Correcting Amy Walter with some recent history on immigration

One of my least favorite political commentators is Amy Walter of the Cook Political Report. Her appearance on the PBS News Hour on Tuesday reinforced that opinion. Host Geoff Bennett specifically asked her to comment on Trump's use of the military to paint a picture of toughness. Here's how Walter responded:

No, I think that's true, and I do think that's why it's been so interesting to watch the Democratic response, especially of Democratic leaders, not just in the state, but nationally...

The question going forward, I think, is how Democrats do talk about these issues, it's going to be really important for the — not just what's happening today in Los Angeles, but just writ large. I think there has been a lot of pullback and a lot of hand-wringing from Democrats about an issue which they used to have an advantage on during the — Trump's first term, they have a disadvantage on now.

Walter can't be bothered with talking about a president using the military against citizen protesters. Instead, she frames the issue as a challenge for Democrats. WTH?! Of course, right wing media was able to wallow in her comments about "handwringing Democrats" being at a disadvantage on the issue of immigration. 

But how can anyone take her historical reference seriously? Did Democrats have an advantage on immigration during Trump's first term? On what basis does she make a claim like that?

So here's a little recent history lesson for Ms. Walter. Republicans were shocked to lose the 2012 election after making huge gains in the 2010 midterms. The situation was so bleak for the GOP that they did an autopsy to try and figure out why they had failed so miserably. Here's one of the recommendations coming out of that autopsy:

[A]mong the steps Republicans take in the Hispanic community and beyond, we must embrace and champion comprehensive immigration reform. If we do not, our Party's appeal will continue to shrink to its core constituencies only. We also believe that comprehensive immigration reform is consistent with Republican economic policies that promote job growth and opportunity for all.

Some Republican politicians took that to heart. In the Senate, Jeff Flake (R-AZ), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), John McCain (R-AZ), and Marco Rubio (R-FL) worked with four Democrats to produce a bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform bill that included both border security and a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. It passed the Senate 68-32.

But then House Speaker John Boehner refused to take up the bill due to pressure from his right wing Tea Party (prelude to MAGA) members. The bill stalled and was never passed - even though polls showed that a large majority of voters supported such a measure. 

Donald Trump kicked off his 2016 presidential campaign by calling Mexican immigrants criminals and rapists. His presidency was filled with racist lies about immigrants invading our country and a truly horrific attempt to deter immigration by separating children from their parents at the border. Even some Republicans were appalled.

The first bill President Biden sent to congress after beating Trump in the 2020 election was on comprehensive immigration reform, including both border security and a pathway to citizenship. It never passed. Towards the end of his term, Biden and Democrats once again negotiated a bipartisan border control compromise in the Senate. But Trump urged Congress to kill it because he wanted to use immigration as a campaign issue.

During the 2024 campaign Trump ratcheted up the lies about criminal immigrants and even went so far as to claim that they were eating our pets. Now he's trying to implement his mass deportation agenda, even though only 39% of Americans support what he's doing. Polls consistently show that Americans support a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.

If all anyone did was pay attention to right wing media and their enablers in mainstream media, you'd think Walter is right. But a brief look at both recent history and polling suggests that - at minimum - things are a bit more complex than her "analysis" suggests. 

If we are ever going to have a rational discussion about immigration, we're going to need to take a deep breath and step back from the racist fear-mongering and fascism emanating from Trump and his enablers. Democrats are firmly on the right side of history on this one. We recognize that we are a country of immigrants and that diversity is our strength. We must construct a humane immigration system because it's not just the right thing to do. It is the step we need to take right now in order to "perfect our union."

Got the blues?

Every link in this piece takes you to more great music.

Since we were in high school in the early 70s, I've known that my brother's favorite band has always been The Allman Brothers. I never paid them much attention because I was into other things. Then a couple of years ago, I finally decided to check into them to see what all the fuss was about. This was the first video I pulled up to check them out. 

At the time I didn't know that Soulshine was written by Warren Haynes and wasn't released by ABB until 1994 - long after both Duane Allman and Barry Oakley (original band members) had died in separate motorcycle accidents. 

