July, 08 2019, 12:00am EDT
Trump to Attempt to Greenhouse Gaslight Public on His Record of Dirtier Air and Dirtier Water
WASHINGTON
Today, Donald Trump will reportedly try to defy reality by attempting to greenwash his toxic record on air and water issues. Elected as the only head of state in the world to refuse to accept climate science, Donald Trump has quickly established the worst record on the environment and climate action of any president in the history of the country. Following considerable progress under the previous Administration curbing pollution and tackling the climate crisis, Trump has attempted to throw out, roll back, undermine and scrap nearly every clean air, clean water, and climate safeguard on the books, rolled out deadly new policies to help corporate polluters, and remains the only world leader to attempt to withdraw from the historic Paris Climate Agreement.
In response to the news of Trump's speech, Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune released the following statement:
"Donald Trump is resorting to greenhouse gaslighting the public to try and cover-up the fact that he is the worst president in history for the environment, climate and public health. Trump's relentless attacks on our clean air, clean water, climate and public lands threaten the health and safety of millions of Americans and no speech he gives can ever change the reality of his actions."
In a nod to the dirtier air, dirtier water, and dirtier politics that would result from Trump Administration proposals, today's speech is coming just days after the one-year anniversary of the disgraceful resignation of Trump's EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, who Trump ultimately replaced with beleaguered coal lobbyist Andrew Wheeler. As Trump seeks to greenhouse gaslight the nation on his environmental and climate record, here's just a few of the deadly lowlights from his Administration on these key issues:
Dirtier Air
Trump...
- Saw U.S. air quality drop "after years of improvement," with more polluted air days each year in Trump's first two years in office than in the previous four years, according to Associated Press analysis.
- Scrapped landmark protections from methane pollution, seeking to allow the dangerous pollutant to contaminate our air without limit.
- Weakend policies to protect vulnerable Americans from deadly smog pollution that contributes to dirtier air and leads to asthma attacks and heart attacks.
- Threw out the Clean Power Plan and replaced it with a rollback that would result in air pollution causing the death of 1,400 Americans per year and spur 120,000 additional asthma attacks.
- Attempted to undermine Clean Car Standards, putting more than 43% percent of the population -- those who already live in counties that have monitored unhealthy ozone and/or particle pollution -- at increased health risk because of dirtier air.
Dirtier Water
Trump...
- Attacked the Clean Water Rule, sacrificing drinking water sources for one-third of Americans to the pollution from the fossil fuel industry and other sources.
- Rolled back safeguards on coal ash pollution, threatening drinking water sources with toxic coal waste leaks and spills.
- Attempted to approve the widely-opposed Keystone XL -- which still faces significant legal obstacles -- and Dakota Access fossil fuel pipelines, threatening water sources across the country.
- Threw out National Environmental Policy Act provisions that ensure fossil fuel projects and infrastructure plans do not threaten clean air, clean water, and a stable climate.
Endangered Public Lands and Waters
Trump...
- Is the only president ever to shrink the amount of federally protected public lands when he sought to rescind protections for Bears Ears and Grand Staircase Escalante national monuments
- Pushed to open up nearly all American coastal waters to dangerous oil and gas drilling.
- After seeking to slash funding for our national parks, stole funds appropriated for addressing the $12 billion backlog for his July 4th circus event.
Dirtier Politics
Trump...
- Appointed Scott Pruitt as EPA Administrator. Pruitt resigned amid numerous scandals tied to abuse of authority, waste of taxpayer dollars, and cozy relations with corporate polluter lobbyists.
- Appointed Ryan Zinke as Secretary of the Interior. Zinke resigned amid numerous scandals tied to abuse of authority, waste of taxpayer dollars, and cozy relations with corporate polluter lobbyists.
- Appointed Andrew Wheeler as EPA Administrator who in his first 100 days as acting Administrator harmed the environment and public health on average every three days.
