#Kristi is working security

[oneofthosecrazycatladies]

This post is my attempt to track what’s going on with US politics. This post is constantly being updated so if you see this on your dash, check my blog (this post will be pinned) to see the latest version. If there’s anything I miss that you think should be included on this list, please let me know.

January-April 2025

May 2025

National News:

Trump-appointed judge says president’s use of Alien Enemies Act is unlawful [x]

Trump is replacing Mike Waltz as national security adviser [x]

The Department of Justice is preemptively suing several states in order to prevent them from suing oil and gas companies [x]

Trump releases a budget proposal that cuts funding to health, education, and clean energy while growing funding to the military [x]

Trump downplays fears of recession [x]

Trump administration is making sweeping cuts to the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) [x]

Trump is ordering the reopening of Alcatraz [x]

Trump wants to put tariffs on foreign films [x]

Trump says he’ll give immigrants $1,000 if they self-deport [x]

Trump administration has shut down CDC's infection control committee [x]

Supreme Court upholds Trump’s ban on trans people serving in the military [x]

House votes to codify Trump's Gulf of America executive order [x]

Trump names Fox News host as US Attorney for D. C. [x]

Supreme Court lets Trump end deportation protections for 350,000 Venezuelans [x]

House Republicans want to stop states from regulating AI [x]

The executive orders Trump has signed to rewrite American history [x]

LaMonica McIver (D-NJ) has been arrested and charged with assault [x]

FDA may limit future Covid-19 shots to older people and those at risk of serious infection [x]

Trump unveils plans for 'Golden Dome' defence system [x]

Justice Department pulls civil rights investigations into local police departments [x]

17 family members of notorious cartel leader enter U.S. in deal with Trump administration, Mexico says [x]

Judge blocks Trump administration from closing the Education Department [x]

Trump administration blocks Harvard's ability to enroll international students [x]

Trump reverses the ban on forced reset triggers, which are devices that can turn an assault rifle into a machine gun [x]

Supreme Court grants Trump request to fire independent agency members [x]

A judge has temporarily blocked Trump’s plan to stop Harvard from enrolling international students [x]

Trump has made massive cuts to the National Security Council [x]

Trump is delaying tariffs on the EU [x]

CDC ends Covid vaccine recommendation for healthy kids and pregnant women [x]

US court blocks Trump from imposing the bulk of his tariffs [x]

Appeals court pauses ruling that blocked Trump’s tariffs [x]

Supreme Court allows Trump to revoke legal status of 500,000 immigrants [x]

State News:

Texas is trying to pass a bill that would ban people from receiving medication abortion pills in the mail [x]

Trump’s war on clean energy is threatening a battery manufacturing plant in Kansas [x]

Florida bans fluoride [x]

A brain-dead woman in Georgia is being kept alive because of the state’s abortion law [x]

A bill in Texas will require the Ten Commandments to be displayed in public schools [x]

Other News:

Ed Martin, Trump’s nominee for US Attorney for D.C. lies about being acquainted with a Nazi sympathizer [x]

Trump says he “doesn’t know” if he has to uphold the Constitution [x]

Trump posts an AI generated photo of himself as the Pope [x]

Former Palantir workers condemn company's work with Trump administration [x]

Trump wants to have a military parade for his birthday [x]

Trump pulled his nominee for Surgeon General for not being MAGA enough [x]

Trump accepts a luxury jet from Qatar [x]

Trump is claiming there’s no inflation [x]

White South Africans arrive in the US as refugees [x]

Kristi Noem incorrectly defines habeas corpus during hearing [x]

Pentagon says it has accepted Qatar's gift of a luxury megajet for Trump's use [x]

Pete Hegseth is hosting Christian prayer services at the Pentagon [x]

June-July 2025

20 years ago, same-sex couples couldn’t legally be married in America. 40 years ago, people with disabilities had next to no civil rights and were sometimes barely treated as human. 50 years ago, women couldn’t get a credit card without their husband’s or male relative’s permission. 70 years ago, America was a racially-divided apartheid state and there was a literal terrorist group freely roaming the country and holding political power. 90 years ago people of color, people with disabilities, non-heterosexual people were subjected to eugenics and forced-sterilization. 110 years ago women couldn’t vote.

The ethnic cleansing of indigenous peoples, slavery, imprisoning people for being homosexual, lynching, institutionalizing disabled people, I could go on and on and on.

America has done a lot of unforgivable things to minorities. This country has been through some unimaginable times. And through all that, there have been people putting their lives at risk to fight that because the Founders, for all their flaws, did manage to get one thing right: leaving the language of the Constitution just vague enough to plausibly include everyone even if the Founders, themselves, weren’t necessarily thinking of everyone when they wrote it.

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

I really couldn’t care less if I’m “cringe” or whatever. Truthfully, I think that people considering optimism and hope to be “cringe” is exactly why we’re in this mess right now. Being optimistic doesn’t mean denying the reality you’re in. Being optimistic means accepting reality and saying “but I think things can be better.”

