immigration hypocrisy

 

If President Donald Trump believes in anything, it must be in the imperative to expel every single immigrant living in the country illegally, right?

 

This is one of his core commitments to the MAGA coalition. It’s why he hired ethno-nationalist Stephen Miller as a deputy chief of staff for policy — to reassure his followers that he will stop at nothing to shield them from the murderous filthy criminals lurking just beyond America’s borders. It’s why his border czar, Tom Homan, promised “more worksite enforcement than you’ve ever seen in the history of this nation” to flush unauthorized immigrants from the workforce.

 

The MAGA true believers overlook the fact that Trump’s first and third wives were born in other countries, his mother was born in Scotland, his paternal grandfather was born in Germany, and Melania’s parent were able to enter our country because of a policy known as “chain migration”.

 

Stephen Miller’s grandparents, of course, were Jewish refugees who came here just prior to the stare of WWI. Miller was born on August 23, 1985, in Santa Monica, California, where he was raised, the second of three children in the Jewish family of Michael D. Miller, a real estate investor, and Miriam (née Glosser) His mother's ancestors Louis W. Glosser (originally named Wolf-Lieb Glosser or Glatzer/Glotzer) and his wife Bessie emigrated to the United States from the Russian Empire's Antopol, in what is urrently Belarus, escaping the 1903–06 anti-Jewish pogroms in Belarus and other parts of the Russian Empire. When his great-grandmother arrived in the U.S. in 1906, she spoke only Yiddish, the historical language of the Ashkenazi Jews of Eastern Europe. Miller's uncle recalls that, when Wolf-Lieb Glosser reached Ellis Island on January 7, 1903, with $8 to his name, "though fluent in Polish, Russian and Yiddish, he understood no English.

And speaking of Stephen Miller .... 

Stephen Miller Has Financial Stake in Company Helping ICE With Deportations: Report

 White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller's obsession with kicking millions of undocumented immigrants out of the country is a byproduct of his hateful ethnonationalism - but he also stands to make a pretty penny off the administration's deportation agenda.

According to ethics disclosure reports released by the White House, Miller owns between $100,000 and $250,000 worth of stock in Palantir, Peter Thiel's data and intelligence software company that has a several lucrative contracts with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to track data and conduct surveillance on undocumented immigrants. It's a pretty clear conflict of interest from the man behind much of Donald Trump's immigration policy, in an administration that is already rife with corruption.

A Project on Government Oversight (POGO) analysis of disclosures from several administration  figures found that Miller and at least 11 other White House officials and staffers own stock in Palantir, including Gregory Barbaccia, Trump's Chief Information Officer. 

Miller's stake is tucked away in a brokerage account for one of his three young children, all of which are under the age of six. The single degree of separation is still a potential violation of ethics laws. 

Palantir has been a critical player in the Trump administration's efforts to execute the mass deportation of undocumented migrants. The company received a $41 million government contract in 2014, and created custom software for ICE, referred to as Investigative Case Management (ICM). The platform synthesizes massive troves of data on undocumented migrants from various federal and private law enforcement agencies, creating extremely detailed files that are used to craft deportation cases on individuals, and locate them for arrest and detention. 

According to an April report from Wired, ICE awarded Palantir another $30 million contract to create tracking software aimed at providing the agency with "near real-time visibility" into migrants engaging in "self deportation." According to documents obtained by Wired, one of the core functions of the program - dubbed ImmigrationOS - would be to streamline and prioritize "selection and apprehension operations of illegal aliens." The documents noted that one of the difficulties in creating the program was limited access to the biometric data of migrants. 

Last month, reports emerged that Miller had yelled at regional ICE field officers because they weren't rounding up and deporting people fast enough, demanding they achieve a target of 3,000 arrests a day. 

What's becoming clear is that immigration enforcement officials are no longer carefully sifting through data on undocumented migrants in order to round up the criminals that Trump promised would be the primary targets of his crackdown, but casting a drag net over entire communities. 

Several citizens and lawful residents have reportedly been swept up in ICE raids - some held in detention for days or weeks without explanation. One woman, a citizen who was arrested alongside her undocumented husband by immigration authorities, was detained in her ninth month of pregnancy and hospitalized with pains after her release. Another undocumented woman, Iris Dayana Monterroso-Lemus, miscarried in her fifth month of pregnancy after days of pleading with guards at the detention facility she was taken to for medical attention. 