But as I watched that video, I wondered who the young man with the long blond ponytail was. He blew me away with his slide guitar playing - standing so stoically in the place where Duane once stood. 

I soon found out that the young man was Derek Trucks - nephew of Butch Trucks, one of the ABB drummers. Derek was a guitar prodigy who had his own band by the time he was 13 and was opening for the Allman Brothers. He went on to become a member of the band when he was 20 years old and played with them until they disbanded in 2014. Derek also toured with Eric Clapton in 2006/7.

I went on to learn that in 1999, Derek met blues singer Susan Tedeschi and they were married a couple of years later. After fronting their own bands, the two joined forces in 2010 and formed the Tedeschi Trucks band. Here's their most famous song, Midnight in Harlem.

If you check into this band, you're going to hear a lot of people calling them the best touring band out there, and based on my limited experience, I'd agree with that. I went to see them last summer when they came to Minneapolis (my first live concert in decades) and it was a soul-stirring experience. 

I tell you all of that because it became an even bigger deal last November. Like most of you, I was pretty devastated about the election results and spent the next couple of weeks pretty immobilized by fear, rage, and depression. 

But then on the weekend of November 15 and 16 I got to live-stream the TTB concerts at the Fox Theater in Atlanta. Afterwards, I was no longer immobilized. Sure, I've continued to have times of fear, rage, and depression - but now I know that listening to good music keeps me functioning. 

You'll hear a lot of folks talk about the need for self-care during these times. Last November I learned that music is an integral part of self-care for me.

One more musical note before I close. Yesterday Sly Stone died. In honor of his tremendous contributions, here's how the Tedeschi Trucks band closed out that performance at the Fox Theater (I dare you to try and sit still through the whole thing): 

The Trump administration's attempt to restore white supremacy in the midst of demographic change

As we watch a militarized effort to terrorize black and brown immigrants (while importing white racists from South Africa), it is important to keep in mind the basis for this campaign. No one has articulated the fear better than white nationalist Richard Spencer back in 2015 as Trumpism was taking hold on the right (emphasis mine).

“Trump, on a gut level, kind of senses that this is about demographics, ultimately. We’re moving into a new America.” He said, “I don’t think Trump is a white nationalist,” but he did believe that Trump reflected “an unconscious vision that white people have – that their grandchildren might be a hated minority in their own country. I think that scares us. They probably aren’t able to articulate it. I think it’s there. I think that, to a great degree, explains the Trump phenomenon.”

Fox News and Republicans fully embraced the white supremacist great replacement theory sparked by this fear. 

The demographics these folks are referring to didn't simply spring up in the last few years as a result of recent increases in immigration. Demographers have been pointing them out for decades now. 

The real news is that, in addition to immigration, these changes are also based on birth rates. For example, "Children born in 2011 are members of this country's first majority-minority birth cohort." Another milestone was reached in the 2020 census: white non-Hispanic youth are now a minority (47%) among those under 18 years of age. Projections are that whites will be a minority in this country by 2044.

All of this led to an important analysis in the Washington Post back in 2018. At the time, the first Trump administration had released  a plan to severely restrict legal immigration - especially from countries in Africa and South America. The Post found that, if implemented, the plan would "delay the date that white Americans become a minority of the population by as few as one or as many as five additional years." Here's why (emphasis mine):

Experts say the main driver of diversification in the United States is the native-born Hispanic population, which grew by about 5 million from 2010 to 2016, just as the native-born white population shrank by about 400,000 over the same period, according to Census Bureau data...

“You can shut the door to everyone in the world and that won’t change,” said Roberto Suro, an immigration and demography expert at the University of Southern California. “The president can’t do anything about that. If your primary concern is that the American population is becoming less white, it’s already too late.”

The truth is that the Trump administration can't deport enough undocumented immigrants to change the trajectory that is underway. The bad news is that this is why they're going after legal immigrants and birthright citizenship. It is also why they probably won't hesitate to deport black and brown citizens.

