2025-12-08 02:11:53
During a Sunday interview on CBS News’ “Face the Nation,” Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) said that Homeland Security Advisor Stephen Miller’s late November comments about “migrants and their descendants” reminded her of how Nazis talked about Jewish people in Germany.
Host Margaret Brennan brought up Miller’s Thanksgiving day post on X, when the top White House adviser and architect of President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda bemoaned what he called the “great lie of mass migration.”
“You are not just importing individuals. You are importing societies,” Miller commented over a Wall Street Journal editorial on avoiding collective punishment following reporting that the man alleged to have shot two National Guard troops is an Afghan national. “No magic transformation occurs when failed states cross borders. At scale, migrants and their descendants recreate the conditions, and terrors, of their broken homelands,” he continued.
Omar, a refugee from Somalia, said of the comments: “When I think about Stephen Miller and his white supremist rhetoric, it reminds me of the way the Nazis described Jewish people in Germany.”
The representative’s statement comes as Trump and Miller’s immigration enforcement apparatus has descended on Minnesota’s Twin Cities and aimed its campaign specifically at immigrants from Somalia, leading some US citizens to carry their passports out of fear.
In a speech that spurred widespread outrage this week, Trump repeatedly referred to people from Somalia as “garbage.”
At the end of a cabinet meeting at the White House, Trump said Somalia “stinks” and that immigrants from the country “come from hell and they complain and do nothing but bitch.” “We don’t want them in our country,” he said multiple times.
“We could go one way or the other, and we’re going to go the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage into our country,” Trump said. He then singled out Representative Omar: “She’s garbage. Her friends are garbage. These aren’t people who work. These aren’t people who say, ‘Let’s go, come on, let’s make this place great.’”
In a New York Times guest essay following Trump’s comments, Omar defended her community, writing, “The president knows he is failing, and so he is reverting to what he knows best: trying to divert attention by stoking bigotry.”
As for Miller, his anti-immigrant comments are anything but new.
2025-12-08 00:43:39
In an exclusive interview with The Washington Post, Bruna Ferreira, the mother of Karoline Leavitt’s nephew, who has been in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement since November 12, details her arrest, her long relationship with the Leavitts, and how the White House, in her own words, is spreading “disgusting” lies about her.
“I asked Karoline to be godmother over my only sister,” she said Thursday in a video interview from a remote detention center in Louisiana. “I made a mistake there, in trusting….Why they’re creating this narrative is beyond my wildest imagination.”
Since being picked up by ICE, the White House has painted Ferreira as a criminal and an absentee mom who hadn’t spoken to Leavitt in years. According to the Post, “Court records, family photos and Ferreira’s account tell a different story.”
Ferreira, born in Brazil, is facing possible removal after living in the United States for most of her life. She’s also a part of the cohort who received protection through the 2012 program Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, and is now being targeted for deportation. Her case has gained national attention because of her connection to White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, who remains a staunch supporter—and mouthpiece—for President Donald Trump and his administration’s ongoing mass-deportation campaign across the country.
Ferreira’s arrest has raised the question of if there was personal involvement from the Leavitt family in ICE’s actions, a claim that Michael Leavitt, Karoline’s brother, has denied. “I had no involvement in her being picked up by ice,” he wrote Wednesday to the Post. “I have no control over that and had no involvement in that whatsoever.”
In their exclusive reporting, the Post’s Maria Sacchetti and Todd Wallack piece together more than 11 years, from Ferreira and Leavitt’s relationship to their separation to contentious co-parenting, all the way to Karoline coming to the White House.
According to Ferreira, Michael and his father, Bob Leavitt, have in recent weeks told her sister that Ferreira should “self deport”—a common refrain from the White House to scores of immigrants across the country. Yet, if she did that, under federal law, Ferreira would be barred from coming back to the United States for a decade.
Her lawyer, Todd Pomerleau, has advised against that idea: “It’s a trap.”
Read the full report here.
2025-12-07 23:48:11
Ben & Jerry’s boss thinks the company’s founders and board members ought to hand over the company to the next generation, amid a long-simmering fight for control of the ice cream brand.
Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield are both in their seventies and have grown increasingly upset with their brand’s parent company, Unilever, claiming that executives there have repeatedly tried to stifle the brand’s activism. The frustration culminated in Greenfield deciding to quit Unilever in protest in September.
“Standing up for the values of justice, equity, and our shared humanity has never been more important. And…Ben & Jerry’s has been silenced, sidelined for fear of upsetting those in power.”