This is what Miller and the Trump administration have desired for some time. According to former Trump Department of Homeland Security appointee Miles Taylor, Miller once proposed using predator drones to "obliterate" ships carrying migrants seeking to land on U.S. soil. It should be no surprise that as Miller moves to fulfill his most vile nativist anti-immigrant fantasies, he's ensured himself a cut of the profits. 

Trump’s stance on immigration is all for show. The swarm of agents from the Department of Homeland Security at a Home Depot in Los Angeles was a performance. Like presidents over at least four decades, Trump understands the business rationale for protecting America’s large and vibrant illegal workforce. He will do nothing to undermine it.

 

There is a little secret that everybody in the immigration enforcement business knows: We have effective tools to prevent unauthorized workers from working. They are not as telegenic as agents in tactical vests running across a Home Depot parking lot to catch a dozen skinny guys hoping to land a plumbing gig. But these tools do have a track record of curbing the incentive that draws people from around the world: available jobs.

That these tools have not been fully deployed underscores the fundamental hypocrisy behind America’s immigration policy. Voters may say they want illegal immigrants to go away. But moms and dads looking for child care, retirees seeking a caretaker, home builders and farmers and landscapers, and everyday shoppers picking up strawberries for their kids’ breakfast — all these people rely on unauthorized immigrants’ for their work.

The table below show the employment figures of unauthorized immigrants in various occupations, but you will notice that the majority of them are in the construction trades. If you did a little deeper, you’ll discover that America already has a shortage of affordable housing, and Trump’s policies will only make that worse.

Occupations with the highest share of unauthorized workers

 

Drywall installers

33%

Roofers

32

Painters and paperhangers

28

Other agricultural workers

24

Construction laborers

24

Maids and housekeepers

24

Tile installers

23

Masons

21

Landscaping workers

18

Carpenters

18

Packaging and filling operators

18

Sewing machine operators

18

Laundry and dry-cleaning workers

16

Packers & packagers, hand

15

Food processing workers, all other

14

Dishwashers

13

Manicurists and pedicurists

13

Butchers

13

Chefs and head cooks

12

Taxi drivers

12

Cooks

12

Software developers

12

Tree trimmers and pruners

12

Painting workers

12

Janitors and building cleaners

11

Vehicle and equipment cleaners

11

Housekeeping and janitorial supervisors

10

Total, civilian labor force

 www https://.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/06/24/trump-immigration-policy-hypocrisy/

 

Do you remember when Trump said that he was going to drain the swap?

Ironically, the current plans are to construct a massive immigration center in Florida – in a swamp.

Florida is building a detention facility for migrants nicknamed “Alligator Alcatraz,” turning an airfield in the Everglades into the newest — and scariest-sounding — holding center designed to help the Trump administration carry out its immigration crackdown.

The remote facility, composed of large tents, and other planned facilities will cost the state around $450 million a year to run, but Florida can request some reimbursement from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security.

Florida’s attorney general, James Uthmeier, a Trump ally who has pushed to build the detention center in the Everglades, has said the state will not need to invest much in security because the area is surrounded by dangerous wildlife, including alligators and pythons. A spokesperson for the attorney general said work on the new facility started on Monday morning.

 The project is sure to appeal to President Trump, who talked repeatedly during his first term about building a moat along the southern border filled with alligators or snakes. As he pushed for a wall to keep migrants out, he urged officials to build it with spikes, razor wire and black paint to ensure that it would serve as a deterrent, the more terrifying-looking the better.

 The Trump administration is currently holding about 55,000 immigrants, a spike from the end of the Biden administration, when Immigration and Customs Enforcement was holding about 40,000 people.

Trump officials have been pushing Congress to help pay for more funding to expand detention capacity even further. Tom Homan, Mr. Trump’s border czar, has said that the number of detention beds available will dictate the number of deportations that the administration will be able to hit this year.

 https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2025/06/24/florida-desantis-ice-detention-center-everglades/

I’ve written fairly extensive about immigration issues before, but the one that came to mind this morning was the bracero program that started during WWII. Since many of our able-bodied men were now serving in the miliary, produce growers in various states needed someone to pick their crops, so they turned to Mexico for help.

https://tohell-andback.blogspot.com/2021/03/those-darn-mexicans.html

Going back further in time, we used Irish immigrants to build the Erie canal, and there were an awfully lot of foreign-born immigrants who worked on our skyscrapers in the 1930’s.

