Stewart
and Colbert are stalwarts of the television world. Stewart is the
long-running host of The Daily Show on Comedy Central, which he hosted
from 1999 to 2015. He hosted The Problem with Jon Stewart on Apple TV+
from 2021 to 2023 and returned part time to The Daily Show in 2024.
Colbert
has hosted the CBS talk show The Late Show with Stephen Colbert since
September 2015. Prior to that, he hosted the Comedy Central news satire
show The Colbert Report from 2005 to 2014.
Stewart
and Colbert are liberal and have long been critical of President Donald
Trump. After Trump won the 2024 presidential election against former
Vice President Kamala Harris, Colbert said on his show: "After a bizarre
and vicious campaign fueled by a desperate need not to go to jail,
Donald Trump has won the 2024 election" and added: "The deep shock and
sense of loss is enormous."
Stewart said during his U.S.
election coverage, in part: "I promise you, this is not the end. And we
have to regroup, and we have to continue to fight, and continue to work
day in and day out to create the better society for our children for
this world."
So what do you think?
Without
THE DAILY SHOW, there's no COMEDY CENTRAL. It'll go the way of AMC --
AMERICAN MOVIE CLASSICS -- or TLC -- THE LEARNING CHANNEL -- where the
network no longer means what it once did and has become just another
cheap product churner. SOUTH PARK is less important than THE DAILY SHOW
because it's animated and it probably actually played out in 2018. I
have no idea who still gets excited when the show does a new episode.
Thank
you to Wally for letting me post at his site last night ("Weekend box office (Sh! Superman's already cratering and they don't want
you to know)") and thank
you to all community members who got the word out on that. And thank
you to C.I. who reposted my Wally post over here this morning. Thanks
also to C.I. for calming me down last night. She said, "I can take care
of this." And she did. I went to log on and my blog was deleted. It
was gone. There was a complaint about it. I couldn't believe it. I
was just shocked. I figured I would start a new one but was just kind
of stunned. I called C.I. and she said do not get upset about this.
She asked if I'd eaten and I hadn't. She said go eat something and take
my short-acting insulin and relax. I did that and then called her
back. I could post at her site or at Wally's, she said. She explained
the complaint was from some freak over my SUPERMAN review and
that, no, it should not have resulted in my blog being pulled. A friend
of C.I.'s had someone reviewing the blog and it should be restored by
Tuesday afternoon. She checked when she got up this morning and saw it
was back up so she grabbed my post at Wally's site and copied it over to
my site.
Tuesday, July 15, 2025. Grifters fall in line with Chump, his crooked
administration continues to prove that they are the dumbest and the
dimmest, GOP take our John Kerry please, and much more.
MORNING JOE today exposes the grifters.
Are they all as feckless as Charlie Kirk and Laura Ingraham?
Chump gives the marching orders to drop the topic and they fall in line.
I'm
sorry, it's not that simple. If they're going to finally drop the
lies, fine. Honestly fine. Right after you acknowledge you have been
lying for a decade about this bulls**t and after you apologize for these
years of lying and after you tell us how you're going to prevent
yourself from taking part in a massive lie like this again.
Hillary Clinton.
Joe's
talking about "men." No, the lies also dragged Hillary Clinton into
this nonsense, the lie called her a pedophile. It's hilarious, isn't
it, how they spent the 90s forward calling Hillary a "cold fish" and
making her out to be sexelss only to turn around and start up nonsense
about her being in an EYES WIDE SHUT pedo ring. And Stanley Kurbrick!
Your lies had Stanley murdered. Remember that? Your lies had brave
Stanley Kubrick making EYES WIDE SHUT as an expose and being murdered
for it.
But EYES WIDE SHUT wasnt about a pedo ring, was it?
No.
It
was a really bad movie that was dead if it wasn't one of the few
minutes Nicole Kidman was onscreen. Tom Cruise was never so sexless
onscreen.
You lied.
Over and over you lied. You dragged innocents like Tom Hanks into your lies.
And they were lies.
Right, Charlie? Right, Laura?
You were lying.
And you knew it.
Otherwise, you wouldn't be dropping it now, right?
Unless,
oh, my goodness, are Charlie Kirk and Laura Ingraham part of a pedo
ring! Are they Epstein enablers!!!!! They are!!! That's why they're
covering up now!!!!
You want people to drop the
topic of Epstein. Then explain why. Explain to your audiences that
you lied. Explain that you lied because you will say anything to distort
reality and to advance your right wing goals. Confess that you're just
cheap little hustlers who actively set out to deceive people in order
to influence them.
You know, I had more
respect for these whores when they were lying that Tom Hanks was
molesting and sacrificing children. Tom Hanks. If Tom Hanks has a
flaw, its that he's too damn nice.
But that's how insane you were and what big liars you were.
I get it. You had a product to sell: Donald Chump.
A
non-Christian, failed businessman with multiple bankruptcies repeatedly
accused of sexually assaulting women and beating a wife.
That
was the product that you were selling. To sell that garbage, you had
to invent something worse. So you lied bout people and smeared them
with the worst lies you could think of.
And now
that these lies no longer help Chump and now that he's ordered you to
drop the subject, you think you can. In front of everyone, you think
you can just drop it and act like it never happened.
It's not that easy and you stand exposed for the cheap liars you truly are, you stand exposed in front of the world.
And guess what? You can cave all you want but it's not going to go away just because you caved for Chump.
Next topic, Barack has spoken.
Early on when Barack Obama was
campaigning for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination, he
offered tough talk that sometimes rubbed those of us in the Black
community wrong. We would wonder if, for example, certain remarks about
Black fathers were being made more because his own father abandoned
him. Those remarks were never really forgotten and they popped up
throughout his presidency. I'm not rehashing this, I'm bringing it up
for a reason. In the lead up to the elections, Barack spoke to and of
young Black men and the need for them to turnout. I didn't call him out
and I didn't defend him. I didn't highlight those calling him out over
this because to me, his words were straightforward and needed. But,
again, I did understand the reaction because of past reactions when the
topic was Black males. Barack's offered some tough talk again -- for
all genders and races. Arlette Saenz (CNN) reports:
Former
President Barack Obama issued a call to action for Democrats at a
private fundraiser in New Jersey on Friday evening, urging those
frustrated by the state of the country under President Donald Trump to
“stand up for the things that you think are right.”
“I
think it’s going to require a little bit less navel-gazing and a little
less whining and being in fetal positions. And it’s going to require
Democrats to just toughen up,” Obama said at the fundraiser, according
to excerpts of his remarks exclusively obtained by CNN.
“You
know, don’t tell me you’re a Democrat, but you’re kind of disappointed
right now, so you’re not doing anything. No, now is exactly the time
that you get in there and do something,” he said. “Don’t say that you
care deeply about free speech and then you’re quiet. No, you stand up
for free speech when it’s hard. When somebody says something that you
don’t like, but you still say, ‘You know what, that person has the right
to speak.’ … What’s needed now is courage.”
