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#Trump Signs Order Requiring Nationwide List of #Sanctuary Cities and States
Story by Michelle Hackman, Tarini Parti, April 28, 2025
WASHINGTON — "President Trump signed an executive order on Monday escalating his battle against Democratic-led states and cities that don’t fully cooperate with federal immigration authorities, a key barrier to the mass deportations he has promised.
"The order directs the attorney general and the secretary of Homeland Security to identify within a month cities and states that aren’t complying with federal immigration laws, designating them as 'sanctuary jurisdictions.'
"The cities and states on the list could face a cutoff in federal funding and possible criminal and civil suits if they refuse to change their laws or practices.
" 'It’s quite simple: obey the law, respect the law [sez the lawless #FascistRegime], and don’t obstruct federal immigration officials and law-enforcement officials when they are simply trying to remove public safety threats from our nation’s communities,' White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Monday at a briefing alongside Tom Homan, Trump’s border czar.
"Trump also directs the Justice Department to pursue civil-rights cases against cities or states that, in its view, favor immigrants in the country illegally over U.S. citizens. The order cites policies that treat immigrants more leniently in criminal cases or sentencing and state laws that provide immigrants in-state tuition rates at public universities but deny the lower rates to out-of-state U.S. citizens. At least 25 states have adopted such laws in some fashion.
"Sanctuary cities and states have become a major obstacle for Trump as he has sought to drive up deportations in line with his campaign pledge. Most immigrants in the country tend to cluster in large cities such as New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, and the administration has a tougher time arresting those here illegally if local police refuse to assist."
#ResistICE #Fascism #USPol #SanctuaryStates #SanctuaryCities #CharacteristicsOfFascism #ResistAuthoritarianism
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Groan
Texas attorney general accuses Dallas of being a ‘sanctuary city,’ announces investigation
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Well...Here you go...oy vey! #USAFascistShitShow
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4NILSSC6OI
Essentially, misogynist rapist #Hegseth sacked her over #DEIhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5So_s8XH6Uo
#WhiteSupremacist xenophobe & mumbling ogre #TomHoman abt 'targeted enforcement' 🙄 and bitching about #sanctuarycities (Ican't stand #DanaBash. Zionist knobhead)well, that's 2 stories already. Stop this. #FightBack
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Well...Here you go...oy vey! #USAFascistShitShow
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4NILSSC6OI
Essentially, misogynist rapist #Hegseth sacked her over #DEIhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5So_s8XH6Uo
#WhiteSupremacist xenophobe & mumbling ogre #TomHoman abt 'targeted enforcement' 🙄 and bitching about #sanctuarycities (Ican't stand #DanaBash. Zionist knobhead)well, that's 2 stories already. Stop this. #FightBack
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Well...Here you go...oy vey! #USAFascistShitShow
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4NILSSC6OI
Essentially, misogynist rapist #Hegseth sacked her over #DEIhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5So_s8XH6Uo
#WhiteSupremacist xenophobe & mumbling ogre #TomHoman abt 'targeted enforcement' 🙄 and bitching about #sanctuarycities (Ican't stand #DanaBash. Zionist knobhead)well, that's 2 stories already. Stop this. #FightBack
-
Well...Here you go...oy vey! #USAFascistShitShow
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4NILSSC6OI
Essentially, misogynist rapist #Hegseth sacked her over #DEIhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5So_s8XH6Uo
#WhiteSupremacist xenophobe & mumbling ogre #TomHoman abt 'targeted enforcement' 🙄 and bitching about #sanctuarycities (Ican't stand #DanaBash. Zionist knobhead)well, that's 2 stories already. Stop this. #FightBack
-
Well...Here you go...oy vey! #USAFascistShitShow
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4NILSSC6OI
Essentially, misogynist rapist #Hegseth sacked her over #DEIhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5So_s8XH6Uo
#WhiteSupremacist xenophobe & mumbling ogre #TomHoman abt 'targeted enforcement' 🙄 and bitching about #sanctuarycities (Ican't stand #DanaBash. Zionist knobhead)well, that's 2 stories already. Stop this. #FightBack
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> 2 van 2 <
Helaas werden al onze voorstellen verworpen. Maar zoals we in het debat al zeiden: een samenleving die haar meest kwetsbaren in de kou laat staan, is geen samenleving. #Utrecht #BIJ1 weigert weg te kijken voor de onmenselijke omstandigheden waarin ongedocumenteerde mensen leven en zal blijven vechten voor een stad waar mensenrechten niet alleen woorden zijn.
‼️GEEN MENS IS ILLEGAAL
‼️BESCHERM MENSEN, GEEN GRENZEN#Vrijhavenstad #SanctuaryCity #ongedocumenteerden #GeenMensIsIllegaal
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A Dive into “Sanctuary,” Re: DOJ Grand Jury Subpoenas – A DWD Editorial, with Perplexity…
Editor’s Note: I prepared this, via my Perplexity AI, for my own information; and, I feel sharing may help others understand the complexities and legal and factual aspects on these actions by Trump’s DOJ/Noem.
I will include my comments below interlaced in green. Perplexity is a powerful tool, and has fact-checked the information herein. It can make mistakes, as we know. Let me know if you see any. I started with a simple prompt, and then it was extended several levels. So you can see my research process for this matter. Images herein are public domain creations, unless otherwise noted.–DrWeb
To address the core of the current tension between state and federal authorities, here are the fact-checked answers regarding the “sanctuary” designation:
1. Who designates a “Sanctuary”?
There is no single “official” arbiter of the term, as it is largely a political and administrative label rather than a fixed legal category. However, the term is currently used by three main groups:
- The Federal Government (DOJ/DHS): Under Executive Order 14287,
the Department of Justice maintains a formal “Sanctuary Jurisdiction List.” As of late 2025 and early 2026, the DOJ designates jurisdictions based on whether their policies “materially impede” federal immigration enforcement. - The Jurisdictions Themselves: Many states (like California and Illinois) and cities (like Chicago and San Francisco) have explicitly self-identified as “sanctuaries” through executive orders or public resolutions to signal a policy of welcoming immigrants.
- Third-Party Advocacy Groups: Organizations like the Center for Immigration Studies (which tracks them to criticize the policy) or the American Immigration Council (which tracks them to support it) maintain their own tallies based on different criteria, such as
the refusal to honor ICE detainers.
Currently listed “Sanctuary States” by the DOJ (2026):
California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington, plus the District of Columbia.Editor’s Note: As you can see a bit further below, we explored “why” these states are targeted.
2. Is “Sanctuary” written into Law?
The word “sanctuary” itself is rarely used in the text of the actual laws because it is legally imprecise. Instead, the “sanctuary” status is the result of specific legislative or administrative codes:
- State Statutes: Laws like the California Values Act (SB 54) or the Illinois TRUST Act do not necessarily name the state a “sanctuary” in the title but codify the policy by prohibiting state and local resources from being used to assist in federal immigration
enforcement. - City Ordinances: Many cities have “Welcoming City” ordinances. For example, San Francisco’s “City and County of Refuge” Ordinance (Chapter 12H of the Administrative Code) prohibits city employees from using city funds or resources to assist ICE.
- Why the “Loaded” Word is Avoided: Legislators generally prefer functional language (e.g., “Non-cooperation with federal civil detainers”) to withstand legal challenges. Using the word “sanctuary” in a bill can make it harder to defend in court as it implies
“nullification” of federal law, which is unconstitutional.
3. Official Legal Definition and Status
There is no legal definition of “sanctuary” in the U.S. Constitution or federal statutes. * The Federal Conflict: While federal law (8 U.S.C. § 1373) prohibits local governments from
restricting the sharing of information about immigration status with federal authorities, the Supreme Court has limited how much the federal government can “commandeer” local resources.- The Constitutional “Anti-Commandeering” Doctrine: Under the 10th Amendment, the Supreme Court (notably in Printz v. United States) has ruled that the federal government cannot force state or local officials to administer federal regulatory programs. This is the legal “shield” that sanctuary cities use: they argue that while
they cannot stop ICE from doing its job, they cannot be forced to do ICE’s job for them. - Legal Status: A jurisdiction’s status as a “sanctuary” is essentially a state of passive non-compliance. It is legal for a city to refuse to hold someone in jail for ICE without a judicial warrant, but it is illegal for a city to actively hide someone or physically block federal agents (which would be “obstruction of justice” or “harboring”).
This distinction is exactly what the current DOJ investigation in Minneapolis is testing: whether the actions of Minnesota officials crossed the line from “legal non-cooperation” (10th Amendment) into “active obstruction” of federal agents.
Perplexity Comment: “That is an astute observation for a blog post. If you look at the
political map, there is a near-perfect correlation between the jurisdictions on the U.S. Sanctuary Jurisdiction List and “Blue” (Democratic-led) areas.”The Case of Nevada…
However, there is one significant and very recent exception—Nevada—which provides a fascinating case study in how a “Purple” or “Red-led” state navigates this list.
The Political Alignment
Perplexity Comment: “You are essentially correct: the DOJ list is composed almost exclusively of Democratic-led states.”
- The “Blue” Block: States like California, New York, Illinois, and Washington have institutionalized non-cooperation through state law.
- The “Red” Absence: Conversely, many “Red” states (such as Florida, Texas, and Iowa) have passed “Anti-Sanctuary” laws that mandate cooperation with ICE, making it legally impossible for their cities to be designated as sanctuaries by the DOJ.
The Case of Nevada (The Exception)
Nevada’s story is particularly relevant to current events. Nevada was initially placed on the DOJ’s Sanctuary Jurisdiction List in August 2025 due to “Model Immigration Policies” passed by its legislature in 2021.
- The Removal: On September 29, 2025, Nevada became the first and only state to be removed from the list after Republican
Republican Governor Joe Lombardo struck a deal with the DOJ. - The Deal: To get off the list, the Governor committed the state to:
- Rejoining the federal 287(g) program (which allows local police to act as immigration agents).
- Using the National Guard for administrative support in immigration enforcement.
- Agreeing to “counter-balance” any sanctuary policies passed by the (Democratic-controlled) state legislature.
Why this matters…
The DOJ list isn’t just a list of “who is a sanctuary”—it has become a list of “who is in conflict with the current administration.”
The fact that the list is almost entirely “Blue” while a Republican Governor in a “Purple” state (Nevada) successfully negotiated his way off it suggests that the designation is being used as a tool for federal leverage. The DOJ uses the list to justify cutting federal funding, which jurisdictions then challenge in court—creating the legal “war” we are seeing play out in Minneapolis today.
The primary mechanism used by the federal government to exert financial pressure on “sanctuary” jurisdictions is the withholding of federal law enforcement grants. The legal theory is that these funds are conditional on a jurisdiction’s cooperation with federal
immigration authorities.The Mechanism: The Byrne JAG Program
The most significant grant at the center of this conflict is the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant (Byrne JAG) Program. Named after a fallen NYPD officer, this is the leading source of federal justice funding to state and local jurisdictions. It supports everything from body-worn cameras and mental health programs to drug task forces and court technology.
Under the current administration’s policy, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has moved to withhold these funds from jurisdictions that refuse to:
- Allow federal agents access to local correctional facilities.
- Provide 48 hours’ notice to ICE before releasing an individual of interest.
- Comply with 8 U.S.C. § 1373, which prohibits local governments from restricting the sharing of information about immigration status.
Summary of Targeted Jurisdictions
As of early 2026, the following jurisdictions have had Byrne JAG and
other public safety grants restricted or placed in “hold” status by
the DOJ:- California: The state and several major cities (Los Angeles, San Francisco) are currently in litigation over the withholding of approximately $29 million in annual law enforcement funds.
- Illinois: Chicago and the state government have seen holds on funds specifically designated for community violence intervention programs.
- New York: New York City faces the potential loss of over $4 million in direct JAG funding, along with restrictions on “Stonegarden” grants used for border and port security.
- Minnesota: Following the events in Minneapolis, the DOJ recently announced a “review and freeze” of over $6 million in law enforcement assistance grants for the Twin Cities area, citing the active grand jury investigation into state obstruction.
- Washington State: Seattle and King County are currently challenging the DOJ’s denial of grant applications for local police training and equipment.
The Status of Nevada
In contrast to the states above, Nevada is not currently facing these grant withholdings. Following the September 2025 agreement between the Governor and the federal government, the DOJ released approximately $2.1 million in previously stalled public safety funds. This makes Nevada the primary example of a state that successfully avoided “sanctuary” financial penalties by formalizing a cooperation agreement.
Sourcing & Legal Context
The authority for these withholdings stems from Executive Order 14287 (2025), which directs the Attorney General to ensure that “federal law enforcement grants are not provided to jurisdictions that willfully violate federal law or impede federal law enforcement.”
However, this remains a volatile legal area. The 10th Amendment and the “Anti-Commandeering Doctrine” established by the Supreme Court (e.g., NFIB v. Sebelius) suggest the federal government cannot use “gun to the head” tactics to force states into new
programs. Most of these cases are currently winding through federal appellate courts, with jurisdictions arguing that the DOJ cannot add “extra-statutory” conditions to money already appropriated by Congress.MLA Bibliography (Top Sources)
On the Minneapolis Case and Renée Good:
“Killing of Renée Good.” Wikipedia, 20 Jan. 2026,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Renée_Good. Accessed 20 Jan. 2026.
Office of the Attorney General of Minnesota. “Attorney General Ellison and Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul Sue to Halt ICE Surge into Minnesota.” State of Minnesota, 12 Jan. 2026, http://www.ag.state.mn.us/Office/Communications/2026/01/12_ICE.asp.On the Sanctuary List and Nevada’s Removal:
American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA). “DOJ Publishes List of Sanctuary Jurisdictions.” AILA Doc. No. 25080506, 5 Aug. 2025, http://www.aila.org/library/doj-publishes-list-of-sanctuary-jurisdictions.
Office of the Governor. “DOJ and State of Nevada Sign Immigration Enforcement Agreement; Nevada Removed from ‘Sanctuary State’ List.” State of Nevada, 26 Sept. 2025, http://gov.nv.gov/Newsroom/PRs/2025/2025-09-26_doj_and_nevada_sign_immigration_enforcement_agreement/.
Aldrete, Isabella. “Nevada, DOJ Sign Immigration Enforcement Memo That Will Take State Off ‘Sanctuary’ List.” The Nevada Independent, 26 Sept. 2025, http://thenevadaindependent.com.On Federal Grant Withholding:
U.S. Department of Justice. “Memorandum: Sanctuary Jurisdiction Directives.” Office of the Attorney General, 5 Feb. 2025.
“Navigating the Grant Landscape Under a New Administration.” Grant News, 14 Jan. 2026, http://www.grantsoffice.com/Learn-from-Us/Grant- News.How Readers Can Verify This
If your readers want to “fact-check the AI,” you can encourage them to:
- Search Public Records: Direct them to the DOJ’s “News” or “Briefing Room” section using keywords like “Sanctuary Jurisdiction List” or “Byrne JAG compliance.”
- Verify the Nevada MOU: The specific Memorandum of Understanding signed by Governor Lombardo on September 26, 2025, is a public document available on the Nevada Governor’s official website.
- Cross-Reference Case Law: They can look up the “Anti- Commandeering Doctrine” and the Supreme Court case Printz v. United States to see the legal foundation for why “sanctuary” policies are constitutional.
- Check News Archives: For the Minneapolis shooting, searching for “Renée Nicole Good January 7 2026” will yield the primary source videos and local police reports that form the basis of the current DOJ investigation.
Fact-Check Summary: The “Sanctuary” Conflict
To ensure the integrity of this reporting, the following key points have been cross-referenced with 2025–2026 Department of Justice (DOJ) records and state legal filings.
- What is a “Sanctuary”? It is not a formal legal term found in the Constitution. It is a political label used by the DOJ to describe cities/states that limit voluntary cooperation with federal immigration agents.
- The Nevada Exception: In September 2025, Nevada became the first state to be removed from the federal Sanctuary Jurisdiction List after the Governor signed a cooperation agreement with the DOJ.
- The Federal “Leverage”: The federal government uses the Byrne JAG Grant (public safety funding) as a “carrot and stick” to encourage local police to assist ICE. Most “Blue” states are currently suing the DOJ to keep this funding without being forced to
change their local laws. - The Legal “Shield”: Under the 10th Amendment, the Supreme Court has ruled that the federal government cannot force (or “commandeer”) local police to do the work of federal agents. This is the primary legal defense used by jurisdictions in the current
Minnesota investigation. - The Minneapolis Investigation (Jan 2026): The DOJ is currently investigating whether Minnesota officials committed obstruction during a January 7th ICE operation. This differs from “non-cooperation,” as obstruction involves actively interfering with a
federal agent’s duties.
- The Federal Government (DOJ/DHS): Under Executive Order 14287,
-
A Dive into “Sanctuary,” Re: DOJ Grand Jury Subpoenas – A DWD Editorial, with Perplexity…
Editor’s Note: I prepared this, via my Perplexity AI, for my own information; and, I feel sharing may help others understand the complexities and legal and factual aspects on these actions by Trump’s DOJ/Noem.