Trump’s deportation plans are not going as smoothly as he would like. For one thing, he has suffered a number of court cases on immigration.

In addition, individual citizens, as well as corporations, have resisted his efforts. Just last week in Los Angeles, official for the Los Angeles Dodgers did not allow members of ICE to enter the stadium.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qAnSkkpLe0

We’d all love to see Stephen Miller get deported to a remote island, but that is not likely going to happen. Even if he manages to stay in the country, we’ll eventually revert back to a more rational approach on immigration, even if it takes an election or two to get there.

I’m looking forward to it.

 

 

 

immigration man - part 2

 

Immigration Man" is a song written by Graham Nash and recorded by David Crosby and Graham Nash, released as a single in March 1972. It was the lead single for the duo's debut album, Graham Nash David Crosby. It peaked at No. 36 on the Billboard Hot 100, and is their only Top 40 hit as a duo.

Nash wrote "Immigration Man" about an unfortunate moment he had with a U.S. Customs official when he tried to enter the country. The customs official held him up interminably, and soon people started coming up to Nash for his autograph. When that happened, Nash was allowed to go through, but he remained angry with the treatment he received.

"I'm not against local colour," Nash explained in discussing the song, "but why should you fight me just because you speak differently than I do?" Nash also explained why he chose a picture of the earth from space for the cover of the sheet music for "Immigration Man." "When you look at a photograph of the earth you don't see any borders. That realisation is where our hope as a planet lies." Nash himself became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1978.

Record World said that "there's a message in this lyric, but the overall sound will be more important" and that the "harmonies stand out”

If you would like to hear the song again, here it is:

Immigration Man (Remastered Version)

Throughout our nation’s history, we have had an uneasy relationships with immigrants.

I have written numerous stories about immigrants, but this is the one that was inspired by Graham Nash:

https://tohell-andback.blogspot.com/2011/11/immigration-man.html

Even before he was elected, Trump promised the largest deportation plan in our nation’s history. Apart from the fact that a large number of people employed in agriculture, hospitality, and construction industries are not legal immigrants, Trump plan would be horribly expensive.

 

Former President Donald Trump has vowed, if he's elected, to conduct a large-scale deportation operation that some immigration and military experts agree is theoretically possible but also problematic, and could cost tens -- even hundreds -- of billions a year.

In FY 2023, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers conducted 170,590 administrative arrests, representing a 19.5% increase over the previous year, and more than any year of the Trump presidency.

Should he win a second term, Trump has promised to exponentially increase this work and suggested deporting all of the estimated 11 million people living in this country without legal immigration status.

His team, at various points, has suggested starting with "criminals," though they have provided few specifics about who would be prioritized.

A new report from the American Immigration Council, an immigration rights research and policy firm, estimates that to deport even one million undocumented immigrants a year would cost over $88 billion dollars annually, for a total of $967.9 billion over more than ten years.

The report acknowledges there are significant cost variables depending on how such an operation would be conducted and says its estimate does not take into account the loss of tax revenue from workers nor the bigger economic loss if people self-deport and American businesses lose labor.

A one-time effort to deport even more people in one year annually could cost around $315 billion, the report estimates, including about $167 billion to detain immigrants en masse.

The two largest costs, according to the group, would be hiring additional personal to carry out deportation raids and constructing and staffing mass detention centers. "There would be no way to accomplish this mission without mass detention as an interim step," the report reads.

Trump campaign official agree one of the biggest logistical hurdles in any mass deportation effort would be constructing and staffing new detention centers as an interim solution.

Stephen Miller, a senior adviser to Trump, has repeatedly said that should Trump win the White House, his team plans to construct facilities to hold between 50,000 – 70,000 people. By comparison, the entire U.S. prison and jail population in 2022, comprising every person held in local, county, state, and federal . The American Immigration Council report estimates that to deport one million immigrants a year would require the United States to "build and maintain 24 times more ICE detention capacity than currently exists."