Obama’s
comments come as the Democratic Party searches for its path forward in
the second Trump term and beyond. Many in the party’s base have called
for a more forceful response from Democratic leaders at a time when the
party is locked out of power.
As Democrats
debate who should lead the party, Obama encouraged them to channel their
energy into the governor’s races in New Jersey and Virginia, saying the
off-year elections could be “a big jumpstart for where we need to go.”
I
agree with one caveat. Black women. We were attacked and we were
disrespected. From the right? Oh, always. It doesn't even surprise us
anymore at this late date. But in 2024, we were attacked by others on
the left. We were savaged and attacked. Tabitha at TABITHA SPEAKS
POLITICS has documented this at length. So my caveat is that if you're a
Black woman and you're taking time to heal and focus on other things
after the attacks we suffered, you continue to take care of yourself.
When you're ready to come back, you can. And that day may never come.
If so, I understand.
For those of us who are back in the battle, I think there's a great deal of wisdom in Barack's words.
“Stop
looking for the quick fix. Stop looking for the messiah. You have great
candidates running races right now. Support those candidates,” Obama
said, calling out the New Jersey and Virginia elections, according to
the excerpts of his remarks.
“Make sure that
the DNC has what it needs to compete in what will be a more data-driven,
more social media-driven cycle, which will cost some money and
expertise and time,” he continued.
The
U.S. Justice Department unit charged with defending against legal
challenges to signature Trump administration policies - such as
restricting birthright citizenship and slashing funding to Harvard
University - has lost nearly two-thirds of its staff, according to a
list seen by Reuters.
Sixty-nine
of the roughly 110 lawyers in the Federal Programs Branch have
voluntarily left the unit since President Donald Trump's election in
November or have announced plans to leave, according to the list
compiled by former Justice Department lawyers and reviewed by Reuters.
The
tally has not been previously reported. Using court records and
LinkedIn accounts, Reuters was able to verify the departure of all but
four names on the list.
Attorney
General Pam Bondi has dismissed the Justice Department's top ethics
lawyer, Joseph Tirrell, according to a post he shared on LinkedIn.
Tirrell,
a Navy veteran, posted a copy of his termination letter on the platform
Friday, noting that it resembled notices received by other DOJ
employees. The letter included a typo, misspelling his name as "JOSPEH."
Well,
I think we always suspected -- and certainly expected -- that Pam Bondi
is illiterate and doesn't know how to read. That may be why she has
her 'vetting' problems. Back to the article:
"Until
Friday evening, I was the senior ethics attorney at the Department of
Justice responsible for advising the Attorney General and Deputy
Attorney General directly on federal employee ethics," he wrote, in
part, on LinkedIn. "I was also responsible for the day-to-day operations
of the ethics program across the Department.
"I
led a small, dedicated team of professionals and coordinated the work
of some 30 other full-time ethics officials, attorneys, paralegals and
other specialists across the Department of Justice, ensuring that the
117,000 Department employees were properly advised on and supported in
how to follow the Federal employee ethics rules."
She'll
run everyone out that she can and, all the while, pretend she's doing
her job. I really marvel, by the way, and I've noted this before, over
all the sex whispers that attach to her in DC. Is the really the
dominatrix that rumos insist she is?
Related,
Little Marco's on a firing drive at the US State Dept.
Speaking of stupid, John Kerry. May he rot in hell for this.
He's a back stabber and he always has been (he was my US senator for
years). He cheats on his wife and pretends he's so moral. All he ever
does is stab the backs of people who've helped him. That's his wife,
that's the voters, that's the Democratic Party. He'll turn 82 years old
this year. It's time for him to sit his tired ass down. It's also
past time for him to stop having plastic surgery. It was bad in 2013
but his work since then is only more ridiculous.
And if
John Kerry wants to flap his useless gums again, how about he call out
the way Rubio's destroying the Secretary of State post? Or has John
forgotten he himself was once Secretary of State? He's forgotten a
great deal as he rushes to praise Chump.
John
is a backstabber to the extreme. He hasn't been so disgusting since
his I-was-for-the-war-before-I-was-against-it b.s. He was Secretary of
State. He needed that post after his stupid mouth ensured he would
never be president. Following his 2004 run, Kerry went to California
and made a 'joke' in his mind about how students better do well in high
school or they'd end up in Iraq and since the country was still actively
deploying to Iraq, his remarks offended many. As we noted the day he
pulled that nonsense, his chance to ever be president was gone. He
could have ended up just a senator who tried but never moved beyond
that; however, Barack made him Secretary of State. And last week, when
John should have been defending the State Dept employees, he was instead
found praising Donald Chump.
John
Kerry owed it to them to stick up for them. Instead, he wasted his
time defending Chump. We see you, John. And you're someone who
disgusts so many of us who are Democrats with your actions that always
advance you and not the party.
Chump
has the worst and most unqualified administration of all time. The
worst and the dimmest? The dumbest and the dimmest.
Economists Robert Reich and Dean Baker both
weighed in yesterday. Robert writes:
The
conventional explanation for why Trump’s second term is far more
extreme than his first (which was extreme enough) is that the guardrails
are now gone.
The people who occupied
significant roles in the White House and Cabinet during his first
administration — who talked him out of (or subverted) his illegal and
unconstitutional cravings — are no longer there. In their places are
loyalists who will do whatever he wants.
But this conventional view overlooks a more important explanation.
He’s
more extreme this time because he’s attracted people around him who are
also extreme and pushing him to new levels of malevolence.
I’ve
served under three presidents and advised a fourth. In every case, I’ve
seen the same pattern: A president acts as a magnet, drawing into the
highest levels of his administration people who not only share his
values but amplify them.
When
a president wants to do a decent job — at the least, respecting
democracy, the Constitution, and the rule of law — the magnet produces
an administration of people who respect our institutions of
self-government.
But when a president is malevolent, those drawn to him are among the most fanatical and dangerous in the land.
Richard
Nixon — the most malevolent president in recent American history before
Trump — drew to the White House a collection of bottom-feeding crooks:
H.R. Haldeman, John Ehrlichman, Attorney General John Mitchell, Chuck
Colson, Egil Krogh, G. Gordon Liddy, and E. Howard Hunt. They amplified
Nixon’s worst paranoid and criminal tendencies.
Twisted people who surround a twisted president encourage his malevolence.
They also provide him a chorus of group-think approval.
They embolden one another as they destroy norms for how White House and Cabinet appointees are supposed to behave.
Which describes the Chump administration. Dean offers:
We
all know and expect that a president’s top appointees are picked in
large part because of their willingness to carry out a president’s
agenda. But usually these are people with some experience in the areas
that they are overseeing. Insofar as this is not the case, they can
generally rely on the high-level career officials in the departments or
agencies under their control to make sure that necessary tasks get
accomplished.
