Is Spotify running ICE recruitment ads? Yes, but it's not alone
Oct. 25th, 2025 11:00 pm![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png){kind=small}
snopes_feedThe streaming service confirmed ICE recruitment ads ran as part of a broader U.S. government advertising campaign.
snopes_feedTruly Inspiring Cat Memes to Get You Out of Caturday Slumber
Oct. 25th, 2025 02:00 pmicanhascheezburger_feedAhh Caturday…the day of ephemeral bliss, tranquil relaxation, and mindless musings. Caturday's are inherently for the indolent, the sleepy, the people of the world who prefer to spend their time in bed than out in the world. Here at I Can Has Cheezburger, we are definitely those kinds of people. Being a cat owner sometimes contrives that attitude, because we all know how much cats also love a lazy Caturday slumber. Now that the weather is getting colder, it's almost addicting to stay in bed to maximize coziness. But alas, we also want to be at least a little productive on Caturday's, right?
Maybe you told your friends you'd meet them for coffee, or told your grandma you'd help her with her Wi-Fi. There's an endless list of things that may drag us out of bed on the one day a week we have to simple enjoy, but it's not always a bad thing. When you're fighting tooth and nail to stay in, scroll these hilarious cat memes to inspire a little go-getter in you.
Unfettered and unaccountable: How Trump is building a violent, shadowy federal police force
Oct. 25th, 2025 09:00 pmdailykos_feedBy J. David McSwane and Hannah Allam for ProPublica
When Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers stormed through Santa Ana, California, in June, panicked calls flooded into the city’s emergency response system.
Recordings of those calls, obtained by ProPublica, captured some of the terror residents felt as they watched masked men ambush people and force them into unmarked cars. In some cases, the men wore plain clothes and refused to identify themselves. There was no way to confirm whether they were immigration agents or imposters. In six of the calls to Santa Ana police, residents described what they were seeing as kidnappings.
“He’s bleeding,” one caller said about a person he saw yanked from a car wash lot and beaten. “They dumped him into a white van. It doesn’t say ICE.”
One woman’s voice shook as she asked, “What kind of police go around without license plates?”
And then this from another: “Should we just run from them?”
During a tense public meeting days later, Mayor Valerie Amezcua and the City Council asked their police chief whether there was anything they could do to rein in the federal agents — even if only to ban the use of masks. The answer was a resounding no. Plus, filing complaints with the Department of Homeland Security was likely to go nowhere because the office that once handled them had been dismantled. There was little chance of holding individual agents accountable for alleged abuses because, among other hurdles, there was no way to reliably learn their identities.
Since then, Amezcua, 58, said she has reluctantly accepted the reality: There are virtually no limits on what federal agents can do to achieve President Donald Trump’s goal of mass deportations. Santa Ana has proven to be a template for much larger raids and even more violent arrests in Chicago and elsewhere. “It’s almost like he tries it out in this county and says, ‘It worked there, so now let me send them there,’” Amezcua said.
Current and former national security officials share the mayor’s concerns. They describe the legions of masked immigration officers operating in near-total anonymity on the orders of the president as the crossing of a line that had long set the United States apart from the world’s most repressive regimes. ICE, in their view, has become an unfettered and unaccountable national police force. The transformation, the officials say, unfolded rapidly and in plain sight. Trump’s DHS appointees swiftly dismantled civil rights guardrails, encouraged agents to wear masks, threatened groups and state governments that stood in their way, and then made so many arrests that the influx overwhelmed lawyers trying to defend immigrants taken out of state or out of the country.
And although they are reluctant to predict the future, the current and former officials worry that this force assembled from federal agents across the country could eventually be turned against any groups the administration labels a threat.
One former senior DHS official who was involved in oversight said that what is happening on American streets today “gives me goosebumps.”
Speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation, the official rattled off scenes that once would’ve triggered investigations: “Accosting people outside of their immigration court hearings where they’re showing up and trying to do the right thing and then hauling them off to an immigration jail in the middle of the country where they can’t access loved ones or speak to counsel. Bands of masked men apprehending people in broad daylight in the streets and hauling them off. Disappearing people to a third country, to a prison where there’s a documented record of serious torture and human rights abuse.”
The former official paused. “We’re at an inflection point in history right now and it’s frightening.”
Although ICE is conducting itself out in the open, even inviting conservative social media influencers to accompany its agents on high-profile raids, the agency operates in darkness. The identities of DHS officers, their salaries and their operations have long been withheld for security reasons and generally exempted from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act. However, there were offices within DHS created to hold agents and their supervisors accountable for their actions on the job. The Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, created by Congress and led largely by lawyers, investigated allegations of rape and unlawful searches from both the public and within DHS ranks, for instance. Egregious conduct was referred to the Justice Department.
The CRCL office had limited powers; former staffers say their job was to protect DHS by ensuring personnel followed the law and addressed civil rights concerns. Still, it was effective in stalling rushed deportations or ensuring detainees had access to phones and lawyers. And even when its investigations didn’t fix problems, CRCL provided an accounting of allegations and a measure of transparency for Congress and the public.
The office processed thousands of complaints — 3,000 in fiscal year 2023 alone — ranging from allegations of lack of access to medical treatment to reports of sexual assault at detention centers. Former staffers said around 600 complaints were open when work was suspended.
Related | Looks like ICE recruits are a hot mess
The administration has gutted most of the office. What’s left of it was led, at least for a while, by a 29-year-old White House appointee who helped craft Project 2025, the right-wing blueprint that broadly calls for the curtailment of civil rights enforcement.
Meanwhile, ICE is enjoying a windfall in resources. On top of its annual operating budget of $10 billion a year, the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill included an added $7.5 billion a year for the next four years for recruiting and retention alone. As part of its hiring blitz, the agency has dropped age, training and education standards and has offered recruits signing bonuses as high as $50,000.
“Supercharging this law enforcement agency and at the same time you have oversight being eliminated?” said the former DHS official. “This is very scary.”
Michelle Brané, a longtime human rights attorney who directed DHS’ ombudsman office during the Biden administration, said Trump’s adherence to “the authoritarian playbook is not even subtle.”
“ICE, their secret police, is their tool,” Brané said. “Once they have that power, which they have now, there’s nothing stopping them from using it against citizens.”
Tricia McLaughlin, the DHS assistant secretary for public affairs, refuted descriptions of ICE as a secret police force. She called such comparisons the kind of “smears and demonization” that led to the recent attack on an ICE facility in Texas, in which a gunman targeted an ICE transport van and shot three detained migrants, two of them fatally, before killing himself.
