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Senator Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY-14) today introduced the Civilian Climate Corps for Jobs and Justice Act, which establishes a Civilian Climate Corps (CCC) administered by the Corporation for National and Community Service within AmeriCorps. This legislation updates, modernizes, and expands the concept of the New Deal-era Civilian Conservation Corps: ensuring that all Americans who want to participate may do so, regardless of race, age, or gender; broadening the range of eligible projects; providing 21st century health and education benefits; deepening partnerships with unions; and preserving Tribal sovereignty.
"The federal government restarted federal water pumps after they were offline for maintenance for three days," the state's water agency clarified in response to Trump lie. "State water supplies in Southern California remain plentiful."
Officials in California were forced to correct a fresh lie by U.S. President Donald Trump late Monday night after he falsely claimed in a social media post that the U.S. military had "just entered" the state "under emergency powers" and "turned on the water" he suggested had been turned off in relation to a "fake environmental argument."
Trump has been repeatedly critical of the management of California's management of water resources and environmental protection policies in the context of devastating fires that have ravaged southern portions of the state over the last month. The state's Department of Water Resources responded to the president's false claim, shortly after it was posted, with a clarification.
"The military did not enter California," the CA-DWR said. "The federal government restarted federal water pumps after they were offline for maintenance for three days. State water supplies in Southern California remain plentiful."
Over the weekend, Trump made public an executive order he claimed was designed to maximize water supplies, but critics said it's true purpose was to override state policies.
In a statement last week, the Association of California Water Agencies, the largest statewide coalition of public water agencies in the United States, pushed back against claims by Republican politicians that water management was the reason behind wildfire destruction in the Los Angeles area over recent weeks.
"Water supply has not hindered firefighting efforts," said the ACWA. "Reservoirs in California are at or above average storage levels for this time of year, thanks in part to years of proactive water management."
The agency, however, did cite the growing threat of the climate crisis, which it said was "increasing the frequency and intensity of climate-driven disasters, including storms, floods, droughts, and catastrophic wildfires."
That growing threat, explained the coalition, is why "its member agencies have advocated during the past two decades for further state and federal investment into advancing forest and headwaters health.”
"Don't expect Scott Bessent to fight for working families," said Groundwork Collaborative.
Government watchdog groups on Monday responded critically to the U.S. Senate's bipartisan confirmation of Republican President Donald Trump's nominee for treasury secretary, billionaire hedge fund manager Scott Bessent.
"Donald Trump spent months promising American workers they'd have no greater friend and advocate than him. But his first order of business as president-elect was to nominate a stack of corporate lobbyists, billionaire donors, and Wall Street insiders like Scott Bessent to carry out a wealthy-first, workers-last agenda," said Accountable.US executive director Tony Carrk in a statement after the 68-29 vote.
"Another giant Trump tax giveaway to price gouging corporations won't lift up working people, but it will put Social Security and Medicare at risk," Carrk continued. "A national Trump sales tax won't be much help to working families when it results in thousands of dollars in extra costs every year. Bessent is so enthusiastic about the Trump trickle-down economic plans because it keeps the system rigged in favor of wealthy insiders like him, while everyday Americans pay the price."
Recalling congressional Republicans' and Trump's massive tax cuts for the rich during his first term, Groundwork Collaborative executive director Lindsay Owens declared Monday that "a billionaire hedge fund manager who doesn't pay his own taxes is now Trump's right-hand man for another massive tax break for the ultrawealthy. The president is filling his Cabinet with one goal in mind: more tax giveaways for the wealthy and corporations."
Anne Perrault, senior finance policy counsel with Public Citizen, said in a Monday statement that "Scott Bessent is an oligarch who spent a career serving rich clients. He will need to make a hard pivot toward understanding that sound policy must serve average Americans, including by saving banks and achieving a fair tax system."
"Under Bessent, the Treasury Department appears poised to attend only to the largest lenders and investors," Perrault warned. "This is in contrast to the past four years, where the department took necessary, though insufficient, steps to address climate change as a 'unique, existential risk for the planet that will affect every aspect of our lives and the lives of our children' and, in turn, pose a 'tremendous risk to our country's financial stability.' By ignoring climate change as a financial risk, Trump's Treasury Department under Bessent, is on a path that could devastate hard-working families."
Ahead of the vote, a coalition of other watchdogs on Monday launched a "No Corporate Cabinet" website raising the alarm about "persons of interest" selected to serve in the second Trump administration, including Bessent. The site describes him as "a former investor for billionaire George Soros" who "made a name for himself by bringing down the British economy in the 'Black Wednesday' scandal of the 1990s," and pointed to investments in fossil fuel companies along with Meta, Monsanto, and Palantir.