Unfortunately,
this is not the case now. The main and possibly only qualification for
Trump’s top appointees is the ability to tell blatant lies with a
straight face. He has picked people who not only have no background in
the areas they oversee, they don’t even have the most basic
understanding of their responsibilities. And in many cases they have
fired or marginalized the career people with expertise.
Starting
at the top, Trump picked a former Fox talk show host with a drinking
problem, Pete Hegseth, to be his Secretary of Defense. Secretary Hegseth
apparently didn’t know that he shouldn’t be making war plans on
unsecured channels and without knowing who was included in the
conversations. He apparently also didn’t know that his wife should not
be included in the discussions.
Hundreds of people just died in Texas because of this failure, and we are virtually certain to see far worse in the future.
Trump
has a Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, who claims he doesn’t know
that tariffs (import taxes) are taxes. Since tariffs are among the
oldest form of taxes, long predating the income tax, this is a pretty
elementary point that a Treasury Secretary would be expected to know.
Kristi
Noem, Trump’s Homeland Security Secretary, didn’t know what habeas
corpus is. Since that is basic right guaranteed by the Constitution, it
would be rather important for the person controlling the largest federal
police force to be familiar with the concept.
While
knowledge of their areas may not be a strong point for top Trump
officials, lying in front of TV cameras is an area of real expertise. We
see this constantly.
And he's right
as well. Again it's not the worst or the dimmest serving in the
administration, it's the dumbest and the dimmest.
As Ben notes at MEIDASTOUCH NEWS, Chump is rotting from the inside and out.
The prospect that the Trump-appointed attorney general, FBI director, and his top deputy could be dragged down over Jeffrey Epstein conspiracy theories makes my head hurt.
None
of them is fit for office. They’ve ransacked the Justice Department.
They remain eager to abuse their offices to curry favor with the White
House. But in this era that’s not enough to run them out of town. What
might be enough is failing to properly perform one of the MAGA cult’s
ritualistic dances. Suddenly Attorney General Pam Bondi is on the outs,
with her two top FBI underlings threatening to turn on her and join the
mob.
For those of us on the outside looking in, it’s not just baffling but enervating. Watching President Trump try to call off the MAGA mob is surreal.
What’s
most important about this whole sordid episode is likely to be the
lengths Bondi will go to shore up her position in MAGA world. She seems
perfectly willing to and entirely capable of committing further
transgressions of the rule of law in order to demonstrate her MAGA bona
fides and stave off demands that she be sacked.
It’s
difficult to parse which of Bondi’s latest outrages were already in the
works and which are self-protective. But credit the national political
coverage over the past few days with at least acknowledging
that there might be a connection between the Epstein blowback and
unusual DOJ moves like confirming the criminal investigations of John
Brennan and James Comey.
In addition, Bondi has:
fired
another 20 DOJ employees, including prosecutors, support staff, and
U.S. marshals, who were involved in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s Trump
prosecutions
fired without explanation DOJ’s most senior ethics official, Joseph Tirrell, a career employee who had been with the department for nearly 20 years
dropped charges against a Utah plastic surgeon who had become a MAGA darling even though jury selection was already underway for a trial on charges he sold fake Covid-19 vaccine cards.
The
traditional tools of the Justice Department are now just baubles to be
used for self-preservation by the attorney general and ultimately by the
president. We are so deep into not normal.
Rep.
Suhas Subramanyam (D-Va.) said he supports Democrats’ threats to shut
down the government if Republicans proceed with a planned rescissions
package, saying his party should use all the leverage they can to
prevent cuts to previously approved funding.
“I
say it’s time to stand up for the American people,” Subramanyam said in
an interview on NewsNation’s “The Hill Sunday,” when asked what he
thinks about a potential shutdown.
“It doesn’t
matter if you’re a Democrat or a Republican. I mean, I’m hearing from
both sides. They’re fed up with this administration, and they want to
see some changes, not just in this administration, but even in the
Democratic Party,” he continued.
“And, so, yes, absolutely, the time to fight was yesterday,” he added.
Republicans
are ramping up efforts to pass a rescissions package that President
Trump requested last month, which includes more than $9 billion in
funding cuts for foreign aid and public broadcasting programs.
Where
do you stand on it? I support bringing it to a standstill. I support a
real and full fight to push back against these cuts. And in terms of
public broadcasting, let me note this from a post Ruth did around the
4th:
And you can't talk the economy without talking Chump's war on immigrants. David Edwards reports:
Two
Omaha restaurant locations have closed after their owner reported
receiving a subpoena from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
seeking the immigration status of its employees.
In
a Facebook post on Sunday, Fernando's Omaha said it was cooperating
with the DHS inquiry. However, the subpoena resulted in the loss of some
workers, causing the two restaurant locations to close temporarily.
Without
the employees, they can't keep the restaurants open. How long will the
closings last? How many other businesses will be impacted.
CNN
chief data analyst Harry Enten revealed Monday how President Donald
Trump’s polling on immigration has plummeted in recent months.
Last
week, a new poll from Gallup showed that Trump’s net approval rating on
immigration had dropped to a staggering 27%. Among Republican voters,
support for reducing immigration decreased from 88% last year to just
48%.
On Monday morning, Enten broke down several
other polls to show that, although the numbers weren’t as extreme as the
Gallup poll, Trump has been gradually losing support for his
immigration crackdown:
Take a look at this:
Trump’s net approval rating on immigration. Got five numbers for you
across the screen here. A lot of focus on Gallup of minus 27. That’s
horrible. Quinnipiac University — minus 16. That’s awful. Marist is bad
at minus 9. IPSOS is minus 8. Fox at minus 7. Bad! So going from your
left side, bad to just downright terrible on the right side of your
screen.
The American people have turned against
President Donald Trump on what was his best issue, one in which he had a
positive that approval rating for most of his term and arguably the
issue that got him, of course, the GOP nomination all the way back in
2016, and one of the issues, of course, he used last year to quite a
successful degree.
Enten then flipped to
another image on the digital board showing that Trump’s net approval
rating with Hispanics dropped to negative 26. Near the beginning of his
term, his net approval rating within the group was only negative 2. That
earlier figure, as Enten noted, was historically good for Republican
candidates.
Let's wind down with this from Senator Elizabeth Warrene's office.
The lawmakers blasted the
administration for its abrupt notice and illegal freeze of the funds,
which has sent school districts and programs nationwide scrambling.
“We are shocked by the
continued lack of respect for states and local schools evidenced by this
latest action by the administration… This rash decision will only
worsen school working conditions and teacher shortages.”
Washington, D.C. — U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren
(D-Mass.) joined Senators Patty Murray (D-Wash.), Bernie Sanders
(I-Vt.), and Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), along with 28 of their colleagues,
in demanding the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russ
Vought and Department of Education (ED) Secretary Linda McMahon
immediately release the nearly $7 billion in funding for K-12 schools
and adult literacy programs across America that is currently being
illegally withheld by the Trump administration.
