Keep ICE Off of School Campuses !!

 

Release: #24-52
December 17, 2024

Contact: Communications
E-mail: communications@cde.ca.gov
Phone: 916-319-0818

State Superintendent Tony Thurmond Sponsors Senate Bill 48 to Keep Immigration and Customs Enforcement Off of School Campuses, Protecting School Attendance and Funding Amid Deportation Threats

SACRAMENTO—State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond is sponsoring Senate Bill 48, legislation that aims to keep U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents off California campuses by establishing a one-mile radius safe zone around schools, as well as protect against the use of school data for deportation efforts. The bill, introduced by Senate Majority Leader Lena Gonzalez (D-33) on Monday, December 16, will prevent schools from experiencing a drop-off in student attendance due to immigration concerns, which would directly and negatively impact critical funding. The bill also doubles down on the commitment by the California Department of Education to safeguard students and families, maintaining schools as spaces where everyone has the right to an education.

“SB 48 seeks to push back against threats of deportation that create fear in immigrant families. These practices suppress school attendance and rob schools of needed revenue,” said Superintendent Thurmond. “I am honored to partner with bill author Senator Lena Gonzalez, other legislators, and immigrant rights groups to support our families and keep ICE off our school campuses—period.”

The bill would prohibit school districts, county offices of education, charter schools, and their personnel from granting ICE officers and other federal immigration authorities access to campuses if they do not have a judicial warrant. The bill would also prohibit police cooperation with any immigration enforcement efforts within a one-mile radius of school to ensure a safe corridor for parents to bring their children to and from school.

As schools continue to face challenges related to student safety and data privacy, this bill sends a strong message that California is committed to protecting our students and families. SB 48 will also prohibit the sharing of any information about students, families, their households and school employees with ICE officers or other federal authorities.

“All California children deserve safe school environments that prioritize student learning, regardless of immigration status,” said Senate Majority Leader Lena Gonzalez. “As Chair of the California Latino Legislative Caucus, I’m proud to be partnering with Superintendent Tony Thurmond to author this important legislation, which will prevent disruptions to student learning, keep children in school, and prevent families from being torn apart.”

In California, 93 percent of children who have one or more undocumented parents are U.S. citizens. Additionally, all children in the United States, regardless of immigration status, have a right to a free and appropriate public education. The proposed bill reflects California’s commitment to ensure that pandemic-era increases in chronic absenteeism do not recur and reiterates California’s commitment to make sure that schools are welcoming environments where all families can safely bring their children to learn. It aligns with California’s broader efforts to promote equity, inclusion, and the protection of immigrant communities.

# # # #

Tony Thurmond — State Superintendent of Public Instruction
Communications Division, Room 5602, 916-319-0818, Fax 916-319-0100

Musk Seeks to Shut Down the Government

 Can the Muskrat shut the United States government?

Sure looks that way. The richest person in the world has turned his wealth into raw power. That's what oligarchy looks like.

 

 

https://robertreich.substack.com/p/can-the-muskrat-shut-the-united-states?

 

Note;  Elon Musk has already received over $10 Billion dollars in U.S. government subsidies.

 

BTW. He was an illegal alien for some 6 years, but not prosecuted. 

Sacramento - a Sanctuary City. California - a San...

antiracismdsa: Sacramento - a Sanctuary City. California - a San...:     Sacramento City Councilman Eric Guerra, the Mayor, and number of local politicians assert that Sacramento will remain a sanctuary city, ...

Defend Immigrants

 

The Democrats Failure : Robert Reich.

  

The Democrats Failure to Tell The Truth About Rot at the Top.

Robert Reich.

 

https://open.substack.com/pub/robertreich/p/the-four-stories-of-america-part?

 

Evil in the Trump Administration

antiracismdsa: Evil in the Trump Administration:   If Tom Homan were of Italian lineage, he could easily have been cast as a foul-mouthed, bullying captain of the Soprano crime family. He’d...

Plus, next steps. 

Pete Hegseth Is Dangerous. Trump Nominated Him.

 Trump’s nominee for secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, scurried among Senate offices this past week trying to reassure senators that reports of his wild drinking, sexual harassment, and other improprieties were just media smears. 

He even had his mother (whose own years-old letter disapproving of her son’s sexually abusive behavior went public this week) call senators to make Hegseth’s case. 

