorful character.
Maria, who is also a member of Third Act, a left-leaning political advocacy group focused on mobilizing senior voters, said she was encouraged by people who came out to protest but was “hoping to see more.”
Trump, Elon Musk ‘Hands Off’ protest in Palm Beach Gardens
Maya Washburn and Jennifer Sangalang – April 4, 2025
More than one thousand people lined the north and south side of PGA Boulevard near Kew Gardens Avenue with handmade signs as part of the national Hands Off! protests in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., on April 5, 2025.
PALM BEACH GARDENS – People are taking to the streets to make one message clear to President Donald Trump and Elon Musk: “Hands off!”
According to USA TODAY, there are more than 1,000 protests across the nation against Trump and Musk scheduled for Saturday, April 5, 2025. Three of those protests are in Palm Beach County, including one in Palm Beach Gardens.
Trump returned to Florida on Thursday, April 3, with trips to three of his golf courses (including one in Jupiter) high on his agenda for his weekend trip to the Sunshine State – the same weekend that the nationwide protests are planned against him. Some will happen just down the road from his private club, Mar-a-Lago.
Many of these Hands Off Mass Mobilization rallies have “Hands Off!” plus the name of the city and state and “fight back!” in their titles. They are happening just days after April 2, what Trump called “Liberation Day,” when he imposed sweeping tariffs affecting all U.S. trading partners and imports.
Where is the Trump, Musk protest in northern Palm Beach County? Intersection near Barnes & Noble
There will be a Hands Off rally in Palm Beach Gardens on April 5 from 10 a.m. to noon at Campus Drive and PGA Boulevard near Barnes & Noble and Palm Beach County Library.
According to the Hands Off Mass Mobilization website, handsoff2025.com, Florida will host 45 rallies − including at least one in Spanish − on Saturday, April 5, 2025, at various times and locations.
Where are Trump, Musk protests in Palm Beach County?
There are three Hands Off rallies this weekend in Palm Beach County:
Boca Raton, Florida: Hands Off! Boca Raton Indivisible Fights Back rally will be from 1 to 2:30 p.m. EDT Saturday, April 5, 2025, at City Hall, 201 W. Palmetto Park Road, Boca Raton, near the Boca Raton Museum of Art, Brightline Boca Raton Station and Ichiyami Buffet and Sushi.
Palm Beach Gardens, Florida: Hands Off! Palm Beach County Fights Back rally will be from 10 a.m. to noon EDT Saturday, April 5, 2025, at Campus Drive and PGA Boulevard in Palm Beach Gardens near Barnes & Noble and Palm Beach County Library.
West Palm Beach, Florida: Hands Off! Palm Beach Fights Back rally will be from 3 to 5 p.m. EDT Saturday, April 5, 2025, at Palm Beach County Courthouse, 205 N. Dixie Highway, West Palm Beach, near Clematis Street, Elisabetta’s Ristorante and West Palm Beach GreenMarket.
Hands Off is the title, filter and group behind the “mass mobilization” nationwide rallies and protests aimed at Trump and Musk, SpaceX and Tesla CEO who is leading the Department of Government Efficiency or DOGE for short.
Most of the Hands Off Fight Back rallies on Saturday, April 5, 2025, have this message online: “Donald Trump and Elon Musk think this country belongs to them. We are fighting back! They’re taking everything they can get their hands on — our health care, our data, our jobs, our services — and daring the world to stop them. This is a crisis, and the time to act is now. On Saturday, April 5th, we’re taking to the streets to fight back with a clear message: Hands off!
“This mass mobilization day is our message to the world that we do not consent to the destruction of our government and our economy for the benefit of Trump and his billionaire allies. Alongside Americans across the country, we are marching, rallying, and protesting to demand a stop the chaos and build an opposition movement against the looting of our country.
“A core principle behind all Hands Off! events is a commitment to nonviolent action. We expect all participants to seek to de-escalate any potential confrontation with those who disagree with our values. Check out handsoff2025.com for more information.”
Why are people protesting Trump and Musk at Hands Off rallies?