The abrupt decision by the Trump administration to withhold this
funding has left school districts nationwide struggling to find ways to
fill the massive budget hole. School districts have made clear they will have to end after-school programs and have already told parents to prepare backup options, while adult literacy programs have already been forced to lay off staff.
The members note that the 10,000 school programs benefited
approximately 1.4 million students across the nation, and the latest
report by ED showed significant improvements in student attendance,
grades, and teacher reports of student engagement in learning.
“These centers also help working parents by providing a safe and
productive place for their children to be after the school day ends and
during the summer months,” wrote the lawmakers. “It is beyond
comprehension why the administration would want to jeopardize these
outcomes.”
The Trump administration has confirmed it is blocking funding for the
following programs, all of which are programs President Trump has
requested to eliminate in his budget request, raising serious concerns
about this administration’s intentions to simply impound the funding:
Supporting Effective Instruction State Grants (Title II-A), which
support professional development and other activities to improve the
effectiveness of teachers and school leaders, including reducing class
sizes.
21st Century Community Learning Centers (Title IV-B), which support
high-quality before- and after-school programs focused on providing
academic enrichment opportunities for students.
Student Support and Academic Enrichment Grants (Title IV-A), which
provide flexible funding for school districts for a wide range of
activities, including supporting STEM education, accelerated learning
courses, college and career counseling, school-based mental health
services, and improving school technology, among many others.
English Language Acquisition (Title III-A), which supports language
instruction to help English language learners become proficient in
English.
Migrant Education (Title I-C), which supports the educational needs
of migratory children, including children of migrant and seasonal
farmworkers.
Adult Basic and Literacy Education State Grants (including Integrated
English Literacy and Civics Education State Grants), which support
adult education and literacy programs to provide the basic skills to
help prepare adults and out-of-school youth for success in the
workforce.
The letter was also signed by Senators Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Mazie
Hirono (D-Hawaii), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Del.),
Jack Reed (D-R.I.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), John Fetterman
(D-Pa.), Chris Coons (D-Del.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Jeanne Shaheen
(D-N.H.), John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Martin
Heinrich (D-N.M.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Andy Kim (D-N.J.), Maggie
Hassan (D-N.H.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.), Brian
Schatz (D-Hawaii), Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), Tina Smith (D-Minn.),
Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Maria Cantwell
(D-Wash.), Gary Peters (D-Mich.), Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.), Tammy
Duckworth (D-Ill.), and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.).
Senator Warren launched the Save Our Schools campaign in a coordinated effort to fight back against President Trump’s attempts to abolish the Department of Education:
On July 3, 2025, Senator Warren led her colleagues in submitting an amicus brief for NAACP v. US,
arguing to the United States District Court District of Maryland that
President Trump’s attempts to dismantle the Department of Education (ED)
violate separation of powers and lack constitutional authority.
On June 10, 2025, Senator Warren met
with Secretary of Education Linda McMahon and delivered over 1,000
letters to McMahon that the senator had received from people in all 50
states who were worried about the Secretary’s efforts to dismantle ED.
On June 9, 2025, Senator Warren led her colleagues in pushing the
Acting Inspector General of ED to open an investigation into new
information obtained by her office revealing that DOGE may have gained
access to two FSA internal systems, in addition to sensitive borrower
data.
On May 20, 2025, Senator Warren and 27 other senators pushed for full funding for the Office of Federal Student Aid.
On May 14, 2025, Senator Warren led a Senate forum
entitled “Stealing the American Dream: How Trump and Republicans Are
Raising Education Costs for Families,” highlighting the consequences of
Secretary Linda McMahon’s reckless dismantling of the Department of
Education (ED) and President Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” for working-
and middle-class students and borrowers.
On May 13, 2025, Senator Warren agreed
to meet with Education Secretary Linda McMahon and promised to bring
questions and stories from Americans across the country to highlight how
the Trump administration’s attacks on education are hurting American
families.
On May 6, 2025, Senator Elizabeth Warren highlighted
the consequences of President Trump and Secretary Linda McMahon’s
reckless dismantling of the Department of Education for American
families in a Senate forum.
On April 24, 2025, Senator Warren launched a new investigation
into the harms of President Trump’s attacks on the Department of
Education, seeking information on the impact of the Trump
administration’s actions from the members of twelve leading
organizations representing schools, parents, teachers, students,
borrowers, and researchers.
On April 10, 2025, following a request
led by Senator Warren, the Department of Education’s Acting Inspector
General agreed to open an investigation into the Trump administration’s
attempts to dismantle the Department of Education.
On April 2, 2025, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Mazie Hirono, along with Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, sent a letter
to Secretary of Education Linda McMahon regarding the Department of
Government Efficiency’s proposed plan to replace the Department of
Education’s federal student aid call centers with generative artificial
intelligence chatbots.
On April 2, 2025, Senator Elizabeth Warren launched
the Save Our Schools campaign to fight back against the Trump
administration’s efforts to dismantle the Department of Education (ED)
and highlight the consequences for every student and public school in
America.
On March 27, 2025, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) led
a letter to Acting Department of Education Inspector General (IG) René
Rocque requesting that the IG conduct an investigation of the Trump
Administration’s attempts to dismantle the Department of Education.
On March 20, 2025, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders led
a letter to Secretary of Education Linda McMahon regarding the Trump
Administration’s decision to slash the capacity of Federal Student Aid
to handle student aid complaints.
On February 24, 2025, in a response to Senator Warren, Secretary McMahon gave her first public admission that she “wholeheartedly” agreed with Trump’s plans to abolish the Department of Education.
On February 11, 2025, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Andy Kim sent
Linda McMahon, Secretary-Designate for the U.S. Department of Education,
a 12-page letter with 65 questions on McMahon's policy views in advance of her nomination hearing.
Hat
tip to C.I. who called me Sunday night about what I'm about to write
about. If she hadn't called, I would've been like every other idiot and
hail SUPERMAN as a hit. It's not. It's a bomb.
But, Stan, it's the number one film for the weekend!
It is. But it didn't make enough money.
That
works in so many ways. First off, it will need to sell around $600
million tickets to break even -- some estimates are $675 million in
tickets.
But, Stan, this was opening weekend, it couldn't make all of that in its opening weekend.
No,
it couldn't but here's what VARIETY, DEADLINE and THE HOLLYWOOD
REPORTER are ignoring and here's why the film is a bomb (again, thanks to
C.I.). The film made $125 million in ticket sales domestically.
Friday it made $56 million (some of that is Thursday previews), Saturday
it made $37 million and Sunday it made $31 million. Are you seeing the
big drop each day? And this was opening weekend.
Compare
that to JURRASIC WORLD: REBIRTH -- opening Friday (July 4th) $26
million, Saturday $36 million and Sunday $28 million. Friday was its
lowest day. More people were interested as the film played. That's
word of mouth.
SUPERMAN? Less people went to see it each day of opening weekend. That's word of mouth.
This film is already cratering.