When our forebears were being enslaved, institutionalized, sterilized, terrorized, murdered, did they just throw up their hands and say “well times are tough, nothing we can do about it, guess we have to just accept it 🤷‍♀️”? We owe it to everyone who came before us to pick up the mantle and keep fighting.

Protest peacefully. Make your voices heard. We lose if we give up and stop fighting. Remember: Community Is Strength. Diversity Is Strength. No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

[allthegeopolitics]

The Department of Homeland Security said Friday that it will revoke legal protections for hundreds of thousands of Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans, setting them up for potential deportation in about a month. The order applies to about 532,000 people from the four countries who came to the United States since October 2022. They arrived with financial sponsors and were given two-year permits to live and work in the U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said they will lose their legal status on April 24, or 30 days after the publication of the notice in the Federal Register. The new policy impacts people who are already in the U.S. and who came under the humanitarian parole program. It follows an earlier Trump administration decision to end what it called the “broad abuse” of the humanitarian parole, a long-standing legal tool presidents have used to allow people from countries where there’s war or political instability to enter and temporarily live in the U.S.

Continue Reading

[thatdiabolicalfeminist]

This is such a disturbing, transparent attempt to drum up even more racist and xenophobic sentiment.

Immigrants, especially those who are racialized where they now live and who do not have official documentation, and those who are student activists, are primary targets and should never be an afterthought in conversations about what has been happening in the USA.

They are in serious immediate danger and solidarity movements to protect them do not currently have the kind of mass support that these vulnerable members of our communities need and deserve.

Please seek out groups in your local area that you can support, either financially or with volunteer work. People are being kidnapped off the streets and imprisoned or sent to places they are not safe, sometimes places they've never been. This is a crisis, and we need to treat it as one.

[doaahosam1993]

"My name is Doaa, and my husband Hussam and I once carried a simple dream that was shattered by the weight of war. We’ve been married for eight years, living a quiet life filled with hope. I completed my bachelor’s degree, and Hussam worked tirelessly to build us a future. We dreamed of filling our small home with the sound of children, but fate hasn’t blessed us with kids yet. We learned that we need IVF treatment to make our dream of parenthood come true, but it’s unavailable in Gaza and requires traveling abroad.

Then the war came and destroyed what little we had left. In a single night, our home—the one we built with years of hard work and savings—turned into a pile of rubble. One shell ended all our memories, our clothes, our security. Now, we live under the open sky, wrapped in cold and fear, with no roof to shelter us or walls to protect our dignity. Hussam, who once worked with all his strength, can no longer find a job in this devastation. We rely on the meager aid from the United Nations agency, but it’s barely enough to stave off hunger.We desperately need your help to raise £20,000: £10,000 for IVF treatment outside Gaza, our only chance to become parents, and £10,000 for travel and shelter costs to start a new life away from this nightmare. Every day here is a struggle. I look at Hussam and see sadness and helplessness in his eyes, yet we refuse to give up.

Every contribution, no matter how small, could be the light that pulls us out of this darkness. Please, help us live again and fulfill the dream of a family we’re fighting for

💔😢😢

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Edward Helmore at The Guardian:

Donald Trump and administration officials have threatened CNN over what they said was its promotion of a new app that allows users to track and try to avoid Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents. Speaking to reporters in Florida on a trip to visit a new Ice detention center in Everglades, dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz”, the homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, said her department and the Department of Justice were looking at prosecuting CNN over its reporting on the app, called IceBlock. “We’re working with Department of Justice to see if we can prosecute them,” Noem said, “because what they’re doing is actively encouraging people to avoid law enforcement activities and operations. We’re going to actually go after them and prosecute them. What they’re doing is illegal.” Trump joined in, saying the news network – a frequent target of his ire – should also be prosecuted for what he said were “false reports on the attack on Iran”, referring to the leak of a Pentagon assessment that suggested US strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities did not destroy the core components of the country’s nuclear program and had probably only set the program back by months. “They were totally obliterated,” Trump countered. “Our people have to be celebrated, [and] not come home to, ‘What do you mean we didn’t hit the targets?’”

CNN defended its reporting of the app through a spokesperson, saying: “This is an app that is publicly available to any iPhone user who wants to download it. There is nothing illegal about reporting the existence of this or any other app, nor does such reporting constitute promotion or other endorsement of the app by CNN”. Noem’s comments came hours after Tom Homan, Trump’s border czar, also criticized CNN for its reporting on the IceBlock app. “It’s disgusting,” Homan said during an appearance on the rightwing commentator Benny Johnson’s internet show. “I can’t believe we live in a world where the men and women in law enforcement are the bad guys. It’s already a dangerous job.” Homan had been asked about the app, which was created to report sightings of Ice agents in any given area. Software developer Joshua Aaron recently told CNN that he had launched the app “when I saw what was happening in this country”.

The Trump Regime’s fascistic war on the media expands to threats to prosecute CNN over its reporting on the ICEBlock app that tracks the activities of ICE goons.