In a written response to ProPublica, McLaughlin dismissed the current and former national security officials and scholars interviewed by ProPublica as “far-left champagne socialists” who haven’t seen ICE enforcement up close.
“If they had,” she wrote, “they would know when our heroic law enforcement officers conduct operations, they clearly identify themselves as law enforcement while wearing masks to protect themselves from being targeted by highly sophisticated gangs” and other criminals.
McLaughlin said the recruiting blitz is not compromising standards. She wrote that the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center is ready for 11,000 new hires by the beginning of next year and that training has been streamlined and boosted by technology. “Our workforce never stops learning,” McLaughlin wrote.
White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson also praised ICE conduct and accused Democrats of making “dangerous, untrue smears.”
“ICE officers act heroically to enforce the law, arrest criminal illegal aliens and protect American communities with the utmost professionalism,” Jackson said. “Anyone pointing the finger at law enforcement officers instead of the criminals are simply doing the bidding of criminal illegal aliens and fueling false narratives that lead to violence.”
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, the Trump pick who fired nearly the entire civil rights oversight staff, said the move was in response to CRCL functioning “as internal adversaries that slow down operations,” according to a DHS spokesperson.
Trump also eliminated the department’s Office of the Citizenship and Immigration Services Ombudsman, which was charged with flagging inhumane conditions at ICE detention facilities where many of the apprehended immigrants are held. The office was resurrected after a lawsuit and court order, though it’s sparsely staffed.
The hobbling of the office comes as the White House embarks on an aggressive expansion of detention sites with an eye toward repurposing old jails or building new ones with names that telegraph harsh conditions: “Alligator Alcatraz” in the Florida Everglades, built by the state and operated in partnership with DHS, or the “Cornhusker Clink” in Nebraska.
“It is a shocking situation to be in that I don’t think anybody anticipated a year ago,” said Erica Frantz, a political scientist at Michigan State University who studies authoritarianism. “We might’ve thought that we were going to see a slide, but I don’t think anybody anticipated how quickly it would transpire, and now people at all levels are scrambling to figure out how to push back.”
“Authoritarian Playbook”
Frantz and other scholars who study anti-democratic political systems in other countries said there are numerous examples in which ICE’s activities appear cut from an authoritarian playbook. Among them was the detention of Tufts University doctoral student Rümeysa Öztürk, who was apprehended after co-writing an op-ed for the campus paper that criticized the school’s response to the war in Gaza. ICE held her incommunicado for 24 hours and then shuffled her through three states before jailing her in Louisiana.
“The thing that got me into the topic of ‘maybe ICE is a secret police force’?” said Lee Morgenbesser, an Australian political science professor who studies authoritarianism. “It was that daylight snatching of the Tufts student.”
Morgenbesser was also struck by the high-profile instances of ICE detaining elected officials who attempted to stand in their way. Among them, New York City Comptroller Brad Lander was detained for demanding a judicial warrant from ICE, and U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla was forcibly removed from a DHS press conference.
And David Sklansky, a Stanford Law School professor who researches policing and democracy, said it appears that ICE’s agents are allowed to operate with complete anonymity. “It’s not just that people can’t see faces of the officers,” Sklansky said. “The officers aren’t wearing shoulder insignia or name tags.”
Related | Inside Rümeysa Öztürk’s journey from scholar to Trump target in Louisiana cell
U.S. District Judge William G. Young, a Ronald Reagan appointee, recently pointed out that use of masked law enforcement officers had long been considered anathema to American ideals. In a blistering ruling against the administration’s arrests of pro-Palestinian protesters, he wrote, “To us, masks are associated with cowardly desperados and the despised Ku Klux Klan. In all our history we have never tolerated an armed masked secret police.” The Trump administration has said it will appeal that ruling.
Where the Fallout is Felt
The fallout is being felt in places like Hays County, Texas, not far from Austin, where ICE apprehended 47 people, including nine children, during a birthday celebration in the early morning of April 1.
The agency’s only disclosure about the raid in Dripping Springs describes the operation as part of a yearlong investigation targeting “members and associates believed to be part of the Venezuelan transnational gang, Tren de Aragua.”
Six months later, the county’s top elected official told ProPublica the federal government has ignored his attempts to get answers.
“We’re not told why they took them, and we’re not told where they took them,” said County Judge Ruben Becerra, a Democrat. “By definition, that’s a kidnapping.”
Related | Trump team recruits influencers to push lies about ‘lawless’ cities
In the raid, a Texas trooper secured a search warrant that allowed law enforcement officers to breach the home, an Airbnb rental on a vast stretch of land in the Hill Country. Becerra told ProPublica he believes the suspicion of drugs at the party was a pretense to pull people out of the house so ICE officers who lacked a warrant could take them into custody. The Texas Department of Public Safety did not respond to a request for comment.
The Trump administration has yet to produce evidence supporting claims of gang involvement, said Karen Muñoz, a civil rights attorney helping families track down their relatives who were jailed or deported. While some court documents are sealed, nothing in the public record verifies the gang affiliation DHS cited as the cause for the birthday party raid.
“There’s no evidence released at all that any person kidnapped at that party was a member of any organized criminal group,” Muñoz said.
McLaughlin, the DHS spokesperson, did not respond to questions about Hays County and other raids where families and attorneys allege a lack of transparency and due process.
In Plain Sight
Months after ICE’s widely publicized raids, fear continues to envelop Santa Ana, a majority-Hispanic city with a large immigrant population. Amezcua, the mayor, said the raids have complicated local policing and rendered parents afraid to pick up their children from school. The city manager, a California-born citizen and Latino, carries with him three government IDs, including a passport.
Raids of car washes and apartment buildings continue, but the community has started to “push back,” Amezcua said. “Like many other communities, the neighbors come out. People stop in the middle of traffic.”
With so few institutional checks on ICE’s powers, citizens are increasingly relying on themselves. On at least one occasion in nearby Downey, a citizen’s intervention had some effect.
On June 12, Melyssa Rivas had just started her workday when a colleague burst into her office with urgent news: “ICE is here.”
The commotion was around the corner in Rivas’ hometown, a Los Angeles suburb locals call “Mexican Beverly Hills” for its stately houses and affluent Hispanic families. Rivas, 31, the daughter of Mexican immigrants, belongs to Facebook groups where residents share updates about cultural festivals, church programs and, these days, the presence of Trump’s deportation foot soldiers.
Rivas had seen posts about ICE officers sweeping through LA and figured Downey’s turn had come. She and her co-worker rushed toward the sound of screaming at a nearby intersection. Rivas hit “record” on her phone as a semicircle of trucks and vans came into view. She filmed at least half a dozen masked men in camouflage vests encircling a Hispanic man on his knees.