In
other news, MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - THE RECKONING? As I feared, it will
not be crossing the $200 million mark domestically. Back in 2001, Tom
Cruise's star power was such that when VANILLA SKY began collapsing long
before reaching the $100 million mark domestically, all he had to do
was do another round of interviews and he could pump it up to $100
million. 24 years later, when the film needs to make $200 million --
due to its budget -- and it's at $193 million, slipped to number eight
and only brought in $1.4 million over the entire weekend, there's
nothing that's going to save it.
MATERIALISTS?
If it can regain screens, it could be top ten next week. That probably
won't happen and this is probably it's last top ten week. With a $20
million shooting budget, it's $35 in North American ticket sales means
it turned a profit. However, if everyone hadn't dumped it for SUPERMAN,
it would have made more. It's making more per screen than most films.
And It's the film in the top ten with the least screens -- 589.
SUPERMAN played on 4,135 screens and JURASSIC WORLD: REBIRTH played on
4,324 screens. If you look at Sunday's breakdown especially, you'll see
this. MATERIALIST made $371 per screen and was only on 589 screens
while fifth played ELIO made $402 per screen but was on 2,730 screens.
M3GAN 2.) made less per screen than MATERIALIST ($211) but was on 1658
screens so it ended up higher on the box office chart as a result.
Had MATERIALISSTS been nursed, it could have easily done fifty million this summer in North America alone.
Monday, July 14, 2025. Chump's war on immigrants continues to terrorize communities, destroy jobs and destroy lives.
New
York State Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani is running to become New York
City's next mayor. Born in Uganda, his family then moved to
post-apartheid South Africa and, when he was seven, to the United States
where they settled in New York City. What is NYC today is a region
that first took in immigrants in 1624 when the Dutch made the region its
home.
Over the years, NYC has had many, many mayors of all
political stripes. Zohran is a Democratic Socialist who wants to make
the city stronger and ensure fairness and equality for all New Yorkers.
Recognizing the greatness of the city, he has some common sense reforms
to help New Yorkers such as a rent freeze.
Eric Adams built his idea of New York
City. Zohran wants to build New Yorkers New York City. A city that
works for them and embraces them. A city as good as NYC deserves to
be.
Some criticize Zohran and/or think he's
unelectable. Unelectable? He came from behind to win this year's
Democratic Party primary. Criticize? Establishment politician Dean
Phillips has criticized Zohran -- not his ideas but Zohran himself.
While everyone has a right to an opinion, we need to remember that Dean
Phillips (a) does not live in NYC or even New York state, (b) Dean
Phillips ran in the Democratic Party's 2024 primary and only won4
pledged delegates to Joe Biden's 3,905, (c) Dean Phillips ran in the
Democratic Party's 2024 presidential primary and "uncommitted" got more
pledged delegate (37) delegates, (d) Jason Palmer is another name you
might not be familiar with but he won 3 pledged delegates in the primary
to Dean's four, and (e) via his adopted father, Dean was raised in
wealth and knows nothing about struggling to pay the bills.
Dean
Phillips has been against corporate pac donations since 2022. If he'd
bothered to check, that's a position Zohran shares. Those wanting to
build a bridge throughout society are more than wiling to work with
Zohran on mutual goals that improve life for NYC residents. Zohran
invites Dean Phillips to explore his stands and encourages him to find
issues that the two of them can support. Democrats such as Senator
Elizabeth Warren and US House Rep Jerry Nadler have looked at candidate
Zohran and his positions and endorsed him as have Socialists such as AOC
and Rashida Tlaib. Zohran wants to build bridges and make NYC the very
best that it can be.
Okay, I'm not endorsing
Zohran. I don't endorse in races I can't vote in. I don't live in
NYC. The above is written to demonstrate how you can cover the issues
in a way that helps Zohran. Don't treat Socialism as a bad thing
(passing Summer Lee, a Socialist, off as a "progressive" is a bad thing
since doing so is saying "Socialism" is a bad word) and carry at least
one position Zohran holds in your coverage so that those who can vote in
NYC's mayoral election know what Zohran is offering.
Your screw this up, you really screw up AOC's shot in the party's presidential nomination in 2028.
So
stop putting people in political closets -- closets FOX "NEWS" will
only out them from -- and get the information out about the candidate in
a non-distorted manner.
Multiple men have been arrested in at least
three states since President Donald Trump’s inauguration for allegedly
posing as immigration enforcement officers to perpetrate sexual violence
against immigrant women.
Across the country, so-called “ICE impersonators” are on the rise as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) itself has been violently arresting people without warrants, sometimes in plain clothes using unmarked vehicles.
Nearly impossible to distinguish between real and fake agents, men have
allegedly lied about their identities to intimidate, kidnap and rape
women with precarious immigration statuses, according to survivors’
accounts:
In Prince George’s County, M.D., police arrested 26-year-old Victor Antonio Reed, who they say raped a Latina woman while posing as an ICE agent.
In
Raleigh, N.C., an immigrant woman says 37-year-old Carl Thomas Bennett
kidnapped and raped her while posing as a law enforcement officer and
threatening to deport her. He is facing charges for kidnapping, second-degree rape and impersonating a law enforcement officer.
In
Brooklyn, N.Y., a man told a 51-year-old immigrant woman that he was an
ICE agent. She says he attempted to rape her, and he took her phone,
purse and jewelry. At the time of publication, he has not yet been arrested.
[. . .]
ICE impersonators are not the only threat
facing immigrant women (and all immigrants). Especially under President
Trump, who is ushering in a harsh wave of militarized mass detention and deportation, ICE itself poses grave risks to women’s safety, bodily autonomy and human rights.
In mid-March, ICE detained a pregnant mother of five
named Iris Dayana Monterroso-Lemus. In ICE custody, Monterroso-Lemus
says she endured hunger, abuse and medical neglect; her food had
cockroaches in it, and her only prenatal care was 12 unidentified pills a
day.
When she was five months pregnant,
Monterroso-Lemus gave birth alone, shackled and under armed guard. She
experienced a stillbirth in custody after officials allegedly refused to
provide medical care while she begged for help. After she gave birth to
a stillborn child, ICE deported Monterroso-Lemus to Guatemala,
separating her from family in the United States.
In May, ICE detained Paola Clouatre—the
wife of an American Marine Corps veteran—after her appointment for a
green card. Immigration officials sent Clouatre to a facility hours away
from her children, including her 3-month-old breastfeeding daughter.
These are just two of many stories. Tragically, too many women have suffered in ICE custody to include every story here.
Additionally,
women who are deported often face abuse in other countries. Many came
to the United States to escape gender-based violence, which is prevalent in many parts of Latin America and around the world.
ICE may stand for “Immigration and Customs Enforcement,” but it spells danger for immigrant women and their families.
This is a reign of terror. And the reign was started by Donald Chump and it is carried out by Donald Chump. At SALON, Akina Cox shares:
A few weeks ago on a sunny Friday afternoon, my child’s preschool sent out an alert that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were nearby. I picked them up early from school, passing a Home Depot that had apparently been raided
a few hours earlier, sending day laborers and street vendors fleeing.