See Also:

HuffPost: Trump Allies Want DOJ To Investigate CNN, Rising App That Tracks ICE Movements

Daily Kos: Noem wants to hunt down people who warn others about nearby ICE agents

[kyova]

From Alt National Park Service in n FB:

tl;dr:

DOGE accessed all those systems - IRS, Social Security, DHS, every office in the U.S. - not to promote “efficiency”, but to gather and control our electronic lives so they can ruin us if we step out of line in any way. Or if they just feel like it.

Alt National Park Service:

“DOGE has quietly transformed into something far more sinister — not a system for streamlining government, but one designed for surveillance, control, and targeting. And no one’s talking about it. So we’re going to spill the tea.

From the beginning, DOGE’s true mission has been about data — collecting massive amounts of personal information on Americans. Now, that data is being turned against immigrants.

At the center of this effort is Antonio Gracias, a longtime Elon Musk confidante. Though he holds no official government position, Gracias is leading a specialized DOGE task force focused on immigration. His team has embedded engineers and staff across nearly every corner of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

But it doesn’t stop there.

DOGE operatives have also been quietly placed inside other federal agencies like the Social Security Administration and the Department of Health and Human Services — agencies that store some of the most sensitive personal data in the country, including on immigrants.

DOGE engineers now working inside DHS include Kyle Schutt, Edward Coristine (nicknamed “Big Balls”), Mark Elez, Aram Moghaddassi, and Payton Rehling. They’ve built the technical foundation behind a sweeping plan to revoke, cancel visas, and rewire the entire asylum process.

One of the most disturbing aspects of this plan? Flagging immigrants as “deceased” in the Social Security system — effectively canceling their SSNs. Without a valid Social Security number, it becomes nearly impossible to open a bank account, get a job, or even apply for a loan. The goal? Make life so difficult that people “self-deport.”

And if you’re marked as dead in the Social Security system, good luck fixing it. There’s virtually no path back — it’s a bureaucratic black hole.

You might ask: why do immigrants, asylum seekers, or refugees even have Social Security numbers? Because anyone authorized to work in the U.S. legally is issued one. It’s not just for citizens. It’s essential for participating in modern life — jobs, housing, banking, taxes. Without it, you’re locked out of society.

Last week, this plan was finalized in a high-level White House meeting that included DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, Antonio Gracias, senior DOGE operatives, and top administration officials.

In recent weeks, the administration has moved aggressively to strip legal protections from hundreds of thousands of immigrants and international students — many of whom have been living and working in the U.S. legally for years.

At the core of this crackdown? Data.

DOGE has access to your SSN, your income, your political donations — and more. What was once sold as a tool for “government efficiency” has become something else entirely: a weaponized surveillance machine.

And if you think this ends with immigrants, think again.

Antonio Gracias has already used DOGE’s access to Social Security and state-level data to push voter fraud narratives during past elections. The system is in place. The precedent has been set. And average Americans should be concerned.”

[mariacallous]

President Donald Trump’s administration has reportedly taken a drastic new step to force out undocumented Latino immigrants: marking 6,000 of them as dead.

People familiar with the strategy shared details with The Washington Post and The New York Times on Thursday, saying Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has directed the Social Security Administration to add the names and Social Security numbers of more than 6,000 immigrants, most of whom are Latino, into a database used to track dead people, stripping them of their ability to access benefits or work in the U.S.

The move is part of a Trump administration scheme to target immigrants who are undocumented but have Social Security numbers, which allow them to access benefits like Medicaid, unemployment insurance and federal student loans.

“President Trump promised mass deportations, and by removing the monetary incentive for illegal aliens to come and stay, we will encourage them to self-deport,” White House spokesperson Elizabeth Huston wrote in a statement. “He is delivering on his promise he made to the American people.”

A White House official told the Post that of the 6,000 immigrants targeted, nearly 1,000 are collecting Medicaid, 41 are collecting unemployment insurance and 22 are receiving student loans.

A source told the Times that the list included a 13-year-old and seven other minors.

The Social Security Administration acknowledged in a blog post last month that being incorrectly put on its “Death Master File” could be highly damaging not only to that person’s well-being, but to that of their families too.

“Instances when a person is erroneously reported as deceased to Social Security can be [devastating] to the individual, spouse, and dependent children,” the SSA’s post said. “Benefits are stopped in the short term which can cause financial hardship until fixed and benefits restored, and the process to prove an erroneous death will always seem too long and challenging.”

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

They told her she was just spending the night in Miami.

No warning. No lawyer. No time to pack. Just steel cuffs wrapped around her wrists, cinched tight across her chest, chained to a waist belt so snug she couldn’t breathe. A bus with no food, no water, no bathroom—just a puddle of piss soaking the floor. The guards told her to go ahead and urinate where she sat. She did.

Then they pushed her into Krome.

Krome, the Miami processing center where men with criminal records are supposed to be held—not immigrant women with no charges, no convictions, no voice. Krome, where she and 26 others were stuffed “like sardines in a jar,” forced to sleep on concrete, offered one three-minute shower in four days, and told by guards to pretend to have a seizure if they wanted medicine. One woman actually had a seizure. They came for her. The rest they ignored.