I will include my comments below interlaced in green. Perplexity is a powerful tool, and has fact-checked the information herein. It can make mistakes, as we know. Let me know if you see any. I started with a simple prompt, and then it was extended several levels. So you can see my research process for this matter. Images herein are public domain creations, unless otherwise noted.–DrWeb
To address the core of the current tension between state and federal authorities, here are the fact-checked answers regarding the “sanctuary” designation:
1. Who designates a “Sanctuary”?
There is no single “official” arbiter of the term, as it is largely a political and administrative label rather than a fixed legal category. However, the term is currently used by three main groups:
- The Federal Government (DOJ/DHS): Under Executive Order 14287,
the Department of Justice maintains a formal “Sanctuary Jurisdiction List.” As of late 2025 and early 2026, the DOJ designates jurisdictions based on whether their policies “materially impede” federal immigration enforcement. - The Jurisdictions Themselves: Many states (like California and Illinois) and cities (like Chicago and San Francisco) have explicitly self-identified as “sanctuaries” through executive orders or public resolutions to signal a policy of welcoming immigrants.
- Third-Party Advocacy Groups: Organizations like the Center for Immigration Studies (which tracks them to criticize the policy) or the American Immigration Council (which tracks them to support it) maintain their own tallies based on different criteria, such as
the refusal to honor ICE detainers.
Currently listed “Sanctuary States” by the DOJ (2026):
California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington, plus the District of Columbia.Editor’s Note: As you can see a bit further below, we explored “why” these states are targeted.
2. Is “Sanctuary” written into Law?
The word “sanctuary” itself is rarely used in the text of the actual laws because it is legally imprecise. Instead, the “sanctuary” status is the result of specific legislative or administrative codes:
- State Statutes: Laws like the California Values Act (SB 54) or the Illinois TRUST Act do not necessarily name the state a “sanctuary” in the title but codify the policy by prohibiting state and local resources from being used to assist in federal immigration
enforcement. - City Ordinances: Many cities have “Welcoming City” ordinances. For example, San Francisco’s “City and County of Refuge” Ordinance (Chapter 12H of the Administrative Code) prohibits city employees from using city funds or resources to assist ICE.
- Why the “Loaded” Word is Avoided: Legislators generally prefer functional language (e.g., “Non-cooperation with federal civil detainers”) to withstand legal challenges. Using the word “sanctuary” in a bill can make it harder to defend in court as it implies
“nullification” of federal law, which is unconstitutional.
3. Official Legal Definition and Status
There is no legal definition of “sanctuary” in the U.S. Constitution or federal statutes. * The Federal Conflict: While federal law (8 U.S.C. § 1373) prohibits local governments from
restricting the sharing of information about immigration status with federal authorities, the Supreme Court has limited how much the federal government can “commandeer” local resources.- The Constitutional “Anti-Commandeering” Doctrine: Under the 10th Amendment, the Supreme Court (notably in Printz v. United States) has ruled that the federal government cannot force state or local officials to administer federal regulatory programs. This is the legal “shield” that sanctuary cities use: they argue that while
they cannot stop ICE from doing its job, they cannot be forced to do ICE’s job for them. - Legal Status: A jurisdiction’s status as a “sanctuary” is essentially a state of passive non-compliance. It is legal for a city to refuse to hold someone in jail for ICE without a judicial warrant, but it is illegal for a city to actively hide someone or physically block federal agents (which would be “obstruction of justice” or “harboring”).
This distinction is exactly what the current DOJ investigation in Minneapolis is testing: whether the actions of Minnesota officials crossed the line from “legal non-cooperation” (10th Amendment) into “active obstruction” of federal agents.
Perplexity Comment: “That is an astute observation for a blog post. If you look at the
political map, there is a near-perfect correlation between the jurisdictions on the U.S. Sanctuary Jurisdiction List and “Blue” (Democratic-led) areas.”The Case of Nevada…
However, there is one significant and very recent exception—Nevada—which provides a fascinating case study in how a “Purple” or “Red-led” state navigates this list.
The Political Alignment
Perplexity Comment: “You are essentially correct: the DOJ list is composed almost exclusively of Democratic-led states.”
- The “Blue” Block: States like California, New York, Illinois, and Washington have institutionalized non-cooperation through state law.
- The “Red” Absence: Conversely, many “Red” states (such as Florida, Texas, and Iowa) have passed “Anti-Sanctuary” laws that mandate cooperation with ICE, making it legally impossible for their cities to be designated as sanctuaries by the DOJ.
The Case of Nevada (The Exception)
Nevada’s story is particularly relevant to current events. Nevada was initially placed on the DOJ’s Sanctuary Jurisdiction List in August 2025 due to “Model Immigration Policies” passed by its legislature in 2021.
- The Removal: On September 29, 2025, Nevada became the first and only state to be removed from the list after Republican
Republican Governor Joe Lombardo struck a deal with the DOJ. - The Deal: To get off the list, the Governor committed the state to:
- Rejoining the federal 287(g) program (which allows local police to act as immigration agents).
- Using the National Guard for administrative support in immigration enforcement.
- Agreeing to “counter-balance” any sanctuary policies passed by the (Democratic-controlled) state legislature.
Why this matters…
The DOJ list isn’t just a list of “who is a sanctuary”—it has become a list of “who is in conflict with the current administration.”
The fact that the list is almost entirely “Blue” while a Republican Governor in a “Purple” state (Nevada) successfully negotiated his way off it suggests that the designation is being used as a tool for federal leverage. The DOJ uses the list to justify cutting federal funding, which jurisdictions then challenge in court—creating the legal “war” we are seeing play out in Minneapolis today.
The primary mechanism used by the federal government to exert financial pressure on “sanctuary” jurisdictions is the withholding of federal law enforcement grants. The legal theory is that these funds are conditional on a jurisdiction’s cooperation with federal
immigration authorities.The Mechanism: The Byrne JAG Program
The most significant grant at the center of this conflict is the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant (Byrne JAG) Program. Named after a fallen NYPD officer, this is the leading source of federal justice funding to state and local jurisdictions. It supports everything from body-worn cameras and mental health programs to drug task forces and court technology.
Under the current administration’s policy, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has moved to withhold these funds from jurisdictions that refuse to:
- Allow federal agents access to local correctional facilities.
- Provide 48 hours’ notice to ICE before releasing an individual of interest.
- Comply with 8 U.S.C. § 1373, which prohibits local governments from restricting the sharing of information about immigration status.
Summary of Targeted Jurisdictions
As of early 2026, the following jurisdictions have had Byrne JAG and
other public safety grants restricted or placed in “hold” status by
the DOJ:- California: The state and several major cities (Los Angeles, San Francisco) are currently in litigation over the withholding of approximately $29 million in annual law enforcement funds.
- Illinois: Chicago and the state government have seen holds on funds specifically designated for community violence intervention programs.
- New York: New York City faces the potential loss of over $4 million in direct JAG funding, along with restrictions on “Stonegarden” grants used for border and port security.
- Minnesota: Following the events in Minneapolis, the DOJ recently announced a “review and freeze” of over $6 million in law enforcement assistance grants for the Twin Cities area, citing the active grand jury investigation into state obstruction.
- Washington State: Seattle and King County are currently challenging the DOJ’s denial of grant applications for local police training and equipment.
The Status of Nevada
In contrast to the states above, Nevada is not currently facing these grant withholdings. Following the September 2025 agreement between the Governor and the federal government, the DOJ released approximately $2.1 million in previously stalled public safety funds. This makes Nevada the primary example of a state that successfully avoided “sanctuary” financial penalties by formalizing a cooperation agreement.
Sourcing & Legal Context
The authority for these withholdings stems from Executive Order 14287 (2025), which directs the Attorney General to ensure that “federal law enforcement grants are not provided to jurisdictions that willfully violate federal law or impede federal law enforcement.”
However, this remains a volatile legal area. The 10th Amendment and the “Anti-Commandeering Doctrine” established by the Supreme Court (e.g., NFIB v. Sebelius) suggest the federal government cannot use “gun to the head” tactics to force states into new
programs. Most of these cases are currently winding through federal appellate courts, with jurisdictions arguing that the DOJ cannot add “extra-statutory” conditions to money already appropriated by Congress.MLA Bibliography (Top Sources)
On the Minneapolis Case and Renée Good:
“Killing of Renée Good.” Wikipedia, 20 Jan. 2026,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Renée_Good. Accessed 20 Jan. 2026.
Office of the Attorney General of Minnesota. “Attorney General Ellison and Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul Sue to Halt ICE Surge into Minnesota.” State of Minnesota, 12 Jan. 2026, http://www.ag.state.mn.us/Office/Communications/2026/01/12_ICE.asp.On the Sanctuary List and Nevada’s Removal:
American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA). “DOJ Publishes List of Sanctuary Jurisdictions.” AILA Doc. No. 25080506, 5 Aug. 2025, http://www.aila.org/library/doj-publishes-list-of-sanctuary-jurisdictions.
Office of the Governor. “DOJ and State of Nevada Sign Immigration Enforcement Agreement; Nevada Removed from ‘Sanctuary State’ List.” State of Nevada, 26 Sept. 2025, http://gov.nv.gov/Newsroom/PRs/2025/2025-09-26_doj_and_nevada_sign_immigration_enforcement_agreement/.
Aldrete, Isabella. “Nevada, DOJ Sign Immigration Enforcement Memo That Will Take State Off ‘Sanctuary’ List.” The Nevada Independent, 26 Sept. 2025, http://thenevadaindependent.com.On Federal Grant Withholding:
U.S. Department of Justice. “Memorandum: Sanctuary Jurisdiction Directives.” Office of the Attorney General, 5 Feb. 2025.
“Navigating the Grant Landscape Under a New Administration.” Grant News, 14 Jan. 2026, http://www.grantsoffice.com/Learn-from-Us/Grant- News.How Readers Can Verify This
If your readers want to “fact-check the AI,” you can encourage them to:
- Search Public Records: Direct them to the DOJ’s “News” or “Briefing Room” section using keywords like “Sanctuary Jurisdiction List” or “Byrne JAG compliance.”
- Verify the Nevada MOU: The specific Memorandum of Understanding signed by Governor Lombardo on September 26, 2025, is a public document available on the Nevada Governor’s official website.
- Cross-Reference Case Law: They can look up the “Anti- Commandeering Doctrine” and the Supreme Court case Printz v. United States to see the legal foundation for why “sanctuary” policies are constitutional.
- Check News Archives: For the Minneapolis shooting, searching for “Renée Nicole Good January 7 2026” will yield the primary source videos and local police reports that form the basis of the current DOJ investigation.
Fact-Check Summary: The “Sanctuary” Conflict
To ensure the integrity of this reporting, the following key points have been cross-referenced with 2025–2026 Department of Justice (DOJ) records and state legal filings.
- What is a “Sanctuary”? It is not a formal legal term found in the Constitution. It is a political label used by the DOJ to describe cities/states that limit voluntary cooperation with federal immigration agents.
- The Nevada Exception: In September 2025, Nevada became the first state to be removed from the federal Sanctuary Jurisdiction List after the Governor signed a cooperation agreement with the DOJ.
- The Federal “Leverage”: The federal government uses the Byrne JAG Grant (public safety funding) as a “carrot and stick” to encourage local police to assist ICE. Most “Blue” states are currently suing the DOJ to keep this funding without being forced to
change their local laws. - The Legal “Shield”: Under the 10th Amendment, the Supreme Court has ruled that the federal government cannot force (or “commandeer”) local police to do the work of federal agents. This is the primary legal defense used by jurisdictions in the current
Minnesota investigation. - The Minneapolis Investigation (Jan 2026): The DOJ is currently investigating whether Minnesota officials committed obstruction during a January 7th ICE operation. This differs from “non-cooperation,” as obstruction involves actively interfering with a
federal agent’s duties.
- The Federal Government (DOJ/DHS): Under Executive Order 14287,
-
#IlhanOmar: #Trump's ‘obsession' is ‘#creepy and unhealthy' as raids expand
Jason K. Morrell
Thu, December 4, 2025 at 7:17 AM EST"Two major federal #immigration operations were underway Wednesday in #Minneapolis and #NewOrleans. They unfolded just as President Donald Trump delivered new attacks on Somali immigrants and on Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar.
"#CivilRights groups say the timing and rhetoric are escalating fear in immigrant communities already bracing for enforcement actions.
Omar responds to Trump's comments
"Trump on Wednesday launched a new round of criticism aimed at #Somali immigrants, Minnesota's largest immigrant community. He told reporters that 'Somalians should be out of here" and claimed they had "destroyed our country.'
"He said Somalia was 'not even a nation' and that he hoped never to visit, drawing condemnation from Minneapolis officials.
"The president then turned his ire to Omar, who is #SomaliAmerican and a frequent target his attacks. He said, "You have her talking about ‘The constitution provides me with …' Go back to your own country and figure out your constitution.'
"Omar responded, saying, 'Our president's obsession with me and the Somali community really is creepy and unhealthy.'
"She added that her constituents 'are not going to be scapegoated' and 'are here to stay.'
"NBC News reporting indicates federal officials are preparing an enforcement operation in Minnesota that could focus heavily on Somali immigrants living unlawfully in the U.S.
Raids already underway in Minneapolis
"Federal immigration agents began operations in Minneapolis just hours before Trump made the comments. Officials say they are targeting immigrants accused of serious crimes, though advocates warn the sweeps are casting a much wider net.
What's happening in New Orleans
"In #NewOrleans, specifically in #Kenner, a suburb with one of #Louisiana's largest #Hispanic populations, residents saw #BorderPatrol agents in marked and unmarked vehicles driving slowly through neighborhoods, gas stations and big-box store parking lots, according to the Associated Press and NBC News.
"Reporters observed agents stopping at least one man mowing a lawn and surrounding another home where a man climbed onto the roof until officers eventually left. Many agents wore Border Patrol identifiers but had their faces covered.
"A #DHS official said the New Orleans surge is aimed at immigrants accused of crimes including home invasion, armed robbery, grand theft auto and rape. The agency has blamed 'sanctuary-style' local policies for allowing some people with ICE detainers to be released from custody.
Fear across immigrant neighborhoods
"The tactics have rattled families across #JeffersonParish and surrounding communities.
"A #Honduran immigrant told Noticias Telemundo he has avoided leaving his home for two weeks.
" 'We've stopped going to work because our fear is that we'll be stopped,' he said."
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/ilhan-omar-trumps-obsession-creepy-121756009.html
#SanctuaryCities #USPol #ICETerrorism #ICESucks #MurderPatrol #TooManyCreeps #TrumpIsACreep #CharacteristicsOfFascism
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#IlhanOmar: #Trump's ‘obsession' is ‘#creepy and unhealthy' as raids expand
Jason K. Morrell
Thu, December 4, 2025 at 7:17 AM EST"Two major federal #immigration operations were underway Wednesday in #Minneapolis and #NewOrleans. They unfolded just as President Donald Trump delivered new attacks on Somali immigrants and on Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar.
"#CivilRights groups say the timing and rhetoric are escalating fear in immigrant communities already bracing for enforcement actions.
Omar responds to Trump's comments
"Trump on Wednesday launched a new round of criticism aimed at #Somali immigrants, Minnesota's largest immigrant community. He told reporters that 'Somalians should be out of here" and claimed they had "destroyed our country.'
"He said Somalia was 'not even a nation' and that he hoped never to visit, drawing condemnation from Minneapolis officials.
"The president then turned his ire to Omar, who is #SomaliAmerican and a frequent target his attacks. He said, "You have her talking about ‘The constitution provides me with …' Go back to your own country and figure out your constitution.'
"Omar responded, saying, 'Our president's obsession with me and the Somali community really is creepy and unhealthy.'
"She added that her constituents 'are not going to be scapegoated' and 'are here to stay.'
"NBC News reporting indicates federal officials are preparing an enforcement operation in Minnesota that could focus heavily on Somali immigrants living unlawfully in the U.S.
Raids already underway in Minneapolis
"Federal immigration agents began operations in Minneapolis just hours before Trump made the comments. Officials say they are targeting immigrants accused of serious crimes, though advocates warn the sweeps are casting a much wider net.
What's happening in New Orleans
"In #NewOrleans, specifically in #Kenner, a suburb with one of #Louisiana's largest #Hispanic populations, residents saw #BorderPatrol agents in marked and unmarked vehicles driving slowly through neighborhoods, gas stations and big-box store parking lots, according to the Associated Press and NBC News.
"Reporters observed agents stopping at least one man mowing a lawn and surrounding another home where a man climbed onto the roof until officers eventually left. Many agents wore Border Patrol identifiers but had their faces covered.
"A #DHS official said the New Orleans surge is aimed at immigrants accused of crimes including home invasion, armed robbery, grand theft auto and rape. The agency has blamed 'sanctuary-style' local policies for allowing some people with ICE detainers to be released from custody.
Fear across immigrant neighborhoods
"The tactics have rattled families across #JeffersonParish and surrounding communities.
"A #Honduran immigrant told Noticias Telemundo he has avoided leaving his home for two weeks.
" 'We've stopped going to work because our fear is that we'll be stopped,' he said."
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/ilhan-omar-trumps-obsession-creepy-121756009.html
#SanctuaryCities #USPol #ICETerrorism #ICESucks #MurderPatrol #TooManyCreeps #TrumpIsACreep #CharacteristicsOfFascism
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#IlhanOmar: #Trump's ‘obsession' is ‘#creepy and unhealthy' as raids expand
Jason K. Morrell
Thu, December 4, 2025 at 7:17 AM EST"Two major federal #immigration operations were underway Wednesday in #Minneapolis and #NewOrleans. They unfolded just as President Donald Trump delivered new attacks on Somali immigrants and on Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar.
"#CivilRights groups say the timing and rhetoric are escalating fear in immigrant communities already bracing for enforcement actions.
Omar responds to Trump's comments
"Trump on Wednesday launched a new round of criticism aimed at #Somali immigrants, Minnesota's largest immigrant community. He told reporters that 'Somalians should be out of here" and claimed they had "destroyed our country.'