Finally, Hegseth promised senators that if he got the position, he wouldn’t drink at all — as if someone with a drinking problem saying I can stop anytime was credible.

At the moment, Hegseth’s fate seems to rest with Iowa Republican Senator Jodi Ernst, a military veteran who has spent much of her time as a lawmaker working on improving how sexual attacks are reported and prosecuted within the ranks. 

Yesterday, Ernst told a largely GOP audience that she needs to hear more from Hegseth before she decides whether to support him. “I am a survivor of sexual assault,” she said. “I’ve worked very heavily on sexual assault measures within the military. So I’d like to hear a lot more about that.”

Ernst’s unwillingness to support Hegseth outright has prompted a fierce pressure campaign from the right, with some even threatening to primary her when she is up for reelection in 2026. 

There are issues beyond sexual assault that are also deeply troubling about Hegseth. 

I want to bring to your attention Jason Wilson’s excellent column from TheGuardian, most of which I’ve reproduced below. It is alarmingly consistent with my post last week about how Trump’s efforts to use the U.S. military domestically could foment a second American civil war. 

*** 

Hegseth has written in a book [An American Crusade] that he could imagine a scenario in which the US armed forces would be used violently in American domestic politics…. 

He wrote that in the event of a Democratic election victory in the US there would be a “national divorce” in which “The military and police … will be forced to make a choice” and “Yes, there will be some form of civil war.”

Hegseth’s 2020 book exhorts conservatives to undertake “an AMERICAN CRUSADE”, to “mock, humiliate, intimidate, and crush our leftist opponents”, to “attack first” in response to a left he identifies with “sedition,” and he writes that the book “lays out the strategy we must employ in order to defeat America’s internal enemies.”

Hegseth’s rhetoric about perceived “internal” or “domestic enemies,” along with media reports highlighting his tattoo of the crusader motto “Deus Vult,” may ring alarm bells for those concerned by Donald Trump’s repeated threats to unleash the US military, which Hegseth would directly control, on those he has described as “the enemy within.”….

Hegseth paints an apocalyptic picture of American politics, and encourages his fellow rightwingers to see their opponents as an existential threat.

At various points in that book, he describes leftists, progressives and Democrats as “enemies” of freedom, the US constitution and America, and counts Israel among the “international allies” who can help defeat such “domestic enemies.”

Addressing his conservative audience in a chapter of American Crusade entitled Make the Crusade Great Again, he writes: “Whether you like it or not, you are an ‘infidel’ – an unbeliever – according to the false religion of leftism.” He added: “You can submit now or later; or you can fight.”

Later in the book, he writes: “Build the wall. Raise tariffs. Learn English. Buy American. Fight back.”

Elsewhere in American Crusade, he writes: “The hour is late for America. Beyond political success, her fate relies on exorcising the leftist specter dominating education, religion, and culture – a 360-degree holy war for the righteous cause of human freedom.”

In fighting, Hegseth wrote: “Our weapon is American nationalism,” adding: “The Left has tried … to intimidate us into thinking that nationalism is a relic of a bygone era.”

Hegseth has followed his own advice in this respect: his tattoos include the words “We the People,” quoted from the Constitution, and a “stylized American flag with its bottom stripe replaced by an AR-15 assault rifle” according to Snopes.com reporting.

In relation to the media, “almost all” politicians, and credentialed experts, Hegseth advises readers to “Disdain, despise, detest, distrust – pick your d-words. But all of this must lead to action.”… 

Hegseth explicitly rejects democracy in American Crusade, characterizing it as a leftist demand: “For leftists, calls for ‘democracy’ represent a complete rejection of our system. Watch how often they use the word,” adding: “They hate America, so they hate the Constitution and want to quickly amass 51 percent of the votes to change it.”

He explicitly supports forms of election-rigging through gerrymandering. Fair electoral boundaries, he writes, amount to “Playing nice to placate the so-called middle,” which “has been a losing strategy for patriots for decades.” Since “the other side is stacked with enemies of freedom,” Hegseth argues, “Republican legislatures should draw congressional lines that advantage pro-freedom candidates – and screw Democrats.”…

In considering the prospect of Trump’s defeat in 2020, Hegseth claims that a Biden victory will shatter the US and lead to civil war.

