Notices by Chuck Darwin (cdarwin@c.im), page 21

I am once again asking you to stop sending us money.

But we do need your time. ⏰

https://zohranfornyc.com/events

https://bsky.app/profile/zohrankmamdani.bsky.social/post/3ly3qcnrowk27

ICE raids in Chicago could start as early as Friday, but are expected to begin Saturday, Democratic Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker warned. 

The Department of Homeland Security asked the Pentagon for access to Naval Station Great Lakes
- the largest military base in Illinois
- to base an operation, The Washington Post reported. 

The request said that around 250 federal agents and 140 vehicles would utilize the base. 

National Guard troops could also be sent in to assist the effort, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. 

Equipment and personnel started arriving at the naval base earlier this week. 
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15069983/chicago-ice-raids-naval-base-federal-takeover.html

Donald Trump has figured out the cheat code for authoritarianism:
Fake emergencies bring real power.
The president has invoked emergency authority in three distinct contexts
—declaring a public-safety emergency to defend his takeover of the District of Columbia;
claiming an “invasion” to justify an immigration crackdown, including sending the National Guard to Los Angeles;
and invoking “extraordinary” factors to support his tariff war.

Although Trump is not the first president to grab greater powers behind the cloak of emergency authority, he is the first to have done so in such an extreme way.
Worse yet, the lack of resistance from Congress or the courts suggests that there is little, if anything, to prevent Trump from expanding his use of “emergency” authority even further as he accumulates power.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/09/emergency-authority-power-trump-democracy/684053/

Florida moves to end all school vaccine mandates

Florida’s surgeon general on Wednesday announced plans to end all state vaccine mandates,

including for children to attend schools,

which would make it the first state to completely withdraw from a practice credited with boosting vaccination rates and controlling the spread of infectious diseases.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2025/09/03/florida-vaccine-mandates-ended/

Trump’s DOJ seeks voting equipment in Missouri ahead of 2026 election

A top official in Trump’s Justice Department recently sought access to voting equipment used by two Republican clerks in Missouri during the 2020 election
-- an unusual request from federal officials amid continued efforts by the president to malign the integrity of the nation’s voting systems.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/09/03/trump-2020-election-integrity/

The Education Department has cut off funding for campus-based child care at over a dozen colleges,
accusing the schools of conflicting with the Trump administration’s polices by teaching young children about gender and race or prioritizing diversity in hiring.

Grants from the Child Care Access Means Parents in School (CCAMPIS) program are a critical source of money for public colleges that educate large populations of students with limited financial means.

The $80 million federal program provides four-year grants to more than 200 colleges and universities that support child care on campus or in the surrounding community.

Now, some of those schools will likely be scrambling to cover child care costs as the school year begins.

“The grants enable institutions to serve more students, to remain open for more hours, to provide more services.
And in some cases, we’ve been told it’s a difference between remaining in operation and closing,”
said David Baime, senior vice president for government relations at the American Association of Community Colleges.
“So it is extremely important.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2025/08/29/education-department-child-care-college/

Tzeporah Berman’s campaign group believes Cop30 will help its initiative to phase out oil, coal and gas take shape
The fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty initiative aims to sidestep slow-moving UN climate talks by gathering together nations, cities and companies that want to rapidly phase out oil, coal and gas.
At the coming Cop30 summit in Belém, it hopes to gather support so it can launch negotiations for a new treaty next year.
The group’s founder, Tzeporah Berman, explains why the Amazon rainforest and the global south are an ideal springboard for the movement
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/sep/02/every-company-wants-to-produce-the-last-barrel-sold-the-plan-to-create-a-fossil-fuel-non-proliferation-treaty

If you’d like U.S. forest lands to remain unpaved, speak now or forever hold your peace. 

U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins just opened a 21-day public comment period on her proposal to ❌ rescind the Roadless Area Conservation Rule,
which has safeguarded 58 million acres of undeveloped national forest land from development and logging since 2001. 

Public lands at risk include 635,000 acres of “some of the most remote and ecologically intact landscapes in Los Padres National Forest,” according to nonprofit Los Padres ForestWatch.  

Los Padres National Forest contains 37 “inventoried roadless areas” across the Central Coast, including many areas in Santa Barbara County,
that would be potentially subject to roadbuilding and industrial logging should the Roadless Rule be rescinded. 

Among their various benefits, these areas provide habitat to endangered species and opportunities for backcountry recreation, including 349 miles of trails, ForestWatch said. 
https://www.independent.com/2025/08/29/public-invited-to-comment-on-paving-los-padres-national-forest/

The largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy group in the United States
is calling on U.S. lawmakers to follow in the footsteps of Sens. Jeff Merkley and Chris Van Hollen,
who on Saturday shared a video about their unsuccessful attempts to visit — or even just fly over — the Gaza Strip during Israel’s ongoing assault.

“Sens. Van Hollen and Merkley have taken a bold and necessary step
by confronting the Israeli-manufactured and U.S.-backed humanitarian calamity in Gaza head-on,”
the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said in a statement late Saturday.
“Their mission must not stand alone.”
“Israel’s barring them entry to Gaza underscores the urgency of taking decisive steps to end its rampage of death, violence, and destruction,”
CAIR continued.
“Members of Congress must utilize every tool — diplomatic, legal, and legislative — to ensure that our nation’s values and laws demand an end to civilian suffering.
The crisis in Gaza is not abstract — it is a matter of life and death.
We call on our representatives to act urgently and courageously.”
https://truthout.org/articles/cair-presses-congress-to-confront-gaza-catastrophe-after-senators-blocked-from-entry/

Meet Candon Dahle

Why isn't he in jail for life?