"He said Somalia was 'not even a nation' and that he hoped never to visit, drawing condemnation from Minneapolis officials.
"The president then turned his ire to Omar, who is #SomaliAmerican and a frequent target his attacks. He said, "You have her talking about ‘The constitution provides me with …' Go back to your own country and figure out your constitution.'
"Omar responded, saying, 'Our president's obsession with me and the Somali community really is creepy and unhealthy.'
"She added that her constituents 'are not going to be scapegoated' and 'are here to stay.'
"NBC News reporting indicates federal officials are preparing an enforcement operation in Minnesota that could focus heavily on Somali immigrants living unlawfully in the U.S.
Raids already underway in Minneapolis
"Federal immigration agents began operations in Minneapolis just hours before Trump made the comments. Officials say they are targeting immigrants accused of serious crimes, though advocates warn the sweeps are casting a much wider net.
What's happening in New Orleans
"In #NewOrleans, specifically in #Kenner, a suburb with one of #Louisiana's largest #Hispanic populations, residents saw #BorderPatrol agents in marked and unmarked vehicles driving slowly through neighborhoods, gas stations and big-box store parking lots, according to the Associated Press and NBC News.
"Reporters observed agents stopping at least one man mowing a lawn and surrounding another home where a man climbed onto the roof until officers eventually left. Many agents wore Border Patrol identifiers but had their faces covered.
"A #DHS official said the New Orleans surge is aimed at immigrants accused of crimes including home invasion, armed robbery, grand theft auto and rape. The agency has blamed 'sanctuary-style' local policies for allowing some people with ICE detainers to be released from custody.
Fear across immigrant neighborhoods
"The tactics have rattled families across #JeffersonParish and surrounding communities.
"A #Honduran immigrant told Noticias Telemundo he has avoided leaving his home for two weeks.
" 'We've stopped going to work because our fear is that we'll be stopped,' he said."
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/ilhan-omar-trumps-obsession-creepy-121756009.html
#SanctuaryCities #USPol #ICETerrorism #ICESucks #MurderPatrol #TooManyCreeps #TrumpIsACreep #CharacteristicsOfFascism
-
#IlhanOmar: #Trump's ‘obsession' is ‘#creepy and unhealthy' as raids expand
Jason K. Morrell
Thu, December 4, 2025 at 7:17 AM EST"Two major federal #immigration operations were underway Wednesday in #Minneapolis and #NewOrleans. They unfolded just as President Donald Trump delivered new attacks on Somali immigrants and on Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar.
"#CivilRights groups say the timing and rhetoric are escalating fear in immigrant communities already bracing for enforcement actions.
Omar responds to Trump's comments
"Trump on Wednesday launched a new round of criticism aimed at #Somali immigrants, Minnesota's largest immigrant community. He told reporters that 'Somalians should be out of here" and claimed they had "destroyed our country.'
"He said Somalia was 'not even a nation' and that he hoped never to visit, drawing condemnation from Minneapolis officials.
"The president then turned his ire to Omar, who is #SomaliAmerican and a frequent target his attacks. He said, "You have her talking about ‘The constitution provides me with …' Go back to your own country and figure out your constitution.'
"Omar responded, saying, 'Our president's obsession with me and the Somali community really is creepy and unhealthy.'
"She added that her constituents 'are not going to be scapegoated' and 'are here to stay.'
"NBC News reporting indicates federal officials are preparing an enforcement operation in Minnesota that could focus heavily on Somali immigrants living unlawfully in the U.S.
Raids already underway in Minneapolis
"Federal immigration agents began operations in Minneapolis just hours before Trump made the comments. Officials say they are targeting immigrants accused of serious crimes, though advocates warn the sweeps are casting a much wider net.
What's happening in New Orleans
"In #NewOrleans, specifically in #Kenner, a suburb with one of #Louisiana's largest #Hispanic populations, residents saw #BorderPatrol agents in marked and unmarked vehicles driving slowly through neighborhoods, gas stations and big-box store parking lots, according to the Associated Press and NBC News.
"Reporters observed agents stopping at least one man mowing a lawn and surrounding another home where a man climbed onto the roof until officers eventually left. Many agents wore Border Patrol identifiers but had their faces covered.
"A #DHS official said the New Orleans surge is aimed at immigrants accused of crimes including home invasion, armed robbery, grand theft auto and rape. The agency has blamed 'sanctuary-style' local policies for allowing some people with ICE detainers to be released from custody.
Fear across immigrant neighborhoods
"The tactics have rattled families across #JeffersonParish and surrounding communities.
"A #Honduran immigrant told Noticias Telemundo he has avoided leaving his home for two weeks.
" 'We've stopped going to work because our fear is that we'll be stopped,' he said."
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/ilhan-omar-trumps-obsession-creepy-121756009.html
#SanctuaryCities #USPol #ICETerrorism #ICESucks #MurderPatrol #TooManyCreeps #TrumpIsACreep #CharacteristicsOfFascism
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Lazy Caturday Reads: Space Cat Visits Venus (and some news, unfortunately)
Book Cover
Good Afternoon!!
I think I’ve hit a wall this morning. I’m feeling so exhausted and overwhelmed with what Trump is doing to the country, that I just want to lie down and give up. I hope I can raise my spirts somehow as the day goes on.
Anyway, it is Caturday, and I have a new installment of Space Cat to share today. It’s the second book in the space cat series, Space Cat Visits Venus. Here is the synopsis from Amazon:
Flyball the Space Cat is back, and this time he’s living in Luna Port, the first city on the Moon. Workers at the lunar station are building a rocket to transport him and his pilot buddy, Colonel Fred Stone, to Venus. The two friends take a long voyage to the planet, where they encounter violet skies, torrential ammonia rains, and strange plants that can communicate without speaking.
This new edition of a charmingly illustrated storybook from 1955 is the second of a four-book series starring the intrepid feline known as Space Cat. Young readers will delight in taking a look at space exploration from Flyball’s point of view and following his escapades across the solar system.
It’s hard to believe these books are still in print after all this time, but I think they are really cute. See some of the illustrations scattered through this post.
As you know, John Bolton’s home and office were searched by the FBI yesterday. Below are some articles that analyze and comment on Trump’s retribution project.
The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board: Trump’s Vendetta Campaign Targets John Bolton.
President Trump promised voters during his campaign for a second term that he had bigger things on his mind than retribution against opponents. But it is increasingly clear that vengeance is a large part, maybe the largest part, of how he will define success in his second term.
His revenge campaign took an ominous turn Friday as FBI agents raided the home and office of Mr. Trump’s first-term national security adviser John Bolton. They brought two broad warrants to search the “premises.” Agents showed up unannounced at his Bethesda, Md., home at 7 a.m. They confiscated his wife Gretchen’s phone because it was visible and not on her person. Mr. Bolton had already left for his office, which is where FBI agents greeted him….
Cat with Venus rocket
It’s hard to see the raid as anything other than vindictive. Mr. Bolton fell out of Mr. Trump’s favor in the first term and then wrote a book about his experience in the White House while Mr. Trump was still President. Mr. Trump tried and failed to block publication. The President then claimed Mr. Bolton had exposed classified information, though the book had gone through an extensive pre-publication scrub at the White House for classified material.
The book investigation faded away under President Biden, but now it looks as if Mr. Patel is reviving it. Whether Mr. Trump ordered the FBI probe or not doesn’t matter. Mr. Patel knows what the President thinks about Mr. Bolton, and the President’s minions in Trump II don’t serve as the check on his worst impulses the way grown-ups did in his first term. The presidential id is now unchained.
Mr. Trump made clear that he was out for blood against Mr. Bolton when he pulled the former adviser’s protective detail after his re-election. Mr. Bolton is widely known as a defense hawk, and in 2022 the Justice Department charged an Iranian national it said planned to murder him.
A bit more:
It’s unlikely that Mr. Bolton broke any laws on national secrets, and he certainly didn’t share any with us over our long association with him. But perhaps Mr. Trump intends for the process itself to be the punishment even if there is ultimately no criminal charge. Mr. Bolton has to pay for legal counsel, and his family has to endure the anxiety of being under federal government siege.
Mr. Bolton has continued to speak candidly about Mr. Trump’s second-term decisions, pro and con, including in these pages this week. The President may also hope the FBI raid will cause Mr. Bolton to shut up, though knowing him we can’t imagine that working.
The real offender here is a President who seems to think he can use the powers of his office to run vendettas. We said this was one of the risks of a second Trump term, and it’s turning out to be worse than we imagined.
Shane Harris at The Atlantic (gift link): The Bolton Raid Feels Like a Warning.
FBI directors don’t customarily announce raids in progress. But early this morning, Kash Patel celebrated the search of former National Security Adviser John Bolton’s home as agents were rolling into his suburban-Maryland driveway: “NO ONE is above the law … @FBI agents on mission,” Patel wrote on X. Agents also executed a search warrant at Bolton’s office in Washington, D.C. President Donald Trump later told reporters that he had learned about the raid on one of his most voluble critics from TV news, but he took the opportunity to call Bolton a “lowlife” and “not a smart guy.” Then he added: “Could be a very unpatriotic guy. We’re going to find out.”
Flyball dreams of mice
The FBI’s actions were hard not to read as payback for Bolton’s years of criticism of the president, even as the facts that persuaded a judge to approve a search warrant remain unknown. That’s the problem with a politicized legal system—even if an investigation is legitimate, it’s easy to assume that its motives are corrupt. Trump has spent years vowing retribution against Bolton, particularly after Bolton published a 2020 memoir that portrayed the president as incompetent and out of his depth on foreign policy.
If this was revenge, it wasn’t an isolated act. As agents were still packing up boxes of Bolton’s effects, The Washington Post reported that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had pushed out yet another senior military officer, firing Lieutenant General Jeffrey Kruse, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. In June, its analysts delivered a preliminary assessment that U.S. bombers had caused relatively limited damage to Iranian nuclear facilities, undercutting Trump’s pronouncements that the sites were “obliterated.” And just three days ago, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard revoked the security clearances of more than three dozen current and former national-security officials. Several played key roles in efforts to counter or expose Russia’s 2016 election interference, what Trump calls the “Russia Hoax” and Gabbard has described as part of a “years-long coup” against the president.
Put it all together, and this may be remembered as the week Trump’s campaign against the “deep state” kicked into high gear. To some intelligence professionals I spoke with, it felt as though something fundamental had shifted in their historically apolitical line of work.
“Given the dystopian nature of it all—clearance revocations of former officials who did no wrong, forced retirements of long-standing intelligence officials, reductions in force that include junior officers who were just hired, and a wildly politicized leadership in the intelligence community—I no longer recommend young Americans to pursue careers in intelligence,” Marc Polymeropoulos, a veteran CIA officer who had his own security clearance yanked earlier this year, told me.
Purge doesn’t adequately capture what national-security experts see happening here. Chilling effect is too mild, though revoking the security clearances of two senior intelligence officers, as Gabbard did, effectively ending their government careers, will indeed send a message. Terrorizing the workforce is a phrase I heard a lot this week. And that may indeed be the point.
“Instead of being honest about what we think, now people will just keep their mouths shut or tell Trump what he wants to hear,” said one former official, who would only speak anonymously. The administration publicly identified this person as part of the “Russia Hoax,” and they’ve hired personal security for outside their home, fearing that Trump’s most fevered supporters might pay a visit.
Forget about calling out misbehavior or wrongdoing by administration officials, the person added: “Where would we go to file a grievance, or to report misconduct? Who’s going to do that?”
You can use the gift link to read rest. I wonder if they will target Hillary Clinton? I’m sure Trump would like to do that.
The Trump DOJ seems to have hit on mortgage fraud as their go to accusation against critics.
Flyball and Fred look out at Venus.
The Wall Street Journal: Mortgage-Fraud Accusations Are Trump’s New Political Weapon.
The Trump administration has a new weapon at its disposal in its efforts to take down Democrats and their appointees: mortgage records.
Members of the administration have now alleged three public officials have committed mortgage fraud, referring each to the Justice Department. The administration has signaled that it has just gotten started: U.S. Pardon Attorney Ed Martin was recently tapped “to investigate fraud by public officials in mortgages,” according to a letter Martin sent.
The targets have denied wrongdoing, but the probes represent an aggressive new spin on opposition research that has long dug into tax records and financial disclosures public officeholders have to make. Mortgage applications go beyond the typical disclosure requirements.
Another twist is the allegations are coming from a government official overseeing an agency able to access massive amounts of mortgage data.
At the forefront of the campaign is Bill Pulte, a homebuilder heir Trump tapped to lead the government agency that oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the largest players in the mortgage market.
At the historically quiet but powerful Federal Housing Finance Agency, Pulte has turned himself into a Trump attack ally, probing mortgages of prominent Democrats and a Biden-appointed official at the Federal Reserve.
So far, DOJ has announced investigations of Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook, Senator Adam Schiff, andNew York Attorney General Letitia James.
Heading into an election season, mortgage documents could become even more a source of contention across the country, for both sides of the aisle. Mortgage fraud allegations have also emerged against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican who is campaigning for a Senate seat. (Paxton’s campaign has declined to comment on his properties.)
Mick Mulvaney, a former chief of staff for Trump who had faced questions about taxes on his nanny when he was facing Senate confirmation, says the attacks are going to be part of the new normal for Republicans to use versus Democrats now.
“Right now it’s classified documents and mortgage applications,” Mulvaney said of the new opposition research. “Whether or not you pretend to need a wheelchair at an airport to get on the plane faster, that may be used next if that’s illegal.”
In other news, the troops (and FBI agents and ICE thugs) are still occupying Washington DC. Here’s the latest on that story.
CNN: Hegseth orders National Guard troops in DC to carry weapons.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered National Guard members patrolling the streets of Washington, DC, to begin carrying their service weapons as they fulfill President Donald Trump’s crime crackdown in the nation’s capital, according to a US defense official.
Taking off their helmets
The directive from Hegseth represents a notable shift in guidance from the Pentagon, which had previously indicated that National Guard members could be armed if the circumstances warranted, and suggests hundreds of guard troops deployed in DC will soon be carrying weapons despite serving in a support role.
“At the direction of the Secretary of Defense, (Joint Task Force) JTF-DC members supporting the mission to lower the crime rate in our Nation’s capital will soon be on mission with their service-issued weapons, consistent with their mission and training,” the official said….
It comes as other states’ National Guard members have begun arriving in Washington, DC, to be in-processed to assist the DC National Guard.
More than 1,900 troops from multiple states have been called up as part of the mission including from West Virginia, South Carolina, Mississippi, Ohio, Louisiana, and Tennessee National Guards, according to a release from Joint Task Force – DC on Thursday.
What could possibly go wrong? I wonder if Hegseth has heard about Kent State?
ABC News reports that National Guard troops will now be permitted to act as law enforcement: National Guard in DC to carry M17 pistols, conduct law enforcement duties, task force says.
National Guard troops deployed on the streets of Washington, D.C., will now carry weapons for personal protection and are allowed to carry out law enforcement duties, defense officials announced Friday.
The decision is an escalation in President Donald Trump’s use of military troops to address what he insists is “out of control” crime in the nation’s capital. Since his announcement, Trump has mobilized nearly 2,300 National Guard troops from Washington, D.C., and six states with Republican governors. But troops had remained unarmed until now.
ABC News first reported Friday that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had officially authorized the troops to carry weapons if their mission required it. On Friday, the joint task force overseeing the troops confirmed the move, noting that Guard personnel sent on missions would carry M17 pistols, “which are intended for person protection.” The task force said Guard members would receive proper training on how to use the weapons before being allowed to carry them.
“This decision is not something taken lightly,” said Army Brig. Gen. Leland D. Blanchard, III, the Commanding General of the D.C. National Guard, in a statement.
Flyball and the Venus Mouse.
Really? I think it is taken very lightly, considering there’s not as serious crime problem in DC and it’s illegal for the military to perform law enforcement functions in the U.S.
The task force also noted in its statement late Friday that Guard troops can carry out law enforcement duties because they are operating under Title 32 status, a law that exempts troops from restrictions under the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act, because they are still technically under a state governor’s command.
Legal experts have long warned about how presidents might use Title 32 as a kind of legal loophole to Posse Comitatus, which is supposed to prevent the president from using the military as a domestic police force. Under Title 32, a president pays for a Guard mission while keeping troops under control of the governors; in this case, Trump asked red-state governors to send their troops to D.C.
While those governors technically retain control of the troops, their missions are being decided by the White House, according to several administration officials.
Reuters: Trump crime crackdown deploys troops in Washington’s safest sites.
Hundreds of National Guard soldiers in military fatigues and combat boots mingled with tourists, posed for selfies, and treated themselves to ice cream from food trucks on Thursday along Washington’s National Mall, one of the safest parts of America’s capital.
On occasion an angry local would hurl verbal abuse at them, but the soldiers simply shrugged and carried on what appeared to be an undemanding assignment.
Outside the National Museum of African American History and Culture, five members of the West Virginia National Guard were standing on the street corner far away from the city’s crime hot spots.
A grateful rescued mouse.
“It’s boring. We’re not really doing much,” said Sergeant Fox, who declined to give his first name.
Fox is among almost 2,000 troops, including 1,200 from six Republican-led states, who are being deployed in Washington as part of an extraordinary militarization inside the Democratic-led city.
The soldiers, some of whom told Reuters they did not get involved in arrests, are officially in Washington to support a federal crackdown on what President Donald Trump calls a crime epidemic. But that depiction appears to run counter to the fact that crime rates overall have shrunk in recent years.