There are currently an estimated 1.1 million undocumented immigrants in the country who have received "final orders of removal." Those individuals, in theory, could be removed immediately by ICE agents, but because of limited resources ICE agents have instead focused lately on those people who have recently arrived or who have dangerous crimes

"I think it is possible that they could execute on this. The human resources would be the hardest for them to overcome. They would have to pull ICE agents from the border if they want to go into cities," Katie Tobin, a scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace who served as President Joe Biden's top migration adviser in the National Security Council, told ABC News.

ICE agents currently help Customs and Border Patrol agents on the border, carrying out expedited deportations of new arrivals who have recently crossed into the country illegally and provide logistical support to the Department of Homeland Security.

A new mandate to round up and deport individuals who have been living in the country for some time could mark a significant change for the law enforcement agency.

The American Immigration Council report estimates that to carry out even one million deportations a year, ICE would need to hire around 30,000 new officers, "instantly making it the largest law enforcement agency in the federal government," the report reads.

 

Trump campaign: Deportation cost less than migrant costs

The Trump campaign has argued the cost of deportation "pales in comparison" to other costs associated housing and providing social services to recent migrants. "Kamala's border invasion is unsustainable and is already tearing apart the fabric of our society. Mass deportations of illegal immigrant criminals, and restoring an orderly immigration system, are the only way to solve this crisis," Karoline Leavitt, national press secretary for Trump's campaign, told ABC News in a statement.

Trump has promised to mobilize and federalize National Guard units to help with the deportation effort, which would likely be a first for the military.

Under U.S. law, military units are barred from engaging in domestic law enforcement, although Trump has proposed invoking the Insurrection Act, a sweeping law, that could give him broader powers to direct National Guard units as he sees fit.

(Courts have recently ruled that the Insurrection Act cannot be used to deport people to other countries )

"We don't like uniform military in our domestic affairs at all," William Banks, professor at Syracuse University and Founding Director of the Institute on National Security and Counter Terrorism, told ABC News in a phone interview. "The default is always have the civilians do it. The cops, the state police, the city police, the sheriffs," he went on.

Using the military for domestic law enforcement would be a fundamental shift, one which Banks argues too few Americans have considered or grappled with.

"It would turn out whole society upside down … all these arguments about him being an autocrat or dictator, it is not a stretch," he said. For example, uniformed military officers are not trained in law enforcement and if they were asked to conduct civilian arrests there could be significant civil liberties conflicts and violations.

In order to, target and deport immigrants whose have not received "final orders of removal" but whose cases are still pending, Trump has discussed using another rare legal maneuver to himself broad authority to target and detain immigrants without a hearing, specifically invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, a wartime law last used during World War II to detain Japanese Americans.

Trump would also need other nations to accept deported individuals and allow deportation flights to land back on their soil.

Katie Tobin, a scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace who served as President Joe Biden's top migration adviser on the National Security Council, told ABC News, “Last time the Trump administration did not hesitate to threaten punitive action to countries that didn’t cooperate with them on immigration, but there are some practical issues there in terms of just how many flights a country like Guatemala or Colombia can accept per week.”

There would likely be less tangible and more indirect costs of a mass deportation effort as well. Inevitably there would be ripple effects throughout the economy. In 2022 alone, undocumented immigrant households paid $46.8 billion in federal taxes and $29.3 billion in state and local taxes, according to the report, and "undocumented immigrants also contributed $22.6 billion to Social Security and $5.7 billion to Medicare."

The human toll

Experts also predict that if a future Trump administration were to follow through with some large, initial and highly visible deportation operation, a significant number of individuals and families would likely choose to self-deport in order to avoid family separations or having to spend time in a military-style detention center.

The authors of the American Immigration Council report argue that the effect of a mass deportation program, as described by Trump and his advisers, would "almost certainly threaten the well-being" of even those immigrants with lawful status in the United States and "even, potentially, naturalized U.S. citizens and their communities."

"They would live under the shadow of weaponized enforcement as the U.S. went after their neighbors, and, as social scientists found under the Trump administration, would be prone to worry they and their children might be next," the report says.

In recent interviews and conversations with reporters, Trump's running mate Ohio Sen. JD Vance has dodged the question of whether a future Trump administration would separate families during a new deportation effort or in detention centers along the border.

"If a guy commits gun violence and is taken to prison, that's family separation, which, of course, is tragic for the children, but you've got to prosecute criminals, and you have to enforce the law," Vance told reporters in September when visiting the border.

