Tuesday, July 08, 2025

Scalloped Corn Casserole

Elizabeth and Maggie have been e-mailing saying that they'd love any corn recipes people are suggesting because their gardens are overflowing with corn.  Like the old Toyota commercial used to say, you asked for it, you got it. Belinda e-mailed to note Southern Living's Scalloped Corn Casserole recipe:


Ingredients
Cooking spray

4 oz. cream cheese, at room temperature

3 large eggs

1 1/2 tsp. kosher salt

1/4 tsp. black pepper

5 cups frozen corn (from 2 [16-oz.] packages), thawed, divided

1 (8-oz.) package shredded Monterey Jack cheese, divided

2 Tbsp. chopped fresh thyme, divided

1 1/2 cups half-and-half

1 cup crushed round buttery crackers (such as Ritz) (from 20 crackers)

1 cup panko (Japanese-style breadcrumbs)

3 Tbsp. unsalted butter, melted

Directions
Prepare oven and baking dish:
Preheat oven to 325°F. Lightly coat an 11-by-7-inch baking dish with cooking spray; set aside.

Make corn mixture:
Whisk together cream cheese, eggs, salt, and pepper in a medium bowl until smooth. Fold in 4 cups of the corn, 1 1/2 cups of the Monterey Jack, and 1 tablespoon of the thyme. Set aside.

Make pureed corn mixture:
Place half-and-half and remaining 1 cup corn in a blender; process until smooth, about 15 seconds.

Combine casserole ingredients:
Add pureed corn mixture to cream cheese mixture in bowl; stir until well combined. Pour into prepared baking dish.

Bake casserole:
Bake in preheated oven until sides are set but center is still undercooked and jiggly, 35 to 40 minutes.
Make casserole topping:
Meanwhile, stir together crushed crackers, panko, butter, and remaining 1/2 cup Monterey Jack and 1 Tbsp. thyme in a bowl; set aside.

Toast cracker topping:
Remove baking dish from oven; sprinkle evenly with cracker mixture.
Return to oven, and bake at 325°F until set in the center and topping is golden brown, 20 to 25 minutes. Remove from oven. Let stand 10 minutes. Serve.

It's a corn recipe -- a summer one.  I wouldn't cook a casserole before sundown in my kitchen in summer, sorry.  Too much heat.  But maybe you'll have a rainy day or cook it ahead or maybe your kitchen doesn't get hot this time of year when you use the oven?


Actor Mark Ruffalo has called out the podcaster Joe Rogan for his previous support of Donald Trump after Rogan voiced criticism of the president’s ICE raids.

Rogan, 57, supported Trump throughout the 2024 election campaign, but has recently begun to share doubts over how the current administration has handled immigration, calling the aggressive tactics “insane”.
“We were told there would be no – well, there are two things that are insane,” Rogan said during an episode of The Joe Rogan Experience released Wednesday featuring Replit CEO Amjad Masad. “One is the targeting of migrant workers. Not cartel members, not gang members, not drug dealers. Just construction workers. Showing up in construction sites, raiding them. Gardeners. Like, really?”

A short clip of Rogan’s conversation with Masad was shared on the social media site Threads, which prompted Ruffalo, 57, to call out the podcaster for backing Trump, knowing full well what his policies on immigration were.
“Dear @joerogan, it’s a little late now to pretend like Project 2025 didn’t exist and wasn’t the playbook all along,” wrote the actor. “You are either not that smart or not that dumb. It’s hard to tell at this point.”


Agreed.  By the way, be sure to read my son Mike's "Idiot of the Week" -- I agree 100% with the selection. 


This is C.I.'s "The Snapshot" for Monday:


Monday, July 7, 2025.  Chump's cost cutting to give more money to the extremely wealthy results in flooding deaths in Texas, he will not meet his 90 deals in 90 days promise, and his assault on immigrants continues. 



Let's start with Ben Meiselas  and MEIDASTOUCH NEWS which posted this video about an hour ago.



Ben Meiselas:  Frenzied, panicking, throughout all of last night, Donald Trump posting things like this, "I am pleased to announce that the United States tariff letters and/or deals with various countries from around the world will be delivered starting at 12 pm Eastern, Monday, July 7th, thank you for your attention to this matter."  The letters and/or deals?  What in the world are you talking about?  You said 90 deals in 90 days.  Now you're just going to send letters to countries saying what their tariffs are going to be?  

What's going on?  I think it's obvious what's going on -- and I'm sure Ben knows it too.  It's Monday morning.  Chump just realized he had an assignment due.  One that he hasn't completed or really worked on and now he is in a panic.  

90 days in 90 deals.  That was Chump's promise.  He's the one who came up with the 90 days.  He's the one who gave himself that deadline.

If you're generous, you can say he has three deals.  They're not deals, they are frameworks and they are more memos of understanding but whatever.

Stephanie Ruhle and her many guests explained on THE 11TH HOUR WITH STEPHANIE RUHLE (MSNBC) when he started this talk -- and repeatedly during the time since -- trade deals are huge agreements that require time and Chump was either lying or a fool when he claimed he would have 90 and 90 days.  July 9th is two days away and he will not have reached his 90 deals in 90 days.  

Fat and lazy Chump is not working for the American people -- as his budget bill that Republicans passed last week demonstrates.  

Now if he weren't so lazy and so corrupt, he could plead for a few additional days.  Were he Reagan or Obama or anyone but fat and lazy Chump, he could point to the tragedy in Texas and explain that he'd spent the weekend addressing that.  

But fat man is too lazy and too fat.  

He didn't spend the weekend addressing Texas or even visiting it.  No, he spent the weekend in New Jersey golfing. 

And it is Chump's fault.  Not the downpour but the reaction and response.  And I'd love to note all the YOUTUBERS who spent the last 18 hours hemming and hawwing about it but never able to actually speak because they don't have the education required.  I'm not a Theda Skocpol fan.  She's not really a theorist nor is she one of the greats of her field.  But TPM did speak with her last week and it was one of the things that kept getting chopped from each day's snapshot due to space issues.  Unlike Theda, the late Judith N. Shklar was a theorist and one of the great minds in their field.  

In her classic THE FACES OF INJUSTICE, Shklar explained:


When is a disaster a misfortune and when is it an injustice? . . . If the dreadful event is caused by the external forces of nature, it's a misfortune and we must resign ourselves to our suffering. Should, however, some ill-intentioned agent, human or supernatural, have brought it about, then it is an injustice and we may express indignation and outrage.


And the flooding was an act of nature.  The cuts to programs that help us with alerts for flooding and that monitor flooding (and other weather conditions)?  Chump did that and that's why what happened in Texas over the weekend is an injustice, not a misfortune.

And that's why he's posting his garbage.  His actions resulted in deaths.  And instead of addressing it on Friday, he went golfing.  Now he realizes that not only did he fail there but, oops, two days away from his 90 deals in 90 days promise.  He's a failure and he's scrambling to try to distract from his failures.




At least 82 people are dead as a result of Chump's actions as well as his DOGE program.  CNN's Danya Gainor covers the numbers:

At least 82 people, including 28 children, have died as floods rushed through central Texas through the July 4 weekend. The total continues to rise as local emergency officials across the state carry out search, rescue and recovery efforts.