Very much related to these efforts is the prevalence of natalism on the right - especially from folks like Elon Musk and J.D.Vance. The whitest age cohort in this country - baby boomers - is dying off and not being replaced by births. 

If these folks were really concerned about population decline, they'd be welcoming MORE immigrants. Instead, they want (white) women to have more babies. It's all an ugly mixture of misogyny and racism. 

Leonard Leo's terrible, horrible, no good, very bad month

These days, the news is almost too depressing to read. So I'll take good news any way I can get it. Along those lines is the fact that the month of May has been a pretty bad one for Leonard Leo - the man Justice Clarence Thomas once called “the Number Three most powerful person in the world.” Of course, Thomas was only joking...sort of.

In case you're not familiar with Leo, he's the Opus Dei Catholic who used dark money to stack the Supreme Court with extremists and then proceeded to pour millions into groups seeking to influence the Court. He has openly stated that his goal is to influence all aspects of American politics and culture by crushing liberal dominance. 

The bad new for Leo started early on in May when Cardinal Robert Prevost was chosen as the new pope, Leo XIV. While it remains unclear how he will interact with right wing Catholics in the United States, one of his first meetings was with the Opus Dei prelate, Monsignor Fernando Ocáriz. Apparently Pope Francis had begun the process of reforming the group, but it stalled after his death. It's clear that Pope Leo is prepared to pick up that ball, insisting on reforms. 

Given that Leonard Leo's focus has been to ensure a court that supports Catholic theocracy (integralism) and sides with big corporate interests, the fact that the new pope chose the name "Leo" is also relevant. The previous Pope Leo is remembered as one who was dedicated to social policies and social justice.

One of the barriers to Leo's goal of establishing a Catholic theocracy is the First Amendment's separation of church and state. In order to challenge the Supreme Court's interpretation of that amendment, Leo funded a court case promoting a publicly funded Christian school in Oklahoma.

At issue is the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Oklahoma’s push to create the St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, which would be the nation’s first religious school entirely funded by taxpayers. The school received preliminary approval from the state’s charter school board in June. If it survives legal challenges, it would open the door for state legislatures across the country to direct taxpayer funding to the creation of Christian or other sectarian schools.

In other words, this case was a BFD!

The second blow to Leonard Leo came on May 22nd when this happened:

The Supreme Court on Thursday effectively ended a publicly funded Catholic charter school in Oklahoma, dividing 4-4.

The outcome keeps in place an Oklahoma court decision that invalidated a vote by a state charter school board to approve the St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, which would have been the nation’s first religious charter school.

Finally, you may have heard that this week President Trump directly attacked Leo. Here's what he wrote on Truth Social:

I was new to Washington, and it was suggested that I use The Federalist Society as a recommending source on Judges. I did so, openly and freely, but then realized that they were under the thumb of a real “sleazebag” named Leonard Leo, a bad person who, in his own way, probably hates America, and obviously has his own separate ambitions.

That attack came on the heels of the Trump administration losing 96% of rulings in federal district courts during the month of May. Seventy-two percent (72%) of those ruling came from Republican-appointed judges. So now Leo, according to Trump, is a "sleazebag" who hates America. 

Far be it from me to defend Leo against those attacks. It couldn't happen to a more deserving *sshole. 

But the whole situation is a cautionary tale to anyone who signs up to support Trump. The president has no policy or moral foundation. All he wants is 100% loyalty to his needs. If that isn't provided...you're simply a sleaze bag who hates America.

My message to Democrats: Don't you dare apologize for Biden!

Both mainstream and right wing media are once again obsessed with Joe Biden's age. Three events contributed to this renewed focus.

1. Publication of the book "Original Sin" by Alex Thompson and Jake Tapper,
2. The White House release of the audio tape of Joe Biden's interview with special counsel Robert Hur, and
3. The announcement that Biden has prostate cancer. 