Three people are now dead in ICE custody. Three. In just over a month. Genry Ruiz-Guillen, 29, from Honduras, died January 23. Serawit Gezahegn Dejene, 45, from Ethiopia, died January 29. Maksym Chernyak, 44, from Ukraine, died February 20.

No convictions. No due process. No protection. Just death under fluorescent lights.

And while the bodies pile up, the architects of this system are laughing.

THE ARCHITECTS OF SUFFERING

Tom Homan—now officially Trump’s Border Czar—is no longer just shouting from Fox News panels. He’s in charge. And he’s promising “deportations every day,” vowing to expel millions. He’s pushing to build new detention camps on military bases and at Guantanamo Bay, to outsource incarceration to local jails, and to lower federal detention standards across the board. He wants to hand over human lives to any sheriff with a cage and a budget. This isn’t law enforcement—it’s a national purge.

Kristi Noem is no longer the governor of South Dakota. She’s been promoted to Secretary of Homeland Security, overseeing ICE, CBP, and FEMA. She’s already begun reshaping disaster policy and immigration enforcement with the cold efficiency of someone who never cared about the human cost. She’s toured detention centers abroad and proposed funneling more power and funding into the machine that’s already killing people. This is the woman now in charge of protecting the homeland—and she’s treating it like a battlefield.

And Stephen Miller—the alabaster goblin behind Trump’s first wave of xenophobic terror—is back inside the West Wing as Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy and Homeland Security Advisor. He is not hiding. He is not softening. He is laying the groundwork for mass deportations, family separations, and the total militarization of immigration enforcement. Miller’s strategy is simple: flood the system, break it, and make cruelty look like order.

This isn’t mismanagement. This isn’t politics. This is state-sanctioned human suffering.

ICE has 46,269 people in custody—far above its legal bed count of 41,500. Congress just rewarded them with another $430 million. Detention centers are overflowing. Guards are whispering, “It shouldn’t be like this.” But they keep turning the key. They keep locking the doors.

Because this system wasn’t designed to rehabilitate. It wasn’t designed to deter. It was designed to break people.

And it’s working.

CORPORATE PROFITEERS OF THE GULAG

Akima Infrastructure Protection—remember that name. That’s the private contractor running Krome under a $685 million federal contract. Your tax dollars. Your country. Your name on the invoice. And Akima didn’t just ignore the reports of overcrowding, abuse, and death—they didn’t even respond. Because they don’t have to. In America’s immigration gulag system, accountability is optional, profits are mandatory.

Akima isn’t alone. The privatized detention racket is a booming business. The worse the conditions, the higher the margins. More detainees equals more beds, more guards, more federal payouts. These aren’t just prison contractors—they’re war profiteers in a domestic war against the poor, the brown, the undocumented, and the disposable.

And while three human beings die in government cages in thirty goddamn days, ICE puts out a statement saying they can’t verify the abuse without the women’s names. That’s like watching a house burn down and saying you can’t help unless the flames file a formal request.

What ICE really means is this: unless you hand us their names, we can’t retaliate.

FEAR, SILENCE, AND THE NEW AMERICAN NIGHTMARE

These women are afraid to speak because they know what happens to people who tell the truth in a system built to erase them. Their fear isn’t paranoia. It’s wisdom. Because in Trump’s America, the immigration system is no longer civil. It’s punitive, predatory, and lethal.

And while this slow-motion horror show unfolds behind steel bars and security checkpoints, the rest of the country scrolls past it—too tired, too numb, too wrapped in talking points to see what’s right in front of them:

The United States is running concentration camps again.

Not in secret. Not in shadows. In Miami. In Arizona. In Texas. With full congressional funding. With bipartisan indifference. With the open approval of a political movement that cheers cruelty like it’s patriotism.

And unless we name it, scream it, and rage against it, it’s only going to get worse.

Because this administration has made it clear: they don’t want to fix the system. They want to break more people. Faster. Cheaper. Louder.

And if that means more body bags? So be it. To them, that’s not a failure.

It’s the plan working exactly as intended.

WHAT THE HELL DO WE DO?

We stop pretending this is normal. We stop calling it a “broken system” and start calling it what it is: a weapon.

We hold the names. We name the dead. We say Genry. Serawit. Maksym. Not as footnotes, but as proof that silence is complicity.

We pressure Congress to defund ICE, to end private detention contracts, to shut down Krome and every facility like it. We demand independent investigations, criminal accountability, and media that covers these stories like lives are on the line—because they are.

We support immigrant-led organizations. We raise hell at town halls. We show up with signs, with lawsuits, with cameras, with righteous fury. We flood their offices. We write until our fingers bleed. We organize, we protest, we resist.

And if you’re in a position of power—if you’re a staffer, an attorney, a journalist, a human being with a platform—you use it. This is not a drill. This is not a moment to stay neutral.

The machine is killing people. The people running it are proud of that. And history will not forgive anyone who stood by and watched.

Raise your voice. Wreck their silence. And don’t stop until the cages are empty.