The following day, ICE was seen in the city of Paramount where my friend
lives, and I checked for alternate routes to her graduation party held
that evening. On Sunday morning, as I was looking for shoes and packing
snacks, I heard a rumor that ICE was on the same block as my child’s
playdate. I searched for concrete details, scrolling through images of
the previous day’s protests in Los Angeles
only a few miles away — cops shooting rubber-coated steel bullets at
protestors, tear gas wafting down the street like morning fog.
By the end of the weekend I was agitated and frayed, unable to focus.
That’s when it struck me: I used to feel like this all the time, when I
was growing up in the Unification Church, a doomsday cult known for
arranged mass weddings of its members. Founded by the self-proclaimed messiah Reverend Sun Myung Moon, the Unification Church gained notoriety in the seventies when members known as “Moonies” became ubiquitous
on city corners, selling trinkets and inviting passersby to a nearby
center for a meal. Dinner would turn into a weekend at a rural property,
and soon new members would vanish from their normal lives. Accusations
of kidnapping were leveled on both sides,
with distraught families claiming the Unification Church was keeping
their children away from them, and the church alleging families had
hired deprogrammers to kidnap them back. Families were torn apart, a
situation that was repeated again when church offspring like myself
wanted to leave.
While the reach of the Unification
Church has diminished over the years, ICE is now on our street corners,
arresting our neighbors and loved ones, disappearing them into a legally
dubious network of prisons and holding facilities. In observing these
actions, I can’t help but notice the numerous parallels between the
church and the current administration. Allegations of brainwashing, tax evasion and sexual abuse hounded Reverend Moon despite his growing wealth and political influence. Today the news is filled with stories about President Donald Trump, another alleged tax cheat and sex abuser, and his unprecedented monetization of the presidency for himself and his extended family through dubious cryptocurrency and international real estate deals, and tawdry commercialism that includes selling a $250 Victory 45-47 fragrance.
Most concerningly, both Trump and Moon
have used scapegoats to distract their followers from their power grabs.
Scapegoats are integral for a cult; they promote social cohesion, both
by binding the in-group together over a common enemy, and by widening
the gulf between members and outsiders. They cleave the world into a
binary of us and them. Scapegoats are vilified as a tacit warning to
cult members, an example of what could happen to them if they stray too
far from the rest of the flock. The cohesion provided by the scapegoat
places cult members in a position of further manipulation, when they
don’t look past the easy answers and see their leaders taking advantage
of them.
Terror. A reign of terror produces horror stories and victims. Here are a few stories of some of the most recent victims. Joey Safchik (NBC NEWS) reports
on the arrest of 71-year-old Barbara Stone for the 'crime' of
documenting ICE's actions in a San Diego courthouse. She was left
bruised by the bullies, held for eight hours and her phone was not
returned to her when she was finally released. That alone should bother
every American; however, combine it with what THE GUARDIAN's Edward Helmore reported today, "Donald Trump
has given 'total authorization' to federal immigration agents to
protect themselves after a series of clashes with protesters, including
during enforcement raids on two California cannabis farms." In Thursday's snapshot, we noted:
People watch as a chaplain at Cincinnati's Children's hospital is
rounded up by ICE and they rightly think, "How is that man a 'violent
criminal'?" And they rightly conclude, "He isn't." This does not have
the support of the American people. You see it in the polling and you
see it in the rising sentiment against Chump personally.
The chaplain's name is Ayman Soliman and, Friday, US House Rep Greg Landsman's office issued the following:
Cincinnati, OH – Today, Congressman
Greg Landsman (D-OH-01) released the following statement regarding his
ongoing efforts in support of Ayman Soliman:
We spoke at length today with ICE officials – making the case for why Ayman deserves to remain in our community.
We have been working on Ayman’s case for months – well before this became public.
We expect this to be a long process that he and his attorneys will be
navigating. At every step of the way – before he was detained,
afterward, and going forward – we have been and will continue working
hand in hand with his legal team.
We have secured a commitment that Ayman will be able to stay in Ohio
for the time being – prior to his next appearances before the
immigration court.
While we cannot go into every detail, we are working to ensure Ayman
receives due process, are pushing for him to be treated fairly, and are
doing everything we can to keep him here at home.
A deaf Mongolian man has spent more than four months in a Southern
California immigrant detention center without the opportunity to
communicate with anyone who understands Mongolian Sign Language,
according to his civil rights attorney.
“He’s basically been in solitary confinement because he has not had
one person actually speak to him in Mongolian Sign Language for the
entirety of the time that he’s been in proceedings and detained,” said
his attorney, Alegría De La Cruz, director of litigation for the Disability Rights Legal Center.
U.S. Southern District of California Judge Dana Sabraw this week
ordered officials at the Otay Mesa Detention Center to provide him with a
Mongolian Sign Language interpreter.
The judge also directed immigration authorities to redo two
assessments that could affect his request for asylum. One would examine
his mental health, and the other would evaluate whether he has a
credible fear for his safety if he returns to his country.
Another? Olga R. Rodriguez (AP) reports, "A farmworker who fell from a greenhouse roof during a chaotic ICE raid
this week at a California cannabis facility died Saturday of his
injuries. Jaime Alanis, 57, is the first person to die in one of the
Trump administration’s anti-immigration operations. Yesenia Duran, Alanis' niece, confirmed his death to The Associated Press."
Kong
Xiong Wang was 18 years old when he arrived at Miami International
Airport with a document U.S. immigration officials said was fraudulent.
In 1994, an immigration judge ruled that Wang must return to China, record show.
Instead,
over the next decades, he made his way north to a small village on the
Susquehanna River in Upstate New York’s Southern Tier.
In
Owego, Wang is known as Roger Huang, age 50, a husband and father and
the owner of Kam Fung Chinese restaurant for about 25 years.
His
is the story of Chinese restaurant owners in towns all over America.
Huang works all day in the kitchen while his wife serves General Tso’s
chicken and egg rolls in the dining room. Customers have watched their
two daughters study their way from restaurant countertops to college.
“This
family sure knows how to make awesome food and a friendly atmosphere
and it’s always family, theirs and yours,” one Google reviewer wrote a
month ago. “Owego New York is blessed.”
Now,
for the second time in recent weeks, an Upstate New York community has
lost the patriarch of its beloved local Chinese restaurant family.
It was supposed to be a routine meeting with U.S. Immigration and
Customs Enforcement (ICE). Orozco Forero and her husband had been to all
their monthly meetings for the past year and change, since their asylum
charge was denied in April 2024.
The family — Orozco Forero; her husband, Juan Sebastian Moreno
Acosta; and their two sons, Juan David, 7, and Daniel, 5 — fled Colombia
two years ago. Moreno Acosta, a street vendor, had been persecuted by
gangs who target vendors for money.