In the first chapter, Our American Crusade, he claims: “The fate of freedom is what is at stake in the 2020 election. The immediate years that follow will, once and for all, determine whether the American experiment in human freedom – the America of our founding – will die, get a national divorce based on irreconcilable cultural and political divisions, or return to its founding principles.”

Later in the book he defines a national divorce as “irreconcilable differences between the Left and the Right in America leading to perpetual conflict that cannot be resolved through the political process.”… 

For Hegseth, such a move would necessarily involve violence. Hegseth writes: “The military and police, both bastions of freedom-loving patriots, will be forced to make a choice. It will not be good. Yes, there will be some form of civil war.”

Hegseth concedes: “It’s a horrific scenario that nobody wants but would be difficult to avoid.”

Additionally, he writes: “If America is split, freedom will no longer have an army.”

The end of the US military – which he elsewhere calls “the only powerful, pro-freedom, pro-Christian, pro-Israel army in the world” – will in turn mean that “Communist China will rise – and rule the globe. Europe will formally surrender. Islamists will get nuclear weapons and seek to wipe America and Israel off the map.”

Victory, however, will mean the defeat of the allied forces of “globalism”, “socialism”, “secularism”, “environmentalism”, “Islamism”, “genderism” and “leftism”, according to Hegseth.

Hegseth expresses an unstinting loyalty to Trump.

At one point in the book, he describes a conversation between the two after Trump, at Hegseth’s urging, in 2019 pardoned three service members who had been charged or convicted with alleged war crimes committed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

On Hegseth’s account, Trump called him ahead of the pardon, and the call “ended with a compliment to me that I’ll never forget and might put on my tombstone: ‘You’re a fucking warrior, Pete. A fucking warrior.’ I thanked him for his courage, and he hung up.” …

Hegseth leaves his readers with the promise: “See you on the battlefield. Together, with God’s help, we will save America. Deus vult!”

\Robert Reich 

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Tulsi Gabbard is Dangerous to Our Society ( and us)

Timothy Snyder,  

Imagine that the day has come for your brain surgery. You are lying, immobilized and vulnerable, on the operating table. Something is wrong, but you hope that it can be repaired. As the anesthesia sets in, you reflect. To be sure, your brain hasn't always performed the way you wished it had. You have made some mistakes, and done some stupid things, regrettable things, wrong things. But still, it is the brain that allows for a reconsideration of all that, to adjust, to have some hope and some possibility of doing better next time. Your brain keeps you going, keeps you in touch with the world. Hopefully, yours can be repaired, and you can get back to thinking, being, becoming. You could get better. As darkness descends, you catch a glimpse of a person dressed as a surgeon, approaching your head with a knife and a smile. It's Tulsi Gabbard. Hope gives way to horror.

This dark fantasy suggests, on a very small scale, the national trauma that lies before us. Gabbard is Donald Trump's choice to operate American intelligence. In the intelligence system, a kind of national brain, the Director of National Intelligence oversees and coordinates the work of agencies charged with knowing the world, protecting the integrity of digital systems, anticipating and preventing terrorism, and evaluating national security threats. Gabbard is the opposite of qualified for such a role: she is a disinformer and as an apologist for the war crimes of dictatorships.

Gabbard appears on the world stage as a defender of a million violent deaths. 

She is an apologist for two of the great atrocities of the century: the Russian-Syrian suppression of the Syrian opposition to the Bashar al-Assad dictatorship, which has taken about half a million lives, most of them civilians, some of them by chemical weapons; and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which has also taken about half a million lives, and has brought the destruction of whole cities, the kidnapping of children, mass torture, and the large-scale execution of civilians.

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That is it. That is her profile. Disinformer and apologist. Beyond the United States, in the larger world that US intelligence agencies are tasked to understand, she is associated with her pro-Assad and pro-Putin positions. (In third place, I suppose, would be her propensity to provide the Chinese state media with useful sound bites).

Until 2014, Gabbard said nothing remarkable about foreign affairs. In 2015, just before Putin intervened to save Assad, she began her extraordinary journey of apology for atrocity. In September of that year, Putin sent Russian mercenaries, soldiers, and airmen to Syria to defend Assad. The great advantage Putin could bring to Assad was to multiply the regime's air strikes, which were turned against hospitals and other civilian targets. Hospitals were and remain a Russian specialty.