That disconnect, combined with the troop concentration near the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial and in view of the U.S. Capitol, highlights criticism by the city’s Democratic leaders that this massive deployment is more a show of power by Trump, rather than a serious effort to fight crime.No kidding.
This is something I hadn’t heard about before. Trump is also mobilizing National Guard troops in other parts of the country. The Independent: Trump mobilizing up to 1,700 National Guardsman in 19 states to widen crime and immigration crackdown.
The Trump administration reportedly plans to mobilize up to 1,700 National Guard troops across 19 states in the coming weeks to support its immigration and anti-crime crackdowns, a dramatic expansion of the controversial operation that’s seen federal agents and Guard troops carrying out activities across Washington, D.C.
The troops, who will largely be activated across Republican-controlled states, will serve in support of the administration’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations, as well as other law enforcement priorities, according to comment from unnamed Pentagon officials and documents obtained by Fox News.
Taking photos of the plants
The Guardsmen assisting ICE will be carrying out tasks that may include “personal data collection, fingerprinting, DNA swabbing and photographing of personnel in ICE custody,” an official told outlet.
The deployments will take place across the following states: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Wyoming, per Fox.
Texas is reportedly slated to have the largest deployment.
The Guardsmen will be serving under Title 32 Section 502F authority, in which they technically remain under state command and control, but can assist with federal missions and are paid with federal funds. The status allows them to avoid running afoul of a federal law limiting military involvement in domestic law enforcement.
Read more at the link.
Trump is also fantasizing about occupying Democratic cities like Chicago and New York. The Guardian: Trump targets Chicago and New York as Hegseth orders weapons for DC troops.
Donald Trump has threatened to take his federal crackdown on crime and city cleanliness to New York and Chicago, as the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, ordered that national guard troops patrolling the streets of Washington DC under federal control will now be armed.
The US president talked to reporters in the Oval Office and said: “When ready, we will start in Chicago … Chicago is a mess.” He added that then the administration “will help with New York”, amid the controversial and aggressive federal efforts to control leading Democratic-voting cities, each of which has a Black mayor….
Touching the telepathic moss.
On the issue of suddenly announcing that it would now arm the federalized troops in DC, the defense department did not immediately offer any other details about the new development or why it was needed.
The step is an escalation in the federal government’s rare intervention into policing in the nation’s capital and came as nearly 2,000 national guard members are stationed in the city.
Earlier this week hundreds of troops from several Republican-led states arrived to bolster the DC national guard.
The Pentagon and the US army had said last week that troops would not carry weapons.
There’s more information about the DC occupation in the Guardian article.
Hegseth’s orders come just a day after Jeanine Pirro, the District of Columbia’s top federal prosecutor, instructed prosecutors to pursue the most serious charges possible in cases stemming from recent arrests, limiting their discretion as the Trump administration intensifies its law enforcement presence in the capital.
That directive, first reported by the New York Times, was issued this week and narrows the ability of line prosecutors to decide how cases are charged and prioritized. By pushing for the maximum charges allowed, the new policy could lead to longer prison terms for convicted defendants….
According to the White House, federal agents have made more than 630 arrests as of Thursday, though the justice department has not clarified how that figure compares with typical city police numbers.
While Pirro has committed to filing the toughest charges possible in most cases, she has also relaxed enforcement of one local gun law. This week she directed prosecutors not to pursue felony charges against people for possessing rifles or shotguns in the city, despite a DC law prohibiting them.
Finally:
On Thursday, Trump declared his takeover of the Metropolitan police department to be a success.
He had previously signaled that he would target other cities, such as Baltimore, Oakland and another mission in Los Angeles, as well as New York and Chicago, which are all strongly Democratic-voting and run by Black mayors. The Maryland governor, Wes Moore, said to CNN that crime was dropping in Baltimore as a result of community violence prevention efforts and he would never activate the national guard “for theatrics”.
Yeah, right.
A few more interesting stories to check out today:
NBC News: Kilmar Abrego Garcia notified by ICE that he may be deported to Uganda.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the man who was wrongfully deported to a high-security prison in El Salvador, was notified by immigration authorities that he may be deported to Uganda, less than 24 hours after his release from federal custody.
Abrego was released Friday from a jail near Nashville, Tennessee, where he had been held since his return to the U.S. in June after being mistakenly deported to El Salvador’s CECOT prison.
Flyball’s first vegetarian meal.
Immigration authorities were expected to attempt to deport Abrego upon his release. Abrego “may be removed to Uganda no less than 72 hours absent weekends,” a source familiar with the case told NBC News on Saturday.
That is in line with standard procedure that ICE must give immigrants 72 hours notice before removing them to third countries.
Abrego, originally from El Salvador, had a withholding of removal order from 2019 that prevents his deportation to his home country due to concerns that he would be persecuted by violent gangs.
The removal order was violated when the Trump administration accidentally deported Abrego to the El Salvador’s CECOT prison, notorious for its harsh conditions, in March. However, the 2019 protective order does not bar Abrego from being deported to another country.
Abrego’s lawyers have now notified the judge in the Middle District of Tennessee that ICE has informed Abrego of its intent to deport him to Uganda. Abrego could not face the criminal charges of human smuggling brought against him by DOJ in that case if he is out of the country.
They are never going to leave this poor man alone.
AP: Judge blocks Trump from cutting money to Chicago, LA and other cities over ‘sanctuary’ policies.
A judge ruled late Friday the Trump administration cannot deny funding to Boston, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles and 30 other cities and counties because of policies that limit cooperation with federal immigration efforts.
U.S. District Judge William Orrick in San Francisco extended a preliminary injunction blocking the administration from cutting off or conditioning the use of federal funds for so-called “sanctuary” jurisdictions. His earlier order protected more than a dozen other cities and counties, including San Francisco, Portland and Seattle.
An email to the White House late Friday was not immediately returned. In his ruling, Orrick said the administration had offered no opposition to an extended injunction except to say the first injunction was wrong. It has appealed the first order.
Orrick also blocked the administration from imposing immigration-related conditions on two particular grant programs.
More at the link.
Newsweek: Florida Locals Defy Ron DeSantis By Restoring Pulse Rainbow Crosswalk.
People in Orlando have defied Republican Governor Ron DeSantis and reinstated a rainbow crosswalk outside the Pulse nightclub, after Florida officials removed the painted crossing installed in memory of the 49 people killed at the site in 2016.
Fleeing the ammonia storm.
The restoration was led by local community members and LGBTQ+ advocates who gathered at the intersection following the overnight state-directed repainting. In a video shared to social media by the account @jeremy_rodrigue, people can be seen DIY-ing the rainbow crosswalk and drawing the colors back onto the ground.
“While this attack was meant to demoralize us and push us back in the closet, Orlando refused to be erased,” Democratic state Senator Carlos Guillermo Smith, who became the first openly gay Latino elected to the Florida legislature in 2016, told Newsweek. “It was inspiring to see so many local residents spring into action in response to the Governor’s cowardly abuse of power.” [….]
The removal of the rainbow crosswalk— painted in 2017 and approved during the administration of former Republican Governor Rick Scott—has sparked fierce backlash from city officials, survivors, and LGBTQ+ organizations who say it was eliminated in the dead of night with no warning.
The crosswalk was painted over following a directive from the Trump administration. In a letter to governors last month, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy instructed states to “eliminate” distractions on public roads. He wrote on X at the time: “Taxpayers expect their dollars to fund safe streets, not rainbow crosswalks.”
That’s it for me today. I’m going to try to ignore the news for awhile. Please take care of yourselves, everyone.
#catArt #caturday #DonaldTrump #FascistCrackdownOnWashingtonDC #JeaninePirro #JohnBolton #KilmarAbregoGarcia #mortgageFraud #NationalGuardTroopsInCities #PeteHegseth #PulseNighclub #rainbowCrosswalk #sanctuaryCities #SpaceCatVisitsVenus
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Lazy Caturday Reads: Space Cat Visits Venus (and some news, unfortunately)
Book Cover
Good Afternoon!!
I think I’ve hit a wall this morning. I’m feeling so exhausted and overwhelmed with what Trump is doing to the country, that I just want to lie down and give up. I hope I can raise my spirts somehow as the day goes on.
Anyway, it is Caturday, and I have a new installment of Space Cat to share today. It’s the second book in the space cat series, Space Cat Visits Venus. Here is the synopsis from Amazon:
Flyball the Space Cat is back, and this time he’s living in Luna Port, the first city on the Moon. Workers at the lunar station are building a rocket to transport him and his pilot buddy, Colonel Fred Stone, to Venus. The two friends take a long voyage to the planet, where they encounter violet skies, torrential ammonia rains, and strange plants that can communicate without speaking.
This new edition of a charmingly illustrated storybook from 1955 is the second of a four-book series starring the intrepid feline known as Space Cat. Young readers will delight in taking a look at space exploration from Flyball’s point of view and following his escapades across the solar system.
It’s hard to believe these books are still in print after all this time, but I think they are really cute. See some of the illustrations scattered through this post.
As you know, John Bolton’s home and office were searched by the FBI yesterday. Below are some articles that analyze and comment on Trump’s retribution project.
The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board: Trump’s Vendetta Campaign Targets John Bolton.
President Trump promised voters during his campaign for a second term that he had bigger things on his mind than retribution against opponents. But it is increasingly clear that vengeance is a large part, maybe the largest part, of how he will define success in his second term.
His revenge campaign took an ominous turn Friday as FBI agents raided the home and office of Mr. Trump’s first-term national security adviser John Bolton. They brought two broad warrants to search the “premises.” Agents showed up unannounced at his Bethesda, Md., home at 7 a.m. They confiscated his wife Gretchen’s phone because it was visible and not on her person. Mr. Bolton had already left for his office, which is where FBI agents greeted him….
Cat with Venus rocket
It’s hard to see the raid as anything other than vindictive. Mr. Bolton fell out of Mr. Trump’s favor in the first term and then wrote a book about his experience in the White House while Mr. Trump was still President. Mr. Trump tried and failed to block publication. The President then claimed Mr. Bolton had exposed classified information, though the book had gone through an extensive pre-publication scrub at the White House for classified material.
The book investigation faded away under President Biden, but now it looks as if Mr. Patel is reviving it. Whether Mr. Trump ordered the FBI probe or not doesn’t matter. Mr. Patel knows what the President thinks about Mr. Bolton, and the President’s minions in Trump II don’t serve as the check on his worst impulses the way grown-ups did in his first term. The presidential id is now unchained.
Mr. Trump made clear that he was out for blood against Mr. Bolton when he pulled the former adviser’s protective detail after his re-election. Mr. Bolton is widely known as a defense hawk, and in 2022 the Justice Department charged an Iranian national it said planned to murder him.
A bit more:
It’s unlikely that Mr. Bolton broke any laws on national secrets, and he certainly didn’t share any with us over our long association with him. But perhaps Mr. Trump intends for the process itself to be the punishment even if there is ultimately no criminal charge. Mr. Bolton has to pay for legal counsel, and his family has to endure the anxiety of being under federal government siege.
Mr. Bolton has continued to speak candidly about Mr. Trump’s second-term decisions, pro and con, including in these pages this week. The President may also hope the FBI raid will cause Mr. Bolton to shut up, though knowing him we can’t imagine that working.
The real offender here is a President who seems to think he can use the powers of his office to run vendettas. We said this was one of the risks of a second Trump term, and it’s turning out to be worse than we imagined.
Shane Harris at The Atlantic (gift link): The Bolton Raid Feels Like a Warning.
FBI directors don’t customarily announce raids in progress. But early this morning, Kash Patel celebrated the search of former National Security Adviser John Bolton’s home as agents were rolling into his suburban-Maryland driveway: “NO ONE is above the law … @FBI agents on mission,” Patel wrote on X. Agents also executed a search warrant at Bolton’s office in Washington, D.C. President Donald Trump later told reporters that he had learned about the raid on one of his most voluble critics from TV news, but he took the opportunity to call Bolton a “lowlife” and “not a smart guy.” Then he added: “Could be a very unpatriotic guy. We’re going to find out.”
Flyball dreams of mice
The FBI’s actions were hard not to read as payback for Bolton’s years of criticism of the president, even as the facts that persuaded a judge to approve a search warrant remain unknown. That’s the problem with a politicized legal system—even if an investigation is legitimate, it’s easy to assume that its motives are corrupt. Trump has spent years vowing retribution against Bolton, particularly after Bolton published a 2020 memoir that portrayed the president as incompetent and out of his depth on foreign policy.
If this was revenge, it wasn’t an isolated act. As agents were still packing up boxes of Bolton’s effects, The Washington Post reported that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had pushed out yet another senior military officer, firing Lieutenant General Jeffrey Kruse, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. In June, its analysts delivered a preliminary assessment that U.S. bombers had caused relatively limited damage to Iranian nuclear facilities, undercutting Trump’s pronouncements that the sites were “obliterated.” And just three days ago, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard revoked the security clearances of more than three dozen current and former national-security officials. Several played key roles in efforts to counter or expose Russia’s 2016 election interference, what Trump calls the “Russia Hoax” and Gabbard has described as part of a “years-long coup” against the president.
Put it all together, and this may be remembered as the week Trump’s campaign against the “deep state” kicked into high gear. To some intelligence professionals I spoke with, it felt as though something fundamental had shifted in their historically apolitical line of work.
“Given the dystopian nature of it all—clearance revocations of former officials who did no wrong, forced retirements of long-standing intelligence officials, reductions in force that include junior officers who were just hired, and a wildly politicized leadership in the intelligence community—I no longer recommend young Americans to pursue careers in intelligence,” Marc Polymeropoulos, a veteran CIA officer who had his own security clearance yanked earlier this year, told me.
Purge doesn’t adequately capture what national-security experts see happening here. Chilling effect is too mild, though revoking the security clearances of two senior intelligence officers, as Gabbard did, effectively ending their government careers, will indeed send a message. Terrorizing the workforce is a phrase I heard a lot this week. And that may indeed be the point.
“Instead of being honest about what we think, now people will just keep their mouths shut or tell Trump what he wants to hear,” said one former official, who would only speak anonymously. The administration publicly identified this person as part of the “Russia Hoax,” and they’ve hired personal security for outside their home, fearing that Trump’s most fevered supporters might pay a visit.
Forget about calling out misbehavior or wrongdoing by administration officials, the person added: “Where would we go to file a grievance, or to report misconduct? Who’s going to do that?”
You can use the gift link to read rest. I wonder if they will target Hillary Clinton? I’m sure Trump would like to do that.
The Trump DOJ seems to have hit on mortgage fraud as their go to accusation against critics.
Flyball and Fred look out at Venus.
The Wall Street Journal: Mortgage-Fraud Accusations Are Trump’s New Political Weapon.
The Trump administration has a new weapon at its disposal in its efforts to take down Democrats and their appointees: mortgage records.
Members of the administration have now alleged three public officials have committed mortgage fraud, referring each to the Justice Department. The administration has signaled that it has just gotten started: U.S. Pardon Attorney Ed Martin was recently tapped “to investigate fraud by public officials in mortgages,” according to a letter Martin sent.
The targets have denied wrongdoing, but the probes represent an aggressive new spin on opposition research that has long dug into tax records and financial disclosures public officeholders have to make. Mortgage applications go beyond the typical disclosure requirements.
Another twist is the allegations are coming from a government official overseeing an agency able to access massive amounts of mortgage data.
At the forefront of the campaign is Bill Pulte, a homebuilder heir Trump tapped to lead the government agency that oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the largest players in the mortgage market.
At the historically quiet but powerful Federal Housing Finance Agency, Pulte has turned himself into a Trump attack ally, probing mortgages of prominent Democrats and a Biden-appointed official at the Federal Reserve.
So far, DOJ has announced investigations of Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook, Senator Adam Schiff, andNew York Attorney General Letitia James.
Heading into an election season, mortgage documents could become even more a source of contention across the country, for both sides of the aisle. Mortgage fraud allegations have also emerged against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican who is campaigning for a Senate seat. (Paxton’s campaign has declined to comment on his properties.)
Mick Mulvaney, a former chief of staff for Trump who had faced questions about taxes on his nanny when he was facing Senate confirmation, says the attacks are going to be part of the new normal for Republicans to use versus Democrats now.
“Right now it’s classified documents and mortgage applications,” Mulvaney said of the new opposition research. “Whether or not you pretend to need a wheelchair at an airport to get on the plane faster, that may be used next if that’s illegal.”
In other news, the troops (and FBI agents and ICE thugs) are still occupying Washington DC. Here’s the latest on that story.
CNN: Hegseth orders National Guard troops in DC to carry weapons.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered National Guard members patrolling the streets of Washington, DC, to begin carrying their service weapons as they fulfill President Donald Trump’s crime crackdown in the nation’s capital, according to a US defense official.
Taking off their helmets
The directive from Hegseth represents a notable shift in guidance from the Pentagon, which had previously indicated that National Guard members could be armed if the circumstances warranted, and suggests hundreds of guard troops deployed in DC will soon be carrying weapons despite serving in a support role.
“At the direction of the Secretary of Defense, (Joint Task Force) JTF-DC members supporting the mission to lower the crime rate in our Nation’s capital will soon be on mission with their service-issued weapons, consistent with their mission and training,” the official said….
It comes as other states’ National Guard members have begun arriving in Washington, DC, to be in-processed to assist the DC National Guard.
