dissent

July 3 (UPI) — The Environmental Protection Agency suspended 144 employees on Thursday and began investigating their participation in signing a recent dissent letter accusing the Trump administration of politicizing the agency.

EPA officials justified the suspensions because the workers included their official titles in the letter signed by current and former 278 EPA employees.

The agency “has a zero-tolerance policy for career bureaucrats unlawfully undermining, sabotaging and undercutting the administration’s agenda as voted for by the great people of this country last November,” EPA press secretary Brigit Hirsch said in a written statement shared with The New York Times.

An official with the American Federation of Government Employees Council 238 local denounced the EPA worker suspensions.

The suspensions are “clearly an act of retaliation,” and the union will “protect our members to the full extent of the law,” AFGE Council 238 Vice President Justin Chen told The New York Times.

Among the letter’s signatories, 173 signed their names and 105 signed anonymously.

The declaration of dissent accuses the EPA’s leadership of engaging in “harmful deregulation” and was sent to EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin on Monday.

The letter also accuses the agency of promoting a culture of fear, undermining public trust and ignoring scientific consensus while benefiting what it calls “polluters.”

It says the EPA has politicized the agency and endangers public health “around the world.”

EPA officials notified the 144 suspended workers in emails that were circulated on Thursday.

The emails said each recipient was suspended with pay until July 17 while an administrative investigation into the matter proceeded, CNN reported.

The dissent letter was organized by the non-profit Stand Up for Science, which was founded in February.

Its founding was done in response to federal reductions in research funding, censorship of scientific work and “targeted attacks” on diversity, equity and inclusion.

The non-profit acknowledged the suspension of EPA workers for signing the dissent declaration.

“We’re honored to be chosen by the brave heroes at the EPA to host their public Declaration of Dissent here,” SUFS said in a statement posted on its website.

“We are also aware that some signatories have received emails placing them on administrative leave.”

Senate Republicans narrowly advanced a budget bill that is pivotal to President Donald Trump’s second-term agenda ahead of a self-imposed 4 July deadline.

In a 51-49 vote largely along party lines, the Senate has moved to open debate on the bill, a key initial hurdle that Republicans scrambled to overcome. Two Republicans joined Democrats in opposing the move to take up the bill.

Party leadership had been twisting arms for the initial vote on the “Big Beautiful Bill” on Saturday, following the release of its latest version – all 940 pages – shortly after midnight.

Republicans were divided over how much to cut welfare programmes in order to extend $3.8tn (£2.8tn) in Trump tax breaks.

The bill’s fate on the Senate floor remains uncertain, as Republicans in the chamber continue to quarrel over the bill’s provisions. Vice-President JD Vance travelled to the Capitol on Saturday night to offer a tiebreak vote, though party leaders were ultimately able to negotiate majority support without his help.

Meanwhile, Democrats say they will drag out the process in protest at the bill, with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer saying his party will force Republicans to read out the nearly 1,000 pages of text before the Senate can begin debate and potentially take up a final vote.

Separately, some Republicans in the House of Representatives have expressed concerns over the changes in the Senate version of the bill. The sprawling tax and spending measure passed the House of Representatives by a single vote last month.

The Senate’s version of the bill included a series of changes meant to address points of disagreement among Republicans. Still, party leaders struggled to secure enough votes.

In a memo sent to Senate offices, the White House endorsed the latest revisions to the bill and called for its passage.

The memo reportedly warned that failure to approve the budget “would be the ultimate betrayal”.

Republicans Rand Paul of Kentucky and Thom Tillis of North Carolina joined Democrats in rejecting the bill.

As the Senate vote concluded, President Trump posted on Truth Social, his social media platform, that Tillis was making a “BIG MISTAKE”. He wrote that he would be meeting with candidates who “come forward wanting to run in the Primary against “Senator Thom” Tillis”.

However, the bill did win over some Republicans who had expressed scepticism, including centrist Republicans Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin intially voted against it, but changed his vote at the end of the voting session.

The latest version was designed to appease some backbench Republican holdouts.

Other amendments incorporate input from the Senate parliamentarian, an official who reviews bills to ensure they comply with the chamber’s procedures.