- Appointed David Bernhardt as Director of the Department of Interior who has continued selling out our public lands to polluters while seeking to re-write FOIA rules to conceal his actions
- Attempted to provide billions in taxpayer-funded bailouts to coal executives.
Deadly Policies and a Dangerous Climate
Trump...
- Threw out the Clean Power Plan's first ever limits on climate-crisis fuelling carbon pollution from power plants.
- Announced plans to remove the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement.
- Targeted Clean Cars Standards for rollback, undermining one of the most significant climate action policies in history and undoing plans to double fuel economy by 2025.
- Attempted to change the way federal agencies count the deaths and health effects of his policy rollbacks.
- Continuously refused to acknowledge the climate crisis and oversaw the creation of a panel on climate science led by a man who compared previously said that "the demonization of carbon dioxide is just like the demonization of the poor Jews under Hitler."
The public won't be fooled by Trump's attempts to greenlight gaslight the world. His deadly record speaks far louder than his rhetoric ever will:
- He entered office as the only leader in the world who denies the climate crisis.
- He is the only president ever to decrease the amount of federally protected lands and waters.
- He is the only world leader to seek to leave the landmark Paris Climate Agreement.
- He is the worst President for our environment and our climate in the history of the United States.
The Sierra Club is the most enduring and influential grassroots environmental organization in the United States. We amplify the power of our 3.8 million members and supporters to defend everyone's right to a healthy world.
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Rights Group Condemns 'Terror' and 'Lawlessness' Spread by Trump's Masked Thugs
“Allowing masked, unidentified agents to roam communities and apprehend people without identifying themselves erodes trusts in the rule of law and creates a dangerous vacuum where abuses can flourish."
Dec 18, 2025
As masked government agents—an oft-employed terror tool of authoritarian regimes—run roughshod amid the Trump administration's mass deportation effort, a leading human rights group on Thursday called on Congress to investigate abuses perpetrated by federal officers against immigrants and US citizens alike.
Federal immigration enforcement agents "now commonly operate masked and without visible identification, compounding the abusive and unaccountable nature of the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign," Human Rights Watch (HRW) said. "The indefinite and widespread nature of these practices is fundamentally inconsistent with the United States’ obligations to ensure that law enforcement abuses are investigated and met with accountability."
HRW continued:
Since President Donald Trump’s return to office in January 2025, his administration has carried out an abusive campaign of immigration raids and arrests, primarily of people of color, across the country. Many of the raids target places where Latino people work, shop, eat, and live. The agents have seized people in courthouses and at regularly scheduled appointments with immigration officials, as well as in places of worship, schools, and other sensitive locations. Many raids have been marked by the sudden and unprovoked use of force without any justification, creating a climate of fear in many immigrant communities.
Drawing upon interviews with 18 people who were arrested or witnessed arrests by unidentified federal agents, HRW highlighted the "terror" and helplessness felt by victims of such "lawlessness."
“It was a horrible feeling,” said Rümeysa Öztürk, a Turkish PhD student at Tufts University who was illegally snatched off a Massachusetts street in March and whisked off to an US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) lockup in Louisiana after she published an opinion piece in a student newspaper advocating divestment from apartheid Israel as it waged a genocidal war on Gaza. With Öztürk having committed no crime, a federal judge ordered her release 45 days later.
“I didn’t think that they were the police because I had never seen police approach and take someone away like this," Öztürk said of her arrest—which bystanders likened to a kidnapping. "I thought they were people who were doxing me, and I was genuinely very afraid for my safety... As a woman who’s traveled and lived alone in various countries for my studies, I’ve never experienced intense fear for my safety—until that moment.”
Operatives with ICE—part of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)—and other agencies have violently attacked not only unauthorized immigrants but also members of their communities including US citizens, activists, journalists, and others. The agents are often wearing masks but not badges or other identifiers, making it very difficult to hold abusers accountable.