Her unease deepened as she registered details that “didn’t seem right,” Rivas recalled in an interview. She said the parked vans had out-of-state plates or no tags. The armed men wore only generic “police” patches, and most were in street clothes. No visible insignia identified them as state or federal — or even legal authorities at all.
“When is it that we just decided to do things a different way? There’s due process, there’s a legal way, and it just doesn’t seem to matter anymore,” Rivas said. “Where are human rights?”
Video footage shows Rivas and others berating the officers for complicity in what they called a “kidnapping.” Local news channels later reported that the vehicles had chased the man after a raid at a nearby car wash.
“I know half of you guys know this is fucked up,” Rivas was recorded telling the officers.
Moments later, the scene took a turn. As suddenly as they’d arrived, the officers returned to their vehicles and left, with no apology and no explanation to the distraught man they left on the sidewalk.
Through a mask, one of them said, “Have a good day.”
icanhascheezburger_feedFeline friends are just ineffable. There's no end to their absurdity, their chaos, their comedy, and their petulant ability to annoy us. Every cat knows exactly what buttons to press to get its owner absolutely haywire with frustration. But who can stay mad at a cat for long? It's a paradox, a potion of equal parts chaos and charm. One minute your cat is a soft, purring loaf of serenity; the next, they're a domestic ninja with a mission to dismantle your entire Wi-Fi connection during the most critical moment of a sports game. Yet somehow, we still adore them more than ever.
If you find yourself hiding toilet paper, bags, and food so that your furry friend doesn't find it, then you're in the right place. There's never a shortage of crazy cat stories, so for every crazy cat lady, man, or child, enjoy these hilarious anecdotes and examples of just why we love our chaotic, capricious cats.
A Harvest Moon of Cat Memes For Neil Young Fans Dancing With Their Cats Under Moonlight
Oct. 25th, 2025 12:00 pmicanhascheezburger_feedNeil Young is a classic to remember; you don't have to be a dad to like his music, or to find yourself playing it while you're stoking a fire camping. His hits are universally loved, and it's not just loved by us hoomans, our cats love him too. We know it may sound strange, but the cats have their own music tastes, and according to Catify (Spotify for cats), they listen to Mr. Young quite a bit, and especially this song.
We're always telling you how cats love to dance. And don't take it from us, take it from the animated movie, "Cat's Don't Dance," but don't be discouraged by the title. It's actually about two kitties making it big in Hollywood for their musical theater talents. There's something inexplicably comforting about the soft glow of a harvest moon, and even more comforting when you can imagine you and your cat dancing under the moonlight.
All That's Canonically Cat: 22 Whisker-Filled Wholesome Feline Funnies For a Cuddly Caturday
Oct. 25th, 2025 11:00 amicanhascheezburger_feedThere are few things in life more canonically cat than a feline doing exactly what they please - which, coincidentally, is everything. From the softest purr to the fastest zoomies session, cats have crafted a legendary reputation that even dog devotees can recite by heart. They are cuddly and chaotic, regal and ridiculous, affectionate in one moment and plotting your downfall in the next. Truly, the cat experience is a work of art - or at least a sitcom.
And since we're all about honoring the pawsome lore of our feline overlords, today we're turning the spotlight on one of their most cherished traits: cuddliness. That rare, mystical gift that every cat pawrent hopes for their cats to have. Of course, as any seasoned cat companion knows, no cuddle comes without consequence. A cozy snuggle is merely the calm before the claw - the purr before the pounce.
So, in the spirit of Caturday and all that's whisker-filled and wholesome, we've gathered the ultimate compilation of canonically cat memes. From lap-hogging loafs to mid-nap mischief-makers, these fluffy felines prove that being cute and causing chaos aren't opposites - they're the very definition of what it means to be a cat.
All Of That?! Baguette About It!
Oct. 25th, 2025 07:00 pmnotalwaysright_feedRead All Of That?! Baguette About It!
Me: "Ma'am, I said just a couple of items."
Next Customer: "I know, but then I remembered I needed toothpaste, and I can't get toothpaste without the mouthwash and floss, and then I remembered I'm always flossing out pork, so I got the pork, and, well…"
DHS wants to attack journalists, and UVA's deal with the devil
Oct. 25th, 2025 07:00 pmdailykos_feedInjustice for All is a weekly series about how the Trump administration is trying to weaponize the justice system—and the people who are fighting back.
Sure, President Donald Trump started literally tearing down the White House this week, but don’t sleep on all of the other terrible things happening. Gotta be well-rounded, right?
This week, we’ve got one of Justice Neal Gorsuch’s former clerks showing off along with one of Trump’s former personal lawyers having a really bad time at the Third Circuit. Also, the Department of Homeland Security thinks it is really unfair to tell them they can’t attack journalists and the University of Virginia makes a dumb deal with the devil.
Mike Davis says the quiet part out loud
Mike Davis, who was ostensibly in the running to be attorney general for Trump’s second term but somehow didn’t land any job in the administration, couldn’t help himself from bragging that he still knows things, man.
However, in his zeal to go on “The Charlie Kirk Show” and show off, Davis likely revealed a little too much. Davis was asked about an investigation into a “grand conspiracy” against Trump and popped off about how “my buddy,” U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida Jason Reding Quiñones, is empaneling a grand jury that “should be fully up and running by January.”
There are indeed two new grand juries set to be empaneled on Jan. 12, 2026, but there’s no information whatsoever about what those are for, which means that either a sitting U.S. attorney is illegally feeding confidential information to someone with no role in the government or Davis is lying.
In a normal world, it would most likely be the latter. These days, it’s probably the former. Sigh.
Another rough week for Alina Habba
If the Department of Justice thought things would go any better at the Third Circuit Court of Appeals than they did at the lower court regarding their frantic attempts to keep Alina Habba in a job she has no business being in as the top federal prosecutor in New Jersey, they were disabused of that notion at oral argument.
A lower court had ruled back in August that Habba, one of Trump’s innumerable former personal attorneys, was not legally in her position as U.S. attorney for New Jersey despite the administration’s attempt to keep her there via a string of temporary appointments.
The lower court’s decision was stayed pending this appeal, which means at the moment, federal judges in New Jersey have to deal with figuring out whether Habba can prosecute cases during the stay.
At oral argument in front of the Third Circuit, the DOJ attorney, Henry Whitaker, insisted that the government “colored inside the lines here.”