Topics and signs will likely include:
Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, jobs, abortion, fair elections, personal data, public lands, veteran services, cancer research, NATO, consumer protections, clean air, clean energy, schools, libraries, free speech, LGBTQ+ rights, immigrants and courts, the rally site states.
The theme of the “fight back,” nonviolent, peaceful protest rallies are, “We must stop Trump and Musk’s illegal, billionaire power grab.”
Maya Washburn covers northern Palm Beach County for The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA TODAY Florida-Network.
NC Supreme Court race ruling is a dangerous attack on voters who followed the rules | Opinion
The Editorial Board – April 4, 2025
Hundreds of demonstrators rally at the North Carolina State Capitol on Monday, Feb. 17, 2025. The rally, organized by Common Cause, protested Republican state Supreme Court candidate Jefferson Griffin’s challenge of 65,000 ballots in November’s election. He trails Democratic incumbent Allison Riggs.More
Roughly 65,000 votes are just a step away from being thrown out after the North Carolina Court of Appeals sided with Jefferson Griffin in his lawsuit seeking to overturn the state Supreme Court race he lost by 734 votes out of more than 5 million cast.
In a stunning decision that changes the rules of an election after that election has occurred, the court ruled that the vast majority of the votes in question must be recounted and verified, and voters will be given 15 days to “cure” their ballots by providing documentation to verify their identities.
The ruling creates a dangerous precedent for overturning an election result that the loser simply doesn’t like.
The decision by a three-judge panel broke along party lines, with two Republicans in support of Griffin’s appeal and Democrat Judge Toby Hampson issuing a lengthy dissent, rejects rulings by the State Board of Elections and a Wake Superior Court judge who found the board ruled correctly.
The case is now almost certain to go to the Republican-controlled state Supreme Court, where Griffin’s opponent in the race, Justice Allison Riggs, will recuse herself. If the state Supreme Court upholds the appeals court’s ruling, it will be a new extreme in judicial partisanship and a national embarrassment for North Carolina.
The ruling also places an extraordinary burden on voters who must now defend their legitimacy despite the fact that they did nothing wrong. In most cases, those voters simply did not have a driver’s license number or Social Security number attached to their voter registration. That could be because the directions on their registration form were unclear, or because there was a typo or other clerical error in the database. Republicans argue that means their identities cannot be verified, even though those voters were required to show ID in order to cast their vote.
Giving the affected voters the opportunity to cure their ballots does not make this decision any less an act of disenfranchisement. It’s fantastical to think that any meaningful share of those voters will provide the missing information in such a tight window, especially those living overseas who may not even receive notice until the 15 days are nearly over.
It’s worth noting that Griffin has not been able to prove that any of the voters he is challenging were actually ineligible to vote. Yet he — and the court — are fervent in their assertion that those votes may well be illegal.
As Hampson wrote in his dissent: “Petitioner has not established that any one of the ballots he challenges was cast by an unlawfully registered voter. Therefore, Petitioner has not met his burden of establishing probable cause to believe a violation of election law has occurred.”
Even more ridiculous is the fact that the new standard is not being evenly applied — the votes Griffin chose to challenge disproportionately belong to demographics or counties that lean Democratic. Only these specific ballots, in this specific race, are at risk of being thrown out. It undermines the public’s faith in our elections and in the judges that are apparently willing to overturn them.
Friday’s ruling sends the unwelcome message that the right to vote in North Carolina may be more fragile than ever. Even if you follow the rules, that right can still be taken away from you months later by judges who believe themselves more bound to partisanship than to the law. It’s a shame for democracy, and a shame for North Carolina.
Countries boost recruitment of American scientists amid cuts to scientific funding
Chandelis Duster – March 29, 2025
People walk past the faculty of economy of the Aix-Marseille University in Marseille on Oct. 4, 2023.Christophe Simon/AFP via Getty Images
As the Trump administration and Elon Musk’s DOGE seek to reduce the federal workforce and cut spending, some European countries are looking to capitalize on the opportunity by recruiting talent from the scientific community.