In June 2015, as a congresswoman from Hawai'i, Gabbard visited Syria. During her stay, she was introduced to girls who had been burned from head to toe by a regime air strike. Her reaction to the situation, according to her translator, was to try to persuade the girls that they had been injured not by Syrian forces, but by the resistance. But this was impossible. Only Syria (at the time of her visit) and Russia (beginning weeks later) were flying planes and dropping bombs. 

Either Gabbard was catastrophically uninformed about the most basic elements of the theater of war she was visiting, or she was consciously spreading disinformation. Those are the two possibilities. The first is disqualifying; the second is worse.

And if she was spreading disinformation consciously, she was also doing so with a pathological ruthlessness. Anyone who would lie to the child victims of an air strike to their burned faces would lie to anyone about anything. In January 2017, she visited Syria again, this time to speak to Assad. She began thereafter to deny that his regime had used chemical weapons on its own people. That was a very big lie.

In Washington, in speeches in Congress, Gabbard showed an uncanny ability to turn almost any issue into a justification for defending the Assad regime. In 2016, concern for Christians in Syria was a pretext to defend the Assad regime. In 2017, she presented worries about terrorism as a reason to defend of the Assad regime. In 2018, the anniversary of 9/11 was her prompt for defending the Assad regime. In 2019, she found her way from the genocide of Armenians a century earlier to the need to defend the Assad regime. She even worked hard to segue from the lack of affordable housing in Hawai'i to the need to defend the Assad regime. Gabbard's support of Assad was so well known that her colleagues, Republican and Democratic alike, were worried that she would reveal the identity of a Syrian photographer brought to Congress to testify about Assad's atrocities.

For Russia, Syria was a testing ground for Ukraine. The atrocities perpetrated by Russians in Syria were repeated in Ukraine. In 2021, the largest donor to Gabbard’s PAC was an apologist for Putin. When the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February of the following year, Gabbard, a consumer of Russian propaganda, was immediately ready as a channel for the Russian line, including obvious Russian disinformation. Again and again, over and over, her public statements were strikingly similar to Putin’s,

Amidst the farrago of lies that Russia used to justify its full-scale invasion invasion was the completely bogus claim that Ukraine was site of American biolabs that were testing which infections would be most harmful to Slavs (and thus Russians). This lie originates in Russia and was spread by Russian media, along with some Chinese and Syrian echo chambers, and with a setof western helpers -- one of whom was Tulsi Gabbard. She also urged, "in the spirit of Aloha," that Ukraine react to the invasion by surrendering its sovereignty to Russia. She later justified Russia's invasion of Ukraine by the notion, common in Moscow, that Russia was the victim of American attempts to overthrow Putin. She was specifically thanked by Russian state media for defending Russian war propaganda.

To be sure, the wars and the regions are complex. Even if Assad falls, as now looks increasingly likely, Syria will be a mess, with unsavory and dangerous people in power. There is, of course, room for disagreement about American foreign policy, including with respect to Assad and Putin and their twinned atrocities. That can all be taken for granted, and provides no excuse whatever for Gabbard's very unusual behavior. It is strange, to say the least, that Gabbard says nothing about these regimes that they have not first said about themselves, and that she uses her platform to spread their own very specific disinformation.

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One feature of disinformation is that it is factually incorrect: and so the very least (or most?) that can be said about Gabbard is that she consistently wrong on matters of the greatest moral and political significance. But the other element of disinformation is that it is consciously and maliciously designed to confuse. These memes (biolabs!) are tested and perfected before they are released. Disinformation is the opposite of an innocent mistake: it is concocted to make rational reflection and sensible policy difficult. Disinformation, in other words, is a weapon that one regime tries to spread within another society or -- in the dream of a hostile spy chief -- within another society's intelligence service. That is part of what Gabbard offers America’s enemies, and it is bad enough, because it means that systems meant to protect Americans instead put them in danger. It goes without saying that American allies would be unable to cooperate with the United States, and that patriotic intelligence officers would resign in droves. Informers around the world would cease their work. The US government would be cut off from the world. 

As Director of National Intelligence, Gabbard would do enormous harm, unwillingly or willingly. She is not just completely unqualified for this role -- she is anti-qualified. She is just the sort of person enemies of the American republic would want in this job. This is not a hypothetical -- Gabbard is the specific person that actual enemies of the United States do want in the job. The Russian media refers to Tulsi Gabbard as a "Russian agent" and as "girlfriend," with good reason.