Here’s a breakdown by county as of Sunday night:

  • 68 deaths in Kerr County
  • 6 deaths in Travis County
  • 3 deaths in Burnet County
  • 2 deaths in Kendall County
  • 2 deaths in Williamson County
  • 1 death in Tom Green County                


Those people shouldn't be dead.  


Before the tragedy, there had been concerns over the Trump administration's budget cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) - the government agency that operates the National Weather Service.

The Fiscal Year 2026 budget includes cuts and closures of some weather research laboratories, while the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) has slashed hundreds of employees at NOAA and the NWS.

Meteorologists in the US and elsewhere have expressed concerns over "reduced number of weather balloons" that observe wind, relative humidity and pressure above the ground.

They claim that budget cuts have resulted in 20% fewer weather balloons being released for such observations, impacting the accuracy of weather forecasting.

The New York Times reported that critical positions of the NWS were vacant on Friday morning, with some experts questioning whether staffing shortages had impeded the agency's efforts to coordinate with local emergency managers.

However, Tom Fahy, legislative director of the NWS Employees Organization, told NBC News: "The WFOs [weather forecasting offices] had adequate staffing and resources as they issued timely forecasts and warnings leading up to the storm".

And the Associated Press quoted Jason Runyen, a meteorologist in the National Weather Service office, as saying their office that delivers forecasts for that part of central Texas had extra staff on duty at the time of the storms - five, instead of the usual two.


“When President Trump took office… he said he wanted to fix [that], and is currently upgrading the technology. And the National Weather Service has indicated that with that and NOAA, that we needed to renew this ancient system that has been left in place with the federal government for many, many years, and that is the reforms that are ongoing,” Noem explained, seemingly shifting the blame onto previous administrations who failed to upgrade the technology. Trump was previously president from 2017 to 2021.

When asked about the impact of cuts and closures made to weather research labs as part of Trump’s “One, Big, Beautiful Bill,” Noem once again defended the current administration, telling reporters that she would relay their concerns to the president.

“I do carry your concerns back to the federal government, and to President Trump, and we will do all we can to fix those kind of things that that may have felt like a failure to you and to your community members,” Noem said. “We know that everybody wants more warning time, and that’s why we’re working to upgrade the technologies that been neglected [for] far too long.”


Those words are laughable.  This is the time of the year for bad weather.  If Chump wanted the systems upgraded, that should have taken place in January when he was sworn in.  More to the point, he was president from January 2017 to January 2021.  So he should have known the state of the systems before he was sworn back in at the start of this year.  


Julia Ornedo (DAILY BEAST)  covers Chump's refusal of accountaiblity:


President Donald Trump was hearing reporters just fine until one of them asked him about federal cuts in the aftermath of the devastating floods in Texas.

Trump spoke to reporters in New Jersey on Sunday after flash floods wreaked havoc in central Texas over the weekend, killing at least 80 people and sending over 40 others missing. Critics were quick to blame the calamitous toll on the administration’s overhaul of the federal government, which included staff cuts at the National Weather Service.

“Democrats are blaming your federal cuts for the deaths over in Texas,” one reporter, who could be heard audibly projecting their voice, asked Trump.

Though the president leaned in to hear better, he decided to wave off the question.

“I can’t hear you,” he said, as he moved on to another reporter.

Asked later on if he had plans to look into whether the cuts at the National Weather Service and the Federal Emergency Management Agency left key positions vacant, Trump and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick shook their heads.


Yelena Mandenberg (IRISH STAR) adds, "The clip of Trump turning his back when questioned about the disaster quickly went viral, leaving some on X pointing out: 'His ears don’t hear truth.' Others accused him of 'shifting the blame' to Democrats with the act."  Meanwhile, Rey Harris (TAG24 NEWS) notes that artificial intelligence GROK has outraged MAGA with a judgment call


They included a screenshot of the AI telling a user that the Trump administration made massive cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and National Weather Service (NWS), which contributed to "inadequate alerts for the flash floods."
When asked why Catturd was so "triggered" by the AI's response, Grok answered, "Trump's NOAA cuts impaired flood warnings, contributing to deaths," adding, "Facts aren't woke; they're just facts."

At least 82 are dead, dozens remain missing.  We spend money as taxpayers for a reason: To protect one another.  Chump wanted to do it on the cheap and gutted things in place so that he'd have more money to give the incredibly rich in tax cuts.  Those tax cuts were paid for by the blood of the Texas victims and by the blood of many more victims to come.

Chump says he'll visit the region on Friday.  A week after the disaster.  Apparently, he can dash off to golf at any second but when it comes to doing actual work he has to wait for the factory to make the heavily re-enforced Depends undergarments.  

Let's move over to immigration.  Saturday,  The Run Against Ice took place in Los Angeles.  NBC LOS ANGELES notes:


Organizers call it a “non-violent journey of resistance through Los Angeles” and said it is part of a 30-day “Summer of Resistance” campaign designed to push for an end to ICE raids and deportations they say have  “tore families apart.”

Upwards of 2,000 people have registered to participate in the run, which will include a stop at downtown's Metropolitan Detention Center on Alameda Street, which has been the site of multiple clashes between people protesting immigration-related arrests and law enforcement officers. 


Carly Gomez (ABC7's EYEWITNESS NEWS) spoke to participants.  Claudia Bustillos told her, "I showed up to represent those of us who, our parents came as immigrants to give us the opportunity to have a better life in the United States."  Brisa Aguilar explained, "Whatever is happening right now, it feels like the Holocaust all over again, and it's not fair on justice." And event organizer Fayia Ramage notes, "I was welcomed to the city by immigrants, and also by the running community, and it felt like the way to create space just for people to really come together and, yeah, the whole promise of the event is that it's rooted in love and unity, but also a really powerful display of the fact that we won't back down when it comes to supporting the people in the city."


Leah Craig (MICHIGAN ADVANCE) reports on an action in her state Friday:


Approximately 100 demonstrators gathered Friday in West Michigan to denounce the opening of the North Lake Correctional Facility, an immigrant detention center in Baldwin.

The detention center was opened on June 16, and, with a capacity of 1,800, the facility has been called the largest detention center in the Midwest, as well as the subject of several earlier protests this year. 

The Independence Day event was organized by local immigrant advocacy groups, including No Detention Centers in Michigan, Cosecha Michigan, GR Rapid Response to ICE, and Lakeshore Rapid Response to ICE.

 The date was an intentional choice: July 4, the media release noted, is a day for “reflecting on freedom as an ideal and spending time with family and loved ones.” As such, advocates gathered outside the facility to highlight the apparent disconnect between Independence Day and mass incarceration.

Speakers used the event to emphasize the controversies surrounding the GEO Group— the federally contracted private company that operates the North Lake facility.

As the nation’s primary prison operator, GEO has been scrutinized for influencing immigration and criminal justice policy in ways that expand incarceration for profit.

During the 2024 election cycle, GEO and its subsidiaries donated almost $1,000,000 to political candidates, with around 90% of funds going to GOP candidates. 

In particular, the GEO Group has closely aligned itself with President Donald Trump. Trump’s first term saw 237 new contracts between GEO and the federal government. Furthermore, nearly 71% of the GEO Group’s funding is sourced from ICE. The Trump Administration’s emphasis on mass detention only serves to benefit the GEO Group.