[Bill Adkins]

[darkmaga-returns]

The Internal Revenue Service is slated to shed half of its 90,000 agents. Recall that former President Joe Biden wanted to double the number of tax hunters by adding over 87,000 agents through a piece of legislation slipped into the Inflation Reduction Act. The Biden Administration weaponized the IRS against the American people and had even begun to train groups of agents on basic military warfare in the event of raids. This could be a major win for American citizens.

Those complaining about DOGE fail to realize that we permit the government to audit us annually. For once we are turning the tables and auditing the very agencies who hold the people to such high standards. Trump has already placed a hiring freeze for the agency and laid off 7,000 probationary workers. The workers who may lose their jobs will be offered a buyout package, no different from what past administrations have offered when trimming the public sector. Agents will not have the opportunity to accept a buyout until May after the upcoming tax filing deadline.

Other agents have an opportunity to work for the Department of Homeland Security to aid in immigration enforcement, as DHS Secretary Kristi Noem has already asked Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to “borrow” agents to assist with the border crisis.

[contemplatingoutlander]

[Nancy] Mace — who has hundreds of thousands of followers on X, Instagram and TikTok (where she goes by the handle @basedmace) — is easily clocked as just the kind of Republican woman who is ascendant in the Trump administration. The women’s hair is in Utah curls, long waves with straight ends, popularized by Mormon momfluencers. Their makeup is heavy; the content creator and comedian Suzanne Lambert called it “Republican makeup,” which she explained to me is “matte and flat”: thick eyebrows and lashes, dark eyeliner on the top and bottom lids, a bold lip, lots of bronzer. “Inappropriate unless you’re on a pageant stage. And in that case, I would still do it differently,” she said. Their clothes, whether casual or corporate, are form-fitting and often accessorized with giant crosses. They are always thin and almost always white.

To each her own. But it is also undeniable that this hyperfeminine and overtly Christian look offers a stark contrast to the often blunt and even brutal language they employ. Another glaring example of this is the horrifying video of Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, at CECOT, the tropical gulag in El Salvador where the Trump administration has sent migrants. She stood there before a group of shirtless prisoners and declared, “If you come to our country illegally, this is one of the consequences you could face,” while wearing a $50,000 Rolex.

Image sources: Clockwise starting top left: Nancy Mace, Karoline Leavitt, Kristi Noem, and Pam Bondi.

It's hard not to see each of the four women above all fitting the MAGA Republican "beauty" ideal (except that Pam Bondi doesn't have the "Utah curls"). They all certainly wear the heavy "Republican makeup," and they either bleach their hair blonde or add highlights to their brown hair.

They also give off that "Evil Barbie" vibe. I agree with the column's author Jessica Grose, that their "hyperfeminine and overtly Christian look offers a stark contrast to the often blunt and even brutal language they employ," not to mention the cruel and often anti - Christian policies they champion.

It's as if these high-powered MAGA Republican women are high school "mean girls" grown up.

Only they are doing a lot more harmful things than gossiping about others in a Burn Book.

This is a gift 🎁 link so you can read the rest of the article without a paywall.

[edited]

__________________ Note: All images/gifs above were modified from their original sources.

[oneofthosecrazycatladies]

This post is my attempt to track what’s going on with US politics. This post is constantly being updated so if you see this on your dash, check my blog (this post will be pinned) to see the latest version. If there’s anything I miss that you think should be included on this list, please let me know.

January-May 2025

June 2025

National News

Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA) has a bleak message for us all [x]

Trump has asked Congress to cut funding for public broadcasting [x]

Trump wants to deny visas to foreign students coming to study at Harvard [x]

Trump has issued a travel ban for 12 countries [x]

White House revokes guidance requiring hospitals to provide emergency abortions [x]

Supreme Court allows DOGE to access Social Security data [x]

Pete Hegseth orders the removal of the name of the USS Harvey Milk [x]

RFK Jr has gotten rid of the CDC’s panel of vaccine experts [x]

Trump says he plans to phase out FEMA after 2025 hurricane season [x]

Trump says he's restoring the original Confederate names of several Army bases [x]

Trump is considering adding 36 more countries to travel ban [x]

Judge deems Trump's cuts to National Institutes of Health illegal [x]

The EPA is telling staff to stop policing oil and gas companies [x]

Trump is granting another extension on the TikTok ban [x]

Appeals court says Trump can keep control of California National Guard troops [x]

The Department of Veterans Affairs has said that VA doctors are now allowed to discriminate against patients based on political beliefs and marital status [x]

Federal judge indefinitely blocks Trump administration from cutting off Harvard’s ability to host foreign students [x]

Trump ordered strikes on Iran [x]

The Trump administration is trying to bring back asbestos [x]

White House to limit intelligence sharing with Congress [x]

The Sebate has voted on the big beautiful bill [x]

State News

Trump is cutting federal funding for California [x]

Trump deployed the National Guard after unrest in Los Angeles [x]

Democratic state politician and husband shot dead in targeted attack in Minnesota [x]

Louisiana's Ten Commandments law in public schools blocked by federal appeals court [x]

Other News

The legacy of DOGE [x]

Senator Alex Padilla (D-CA) was handcuffed and forcibly removed during a news conference with Kristi Noem [x]

Trump has created a mobile phone company [x]

Trump has a fragrance [x]

July 2025

Alright I know that we’re all tired. We’re 5 months into this now and it can be really tempting to just check out. To be honest, I did that a lot in May. And what I realized from doing that is, yeah, checking out felt nice, but the bad things still kept happening.