Gabbard is worse than unfit. Her public record is as a disinformer and apologist for mass murderers. And there is nothing on the other side of the ledger. There are no positive qualifications. (Yes, she wrote a bestselling book. It became a bestseller because she scammed her followers into donating to a PAC which bought the book in bulk.) 

Gabbard is just as qualified to operate on your brain as she is to operate the national intelligence services. Would you let her? She clearly wants to take up the knife. Whose idea, one wonders, was that?

Imagine, because it is true, that the day will soon come when we name the person who will operate the national intelligence services. To be sure, like our own minds, the intelligence services of the United States haven't always performed well. There have been mistakes, and manipulation, and downright evil. But there has also been learning, and some recent, impressive showings, as in the precise and public prediction of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Intelligence services are a central part of government. Just as a brain might need surgery, American intelligence needs reform. But it does not need to be butchered for the pleasure of enemies.

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For positive solutions see On Freedom

On resistance see On Tyranny

PS: Further sources: In Sketches from a Secret War I write about intelligence, counter-intelligence, disinformation, and active measures. In The Road to Unfreedom I write about the Russian intervention in Syria and the associated atrocities. On the early Russian bombings of hospitals in particular I cited these sources: Amnesty International: “Syria: Russia’s shameful failure to acknowledge civilian killings,” Amnesty International, 23 December 2015; Physicians for Human Rights: “Russian Warplanes Strike Medical Facilities in Syria,” Physicians for Human Rights, 7 October 2015. Russian hackers punished those who wrote about the bombings: "Pawn Storm APT Group Returns," SC Magazine, 23 October 2015. 

Separated: Documentary.

 Separated: Documentary

 

Showing Dec. 7, on MSNBC.

 

https://watch.montanapbs.org/video/separated-1733435602/

Trump Adminstration:Taking migrant children from their families.

Anti Fascist Organizing

North Star Caucus of DSA

 has created a new hub for participation in popular front activities and organizations to defeat MAGA fascism.  We hope that you are engaged. 

 

Resources for 2025 North Star 
Defeat Fascism / Fight for Democracy: 
Action Opportunities:

 

Similar to our 2024 hub, this site is for finding opportunities to take actions which make a difference.  It is not a site for opinion essays.  Essays should continue to be posted on this list serve.  Reports on your engagement continue to be welcome on our list serve. 

 

The hub is here. Feel free to share with others. 

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cRIJsSJwtF72ckJ8QLQu5cDCGnoeh5OIIjwqRkDKdBg/edit?tab=t.0#heading=h.es6myhajhn20

  

Wikler for Democratic Party Chair

 Today, Ben Wikler, the Wisconsin Democratic chairman, announced he was entering the race to lead the Democratic National Committee. 

This is important. The person who runs the DNC is the key organizer for the Democratic Party between now, the 2026 midterms, and the 2028 presidential election (assuming we have one). That person will be a critical voice in opposition to Trump’s authoritarian fascism. 

Speaking on CNN’s “Inside Politics,” Wikler said, “I’m running for chair of the Democratic National Committee because we need to unite, we need to fight, and we need to win to stop the GOP from ripping this country apart and ripping off working people to enrich mega billionaires.”

Wikler is the right man for the job. 

I got to know Ben when he proved to be a thoughtful and effective top official at MoveOn. He’s chaired the Wisconsin Democrats since 2019, presiding over the successful rebuilding of a party that had been seriously weakened by many years of Republican control of the state government. 

Wikler organized and mobilized voters in a state that Republicans had rigged to ensure total dominance and control. Ben unrigged that system. He turned Wisconsin into a year-round organizing and fundraising powerhouse, winning seven of the last 10 statewide elections since he took over. 

Democrats just picked up four congressional seats in Wisconsin. They held on to their Senate seat. They also broke the GOP supermajority in the state Senate, picked up 10 seats in the state Assembly, and are on track to flip both chambers in 2026 and potentially get a trifecta if they win the governor’s race that year too.

This was made possible in part because Democrats flipped Wisconsin’s state Supreme Court in April 2023. That court then struck down the gerrymandered GOP-drawn state legislative map. Democratic Governor Tony Evers signed into law a new competitive state legislative map.