Again, targeting immigrants is big business and a lot of people are getting rich off of it.  Jesús Jank Curbelo (EL PAIS) reports, "More than 20,000 migrants have been arrested in Texas by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) since Donald Trump returned to the U.S. presidency last January. This makes Texas the state with the most arrests in the last five months. The figure is double the number recorded in Florida (9,080) and triple the 5,860 registered in California, which rank second and third on the list."  Liam Archacki (THE DAILY BEAST) notes Donald Chump is excited by his new budget bill which provides a lot of money to destroy lives across America and bragging about it on social media, "One of the most exciting parts of the 'ONE BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL ACT' is that it includes ALL of the funding and resources that ICE needs to carry out the Largest Mass Deportation Operation in History." Again, this is big business.  Don't forget that.  People are getting rich by creating this misery.   How much money are we talking?  Josh Kovensky (TPM) explains, "All in all, the bill directs around $170 billion through 2029 to various forms of immigration enforcement, according to an analysis by the American Immigration Council and TPM’s own read of the legislation. ICE, responsible for enforcement, detentions, and removals, will oversee much of the spending."  Hoping for strong judicial pushback?  Pema Levy (MOTHER JONES) notes, "On the 249 anniversary of the country’s declaration of independence from tyranny, the Trump administration was in court asking a judge to let it send eight men to South Sudan, a war-torn country where they face a significant possibility of torture or death. The government wished to subject these men, and then untold thousands more, to such a fate without the guarantee of due process promised in the Constitution. And on America’s birthday, they got their wish. A federal judge in Massachusetts declined to halt the deportations. He lay the blame at the feet of seven Supreme Court justices who had allowed the removals to move forward the previous day."   


 Hayes Brown (MSNBC) observes:

Shifts in policy have already stripped hundreds of thousands of immigrants of their legal protections to remain in the country. But the wide-ranging sweeps ICE has launched in churches, at farms and in Home Deport parking lots still haven’t resulted in enough arrests to satisfy White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, who has spent weeks insisting that more dedicated resources are needed to meet his goal of 3,000 arrests per day.

Republicans gave Miller the tools he wants when they passed their budget reconciliation bill Thursday. The two largest buckets of funding in the act provide $45 billion each toward building Trump’s border wall and vastly expanding America’s immigration detention capacity. By comparison, that’s more than 13 times the current annual ICE budget for detention ($3.4 billion) and more than five times the entire annual budget of the Federal Bureau of Prisons ($8.6 billion).

An estimate from the American Immigration Council determines that if the money allocated is spread out to roughly $14 billion per year, then it would be enough for ICE to maintain around 116,000 beds. At present, the agency’s budget supports it holding about 41,000 detainees. Notably, though, those capacity figures assume that every detainee is granted a bed. There are reports of inhumane conditions in existing detention centers, where there were 56,000 immigrants in custody as of June 15. In other words, we could easily see the number of detainees more than double to fill the expanded capacity in hastily built detention centers.

Once this new funding hits ICE’s accounts, it will likely be spent as quickly as possible — with little oversight for how it’s doled out. The New York Times reported in April that ICE has already asked contractors for “proposals to provide new detention facilities, transportation, security guards, medical support and other administrative services worth as much as $45 billion over the next two years.” Much of that money will go toward private companies contracted to build and run these facilities, some of which have been major political backers for Trump and the GOP.

Beyond the funding for detention, there’s more money still. An analysis from the Washington Office on Latin America notes that ICE will also be getting $15 billion devoted toward physically removing migrants from the country. (Whether that is to their country of origin or some random third state is apparently a matter for the administration to decide, according to a recent Supreme Court decision.) Another $16.2 billion will be for the Department of Homeland Security to hire new ICE, Customs and Border Protection and Border Patrol agents. About $8 billion of that will be for ICE to hire 8,500 new officers with another $860 million for paying recruitment and retention bonuses and $600 million for expanding the agency’s hiring capacity.

Local and state officers are getting in on the gold rush, with $3.5 billion dedicated toward compensating states for detaining noncitizens and $10 billion to reimburse border states for hardening their borders. Given how eagerly sheriff’s offices and police departments compete for federal funding for other programs, it’s likely that many will leap at the chance to share in this bonanza.


Again, there is very big money being made in the targeting and kidnapping of human beings. Dharna Noor (GUARDIAN) reports:


Farm worker activist Alfredo “Lelo” Juarez Zeferino, 25, was driving his partner to her job on a tulip farm north of Seattle one March morning when they were pulled over by an unmarked car. A plainclothes agent for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) emerged and shattered Juarez Zeferino’s front window before handcuffing him, his partner said.

The officer drove Juarez Zeferino to a nondescript warehouse – the same one he and other activists had years ago discovered is an unmarked Ice holding facility. After his 25 March detention, dozens gathered outside to demand his release.

Instead, he was transferred to the Northwest Ice Processing Center in Tacoma, Washington, where he has been held ever since. 

Officially, Juarez Zeferino’s arrest was based on a deportation order. But the activist’s detention comes as the Trump administration has launched an aggressive crackdown against its perceived political enemies, including both immigrants and labor organizers.

“We believe, no question, that he was a target,” said Rosalinda Guillen, veteran farm worker organizer and founder of Community to Community Development, where Juarez Zeferino volunteered.

The young organizer has played an instrumental role in securing protections for Washington farm workers, including strengthened statewide heat protections for outdoor laborers mandating water breaks when temperatures top 80F, enshrined in 2023. In 2021, he and other activists also won a law guaranteeing farm workers overtime pay. And in 2019, advocacy from Juarez Zeferino and other campaigners about exploitation in the H-2A guest worker program prompted Washington to create the nation’s first-ever oversight committee for foreign workers.



KABC notes that a West Hollywood car wash was targeted by ICE on Friday an The West Hollywood Chamber of Commerce issued a statement in response:


On this day that marks the birth of our nation and its founding ideals of liberty, opportunity, and justice for all, we at the West Hollywood Chamber of Commerce are deeply troubled by the news of the ICE raid that occurred in our community at one of our businesses.  These enforcement actions-carried out on the Fourth of July-have sown fear, disrupted families, and shaken the trust that is vital to a thriving local economy.  We are a city built on diversity, creativity, and the contributions of immigrants from all walks of life. Our businesses depend on a workforce that reflects this diversity, and many of our members-whether small business owners or employees-have close ties to immigrant communities. Regardless of political affiliation, we believe in treating every individual with dignity, compassion, and due process under the law.


As masked thugs with ICE (or supposedly with ICE, who knows) terrorize cities in Connecticut like Danbury, the state's Attorney General William Tong released the following statement:


There's no question that there is a need for plainclothes officers in certain law enforcement scenarios, but this is not that. These authoritarian thugs in masks and unmarked vans are causing dangerous panic and confusion, and the possibility of a misunderstanding puts both officers and civilians at needless risk. There is zero need for these hyper-aggressive tactics when we're talking about unarmed mothers taking their children to school, college students walking to class, or people just trying to do the right thing by showing up to court hearings and immigration check-ins.


These raids are destroying the economy.  Norma Galeana, Harper Stephanopoulos and Rachel Clarke (CNN) report on how Los Angeles' Fashion Market region has been decimated and turned into a ghost town.  Adrian Florido  (NPR's ALL THINGS CONSIDERED) reports:


Emma de Paz was selling breakfast to day laborers outside a Los Angeles Home Depot on June 19 when immigration agents showed up. Some of them chased workers through the parking lot. Others rounded up the food cart vendors. De Paz was handcuffed, forced onto her knees, and driven to a federal detention center downtown.