The administration’s actions, including eliminating programs and funding for scientific research, are prompting some researchers and scientists to consider leaving the U.S. to live in other countries, such as France, to continue their work.
According to a survey released by the journal Nature on Thursday, more than 1,200 respondents who identified as scientists said they were considering leaving the U.S. and relocating to Europe or Canada because of President Trump’s actions. Approximately 1,650 people completed the survey, which was posted on the journal’s website, social media and an e-mailed newsletter, according to the journal.
Jennifer Jones, director of the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists, tells NPR that she has spoken with scientists, some of whom currently work at federal agencies and others who have been fired. Many of them say they are looking for opportunities abroad due to a lack of options for conducting their research with the government or at universities, Jones says.
“There’s another bucket of folks as well, and those are folks who are just worried in general about the intimidation, fear and harassment that they are facing,” she says. “This could be a result of the kind of work that they’re doing. They might be doing work around issues of diversity, equity, [and] inclusion, trying to broaden participation in our STEM or science, technology, engineering, math fields. These could be folks working on issues of climate change, of vaccine safety.”
Jones also says she has spoken with scientists who said after the 2024 presidential election, they “began seeking and have acquired positions overseas.”
“They would have started that process before inauguration and before the last few weeks,” Jones says.
Helping as many scientists as possible
The U.S. has historically been viewed as a leading country for research, having actively recruited scientists from around the world for significant projects and studies. For example, when the Manhattan Project began in December 1941, it was a top-secret research initiative by the U.S. government that ultimately led to the development of the first atomic bombs. Scientists from Europe were specifically sought out to help with the project. Many of these European scientists were already living in the U.S. after being displaced because of the turmoil of WWII or fleeing from Nazism and fascism.Sponsor Message
American scientists conducting research in other countries is not a new phenomenon, and there are programs where American students and scientists can study abroad, Sudip Parikh, CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, tells NPR. But the growing number of American scientists considering leaving the U.S. due to uncertainty in the U.S. is not normal, he says.
“It’s something that’s ramped up and it has a different messaging, which is saying, ‘There’s uncertainty there. Come to us,’ ” Parikh says of efforts by other countries to recruit scientists and researchers from the United States.
In response to these recent developments, schools in France, including the prestigious CentraleSupélec, have established funds to support American scientists. The engineering school announced last week that it has allocated 3 million euros (around $3.2 million) to finance research projects that can no longer continue in the U.S. Additionally, earlier this month, Aix-Marseille Université — one of the oldest and largest universities in France, with roots tracing back to1409 and approximately 80,000 students — announced it is accepting applications for its Safe Place For Science program.
The program aims to offer “a safe and stimulating environment for scientists wishing to pursue their research in complete freedom” and will support about 15 American scientists with a total fund of up to 15 million euros (around $16.2 million) over three years. The university has already received more than 150 applications, according to a public relations agency representing the university.
“We are witnessing a new brain drain. We will do everything in our power to help as many scientists as possible continue their research,” Éric Berton, president of the university, said in a statement. “However, we cannot meet all demands on our own. The Ministry of Education and Research is fully supporting and assisting us in this effort, which is intended to expand at both national and European levels.”
Other countries are also actively seeking to attract American scientists. For instance, the Netherlands is also launching a fund to support American scientists as well as those from other countries. Minister of Education, Culture and Science Eppo Bruins informed the parliament in a letter last week that he requested the country’s science financier to set up a fund aimed at bringing top international scientists to the Netherlands as soon as possible.
“The world is changing. Tensions are increasing. We see that more and more scientists are looking for another place to do their work,” Bruins wrote in the letter. “I want more international top scientists to come and do that here. After all, top scientists are worth their weight in gold for our country and for Europe.”
While it remains unclear what funding will be available for scientific research from the U.S. government and for universities, Parikh says he is encouraging scientists working here not to leave.
“Over the last 80 years, we have built the greatest innovation engine that the world’s ever seen and it’s delivered cures and treatments for disease. It has delivered economic growth and jobs. And the other countries have paid attention and they wanna copy it and we shouldn’t make it easy for them,” he says.