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-mass-deportation-program-cost/story?id=115318034

ICE has been increasingly brazen about its attempts to deport people.

BREAKING NEWS:

President Trump ordered at least 2,000 National Guard troops on Saturday to be deployed in Los Angeles County to help quell two days of protests against recent raids on workplaces looking for undocumented immigrants.

(It is illegal to use military forces for domestic law enforcement)

Any demonstration that got in the way of immigration officials would be considered a “form of rebellion,” Mr. Trump said. His order was an extraordinary escalation that puts Los Angeles squarely at the center of tensions over his administration’s immigration crackdown. Gov. Gavin Newsom of California said it was “purposefully inflammatory and will only escalate tensions.”

The protests on Saturday in downtown Los Angeles and the city of Paramount, about 16 miles south of Los Angeles, were the second consecutive day of demonstrations. In some cases, law enforcement officers used rubber bullets and flash bang grenades against the protesters.

The raids appear to be part of a new phase of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, with officials saying they will increasingly focus on workplaces. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers arrested 121 immigrants across Los Angeles on Friday, according to a Department of Homeland Security official who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The police had said earlier in the day that demonstrations in the city were peaceful. Some of the protests in other areas on Saturday were in Paramount, a city about 16 miles south of downtown Los Angeles that has a large Latino population, were more confrontational.

Demonstrators in some cases clashed with law enforcement officers. Some hurled rocks at police officers, who responded with flash-bang grenades and rubber bullets. The Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department said protesters exhibited “violent behavior” and that “intervention became necessary.”

If you need any more reason to protest our immigration policies, consider these pictures:

The first picture was taken in Selman, Alabama in 1965:

The next picture was taken in Los Angeles this week:

 

 

democracy dies in darkness

 

Jeff Bezos was the richest man in the world from 2017 to 2021. Although he has since been bested by Elon Musk, his net worth is still very formidable, at $220.9 billion, making him the 3^rd richest man in the world.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Bezos

The bulk of his fortune comes from Amazon, which he founded in 1994, but he also has other investments. Among those investments is the venerable Washington Post, which was founded in 1877. Since its founding, the Post has won 76 Pulitzer Prizes, second only to the New York Times.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Washington_Post

Bezos bought the paper in 2013 for $250 million,

Bezos said he has a vision that recreates "the 'daily ritual' of reading the Post as a bundle, not merely a series of individual stories..." He has been described as a "hands-off owner", holding teleconference calls with executive editor Martin Baron every two weeks. Bezos appointed Fred Ryan (founder and CEO of Politico) to serve as publisher and chief executive officer. This signaled Bezos' intent to shift the Post to a more digital focus with a national and global readership.^[

In January 2025, editorial cartoonist Ann Telnaes resigned from The Washington Post and published a blog post titled "Why I'm quitting the Washington Post". In it, Telnaes criticizes the paper for allegedly refusing to run a cartoon critical of the relationship between American billionaires and President Donald Trump. Telnaes called the decision "dangerous for a free press". Telnaes' blog post and the nature of her cartoon sparked conversations about the paper's ownership under Bezos.

Her cartoon can be viewed in the link below:

https://anntelnaes.substack.com/p/why-im-quitting-the-washington-post

In February 2025, Bezos announced that the opinion section of the Post will give voice only to opinions that support "personal liberties" and "free markets"; but divergent opinions will not be published by the Post. , The Post’s opinion editor, resigned after trying to persuade Jeff Bezos to reconsider the new direction. Within two days of the announcement, it was reported that over 75,000 digital subscribers had canceled their subscriptions. In March, Ruth Marcus, columnist and editor for The Washington Post's opinion section, resigned after 40 years with the organization when the paper's publisher, Will Lewis, killed a column she wrote that was critical of the new direction

In February 2017, the Post adopted the slogan "Democracy Dies in Darkness" for its masthead.

In February 2025, Jeff Bezos announced that the paper's opinion pages would endorse "personal liberties and free markets" to the exclusion of other views. According to the NPR, the announcement suggested the Post was adopting a libertarian line.

Political endorsements

 Immediately prior to the 2024 election, the editorial board planned to endorse Kamala Harris – but Bezos told them not to. Pressure from its billionaire owner also cause the Los Angeles Times to follow the example set by the Washington Post.