She called her brother, Carlos Barrera, from the facility.

"They didn't ask if she had papers or not. They just grabbed her and put her into one of the vans," Barrera said, recalling his conversation with his sister, who has since been transferred to a desert detention center 90 miles away. "They had no reason to arrest her. They didn't have a warrant."

Though his sister is undocumented, Barrera said the agents could not have known that before detaining her or many of the 29 other people they rounded up that morning.

"She has dark skin. They assumed she was Hispanic, and they took her," he said. "It's the racial factor."


You have to illegally profile to meet Chump's goals and we noted that back in July and August and September and October -- long before the election.  That would be the outcome if Chump was put back into the White House.  Let me note this from Ava and my "Media: Are they trying to elect Donald Trump?:"


The war on Civil Rights and education doesn't matter to them, the attempt to destroy LGBTQ+ rights doesn't matter to them, the attack on Latinos doesn't bother them, the attack on women's health does not bother them, the assault on overtime pay doesn't bother them.  No issue, apparently, is important but what happens in Gaza.  

Grasp for a moment what Trump plans to do with Latinos.  He wants to round up immigrants.  That means he has to arrest them in the first place.  How does that usually happen?  It generally involves profiling.  Oh, how we on the left especially miss Michael Ratner's strong voice today. So since our country shares a border with Mexico, Latinos will be targeted with profiling.  Latinos -- American citizens and others -- will be stopped on a regular basis.  It will be "let me see your I.D." over and over.  And some will be deported by mistake under Donald Trump's plan and, yes, he plans to break up families again with deportation.  As former US President Barack Obama explained in a speech in Nevada on Saturday, "He wants you to believe that if you elect him, he will just round up whoever he wants and ship them out and all your problems will be solved."  But that doesn't seem to matter too much to in left media.  For them, it's all about the Palestinians.  Here's a tip for the Gaza Freaks: You haven't seen anything yet.


Put Donald back in the White House and you'll see what happens when a US president actively seeks out a genocide. And have you noticed that while Amy Goodman can't leave her status as a Gaza Freak behind, other Americans have.  Because they're dismayed that our country's at risk and our lives are at risk and the Gaza Freaks are only focused on Gaza.  Good luck, under a Donald Trump presidency, building up a successful movement to save the Palestinians -- especially after you've turned off the bulk of Americans with your refusal to see the needs of those of us in this country as even just a little bit important. 


Patricia Caro (EL PAIS) reports:


Andrea Vélez, a 32-year-old marketing designer, was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on June 24 as she was going to work in downtown Los Angeles. On June 12, Brian Gavidia, 29, was working at a trailer yard in Montebello, California, when he was assaulted and restrained by ICE officers. Just over a week earlier, Elzon Lemus, a 23-year-old electrician, was stopped, pulled from his car, and handcuffed on his way to work in Nassau, New York. In addition to sharing the experience of being detained by immigration agents, the three have something in common that has raised the controversy over immigration raids to a new level: they are all U.S. citizens of Latino origin. ICE has no authority to detain them.

“Now that ICE is having to meet higher quotas for arbitrary arrests than ever before, we’ll see more and more cases like these,” Nareen Shah, director of Government Affairs for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), told EL PAÍS. “The problem is that even when people claim to be U.S. citizens and can prove they are, we’ve still seen cases where they’re detained,” Shah said.

[. . .]

The law does not allow a person’s race, ethnicity, or occupation to be used as the sole basis for believing they have violated federal immigration law. Objective evidence, such as a criminal record, must be provided, but in none of the recent cases did the detainees have a criminal history.

“Because of the color of their skin, their accent, or their ethnicity, they become targets in what is reminiscent of what happened in the Third Reich,” denounced Fred Brewington, Elzon Lemus’s attorney, at a press conference in which his client denounced the treatment he received by ICE agents, despite having assured them he was a U.S. citizen. “I am a victim because of my race and ethnicity. Just because of my skin color and because I am Hispanic, they made me feel like I was a criminal,” Lemus said.


The Gaza Freaks are silent now.  They certainly haven't apologized for their work sabotaging Kamala Harris' run and destroying our country in the process.  It's a real shame that Latinos in this country -- citizens and immigrants -- are no longer safe.  But the bigger shame is that the obsessed Gaza Freaks brought us to this point and they want to now act like they're not responsible.  They told people not to vote for Kamala.  By the way, where are they today?  Palestinians are still being killed in Gaza.  Chump didn't change that, did he?  And, if you paid attention, Palestinians in Gaza knew he wouldn't.  They repeatedly and regularly told outlets like ALJAZEERA just that.  But over here in the US, Gaza Freaks didn't want to listen to the Palestinians.  And now, as we see from their silence, Gaza Freaks don't really want to save them.  Palestinians were apparently just a passing fad for a lot of pathetic people with pathetic lives to pretend their lives had some meaning which explains the death of protests on US campuses and all the high profile Gaza Freaks who were constantly on camera in the lead up to the 2024 election now becoming publicity shy.

It's as though they all just wanted to destroy their own lives and take the rest of the world down with them.





Kat's "Kat's Korner: Barbra's Secret is providing pure joy" went up Sunday,  The following sites updated:




  • Thursday, July 03, 2025

    Whole Roasted Snapper with Citrus, Red Pepper and Olive Relish in the Kitchen

    Jenny e-mails that she's Catholic like me and always looking for new fish recipes for fish Friday.  I hear you, if you observe fish Friday, you can go through every fish recipe you have and still want more.  Or you can cook the same thing every Friday which no one in my family would stand for. Lindsay is a company that sells olives and they have recipes including Jenny's new favorite, Whole Roasted Snapper with Citrus, Red Pepper and Olive Relish:


    Ingredients

    For the relish:

    • 1 small blood orange

    • 1 small lemon

    • ½ cup Lindsay Organic Pitted Green Olives, thinly sliced

    • ¼ cup roasted red pepper, chopped

    • 2 tablespoons chopped parsley

    • 1 teaspoon minced garlic

    • 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

    • Kosher salt

    • Freshly cracked black pepper

    For the fish:

    • One 2 pound whole snapper, cleaned

    • ½ blood orange, sliced ½ lemon, sliced

    • 2 fresh bay leaves

    • 2 sprigs fresh oregano

    • 1 bulb fennel, sliced

    • 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

    • Kosher salt

    • Freshly cracked black pepper


    Cooking Directions

    1. Using a microplane, remove the zest from the blood orange and lemon. Using a sharp knife, peel the bitter white pith from the oranges and lemon. Working over a bowl, cut in between the membranes to release the sections.

    2. Add the grated orange and lemon zests, olives, red pepper, parsley, garlic, olive oil to the bowl. Squeeze the juice from the segmented citrus. Season with salt and pepper and toss gently.

    3. Position a rack in the center of the oven and heat the oven to 425 degrees F.

    4. Cut away the fennel stalks close to where they connect to the bulb and reserve the fennel fronds. Cut the bulb in half and trim away the bottom of the bulb. Cut the halves into 1/2-inch wedges.

    5. Add the fennel to a 12-inch cast-iron skillet, toss with 1 tbsp olive oil and season with salt and pepper.

    6. Rinse the fish under cold water and pat dry. Place the fish on a clean work surface and make 2 or 3 parallel 3-inch-long slashes on each side of the snapper, slicing almost through to the bone.