And it has been fired up again: Peter ter Kulve, chief executive of Unilever’s ice-cream offshoot Magnum Ice Cream Company, recently told the Financial Times that it’s time for the pair to move on.
The ice cream brand’s co-founders’ “commitment to the brand, to the causes, has been immense,” ter Kulve told FT, “but at a certain moment you need to hand it over…we need to move on.” The comments, per the FT, also pertained to trustees of Ben & Jerry’s charitable arm, Jeff Furman and Liz Bankowski.
“Unlike Magnum,” Cohen said in response, “I don’t think there is an age limit on campaigning for social justice and peace. This is another attempt to silence the social mission that we are all too familiar with, as Unilever attempts to wash their hands of Ben & Jerry’s through this IPO.”
“But,” he continued, “Ben & Jerry’s social mission has always been inseparable from the brand itself, and it is legally protected.”
The back and forth comes as Magnum is demerging from its parent company, Unilever. Shares of the new ice cream offshoot start trading in Amsterdam on Monday. The Ben & Jerry’s brand, which the pair launched nearly five decades ago, sold to Unilever for $326 million in 2000. Unilever announced the spin-off last year “as part of a plan to slim down the sprawling multinational through lay-offs and divestments,” according to FT.
According to Reuters, a recent audit of the Ben & Jerry’s Foundation by Magnum “found that it had deficiencies in financial controls and governance” and “deficiencies in other compliance policies such as conflicts of interest.” Ter Kulve told FT that he “can’t continue to fund” the foundation “unless we basically have complied with the conclusions of the audit, and we’re working on that.”
Counsel for the Ben & Jerry’s board dismissed what they called Unilever’s “phantom allegations,” alleging the claims are part of a campaign against Anuradha Mittal, who chairs the independent board, because she is trying to “protect the independence of Ben & Jerry’s under the merger agreement.”
With the demerger, Magnum is set to inherit a contentious legal battle between the Ben & Jerry’s board and Unilever. The board has accused Unilever of blocking its call for a ceasefire in Gaza, preventing it from supporting Palestinian refugees, and otherwise attempting to thwart the charitable arm of the company. In May, Cohen was arrested after disrupting a Senate hearing to protest the US government’s support for Israel’s war in Gaza.
In the note announcing his decision to quit, Greenfield said that the independence they fought for some 25 years ago was effectively “gone.” “Standing up for the values of justice, equity, and our shared humanity has never been more important,” he wrote.
“And yet,” he continued, “Ben & Jerry’s has been silenced, sidelined for fear of upsetting those in power.”
2025-12-07 19:00:00
This story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.
The push to ban gas-powered leaf blowers has gained an unlikely figurehead: Cate Blanchett, the Australian actress. “Leaf blowers need to be eradicated from the face of the Earth,” she said in an interview in March. Her complaints have gone viral on TikTok and other social media platforms. “It’s a metaphor for what’s wrong with us as a species,” Blanchett said. “We blow shit from one side of our lawn to the other side, and then the wind is just going to blow it back!”
Her complaints about leaf blowers—equal parts entertaining and earnest—stretch back nearly 20 years, and now the mood has caught up with her. Today, more than 200 local governments in the U.S. have restricted gas-powered lawn equipment or provided incentives to switch to quieter, less-polluting electric tools. The first bans date back to the 1970s, but the trend picked up after the pandemic lockdowns in 2020, when newly homebound workers discovered just how inescapable the whine of their neighbor’s leaf blower can be.
“With every year that passes, more and more communities across the country are taking action to address the shocking amount of pollution and noise from gas lawn equipment,” said Kirsten Schatz, clean air advocate at the Colorado Public Interest Research Group, called CoPIRG.
Gas-powered leaf blowers aren’t just annoying; they’re bad for public health. Closing the windows can’t shut out their low-frequency roar, which can be louder than the World Health Organization’s recommended limit of 55 decibels up to 800 feet away. The unwanted sound can lead to high levels of stress, along with disturbing people’s sleep and potentially damaging hearing over time.
Leaf blowers’ two-stroke engines also churn out a noxious blend of exhaust: fine particulate matter, smog-forming gases, and cancer-causing chemicals like benzene and formaldehyde. By one estimate, running a gas-powered leaf blower for an hour emits as much smog-forming pollution as driving a car from Los Angeles to Denver.
One partial solution: Homeowners could accept a scattering of leaves, instead of demanding a perfectly manicured lawn.