Sure, yes, it is very normal to (1) name your former personal attorney with no prosecutorial experience as an interim U.S. attorney; (2) pull her nomination from the Senate after the district court judges in New Jersey refused to keep her in the job; and (3) have Habba quit her job as interim U.S. attorney. And then (4) have the attorney general appoint Habba as both a special attorney and a first assistant U.S. attorney and (5) say that when Habba resigned as interim, that meant the U.S. attorney position was vacant. So Habba has now ascended to the top job from the first assistant role.
When asked if he could provide any other examples of U.S. attorney appointments like this, Whitaker went with “Well, I guess, I cannot.”
Aww, cheer up, pal! The lower court in Nevada disqualified another of Trump’s terrible picks, Sigal Chattah, over a similar type of temporary appointment nonsense, and Lindsey Halligan may soon face the same thing in the Eastern District of Virginia. So you do have a few examples! Too bad they are all equally illegal.
“C’mon, bro. Just let us attack journalists a little bit, as a treat!”
That was pretty much the argument the Department of Homeland Security tried in front of U.S. District Judge Hernán Vera, asking him to stay his preliminary injunction barring federal agents from using indiscriminate force against journalists and observers in Los Angeles.
DHS tried to tell the court that the plaintiff journalists weren’t at risk of any immediate harm, so they didn’t have standing to sue.
Yeah, about that. The court noted that these journalists continue to attend and cover protests where DHS uses indiscriminate force on, well, everyone, and have “fired on Plaintiffs even when they were far from the center of protest activity.” Seems like a pretty immediate danger!
And in case you’re confused, this is a different case from the one in Chicago, where DHS was also ordered not to do this, and did it anyway.
Biden appointee will force the military to do a DEI
After Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered libraries at military-run K-12 schools to purge books about any “divisive concepts” such as race and gender and demanded curriculum changes to make sure there was no forbidden diversity, a group of 12 students and their families sued.
On Monday, U.S. District Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles granted the plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction and ordered the Department of Defense Education Activity, which oversees the schools, to immediately restore the 596 books to the five schools attended by the plaintiffs. Turns out there are cases that say pesky things like “school boards can’t remove books just because they don’t like them.”
How dare she. How are we going to build the next generation of warfighters now?
Oh, Virginia. Why would you do it?
The University of Virginia has decided to bend the knee to stop the Trump administration's sham investigations into whatever it comes up with.
Well, not so much “stop” as “pause until the government feels like starting again.”
Sure, UVA doesn’t have to give the administration money and sure, they don’t have to submit to external monitoring, so in that regard it is a better deal than what Columbia agreed to, but it is still exceedingly not great.
The agreement requires UVA to certify its compliance quarterly, and then the government
“may make such inquiries as it deems necessary to verify the accuracy of such certification.” So, basically, the administration can put UVA through the wringer quarterly.
Oh, and also, if at any time, the government decides UVA isn’t in compliance, they get 15 days to show appropriate progress and if the government doesn’t agree, “the United States may terminate this Agreement and may pursue enforcement actions, monetary fines, or grant or funding terminations as appropriate, and may resume all Investigations held in abeyance during the pendency of this Agreement.”
See? Pause, not stop. The investigations remain hanging over the school and the government can restart them whenever.
There’s no certainty for UVA in this agreement, but at least they did agree to follow so-called “federal guidance” by eliminating any diversity initiatives and throwing trans students under the bus. All of that bigotry for literally no actual protection from the administration. Good job.
Represent This: Drastic times and drastic measures come to California
Oct. 25th, 2025 06:00 pmdailykos_feedMany Black leaders see Proposition 50 as necessary to neutralize a GOP power grab that endangers bedrock civil rights.
By Erin Aubry Kaplan for Capital & Main
California voters are days away from deciding on Proposition 50, the ballot initiative that would redraw the state’s congressional map to hand more seats to Democrats. The measure is meant to counter President Trump’s ongoing campaign to get other, Republican-led states to blatantly create new maps that will favor the GOP in next year’s midterms. As the Nov. 4 special election gets closer and the stakes of the outcome get higher I keep thinking: What would John Lewis say?
Lewis, the longtime Georgia congressmember and civil rights icon who died in 2020, deeply believed in voting and fair representation as the bedrock of racial justice, and of justice for all. Alarmed by the GOP attacks on voting and elections, which began in earnest after the Supreme Court tossed out a key provision of the 1965 Voting Rights Act more than a decade ago, Lewis fought back. The Voting Rights Advancement Act, first introduced and co-sponsored by Lewis in 2015 (later renamed for Lewis after his death), sought to restore the protections, known as preclearance, cut from the 1965 Voting Rights Act. It also sought to prohibit gerrymandering — the practice of carving up congressional districts in a way that advantages one political party or group. Though always a bipartisan practice, gerrymandering was used historically, chiefly in the South, to suppress or dilute the voting power of Black people and other people of color and deny them representation of their choice. While still in play, Lewis’ bill has yet to make it into law after multiple attempts to overcome opposition from Republicans, and a few Democrats.
Related | Republicans know they’re losing the California redistricting fight
We are now at a point that not even Lewis could have imagined, with Trump, 10 months into his second term, facilitating a full-on gerrymandering war between the states. It began with the president’s demand earlier this year that the GOP in Texas rewrite maps and create five more congressional seats he says Republicans are “entitled to” in order to boost the party’s chances of winning the 2026 midterm elections. Texas lawmakers obliged. Other red states are in various stages of following suit. It all prompted outrage from California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who decided that Democrats in the nation’s most populous blue state couldn’t stand by and watch the GOP gerrymander their way to a point where elections might not matter at all. So he and other California Democrats quickly devised what became known as the Election Rigging Response Act and fast-tracked it onto the ballot.
Proposition 50 temporarily sets aside current congressional maps drawn by the state’s independent redistricting commission and replaces them with new maps designed to give California five more Democratic districts. It’s gerrymandering, to be sure, but with the specific intention of neutralizing the GOP gerrymandering that many say isn’t just another power grab, but a clear and coordinated undermining of democracy itself. Newsom and others have called Prop. 50 fighting fire with fire, though it’s important to note that the same thing does not fuel the fires. Other Democratic-led states, such as New York and Maryland, are answering Newsom’s call to arms by looking into redrawing their own congressional maps, though no plans for change have been finalized, either legislatively or through state propositions. California voters seem so far to be siding with Newsom: A recent Emerson College poll shows that 51% plan to vote for the measure, while 34% plan to vote no.