Wikler’s activism is all over Wisconsin. Democratic Senator Tammy Baldwin prevailed with a few thousand more votes than Vice President Kamala Harris, and both Harris and Baldwin got more votes than anyone in the history of the state other than Barack Obama in 2008, when he won by 14 points (and Trump). 

In an interview with The New York Times, Wikler said he aimed to do for the national party what he did in Wisconsin. “The Democratic Party is best served by leadership that’s been fighting on the front lines in one of the most contested states in the country and has demonstrated an ability to build an operation that has shattered expectations for what was possible.”

This is what Democrats must do nationally. 

Wikler is right when he says, “Democrats win when voters know that we’re the ones fighting for them against those who will seek to rip them off to add an extra billion dollars to their bank account.” And he correctly calls for an approach “grounded in where people actually get their information, not just where we want to speak or what we want to say.”

Ben was one of the first to attack Project 2025 and link it to Trump. “These ideas aren’t just bad. They’re dangerous for our country,” he said during the Republican National Convention. “Donald Trump and JD Vance want to ransack the public treasury to hand out massive tax cuts to billionaires and stick working Americans with the bill.”

Just 43 years old, Wikler started in politics as a research assistant for Al Franken and hasn’t looked back. 

Can he win? The DNC election is slated for February 1. The current chair is South Carolina Democrat Jaime Harrison, who is not running again. There are 448 voting members of the Democratic National Committee. 

Why is this important? Because for years, the Democratic National Committee has been little more than a fundraising machine, which means it’s been tilted toward sources of big money: billionaires, big corporations, and Wall Street. 

That’s precisely the problem. That’s why the DNC cut Bernie Sanders off at the knees when he ran against Hillary Clinton in 2016. That’s why starting in the 1980s the party began turning its back on the working class. 

There’s no way the party can speak for the majority of working people in America when it’s reluctant to bite the hands that feed it. 

Wikler is a progressive who knows how to win elections with a Democratic Party that’s on the side of the little guy. 

Labor in the Trump Years

Labor in the Trump Years: Trump, Musk & Co. are gunning for unions. Herewith some strategies for survival.