More than 1,900 troops from multiple states have been called up as part of the mission including from West Virginia, South Carolina, Mississippi, Ohio, Louisiana, and Tennessee National Guards, according to a release from Joint Task Force – DC on Thursday.
What could possibly go wrong? I wonder if Hegseth has heard about Kent State?
ABC News reports that National Guard troops will now be permitted to act as law enforcement: National Guard in DC to carry M17 pistols, conduct law enforcement duties, task force says.
National Guard troops deployed on the streets of Washington, D.C., will now carry weapons for personal protection and are allowed to carry out law enforcement duties, defense officials announced Friday.
The decision is an escalation in President Donald Trump’s use of military troops to address what he insists is “out of control” crime in the nation’s capital. Since his announcement, Trump has mobilized nearly 2,300 National Guard troops from Washington, D.C., and six states with Republican governors. But troops had remained unarmed until now.
ABC News first reported Friday that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had officially authorized the troops to carry weapons if their mission required it. On Friday, the joint task force overseeing the troops confirmed the move, noting that Guard personnel sent on missions would carry M17 pistols, “which are intended for person protection.” The task force said Guard members would receive proper training on how to use the weapons before being allowed to carry them.
“This decision is not something taken lightly,” said Army Brig. Gen. Leland D. Blanchard, III, the Commanding General of the D.C. National Guard, in a statement.
Flyball and the Venus Mouse.
Really? I think it is taken very lightly, considering there’s not as serious crime problem in DC and it’s illegal for the military to perform law enforcement functions in the U.S.
The task force also noted in its statement late Friday that Guard troops can carry out law enforcement duties because they are operating under Title 32 status, a law that exempts troops from restrictions under the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act, because they are still technically under a state governor’s command.
Legal experts have long warned about how presidents might use Title 32 as a kind of legal loophole to Posse Comitatus, which is supposed to prevent the president from using the military as a domestic police force. Under Title 32, a president pays for a Guard mission while keeping troops under control of the governors; in this case, Trump asked red-state governors to send their troops to D.C.
While those governors technically retain control of the troops, their missions are being decided by the White House, according to several administration officials.
Reuters: Trump crime crackdown deploys troops in Washington’s safest sites.
Hundreds of National Guard soldiers in military fatigues and combat boots mingled with tourists, posed for selfies, and treated themselves to ice cream from food trucks on Thursday along Washington’s National Mall, one of the safest parts of America’s capital.
On occasion an angry local would hurl verbal abuse at them, but the soldiers simply shrugged and carried on what appeared to be an undemanding assignment.
Outside the National Museum of African American History and Culture, five members of the West Virginia National Guard were standing on the street corner far away from the city’s crime hot spots.
A grateful rescued mouse.
“It’s boring. We’re not really doing much,” said Sergeant Fox, who declined to give his first name.
Fox is among almost 2,000 troops, including 1,200 from six Republican-led states, who are being deployed in Washington as part of an extraordinary militarization inside the Democratic-led city.
The soldiers, some of whom told Reuters they did not get involved in arrests, are officially in Washington to support a federal crackdown on what President Donald Trump calls a crime epidemic. But that depiction appears to run counter to the fact that crime rates overall have shrunk in recent years.
That disconnect, combined with the troop concentration near the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial and in view of the U.S. Capitol, highlights criticism by the city’s Democratic leaders that this massive deployment is more a show of power by Trump, rather than a serious effort to fight crime.No kidding.
This is something I hadn’t heard about before. Trump is also mobilizing National Guard troops in other parts of the country. The Independent: Trump mobilizing up to 1,700 National Guardsman in 19 states to widen crime and immigration crackdown.
The Trump administration reportedly plans to mobilize up to 1,700 National Guard troops across 19 states in the coming weeks to support its immigration and anti-crime crackdowns, a dramatic expansion of the controversial operation that’s seen federal agents and Guard troops carrying out activities across Washington, D.C.
The troops, who will largely be activated across Republican-controlled states, will serve in support of the administration’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations, as well as other law enforcement priorities, according to comment from unnamed Pentagon officials and documents obtained by Fox News.
Taking photos of the plants
The Guardsmen assisting ICE will be carrying out tasks that may include “personal data collection, fingerprinting, DNA swabbing and photographing of personnel in ICE custody,” an official told outlet.
The deployments will take place across the following states: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Wyoming, per Fox.
Texas is reportedly slated to have the largest deployment.
The Guardsmen will be serving under Title 32 Section 502F authority, in which they technically remain under state command and control, but can assist with federal missions and are paid with federal funds. The status allows them to avoid running afoul of a federal law limiting military involvement in domestic law enforcement.
Read more at the link.
Trump is also fantasizing about occupying Democratic cities like Chicago and New York. The Guardian: Trump targets Chicago and New York as Hegseth orders weapons for DC troops.
Donald Trump has threatened to take his federal crackdown on crime and city cleanliness to New York and Chicago, as the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, ordered that national guard troops patrolling the streets of Washington DC under federal control will now be armed.
The US president talked to reporters in the Oval Office and said: “When ready, we will start in Chicago … Chicago is a mess.” He added that then the administration “will help with New York”, amid the controversial and aggressive federal efforts to control leading Democratic-voting cities, each of which has a Black mayor….
Touching the telepathic moss.
On the issue of suddenly announcing that it would now arm the federalized troops in DC, the defense department did not immediately offer any other details about the new development or why it was needed.
The step is an escalation in the federal government’s rare intervention into policing in the nation’s capital and came as nearly 2,000 national guard members are stationed in the city.
Earlier this week hundreds of troops from several Republican-led states arrived to bolster the DC national guard.
The Pentagon and the US army had said last week that troops would not carry weapons.
There’s more information about the DC occupation in the Guardian article.
Hegseth’s orders come just a day after Jeanine Pirro, the District of Columbia’s top federal prosecutor, instructed prosecutors to pursue the most serious charges possible in cases stemming from recent arrests, limiting their discretion as the Trump administration intensifies its law enforcement presence in the capital.
That directive, first reported by the New York Times, was issued this week and narrows the ability of line prosecutors to decide how cases are charged and prioritized. By pushing for the maximum charges allowed, the new policy could lead to longer prison terms for convicted defendants….
According to the White House, federal agents have made more than 630 arrests as of Thursday, though the justice department has not clarified how that figure compares with typical city police numbers.
While Pirro has committed to filing the toughest charges possible in most cases, she has also relaxed enforcement of one local gun law. This week she directed prosecutors not to pursue felony charges against people for possessing rifles or shotguns in the city, despite a DC law prohibiting them.
Finally:
On Thursday, Trump declared his takeover of the Metropolitan police department to be a success.
He had previously signaled that he would target other cities, such as Baltimore, Oakland and another mission in Los Angeles, as well as New York and Chicago, which are all strongly Democratic-voting and run by Black mayors. The Maryland governor, Wes Moore, said to CNN that crime was dropping in Baltimore as a result of community violence prevention efforts and he would never activate the national guard “for theatrics”.
Yeah, right.
A few more interesting stories to check out today:
NBC News: Kilmar Abrego Garcia notified by ICE that he may be deported to Uganda.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the man who was wrongfully deported to a high-security prison in El Salvador, was notified by immigration authorities that he may be deported to Uganda, less than 24 hours after his release from federal custody.
Abrego was released Friday from a jail near Nashville, Tennessee, where he had been held since his return to the U.S. in June after being mistakenly deported to El Salvador’s CECOT prison.
Flyball’s first vegetarian meal.
Immigration authorities were expected to attempt to deport Abrego upon his release. Abrego “may be removed to Uganda no less than 72 hours absent weekends,” a source familiar with the case told NBC News on Saturday.
That is in line with standard procedure that ICE must give immigrants 72 hours notice before removing them to third countries.
Abrego, originally from El Salvador, had a withholding of removal order from 2019 that prevents his deportation to his home country due to concerns that he would be persecuted by violent gangs.
The removal order was violated when the Trump administration accidentally deported Abrego to the El Salvador’s CECOT prison, notorious for its harsh conditions, in March. However, the 2019 protective order does not bar Abrego from being deported to another country.
Abrego’s lawyers have now notified the judge in the Middle District of Tennessee that ICE has informed Abrego of its intent to deport him to Uganda. Abrego could not face the criminal charges of human smuggling brought against him by DOJ in that case if he is out of the country.
They are never going to leave this poor man alone.
AP: Judge blocks Trump from cutting money to Chicago, LA and other cities over ‘sanctuary’ policies.
A judge ruled late Friday the Trump administration cannot deny funding to Boston, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles and 30 other cities and counties because of policies that limit cooperation with federal immigration efforts.
U.S. District Judge William Orrick in San Francisco extended a preliminary injunction blocking the administration from cutting off or conditioning the use of federal funds for so-called “sanctuary” jurisdictions. His earlier order protected more than a dozen other cities and counties, including San Francisco, Portland and Seattle.
An email to the White House late Friday was not immediately returned. In his ruling, Orrick said the administration had offered no opposition to an extended injunction except to say the first injunction was wrong. It has appealed the first order.
Orrick also blocked the administration from imposing immigration-related conditions on two particular grant programs.
More at the link.
Newsweek: Florida Locals Defy Ron DeSantis By Restoring Pulse Rainbow Crosswalk.
People in Orlando have defied Republican Governor Ron DeSantis and reinstated a rainbow crosswalk outside the Pulse nightclub, after Florida officials removed the painted crossing installed in memory of the 49 people killed at the site in 2016.
Fleeing the ammonia storm.
The restoration was led by local community members and LGBTQ+ advocates who gathered at the intersection following the overnight state-directed repainting. In a video shared to social media by the account @jeremy_rodrigue, people can be seen DIY-ing the rainbow crosswalk and drawing the colors back onto the ground.
“While this attack was meant to demoralize us and push us back in the closet, Orlando refused to be erased,” Democratic state Senator Carlos Guillermo Smith, who became the first openly gay Latino elected to the Florida legislature in 2016, told Newsweek. “It was inspiring to see so many local residents spring into action in response to the Governor’s cowardly abuse of power.” [….]
The removal of the rainbow crosswalk— painted in 2017 and approved during the administration of former Republican Governor Rick Scott—has sparked fierce backlash from city officials, survivors, and LGBTQ+ organizations who say it was eliminated in the dead of night with no warning.
The crosswalk was painted over following a directive from the Trump administration. In a letter to governors last month, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy instructed states to “eliminate” distractions on public roads. He wrote on X at the time: “Taxpayers expect their dollars to fund safe streets, not rainbow crosswalks.”
That’s it for me today. I’m going to try to ignore the news for awhile. Please take care of yourselves, everyone.
#catArt #caturday #DonaldTrump #FascistCrackdownOnWashingtonDC #JeaninePirro #JohnBolton #KilmarAbregoGarcia #mortgageFraud #NationalGuardTroopsInCities #PeteHegseth #PulseNighclub #rainbowCrosswalk #sanctuaryCities #SpaceCatVisitsVenus
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Lazy Caturday Reads: Space Cat Visits Venus (and some news, unfortunately)
Book Cover
Good Afternoon!!
I think I’ve hit a wall this morning. I’m feeling so exhausted and overwhelmed with what Trump is doing to the country, that I just want to lie down and give up. I hope I can raise my spirts somehow as the day goes on.
Anyway, it is Caturday, and I have a new installment of Space Cat to share today. It’s the second book in the space cat series, Space Cat Visits Venus. Here is the synopsis from Amazon:
Flyball the Space Cat is back, and this time he’s living in Luna Port, the first city on the Moon. Workers at the lunar station are building a rocket to transport him and his pilot buddy, Colonel Fred Stone, to Venus. The two friends take a long voyage to the planet, where they encounter violet skies, torrential ammonia rains, and strange plants that can communicate without speaking.
This new edition of a charmingly illustrated storybook from 1955 is the second of a four-book series starring the intrepid feline known as Space Cat. Young readers will delight in taking a look at space exploration from Flyball’s point of view and following his escapades across the solar system.
It’s hard to believe these books are still in print after all this time, but I think they are really cute. See some of the illustrations scattered through this post.
As you know, John Bolton’s home and office were searched by the FBI yesterday. Below are some articles that analyze and comment on Trump’s retribution project.
The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board: Trump’s Vendetta Campaign Targets John Bolton.
President Trump promised voters during his campaign for a second term that he had bigger things on his mind than retribution against opponents. But it is increasingly clear that vengeance is a large part, maybe the largest part, of how he will define success in his second term.
His revenge campaign took an ominous turn Friday as FBI agents raided the home and office of Mr. Trump’s first-term national security adviser John Bolton. They brought two broad warrants to search the “premises.” Agents showed up unannounced at his Bethesda, Md., home at 7 a.m. They confiscated his wife Gretchen’s phone because it was visible and not on her person. Mr. Bolton had already left for his office, which is where FBI agents greeted him….
Cat with Venus rocket
It’s hard to see the raid as anything other than vindictive. Mr. Bolton fell out of Mr. Trump’s favor in the first term and then wrote a book about his experience in the White House while Mr. Trump was still President. Mr. Trump tried and failed to block publication. The President then claimed Mr. Bolton had exposed classified information, though the book had gone through an extensive pre-publication scrub at the White House for classified material.
The book investigation faded away under President Biden, but now it looks as if Mr. Patel is reviving it. Whether Mr. Trump ordered the FBI probe or not doesn’t matter. Mr. Patel knows what the President thinks about Mr. Bolton, and the President’s minions in Trump II don’t serve as the check on his worst impulses the way grown-ups did in his first term. The presidential id is now unchained.
Mr. Trump made clear that he was out for blood against Mr. Bolton when he pulled the former adviser’s protective detail after his re-election. Mr. Bolton is widely known as a defense hawk, and in 2022 the Justice Department charged an Iranian national it said planned to murder him.
A bit more:
It’s unlikely that Mr. Bolton broke any laws on national secrets, and he certainly didn’t share any with us over our long association with him. But perhaps Mr. Trump intends for the process itself to be the punishment even if there is ultimately no criminal charge. Mr. Bolton has to pay for legal counsel, and his family has to endure the anxiety of being under federal government siege.
Mr. Bolton has continued to speak candidly about Mr. Trump’s second-term decisions, pro and con, including in these pages this week. The President may also hope the FBI raid will cause Mr. Bolton to shut up, though knowing him we can’t imagine that working.
The real offender here is a President who seems to think he can use the powers of his office to run vendettas. We said this was one of the risks of a second Trump term, and it’s turning out to be worse than we imagined.
Shane Harris at The Atlantic (gift link): The Bolton Raid Feels Like a Warning.
FBI directors don’t customarily announce raids in progress. But early this morning, Kash Patel celebrated the search of former National Security Adviser John Bolton’s home as agents were rolling into his suburban-Maryland driveway: “NO ONE is above the law … @FBI agents on mission,” Patel wrote on X. Agents also executed a search warrant at Bolton’s office in Washington, D.C. President Donald Trump later told reporters that he had learned about the raid on one of his most voluble critics from TV news, but he took the opportunity to call Bolton a “lowlife” and “not a smart guy.” Then he added: “Could be a very unpatriotic guy. We’re going to find out.”
Flyball dreams of mice
The FBI’s actions were hard not to read as payback for Bolton’s years of criticism of the president, even as the facts that persuaded a judge to approve a search warrant remain unknown. That’s the problem with a politicized legal system—even if an investigation is legitimate, it’s easy to assume that its motives are corrupt. Trump has spent years vowing retribution against Bolton, particularly after Bolton published a 2020 memoir that portrayed the president as incompetent and out of his depth on foreign policy.
If this was revenge, it wasn’t an isolated act. As agents were still packing up boxes of Bolton’s effects, The Washington Post reported that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had pushed out yet another senior military officer, firing Lieutenant General Jeffrey Kruse, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. In June, its analysts delivered a preliminary assessment that U.S. bombers had caused relatively limited damage to Iranian nuclear facilities, undercutting Trump’s pronouncements that the sites were “obliterated.” And just three days ago, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard revoked the security clearances of more than three dozen current and former national-security officials. Several played key roles in efforts to counter or expose Russia’s 2016 election interference, what Trump calls the “Russia Hoax” and Gabbard has described as part of a “years-long coup” against the president.
Put it all together, and this may be remembered as the week Trump’s campaign against the “deep state” kicked into high gear. To some intelligence professionals I spoke with, it felt as though something fundamental had shifted in their historically apolitical line of work.
“Given the dystopian nature of it all—clearance revocations of former officials who did no wrong, forced retirements of long-standing intelligence officials, reductions in force that include junior officers who were just hired, and a wildly politicized leadership in the intelligence community—I no longer recommend young Americans to pursue careers in intelligence,” Marc Polymeropoulos, a veteran CIA officer who had his own security clearance yanked earlier this year, told me.
Purge doesn’t adequately capture what national-security experts see happening here. Chilling effect is too mild, though revoking the security clearances of two senior intelligence officers, as Gabbard did, effectively ending their government careers, will indeed send a message. Terrorizing the workforce is a phrase I heard a lot this week. And that may indeed be the point.
“Instead of being honest about what we think, now people will just keep their mouths shut or tell Trump what he wants to hear,” said one former official, who would only speak anonymously. The administration publicly identified this person as part of the “Russia Hoax,” and they’ve hired personal security for outside their home, fearing that Trump’s most fevered supporters might pay a visit.
Forget about calling out misbehavior or wrongdoing by administration officials, the person added: “Where would we go to file a grievance, or to report misconduct? Who’s going to do that?”
You can use the gift link to read rest. I wonder if they will target Hillary Clinton? I’m sure Trump would like to do that.