After arriving in the United States, they sought the help of a lawyer
with their asylum claim, but when they couldn’t pay his full fee ahead
of their hearing, he pulled out. They represented themselves in court
and lost the case. With no knowledge of the U.S. court system, they
didn’t know they had 30 days to appeal the ruling, either. Ever since,
ICE has been monitoring them, requiring they wear a wrist tracker and
meet with an immigration officer once a month, sometimes more, according
to a family member. (The 19th is not naming the family member to
protect their identity.) It’s unclear why ICE has allowed them to stay
in the country all this time, though it’s not necessarily uncommon; ICE
typically prioritized immigrants with felonies for deportation.
Orozco Forero had seen the reports of undocumented immigrants being
rounded up at their immigration appointments. President Donald Trump’s
mass deportation effort has led to the detention of about 30,000 migrants with no criminal record, like Orozco Forero, who now make up about half
of those detained. Her husband does have a misdemeanor reckless driving
conviction for driving under the influence of alcohol on his record,
but he completed a court-mandated alcohol course for that and has no
other convictions.
Still, Orozco Forero wasn’t worried when she headed to her
appointment on the morning of June 18. If ICE planned to detain her,
Orozco Forero thought, they would have asked her to come with the boys,
right?
And she had been doing everything right: She’d gone to all her
appointments, taken documentation to show she was going to school at
Green River Community College taking courses in English and early
childhood education. She had completed a child care internship that
trained her to open her own licensed in-home day care. Her licensure
approval was set to arrive any moment, likely that same week, and the
day care was just about ready to go.
But that morning, her family was still wary, asking her to share her location just in case.
Shortly after 10 a.m., Orozco Forero texted her family member: “They are going to deport us”
“Nicolle what happened? Nicolle answer me,” they texted back. “What do I do?”
“I can’t speak I feel like I’m going to faint,” Orozco Forero replied. And then: “I’m sorry it wasn’t what we expected.”
One
of her children's sick and they've all been deported. And this impacts
families in Seattle since she was a childcare provider. Other jobs are impacted as well. Michelle Breidenbach (SYRACUSE.COM) reports, "All
over Upstate New York, the U.S. government is arresting the people who
repair roofs, landscape yards and raise chickens. Dairy farm workers are refusing to leave company-provided housing, where officers would need a warrant to enter."
We've repeatedly noted here of ICE that your choices are
to remain working for them and face a future that's either drug
addiction (self-medicating to deal with the guilt) or suicide. That's
not me putting a curse on them, that's me noting that this outside of
acceptable human behavior and that these are the two
responses/possibilities for most people when they transgress the bonds
of humanity. Friday, Billal Rahman (NEWSWEEK) reported:
A
government attorney resigned over what he called a shift in Immigration
and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) mission from safeguarding the nation to
chasing deportation numbers.
Adam Boyd, a 33-year-old attorney, quit the ICE legal department last month, The Atlantic reported.
"We
still need good attorneys at ICE. There are drug traffickers and
national-security threats and human-rights violators in our country who
need to be dealt with. But we are now focusing on numbers over all
else," Boyd told the outlet.
[. . .]
Stephen
Miller, who is the White House deputy chief of staff for policy, and
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem set a daily arrest quota of
3,000, piling up pressure on ICE agents to deliver historically high
figures.
Boyd said he ultimately felt he "had
to make a moral decision" to leave after watching the agency's
priorities change under mounting political pressure.
"It
became a contest of how many deportations could be reported to [White
House Deputy Chief of Staff] Stephen Miller by December," Boyd said.
According
to Boyd, ICE lawyers were increasingly frustrated as legitimate cases
were dismissed so that officer teams could arrest immigrants in
courthouse hallways and push them through fast-track
deportations—tactics that he says padded statistics at the expense of
due process.
Boyd added that many ICE attorneys
share his concerns and are biding their time until their student loans
are forgiven before they, too, resign.
THE ATLANTIC article noted above is by Nick Miroff
and morale has been destroyed as one ICE agent after another reveals.
For example, one notes that they're supposed to be going after violent
criminals but instead they're tasked with "arresting gardners" and
another states, "Even those that are gung ho about the mission aren't
happy with how they are asking to execute it -- the quotas and the shift
to this low-hanging fruit to make the numbers."
That's
why they have to wear masks -- because even now they're ashamed of what
they're doing. When the true scope of what they've done is revealed
years from now and they see how their own actions, their own individual
actions, were illegal and destroyed lives, all they'll have is suicide
or drugs to self-medicate and try to erase the memories.
They
need to quit. For their own souls, they need to quit. This is not
something that will be less painful for them as the years go by.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have become a more and more common sight across America during Trump’s second term, especially after the administration reportedly
set a goal to increase immigration arrests to 3,000 per day. The
federal agency has been whisking people off the streets, sparking
protests with raids on businesses in Los Angeles, including a clothing wholesaler downtown, and even arrested
(and released hours later, reportedly without charges) New York City
comptroller Brad Lander at an immigration courthouse on June 17. These
actions have begun to sow anxiety and even panic in communities
nationwide. And ICE’s power will likely grow: President Trump’s
newly-signed budget legislation allocates roughly $170 billion to
immigration and border enforcement through 2029, nearly $30 billion of
which is earmarked for ICE operations, including hiring and training new
personnel. The way many of the current agents are dressing is only
adding to the controversy.
In
photographs and footage from recent raids in Nebraska, California, New
York, Florida, and other states, ICE agents are often either decked out
in military-style gear, including tactical vests and helmets, or seem to
be dressed as civilians, with few, if any, apparent identifying
markers. ICE, like some other federal law enforcement agencies, does not
have a standard uniform for its agents. Many in these images wear
gaiter-style masks, which the acting director of ICE, Todd Lyons, said
in May are “for personal protection and to prevent doxing,” or being
identified online. (An ICE spokesperson tells GQ via email that its
officers have faced “a nearly 700% increase in assaults.” The Department
of Homeland Security reportedly recorded 79 assaults against officers
from the start of Trump’s second term through the end of June.)
Some
of these agents have reportedly refused to identify themselves as ICE,
raising concerns over the agency’s accountability and oversight of its
actions. According to the ICE spokesperson, during enforcement
operations all of its agents “wear badges designed to be easily
identifiable and to signify their authority as law enforcement
officials.
I
believe the real assaults they are facing are assaults from their own
conscience. And they should be paying to attention to those. Things
you do wrong and feel bad about today do not get easier to stomach as
time goes on which is why so many turn to drugs (which includes booze)
or self-harm (suicide).
Why
might your conscience be nagging you? Because your job is not one that
your faith can forgive or that your belief system can stomach. Ailia Zehra notes:
46-year-old
Chris Landry, a Canadian-born legal U.S. resident who’s lived in New
Hampshire since age 3, supported President Donald Trump in the last
election. But on Sunday, things took a sharp turn. Returning from a
family vacation with three of his children via the Maine border, Landry
learned his green card — granted in 1981 — had been revoked.