During his confirmation hearing earlier this month, Bessent said that he did not believe the federal minimum wage of just $7.25 an hour should be raised and promoted a "3-3-3" agenda that analysts at the Center for American Progress (CAP) warned "requires brutal cuts to health and nutrition and higher costs for families at the grocery store."
After the Senate's Monday vote, Bessent said on social media that "as treasury secretary, I'm committed to eliminating income taxes, replacing them with a fair consumption tax, and adopting a gold-backed currency. We'll erase debt, restore financial privacy, and unlock new technologies for a prosperous future. The golden age starts now."
Progressives have argued against a so-called "fair consumption tax," or a national sales tax, because of its impacts—which CAP analysts explained in 2023, in response to Rep. Earl "Buddy" Carter's (R-Ga.) Fair Tax Act, which he reintroduced earlier this month.
"By shifting the foundation of the federal tax system from income to consumption, the Fair Tax Act would cut taxes for the wealthy while increasing taxes paid by low- and middle-income retirees who live off of Social Security and savings, as well as families who would be forced to pay more taxes on everyday goods and services," the CAP experts wrote. "Meanwhile, high-income families who spend less of their income on consumption and who have sufficient earnings to save a substantial fraction of their income would pay a smaller share of their income in tax."
Politicoreported that "Bessent on Monday garnered significantly more Democratic support than Trump's first Treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin. The Senate confirmed Mnuchin in 2017 on a 53-47 vote, in which then-Sen. Joe Manchin was the only Democrat who backed him." Manchin later became an Independent, before leaving Congress at the end of the last session.
Bessent is the fifth Cabinet member to be confirmed by the Senate since Trump took office a week ago. The closest vote was on the Pentagon chief, Pete Hegseth; Vice President JD Vance on Friday had to break a tie after Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine), Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) joined Democrats in opposing him.
"Courts have already found that forcing trans women into men's prisons is cruel and unusual punishment," noted one media outlet.
A transgender woman inmate serving her sentence in a women's federal prison sued the Trump administration on Sunday, arguing that Republican U.S. President Donald Trump's recent executive order narrowly defining sex violates the Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment, is "motivated by discriminatory animus" toward trans people, and forces "dangerous transfers to men's facilities."
A redacted copy of the lawsuit—which was filed by an inmate in an unspecified low-security federal prison identified as "Maria Moe"—claims Trump's January 20 executive order stating that it is henceforth federal policy "to recognize two sexes, male and female" violates her constitutional rights.
"Defendant Trump has been transparent about his hostility toward transgender people and openly stated his intentions to create legal obstacles to eliminate legal protections for transgender people and to deter them from obtaining medical care or being able to live in a sex other than their birth sex," the lawsuit states.
On Sunday, a transgender woman who is currently in prison sued Donald Trump, Acting A.G. McHenry, and the head of the Bureau of Prisons due to her treatment in the wake of the Jan. 20 anti-trans "sex" definition executive order. Read it all at Law Dork: www.lawdork.com/p/trans-woma...
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— Chris Geidner (@chrisgeidner.bsky.social) January 27, 2025 at 10:52 AM
"On November 15, 2022, when he announced his candidacy for president, he explicitly promised to target transgender Americans through executive action," the complaint continues. "He pledged a 'day one' executive order to 'cease all programs that promote the concept of sex and gender transition at any age.'"
"If Maria Moe is transferred to a men's facility, she will not be safe," the lawsuit stresses. "Transferring Maria Moe to a men's prison will pose a substantial risk of serious harm, including an extremely high risk of violence and sexual assault from other incarcerated people and [Federal Bureau of Prisons] staff."
"In a men's prison, Maria Moe will also be at high risk of worsening gender dysphoria, which can lead to serious physical and mental health conditions including severe depression and suicidality," the complaint adds. "These risks are obvious, well-documented, and well-known to BOP officials."
Furthermore, the suit says that ending Moe's federally funded hormone therapy "would constitute deliberate indifference to her serious medical needs and would violate the 8th Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment."
As
LGBTQ Nationreported Monday, "Courts have already found that forcing trans women into men's prisons is cruel and unusual punishment."
According to the very small print on the BOP's "inmate gender" webpage, there are 1,529 transgender females in federal custody and 744 transgender males.
The new lawsuit preceded Monday reporting that Trump is expected to revive his first-term policy of banning new military enlistments by transgender people.