 Ann Telnaes was born in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1960. She was graduated from Reno High School in Reno, Nevada in 1979. She became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1973 and is also a former citizen of Norway.

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ann_Telnaes

Awards

 Telnaes is the second female cartoonist and one of the few freelancers to win the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning. She was the first woman to receive both the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning and the Reuben Award.

She also has won numerous other awards:

·         1996

·         Best Cartoonist, The Population Institute XVII Global Media Awards

·         Best Editorial Cartoonist, Sixth Annual Environmental Media Awards

·         Reuben Award (National Cartoonists Society), finalist

·         1997 — National Headliner Award for Editorial Cartoons

·         2001 — Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning

·         2002 — Maggie Award for Editorial Cartoons, now known as The Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) Media Excellence Awards

·         2003 — Clifford K. and James T. Berryman Award (National Press Foundation)

·         2011 — Herblock Prize, finalist

·         2015 — Great Immigrants Award from Carnegie Corporation of New York^[20]

·         2016 — Reuben Award, winner 

·         2021 — EWK Prize, winner

·         2022 — Pulitzer Prize for Illustrated Reporting and Commentary, finalist

·         2023 — Herblock Prize, winner

·         2025 — Pulitzer Prize for Illustrated Reporting and Commentary

As of today, America is still a democracy – but just barely. It would be more accurate to call is an oligarchy, which is why Bennie Sanders and AOC launched an oligarchy route in March.

President-elect Donald Trump has assembled the wealthiest presidential administration in modern history, with at least 13 billionaires set to take on government posts. They include a wrestling magnate, a private space pioneer, a New York real estate developer, the heir to a small appliance empire, and the wealthiest man on the planet -- with several being donors and close personal friends of the incoming president.

In total, the combined net worth of the wealthiest members of his administration could surpass $460 billion, including Department of Government Efficiency co-head Elon Musk -- whose net worth of more than $400 billion exceeds the GDP of mid-sized countries.

Even discounting Musk, Trump's cabinet is still expected to be the wealthiest in history, with reported billionaires Howard Lutnick nominated as commerce secretary, Linda McMahon nominated as education secretary, and Scott Bessent nominated as treasury secretary. Together, Trump's expected cabinet is worth at least $7 billion.

 https://abcnews.go.com/US/trump-tapped-unprecedented-13-billionaires-top-administration-roles/story?id=116872968

The cartoon that allowed Ann Tellnaes to received her most recent Pulitzer accurately described the power of oligarchs in today’ society.

 A vibrant democracy needs a free press in order to survive, and the free expression of ideas can be in the form of pictures, written word, or editorial cartoons.

On occasion, those view can be fatal.

Jamal Khassogi worked for the Washington Post, but was murdered by associates of MBS in October of 2018 because he had printed columns that were critical of Saudi Arabia government.

Charlie Hebdo is a publication that has long courted controversy with satirical attacks on political and religious leaders. It published cartoons of the Islamic prophet Muhammad in 2012, forcing France to temporarily close embassies and schools in more than 20 countries amid fears of reprisals. Its offices were firebombed in November 2011 after publishing a previous caricature of Muhammad on its cover

On 7 January 2015, at about 11:30 a.m. in Paris, France, the employees of the French satirical weekly magazine Charlie Hebdo were targeted in a terrorist shooting attack by two French-born Algerian Muslim brothers, Saïd Kouachi [ar; de; fa; fr] and Chérif Kouachi [ar; de; fa; fr]. Armed with rifles and other weapons, the duo murdered 12 people and injured 11 others; they identified themselves as members of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which claimed responsibility for the attack

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Hebdo_shooting

 As you are aware, the Republicans in Congress, under pressure from Trump are trying to pass a truly horrible budget bill, which is which is why the next vote is scheduled tor 1:00 in the morning. If passed, it would but Medicaid and SNAP, but would also extend the 2017 tax cutes that largely benefitted only the wealthier members of our society. It also raise the deficit. 

Since Republicans in congress don’t want to criticize Trump, it is largely up to members of society to criticize the administration as often – and Harvard’s refusal to give in to blackmail provides just one example of how that can be done.

https://www.harvard.edu/research-funding/wp-content/uploads/sites/16/2025/05/Letter-from-Harvard-President-Alan-M.-Garber-to-the-Honorable-Linda-E.-McMahon.pdf