THIS CHILD RAPIST was sentenced to 180 days in jail for raping a 7 year old girl for 5 years

Part of the plea deal was that he would not have to register as a sex offender

https://www.ksl.com/article/51367742/former-byu-baseball-starter-sentenced-for-sexually-assaulting-young-girl-for-5-years

https://bsky.app/profile/candylovely.bsky.social/post/3lxq6de24o22e

Some reading for those who may be interested in how fascism has historically used the medical system to kill the most vulnerable people: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6056797/

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6056797/

Shortly before Daniel Kahneman died last March, he emailed friends a message:

“Do you have any idea how lucky you are to have thousands of people who can tell you you’re wrong?”

He was choosing to end his own life in Switzerland.

Some are still struggling with his choice.

https://www.wsj.com/arts-culture/books/daniel-kahneman-assisted-suicide-9fb16124

Trump maintains control over and can profit from his businesses while in office through a revocable trust, of which he is both the sole donor and sole beneficiary.

In his first term, those looking to support Trump financially could lend him money against his real estate, license his name, buy his assets, join one of his clubs or book a hotel.

Since leaving office in 2021, Trump’s business empire expanded into the digital realm, where the products are often intangible, but the revenue streams are real and more accessible:
Trump Media & Technology Group, the parent company of the Truth Social platform;
World Liberty Financial, a decentralized finance protocol;
and the $TRUMP meme coin.

It’s just a few months into his second term, but people and groups are taking full advantage of the new opportunities:
Chinese blockchain entrepreneur Justin Sun’s $30 million investment in World Liberty Financial, for example,
helped the venture take off and the president and his family go on to net $400 million
(by comparison, Forbes estimates it took a Chinese state-owned bank about four years to route $5.4 million to Trump via its Trump Tower lease).

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told Forbes in a statement, “President Trump is compliant with all conflict-of-interest rules, and only acts in the best interests of the American public—which is why they overwhelmingly re-elected him to this office, despite years of lies and false accusations against him and his businesses from the fake news media.”

Spokespeople for the Trump Organization, Trump Media, the $TRUMP meme coin and World Liberty Financial did not respond to requests for comment.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/zacheverson/2025/05/10/trump-truth-social-world-liberty-financial-meme-coin-crypto-media-bitcoin-blockchain/

At least one-fifth of the country’s 433 national parks have been significantly strained and understaffed because of steep cuts mandated by the Trump administration, according to internal government data

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/27/us/politics/trump-cuts-national-parks.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

Decentralized social network Mastodon says it can’t comply with Mississippi’s age verification law
— the same law that saw rival Bluesky pull out of the state
— because it doesn’t have the means to do so.

The social nonprofit explains that Mastodon doesn’t track its users,
which makes it difficult to enforce such legislation.

Nor does it want to use IP address-based blocks, as those would unfairly impact people who were traveling, it says.

The statement follows a lively back-and-forth conversation earlier this week between Mastodon founder and CEO Eugen Rochko
and Bluesky board member and journalist Mike Masnick.

In the conversation, published on their respective social networks, Rochko claimed,
“there is nobody that can decide for the fediverse to block Mississippi.”

(The Fediverse is the decentralized social network that includes Mastodon and other services, and is powered by the ActivityPub protocol.)

“And this is why real decentralization matters,” said Rochko.

https://techcrunch.com/2025/08/29/mastodon-says-it-doesnt-have-the-means-to-comply-with-age-verification-laws/

Something clearly is up with the
79-year-old president,
and the official explanations don’t make sense.

That’s not surprising given that Trump is a world historical liar surrounded by toadies who surrendered their shame long ago.

But it’s past time for reporters to ask some questions.

The mainstream press is still in self-flagellation mode over how they purportedly “ignored” former President Joe Biden’s decline.
(In reality, they never stopped talking about it.)

But this soul-searching is apparently only backward looking and exclusive to Democratic presidents.

https://www.publicnotice.co/p/trump-health-hand-white-house-coverup

A group of Democratic senators is demanding answers from the Department of Education
on its decision to renege on its obligation to 3 million student loan borrowers enrolled in the
"Income-Based Repayment program",
which forgives any remaining student debt after 300 payments, which typically takes about 25 years.

https://truthout.org/articles/lawmakers-slam-doe-for-suspending-3-million-borrowers-student-loan-forgiveness/

In a new blog post admitting certain failures amid its users' mental health crises,
OpenAI also quietly disclosed that it's now scanning users' messages for certain types of harmful content,
escalating particularly worrying content to human staff for review
— and, in some cases, reporting it to the cops

https://openai.com/index/helping-people-when-they-need-it-most/

A jury has awarded at least $2.2m to a protester who was shot in the face with a less-lethal munition by a Los Angeles sheriff’s deputy during a demonstration against police brutality in 2020.

In the verdict last week, the jury found LA county liable for the injuries sustained by the man,
Cellin Gluck, and determined that he suffered $3.5m in damages.
They also awarded his daughter, who was there with him that day, an additional $300,000 for emotional distress
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/28/jury-awards-protester-2020-protests-police-brutality?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, an Independent,
who serves as the ranking member on the health, education, labor and pensions (Help) committee,
said that Robert F Kennedy Jr’s attempt to fire Susan Monarez was “outrageous”.

“The Sen. HELP Committee must hold a hearing with Kennedy & the CDC Director as soon as possible.
Vaccines save lives. Period,” Sanders said on X.

As Monarez is a Senate-confirmed official
(the first CDC director to receive this stamp),
removal from office can only come from president, or an impeachment process by Congress.
Monarez’s lawyers say that her termination is “legally deficient”, since it didn’t come from Trump himself.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2025/aug/28/cdc-susan-monarez-trump-news-updates-us-politics-live?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other