Remember, Trump and his cronies want us to stop paying attention. Because if we’re not paying attention, then we’re not fighting back and they can keep getting away with destroying our country and enriching themselves in the process.

You don’t need to spend every waking second of your day thinking about the news. But what I do ask is that, if you see a story from a credible news source about the corruption or more cuts to programs or problems that are starting to reverberate out from previous actions, please share it. Don’t just look at it and move on. Share it.

Fighting back only works if we all do it together. Remember that our communities are our strength.

[black-fist-order]

BREAKING: Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is working to pitch a reality TV show where immigrants will compete in a string of challenges “for the honor” of becoming a U.S. citizen, according to a new report...

Wouldn't surprise me with this stupid cunt...!

[saywhat-politics]

A federal judge has slapped down an attempt by the Trump administration to block an order she gave Friday to return protected Maryland resident Kilmar Abrego Garcia back to the United States after he was mistakenly shipped off to a notorious work prison in El Salvador as part of the president’s deportations of Venezuelan migrants under an 18th-century wartime authority.

U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis on Sunday issued a 22-page opinion saying she would not back off from forcing the Department of Homeland Security and DHS Secretary Kristi Noem to return Garcia, a protected citizen deported on March 15, to U.S. soil after ordering the government to do so Friday. The Justice Department filed an emergency motion to stay Xinis’ preliminary injunction on Saturday with the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals and lower court, “given the urgency of harms to the government,” the DOJ filings said. They called Xinis’ order “indefensible” and impossible to carry out on account of where he’s being held.

[yourreddancer]

Heather Cox Richardson

June 15, 2025 Heather Cox Richardson Jun 16

Yesterday began with the horrific news that a gunman had shot two Minnesota lawmakers and their spouses in what Minnesota governor Tim Walz said appeared to be a “politically motivated assassination.” State representative Melissa Hortman, who was the top Democrat in the Minnesota House, and her husband, Mark, both died in the attack at their home in Brooklyn Park, a city near Minneapolis. The gunman also shot Democratic Minnesota state senator John Hoffman nine times and his wife, Yvette, eight at their home in Champlin. The hospital reports they are in stable condition after surgery.

Law enforcement officers encountered the suspected gunman, 57-year-old Vance Boelter, coming out of Hortman’s house. He was dressed as a police officer. Officers exchanged gunfire with him before he fled, leaving behind his vehicle, which looked much like a police car. In it was a list of dozens of people he wanted to kill. They were mostly Democrats or people connected to abortion rights efforts. Law enforcement officers captured Boelter tonight.

MAGA Republicans are working hard to identify Boelter with what Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) called “Marxism” and Senator Bernie Moreno (R-OH) called “the extreme left,” but as investigative journalist Phil Williams of NewsChannel 5 Nashville notes, public databases show Boelter was in the past a registered Republican. His evangelical religion and his anti-LGBTQ and anti-abortion stances reflect MAGA positions. Boelter’s roommate told reporters that Boelter was a “strong” supporter of President Trump.

NOTE: ADDERAL ADOLPH SHOULD BE CHARGED AS AN ACCESSORY TO EVERY ONE OF THESE ATTACKS ON POLITICAL FIGURES !!! HIS HATEFUL RHETORIC IS THE CAUSE OF IT!!!

Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) noted that MAGA has been “bathed in political violence” for the last five years. Trump’s pardoning of the January 6 rioters, including those convicted of extreme violence, “became a clear endorsement of violence committed in his name.” Trump has encouraged violence and cozied up to brutal dictators, while MAGA has fetishized guns. When he celebrates violence, unhinged people listen. Murphy points out that while people of all political persuasions commit violence, no Democratic leader encourages violence as a political norm the way Trump and MAGA have done, citing “a straight line from Jan 6 to the pardons to the assault on Sen[ator] Padilla to Minnesota.”

After the shootings, Andrew Solender of Axios reported that lawmakers of both parties are concerned about their own safety as political violence increases. The Minnesota attacks happened just days after Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s security guard shoved Senator Alex Padilla (D-CA) to the ground and handcuffed him after he asked a question. This assault sparked apparent fury among the Democrats on Capitol Hill as they challenged their Republican colleagues—largely unsuccessfully—to speak up against the assault on a senator.

The entire Minnesota delegation to the U.S. Congress issued a joint statement on politically motivated shootings. Democrats and Republicans together wrote: “Today we speak with one voice to express our outrage, grief, and condemnation of this horrible attack on public servants. There is no place in our democracy for politically-motivated violence. We are praying for John and Yvette’s recovery and we grieve the loss of Melissa and Mark with their family, colleagues, and Minnesotans across the state. We are grateful for law enforcement’s swift response to the situation and continued efforts.”