Black support is key. Because the GOP gerrymandering spree Prop. 50 is designed to offset is more than just a power grab; at its core, it’s a serious undermining of racial justice that took generations to build. It’s no accident that the redrawn maps in Texas redistribute Black representation of significantly Black districts; among the losers are prominent Black Democrats, including Rep. Jasmine Crockett, known for speaking out against Trump and the GOP in videos that frequently go viral, and the equally outspoken Rep. Al Green.
Related | Most California voters are lining up behind Newsom to fight Trump
Lots of Black Californians, including those whose families arrived during the Great Migration last century, have roots in Texas; they include State Assemblymember Isaac Bryan, one of many members of the Legislative Black Caucus who supports the proposition. For many Black people the gerrymandering fight is not only personal and political, but deeply rooted in history. At stake is not just reining in Trumpian overreach, but thwarting white supremacy and preserving the civil rights gains people like Lewis fought hard for and in some cases died for (Lewis himself almost met his end on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in 1965, beaten severely by police as he and others attempted to march to Selma for voting rights.)
State Sen. Akilah Weber Pierson, who chairs the California Legislative Black Caucus, invoked that battle in a press conference with Newsom earlier this month, calling Prop. 50 “our weapon,” and noting that representation “is not some abstract concept,” but power that affects funding for essentials such as housing, education, criminal justice and health care.
Related | Obama shreds Trump's attempt to steal midterm elections
Congressmember Lateefah Simon, who represents parts of the Bay Area, said the new Texas map recalls the loss of Black voting rights and representation in the South that happened after Emancipation. The potential loss of civil rights and the erosion of democracy is also the message that Black figures beyond California, including former president Barack Obama and former attorney general Eric Holder, are sending in their own support of Prop. 50. The endorsement from Holder is especially significant given that he’s spent years fighting the discriminatory effects of gerrymandering as chairman of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee. But he’s said the moment leaves him, and the country, no choice.
Trena Turner, a pastor and a member of California’s independent redistricting commission in 2020, came to the same conclusion. In a commentary for CalMatters last month, Turner wrote that the GOP threat has to be met in real time, and that indeed called for meeting fire with fire. This doesn’t mean that supporters of Prop. 50 become complicit in weakening democracy, as some opponents of the measure have claimed. Opponents also warn that Prop. 50 will disempower Black voters in some parts of the state, though that’s refuted by several analyses of the measure, including one by the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California. For Turner and others, the big picture is the most urgent. “To stand by and allow more of the same is to surrender to authoritarianism in slow motion,” Turner wrote. “The safeguards we once believed would protect us simply aren’t holding” (safeguards that include the Voting Rights Act that is likely to be dismantled entirely by the Supreme Court in the coming months). Turner added: “If reversing course is what it takes to protect representation, equity and democracy itself, then we must act.”
Within the strong Black support of Prop. 50 are some notes of caution. In an August article in the Los Angeles Sentinel, a historically Black newspaper, chairman and executive publisher Danny J. Bakewell Jr. applauded the initiative but warned the Democratic party not to take the Black vote for granted, as it has in the past. The paper pointed out that Black voter turnout in the November presidential elections dropped significantly between 2020 and 2024 as it did for all Californians. And there is a long history of California propositions turning out badly for Black folks, from the voters’ 1996 approval of anti-affirmative action Prop. 209 (strategically described by proponents as a “civil rights initiative”) to their overwhelming support for last year’s Prop. 36, which recriminalized certain misdemeanors as felonies in a dramatic swing back to law and order. Black Californians have long known that a state famous for being progressive is often anything but.
Related | Gavin Newsom isn’t holding back in his war against GOP gerrymandering
There’s no doubt that Prop. 50 is a unique move born of necessity, a product of the urgency of this moment created by Donald Trump’s relentless march toward authoritarianism that isn’t even a year old. Drastic times have produced a drastic measure, with more likely to follow. I don’t know what John Lewis would have said about what brought us to this brink, and what it says about the state of the nation. I’m sure he would have been heartbroken. And then he would have fought back.
15 amazing claims about nature we've investigated
Oct. 25th, 2025 06:00 pmsnopes_feedSnopes has looked into variety of strange nature facts, from turtles who breath through their butts to the shape of goat pupils.
Fried Potatoes And Neurons
Oct. 25th, 2025 05:55 pmnotalwaysright_feedRead Fried Potatoes And Neurons
Me: "Yeah, can I get a cheeseburger meal with cheese, please? Medium fries and a Diet Coke."
Employee: "So that's a double bacon burger with no cheese, onion rings, and a Dr. Pepper?"
Me: "I… I don't even know how you could get everything so wrong."
On The Need For Hazard Pay, Part 41
Oct. 25th, 2025 05:45 pmnotalwaysright_feedRead On The Need For Hazard Pay, Part 41
Customer: "I need to return this."
Me: "I'm afraid we can't process that return, madam."
Customer: "Ugh, why not?!"
Me: "We can't do returns on intimates."
Clips of the week: Trump wrecks the White House, and GOP fails at everything
Oct. 25th, 2025 05:00 pmdailykos_feedThe week kicked off with the president of the United States posting an AI-generated video of himself dropping feces on the American public—literally. Then the GOP spent the rest of the week yelling about “No Kings” demonstrators and their pesky First Amendment rights, all while failing to fund the government.
And it’s all on video!
Mike Johnson is fine with Trump pooping on America
During one of his daily GOP shutdown press conferences, House Speaker Mike Johnson was asked about President Donald Trump's grotesque reaction to mass protests against him and his administration over the weekend.
'There is a king': House Republican loses the thread
During one of this week’s GOP government shutdown pressers, Rep. Chip Roy of Texas delivered a dog-whistle-laden rant filled with Christian nationalist boogeymen in a bizarre attack on the No Kings protests that took place over the weekend.
Bet you can’t understand this Republican's excuse for Trump’s invasion
GOP Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma appeared on Fox News, where he suggested that peaceful, nationwide protests opposing Trump’s very unpopular secret police warrant the same federal response as during the Civil Rights Movement.
Even Republicans want House speaker to do his damn job
GOP Sen. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota suggested that Johnson should call Congress back into session—if only to give the impression of doing its job.
Obama shreds Trump's attempt to steal midterm elections
Former President Barack Obama called out Trump’s push to gerrymander congressional districts ahead of the 2026 midterms and endorsed the California ballot initiative to counter Trump’s power grab.
Fox News: Trump’s White House demolition is fine because Obama
Fox News defended Trump’s demolition of the White House’s East Wing, pointing to minor changes Obama made to turn a tennis court into a basketball court while he was in office.