It includes an increase in funding for rural hospitals, after some party moderates argued the original proposal would harm their constituents.

There are also changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap), which provides food benefits to low-income Americans.

Under the latest bill, Alaska and Hawaii would be temporarily exempt from a proposed requirement for some states to start footing the bill for the programme, which is currently fully funded by the federal government.

The revision comes after Alaska’s two Republican senators pushed for an exemption.

The legislation still contains some of its core components, including extending tax cuts passed by Republicans in 2017, as well as the addition of new cuts that Trump campaigned on, such as a tax deduction on Social Security benefits and the elimination of taxes on overtime work and tips.

More contentious measures are also still in place, including restrictions and requirements on Medicaid – a healthcare programme used by millions of elderly, disabled and low-income Americans.

Democrats have heavily criticised this piece of the bill, saying it will limit access to affordable healthcare for millions of Americans.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that 7.8 million people would become uninsured due to such Medicaid cuts.

Senator Patty Murray, a Washington state Democrat, took to social media on Saturday to argue the bill contains “the largest healthcare cuts in history”.

Another critic of the bill is Elon Musk, who wrote on X on Saturday that the latest iteration of the bill “will destroy millions of jobs in America and cause immense strategic harms to our country”.

Musk took issue with taxes the bill proposes on solar and wind energy projects.

The bill now needs a simple majority to clear the Senate. With Republicans holding 53 seats out of 100, plus a tiebreaker from Vice-President JD Vance, the party can only afford three defections.

India wicketkeeper Rishabh Pant has been handed a demerit point after he admitted showing dissent towards the umpires during the first Test with England.

Pant, 27, was deemed to have committed a level one offence by the International Cricket Council (ICC) under article 2.8 of its code of conduct., external

The incident occurred in the 61st over of England’s first innings on day three of the Test at Headingley, when Harry Brook and Ben Stokes were batting.

Pant was seen having a discussion with on-field umpires Paul Reiffel and Chris Gaffaney in relation to the condition of the match ball.

When the umpires refused to change the ball after they had checked it with the ball gauge, Pant reacted by throwing the ball on the ground in front of them.

Because Pant admitted the offence, and accepted the sanction proposed by match referee Richie Richardson, he was not required to attend a formal hearing.

An ICC statement said: “One demerit point has been added to Pant’s disciplinary record, for whom it was the first offence in a 24-month period.”

When a player reaches four or more demerit points within a two-year time frame, the points are converted into suspension points and a player is banned.

Two suspension points equate to a ban from one Test or two ODIs or two T20Is.

Left-hander Pant has played a key role for India during the match in Leeds.

He became only the second batter to make hundreds in each innings in a Test at Headingley and the second wicketkeeper to do so anywhere.

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court’s favorite target again this year was the California-based U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which saw 15 of 16 rulings overturned on review.

For decades, the high court’s conservatives have trained a skeptical eye on the historically liberal appeals court and regularly reversed its rulings, particularly on criminal law and the death penalty.

But by some estimates, this year saw the most Supreme Court reversals of 9th Circuit decisions since 1985. And the range of issues was broad, including immigration, religion, voting rights, property rights and class-action lawsuits.

In four years, President Trump appointed 10 judges to the appeals court, a sprawling Western jurisdiction that includes nine states and two U.S. territories. Presidents Obama and George W. Bush each named seven judges to the 9th Circuit in their eight years in the White House.

Trump’s 9th Circuit picks appeared to have played a significant role this year by pressing for internal review of rulings they didn’t like and joining sharp dissents that drew the interest of the Supreme Court.

“The more people who join the dissents, the more it gets the attention of the conservatives,” said one 9th Circuit judge, speaking on the condition of not being identified by name.

“This year was different,” another judge said. “This year was really different.”

When two owners of fruit-growing operations sued over a 1975 California state regulation that allowed union organizers to enter their property to speak to workers, they lost before a federal judge and the 9th Circuit.

Judge Richard A. Paez of Los Angeles, a Clinton appointee, said in a 2-1 decision that the state rule did not authorize “physical taking” of farmers’ property, as the lawsuit claimed, but rather temporary access to it.