Refuse, Resist

“As President I will immediately end the migrant invasion of America. We will stop all migrant flights, end all illegal entries, terminate the Kamala phone app for smuggling illegals (CBP One App), revoke deportation immunity, suspend refugee resettlement, and return Kamala’s illegal migrants to their home countries (also known as remigration). I will save our cities and towns in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and all across America.” President-Elect Donald Trump can’t be faulted for not telling us what’s on his mind. And on this matter, he doesn’t flinch at numbers of 20 million or so to be expelled from our borders, undocumented or otherwise. This means temporary legal status for refugees, like Haitians ‘eating our pets,’ will be abolished. He not only tells us this racist nonsense, he does so repeatedly, drawing the greatest ‘red meat’ fascist chants during his rallies, even those held in locations with hardly any recent immigrants of any sort or status. Trump offers his crowds a rung on a hierarchical socio-economic ladder where they always have ‘the Other’ to view as beneath them. But what Trump doesn’t reveal is the core irrationalism of his immigration program. Set aside the 20 million overall goal for a moment. To deport just 1 million over one year would cost the taxpayers nearly $90 billion, or about $90,000 for each deportee. Why is the cost so high? We’re not even including the moral cost, which is immeasurable. After all, no change is needed to U.S. law to start deportations. Being in the U.S. without proper immigration status is a civil violation, with a fine starting at $25. Six months in jail is an option, and penalties are doubled for repeat offenders. Some are surprised at the small scale. Many traffic offenses draw harsher terms. But what matters is the ‘criminal’ label. That’s what turns a civil offender into ‘the Other.’ And deportation is considered the core legal civil penalty for it.  For mass deportations, two things are required. The most important is instilling fear. Why so? Because it motivates self-deportation, the cheapest option. We can see it at work today in the increase of Haitians fleeing the city of Springfield, Ohio at the sight of armed Nazi militias near their homes. Fear leading to self-deportation was a major factor in Mexicans and Mexican-Americans fleeing to Mexico in large numbers during the ‘Wetback’ raids of the 1930s and 1950s. It was seen as better to cross the border without a police record than as the result of one. The former held the promise of an easier return when the fear subsided.  The Israelis are also good at using fear. Self-deportation is one reason why we have Palestinian communities in many U.S. cities, although with less hope of return within them. But truth be told, the Israelis had much to learn from us. Our entire history is rooted in mass removals through fear. The Trail of Tears, where Andy Jackson, turned over Cherokee land to European-American settlers ,is only the most remembered. But what is the second factor? Arrests are far from removal. Mass deportations require money, large quantities of it. And the money is not thrown into the winds. It’s massively transferred from the taxpayers into the coffers of those who profit from deportations. Arresting people is one thing, and the cost is relatively minor. But detaining them, judging them, and then exporting them by the planeloads is where the costs, and the profits, can soar. Our Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, or ICE, can’t do this work alone. In 2024, Congress only allowed them the funds for 41,500 ‘detention beds,’ less than 5% of what might be needed. At the same time, as of September 2024, some 3.7 million immigrants, arrested and now awaiting resolution of their cases, were obviously not jailed, but ’at large.’ They were living with friends or relatives, and working ‘off the books’ along with tens of millions of others neither arrested nor detained but ‘living in the shadows.’ It’s why we hear the refrain that ‘our immigration system is broken.’ Indeed, it's capable of many decent reforms, but not on Trump's watch. As of the end of September, 2024, 3.7 million people in the county were waiting for their claims for asylum, resident status or work permits to be resolved. And even if they were judged negatively and sentenced to deportation, many still could not be deported because their designated countries of origin had not agreed to accept deportation flights from the United States, or at least they likely would not accept anything like the numbers Trump hopes to dump on them. The truth is Trump has no practical plan for mass deportation. We might say, as he said about health care reform, that he has ‘a concept of a plan.’ And that concept can be reduced to another irrationalism, ‘use the military.’ Here, Trump wants to rely on Sections 25- through 255 in Title 10 of the United States Code, aka ‘The Insurrection Act.’ It dates back to 1798, but was most recently used when U.S. troops were sent to Los Angeles to suppress the revolts around the Rodney King crisis. It’s the exception in U.S. law that allows for setting aside the standing Posse Comitatus Act forbidding the use of U.S. troops to enforce the law within the U.S. It’s been used every two or three decades throughout our history, most notably in recent times by FDR to imprison Japanese Americans and by JFK to enforce school desegregation in the South. Trump’s projected use of the military, however, would be larger by several orders of magnitude. Rather than several hundred to 20,000 engaged in violence or a projected threat of it, Trump is aiming at tens of millions living and working peaceably in large cities or rural farms. Imagine what would happen in the Pilsen area of Chicago, 93% Mexican, or East Los Angeles, 95% Latino, if platoons of 30 or so federal troops, accompanied by a handful of ICE agents, began breaking down doors in search of those without papers. Let’s just say that passive acceptance is the least likely outcome. And even if it was, where are all of those seized to be detained? Tent cities put up by FEMA and surrounded with barbed wire? People still have agency and allies, and wire cutters can be obtained in any hardware store. Trump is deluded with several irrational assumptions. First is thinking that only he and his troops have a vote on this matter. They do not. We all have a say, whether he gets it or not. Second is the assumption that his troops will obey unjust orders, especially over long periods, and in platoons where ‘whites’ may be a minority. Third is that a divided Congress will not cut off the funds for his stupidities. Our old comrade Tom Hayden, RIP, once remarked: ‘Wars end when three things happen. The streets become ungovernable. The soldiers refuse to fight. And Congress cuts off the money.’ Here we will add a corollary: the three points apply even more so when the wars are being waged against tens of millions of people within our borders. Trump’s dream of restoring a ‘White Republic’ is really a bloody nightmare for the rest of us. Thus it falls upon us to do everything required to make sure it never happens, or it’s stopped early in its tracks. How do we do it? First, we start where we are, at the local and state levels, asserting a progressive version of ‘states rights.’ (See Van Gosse’s article below). We begin by gathering the information and contacts required for systematic non-cooperation.  We can talk to our local police and sheriffs about refusing to assist ICE and other federal efforts, starting with not using our local jails for detentions. Many of them may not agree at first, but some will. If nothing else, they will recognize the stupidity of Trump’s delusions and the cost of it. Then we organize legal aid teams for those subject to arrest. We oppose any secret courts or closed hearings. We talk to every local, county and state elected official. If we can’t convince them to ignore Trump’s demands on them, we can convince them they will be removed from office or their office will be made ‘ungovernable.’ Finally, in addition to the justice of it all—most of us do not want to be the ‘Good Germans’ in this movie—we need to expose and educate all concerned around its true cost economically. ‘A Day without Immigrants’ is a good instructive example. Ask people, in going about their usual day's activities, how many times do they come into contact with immigrant workers, including those likely without papers? Who gets the veggies in our markets? Who works in our restaurants? Who cares for our elders? Who works on tough construction sites and landscaping? Who cares for children in day care centers? Trump captures your attention with delusions about ‘the economy,’ but what happens as he tears out much of its heart and wrecks it? Don’t let this Chump take an inch without a fight. And get to work on it now.