After that start to the day, the country turned to the “No Kings” protests. In a dramatic rejection of Trump’s consolidation of power, at least five million Americans turned out for peaceful protests across the country. Cities turned out huge numbers of protesters at more than 2,000 planned events, and small towns, including those in Republican-dominated states, also boasted rallies. The mood was festive as people held signs with anti-Trump and pro-American images and slogans and sang Woody Guthrie’s famous American anthem, “This Land Is Your Land.” American flags were everywhere.

In contrast to the huge turnout for the protests, the military parade in Washington, D.C., was a bust. Although Trump had claimed it would be a celebration of the 250th anniversary of the American Army, it was also his 79th birthday and was widely interpreted primarily as a celebration of that occasion. Trump has wanted a parade since 2017, when he viewed the traditional Bastille Day military parade in Paris. At the time, he told reporters: “It was one of the greatest parades I’ve ever seen…. We’re going to have to try to top it.”

But organizers had had only two months to arrange for the parade, and the result was badly organized, with relatively few people turning out, especially after forecasts of storms that evening. Far from the crisp marching of the military parades that Trump seemed to want to top, the U.S. soldiers appeared to shuffle, leading to a social media debate over whether they had been ordered to march in an “at ease march” instead of a more rigorous step, or whether they were silently protesting. Photographers recorded empty bleachers and thin crowds. Few Republican lawmakers attended, but cameras caught Trump looking miserable and Secretary of State Marco Rubio yawning.

The contrast between the protests and the military parade suggested an important shift in political culture. The momentum and the joy, as well as the American flags, were on the side of those protesting Trump’s growing authoritarianism. Trump looked weak and discouraged, and the crowds were clearly on the side of the protesters. Today, social media, including a Russian account, got into the act of making fun of Trump’s military parade.

At the Philadelphia Inquirer, Will Bunch noted that “the flag is mightier than the tank.”

The rejection Trump faced yesterday, podcaster Jack Hopkins noted, “was a big tub of rock salt poured on his wounds of lifelong insecurity.” That profound injury to Trump’s sense of self braced observers for a lashing out of epic proportions as he tries to demonstrate that he is, in fact, powerful.

We got that anger and fear in a social media post at 8:43 p.m. tonight. In a post almost certainly not written by Trump, his account backed off on Trump’s recent retreat from mass deportations. Instead, the account said “ICE Officers are herewith ordered, by notice of this TRUTH, to do all in their power to achieve the very important goal of delivering the single largest Mass Deportation Program in History.”

The account then declared war on Democrats. The day after a gunman shot two Democratic lawmakers and their spouses in their homes, Trump’s account posted:

“[W]e must expand efforts to detain and deport Illegal Aliens in America’s largest Cities, such as Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York, where Millions upon Millions of Illegal Aliens reside. These, and other such Cities, are the core of the Democrat Power Center, where they use Illegal Aliens to expand their Voter Base, cheat in Elections, and grow the Welfare State, robbing good paying Jobs and Benefits from Hardworking American Citizens. These Radical Left Democrats are sick of mind, hate our Country, and actually want to destroy our Inner Cities—And they are doing a good job of it! There is something wrong with them. That is why they believe in Open Borders, Transgender for Everybody, and Men playing in Women’s Sports—And that is why I want ICE, Border Patrol, and our Great and Patriotic Law Enforcement Officers, to FOCUS on our crime ridden and deadly Inner Cities, and those places where Sanctuary Cities play such a big role. You don’t hear about Sanctuary Cities in our Heartland!”

(NOTE: EVERYTHING RETHUGLIKKKONS PROJECT ONTO OTHER PEOPLE ARE THEIR VERY OWN FAULTS, SINS, AND SHORTCOMINGS!!!)

The post promised ICE that “REAL Americans are cheering you on every day” and urged them to “reverse the tide of Mass Destruction Migration that has turned once Idyllic Towns into scenes of Third World Dystopia.” It doubled down on the neo-Nazi idea of “REMIGRATION” and concluded: “To ICE, FBI, DEA, ATF, the Patriots at Pentagon and the State Department, you have my unwavering support. Now go, GET THE JOB DONE! DJT”

Will Trump’s demands swing people behind him? Americans have already turned against Trump’s handling of immigration and deportations by significant margins. G. Elliott Morris of Strength in Numbers summarized the polls from June 9–13. Answering the question “Do you approve of the way the president is handling…immigration?” respondents for YouGov/Economist were the only ones to produce a majority—of just four points—saying yes. For AP-NORC, Quinnipiac, and Washington Post/GMU, the answer was no by as much as 15 points. On every other question dealing with immigration, more people opposed Trump’s policies than supported them by as much as 16 points.

Trump’s other policies are underwater—meaning more people oppose them than approve of them—as well. Only 27% of registered voters support the Republicans’ budget reconciliation bill, while 53% oppose it. As for Trump himself, a Quinnipiac Poll from June 11 showed that 38% of registered voters approve of the way he is handling the job of the presidency, while 54% disapprove. Only 30% of registered voters approved “strongly” of the way he is handling the job, while 49% strongly disapprove.