For more video content, check out Daily Kos on YouTube.
icanhascheezburger_feedThe Cat Distribution System works in truly mysterious ways, sometimes borderline meowgical - because when a little feline soul needs help, it somehow knows who to find. And in this case, it sent a smol, deaf kitten straight into the arms of someone ready to learn a whole new language of love. Maybe not with words, but with patience, care, and soft, heart-melting gestures that say "You're safe now, little one."
When a first-time cat pawrent wonders if they're "starting on hard mode", the online feline family always shows up to remind them they're not alone. From purrents of tripod kitties to those caring for senior floofs or deaf kittens, this community is one big, supportive cuddle pile of advice, kindness, and love. Every whiskered wondering is understood here.
And honestly? It's not surprising to us that the CDS got it right again. Because the perfect cat doesn't always come in the easiest form - sometimes, it comes as a challenge wrapped in fur, asking you to grow your heart a little bigger. And judging by how smitten this new cat parent already is, we'd say they're absolutely ready for the quest. After all, a deaf kitten doesn't need to hear love to feel it - she just needed the right hoomans to listen.
Is your inbox feline too professional? Add some cats falling off counters. Subscribe here!
icanhascheezburger_feedHappy Caturday, friends, felines, and fam! As you know by now, the only appropriate way to start your Caturday is with a healthy helping of funny cattos, because if not, then it's just a regular, boring Saturday (and that's not the vibe). Our lives are already tedious and frustrating, so we don't need a Saturday; we need a Caturday. To watch hilarious cats on the internet be both adorable and chaotic, to read about all the cute kitties getting rescued or adopted, and to laugh our whiskers off with the best cat memes of the week.
These fuzzy feline funnies are best enjoyed with a big cup of coffee, some pumpkin spice creamer, and at least one cat snuggled up next to you. If you don't have any of those things, one will be appointed to you by the cat council of the internet for free. Or the Cat Distribution System, whichever reaches you first. If you aren't familiar with the CDS, oh boy, have you got some homework to do this Caturday. Any CDS story is purrfectly appropriate for uplifting your Caturday vibes because nothing is more satisfying than seeing cats in need find their furrever homes with hoomans who love them.
Now that you're all settled and you have your Caturday schedule all set up, it's time to dive into these meowtrageous posts with silly-billy cats. Weekend bliss is just a scroll away!
Thermodynamics, You Take It From Here, Part 27
Oct. 25th, 2025 05:00 pmnotalwaysright_feedRead Thermodynamics, You Take It From Here, Part 27
Customer: "Where’s your ice?"
Me: "End of aisle twelve, in the chest freezer by the exit."
Customer: "Okay, but… which kind melts slower?"
icanhascheezburger_feedWe're no strangers to kittens adopting giant doggos. It seems like every family now has a cute kitten that has made not only the hoomans their servants, but also the family's prized pooch. If you think about it, it's quite natural - cats are the rulers of their households, so why should the doggos be exempt from this crucial role in a cat's wellbeing?
Well, this story isn't like the rest of them. It is, but it also isn't, for one purrfectly exemplary reason: the kitten in question is meowtrageously cute. No, seriously, it might be the cutest kitten we've ever seen. It's a tiny black floofball with two big eyes, huge paws, and claws that you can't help but 'awww' over. The kitten was saved from being stuck in a bush outside the purrson's window, who, after they heard the baby's distress cries, promptly went out and rescued the poor thing.
They took the kitty in, and the cat immediately fell in love with her family's doggo, and now, she won't leave her giant best friend alone. His ears may be bigger than her entire body, but that won't stop her from playing with him in the cutest way. They're going to grow up to be the bestest of buds, and we can only hope that we get updates to share with you every couple of months.
YMI -- ODB: 25 October 2025
Oct. 25th, 2025 12:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sparoweODB: When God Forgives
October 25, 2025
READ: Exodus 34:4-10
[The
After a four-year-old boy accidentally broke a rare 3,500-year-old Bronze Age jar displayed at a museum in Israel, he received a kind and surprising response. The museum staff forgave him and invited him back. Roee Shafir, speaking for the Hecht Museum, said doing so heightened global interest in the restoration process and might serve to inspire the boy’s interest in history and archaeology—a healing and positive outcome.
The story brings to mind God’s compelling declaration of His forgiveness after rebellion by the Israelites. They’d rebelled against Him by begging Moses’ brother Aaron to make a gold calf for them for idol worship (Exodus 32:1). “When Moses approached the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, his anger burned and he threw the tablets [of covenant law] out of his hands, breaking them to pieces at the foot of the mountain” (v. 19).
At God’s instruction, “Moses chiseled out two stone tablets like the first ones and went up Mount Sinai early in the morning” (34:4). When God came down, He “passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, ‘The
What a profound reminder. Despite our worst sins, God still forgives. He yearns to restore us.
— Patricia Raybon
What sins of yours has God forgiven? Why is His forgiveness an amazing gift of grace?
When my sin angers or disappoints You, dear God, please invite me back into the compassion of Your love with forgiveness.
Source: Our Daily Bread
Are Democrats fumbling their best chance at a Senate pickup?
Oct. 25th, 2025 03:00 pmdailykos_feedFor a moment, it looked like Democrats in Maine had it all lined up.
Marine veteran and oyster farmer Graham Platner jumped into the U.S. Senate race in August, aiming to take down Republican incumbent Susan Collins. Then Democratic Gov. Janet Mills—twice elected statewide—decided to run, too.
What started as a promising field quickly turned into a clash of generations and ideology. Platner ran on a populist, anti-billionaire message that energized progressives and earned an early nod from Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. Some even nicknamed him “Maine’s Mamdani.” (Depending on who’s saying it, that could be a compliment.)
Mills, meanwhile, became the establishment favorite. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and national Democrats had aggressively recruited her, believing that her moderate record and broad appeal made her the one who could finally unseat Collins. On paper, Mills looked like the ideal recruit for one of the few Senate seats Democrats can realistically flip next year. (They’ll need four for a majority.)
So how did Democrats in Maine manage to blow things up so fast?
A seat considered a toss-up could easily stay red—and mainly because Democrats can’t seem to get out of their own way.
One problem is Collins. She’s managed to overcome electoral headwinds that toppled other Republicans. To win, Democrats need an unusually strong candidate.
Mills isn’t a weak one. Despite her generally progressive record, her recruitment by Schumer and other national leaders instantly branded her as the “centrist” in a race with a very left-leaning challenger.
But if elected, she would begin her six-year Senate term at age 79. And partly because of that, she has said she’d serve only a single term.
Mills has also taken positions that have irked progressives. She recently told reporters she supports keeping the filibuster in place, breaking with most of the Senate Democratic Caucus.