DOGE’s access to the payroll system of 276,000 federal employees puts government on path to have ‘unprecedented power and control’ over Americans’ information, experts say
Sasha Rogelberg – April 1, 2025
Elon Musk’s DOGE gained access to federal payroll systems over the weekend, raising privacy and cybersecurity concerns.
The Elon-Musk led Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) gained access over the weekend to the payroll system overseeing the information of 276,000 federal workers. DOGE’s continued access to sensitive data has raised concerns about privacy and cybersecurity, but also about the long-term goal of the advisory group, which has continued to espouse eliminating government waste and fraud.
The Department of Government Efficiency has continued its charge to obtain sensitive government information, gaining access over the weekend to federal payroll systems, raising concerns about the long-term goals of the advisory’s efforts to overhaul U.S. bureaucracy.
The Elon Musk–led advisory now has entry into the employment information of 276,000 federal employees and is able to view Social Security numbers and more easily hire and fire workers, two anonymous sources told the New York Times. The system, known as the Federal Personnel Payroll System, is inside the Department of the Interior, which processes pay for the Air Force, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, as well as the departments of Homeland Security, Treasury, and Justice.
DOGE’s access to these systems could compromise cybersecurity of sensitive government information, the sources said. When senior IT personnel pushed back against the move, they were reportedly put on administrative leave; they are now reportedly under investigation for “workplace behavior.”
“We are working to execute the President’s directive to cut costs and make the government more efficient for the American people and have taken actions to implement President [Donald] Trump’s Executive Orders,” an Interior Department spokesperson told Fortune in a statement.
Musk recently doubled down on justifying DOGE’s access to government data, claiming it was a necessary part of identifying and eliminating waste and fraud.
“These databases don’t talk to each other,” Musk said in a Fox News interview last week. “And that’s really the source of, that’s the biggest vulnerability for fraud, is the fact that these databases don’t talk to each other. So we need to reconcile the databases. It’s a, frankly, painful homework, but it has to be done, and will greatly improve the efficiency of the government systems.”
However, policy and transparency experts warn DOGE’s acquisition of private information will have reverberating consequences that have yet to be determined.
“Being able to amass all of that information will give the federal government unprecedented power and control to do with that information a number of things that we just haven’t experienced as a country before,” Elizabeth Laird, the director of equity in civic technology at technology policy nonprofit the Center for Democracy and Technology, told Fortune.
What’s the long game?
Over the past two and a half months, Musk’s DOGE team has also gained access to the Internal Revenue Service, which stores bank account information and purchase itemizations, and the Social Security Administration, which houses individuals’ lifetime wages and disability and citizenship status.
While one of DOGE’s more immediate goals appears to be leveraging AI to streamline administrative tasks, as well as eventually privatizing Social Security, Musk’s ultimate goal of eliminating fraud and waste remains mysterious to some.
“[It’s] never really been clear what the long game is,” Cary Coglianese, an administrative law professor at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School, told Fortune. “Ostensibly, we’ve been told it’s to try to improve the efficiency, maybe to identify where there are people who are getting paid who are not really living, or methods for auditing payroll systems.
“This doesn’t seem to be following any of those conventions, as far as anybody can tell from the outside,” he added. “And there isn’t really a clear articulation of an overarching vision.”
DOGE did not immediately respond to Fortune’s request for comment.
Trump’s first-term playbook could offer a hint at the administration’s intentions. During his first term, the administration moved to ensure more information was shared among federal agencies, including the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to make it easier to identify biological data and immigration status.
Last month, Trump signed a similar executive order to “eliminate information silos,” claiming to give federal officials speedy and full access to unclassified records, data, software, and information systems.
“If you look at the data environment that DOGE is attempting to create, it looks pretty similar to the data environment that the Trump administration indicated they wanted to create in their first term,” Laird said. “Except instead of using that information for fraud use, they wanted to use it for immigration purposes.”
Easier access to private information has raised serious legal questions. More than a dozen lawsuits have alleged DOGE’s access to sensitive federal data is a violation of the Privacy Act of 1974, a post-Watergate law restricting agencies’ sharing of private information with unauthorized entities without the consent of citizens.