He was warned he’d be arrested if he attempted to reenter without approval.
“I
was definitely all for ‘Make America Great Again’ and having a strong,
unified country and a bright future for my five American children, but
now I feel a little differently,” he told NBC Boston, in a report
published Wednesday. “I’ve been torn from my family. My life has been
disregarded completely.”
He says he was held for
three hours and questioned about long‑past offenses, including marijuana
possession and driving with a suspended license — with convictions
dating back to 2004 and 2007. He paid all fines and received suspended
60‑day sentences for each, and asserts he has stayed out of trouble
since.
Still, he felt his treatment at the
hands of border agents was heavy-handed. “I never expected that I
wouldn’t be able to go back home,” he told Manchester, New Hampshire ABC
affiliate WMUR.
Lives are being
destroyed. And the press it gets today? In 20 years, you'll be
watching documentaries on this. It will be one of the key and telling
factors about the Chump administration. ICE agents who think, "It was
twenty years ago, I can live my life," will instead be triggered on a
weekly if not daily basis because these stories will be told -- a huge
number of stories, many more than are known and shared today.
Americans have grown markedly more
positive toward immigration over the past year, with the share wanting
immigration reduced dropping from 55% in 2024 to 30% today. At the same
time, a record-high 79% of U.S. adults say immigration is a good thing
for the country.
These shifts reverse a four-year trend
of rising concern about immigration that began in 2021 and reflect
changes among all major party groups.
With illegal border crossings down
sharply this year, fewer Americans than in June 2024 back hard-line
border enforcement measures, while more favor offering pathways to
citizenship for undocumented immigrants already in the U.S.
These findings are based on a June 2-26
Gallup poll of 1,402 U.S. adults, including oversamples of Hispanic and
Black Americans, weighted to match national demographics.
The same poll finds many more Americans
disapproving than approving of President Donald Trump’s handling of
immigration. Trump’s 21% approval rating on the issue among Hispanic
adults is below his 35% rating nationally, with the deficit likely
reflecting that group’s low support for some of the administration’s
signature immigration policies.
We'll wind down with this from Senator Alex Padilla's office:
WASHINGTON, D.C. — In case you missed it, U.S.
Senator Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary
Immigration Subcommittee, joined
CNN’s “State of the Union” this morning to criticize the Trump
Administration’s cruel immigration raids in California and across the
nation, and pushed for new legislation to require immigration enforcement officers to display clearly visible identification during public-facing enforcement actions.
As Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officers, including
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), enact President Trump’s
cruel mass deportation agenda, Padilla’s VISIBLE Act would
strengthen oversight, transparency, and accountability for the
Administration’s indiscriminate and alarming immigration enforcement
tactics that have terrorized communities across California and the
nation.
He discussed the recent ruling
by a federal judge ordering the Trump Administration to stop carrying
out indiscriminate immigration enforcement in Southern California,
emphasizing that there is “a mountain of evidence” that agents are
illegally arresting people solely based on their race, accents, or
occupation. Padilla criticized Trump’s Border Czar, Tom Homan, for
dismissing the federal judge’s order and maintaining the
Administration’s un-American racial profiling policy.
Padilla also slammed Trump’s plan to enact a 35 percent tariff on
Canada and a 30 percent tariff on Mexico, starting on August 1,
emphasizing that these tariffs will amount to a tax on the American
people by raising prices.
Key Excerpts
On a federal judge’s order to stop the Trump Administration’s indiscriminate, racially biased immigration sweeps:
“Wouldn’t be the first time the Trump Administration tries to just
dismiss a court order, and so it’s our job to ensure that we uphold the
law, uphold the Constitution. I mean, Homan has said it very clearly in
other interviews: they’re not even asking for significant findings to
detain people. They’re going based on appearance. His words, not mine,
based on occupation, his words, not mine, based on accents, physical
appearance. Dana, what if I was outside of Home Depot, because I like to
do some work around the house, not dressed in a suit, would I be a
target of ICE enforcement under Tom Homan? Probably.”
“It’s just wrong. It’s not just due process rights that have become
the concern, but racial profiling. When federal agents involved in
immigration enforcement are using racial profiling, they’re not
enforcing the law. They are breaking it.”
“He claims to be prioritizing those violent, dangerous criminals.
We’ve been hearing this ad nauseam from the Trump Administration going
back to the campaign trail. The numbers suggest otherwise: the vast
majority of people that have been detained, and even those deported,
have no serious criminal conviction history. If it was only going after
dangerous criminals, there would be no debate, no discussion. I agree
with that. But the fact of the matter is, the vast majority of those
being detained are the same people who were deemed essential workers at
the end of the first Trump Administration at the outset of the COVID-19
pandemic. That’s a cruel, cruel irony.”
On the VISIBLE Act and federal immigration agents lacking identification:
“I do have concern when there are no requirements for ICE agents or
other federal agents involved with the immigration enforcement actions
to even identify themselves. I mean, if you’re a member of a
working-class immigrant community, and you see unmarked cars roll into
your community, people getting out of those cars with no identifiers
that they are law enforcement, and literally not just detaining, in your
mind, maybe kidnapping.”
“So that’s why Senator Booker and I have this bill to require that
identification for ICE agents or anybody involved with immigration
enforcement. It’s for the safety of the officers and agents, as well as
safety for the community and to protect against people exploiting the
circumstances, impersonating ICE agents, and getting involved with
burglary, theft, kidnapping, sexual assault, and worse.”
On Ventura County immigration raid leading to the death of a migrant farm worker:
“Again, if all they’re doing is going after serious violent
criminals, that would be one thing, but because of these artificial
quotas established by, whether it’s Donald Trump or Stephen Miller or
somebody in the Administration, it’s causing ICE to get more aggressive,
more cruel, more extreme, and these are the results. It’s people dying
because of fear and terror caused by this Administration. It’s not just
undocumented immigrants. There’s lawful immigrants that are being
rounded up. There’s United States citizens that are being detained.
There are military veterans that are being detained.”
On Trump’s tariffs on Mexico and Canada:
“Both Canada and Mexico aren’t just the largest trading partners for
the state of California, they’re among the largest trading partners for
the United States of America. And so let’s remember what happens when
tariffs take effect. First of all, costs will increase, and the people
who pay that price increase are United States consumers. It’s U.S.
companies importing products from those countries that will pass along
the cost to the American consumer. So in effect, it’s a tax increase on
the American people brought to you by Donald Trump.”
Video of Senator Padilla’s full interview is available here.
Earlier this week, Senators Padilla and Cory Booker (D-N.J.) released a video on Instagram calling out Trump’s lies and explaining the facts about how their legislation, the VISIBLE Act, would make Americans and law enforcement officials safer. Padilla also led 13 Democratic Senators in a letter criticizing ICE for engaging in counterproductive, theatrical enforcement activities — including raids on courthouses and restaurants — and requesting information from the agency on its mask and uniform policies.