“I would certainly want to retain the filibuster,” Mills said recently, according to the Bangor Daily News. “When it comes to Trump appointing 200 judges with very questionable qualifications, I would want to have a say in those judgeships, for instance,” she added, seemingly unaware that the filibuster is largely not in place for judicial nominees.
Some Democrats have also quietly bristled at the Schumer-Mills dynamic. The image of the 74-year-old Senate minority leader coaxing a 77-year-old governor into running has drawn inevitable comparisons to President Joe Biden’s 2024 run—and raised questions about stamina, optics, and how much appetite voters have left for another older nominee.
But Platner’s candidacy is now awash in scandals.
When he entered the race, his rugged resume—Marine veteran, oyster farmer, outsider—helped him catch fire. His left-wing populism and focus on Maine’s cost-of-living problems fueled more than $4 million in fundraising, large crowds across the state, and endorsements from progressive groups and labor unions. He quickly carved out an identity as the insurgent everyman—everything Mills is not.
Then came the baggage. CNN’s KFile uncovered a series of inflammatory Reddit posts from Platner’s pre-politics days, mainly between 2020 and 2021.
In since-deleted comments, he wrote, “I got older and became a communist,” and said that “all” cops were bastards. Elsewhere, in response to a thread titled “White people aren’t as racist or stupid as Trump thinks,” he replied, “Living in white rural America, I’m afraid to tell you they actually are.”
Then his scandals got even worse.
In 2007, during a night he was driving and in the Marines, Platner got a tattoo that resembles a prominent Nazi emblem. After the story broke, Platner hastily got it covered with another tattoo. He claims he did not know the original tattoo’s Nazi ties until recently.
Soon after the tattoo came to light, The Advocate discovered more of Platner’s Reddit posts, which involved anti-LGBTQ+ stories and homophobic slurs.
He’s apologized for all of it, insisting those comments don’t reflect who he is now.
“That was very much me fucking around the internet,” he told CNN, regarding the Reddit posts. “I don’t want people to see me for who I was in my worst internet comment—or even, frankly, who I was in my best internet comment. … I don’t think any of that is indicative of who I am today, really.”
The fallout was swift. Platner’s political director, former state Rep. Genevieve McDonald, resigned last week, writing that his remarks “were not known to me when I agreed to join the campaign, and they are not words or values I can stand behind in a candidate.”
All of which gives Mills’ campaign some breathing room—though her age and electability questions haven’t gone anywhere. If she were to beat both Platner and Collins, she’d become the oldest freshman senator in U.S. history.
After a presidential election defined by concerns over age and fitness, Mills will have to prove she’s up for six years in the Senate—and that her party, often divided against itself, can still rally behind a candidate strong enough to take down Collins.
For now, that remains an open question.
A new University of New Hampshire poll released Thursday shows Platner leading Mills in the primary, 58% to 24%. The survey was conducted Oct. 16-21, which only partly overlaps with the first reports of his scandals.
Whether Platner can hold that lead depends on how well he weathers the backlash—and whether there’s more waiting to surface, which seems to be a decent bet.
Maine Democrats have a complicated choice ahead. And for a party that badly needs a win, it’s not a great look that one of their best pickup opportunities may once again slip through their fingers.
Database maintenance
Oct. 25th, 2025 08:42 am![[staff profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user_staff.png){kind=small}
mark posting in ![[site community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/comm_staff.png){kind=small}
dw_maintenanceGood morning, afternoon, and evening!
We're doing some database and other light server maintenance this weekend (upgrading the version of MySQL we use in particular, but also probably doing some CDN work.)
I expect all of this to be pretty invisible except for some small "couple of minute" blips as we switch between machines, but there's a chance you will notice something untoward. I'll keep an eye on comments as per usual.
Ta for now!
Gate Expectations, Part 2
Oct. 25th, 2025 03:00 pmnotalwaysright_feedRead Gate Expectations, Part 2
Me: "I'm sorry, ma'am, but I can't waive parking rates, so unfortunately, you will have to pay the balance shown on the screen to exit."
Her: "Well, I'm not paying, just let me out."
It’s Mystery Meat, No Bones About It
Oct. 25th, 2025 02:30 pmnotalwaysright_feedRead It’s Mystery Meat, No Bones About It
Me: "Okay, [Six-Year-Old Son], do you want your usual?"
Son: "Yeah, chicken nuggets! Off the bone!"
Me: "Off the bone? Where did you hear that expression?"
Caribbean Matters: Trump's murder binge continues
Oct. 25th, 2025 01:00 pmdailykos_feedCaribbean Matters is a weekly series from Daily Kos. Hope you’ll join us here every Saturday. If you are unfamiliar with the region, check out Caribbean Matters: Getting to know the countries of the Caribbean.
The Trump regime continues its patently illegal provocations in the Caribbean, which critics and even some media sources aren’t afraid to call “murder.”
We covered this topic in “Caribbean Matters: Extrajudicial murder in the Caribbean?” in September and sadly President Donald Trump has continued to escalate the situation with more boat bombings targeting alleged drug traffickers.
The Intercept’s Nick Turse delved into the quagmire with an article titled “Two Boat Strike Survivors Become First Known Prisoners in Trump’s War on “Narcoterrorists”:
The Navy is holding two survivors of a U.S. attack on a suspected drug smuggling boat in the Caribbean, according to two government officials.
The two survivors were on board a boat that the U.S. military attacked on Thursday, according to the two officials who spoke to The Intercept on the condition of anonymity. They are being held on a warship and are believed to be the first prisoners of the Trump administration’s undeclared war against undisclosed “narcoterrorist” groups.
Charlie Savage at The New York Times wrote “U.S. Attacks More Boats as Tensions With Venezuela Rise: What’s Happened So Far”:
Why is Trump taking military action in the Caribbean?
The Trump administration has justified the boat attacks as a matter of national self-defense at a time of high overdose deaths in the United States. But the surge in overdoses has been driven by fentanyl, which comes from Mexico. South America is instead a source of cocaine, much of which originates in Colombia.
The administration has moved a large amount of naval firepower into the Caribbean — far greater than is commensurate with the task of destroying small boats — and is weighing an operation to remove Mr. Maduro, whom it calls a drug cartel leader. The proponents of a regime-change push include Marco Rubio, the secretary of state and national security adviser, and the C.I.A. director, John Ratcliffe.
Unsurprisingly, Trump has lashed out against criticism from Colombian President Gustavo Petro.