Even if cybersecurity and legal concerns were assuaged, Laird argued, DOGE’s access to sensitive government data still presents unknowns about the government’s future use of AI, as well as the true efficacy of massive workforce eliminations.
“Something can be private, and something can be secure, and it can be legal,” Laird said. “And it can still be a bad idea.”
Wednesday is Liberation Day, and one person might be even more excited about it than Donald Trump is: Elon Musk. While much of what the president will announce from the Rose Garden on April 2 remains a mystery, Trump has alreadydeclared that 25 percent tariffs will kick in this week on imported cars and light trucks—to be followed by tariffs on auto parts as well. Economists, car dealers, and consumers are sounding the alarm, and rightly so. “If the taxes are fully passed onto consumers,” the AP reports, “the average auto price on an imported vehicle could jump by $12,500.” But Trump said he “couldn’t care less” if that happens because then “people are gonna buy American-made cars. We have plenty.”
Well, not really. There is no such thing as a truly American-made car, if you take into account the origin of the parts. And even “American” brands, like General Motors and Ford, assemble a significant amount of their vehicles abroad. But when looking for the most American-made vehicles, one manufacturer stands out: Tesla. Its fleet is 100 percent assembled in the United States.
This is just the latest of many examples—almost too many to count—of Trump’s policies redounding directly to Musk’s benefit. From executive orders to foreign misadventures, much of what crosses Trump’s desk or flits through his birdbrain is in Musk’s material interest. Even Trump’s own political interests are taking a back seat to enriching Musk, who donated nearly $300 million last year to help Trump and his MAGA minions get elected. The generous (albeit still damning) interpretation is that the president is merely returning that favor; less favorably, he’s in Musk’s back pocket. Either way, the great con man Trump has met his match—now he’s the one being conned.
The Tesla CEO claimed last week that his company will also be significantly impacted by the tariffs because it imports some of its auto parts. But because Tesla’s vehicles are made in California and Texas, and it imports fewer parts by value than other manufacturers, it will have a tremendous competitive advantage.
And even if the tariffs do ding Tesla, well, Musk can take heart that he’s making off like a bandit in so many other respects under the Trump administration.
Last week, Trump sent JD Vance to Greenland, where the vice president said the territory’s mother country, Denmark, had “underinvested” in the island’s people and its “beautiful landmass.” It’s the latter that so intrigues Musk and others in Silicon Valley, since the resources there—an abundance of rare earth elements needed for lithium-ion batteries, on which Teslas run—could represent a major windfall for the tech industry. No wonder Musk tweeted earlier this year, “If the people of Greenland want to be part of America, which I hope they do, they would be most welcome!”
Of course, Trump’s obsession with critical minerals has also played a major role in the batshit negotiations over ending Russia’s war on Ukraine. The president twice mentioned the embattled country’s “rare earth” when he proposed a “deal” to end the war that was really more of an extortion attempt—asking Ukraine to pay the U.S. $500 billion in minerals in exchange for continued American aid. This eventually led to Trump and Vance’s embarrassing Oval Office ambush of Volodymyr Zelenskiy, for which Musk had helped set the stage by laying accusations against the Ukrainian president and repeatedly suggesting he be removed.
Other proposals have Musk’s fingerprints all over them as well. As Paul Waldman pointed out for TNR, a Biden-era program to improve broadband access and service in areas of the country that lack high-speed internet is now being revised in a way that will allow Musk’s satellite internet provider, Starlink, to underbid competitors and secure $20 billion in government funding—while also providing service that is inferior to the fiber connections that the program favored. Unsurprisingly, the advantages that Musk will receive have been presented as a win for the American people. The former head of the program hit the nail on the head: “Stranding all or part of rural America with worse internet so that we can make the world’s richest man even richer is yet another in a long line of betrayals by Washington.”