 

Student Debtors Could See Hopes Vanish Under Trump

Student Debtors Could See Hopes Vanish Under Trump: Not just mass debt relief, but borrowers promised debt relief through various programs could be denied those benefits in the next presidential term.

Democrats Must Choose: The Elites or the Working Class

  

 

Editors’ note. 

As a first step. Note.  74,118,950 people in the US voted for our positions. They voted for a continuation of democracy. That is an incredibly strong force to work within.  In California 9, 036, 667 voted against the Trump campaign and 5,220, 663 voted in favor. 

 

Certainly the left lost.  And, some in the left contributed to the loss including the elected leadership of DSA. That issue requires some deep thinking. 

 

Democrats Must Choose: The Elites or the Working Class

Bernie Sanders.  November 12, 2024.

 

The results of the 2024 election have confirmed a reality that is too frequently denied by Democratic Party leaders and strategists: The American working class is angry — and for good reason.

They want to know why the very rich are getting much richer, and the CEOs of major corporations make almost 300 times more than their average employees, while weekly wages remain stagnant and 60 percent of Americans live paycheck to paycheck.

They want to know why corporate profits soar while companies shut down factories in America and move to low-wage countries.

They want to know why the food industry enjoys record breaking profits, while they can’t afford their grocery bills.

They want to know why they can’t afford to go to a doctor or pay for their prescription drugs, and worry about going bankrupt if they end up in a hospital.

Donald Trump won this election because he tapped into that anger.

Did he address any of these serious issues in a thoughtful or meaningful way? 

 

Absolutely not.

What he did do was divert the festering anger in our country at a greedy and out-of-touch corporate elite into a politics that served his political goals and will end up further enriching his fellow billionaires.

Trump’s “genius” is his ability to divide the working class so that tens of millions of Americans will reject solidarity with their fellow workers and pave the way for huge tax breaks for the very rich and large corporations.

While Trump did talk about capping credit card interest rates at 10 percent, and a new trade policy with China, his fundamental explanation as to why the working class was struggling was that millions of illegal immigrants have invaded America and that we are now an “occupied country.”

In his pathologically dishonest world, undocumented immigrants are illegally participating in our elections and voting for Democrats. They are creating massive amounts of crime, driving wages down, and taking our jobs. They are getting free health care and other benefits that are denied to American citizens. They are even eating our pets.

That explanation is grossly racist, cruel, and fallacious. But it is an explanation.

And what do the Democrats have to say about the crises facing working families? What is their full-throated explanation, pounded away day after day in the media, in the halls of Congress, and in town meetings throughout the country as to why tens of millions of workers, in the richest country on earth, are struggling to put food on the table or pay the rent? Where is the deeply felt outrage that we are the only major country on earth not to guarantee health care for all as a human right while insurance and drug companies make huge profits?

How do they explain supporting billions of dollars in military aid to the right-wing extremist government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which has created an unprecedented humanitarian disaster in Gaza that is causing massive malnutrition and starvation for thousands of children?

In my view, the Democrats lost this election because they ignored the justified anger of working class America and became the defenders of a rigged economic and political system.

This election was largely about class and change and the Democrats, in both cases, were often on the wrong side. As Jimmy Williams Jr., the president of the Painters Union, said, “The Democratic Party has continued to fail to prioritize a strong, working-class message that addresses issues that really matter to workers. The party did not make a positive case for why workers should vote for them, only that they were not Donald Trump. That’s not good enough anymore!”

As an Independent member of the US Senate, I caucus with the Democrats. In that capacity I have been proud to work with President Biden on one of the most ambitious pro-worker agendas in modern history.