    7. Season the cavity of the fish with salt and pepper and stuff with the citrus wheels and 2 sprigs of fresh oregano. Drizzle the outside of the fish with oil and season with salt and pepper.

    8. Lay the fish in the skillet on top of the fennel. Roast until the flesh of the fish just flakes, about 25-30 minutes or an internal temperature of 140 degrees F. Transfer the fish and roasted fennel to a platter and spoon the relish over the fish. Garnish with the reserved fennel fronds. Serve immediately.


    If you like olives, Lindsay has many olive recipes.  


    News?  Matt Ford (The New Republic) explains:


    Last week, the Supreme Court ruled that the Constitution requires public school districts to allow parents to opt out of any curriculum or instructional material for their child that runs counter to the parents’ religious beliefs. Justice Samuel Alito, writing for a 6–3 majority in Mahmoud v. Taylor, drafted an expansive rule for lower courts to enforce against school districts.

    “A government burdens the religious exercise of parents when it requires them to submit their children to instruction that poses ‘a very real threat of undermining’ the religious beliefs and practices that the parents wish to instill,” he wrote for the court, citing the 1972 ruling Wisconsin v. Yoder. “And a government cannot condition the benefit of free public education on parents’ acceptance of such instruction.”

    Alito and his colleagues framed the decision as a victory for religious freedom and for the diversity of faiths in America. While the ruling will certainly benefit parents who do not wish to expose their children to certain ideas, I am skeptical that it will be a net positive for American religious pluralism. The decision is instead likely to create a two-tier approach in public schools that will benefit larger religious groups and ostracize smaller ones.

    Mahmoud centered around a dispute over LGBTQ-related books in public schools in Montgomery County, Maryland. In 2022, the elected Montgomery County School Board added five books featuring LGBTQ characters to its English curriculum that are designed for pre-K students through fifth graders. The board’s move was driven by its desire to “fully reflect the diversity of [Montgomery County Public Schools] families,” among whom are both LGBTQ students and children raised by LGBTQ parents.

    At first, the school district allowed parents to opt out from lessons that included the books, but it changed course after a significant number of parents withdrew their students from class during the lessons, creating major administrative burdens for the schools and teachers. After the district eliminated the opt-out policy during the 2022–2023 school year, a group of Christian and Muslim parents sued the school board to force the policy’s reinstatement on First Amendment religious freedom grounds.

    A federal district court judge declined to grant the parents a preliminary injunction, and the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed. The panel held, in a 2–1 vote, that the record was too “threadbare” to support the courts’ intervention at this stage. The judges noted that the parents had provided no accounts of how the books are actually used by teachers in the classroom, as well as “how often the storybooks are actually being used, what any child has been taught in conjunction with their use, or what conversations have ensued about their themes.”

    Public schools, like any other governmental entity, are generally required to respect their students’ religious beliefs. Teachers obviously cannot coerce students into following religious practices that are not their own. The Fourth Circuit noted that the parents had provided no evidence of coercion in this case, and that neither the parents nor students claimed that they had “been asked to affirm views contrary to their own views on gender or sexuality, to disavow views on these matters that their religion espouses, or otherwise affirmatively act in violation of their religious beliefs.”

    The Supreme Court did not really care. It held that the mere presence of the books was enough to justify a court’s intervention. In Yoder, the case cited by Alito, the Supreme Court held that the state of Wisconsin could not require Amish children to attend school beyond the eighth grade, deferring to their parents’ assertions that vocational education at home was a core tenet of their faith.


    That ruling was a slap in the face to democracy.  The Supreme Court is corrupt and we are going to have to address that.  We could be doing that right now, in fact.  Kamala Harris would have addressed it and followed up on the recommendations made to Joe Biden.  We could be addressing it right now; however, the Rashida Tlaibs and Jill Steins knew so much better what the country needed -- or thought that they did.


    This is C.I.'s "The Snapshot" for Thursday:


     Thursday, July 3, 2025.  Donald Chump sweats as his disaster bill has yet to pass the House and as the Labor Dept is about to release a jobs report, he continues his war on immigrants, Cuban Americans need to wake up and grasp that the MAGA controlled GOP is no longer their party and that they have been betrayed, plus much more.


    Let's start with Chump's attack on the economy.  Under Joe Biden's leadership, the US economy was rebounding and considered the strongest globally.  In six months time, Chump has destroyed it.  Instead of stopping inflation, he has allowed it to continue.  He lies about prices because he's a liar, a cheap, little liar.  Paul Berger (WALL STREET JOURNAL) reports:

    In the first major speech to Congress of his second term, President Trump vowed to resurrect American shipbuilding.
    Four months later, Trump’s ambitious plans to reverse decades of maritime-industry decline are sputtering.
    Government efficiency teams have paused food-aid programs that provide needed cargoes for the U.S.-flagged Merchant Marine. A senior Republican senator is warning of cuts to the proposed budget for military shipbuilding. The staff at a newly created office to coordinate maritime policy has been cut to two people from seven.
    [. . .]
    U.S.-flagged carriers say cuts to food aid programs are hurting the industry. The closure by the Department of Government Efficiency of the U.S. Agency for International Development effectively shut down the Food for Peace program, which provided much-needed cargo—and revenue—for U.S.-flagged ships. Some industry officials warn that if the program isn’t resurrected under another government department soon they will have to start laying up ships and laying off seafarers.
    The Trump administration has no plans to rescue the program. A senior administration official said the program was wasteful and that the State Department “is committed to responsibly winding down” the program despite efforts in Congress to transfer Food for Peace to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.


    He's just a failure, like his father always told him,  

    AP's Paul Wiseman and Aniruddha Ghosal report some 'good' news for Chump, "President Donald Trump announced a trade deal with Vietnam Wednesday that would allow U.S. goods to enter the country duty-free. Vietnamese exports to the United States, by contrast, would face a 20% levy."  Good?  Well he promised 90 treaties in 90 days and the 90 days ends July 9th.  That's six days from now.  

    This is where we'd insert a clip of THE 11TH HOUR WITH STEPHANIE RUHLE because she had several important discussions on this topic last night.  In the two hours she did last night.  She did her regular hour and then she did another hour to continue the coverage of the House vote or 'vote' on Donald's bill.  

    If you're generous Vietnam is the third 'understanding' Chump has with another country.  90 in 90s days.  We're six days away from the deadline.  The one he imposed upon himself.  

    Stephanie noted that the mad push by him, this must be done by July 4th!, is an attempt to distract from so many things, so many broken promises, and failures.  


    This Navigator Research report covers the latest perceptions of President Trump and Congressional Democrats and Republicans in the House Battleground.


     The economy continues to lead as the top overall issue, with 41 percent of battleground constituents identifying either “inflation and the cost of living” or “jobs and the economy” as a priority.




    In a newly added question, we tested “government corruption” as a top concern. It now ranks just behind threats to democracy and the economy — making it the third-most prioritized issue overall (28 percent).




    Trump’s standing has declined slightly among battleground constituents and persuadables — even in a sample that leans slightly more Republican than the national electorate. In February, his favorability was roughly even; today, he is four points underwater (48 percent favorable – 52 percent unfavorable). This decline mirrors his approval on the economy, which now sits seven points underwater (46 percent approve – 53 percent disapprove).