And while lawn and garden equipment is only a small slice of global carbon emissions, leaf blowers and other gas-powered tools “pack a big punch for the amount that they create based on the size of their engines,” said Dan Mabe, the founder of the American Green Zone Alliance, a group that works with cities and landscapers to shift to electric equipment. In 2020, fossil-fueled lawn and garden equipment in the United States released more than 30 million tons of CO2, more than the emissions of the city of Los Angeles.
Cities and states across the country have taken different approaches to dealing with the problem. California’s law banning the sale of new gas-powered blowers took effect last January, while cities like Portland and Baltimore are phasing out their use. Some places, like Wilmette, Illinois, have enacted seasonal limits, either permanently or until a full ban takes effect. Others, like Colorado, attempt to sweeten the deal of buying electric lawn care equipment, offering a 30 percent discount.
But implementing the bans is proving more challenging than many expected. Many communities are frustrated that the new rules are not being properly enforced, said Jamie Banks, the founder and president of Quiet Communities, a nonprofit working to reduce noise pollution.
Westport, Connecticut, fought for years to get a seasonal restriction on gas-powered blowers, only to find that local officials were not enforcing it, Banks said. Noise complaints are not exactly at the top of police officers’ priority lists, and sometimes ordinances are written in a way that’s hard to carry out—police aren’t usually expected to go around town taking noise readings, for example. Some communities are taking a deliberate approach to the problem: Banks pointed to a group of towns in the greater Chicago area, including Wilmette, that are trying to create consistent policies across the region and working with the local police.
Then there’s the matter that swapping gas blowers for ones powered by electricity isn’t as straightforward as it sounds. While the costs are comparable for homeowners—you can get electric blowers at a big-box store like Home Depot for around $200 or less, cheaper than most gas ones—electric blowers are more expensive for commercial landscapers. They require multiple batteries for workers to get through the day. While a typical professional gas-powered blower runs for $550, a comparable electric one costs $700 and requires thousands of dollars worth of batteries. Landscapers also have to buy hundreds of dollars worth of charging equipment and find ways to charge safely on the go.
Plus, it can be difficult to meet the standards customers expect with electric leaf blowers, which are less powerful than gas ones. “If you have customers that are demanding that you get everything off the ground, and you better do it quickly, and you’d better not charge me too much money, it’s really tough,” Banks said.
Bans have already generated a political backlash in some Republican-led states. Texas and Georgia have passed laws prohibiting local governments from regulating gas-powered leaf blowers. The Western States Petroleum Association, an oil industry group, launched a Latino-focused messaging campaign in California that pushes back against laws to electrify vehicles and leaf blowers. But leaf blowers aren’t just a culture-war lightning rod; in some places, they’re leading to personal conflict. In Evanston, Illinois, a suburb north of Chicago, several landscape workers allege they’ve been harassed by people reporting violations of the local ban.
The American Green Zone Alliance noted in a recent statement that “heavy-handed bans on gas-powered leaf blowers can unintentionally create stress and hardship for workers who often labor for low wages, with limited benefits or control over their working conditions.”
Although there remain a lot of details to work out, the organization is still pushing lawn care to go electric. “We are trying to convince our industry, ‘Look, we need to accelerate this,’” Mabe said.
The alliance is advocating for incentives that are sufficient to make the new equipment affordable for landscaping businesses operating on razor-thin margins. (In the end, lower fuel and maintenance costs for electric blowers can save companies money if the equipment is properly cared for, Mabe said.) Seasonal bans on gas-powered leaf blowers may be more feasible in some places than year-round ones, because they leave short windows for using the fossil-fueled devices in the spring and fall to take care of heavy cleanup jobs.
Another solution: Customers could loosen their expectations and accept a scattering of leaves, instead of demanding a perfectly manicured lawn. “Now, if that aesthetic was more relaxed, that could help change things,” Banks said. “Maybe they wouldn’t need to carry so many batteries.” Leaving some leaves on the ground is, at least ecologically speaking, a good thing—decaying leaves fertilize the soil and form a protective layer that provides shelter for snails, bees, and butterflies.
And of course, in many cases, a leaf blower isn’t needed at all: You can do as Blanchett advises and take matters into your own hands with a good-old fashioned rake.
2025-12-07 04:55:41
A Trump-appointed federal judge in Florida has ordered the public release of grand jury transcripts from the first federal investigation into Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse of underage girls, which took place during the mid-2000s.