CNN reported “Trump escalates back-and-forth with Colombia’s president, announcing end of US payments to country”:
President Donald Trump announced Sunday he would end all US payments and subsidies to Colombia, marking a dramatic escalation in his back-and-forth with the country’s president, Gustavo Petro.
Trump said in a post to social media that Petro “does nothing to stop” the production of drugs in his country, “despite large scale payments and subsidies from the USA that are nothing more than a long term rip off of America.”
“As of today, these payments, or any other form of payment, or subsidies, will no longer be made to Colombia,” the president said in all caps.
Instead of just reporting a body count, The Guardian put human faces to what is being perpetrated.
Journalists Kejan Haynes in Las Cuevas and Natricia Duncan in Kingston reported “‘Trump is killing poor people’: Caribbean village mourns victim of US strike.”
Relatives of two men from Trinidad believed to have been killed in a US military strike on a boat in the Caribbean have accused Donald Trump of “killing poor people” without due process and are demanding justice.
Chad “Charpo” Joseph and Rishi Samaroo, from the fishing village of Las Cuevas in northern Trinidad, are thought to be among six people killed in a US airstrike on a boat allegedly transporting drugs from Venezuela.
There have been numerous articles and social media posts speculating on the underlying reasons for Trump’s new war.
Also disturbing are the Trump cabal’s attempts to involve other countries in the Caribbean, like Grenada.
Bert Wilkenson at The Amsterdam News reported “U.S. wants to set up military radar in Grenada to monitor Venezuela”:
Maybe only the top officials at the White House and Pentagon know the exact plans for possible military action against Venezuela, but Washington appears to be soliciting the help of several reluctant Caribbean Community (Caricom) nations in its ambitions against the South American nation.
In the past week, the Trump administration formally asked the Eastern Caribbean nation of Grenada to allow the U.S. to establish a military radar base at Grenada’s main international airport, presumably to monitor activities in Venezuela, just 100 miles to the south of the island.
Grenada’s Dickon Mitchell administration had been given less than a week to make up its mind on the issue, even as local opposition to the idea simmered and the U.S. upped the pressure on authorities by sending Southern Commander Navy Admiral Alvin Holsey to Grenada and Antigua for urgent talks with top officials on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week.
This report was posted on Oct. 16, prior to the abrupt resignation of U.S. Southern Command chief Adm. Alvin Holsey.
Jacqueline Charles at The Miami Herald detailed that shocking turn in “Head of U.S. Southern Command steps down days after visit to Caribbean”:
“It’s been an honor to serve our nation, the American people and support and defend the Constitution for over 37 years,” Holsey, who was nominated by President Joe Biden, said in a statement posted on X. “Serving as your commander and deputy for the past 34 months has been a tremendous honor.” Holsey’s unexpected departure comes as the Pentagon faces a wave of high-profile dismissals and resignations, and amid growing controversy over the build up of U.S. military presence in the southern Caribbean off the coast of Venezuela to allegedly target drug traffickers.
[...]
It is unclear whether Hosley and Grenada officials discussed the proposal for the radar sites, but ahead of Hosley’s arrival in St. John on Monday, Antigua Prime Minister Gaston Browne left no doubt where he stood. Browne announced in an interview that his twin-island nation “has absolutely no interest in hosting any form of military assets here in the country.”
Not surprisingly, there is open speculation about the reasons behind Holsey’s abrupt exit.
You may be wondering where CARICOM stands on all this. Reaction from member nations is mixed. Caribbean Life’s Bert Wilkenson reported on how Trinidad and Tobago has supported Trump in “CARICOM speaks on US action in the region. T&T begs to differ”:
Caribbean Community leaders issued a statement at the weekend, urging a peaceful resolution to the crisis in the Southern Caribbean but as they united on the issue, one of its founding members made it clear it has a much different view of the situation.
Trinidad and Tobago said it had adopted a much different attitude to the others in the 15-member grouping by throwing its full support behind the region, a point leaders ensured was recorded in their weekend statement on US military threats to Venezuela.
“Heads of government CARICOM met and discussed various issues on the regional agenda including the increased security build up in the Caribbean and the potential impacts on member states. Save in respect of Trinidad and Tobago who reserved its position, heads reaffirmed the principle of maintaining the Caribbean region as a zone of peace and the importance of dialogue and engagement towards the peaceful resolution of disputes and conflict. CARICOM remains willing to assist towards that objective,” the terse statement noted.
The administration there has repeatedly stood behind the Trump administration in its ambitions on Venezuela with Prime Minister Kamla Persad Bissessar calling on US soldiers to “kill them all violently,” referring to alleged drug traffickers trying to move large shipments of cocaine north to her nation and also to the US. She says such activities over the years have led to a spike in violent crime with murders averaging 600 annually, gangland violence and increases in felony crimes including drive-by shootings.
The Trinidad & Tobago Guardian newspaper however posted a critique written in Jamaica which differed with Trinidad Prime Minister Kamla Persad Bissessar’s stance:
The Jamaica Gleaner has criticised Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar for her government’s approach to the US naval build-up in the southern Caribbean and its threat of military action against Venezuela.
In an editorial published Monday, the newspaper described it as “not clear what the Trinidad and Tobago government intended to signal by reserving its position” on CARICOM’s declaration that the region should remain a zone of peace. CARICOM had reaffirmed “the importance of dialogue and engagement towards the peaceful resolution of disputes and conflict” and expressed support for “the territorial integrity of countries in the region” and the right of citizens “to pursue their livelihoods in safety.”
[...]
The newspaper also criticised Persad-Bissessar’s earlier comments, saying she had given “full-throated support to the Americans, urging the United States to kill the alleged drug smugglers ‘violently’” and called the Caribbean as a zone of peace a “false ideal.”
The editorial added that fears have grown, even in Jamaica, after reports that two Trinidadian fishermen were among those killed in US operations.
If you currently have sane elected representatives, contact them and urge them to push back against Trump’s murder spree.
Please join me in the comments section below for more, and for the weekly Caribbean News Roundup.
Maybe I should start just dropping links I want to get back to here
Oct. 25th, 2025 10:32 amvvalkyriAnyway, this is a memory: mom took me to the glass flower museum in Boston. And I sort of think I returned there with Joe in 2001 but we were getting sick at the time.
https://open.substack.com/pub/kirkgordon/p/the-age-of-silicon-began-long-ago?
I suppose I should get back to sleep.
I have things I really want to go to today in Manassas and Elkridge and Capitol Heights and argh.
https://open.substack.com/pub/kirkgordon/p/the-age-of-silicon-began-long-ago?
I suppose I should get back to sleep.
I have things I really want to go to today in Manassas and Elkridge and Capitol Heights and argh.