The story being spun is that Biden was in mental decline during his presidency and that the truth about his condition was hidden from the public. Tom Bevan, publisher of the right wing site RealClearPolitics, said that "Gaslighting about Biden's mental conditions is one of the biggest scandals in American history." WOW, one of the biggest in American history?!

To believe that extreme hyperbole, you have to forget that President Biden took the historical step of stepping out of his race for reelection. You also have to completely ignore interviews like this one that Biden did with John Harwood nine days before the Hur interviews began - where he intelligently discusses some of the complex issues he was dealing with as president.

So where's this huge scandal? There isn't one. The truth is that Joe Biden's presidency was a tremendous success. There is a reason why that poses a big threat to Trump and Republicans. No one has consistently pointed that out better than historian Heather Cox Richardson. As an example, last August she wrote that "Under the direction of President Joe Biden, over the past three and a half years the Democrats have returned to the economic ideology of the New Deal coalition of the 1930s." What did that coalition accomplish?

Before 1935...the government served largely to manage the economic relationships between labor, capital, and resources. But [FDR's New Deal] recognized that the purpose of government was not to protect property; it was to protect the community...

This reworking of the American government to reflect community rather than economic relationships changed the entire fabric of the country, and opponents have worked to destroy it ever since FDR began to put it in place. 

The New Deal coalition survived those attacks until the 1980s. Here's what Biden faced when he took office: 

Biden set out to prove that democracy could work for ordinary people by ditching the neoliberalism that had been in place for forty years. That system, begun in the 1980s, called for the government to allow unfettered markets to organize the economy. Neoliberalism’s proponents promised it would create widespread prosperity, but instead, it transferred more than $50 trillion from the bottom 90% of Americans to the top 1%...

When he took office, Biden vowed to prove that democracy worked. With laws like the American Rescue Plan, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act, the CHIPS and Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act, the Democrats directed investment toward ordinary Americans. The dramatic success of their economic program proved that it worked. 

Republicans want Democrats on their heels apologizing for Joe Biden because, as the Trump administration focuses on undoing everything the former president accomplished, they want to ensure that no president in the future tries to replicate a return to the New Deal coalition of the 1930s.

I, for one, will not capitulate to that nonsense and I'll call out any Democrat who does. What President Biden accomplished during his four short years in office was a huge step forward for this country. I'm not only grateful to him personally, I proudly embrace his vision of making the government work for ordinary Americans.

Musk will be leaving the federal government deeper in debt than when he started

There has been some speculation about what Elon Musk really wants out of the DOGE efforts. For example, lots of questions arise about his access to reams of government data on private citizens. Of course, the same can be said about how DOGE will increase the wealth of the wealthiest man on earth. 

But when it came to selling the public on DOGE, the message was clear. Here is what Musk promised last October during Trump's rally at Madison Square Garden.

Musk promised that he would cut $2 trillion from the federal budget. He said that our tax dollars were being wasted and DOGE was going to fix that. 

Three months later, Musk dropped that number in half, going from promising $2 trillion in cuts to $1 trillion. Now that he's heading back to try and rescue his failing companies, Musk is bragging about saving $160 billion. 

But there are a couple of problems with that number as well. Journalists who have studied the numbers provided by DOGE have consistently found inaccuracies, some of which are eventually corrected. Additionally, only about $69 billion has been itemized, with $16 billion being verifiable. Finally, those cuts are spread out over an average of three years. Caleb Acarma and Judd Legum found that DOGE's verifiable cuts to contracts and grants would produce about $5 billion of savings in fiscal year 2026.

Because numbers that large are hard to visualize, here's a graph of promises vs. reality:

But it gets even worse. Not only has total federal spending INCREASED by $156 billion since Trump took office,  there's also this:

DOGE, meanwhile, could end up costing the federal government $135 billion this year when accounting for the lawsuits its cuts have triggered and loss of tax revenue from a depleted IRS, according to the Partnership for Public Service, a good government nonprofit.