    So DOGE -- "government corruption" -- wasn't that important either.  (See Ann's "Musk & Chump Round Two: The catfight continues" and "Musk has no empathy in his racist heart" for more on Musk.)  The economy's tanking.  DOGE led to massive protests across the country.  Chump's not gong to have 90 deals by his July 9th deadline.  



    The Vietnam agreement comes amid a broader administration push to finalize trade deals ahead of Trump's self-imposed "90 in 90" deadline—a period of 90 days for 90 targeted trade deals or renegotiations globally.

    In June, after a trade agreement with China, Trump indicated that "around 15 countries" were negotiating under the threat of significant tariffs being imposed if deals are not struck in time.


    Covering the Vietnam deal itself, Sarah K. Burris (RAW STORY) reveals it's nothing to brag about:

    As foreign affairs journalist Olga Nesterova explained, Trump is taxing Americans 20-40% while Vietnam gets products for free.

    However, the country's economy, cost of living and salaries are vastly different from those in the United States. For example, Numbeo data shows the cost of a 12-ounce bottle of soda is about 50 cents. The monthly cell phone bill with at least 10 gigabytes of data is under $6. A one-bedroom apartment in the City Centre averages under $400 a month.

    As political and media researcher Craig Harrington explained, "Our trade relationship with Vietnam was growing before Trump, but we still only exported $13.1 billion worth of goods to Vietnam in 2024 (they exported $136.6 billion to us). Tariffs aren't the reason we don't export much to Vietnam, it's because they are poorer than we are."
    Meanwhile, University of Michigan professor of public policy and economics, Justin Wolfers, noted on X, "'New' trade deal just dropped: US businesses get tariff-free access to the Vietnamese market, just as they were offered 8 years ago in the TPP, but Trump refused to sign. In addition, Trump's imposing a 20% tax on Americans who import goods from Vietnam."


     The increase is on the US consumer's side.  That's how Chump 'helps' American buyers.  Again, the man's an idiot and he's wrecking the economy.  You are not helping the American people with a 20% increase that will make them pay more for the product.  




    Private sector hiring unexpectedly contracted in June, payrolls processing firm ADP said Wednesday, in a possible sign that the economy may not be as sturdy as investors believe as they bid the S&P 500 back up to record territory to end the month.

    Private payrolls lost 33,000 jobs in June, the ADP report showed, the first decrease since March 2023. Economists polled by Dow Jones forecast an increase of 100,000 for the month. The May job growth figure was revised even lower to just 29,000 jobs added from 37,000.

    And everyone's awaiting the release today of the job's report.  Rob Wile (NBC NEWS) notes:

    The U.S. economy continues to send mixed signals. On Thursday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics will report job figures for June that may help clear up the picture.

    Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal forecast that 110,000 new payrolls were added in June. That would be the fewest since February, and it would be the fourth monthly decline in the past six months. The unemployment rate, meanwhile, was expected to have climbed to 4.3%, the highest since October 2021.


    THE NEW YORK TIMES is live blogging the release of the report -- already ahead of the release, they've done several posts this morning.


    At AXIOS, Emily Peck notes the effects on the economy from Chump's war on immigrants:

    President Trump's immigration crackdown is hitting key pockets of the economy, disrupting workplaces and communities around the country.

    Why it matters: The sharp fall in immigration this year threatens to slow down economic growth, particularly in the sectors and cities that relied on newcomers to the U.S. in recent years.

    What they're saying: With the push against immigration, "the economy will find itself slightly diminished in the long run and inflation will run a touch higher," economist Bernard Yaros writes in a report for Oxford Economics.

    • There will be fewer workers to produce goods and services, slowing down growth and putting pressure on wages.


    Most people -- those with a functional brain -- would look at how the assault on immigration was harming the economy and scale back deportations.  But Chump is a senile old man and we all suffer because, as Mike noted last night, "Because Chump can't get an erection anymore, the whole world has to suffer."  Nothing does it for him anymore due to the meds he's on and the age he's reached and his obesity.  He's impotent in bed . . . and becoming impotent outside of bed.  So it's never enough for a Convicted Felon like Donald Chump.  Josh Kovensky (TPM) notes the morbidly obese Chump now wants to explore deporting citizens:


    Throughout the campaign, Republicans teased an idea: the next Trump government would start to remove the citizenship of naturalized Americans.

    Stephen Miller suggested it; the idea appeared in Project 2025. Online fever-swamp entrepreneurs, like Claremont Institute donor Charles Haywood, pushed a national “review” of everyone naturalized since 1965.
    Now, the DOJ has taken the first real step towards expanding the government’s efforts to strip citizenship from those who applied for it and received it — and has suggested it will be doing so for explicitly political reasons. It came in a June 11 memo dryly titled “Civil Division Enforcement Priorities,” written by Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate.

    Last on the list of five priorities is denaturalization. The memo directs the government to “maximally” go after denaturalization cases, and ranks which kinds of cases should receive the most attention. At the top of the list are cases against those who “pose a potential danger to national security, including those with a nexus to terrorism.”

    Recently, denaturalization cases have dealt with a narrow set of circumstances. Perhaps someone lied on their citizen application, or failed to disclose something significant enough that, had it been disclosed, the government would have declined to grant the person citizenship. The DOJ finds out, and files a civil lawsuit in federal court to revoke the person’s citizenship. In many cases, this has been applied to war criminals and people who otherwise concealed crimes that they were in the process of committing as they applied for citizenship.
    But the June DOJ memo’s language around terrorism and national security threats is incredibly broad. In the world of the memo, “pos[ing] a potential danger to national security” is enough to merit a review of your citizenship application. It raises concerns that the DOJ will seek to use claims that a person poses such a danger to accuse naturalized Americans of omitting key information on their citizenship applications, which ask about ties to groups that commit terrorism or advocate for the overthrow of the U.S. government. In the Alien Enemies Act removals, the Trump administration twisted the definition of “invasion” to summarily deport people it cast as invaders to CECOT; Tufts student Rümeysa Öztürk’s pro-Palestine op-ed in a student newspaper was enough for the administration to accuse her of supporting Hamas and revoke her visa.

    The question is whether the administration will apply this kind of nihilistic legal maneuvering to claim that a naturalized American who failed to disclose support for, say, a pro-Palestine group misled the government through the omission.


    He's a fool and he's a fool whose dementia is getting worse which makes him a very dangerous fool.  



    The federal government attempted to deport a stateless Palestinian woman on Monday for the second time, despite a court order barring her removal from a Texas district, according to court documents.

    The attempted deportation also came just days after the first stage of her green card application was approved, her husband Taahir Shaikh told ABC News, opening up a potential pathway for her to obtain permanent residency.
    Ward Sakeik -- a 22-year-old who is married to a U.S. citizen -- was detained by the government in February on her way home from her honeymoon in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

    Sakeik's family is from Gaza, but she is legally stateless and has lived in the U.S. since she was 8 years old. Her family had traveled to the U.S. on a tourist visa and applied for asylum, according to Shaikh.

    Chump and Noem have ignored the U.S. District Judge Ed Kinkeade's  order not to remove Taahir  from the district.  And lives are being destroyed.  "I feel nowhere is safe" -- read THE BOSTO GLOBE article.  People are afraid to go out.  Businesses are suffering and some are closing. Denise Chow (NBC NEWS) notes:

    On a typical weekend, 20,000 people stream through the metal gates at Broadacres Marketplace, thronging the aisles of the outdoor “swap meet” to hunt for the best deals, savor snacks and sip micheladas under the desert sky.