While ICE tries to justify its widespread practice of masking agents “to prevent doxing,” HRW stressed that "this kind of generalized, blanket justification for concealing officers’ identity is not compatible with US human rights obligations, except when necessary and proportionate to address particular safety concerns."
"Anonymity also weakens deterrence, fosters conditions for impunity, and chills the exercise of rights," the group added.
It also sows terror, as Republican-appointed US District Judge William Young noted in a ruling earlier this year: "ICE goes masked for a single reason—to terrorize Americans into quiescence. Small wonder ICE often seems to need our respected military to guard them as they go about implementing our immigration laws. It should be noted that our troops do not ordinarily wear masks. Can you imagine a masked marine? It is a matter of honor—and honor still matters."
HRW also noted that "in recent months, media outlets have reported on people posing as federal agents kidnapping, sexually assaulting, and extorting victims, exploiting fears of immigration enforcement."
“Allowing masked, unidentified agents to roam communities and apprehend people without identifying themselves erodes trusts in the rule of law and creates a dangerous vacuum where abuses can flourish, exacerbating the unnecessary violence and brutality of the arrests,” HRW associate crisis and conflict director Belkis Wille said in a statement Thursday.
HRW called on Congress to "investigate the brutality of the ongoing immigration enforcement activities, including the specific impacts of unidentifiable agents carrying out stops and arrests on impeding investigations and accountability efforts."
In addition to efforts by state legislatures to unmask federal agents, congressional Democrats have demanded ICE and other officers identify themselves, and have introduced legislation—the No Secret Police Act and No Masks for ICE Act in the House and VISIBLE Act in the Senate—that would compel them to do so.
“If you uphold the peace of a democratic society, you should not be anonymous,” No Secret Police Act lead co-sponsor Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-NY) said at the time of the bill's introduction in June. “DHS and ICE agents wearing masks and hiding identification echoes the tactics of secret police authoritarian regimes—and deviates from the practices of local law enforcement, which contributes to confusion in communities.”
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Condemning the plans, Humanity & Inclusion said antipersonnel mines "render land unusable for agriculture, block access to essential services, and cause casualties decades after conflicts end."
Dec 18, 2025
Just a couple of weeks after the annual Landmine Monitor highlighted rising global casualties from explosive remnants of war, Reuters reported Wednesday that Poland plans to start producing antipersonnel landmines, deploy them along its eastern border, and possibly export them to Ukraine, which is fighting a Russian invasion.
As both the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) monitor and Reuters noted, Poland is among multiple state parties in the process of ditching the Mine Ban Treaty. Citing the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the news agency reported that "antipersonnel mine production could begin once the treaty's six‑month withdrawal period is completed on February 20, 2026."
Asked about the prospect of Poland producing the mines as soon as it leaves the convention—also called the Ottawa Treaty—Polish Deputy Defense Minister Paweł Zalewski told Reuters: "I would very much like that... We have such needs."
"We are interested in large quantities as soon as possible," Zalewski said. He added that "our starting point is our own needs. But for us, Ukraine is absolutely a priority because the European and Polish security line is on the Russia-Ukraine front."
Notes from Poland pointed out on social media Thursday that the mine plans come amid other developments in Poland's East Shield operation. As the Kraków-based outlet detailed Sunday, "Germany will send soldiers to Poland next year to support its neighbor's efforts to strengthen its borders with Russia and Belarus, which are also NATO and the European Union's eastern flank."
Humanity & Inclusion (HI), a group launched in 1982 by a pair of doctors helping Cambodian refugees affected by landmines, said in a statement to Common Dreams that it "strongly condemns Poland's decision to resume production of antipersonnel mines as soon as its withdrawal from the Ottawa Treaty becomes official in February."
HI stressed that "antipersonnel mines disproportionately harm civilians. They render land unusable for agriculture, block access to essential services, and cause casualties decades after conflicts end. Their use is devastating for civilian populations. Producing landmines is cheap, but removing them would be even more expensive and complicated."