So in about 5 months we've gone from Musk promising to cut $2 trillion per year from the federal budget to adding something like $286 billion to the deficit (156 + 135 - 5). Meanwhile, approximately 260,000 federal workers have been fired, U.S. Aid has been demolished, the Departments of Education and Veterans Affairs have been gutted, and Social Security is being threatened (to name just a few).

Musk will be leaving the federal government in chaos and deeper in debt than when he started. Let's rename his efforts the Department of Techbro Incompetence (DOTI). 

Trump and MAGA are using civil rights laws to reinforce white supremacy

The day after he was inaugurated, Trump signed an executive order titled "Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity." Six days later, right wing journalist Christopher Caldwell, wrote an article titled "The Biggest Policy Change of the Century." The tag line at The FreePress reads: "Trump is not simply eliminating the affirmative-action enforcement machinery. He is throwing it into reverse." What did he mean by that? Referring to Trump's executive order, here's what Caldwell told Andrew Sullivan (emphasis mine):

The first move is to say that you can longer do affirmative action, DEI, and that kind of thing. But the second move is to say, "we believe that DEI is actually racism"...Conservatives had always argued against the excesses of civil rights in a kind of principled way: "Actually, civil rights, well-meaning though it was, granted too much power to the federal government"...What the Trump administration has done...is lay claim to that power and is running the whole machine in reverse.

While I disagree with Caldwell about almost everything, he is absolutely right in his description of what the Trump administration is doing. They aren't just attempting to roll back civil rights protections. They're claiming that any move to enforce civil rights is discrimination...against white heterosexual able-bodied men. Here are the opening paragraphs of the executive order:

Longstanding Federal civil-rights laws protect individual Americans from discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. These civil-rights protections serve as a bedrock supporting equality of opportunity for all Americans. As President, I have a solemn duty to ensure that these laws are enforced for the benefit of all Americans.

Yet today, roughly 60 years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, critical and influential institutions of American society...have adopted and actively use dangerous, demeaning, and immoral race- and sex-based preferences under the guise of so-called “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) or “diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility” (DEIA) that can violate the civil-rights laws of this Nation...Hardworking Americans who deserve a shot at the American Dream should not be stigmatized, demeaned, or shut out of opportunities because of their race or sex.

This is something that has surfaced regularly in writings by MAGA influencers. For example, in writing about Princeton University, Christopher Rufo accused the school of waging a "war on civil rights"...against white men.

James Piereson has written that the Democratic Party's diversity initiatives violate civil rights law. In making the case, he actually utilizes the court case against Bob Jones University. You might remember that as the one that galvanized evangelical leaders to eventually band together and form the Moral Majority to protect their right to discriminate. 

In 1970, President Richard Nixon ordered the Internal Revenue Service to enact a new policy denying tax exemptions to all segregated schools in the United States based on Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. That not only affected segregation academies in the South, it also affected Bob Jones University, due to their discriminatory admissions policy. The case went to the courts, with the Supreme Court eventually ruling in favor of the IRS.

Now, Piereson is using that ruling to suggest that diversity initiatives in the Democratic Party violate civil rights law by suggesting that tax-exempt institutions may not violate “fundamental national public policy.” In MAGA terms, that last phrase means "anything Trump says."

Caldwell - who is obviously thrilled with this reversal by the Trump administration - has said that White Americans “fell asleep thinking of themselves as the people who had built this country and woke up to find themselves occupying the bottom rung of an official hierarchy of races.”

First of all, the notion that there is "an official hierarchy of races" is absolute nonsense. But even if there were such a thing, the idea that white people occupy the bottom rung is absurd. For most of us, that is proven by the disparities that continue to exist in areas like health care, education, housing, employment, and the criminal justice system. 

But for MAGA, those disparities are proof that "different groups have different preferences, talents, and capacities," as Rufo has written. In other words, their arguments are ultimately based on eugenics.

If your head isn't spinning over all of that, then you're not paying attention. MAGA and the Trump administration are utilizing civil rights laws to reinforce white supremacy. And yes, all of our deceased civil rights leaders are rolling over in their graves on that one. It's time the rest of us took notice.