    Until late June, Broadacres’ familiar bustle had cemented its place as the heart of this city’s Latino community. That has been replaced with an eerie quiet. Hundreds of booths stand barren behind a chain-link fence, mostly stripped to their skeletal remains and covered in fabric or tarp.

    Save for one security guard at the main gate, there’s no one in sight.

    Broadacres Marketplace announced that it would temporarily close on June 21 because of the threat of raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. In a statement online, the market’s management said the decision to close was made “out of an abundance of caution and concern for our community.” Broadacres’ owner, Greg Danz, is president and CEO of Newport Diversified Inc., a company that also owns two other swap meets in California.

    “We don’t want any of our customers, vendors, or employees to be detained at our business or for us to be a beacon of shopping and entertainment while our federal government is raiding businesses and detaining its people,” the statement read, adding that management does not yet have a planned date to reopen. 


    In the state of Washington,  a festival's been cancelled due to the assault on immigrants. B-TOWN BLOG reports:


    The organizers of the 4th annual Pacific Northwest Folklórico Festival – set for Saturday, July 26, 2025 at Burien Town Square Park – announced they are canceling the 2025 event, citing immigration enforcement activity and a broader political climate they say threatens the safety and wellbeing of immigrant communities.

    In an email to supporters, including The B-Town Blog, Joyas Mestizas, the Burien-based folklórico dance organization announced the decision to cancel its upcoming event “in light of the current political climate,” citing strong opposition to recent U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids.

    “We are angry at the ICE raids and racist immigration policies that tear families apart, and in canceling our event we commit to prioritizing the safety of our community,” the group wrote.


    And we should all be angry at these raids -- carried out by a secret gestapo force -- using private contractors and unleashing on the streets of America -- allowing them to be masked.  US House Rep . Pramila Jayapal has angered the Murdoch Outrage Empire by calling these people "terrorists."  Guess what, she's exactly right.  This is not how we do law enforcement.  And we expect trained people, trained in the rights that people have in this country, to be law enforcement.  Instead, Kristi Noem and Donald Chump are hiring bullies and telling them to do whatever, to violate any law, that it doesn't matter and that they're masked so they can be punished later on.  Wendy Fry and Sergio Olmos (CAL MATTERS) explain


    A lawsuit filed Wednesday by civil and immigration rights groups accuses federal authorities of unleashing an unconstitutional siege by snatching workers and U.S. citizens off Southern California streets and denying them food, water and the right to speak with an attorney. 

    The federal class action lawsuit aims to immediately stop immigration agents from conducting military-style raids across L.A. that prioritize “numbers, pure numbers,” according to the complaint. It also seeks to get access to counsel for those arrested who are now being held in overcrowded “dungeon-like” facilities where the conditions are deplorable and unconstitutional, the filing says.  

    Federal agents in combat gear, some masked and armed with rifles, have stormed swap meets, car washes, bus stops, and churches since early June, grabbing people off sidewalks and dragging away mothers, workers, day laborers, and U.S. citizens without explanation, the complaint alleges. Civil rights groups, led by the American Civil Liberties Union, say the raids have been part of an illegal mass-arrest campaign driven by the Trump administration’s nationwide deportation quota policy. 

    “Such seizures look less like lawful arrests and more like brazen, midday kidnappings,” the lawsuit states.  


    Exactly.  


    On TABITHA SPEAKS POLITICS, Tabitha likes to play a clip of Florida Hispanics -- largely Cuban Americans -- dancing around before the 2024 election while singing, "I will vote for Donald Trump."


    And how did that work out for them?  Cuban Americans are being targeted too.  So much so that you have two Republican members of the House now calling out the targeting of immigrants.  Elizabeth Kuebel (WSSU) reports:


     Right now, the family of a Cuban immigrant doesn't know what will happen next, as he sits in an ICE facility.

    Yandy Gomez Rodriguez was detained when he showed up to his ICE appointment in downtown New Orleans.

    It comes at a time that the federal government is cracking down on illegal immigration. But Yandy's wife and attorney argue that he has really been trying to do everything right.

    "We've reached a dead end where we don't know where else to turn, because at this point I can't say for sure what's going to happen to him," said Robert W. Goeke, with Casey Cowley attorneys.

    Goeke says the Kenner resident has been in ICE custody for more than a month now, since May 16th.

    "He was scheduled to show up to ICE on the sixteenth of May, he showed up to that appointment, as he had done close 10 times in the past, and ICE chose to take him in," Goeke said.

    Goeke says 8 years prior, Yandy arrived at the border. He's since married a US citizen, who applied to get him legal status, and together they have a two-year-old daughter.

    Yandy has no criminal record, per his attorney, and worked in the heating and AC business.

    "My daughter is asking all the time, when is my daddy coming, or when she's talking to him, she says, 'oh come on daddy, come on, come take me,' or things like that," said his wife, Dianna Heredia. 


    It's time for Cuban Americans to grasp that MAGA is not their friend.  Maybe they can fight to take control of the Republican Party and send MAGA back to its on inbred trailer park, but MAGA is not their friend and will never be their friend.  Again, I'm not asking them to come over to the Democratic Party.  But I am pointing out that Cuban Americans across the country -- but especially in Florida -- have turned out repeatedly for the Republican Party and now that the MAGA wing has seized control of that party, Cuban Americans are being spit on.  

    For your own families, you need to stop voting MAGA -- they are not the Republican Party that appreciated your support.  Latinos across the country are grasping that and should be grasping it.  But, again, Cuban Americans have given the Republican Party Florida.  Year after year.  And now MAGA spits on them, spits on their family.  Fidel Castro may be dead, but Cuban Americans continue to see relatives coming to the US.  And in their minds, people leave Cuba due to being persecuted.  When Fidel was alive, the GOP was happy to use and platform Cuban Americans in their was with Castro.  Castro's dead and MAGA doesn't give a damn about Cuban Americans or Cubans coming to this country.  I can't think of a bigger betrayal by a political party then what the MAGA wing has done to Cuban Americans.  


    Again, all Latinos are aware of the targeting taking plce.  Gustavo Arellano (LOS ANGELES TIMES) offers:


    The Pew Research Center is one of the most trusted polling firms in the country, especially when it comes to Latinos. Last week, it published findings that should have been a victory lap for Donald Trump and his tortuous relationship with America’s largest minority.

    According to Pew, Trump won 48% of Latino voters in the 2024 presidential election — the highest percentage ever recorded by a Republican presidential nominee and a 12 percentage point improvement from his 2020 showing.
    Latinos made up 10% of Trump’s coalition, up from 7% four years ago. Latino men went with a Republican for the first time. Trump even improved his share of support among Latinas — long seen by Democratic leaders as a bulwark against their macho Trumpster relatives — by a 13-point margin, a swing even greater than that of Latino men.

    These stats prove what I’ve been warning about for years: that Latinos were souring on illegal immigration — even in blue California — and tiring of a Democratic Party too focused on policies that weren’t improving their lives. This gave Trump a chance to win over Latino voters, despite his years-long bloviations against Mexico and Central American nations, because Latinos — who assimilate like any other immigrants, if not more so — were done with the Democratic status quo. They were willing to take a risk on an erratic strongman resembling those from their ancestral lands.
    Pew’s findings confirm one of Trump's most remarkable accomplishments — one so unlikely that professional Latinos long dismissed his election gains as exaggerations. Those voters could have been the winds blowing the xenophobic sails of his deportation fleet right now.