Judge Sandra S. Ikuta of Los Angeles, a George W. Bush appointee, wrote a dissent arguing that the ruling was wrong and should be overturned. She said the state rule takes “an easement from the property owners” and gives it to union organizers, who are free to enter when they choose. In a dissent from the full court’s refusal to reconsider the panel’s decision, seven other 9th Circuit judges, six of them Trump appointees, agreed.

When the Supreme Court ruled 6 to 3 for the property owners last month, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. cited Ikuta’s dissent. “The access regulation appropriates a right to invade the growers’ property,” he wrote in Cedar Point vs. Hassid. The high court was split along ideological grounds.

The same divide was on display in the justices’ 6-3 decision shielding big donors to conservative charities and nonprofits from having their names disclosed to the California attorney general.

The 9th Circuit, in a 3-0 decision, had upheld the state’s policy of checking donors as an anti-fraud measure, but Ikuta wrote a dissent, joined by four Republican appointees, two of them nominated by Trump. The dissent said the full appeals court should “correct this error.” She argued that experience had shown that conservative donors have suffered “harassment and abuse” when their names have been disclosed.

The Supreme Court agreed to review the ruling, and Roberts cited Ikuta’s dissent in his opinion reversing the 9th Circuit in Americans for Prosperity Foundation vs. Bonta.

“There is still a large cohort of liberal judges” on the 9th Circuit, said Ed Whelan, a conservative legal analyst in Washington, “but there are now many conservative appointees who are vigilant in calling them out.”

In total, 47 judges sit on the 9th Circuit — 24 appointed by Republicans going back to President Nixon, and 23 named by Democrats starting with President Carter.

Many of those judges work part time. Of the full-time jurists, 16 are Democratic and 13 are Republican appointees.

The size of the circuit — the nation’s largest — partly explains why its cases are often subject to Supreme Court review.

“The 9th Circuit is so vastly larger than any other circuit that it is inevitable they are going to take more 9th Circuit cases,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of UC Berkeley’s law school.

Although this year’s 9th Circuit reversal rate was unusually high, the high court in fact overturned 80% of all the cases it reviewed, Chemerinsky noted.

Moreover, only a tiny percentage of appellate decisions are reviewed by the Supreme Court. Typically, the 9th Circuit hands down about 13,000 rulings a year.

Chemerinsky noted the Supreme Court overturned several 9th Circuit cases on immigration and habeas corpus, the legal vehicle for releasing someone from detention. “The 9th Circuit is historically more liberal on immigration and habeas cases,” he said.

Some reversals occurred in cases that were not ideological, however: The high court overturned a 9th Circuit decision by Republican appointees on what constitutes a robocall.

Though the Supreme Court split along ideological lines on property rights, voting rights and conservative donor cases from the 9th Circuit, the justices were unanimous in reversing the 9th Circuit in several immigration cases.

On June 1, they overturned a unique 9th Circuit rule set by the late liberal Judge Stephen Reinhardt. Over nearly 20 years, he had written that the testimony of a person seeking asylum based on a fear of persecution must be “deemed credible” unless an immigration judge made an “explicit” finding that they were not to be believed.

In one of his last opinions, Reinhardt approved of asylum for Ming Dai, a Chinese citizen who arrived in the U.S. on a tourist visa and applied for refugee status for himself and his family. He said they were fleeing China’s forced abortion policy.

Only later did immigration authorities learn that his wife and daughter had returned to China because they had good jobs and schooling there, but the husband had no job to return to.

An immigration judge had set out the full story and denied the asylum application, only to be be reversed in a 2-1 ruling by a 9th Circuit panel. The panel cited Reinhardt’s rule and noted that although evidence emerged casting doubt on Dai’s claims, there had been no “explicit” finding by an immigration judge so his story had to be accepted.

“Over the years, our circuit has manufactured misguided rules regarding the credibility of political asylum seekers,” Senior Judge Stephen S. Trott wrote in dissent. Later, 11 other appellate judges joined dissents arguing for scrapping this rule.

Last fall, Trump administration lawyers cited those dissents and urged the Supreme Court to hear the case. They noted the importance of the 9th Circuit in asylum cases. Because of its liberal reputation, “the 9th Circuit actually entertains more petitions for review than all of the other circuits combined,” the lawyers said.