While Trump and his loyalists are trying to project an image of invincibility, their actual power seems to be faltering.

Ten years ago tomorrow, on June 16, 2015, Trump rode down the escalator at Trump Tower to a lobby filled with extras, to announce he was running for president. One reporter called his speech, in which he claimed that Mexico was sending criminals and rapists to the United States, “eccentric.”

—

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Oliver Willis at Daily Kos:

President Donald Trump has appointed Fox News host Mark Levin to serve on an advisory council for the Department of Homeland Security, increasing his administration’s roster of figures from the conservative propaganda operation. “I am proud to announce the formation of my revamped Homeland Security Advisory Council (HSAC), which is comprised of Top Experts in their field, who are highly respected by their peers,” he wrote on Truth Social. Trump said that the council would work with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to develop strategies for deporting immigrants and countering drug trafficking. Trump loves to surround himself with Fox News faces. In fact, according to Media Matters for America, the Trump administration welcomed at least 21 former Fox News staffers by the end of March. [...] Meanwhile, Trump also announced that former NYPD detective and Fox News pundit Bo Dietl would be appointed to the advisory council. Dietl was once hired by Fox News founder Roger Ailes to dig up dirt on multiple women who accused Ailes of sexual harassment. Ailes was finally booted from the network after it was disclosed that he had been abusing women for years. Trump loves hiring from Fox News. From scandal-plagued Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth to anti-diversity Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy to outburst-prone Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino—a stint at Fox News is a golden ticket to the Trump administration.

Late last week, Trump taps Fox and radio host Mark Levin, former Fox contributor Bo Dietl, and South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster for spots on the Homeland Security Advisory Council.

See Also:

The Hill: Trump taps Mark Levin, Henry McMaster to ‘revamped’ Homeland Security council

[vice-president-galade]

I don't subscribe to the New York Times anymore for many reasons, but I'm still signed up for their California Today newsletter, which today had a short profile of Alex Padilla that I think is worth reading.

Padilla’s unlikely moment

By Annie Karni

California is no stranger to spotlight-seeking politicians.

At the top of the heap these days sits Gov. Gavin Newsom, whose every move is viewed through the lens of a potential bid for the White House in 2028. There’s Representative Maxine Waters, a leftist live wire who in the past has encouraged protesters to “get more confrontational.” Representative Ro Khanna has developed a reputation on Capitol Hill as a man who is unavoidable for comment. Not to mention the longtime former Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the 2024 Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, who attract attention even when they don’t necessarily court it.

And then there’s Senator Alex Padilla, the Democrat appointed in 2021 to fill the seat that Harris left to become Vice President.

On Capitol Hill, Padilla is known as kind and nerdy. He never seems to raise his voice. He sometimes cries during floor speeches.

His comparatively low profile is underscored by the outsized attention commanded by California’s other, officially more junior, senator, Adam Schiff, one of President Trump’s forever nemeses.

In short, Padilla was perhaps the least likely member of California’s congressional delegation to stage a showy protest this week against the Trump Administration’s immigration raids and deployment of federal troops.

Then again, he didn’t exactly stage it — which only made it that much more shocking to see. When Senator Padilla stepped into a news conference featuring Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and tried to ask her a question, federal agents shoved him out of the room, told him to drop to his knees in a hallway and handcuffed him.

A son of Mexican immigrants, Padilla, 52, grew up in the San Fernando Valley as a rule-following overachiever. He was raised by churchgoing parents who worked as a short-order cook and a house cleaner, and made his way to the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

On Thursday, he told reporters that he was in the federal building in downtown L.A. awaiting a briefing when he learned that Secretary Noem was speaking to reporters down the hall. He said he had been trying for months to get information from her office about “their increasingly extreme immigration enforcement actions,” so he decided to pop in.

“I didn’t barge into the room,” Padilla said on MSNBC Thursday night. “I didn’t even open the door. The door was opened for me. And I spent a few minutes in the back of the room, just listening in, until the rhetoric, the political rhetoric, got to be too much to take. So I spoke up.”

Democrats en masse denounced what happened next, calling it a shocking abuse of power reflective of an administration that was getting too comfortable with authoritarian tactics. If federal agents were this rough with a senator in front of television cameras, Padilla and others pointed out, how much worse must it be for anonymous immigrants being rounded up at carwashes, farms and Home Depot parking lots.

Online, Alex Padilla was trending, maybe for the first time in his political life. And that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing for him, or for the Democratic Party.

The moment was reminiscent of two other recent occasions when individual senators dominated a news cycle, though the other two were planned stunts by more media-savvy politicians.

One was the April trip that Senator Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland, made to El Salvador after one of his constituents, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, was mistakenly deported to a prison there.

A couple of weeks earlier, Senator Cory Booker, Democrat of New Jersey, fired up Democrats across the country with a record-breaking 25-hour filibuster, an act of astonishing physical stamina and bladder control.

Padilla’s moment in the spotlight may have been forced upon him, but it resonated as a call to action among Democrats who may never have even heard of him before.

“This is not normal,” he said last night on CNN. “We cannot treat it as normal.”.