In fact, Starlink keeps showing up these days. What explains Musk’s animosity toward USAID, which his Department of Government Efficiency has been busy dismantling? Perhaps it stems from the agency’s investigation of its contract with the company to provide Ukraine with internet access. Starlink has also been installed throughout the White House campus and at the DOGE-allied General Services Administration.
Nothing Musk does runs contrary to his own ambition. Starlink is a wholly owned subsidiary of SpaceX, which Musk founded. He didn’t appreciate the Federal Aviation Administration’s probe of his company, so he launched an online campaign pressuring its head, Michael Whitaker, to resign and then axed many others at the agency—exacerbating a staffing crisis that has coincided with several deadly collisions. Not to worry: The FAA is going to be using Starlink for its soon-to-be upgraded technology networks. You can be sure the competition for the contract was fierce.
Must be a coincidence, too, that SpaceX engineer Theodore Malaska happens to be just the right person to serve at the FAA, where he’s been granted an ethics waiver to oversee projects that directly impact the company he works for. Ordinarily such a situation might raise ethics concerns, given the clear conflict of interest and lack of governmental impartiality, but it’s alright because we all know Musk wouldn’t engage in anything unethical, right? Otherwise we might also be suspicious of the fact that, while DOGE is going around infiltrating and cutting agencies, it’s essentially suggested no spending cuts to NASA or the Pentagon, both of which have massively increased their investments in SpaceX.ADVERTISEMENTAdvertisement
That wasn’t the case with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which has seen a 10 percent workforce reduction, possibly impeding the six investigations it was conducting into Tesla’s self-driving technology.
But we can trust Musk to oversee himself, we’re told. Just last week, he negotiated with himself so that his xAI company could purchase his X social media platform, claiming respective valuations of $80 billion and $33 billion—both undoubtedly inflated figures. In fairness, all that really matters in such an arrangement is the stock ratio for investors, but Reuters did note that it was “unclear … whether there would be regulatory scrutiny.” Such scrutiny would come from the Securities and Exchange Commission, which Musk’s DOGE team has invaded.
Similarly, Trump is attempting to eliminate the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which, if successful, would eliminate the government agency that had planned to regulate Musk’s proposed mobile payments service on X. Yet Musk’s ambitions go well beyond digital payments. Combining xAI with X and its Grok service will position him well to embark on an even bolder agenda that will leave the federal government more dependent on him and his companies than ever: Musk has instituted an AI takeover of government data, potentially making him and xAI indispensable to future government operations.
Even before Musk fully sinks his AI claws into our government, it’s hard to overstate the leverage Musk now has. Through his effective control of both the General Services Administration and the Office of Personnel Management, Musk oversees hirings and firings, data systems, federal buildings, and government vehicles. Perhaps that explains why the State Department is expected to spend around $400 million to purchase Teslas to transport diplomats. The question is whether any foreign representatives will want to be seen being shepherded around town in a vehicle that has become synonymous with cruelty and douchebaggery.
In fact, the one thing Musk didn’t seem to plan on when he spun his big con of Trump was the blowback he’d receive. The resistance, declared dead by many as Trump took office for his second term, has shown signs of life of late, as growing anti-Musk sentiment has been directed in part at Teslas—including large protests at its dealerships across the country. I guess that recent Tesla infomercial on the White House lawn, yet another example of Trump doing Musk a solid, has backfired.
The key to pulling off a big con, Henry Gondorff tells Johnny Hooker in 1973’s The Sting, is maintaining the façade: “He can’t know you took him.” Right now, that’s exactly what Musk is doing with Trump. For the low price of $288 million—chump change when you’re the world’s richest person, valued at $350 billion—Musk has been handed the keys to the U.S. government and given the run of the place, while Trump seems to have convinced himself that he’s still in charge. Meanwhile, angrycrowds are storming Republican town halls, furious that DOGE is killing jobs, destroying vital services, and attacking the social safety net while enriching Musk. Elections are turning in Democrats’ favor, potentially imperiling Trump’s power to enact his agenda. And yet, there sits the duped president behind the Resolute Desk, grinning like a senile old lady who’s happily given out her bank card and Social Security number to a cunning younger man with an accent.