In overturning the appeals court in a 9-0 ruling, Justice Neil M. Gorsuch began by noting that “at least 12 members of the 9th Circuit have objected to this judge-made rule.”

Justice Sonia Sotomayor delivered another 9-0 ruling holding that an immigrant arrested for an “unlawful entry” after having been deported years ago may not contest the basis of his original deportation. The 9th Circuit had said such a defendant may argue his deportation was “fundamentally unfair,” but “the statute does not permit such an exception,” Sotomayor said in U.S. vs. Palomar-Santiago.

The high court’s furthest-reaching immigration ruling did not originate with the 9th Circuit, but it nonetheless overturned a 9th Circuit decision.

At issue was whether the more than 400,000 immigrants who had been living and working in the U.S. under temporary protected status were eligible for long-term green cards. The Philadelphia-based 3rd Circuit said no, rejecting a green card for a Salvadoran couple who had entered the country illegally in the 1990s and had lived and worked in New Jersey ever since.

The 9th Circuit had taken the opposite view; Trump lawyers cited this split as a reason the high court should take up the New Jersey case. On June 7, Justice Elena Kagan spoke for the high court in ruling that the 3rd Circuit was right and the 9th Circuit wrong. To obtain lawful permanent status, the immigration law first “requires a lawful admission,” she said in Sanchez vs. Majorkas.

The 9th Circuit’s sole affirmance came in a significant case: By a 9-0 vote in NCAA vs. Alston, the justices agreed with the 9th Circuit that college sports authorities could be sued under antitrust laws for conspiring to make billions of dollars while insisting the star athletes go unpaid.

Lunging men are perceived as dangerous.

In an America that has long weaponized descriptions of how men of color look and move to justify use of force, that is especially true of dark men lunging at white women.

So when Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said after Sen. Alex Padilla interrupted her news conference Thursday that “people need to identify themselves before they start lunging” — it’s hard to believe it wasn’t meant to be an intentionally loaded word, with loaded results.

For those of you who don’t watch Fox and other right-wing media, I’ll fill you in on how Noem’s description played out. Padilla, the Trumpian version of the story now goes, got what he deserved: He busted into a press conference uninvited, they say, pushed his way toward the stage and failed to identify himself.

Just ask my inbox.

“Here is what your article should have said,” wrote one fan of my column about the incident. “‘DEI appointee Senator Alex Padilla, dressed like a truck driver and acting like a potential attacker or mental case, burst into a press conference being conducted by a high ranking member of the Cabinet and started shouting and interrupting her.’”

Another reader put that dog-whistle racism more succinctly.

“No Juan above the law,” the reader quipped.

We’ll get to whether Padilla lunged or not and just how dangerous a lunge really is. But the larger issue is the alternate reality the Trump administration is building to cultivate fear and build support for a military crackdown. The ask isn’t that we believe Padilla was a threat, but that we believe that America has devolved into a immigrant-induced chaos that only the military can quell, and that Trump needs the powers of a king to lead the military to our salvation.

So the question isn’t really whether Padilla lunged or not — since, as the video shows, it’s clear he was nowhere close to Noem and had no intent to harm — but rather why Noem chose to call it a lunge.

“It was very disingenuous of Kristi Noem to make the claim that he lunged at her,” Joan Donovan told me. She’s an expert on disinformation and an assistant professor of journalism at Boston University.

“The Trump administration is salivating over a major contestation that would allow them to roll the military out into any old town,” she said. “They are making it seem as if without this kind of major intervention and excessive force, that these people are ungovernable.”

Padilla, the son of Mexican immigrants, is known to be a level-headed guy. My colleague Gustavo Arellano describes him as a “goody-two-shoes.”

But these aren’t level-headed days. Padilla said that he was in the federal building on Thursday for a briefing with a general, because for weeks he’s been trying unsuccessfully to get answers about how deportations are being handled.

That briefing was delayed by Noem’s news conference, and so — escorted by federal authorities who knew exactly who they were escorting, Padilla said — he went to listen to Noem in the hopes of getting some information.