The Trump DOJ seems to have hit on mortgage fraud as their go to accusation against critics.
Flyball and Fred look out at Venus.
The Wall Street Journal: Mortgage-Fraud Accusations Are Trump’s New Political Weapon.
The Trump administration has a new weapon at its disposal in its efforts to take down Democrats and their appointees: mortgage records.
Members of the administration have now alleged three public officials have committed mortgage fraud, referring each to the Justice Department. The administration has signaled that it has just gotten started: U.S. Pardon Attorney Ed Martin was recently tapped “to investigate fraud by public officials in mortgages,” according to a letter Martin sent.
The targets have denied wrongdoing, but the probes represent an aggressive new spin on opposition research that has long dug into tax records and financial disclosures public officeholders have to make. Mortgage applications go beyond the typical disclosure requirements.
Another twist is the allegations are coming from a government official overseeing an agency able to access massive amounts of mortgage data.
At the forefront of the campaign is Bill Pulte, a homebuilder heir Trump tapped to lead the government agency that oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the largest players in the mortgage market.
At the historically quiet but powerful Federal Housing Finance Agency, Pulte has turned himself into a Trump attack ally, probing mortgages of prominent Democrats and a Biden-appointed official at the Federal Reserve.
So far, DOJ has announced investigations of Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook, Senator Adam Schiff, andNew York Attorney General Letitia James.
Heading into an election season, mortgage documents could become even more a source of contention across the country, for both sides of the aisle. Mortgage fraud allegations have also emerged against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican who is campaigning for a Senate seat. (Paxton’s campaign has declined to comment on his properties.)
Mick Mulvaney, a former chief of staff for Trump who had faced questions about taxes on his nanny when he was facing Senate confirmation, says the attacks are going to be part of the new normal for Republicans to use versus Democrats now.
“Right now it’s classified documents and mortgage applications,” Mulvaney said of the new opposition research. “Whether or not you pretend to need a wheelchair at an airport to get on the plane faster, that may be used next if that’s illegal.”
In other news, the troops (and FBI agents and ICE thugs) are still occupying Washington DC. Here’s the latest on that story.
CNN: Hegseth orders National Guard troops in DC to carry weapons.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered National Guard members patrolling the streets of Washington, DC, to begin carrying their service weapons as they fulfill President Donald Trump’s crime crackdown in the nation’s capital, according to a US defense official.
Taking off their helmets
The directive from Hegseth represents a notable shift in guidance from the Pentagon, which had previously indicated that National Guard members could be armed if the circumstances warranted, and suggests hundreds of guard troops deployed in DC will soon be carrying weapons despite serving in a support role.
“At the direction of the Secretary of Defense, (Joint Task Force) JTF-DC members supporting the mission to lower the crime rate in our Nation’s capital will soon be on mission with their service-issued weapons, consistent with their mission and training,” the official said….
It comes as other states’ National Guard members have begun arriving in Washington, DC, to be in-processed to assist the DC National Guard.
More than 1,900 troops from multiple states have been called up as part of the mission including from West Virginia, South Carolina, Mississippi, Ohio, Louisiana, and Tennessee National Guards, according to a release from Joint Task Force – DC on Thursday.
What could possibly go wrong? I wonder if Hegseth has heard about Kent State?
ABC News reports that National Guard troops will now be permitted to act as law enforcement: National Guard in DC to carry M17 pistols, conduct law enforcement duties, task force says.
National Guard troops deployed on the streets of Washington, D.C., will now carry weapons for personal protection and are allowed to carry out law enforcement duties, defense officials announced Friday.
The decision is an escalation in President Donald Trump’s use of military troops to address what he insists is “out of control” crime in the nation’s capital. Since his announcement, Trump has mobilized nearly 2,300 National Guard troops from Washington, D.C., and six states with Republican governors. But troops had remained unarmed until now.
ABC News first reported Friday that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had officially authorized the troops to carry weapons if their mission required it. On Friday, the joint task force overseeing the troops confirmed the move, noting that Guard personnel sent on missions would carry M17 pistols, “which are intended for person protection.” The task force said Guard members would receive proper training on how to use the weapons before being allowed to carry them.
“This decision is not something taken lightly,” said Army Brig. Gen. Leland D. Blanchard, III, the Commanding General of the D.C. National Guard, in a statement.
Flyball and the Venus Mouse.
Really? I think it is taken very lightly, considering there’s not as serious crime problem in DC and it’s illegal for the military to perform law enforcement functions in the U.S.
The task force also noted in its statement late Friday that Guard troops can carry out law enforcement duties because they are operating under Title 32 status, a law that exempts troops from restrictions under the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act, because they are still technically under a state governor’s command.
Legal experts have long warned about how presidents might use Title 32 as a kind of legal loophole to Posse Comitatus, which is supposed to prevent the president from using the military as a domestic police force. Under Title 32, a president pays for a Guard mission while keeping troops under control of the governors; in this case, Trump asked red-state governors to send their troops to D.C.
While those governors technically retain control of the troops, their missions are being decided by the White House, according to several administration officials.
Reuters: Trump crime crackdown deploys troops in Washington’s safest sites.
Hundreds of National Guard soldiers in military fatigues and combat boots mingled with tourists, posed for selfies, and treated themselves to ice cream from food trucks on Thursday along Washington’s National Mall, one of the safest parts of America’s capital.
On occasion an angry local would hurl verbal abuse at them, but the soldiers simply shrugged and carried on what appeared to be an undemanding assignment.
Outside the National Museum of African American History and Culture, five members of the West Virginia National Guard were standing on the street corner far away from the city’s crime hot spots.
A grateful rescued mouse.
“It’s boring. We’re not really doing much,” said Sergeant Fox, who declined to give his first name.
Fox is among almost 2,000 troops, including 1,200 from six Republican-led states, who are being deployed in Washington as part of an extraordinary militarization inside the Democratic-led city.
The soldiers, some of whom told Reuters they did not get involved in arrests, are officially in Washington to support a federal crackdown on what President Donald Trump calls a crime epidemic. But that depiction appears to run counter to the fact that crime rates overall have shrunk in recent years.
That disconnect, combined with the troop concentration near the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial and in view of the U.S. Capitol, highlights criticism by the city’s Democratic leaders that this massive deployment is more a show of power by Trump, rather than a serious effort to fight crime.No kidding.
This is something I hadn’t heard about before. Trump is also mobilizing National Guard troops in other parts of the country. The Independent: Trump mobilizing up to 1,700 National Guardsman in 19 states to widen crime and immigration crackdown.
The Trump administration reportedly plans to mobilize up to 1,700 National Guard troops across 19 states in the coming weeks to support its immigration and anti-crime crackdowns, a dramatic expansion of the controversial operation that’s seen federal agents and Guard troops carrying out activities across Washington, D.C.
The troops, who will largely be activated across Republican-controlled states, will serve in support of the administration’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations, as well as other law enforcement priorities, according to comment from unnamed Pentagon officials and documents obtained by Fox News.
Taking photos of the plants
The Guardsmen assisting ICE will be carrying out tasks that may include “personal data collection, fingerprinting, DNA swabbing and photographing of personnel in ICE custody,” an official told outlet.
The deployments will take place across the following states: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Wyoming, per Fox.
Texas is reportedly slated to have the largest deployment.
The Guardsmen will be serving under Title 32 Section 502F authority, in which they technically remain under state command and control, but can assist with federal missions and are paid with federal funds. The status allows them to avoid running afoul of a federal law limiting military involvement in domestic law enforcement.
Read more at the link.
Trump is also fantasizing about occupying Democratic cities like Chicago and New York. The Guardian: Trump targets Chicago and New York as Hegseth orders weapons for DC troops.
Donald Trump has threatened to take his federal crackdown on crime and city cleanliness to New York and Chicago, as the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, ordered that national guard troops patrolling the streets of Washington DC under federal control will now be armed.
The US president talked to reporters in the Oval Office and said: “When ready, we will start in Chicago … Chicago is a mess.” He added that then the administration “will help with New York”, amid the controversial and aggressive federal efforts to control leading Democratic-voting cities, each of which has a Black mayor….
Touching the telepathic moss.
On the issue of suddenly announcing that it would now arm the federalized troops in DC, the defense department did not immediately offer any other details about the new development or why it was needed.
The step is an escalation in the federal government’s rare intervention into policing in the nation’s capital and came as nearly 2,000 national guard members are stationed in the city.
Earlier this week hundreds of troops from several Republican-led states arrived to bolster the DC national guard.
The Pentagon and the US army had said last week that troops would not carry weapons.
There’s more information about the DC occupation in the Guardian article.
Hegseth’s orders come just a day after Jeanine Pirro, the District of Columbia’s top federal prosecutor, instructed prosecutors to pursue the most serious charges possible in cases stemming from recent arrests, limiting their discretion as the Trump administration intensifies its law enforcement presence in the capital.
That directive, first reported by the New York Times, was issued this week and narrows the ability of line prosecutors to decide how cases are charged and prioritized. By pushing for the maximum charges allowed, the new policy could lead to longer prison terms for convicted defendants….
According to the White House, federal agents have made more than 630 arrests as of Thursday, though the justice department has not clarified how that figure compares with typical city police numbers.
While Pirro has committed to filing the toughest charges possible in most cases, she has also relaxed enforcement of one local gun law. This week she directed prosecutors not to pursue felony charges against people for possessing rifles or shotguns in the city, despite a DC law prohibiting them.
Finally:
On Thursday, Trump declared his takeover of the Metropolitan police department to be a success.
He had previously signaled that he would target other cities, such as Baltimore, Oakland and another mission in Los Angeles, as well as New York and Chicago, which are all strongly Democratic-voting and run by Black mayors. The Maryland governor, Wes Moore, said to CNN that crime was dropping in Baltimore as a result of community violence prevention efforts and he would never activate the national guard “for theatrics”.
Yeah, right.
A few more interesting stories to check out today:
NBC News: Kilmar Abrego Garcia notified by ICE that he may be deported to Uganda.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the man who was wrongfully deported to a high-security prison in El Salvador, was notified by immigration authorities that he may be deported to Uganda, less than 24 hours after his release from federal custody.
Abrego was released Friday from a jail near Nashville, Tennessee, where he had been held since his return to the U.S. in June after being mistakenly deported to El Salvador’s CECOT prison.
Flyball’s first vegetarian meal.
Immigration authorities were expected to attempt to deport Abrego upon his release. Abrego “may be removed to Uganda no less than 72 hours absent weekends,” a source familiar with the case told NBC News on Saturday.
That is in line with standard procedure that ICE must give immigrants 72 hours notice before removing them to third countries.
Abrego, originally from El Salvador, had a withholding of removal order from 2019 that prevents his deportation to his home country due to concerns that he would be persecuted by violent gangs.
The removal order was violated when the Trump administration accidentally deported Abrego to the El Salvador’s CECOT prison, notorious for its harsh conditions, in March. However, the 2019 protective order does not bar Abrego from being deported to another country.
Abrego’s lawyers have now notified the judge in the Middle District of Tennessee that ICE has informed Abrego of its intent to deport him to Uganda. Abrego could not face the criminal charges of human smuggling brought against him by DOJ in that case if he is out of the country.
They are never going to leave this poor man alone.
AP: Judge blocks Trump from cutting money to Chicago, LA and other cities over ‘sanctuary’ policies.
A judge ruled late Friday the Trump administration cannot deny funding to Boston, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles and 30 other cities and counties because of policies that limit cooperation with federal immigration efforts.
U.S. District Judge William Orrick in San Francisco extended a preliminary injunction blocking the administration from cutting off or conditioning the use of federal funds for so-called “sanctuary” jurisdictions. His earlier order protected more than a dozen other cities and counties, including San Francisco, Portland and Seattle.
An email to the White House late Friday was not immediately returned. In his ruling, Orrick said the administration had offered no opposition to an extended injunction except to say the first injunction was wrong. It has appealed the first order.
Orrick also blocked the administration from imposing immigration-related conditions on two particular grant programs.
More at the link.
Newsweek: Florida Locals Defy Ron DeSantis By Restoring Pulse Rainbow Crosswalk.
People in Orlando have defied Republican Governor Ron DeSantis and reinstated a rainbow crosswalk outside the Pulse nightclub, after Florida officials removed the painted crossing installed in memory of the 49 people killed at the site in 2016.
Fleeing the ammonia storm.
The restoration was led by local community members and LGBTQ+ advocates who gathered at the intersection following the overnight state-directed repainting. In a video shared to social media by the account @jeremy_rodrigue, people can be seen DIY-ing the rainbow crosswalk and drawing the colors back onto the ground.
“While this attack was meant to demoralize us and push us back in the closet, Orlando refused to be erased,” Democratic state Senator Carlos Guillermo Smith, who became the first openly gay Latino elected to the Florida legislature in 2016, told Newsweek. “It was inspiring to see so many local residents spring into action in response to the Governor’s cowardly abuse of power.” [….]
The removal of the rainbow crosswalk— painted in 2017 and approved during the administration of former Republican Governor Rick Scott—has sparked fierce backlash from city officials, survivors, and LGBTQ+ organizations who say it was eliminated in the dead of night with no warning.
The crosswalk was painted over following a directive from the Trump administration. In a letter to governors last month, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy instructed states to “eliminate” distractions on public roads. He wrote on X at the time: “Taxpayers expect their dollars to fund safe streets, not rainbow crosswalks.”
That’s it for me today. I’m going to try to ignore the news for awhile. Please take care of yourselves, everyone.
#catArt #caturday #DonaldTrump #FascistCrackdownOnWashingtonDC #JeaninePirro #JohnBolton #KilmarAbregoGarcia #mortgageFraud #NationalGuardTroopsInCities #PeteHegseth #PulseNighclub #rainbowCrosswalk #sanctuaryCities #SpaceCatVisitsVenus
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Lazy Caturday Reads: Space Cat Visits Venus (and some news, unfortunately)
Book Cover
Good Afternoon!!
I think I’ve hit a wall this morning. I’m feeling so exhausted and overwhelmed with what Trump is doing to the country, that I just want to lie down and give up. I hope I can raise my spirts somehow as the day goes on.
Anyway, it is Caturday, and I have a new installment of Space Cat to share today. It’s the second book in the space cat series, Space Cat Visits Venus. Here is the synopsis from Amazon:
Flyball the Space Cat is back, and this time he’s living in Luna Port, the first city on the Moon. Workers at the lunar station are building a rocket to transport him and his pilot buddy, Colonel Fred Stone, to Venus. The two friends take a long voyage to the planet, where they encounter violet skies, torrential ammonia rains, and strange plants that can communicate without speaking.
This new edition of a charmingly illustrated storybook from 1955 is the second of a four-book series starring the intrepid feline known as Space Cat. Young readers will delight in taking a look at space exploration from Flyball’s point of view and following his escapades across the solar system.
It’s hard to believe these books are still in print after all this time, but I think they are really cute. See some of the illustrations scattered through this post.
As you know, John Bolton’s home and office were searched by the FBI yesterday. Below are some articles that analyze and comment on Trump’s retribution project.
The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board: Trump’s Vendetta Campaign Targets John Bolton.
President Trump promised voters during his campaign for a second term that he had bigger things on his mind than retribution against opponents. But it is increasingly clear that vengeance is a large part, maybe the largest part, of how he will define success in his second term.
His revenge campaign took an ominous turn Friday as FBI agents raided the home and office of Mr. Trump’s first-term national security adviser John Bolton. They brought two broad warrants to search the “premises.” Agents showed up unannounced at his Bethesda, Md., home at 7 a.m. They confiscated his wife Gretchen’s phone because it was visible and not on her person. Mr. Bolton had already left for his office, which is where FBI agents greeted him….
Cat with Venus rocket
It’s hard to see the raid as anything other than vindictive. Mr. Bolton fell out of Mr. Trump’s favor in the first term and then wrote a book about his experience in the White House while Mr. Trump was still President. Mr. Trump tried and failed to block publication. The President then claimed Mr. Bolton had exposed classified information, though the book had gone through an extensive pre-publication scrub at the White House for classified material.
The book investigation faded away under President Biden, but now it looks as if Mr. Patel is reviving it. Whether Mr. Trump ordered the FBI probe or not doesn’t matter. Mr. Patel knows what the President thinks about Mr. Bolton, and the President’s minions in Trump II don’t serve as the check on his worst impulses the way grown-ups did in his first term. The presidential id is now unchained.
Mr. Trump made clear that he was out for blood against Mr. Bolton when he pulled the former adviser’s protective detail after his re-election. Mr. Bolton is widely known as a defense hawk, and in 2022 the Justice Department charged an Iranian national it said planned to murder him.
A bit more:
It’s unlikely that Mr. Bolton broke any laws on national secrets, and he certainly didn’t share any with us over our long association with him. But perhaps Mr. Trump intends for the process itself to be the punishment even if there is ultimately no criminal charge. Mr. Bolton has to pay for legal counsel, and his family has to endure the anxiety of being under federal government siege.
Mr. Bolton has continued to speak candidly about Mr. Trump’s second-term decisions, pro and con, including in these pages this week. The President may also hope the FBI raid will cause Mr. Bolton to shut up, though knowing him we can’t imagine that working.
The real offender here is a President who seems to think he can use the powers of his office to run vendettas. We said this was one of the risks of a second Trump term, and it’s turning out to be worse than we imagined.
Shane Harris at The Atlantic (gift link): The Bolton Raid Feels Like a Warning.