    All Trump had to do was stick to his campaign promises and target the millions of immigrants who came in illegally during the Biden years. Pick off newcomers in areas of the country where Latinos remain a sizable minority and don’t have a tradition of organizing. Dare Democrats and immigrant rights activists to defend the child molesters, drug dealers and murderers Trump vowed to prioritize in his roundups. Conduct raids like a slow boil through 2026, to build on the record-breaking number of Latino GOP legislators in California and beyond.

    Trump has done none of that. He instead decided to smash his immigration hammer on Los Angeles, the Latino capital of the U.S.


    MAGA appreciates no one.  They make that clear with the budget plan from Donald Dearest.  


    Here's Lawrence O'Donnell from MSNBC last night.



    As of right now, Donald's bill has still not passed.  It is an ugly bill that will destroy lives, that attacks the poor and working people, that attempts to decimate whatever's left of the middle class while handing out huge give aways to the already rich.  It does so many horrible things.  Matthew Chapman (RAW STORY) reports on one thing it will do that I haven't seen covered elsewhere:


    An expert with the libertarian Cato Institute sounded the alarm on President Donald Trump's "big, beautiful bill" to slash taxes on the wealthy and cut over $1 trillion from Medicaid, food stamps, and green energy subsidies, highlighting a lesser-known provision that could codify one of the president's most controversial deportation policies — and turbocharge it into overdrive.
    Specifically, posting on X, David J. Bier pointed to a subsection on page 529 of the bill that deals with the increase in funding for immigration enforcement.

    "In the case of an unaccompanied alien child who has attained 12 years of age and is encountered by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the funds made available under subsection (a) shall only be used to conduct an examination of such unaccompanied alien child for gang-related tattoos and other gang-related markings," said the section.

    In other words, wrote Bier, "You've heard about how ICE deported a bunch of adults to a Salvadoran torture prison based on their tattoos. Did you know that the Big Beautiful Police State Act includes $40 million to identify 'gang kids' the same way?"


    The vote is in the House now.  The bill has yet to pass.  Here's Senator Tammy Baldwin's office on why the senator voted against the bill


    In Wisconsin, the bill will terminate at least 250,000 people’s health care, reduce or eliminate 90,000 Wisconsinites’ food assistance, and threaten to close rural hospitals

    WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) released the following statement after she voted against the Republicans’ budget bill:

    “Today, I voted against rigging our tax code in favor of the biggest corporations and ultra-wealthy – all on the backs of working families who are just trying to get by and want a fair shot at success. As I travel across Wisconsin, I hear from families who are worried about paying for groceries, covering the cost of their medications, and keeping the lights on. Instead of standing up for these working families, my Republican colleagues jammed through a bill that guts Medicaid, kicks 17 million Americans off their health insurance, shutters rural hospitals, and takes food from families in need. And why? All to rig our already unfair tax code even more to help the rich get richer. This bill does not solve the problems that Wisconsin families are facing – in fact, it makes them worse. I am disappointed. I am disgusted. But, I am also fired up and ready. Ready to keep fighting alongside every Wisconsinite who believes we can do better to give hard-working families a fair shot and stop tilting the scales for the wealthy and well-connected. It’s not the people in Washington with power; it’s the people across this country. The people who keep speaking up and speaking out, who are emailing and calling, who are marching in the streets, and who are telling their stories. This fight isn’t over, and together, we can still beat this thing.”

    Senator Baldwin introduced the following amendments to the bill to block cuts to Medicaid that would rip away health care from Americans and also close a tax loophole that allows Wall Street investment managers to often pay almost half the tax rate compared to most other Wisconsin workers:

    • Preventing seniors from having their health care ripped away, including those in nursing homes;
    • Preventing children from having their health care ripped away, including those on the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP);
    • Preventing health care for those battling addiction and substance use disorder from being ripped away;
    • Preventing cuts to funding for rural Americans, including essential funding for hospitals;
    • Preventing pregnant women from having their health care ripped away; and
    • Closing the carried interest loophole that benefits wealthy money managers on Wall Street, something that President Trump also supports.

    The Republicans’ bill, which passed the Senate by a vote of [51-50], will terminate health care for 17 million Americans, including 250,000 Wisconsinites. In Wisconsin, Medicaid provides care for more than 1.2 million people, including four in seven nursing home residents, one in three children, and one in three adults with disabilities. While over 12 million rural Americans rely on Medicaid for health care, severe cuts to Medicaid will also jeopardize rural hospitals and clinics’ ability to keep their doors open.

    The legislation also makes the largest cut to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in history. Approximately 700,000 Wisconsin residents rely on SNAP for food assistance.

    Over the past several months, Senator Baldwin has been speaking out against the harmful impact this bill will have on Wisconsinites – in the press, on the Senate floor, and in Wisconsin communities.

    • Senator Baldwin hosted roundtables in La Crosse, Milwaukee, Wausau, Eau Claire, Green Bay, Racine, Waukesha, Superior, Beloit, and twice in Madison, convening Wisconsinites whose health care coverage is in jeopardy under the Republicans’ plan to slash Medicaid to pay for corporate tax breaks.
    • VIDEO: Senator Baldwin spoke on the Senate floor, condemning the Republicans’ budget bill.
    • VIDEO: Senator Baldwin held a virtual press conference with impacted Wisconsinites ahead of Senate Republicans bringing up their bill for a vote. 
    • VIDEO: Senator Baldwin highlighted Congressional Republicans’ efforts to barrel ahead with a bill that defunds Planned Parenthood on the Senate floor.
    • Senator Baldwin slammed republicans’ planned cuts to Medicaid, which will devastate our country’s fight against the opioid and fentanyl epidemic and jeopardize treatment for thousands of Wisconsinites. 

    ###


    Stephanie Ruhle did a good job covering the bribery aspects of PARAMOUNT's payout to Chump last night on MSNBC -- again, they haven't posted anything from her two hour broadcast last night.  We'll note this from Senator Eliabeth Warren's office:


    Warren: “This could be bribery in plain sight.”

    “I will soon introduce new legislation to rein in corruption through presidential library donations.”

    Washington, D.C. – Today, in response to the news that Paramount Global (Paramount) settled President Trump’s “meritless” lawsuit against 60 Minutes for $16 million paid to his future presidential library, U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) released the following statement:

    “With Paramount folding to Donald Trump at the same time the company needs his administration’s approval for its billion-dollar merger, this could be bribery in plain sight. Paramount has refused to provide answers to a congressional inquiry, so I’m calling for a full investigation into whether or not any anti-bribery laws were broken."

    “This settlement exposes a glaring need for rules to restrict donations to sitting presidents’ libraries. I will soon introduce new legislation to rein in corruption through presidential library donations. The Trump administration’s level of sheer corruption is appalling and Paramount should be ashamed of putting its profits over independent journalism.”

    In May 2025, Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) wrote to Shari Redstone, Chair of Paramount, with concerns regarding whether Paramount may be engaging in potentially illegal conduct involving the Trump Administration in exchange for approval of its megamerger with Skydance Media (Skydance).

    ###

     Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "MAGA Loves The Stink Of Him" went up last night and the following sites updated: