“Rojas, 42, is one of potentially hundreds of people who have been detained in recent weeks despite complying with Ice requirements to regularly check-in. Ice does not appear to keep count of how many people it has arrested at check-ins. But the Guardian has estimated, based on arrest data from the first four weeks of the Trump administration, that about 1,400 arrests – 8% of the nearly 16,500 arrests in the administration’s first month – have occurred during or right after people checked in with the agency.
Lawyers and immigration advocates told the Guardian they believe that in order to oblige the president’s demand for mass arrests and deportation, immigration officials are reaching for the “low-hanging fruit” – people that Ice had previously released from custody while they pursued asylum or other immigration cases in a backlogged immigration court system.”
…
“In Rojas’s case, he was allowed to stay in Spokane with his wife and children – who had pending asylum cases – and apply yearly for a permit to legally work.”
…
“Both men had participated in Nicaragua’s April rebellion of 2018, a movement that started among university students. The movement was incited by unpopular changes to the social security system, but quickly grew into a massive movement calling for democratic reforms.
Government forces immediately responded with crushing brutality, shooting at young protesters. “I felt a lot of pain, sadness to see mothers crying for their children,” Rojas said. He felt called to join the cause.”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/nicaraguan-asylum-seeker-checked-ice-140054879.html
The stock market fall and the inflation from tariffs damage retirements and show the importance of Social Security.
These tariffs aren’t part of a total strategy to bring key industries back to the United States. They are vindictive and nonsensical.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IaAdYSrYQdk
It was knowable in advance that Trump’s illegal immigrant crackdown was not going to involve just criminals. People have no excuse for not knowing this and are part of the reason this is happening.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0D1z6V_B6o
Global Economy Goes into Meltdown
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyEF-GwxxyU
California’s Wildfires Exposed Failings of the State’s Leadership
https://reason.com/2025/01/31/californias-wildfires-exposed-failings-of-the-states-leadership/
“These latest NAEP results looked at achievement for fourth and eighth graders in reading and math. Overall, test scores declined slightly when compared to 2022, the last time students were tested and still remained below pre-pandemic levels. However, the most revealing results came when separating student performance based on percentile. While students performing in the 90th or 75th percentile have mostly rebounded, declines for students performing the worst were much steeper. For example, fourth-grade math scores have returned to pre-pandemic levels for high-achieving students, while the lowest-achieving students have seen an eight-point drop in scores since 2019, declining from 199 to 191 on a 500-point scale.”
…
“”If we’re saying that a third of this year’s ninth graders are below NAEP Basic, we’re saying that one-third of these kids likely can’t tell us the main idea of a text,” Julia Rafal-Baer, a National Assessments Governing Board member and former assistant commissioner of the New York State Education Department, told the education-focused news website The 74. “They can’t draw any explicit features from that text. What does that mean for these kids? What’s the plan to re-engage them and improve their outcomes?”
These results show that, while children who were already doing well have managed to rebound from pandemic score declines, the children who are struggling have continued to face further difficulties, even as pandemic lockdowns shift further out of view.”
https://reason.com/2025/01/31/years-after-the-pandemic-the-lowest-performing-students-are-still-significantly-behind/
“When President Donald Trump announced his nomination of Pam Bondi as attorney general, he extolled her “incredible job” in “work[ing] to stop the trafficking of deadly drugs and reduc[ing] the tragedy of Fentanyl Overdose Deaths.” Yet those deaths exploded on Bondi’s watch as Florida’s attorney general.”
…
“Bondi’s fans praised her for cracking down on “pill mills,” which may have made it harder for nonmedical drug consumers (as well as bona fide patients) to obtain prescription opioids such as hydrocodone and oxycodone. But the result was increased consumption of black market alternatives, which are much more dangerous because their quality and potency are highly variable and unpredictable. That hazard was magnified by the simultaneous proliferation of illicit fentanyl as a heroin booster and substitute—a development that likewise was driven by prohibition, which favors more potent drugs that are easier to conceal and smuggle.”
https://reason.com/2025/02/03/florida-drug-deaths-surged-on-pam-bondis-watch/
In some ways, the U.S. has fallen behind in air-to-air missiles.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FnVJ0ziRTE
“FEMA’s failures stem from a bloated bureaucracy and perverse incentives. Because the agency is guaranteed to pick up the check in an emergency no matter its size, states have less incentive to prepare for natural disasters. However, the American disaster response system is intended to rely on federalism and private charitable efforts. “Unfortunately, growing federal intervention is undermining this efficient, decentralized structure,” writes Chris Edwards, an economist at the Cato Institute.
In the two decades since the agency’s infamous Hurricane Katrina blunders, FEMA has failed to upend its deplorable reputation. Months after Hurricane Helene, FEMA had delivered only 46 temporary homes to North Carolina for the more than 500 families approved for a trailer. North Carolinians in Avery County remain baffled at the 80 trailers that remain vacant at a nearby FEMA staging area even today. In a response to the unused trailers, an agency spokesperson blamed weather and permitting requirements for the delay. But charities such as Samaritan’s Purse and Cajun Navy have already overcome these hurdles to deliver temporary housing without the backing of federal funding. Perhaps organizations with better track records of resource stewardship might be better recipients of critical disaster response funding.”
https://reason.com/2025/02/04/fema-is-a-disaster-trump-is-right-to-demand-changes/
Tech guys want to rule their own countries because they are the true geniuses who know how society should be run.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLR1fPxZImI