FBI directors don’t customarily announce raids in progress. But early this morning, Kash Patel celebrated the search of former National Security Adviser John Bolton’s home as agents were rolling into his suburban-Maryland driveway: “NO ONE is above the law … @FBI agents on mission,” Patel wrote on X. Agents also executed a search warrant at Bolton’s office in Washington, D.C. President Donald Trump later told reporters that he had learned about the raid on one of his most voluble critics from TV news, but he took the opportunity to call Bolton a “lowlife” and “not a smart guy.” Then he added: “Could be a very unpatriotic guy. We’re going to find out.”
Flyball dreams of mice
The FBI’s actions were hard not to read as payback for Bolton’s years of criticism of the president, even as the facts that persuaded a judge to approve a search warrant remain unknown. That’s the problem with a politicized legal system—even if an investigation is legitimate, it’s easy to assume that its motives are corrupt. Trump has spent years vowing retribution against Bolton, particularly after Bolton published a 2020 memoir that portrayed the president as incompetent and out of his depth on foreign policy.
If this was revenge, it wasn’t an isolated act. As agents were still packing up boxes of Bolton’s effects, The Washington Post reported that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had pushed out yet another senior military officer, firing Lieutenant General Jeffrey Kruse, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. In June, its analysts delivered a preliminary assessment that U.S. bombers had caused relatively limited damage to Iranian nuclear facilities, undercutting Trump’s pronouncements that the sites were “obliterated.” And just three days ago, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard revoked the security clearances of more than three dozen current and former national-security officials. Several played key roles in efforts to counter or expose Russia’s 2016 election interference, what Trump calls the “Russia Hoax” and Gabbard has described as part of a “years-long coup” against the president.
Put it all together, and this may be remembered as the week Trump’s campaign against the “deep state” kicked into high gear. To some intelligence professionals I spoke with, it felt as though something fundamental had shifted in their historically apolitical line of work.
“Given the dystopian nature of it all—clearance revocations of former officials who did no wrong, forced retirements of long-standing intelligence officials, reductions in force that include junior officers who were just hired, and a wildly politicized leadership in the intelligence community—I no longer recommend young Americans to pursue careers in intelligence,” Marc Polymeropoulos, a veteran CIA officer who had his own security clearance yanked earlier this year, told me.
Purge doesn’t adequately capture what national-security experts see happening here. Chilling effect is too mild, though revoking the security clearances of two senior intelligence officers, as Gabbard did, effectively ending their government careers, will indeed send a message. Terrorizing the workforce is a phrase I heard a lot this week. And that may indeed be the point.
“Instead of being honest about what we think, now people will just keep their mouths shut or tell Trump what he wants to hear,” said one former official, who would only speak anonymously. The administration publicly identified this person as part of the “Russia Hoax,” and they’ve hired personal security for outside their home, fearing that Trump’s most fevered supporters might pay a visit.
Forget about calling out misbehavior or wrongdoing by administration officials, the person added: “Where would we go to file a grievance, or to report misconduct? Who’s going to do that?”
You can use the gift link to read rest. I wonder if they will target Hillary Clinton? I’m sure Trump would like to do that.
The Trump DOJ seems to have hit on mortgage fraud as their go to accusation against critics.
Flyball and Fred look out at Venus.
The Wall Street Journal: Mortgage-Fraud Accusations Are Trump’s New Political Weapon.
The Trump administration has a new weapon at its disposal in its efforts to take down Democrats and their appointees: mortgage records.
Members of the administration have now alleged three public officials have committed mortgage fraud, referring each to the Justice Department. The administration has signaled that it has just gotten started: U.S. Pardon Attorney Ed Martin was recently tapped “to investigate fraud by public officials in mortgages,” according to a letter Martin sent.
The targets have denied wrongdoing, but the probes represent an aggressive new spin on opposition research that has long dug into tax records and financial disclosures public officeholders have to make. Mortgage applications go beyond the typical disclosure requirements.
Another twist is the allegations are coming from a government official overseeing an agency able to access massive amounts of mortgage data.
At the forefront of the campaign is Bill Pulte, a homebuilder heir Trump tapped to lead the government agency that oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the largest players in the mortgage market.
At the historically quiet but powerful Federal Housing Finance Agency, Pulte has turned himself into a Trump attack ally, probing mortgages of prominent Democrats and a Biden-appointed official at the Federal Reserve.
So far, DOJ has announced investigations of Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook, Senator Adam Schiff, andNew York Attorney General Letitia James.
Heading into an election season, mortgage documents could become even more a source of contention across the country, for both sides of the aisle. Mortgage fraud allegations have also emerged against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican who is campaigning for a Senate seat. (Paxton’s campaign has declined to comment on his properties.)
Mick Mulvaney, a former chief of staff for Trump who had faced questions about taxes on his nanny when he was facing Senate confirmation, says the attacks are going to be part of the new normal for Republicans to use versus Democrats now.
“Right now it’s classified documents and mortgage applications,” Mulvaney said of the new opposition research. “Whether or not you pretend to need a wheelchair at an airport to get on the plane faster, that may be used next if that’s illegal.”
In other news, the troops (and FBI agents and ICE thugs) are still occupying Washington DC. Here’s the latest on that story.
CNN: Hegseth orders National Guard troops in DC to carry weapons.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered National Guard members patrolling the streets of Washington, DC, to begin carrying their service weapons as they fulfill President Donald Trump’s crime crackdown in the nation’s capital, according to a US defense official.
Taking off their helmets
The directive from Hegseth represents a notable shift in guidance from the Pentagon, which had previously indicated that National Guard members could be armed if the circumstances warranted, and suggests hundreds of guard troops deployed in DC will soon be carrying weapons despite serving in a support role.
“At the direction of the Secretary of Defense, (Joint Task Force) JTF-DC members supporting the mission to lower the crime rate in our Nation’s capital will soon be on mission with their service-issued weapons, consistent with their mission and training,” the official said….
It comes as other states’ National Guard members have begun arriving in Washington, DC, to be in-processed to assist the DC National Guard.
More than 1,900 troops from multiple states have been called up as part of the mission including from West Virginia, South Carolina, Mississippi, Ohio, Louisiana, and Tennessee National Guards, according to a release from Joint Task Force – DC on Thursday.
What could possibly go wrong? I wonder if Hegseth has heard about Kent State?
ABC News reports that National Guard troops will now be permitted to act as law enforcement: National Guard in DC to carry M17 pistols, conduct law enforcement duties, task force says.
National Guard troops deployed on the streets of Washington, D.C., will now carry weapons for personal protection and are allowed to carry out law enforcement duties, defense officials announced Friday.
The decision is an escalation in President Donald Trump’s use of military troops to address what he insists is “out of control” crime in the nation’s capital. Since his announcement, Trump has mobilized nearly 2,300 National Guard troops from Washington, D.C., and six states with Republican governors. But troops had remained unarmed until now.
ABC News first reported Friday that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had officially authorized the troops to carry weapons if their mission required it. On Friday, the joint task force overseeing the troops confirmed the move, noting that Guard personnel sent on missions would carry M17 pistols, “which are intended for person protection.” The task force said Guard members would receive proper training on how to use the weapons before being allowed to carry them.
“This decision is not something taken lightly,” said Army Brig. Gen. Leland D. Blanchard, III, the Commanding General of the D.C. National Guard, in a statement.
Flyball and the Venus Mouse.
Really? I think it is taken very lightly, considering there’s not as serious crime problem in DC and it’s illegal for the military to perform law enforcement functions in the U.S.
The task force also noted in its statement late Friday that Guard troops can carry out law enforcement duties because they are operating under Title 32 status, a law that exempts troops from restrictions under the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act, because they are still technically under a state governor’s command.
Legal experts have long warned about how presidents might use Title 32 as a kind of legal loophole to Posse Comitatus, which is supposed to prevent the president from using the military as a domestic police force. Under Title 32, a president pays for a Guard mission while keeping troops under control of the governors; in this case, Trump asked red-state governors to send their troops to D.C.
While those governors technically retain control of the troops, their missions are being decided by the White House, according to several administration officials.
Reuters: Trump crime crackdown deploys troops in Washington’s safest sites.
Hundreds of National Guard soldiers in military fatigues and combat boots mingled with tourists, posed for selfies, and treated themselves to ice cream from food trucks on Thursday along Washington’s National Mall, one of the safest parts of America’s capital.
On occasion an angry local would hurl verbal abuse at them, but the soldiers simply shrugged and carried on what appeared to be an undemanding assignment.
Outside the National Museum of African American History and Culture, five members of the West Virginia National Guard were standing on the street corner far away from the city’s crime hot spots.
A grateful rescued mouse.
“It’s boring. We’re not really doing much,” said Sergeant Fox, who declined to give his first name.
Fox is among almost 2,000 troops, including 1,200 from six Republican-led states, who are being deployed in Washington as part of an extraordinary militarization inside the Democratic-led city.
The soldiers, some of whom told Reuters they did not get involved in arrests, are officially in Washington to support a federal crackdown on what President Donald Trump calls a crime epidemic. But that depiction appears to run counter to the fact that crime rates overall have shrunk in recent years.
That disconnect, combined with the troop concentration near the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial and in view of the U.S. Capitol, highlights criticism by the city’s Democratic leaders that this massive deployment is more a show of power by Trump, rather than a serious effort to fight crime.No kidding.
This is something I hadn’t heard about before. Trump is also mobilizing National Guard troops in other parts of the country. The Independent: Trump mobilizing up to 1,700 National Guardsman in 19 states to widen crime and immigration crackdown.
The Trump administration reportedly plans to mobilize up to 1,700 National Guard troops across 19 states in the coming weeks to support its immigration and anti-crime crackdowns, a dramatic expansion of the controversial operation that’s seen federal agents and Guard troops carrying out activities across Washington, D.C.
The troops, who will largely be activated across Republican-controlled states, will serve in support of the administration’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations, as well as other law enforcement priorities, according to comment from unnamed Pentagon officials and documents obtained by Fox News.
Taking photos of the plants
The Guardsmen assisting ICE will be carrying out tasks that may include “personal data collection, fingerprinting, DNA swabbing and photographing of personnel in ICE custody,” an official told outlet.
The deployments will take place across the following states: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Wyoming, per Fox.
Texas is reportedly slated to have the largest deployment.
The Guardsmen will be serving under Title 32 Section 502F authority, in which they technically remain under state command and control, but can assist with federal missions and are paid with federal funds. The status allows them to avoid running afoul of a federal law limiting military involvement in domestic law enforcement.
Read more at the link.
Trump is also fantasizing about occupying Democratic cities like Chicago and New York. The Guardian: Trump targets Chicago and New York as Hegseth orders weapons for DC troops.
Donald Trump has threatened to take his federal crackdown on crime and city cleanliness to New York and Chicago, as the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, ordered that national guard troops patrolling the streets of Washington DC under federal control will now be armed.
The US president talked to reporters in the Oval Office and said: “When ready, we will start in Chicago … Chicago is a mess.” He added that then the administration “will help with New York”, amid the controversial and aggressive federal efforts to control leading Democratic-voting cities, each of which has a Black mayor….
Touching the telepathic moss.
On the issue of suddenly announcing that it would now arm the federalized troops in DC, the defense department did not immediately offer any other details about the new development or why it was needed.
The step is an escalation in the federal government’s rare intervention into policing in the nation’s capital and came as nearly 2,000 national guard members are stationed in the city.
Earlier this week hundreds of troops from several Republican-led states arrived to bolster the DC national guard.
The Pentagon and the US army had said last week that troops would not carry weapons.
There’s more information about the DC occupation in the Guardian article.
Hegseth’s orders come just a day after Jeanine Pirro, the District of Columbia’s top federal prosecutor, instructed prosecutors to pursue the most serious charges possible in cases stemming from recent arrests, limiting their discretion as the Trump administration intensifies its law enforcement presence in the capital.
That directive, first reported by the New York Times, was issued this week and narrows the ability of line prosecutors to decide how cases are charged and prioritized. By pushing for the maximum charges allowed, the new policy could lead to longer prison terms for convicted defendants….
According to the White House, federal agents have made more than 630 arrests as of Thursday, though the justice department has not clarified how that figure compares with typical city police numbers.
While Pirro has committed to filing the toughest charges possible in most cases, she has also relaxed enforcement of one local gun law. This week she directed prosecutors not to pursue felony charges against people for possessing rifles or shotguns in the city, despite a DC law prohibiting them.
Finally:
On Thursday, Trump declared his takeover of the Metropolitan police department to be a success.
He had previously signaled that he would target other cities, such as Baltimore, Oakland and another mission in Los Angeles, as well as New York and Chicago, which are all strongly Democratic-voting and run by Black mayors. The Maryland governor, Wes Moore, said to CNN that crime was dropping in Baltimore as a result of community violence prevention efforts and he would never activate the national guard “for theatrics”.
Yeah, right.
A few more interesting stories to check out today:
NBC News: Kilmar Abrego Garcia notified by ICE that he may be deported to Uganda.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the man who was wrongfully deported to a high-security prison in El Salvador, was notified by immigration authorities that he may be deported to Uganda, less than 24 hours after his release from federal custody.
Abrego was released Friday from a jail near Nashville, Tennessee, where he had been held since his return to the U.S. in June after being mistakenly deported to El Salvador’s CECOT prison.
Flyball’s first vegetarian meal.
Immigration authorities were expected to attempt to deport Abrego upon his release. Abrego “may be removed to Uganda no less than 72 hours absent weekends,” a source familiar with the case told NBC News on Saturday.
That is in line with standard procedure that ICE must give immigrants 72 hours notice before removing them to third countries.
Abrego, originally from El Salvador, had a withholding of removal order from 2019 that prevents his deportation to his home country due to concerns that he would be persecuted by violent gangs.
The removal order was violated when the Trump administration accidentally deported Abrego to the El Salvador’s CECOT prison, notorious for its harsh conditions, in March. However, the 2019 protective order does not bar Abrego from being deported to another country.
Abrego’s lawyers have now notified the judge in the Middle District of Tennessee that ICE has informed Abrego of its intent to deport him to Uganda. Abrego could not face the criminal charges of human smuggling brought against him by DOJ in that case if he is out of the country.
They are never going to leave this poor man alone.
AP: Judge blocks Trump from cutting money to Chicago, LA and other cities over ‘sanctuary’ policies.
A judge ruled late Friday the Trump administration cannot deny funding to Boston, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles and 30 other cities and counties because of policies that limit cooperation with federal immigration efforts.
U.S. District Judge William Orrick in San Francisco extended a preliminary injunction blocking the administration from cutting off or conditioning the use of federal funds for so-called “sanctuary” jurisdictions. His earlier order protected more than a dozen other cities and counties, including San Francisco, Portland and Seattle.
An email to the White House late Friday was not immediately returned. In his ruling, Orrick said the administration had offered no opposition to an extended injunction except to say the first injunction was wrong. It has appealed the first order.
Orrick also blocked the administration from imposing immigration-related conditions on two particular grant programs.
More at the link.
Newsweek: Florida Locals Defy Ron DeSantis By Restoring Pulse Rainbow Crosswalk.
People in Orlando have defied Republican Governor Ron DeSantis and reinstated a rainbow crosswalk outside the Pulse nightclub, after Florida officials removed the painted crossing installed in memory of the 49 people killed at the site in 2016.
Fleeing the ammonia storm.
The restoration was led by local community members and LGBTQ+ advocates who gathered at the intersection following the overnight state-directed repainting. In a video shared to social media by the account @jeremy_rodrigue, people can be seen DIY-ing the rainbow crosswalk and drawing the colors back onto the ground.
“While this attack was meant to demoralize us and push us back in the closet, Orlando refused to be erased,” Democratic state Senator Carlos Guillermo Smith, who became the first openly gay Latino elected to the Florida legislature in 2016, told Newsweek. “It was inspiring to see so many local residents spring into action in response to the Governor’s cowardly abuse of power.” [….]
The removal of the rainbow crosswalk— painted in 2017 and approved during the administration of former Republican Governor Rick Scott—has sparked fierce backlash from city officials, survivors, and LGBTQ+ organizations who say it was eliminated in the dead of night with no warning.
The crosswalk was painted over following a directive from the Trump administration. In a letter to governors last month, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy instructed states to “eliminate” distractions on public roads. He wrote on X at the time: “Taxpayers expect their dollars to fund safe streets, not rainbow crosswalks.”
That’s it for me today. I’m going to try to ignore the news for awhile. Please take care of yourselves, everyone.
#catArt #caturday #DonaldTrump #FascistCrackdownOnWashingtonDC #JeaninePirro #JohnBolton #KilmarAbregoGarcia #mortgageFraud #NationalGuardTroopsInCities #PeteHegseth #PulseNighclub #rainbowCrosswalk #sanctuaryCities #SpaceCatVisitsVenus
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Judge blocks #Trump from cutting #funding from 34 #cities & counties over ‘#sanctuary’ policies
A judge ruled late Friday the Trump admin cannot deny funding to #Boston, #Chicago, #Denver, #LosAngeles & 30 other cities & counties because of policies that limit cooperation with federal #immigration efforts.
#law #SanctuaryCities #ExecutiveOverreach #AbuseOfPower #Federal #States
https://apnews.com/article/trump-sanctuary-cities-immigrants-chicago-los-angeles-a39891a127c06a6062d74ac2eac50544 -
#CommunityDefense Groups Take the Last Stand Against #ICE in #LA
Organizers argue that LA’s #sanctuary laws aren’t enough to keep their #immigrant neighbors safe.