That investigation ended without any charges. In 2007, however, federal prosecutors in Florida did indict Epstein, who managed to obtain a plea deal, copping to relatively minor charges of procuring a person under 18 for prostitution and of soliciting a prostitute. He was given an 18-month sentence in the Palm Beach County Jail—with daytime work release—and served about 13 months.
Back in July, a different judge, at the request of the Trump administration, had declined to demand release of records from the earlier investigation. On Friday, however, US District Judge Rodney Smith, whom Trump appointed to the bench in 2018, stated that the Epstein Files Transparency Act that President Donald Trump signed into law on November 19, “overrides” rules that prohibit the public disclosure of “unclassified records, documents, communications, and investigative materials”—including grand jury transcripts.
This same law compels the Department of Justice, federal prosecutors, and the FBI to release, by mid-December, materials they collected during their investigations into Epstein going back at least as far as the mid-2000s Florida case. The DOJ has not yet announced a timeline for making the information publicly available.
Earlier this year, three federal judges denied DOJ requests to unseal the federal grand jury transcripts. US District Judge Richard Berman framed the effort as a “diversion” strategy to distract from the agency’s slow-rolling of its own Epstein files: “The information contained in the Epstein grand jury transcripts pales in comparison to the Epstein investigation information and materials in the hands of the Department of Justice,” he wrote.
DOJ officials are now attempting to unseal materials from three different Epstein investigations. The Trump administration has asked two New York judges for grand jury transcripts from Epstein’s 2019 sex-trafficking case and Ghislaine Maxwell’s 2021 trial.
The state courts are now weighing privacy concerns from survivors and witnesses. The Epstein Files Transparency Act lists exemptions that may allow the DOJ to redact records that could result in personal identification.
The New York judges are expected to issue their decisions next week.
2025-12-07 02:48:36
The Indiana House voted on Friday to redraw the state’s congressional map with the aim to produce a 9-0 Republican delegation.
Lawmakers approved the redistricting proposal 57-41, despite 12 Republicans joining the entire Democratic House caucus in opposition. The bill now goes to the state Senate, where the outcome is unclear. Republican leadership has insisted for months that they do not have the votes to pass it. But President Donald Trump, who has asked Republican-led states to redistrict, has been putting the heat on holdout legislators.
According to the Indiana Capital Chronicle, at least 14 of 40 Republican senators have publicly voiced disagreement with the new map. Indiana has 10 Democratic senators, which leaves the tally roughly equal—for now.
On Friday night, Trump weighed in with a vaguely mob boss-style social media post calling on his followers to pressure the stragglers: “I am hearing that these nine Senators, some of whom are up for Re-Election in 2026, and some in 2028, need encouragement to make the right decision: Blake Doriot, Brett Clark, Brian Buchanan, Dan Dernulc, Ed Charbonneau, Greg Goode, Jim Buck, Rick Niemeyer, and Ryan Mishler. Let your voice be heard loud and clear in support of these Senators doing the right thing.”
This comes after at least 11 Indiana Republicans were the targets of swatting or other threats following a November Trump Truth Social campaign against the state’s reluctant GOP.
Indiana is just one of several states wrapped up in Trump’s redistricting crusade. On Thursday, the Supreme Court permitted Texas to use its new map in the 2026 midterm elections, which could hand Republicans five new seats. Missouri and North Carolina have also passed new maps that could enable the party to gain a seat in each state.
Florida may be next up, as lawmakers held a hearing on Thursday to consider redistricting. Florida has a constitutional amendment that prohibits gerrymandering, but Gov. Ron DeSantis said earlier in the week that the new map should be drawn in the spring so that the inevitable court debate could factor in a possible Supreme Court ruling in a Louisiana redistricting case that would further weaken the Voting Rights Act.
Democrats are countering with their own map in California, and are beginning efforts in Virginia with the potential to flip two seats from red to blue.
Mid-decade drawings are relatively rare. According to the Pew Research Center, previous to this election cycle, only two states have passed new maps since 1970 for partisan gains on their own—Texas in 2003 and Georgia in 2005. Most other redistricting took place because courts threw out maps for legal violations.
This recent swell of gerrymandering is just one way the Trump administration is attempting to influence—and rig—the 2026 election. It has, for example, weaponized the Justice Department to pursue dubious claims of voter fraud to suppress specific voting groups. Notes my Mother Jones colleague Ari Berman, who has written extensively on the topic: “The sheer volume of threats to democracy can feel so overwhelming that some people may choose not to vote for fear that their ballot will not matter. And that may be part of Trump’s plan.”