Padilla said he got fed up listening to her remarks about criminals and invasions and tried to ask a question, while moving forward past the wall of television cameras. In the videos I’ve watched, multiple federal agents — seemingly some from Homeland Security and the FBI — block his way then begin pushing him back. Padilla seems to continue to push forward, but is overpowered and forced into the hallway. It’s here where he’s taken to the ground and cuffed.

It’s hard to see a lunge in there. And if there was one, it was from at least a good 10 feet away from Noem, at a minimum. Use-of-force expert Ed Obayashi told me that in situations such as this, law enforcement officers are expected to use their judgment on what is a danger.

“They were trying to keep him from approaching,” Obayashi said, pointing out it was the officers’ job to protect Noem. “They were trying to do what they could under the circumstances to prevent him from getting closer.”

But, he added, from what we can see in the videos, it doesn’t look like Padilla showed “intent” to cause harm and he was really far away. Distance makes a difference when judging whether a lunge is a threat.

“It doesn’t seem like he was going to rush up,” Obayashi said.

So, to be fair to officers who may or may not have at first realized they were manhandling a U.S. senator, they had a job to do and were doing it, even if a bit zealously.

But Noem knows better. It’s hard to imagine she didn’t recognize Padilla, who served on her confirmation committee and is the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship and Border Safety.

And if she didn’t, her confidant and close advisor Corey Lewandowski certainly did. Padilla told the New York Times that he was being detained in the hallway “when of all people, Corey Lewandowski … comes running down the hall and he starts yelling, ‘Let him go! Let him go!’”

And of course, Padilla was yelling that he was a senator, and forcefully denies any lunge.

“I wasn’t lunging at her or anybody, and yes, I identified myself,” he said on CNN.

Noem, of course, could have said something in the moment to defuse the situation. She could have asked Padilla back into the room to answer his question. Padilla said the two met after the news conference and spoke for about 15 minutes, which means Noem knew his intentions when she later accused him of “lunging.”

So what could have been handled as an unfortunate encounter was instead purposely upgraded for propaganda purposes. Shortly after Noem’s statement, the White House press secretary posted on X that Padilla “recklessly lunged toward the podium,” cementing that narrative into right-wing conscientiousness.

For weeks, the Trump administration has been ramping up its war on dissent. Weeks before Padilla was handcuffed, U.S. Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-N.J.) was indicted by a grand jury for “forcibly impeding and interfering” with federal law enforcement after a scuffle outside of a New Jersey ICE detention center. Newark Mayor Ras Baraka was arrested during the same incident, but charges were later dropped.

In April, Milwaukee County Judge Hannah Dugan was arrested inside her own courthouse after being accused of helping an immigrant appearing in her court to evade ICE officers by allowing him to exit through a public door.

And just before the Padilla incident, Noem claimed that federal agents would remain in Los Angeles despite protests, where hundreds have been cited or arrested. By Friday, Marines had been deployed in Los Angeles, with little clarity on whether their guns contained live rounds and under what circumstances they were authorized to fire.

“We are staying here to liberate the city from the socialists and the burdensome leadership that this governor and that this mayor have placed on this country and what they have tried to insert into the city,” Noem said, right before Padilla interrupted.

Liberate an American city. With troops.

Quash dissent. With fear.

A survey last fall by PRRI found that 26% of Republicans say that “it is necessary for the progress of this country that the president has the power to limit the influence of opposing parties and groups.”

It also found that there is a “strong overlap among Americans who hold Christian nationalist and authoritarian views.”

“If it is the case that Trump and Kristi Noem and Pete Hegseth are going to continue arresting Democratic representatives, then that is authoritarianism,” Donovan said. “Those are the people whose job it is to represent the common man, and if they can’t do that because they’re so bogged down with false charges or trumped-up charges, then we don’t live in a democracy.”

Padilla may have lost his trademark cool during that press conference, but Noem did not.

She knew exactly what she was saying, and why. A Padilla asking questions is a threat to Trump.

A Padilla lunging becomes a threat to society, one that only Trump can stop.

Donald Trump made a rare trip to Capitol Hill to try and convince Republican members of Congress to approve his “big, beautiful bill” that would cut programmes for the poor and lower taxes while raising the US’ national debt.