By Claudia Villalona, June 21, 2025
"Across #LosAngeles County, ICE’s operations played out differently. When combat-ready federal agents gathered in large numbers at staging areas in Paramount and Compton on June 8, protesters swiftly mobilized collective resistance efforts and emergency patrols. Agents responded to large crowds with #TearGas, #FlashBangs, and so-called 'less-lethal' weapons.
"Organizers maintain that this grassroots mobilization sabotaged enforcement operations, putting agents on the defensive and preventing them from conducting raids for the rest of the day.
"As ICE raids escalated across Los Angeles in early June, sending #protesters into the streets and immigrant communities into hiding, the contrast between how the consequential weekend unfolded in different parts of the city was stark. Divergent outcomes in majority #Latino areas further east with a long history of organizing and those largely disconnected from grassroots support highlighted the crucial role of #CommunityLedDefense in the absence of meaningful government protection.
"Unlike Compton or Paramount, the airport-adjacent Westchester is geographically and socially isolated from more established community organizing networks. And while LA’s sanctuary laws prohibit local #police from working with ICE, organizers argue that the local law enforcement agencies can’t be trusted to keep immigrants safe.
" 'Workers need to know their rights, whether it’s at the workplace or at their home, and they feel empowered to exercise those rights,' said Flor Melendrez, executive director of the labor advocacy group CLEAN #Carwash Worker Center. Car wash workers, street vendors, and day laborers working in high-visibility, outdoor spaces face heightened risk for arrests as 'easy targets' for ICE raids, while often lacking access to critical resources and workplace protections. Organizers said more than 26 car wash workers were arrested across at least six businesses in the set of raids began on June 6."
https://theintercept.com/2025/06/21/los-angeles-ice-raids-immigrants-organizing/
Archived version:
https://archive.ph/YpyRV#ResistICE #ResistFascism #USPol #ACAB #WeProtectOurselves #WeKeepUsSafe #LAResists #SanctuaryCity #ICERaids #FuckICE
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#CommunityDefense Groups Take the Last Stand Against #ICE in #LA
Organizers argue that LA’s #sanctuary laws aren’t enough to keep their #immigrant neighbors safe.
By Claudia Villalona, June 21, 2025
"Across #LosAngeles County, ICE’s operations played out differently. When combat-ready federal agents gathered in large numbers at staging areas in Paramount and Compton on June 8, protesters swiftly mobilized collective resistance efforts and emergency patrols. Agents responded to large crowds with #TearGas, #FlashBangs, and so-called 'less-lethal' weapons.
"Organizers maintain that this grassroots mobilization sabotaged enforcement operations, putting agents on the defensive and preventing them from conducting raids for the rest of the day.
"As ICE raids escalated across Los Angeles in early June, sending #protesters into the streets and immigrant communities into hiding, the contrast between how the consequential weekend unfolded in different parts of the city was stark. Divergent outcomes in majority #Latino areas further east with a long history of organizing and those largely disconnected from grassroots support highlighted the crucial role of #CommunityLedDefense in the absence of meaningful government protection.
"Unlike Compton or Paramount, the airport-adjacent Westchester is geographically and socially isolated from more established community organizing networks. And while LA’s sanctuary laws prohibit local #police from working with ICE, organizers argue that the local law enforcement agencies can’t be trusted to keep immigrants safe.
" 'Workers need to know their rights, whether it’s at the workplace or at their home, and they feel empowered to exercise those rights,' said Flor Melendrez, executive director of the labor advocacy group CLEAN #Carwash Worker Center. Car wash workers, street vendors, and day laborers working in high-visibility, outdoor spaces face heightened risk for arrests as 'easy targets' for ICE raids, while often lacking access to critical resources and workplace protections. Organizers said more than 26 car wash workers were arrested across at least six businesses in the set of raids began on June 6."
https://theintercept.com/2025/06/21/los-angeles-ice-raids-immigrants-organizing/
Archived version:
https://archive.ph/YpyRV#ResistICE #ResistFascism #USPol #ACAB #WeProtectOurselves #WeKeepUsSafe #LAResists #SanctuaryCity #ICERaids #FuckICE
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#CommunityDefense Groups Take the Last Stand Against #ICE in #LA
Organizers argue that LA’s #sanctuary laws aren’t enough to keep their #immigrant neighbors safe.
By Claudia Villalona, June 21, 2025
"Across #LosAngeles County, ICE’s operations played out differently. When combat-ready federal agents gathered in large numbers at staging areas in Paramount and Compton on June 8, protesters swiftly mobilized collective resistance efforts and emergency patrols. Agents responded to large crowds with #TearGas, #FlashBangs, and so-called 'less-lethal' weapons.
"Organizers maintain that this grassroots mobilization sabotaged enforcement operations, putting agents on the defensive and preventing them from conducting raids for the rest of the day.
"As ICE raids escalated across Los Angeles in early June, sending #protesters into the streets and immigrant communities into hiding, the contrast between how the consequential weekend unfolded in different parts of the city was stark. Divergent outcomes in majority #Latino areas further east with a long history of organizing and those largely disconnected from grassroots support highlighted the crucial role of #CommunityLedDefense in the absence of meaningful government protection.
"Unlike Compton or Paramount, the airport-adjacent Westchester is geographically and socially isolated from more established community organizing networks. And while LA’s sanctuary laws prohibit local #police from working with ICE, organizers argue that the local law enforcement agencies can’t be trusted to keep immigrants safe.
" 'Workers need to know their rights, whether it’s at the workplace or at their home, and they feel empowered to exercise those rights,' said Flor Melendrez, executive director of the labor advocacy group CLEAN #Carwash Worker Center. Car wash workers, street vendors, and day laborers working in high-visibility, outdoor spaces face heightened risk for arrests as 'easy targets' for ICE raids, while often lacking access to critical resources and workplace protections. Organizers said more than 26 car wash workers were arrested across at least six businesses in the set of raids began on June 6."
https://theintercept.com/2025/06/21/los-angeles-ice-raids-immigrants-organizing/
Archived version:
https://archive.ph/YpyRV#ResistICE #ResistFascism #USPol #ACAB #WeProtectOurselves #WeKeepUsSafe #LAResists #SanctuaryCity #ICERaids #FuckICE
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#CommunityDefense Groups Take the Last Stand Against #ICE in #LA
Organizers argue that LA’s #sanctuary laws aren’t enough to keep their #immigrant neighbors safe.
By Claudia Villalona, June 21, 2025
"Across #LosAngeles County, ICE’s operations played out differently. When combat-ready federal agents gathered in large numbers at staging areas in Paramount and Compton on June 8, protesters swiftly mobilized collective resistance efforts and emergency patrols. Agents responded to large crowds with #TearGas, #FlashBangs, and so-called 'less-lethal' weapons.
"Organizers maintain that this grassroots mobilization sabotaged enforcement operations, putting agents on the defensive and preventing them from conducting raids for the rest of the day.
"As ICE raids escalated across Los Angeles in early June, sending #protesters into the streets and immigrant communities into hiding, the contrast between how the consequential weekend unfolded in different parts of the city was stark. Divergent outcomes in majority #Latino areas further east with a long history of organizing and those largely disconnected from grassroots support highlighted the crucial role of #CommunityLedDefense in the absence of meaningful government protection.
"Unlike Compton or Paramount, the airport-adjacent Westchester is geographically and socially isolated from more established community organizing networks. And while LA’s sanctuary laws prohibit local #police from working with ICE, organizers argue that the local law enforcement agencies can’t be trusted to keep immigrants safe.
" 'Workers need to know their rights, whether it’s at the workplace or at their home, and they feel empowered to exercise those rights,' said Flor Melendrez, executive director of the labor advocacy group CLEAN #Carwash Worker Center. Car wash workers, street vendors, and day laborers working in high-visibility, outdoor spaces face heightened risk for arrests as 'easy targets' for ICE raids, while often lacking access to critical resources and workplace protections. Organizers said more than 26 car wash workers were arrested across at least six businesses in the set of raids began on June 6."
https://theintercept.com/2025/06/21/los-angeles-ice-raids-immigrants-organizing/
Archived version:
https://archive.ph/YpyRV#ResistICE #ResistFascism #USPol #ACAB #WeProtectOurselves #WeKeepUsSafe #LAResists #SanctuaryCity #ICERaids #FuckICE
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Immigration and child advocacy groups in Texas say recent policy changes under President Donald Trump will harm mixed-status families and children.
#Border #Houston #Immigration #Local #News #BidenImmigrationPolicies #ChildrenAtRisk #DonaldTrump #ImmigrationEnforcement #SanctuaryCities #TrumpImmigrationPolicy
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Tijdens de Raad Programmabegroting van donderdag 7 november dienden wij maar liefst zeven voorstellen in onder de noemer ‘Utrecht Vrijhavenstad’. Een ‘Vrijhavenstad’, internationaal bekend als ‘Sanctuary City’, is in onze visie een stad waar iedereen, ongeacht verblijfsstatus of papieren, recht heeft op een menswaardige behandeling en bescherming tegen uitzetting en landelijk #immigratiebeleid dat #mensenrechten schendt. Deze voorstellen betroffen dan ook alle (❕) ongedocumenteerde #mensen, zonder onderscheid tussen mensen met of zonder perspectief.
In tijden van #klimaatrampen, #oorlog, #honger en andere kapitalistische uitwassen zoeken steeds meer mensen een veilige plek om te leven. #Utrecht, als zelfverklaarde #Mensenrechtenstad, moet laten zien dat een andere wereld mogelijk is. Wij stelden daarom voor om:
🛏️ Meer #opvang en begeleiding te bieden aan ongedocumenteerde mensen en ervoor zorgen dat dit wordt afgestemd op de daadwerkelijke vraag in plaats van op het bestaande aanbod.
🩺 Toegang tot niet-acute medische #zorg mogelijk te maken, zoals #tandheelkunde, #abortuszorg en #GGZ, en #tolken in de zorg te vergoeden zodat taalbarrières geen obstakel meer vormen.
📩 #Zorgverleners jaarlijks te informeren over hun #zorgplicht en waar zij gemaakte kosten kunnen declareren, zodat iedereen de zorg krijgt die nodig is.
🔍 Onderzoek te doen naar de positie en behoeften van ongedocumenteerde mensen in onze stad om het beleid beter af te stemmen op de realiteit.
🏙️ Utrecht uit te roepen tot #Vrijhavenstad, waar alle mensen, ongeacht hun status, recht hebben op bescherming en een menswaardige behandeling, en te lobbyen bij andere gemeenten hetzelfde te doen.
> 1 van 2 >
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> 1 van 2 >
Tijdens de Raad Programmabegroting van donderdag 7 november dienden wij maar liefst zeven voorstellen in onder de noemer ‘Utrecht Vrijhavenstad’. Een ‘Vrijhavenstad’, internationaal bekend als ‘Sanctuary City’, is in onze visie een stad waar iedereen, ongeacht verblijfsstatus of papieren, recht heeft op een menswaardige behandeling en bescherming tegen uitzetting en landelijk #immigratiebeleid dat #mensenrechten schendt. Deze voorstellen betroffen dan ook alle (❕) ongedocumenteerde #mensen, zonder onderscheid tussen mensen met of zonder perspectief.
In tijden van #klimaatrampen, #oorlog, #honger en andere kapitalistische uitwassen zoeken steeds meer mensen een veilige plek om te leven. #Utrecht, als zelfverklaarde #Mensenrechtenstad, moet laten zien dat een andere wereld mogelijk is. Wij stelden daarom voor om:
🛏️ Meer #opvang en begeleiding te bieden aan ongedocumenteerde mensen en ervoor zorgen dat dit wordt afgestemd op de daadwerkelijke vraag in plaats van op het bestaande aanbod.
🩺 Toegang tot niet-acute medische #zorg mogelijk te maken, zoals #tandheelkunde, #abortuszorg en #GGZ, en #tolken in de zorg te vergoeden zodat taalbarrières geen obstakel meer vormen.
📩 #Zorgverleners jaarlijks te informeren over hun #zorgplicht en waar zij gemaakte kosten kunnen declareren, zodat iedereen de zorg krijgt die nodig is.
🔍 Onderzoek te doen naar de positie en behoeften van ongedocumenteerde mensen in onze stad om het beleid beter af te stemmen op de realiteit.
🏙️ Utrecht uit te roepen tot #Vrijhavenstad, waar alle mensen, ongeacht hun status, recht hebben op bescherming en een menswaardige behandeling, en te lobbyen bij andere gemeenten hetzelfde te doen.
> 1 van 2 >
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> 1 van 2 >
Tijdens de Raad Programmabegroting van donderdag 7 november dienden wij maar liefst zeven voorstellen in onder de noemer ‘Utrecht Vrijhavenstad’. Een ‘Vrijhavenstad’, internationaal bekend als ‘Sanctuary City’, is in onze visie een stad waar iedereen, ongeacht verblijfsstatus of papieren, recht heeft op een menswaardige behandeling en bescherming tegen uitzetting en landelijk #immigratiebeleid dat #mensenrechten schendt. Deze voorstellen betroffen dan ook alle (❕) ongedocumenteerde #mensen, zonder onderscheid tussen mensen met of zonder perspectief.
In tijden van #klimaatrampen, #oorlog, #honger en andere kapitalistische uitwassen zoeken steeds meer mensen een veilige plek om te leven. #Utrecht, als zelfverklaarde #Mensenrechtenstad, moet laten zien dat een andere wereld mogelijk is. Wij stelden daarom voor om:
🛏️ Meer #opvang en begeleiding te bieden aan ongedocumenteerde mensen en ervoor zorgen dat dit wordt afgestemd op de daadwerkelijke vraag in plaats van op het bestaande aanbod.
🩺 Toegang tot niet-acute medische #zorg mogelijk te maken, zoals #tandheelkunde, #abortuszorg en #GGZ, en #tolken in de zorg te vergoeden zodat taalbarrières geen obstakel meer vormen.
📩 #Zorgverleners jaarlijks te informeren over hun #zorgplicht en waar zij gemaakte kosten kunnen declareren, zodat iedereen de zorg krijgt die nodig is.
🔍 Onderzoek te doen naar de positie en behoeften van ongedocumenteerde mensen in onze stad om het beleid beter af te stemmen op de realiteit.
🏙️ Utrecht uit te roepen tot #Vrijhavenstad, waar alle mensen, ongeacht hun status, recht hebben op bescherming en een menswaardige behandeling, en te lobbyen bij andere gemeenten hetzelfde te doen.
> 1 van 2 >
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> 1 van 2 >
Tijdens de Raad Programmabegroting van donderdag 7 november dienden wij maar liefst zeven voorstellen in onder de noemer ‘Utrecht Vrijhavenstad’. Een ‘Vrijhavenstad’, internationaal bekend als ‘Sanctuary City’, is in onze visie een stad waar iedereen, ongeacht verblijfsstatus of papieren, recht heeft op een menswaardige behandeling en bescherming tegen uitzetting en landelijk #immigratiebeleid dat #mensenrechten schendt. Deze voorstellen betroffen dan ook alle (❕) ongedocumenteerde #mensen, zonder onderscheid tussen mensen met of zonder perspectief.
In tijden van #klimaatrampen, #oorlog, #honger en andere kapitalistische uitwassen zoeken steeds meer mensen een veilige plek om te leven. #Utrecht, als zelfverklaarde #Mensenrechtenstad, moet laten zien dat een andere wereld mogelijk is. Wij stelden daarom voor om:
🛏️ Meer #opvang en begeleiding te bieden aan ongedocumenteerde mensen en ervoor zorgen dat dit wordt afgestemd op de daadwerkelijke vraag in plaats van op het bestaande aanbod.
🩺 Toegang tot niet-acute medische #zorg mogelijk te maken, zoals #tandheelkunde, #abortuszorg en #GGZ, en #tolken in de zorg te vergoeden zodat taalbarrières geen obstakel meer vormen.
📩 #Zorgverleners jaarlijks te informeren over hun #zorgplicht en waar zij gemaakte kosten kunnen declareren, zodat iedereen de zorg krijgt die nodig is.
🔍 Onderzoek te doen naar de positie en behoeften van ongedocumenteerde mensen in onze stad om het beleid beter af te stemmen op de realiteit.
🏙️ Utrecht uit te roepen tot #Vrijhavenstad, waar alle mensen, ongeacht hun status, recht hebben op bescherming en een menswaardige behandeling, en te lobbyen bij andere gemeenten hetzelfde te doen.
> 1 van 2 >
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#Protect #TransKids! How You Can #Help.
Watching my #legislators #strip my community of our #rights has been #devastating though ultimately #unsurprising. Many of us have only ever felt a very #tenuous #safety #living in #Texas, if any at all.
#Women #Transgender #LGBTQ #LGBTQIA #Texas #SanctuaryCities #Allies #Conservatives #Extremism #Fascism #RepublicanParty #Hate #Bigotry #Violence #Genocide #Discrimination #Transphobia #ThePartyOfHate
https://www.hercampus.com/school/texas/pinch-of-politics-protect-trans-kids-how-you-can-help/ -
#Protect #TransKids! How You Can #Help.
Watching my #legislators #strip my community of our #rights has been #devastating though ultimately #unsurprising. Many of us have only ever felt a very #tenuous #safety #living in #Texas, if any at all.
#Women #Transgender #LGBTQ #LGBTQIA #Texas #SanctuaryCities #Allies #Conservatives #Extremism #Fascism #RepublicanParty #Hate #Bigotry #Violence #Genocide #Discrimination #Transphobia #ThePartyOfHate
https://www.hercampus.com/school/texas/pinch-of-politics-protect-trans-kids-how-you-can-help/