"Plus, new production of landmines would make this weapon more available and easier to purchase," the group warned. "Such a decision normalizes a weapon that has been prohibited since 1999, when the Ottawa Treaty entered into force, and fragilizes the treaty."
"The Ottawa Treaty has been incredibly effective in protecting civilians and drying up the landmine market, a weapon that was no longer produced in Europe, and only assembled by a limited number of countries, including Russia, Iran, and North Korea, among others," HI added, citing the drop in landmine casualties since the convention entered into force.
In 1999, casualties were around 25,000 annually, according to ICBL. By 2023, they had dropped to 5,757 injured or killed. However, as the campaign revealed in its latest report at the beginning of December, there were at least 6,279 casualties in 2024—the highest yearly figure since 2020 and a 9% increase from the previous year.
In the report, ICBL outlined recent alleged mine use by not only Russia and Ukraine but also Cambodia, Iran, Myanmar, and North Korea. The group also flagged that, along with Poland, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, and Lithuania are in the process of legally withdrawing from the Ottawa Treaty, while Ukraine is trying to unlawfully "suspend the operation" of the convention during its war with Russia.
ICBL director Tamar Gabelnick said at the time that "governments must speak out to uphold the treaty, prevent further departures, reinforce its provisions globally, and ensure no more countries use, produce, or acquire antipersonnel mines."
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'Gross': Critics Recoil After Trump-Appointed Board Adds His Name to Kennedy Center
"Some things leave you speechless, and enraged, and in a state of disbelief," said journalist Maria Shriver, a niece of the late President John F. Kennedy.
Dec 18, 2025
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Thursday drew an outraged reaction after she announced that members of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts board, who were appointed by President Donald Trump, had voted to add his name to the building.
In a post on X, Leavitt announced that the building would henceforth be known as the "Trump-Kennedy Center," despite the fact that the building was originally named by the US Congress in the wake of President John F. Kennedy's assassination in 1963.
"I have just been informed that the highly respected Board of the Kennedy Center... have just voted unanimously to rename the Kennedy Center to the Trump-Kennedy Center," Leavitt wrote on X, "because of the unbelievable work President Trump has done over the last year in saving the building. Not only from the standpoint of its reconstruction, but also financially, and its reputation."
Despite Leavitt's claim, it does not appear that the vote in favor of renaming the building was unanimous. Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio), an ex-officio Kennedy Center board member, said after the vote that she had been muted during a call where other board members had voted to add Trump's name to the building, and was thus "not allowed to speak or voice my opposition to this move."
Journalist Terry Moran noted that the Kennedy Center board does not have the power to rename the building without prior approval of US Congress.
"Congress establishes these institutions through law, and only a new law can rename them," Moran wrote, and then commented, "also—gross."
Members of the Kennedy family also expressed anger at the move to rename the center.
Former US Rep. Joe Kennedy III (D-Mass.) wrote on Bluesky that "the Kennedy Center is a living memorial to a fallen president and named for President Kennedy by federal law," and "can no sooner be renamed than can someone rename the Lincoln Memorial, no matter what anyone says."
Journalist Maria Shriver, a niece of the late president, could barely express her anger at the decision.
"Some things leave you speechless, and enraged, and in a state of disbelief," she wrote. "At times such as that, it’s better to be quiet. For how long, I can’t say."
Shortly afterward, Shriver wrote another post in which she attacked Trump for being "downright weird" with his obsession with having things named after himself.
"It is beyond comprehension that this sitting president has sought to rename this great memorial dedicated to President Kennedy," she said. "It is beyond wild that he would think adding his name in front of President Kennedy’s name is acceptable. It is not. Next thing perhaps he will want to rename JFK Airport, rename the Lincoln Memorial, the Trump Lincoln Memorial. The Trump Jefferson Memorial. The Trump Smithsonian. The list goes on."
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