LetMyPeopleVote
LetMyPeopleVote's JournalTo Their Shock, Cubans in Florida Are Being Deported in Record Numbers (gift article)
Cubans had long benefited from legal privileges unavailable to immigrants from other countries. President Trump has changed that.
https://x.com/LuluGNavarro/status/2013832432533815718
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/19/us/politics/cubans-florida-deportations-trump.html?unlocked_article_code=1.GFA.VVDq.aZKZY8Ked8MN&smid=nytcore-ios-share
That has changed under President Trump.
He has repatriated more than 1,600 Cubans in 2025, according to the Cuban government. That is about double the number of Cubans who were repatriated in 2024. And in the years that Mr. Trump has been president, he has sent more Cubans back than his three predecessors.
Those numbers are greater for Cubans who were deported by land into Mexico. Some of them had been in the United States for decades and built families and businesses, but were removed because of an old criminal conviction — say, from Miami’s infamous cocaine cowboys days in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Nowhere has the shock of treating Cubans like other migrants been felt more than in Florida, which was shaped in modern times by exiles of the 1959 Cuban Revolution.
Families, businesses and communities that once felt removed from or immune to immigration enforcement now must face it head-on. Some Floridians worry that these deportations could stain the state’s proud Cuban identity, turning older immigrants against newer ones.....
Polls suggest that most Cuban American registered voters, who tend to be Republican, continue to support Mr. Trump, said Michael J. Bustamante, an associate history professor and director of Cuban studies at the University of Miami who studies Cuban American political culture. But he said that he had noticed “a growing amount of unease” throughout the community......
Some older Cuban American immigrants are angry over the turnabout in circumstances. Alicia Peláez, 78, arrived in the United States as an unaccompanied minor in 1960, under Operation Pedro Pan, a secret program run by the Catholic Church with help from the State Department that resettled some 14,000 young Cubans.
MaddowBlog-Why the White House shifted its tone on Renee Good and the deadly ICE shooting
The White House said Good should be seen as a “deranged lunatic.” Then the president learned of her father’s politics.
https://www.ms.now/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/why-the-white-house-shifted-its-tone-on-renee-good-and-the-deadly-ice-shooting
During his mind-numbing White House press conference Tuesday, Donald Trump adopted a very different tone, saying that he “felt terribly” about what transpired.
Trump: "ICE is gonna be too rough with somebody. They're gonna make a mistake sometimes. I felt horribly when I was told the young woman had the tragedy. But when I learned her father is - I hope he still is, but I don't know - was a tremendous Trump fan. It's terrible. It's so sad. It just happens"
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2026-01-20T19:32:31.853Z
.....Trump explained that he’d learned that the victim’s father “was a tremendous Trump fan,” referring to himself in the third person. “He was all for Trump. Love Trump. … A lot of people said, ‘Oh, he loves you.’”
The president concluded, “I hope he still feels that way.”
It was a painful reminder that to Trump’s way of thinking, one of the most notable things about Good was how much one of her relatives liked him. The president was perfectly comfortable with his White House publicly condemning the victim, right up until he discovered her father’s political views, at which point it became time for a shift — which is every bit as morally vacuous as it sounds......
What’s more, if the president genuinely believes that ICE agents are “going to make mistakes sometimes,” he could support federal investigations into such “mistakes.”
Except, in this instance, that’s not happening. Despite the fact that, according to The Washington Post, an FBI agent in Minnesota conducted an initial review of the shooting “and determined that sufficient grounds existed to open a civil rights probe into the actions of Jonathan Ross, the officer who shot Good,” Trump’s Justice Department quickly decided to shut down any additional federal scrutiny of what transpired.
Indeed, we’re left with a related question that the administration has so far failed to address: If Team Trump has decided there will be no federal investigation into the Good killing, will administration officials agree to get out of the way of state and local law enforcement, which remain interested in learning what happened?
MaddowBlog-Trump's boasts about international 'respect' ring tragic as allies turn against U.S.
The emerging picture is one in which leading nations see a Trump-led U.S. as an erratic menace, a once-great hegemonic power descending into madness.
Trump: “America is respected again on the world stage.â€
— Steve Benen (@stevebenen.com) 2026-01-21T13:54:22.990Z
Reality: Longtime allies see a Trump-led U.S. as an erratic menace, a once-great hegemonic power descending into madness and risking global stability. www.ms.now/rachel-maddo...
https://www.ms.now/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/trumps-boasts-about-international-respect-ring-tragic-as-allies-turn-against-u-s
While Trump prepared to join other world leaders at the annual World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland, The Wall Street Journal reported:
[blockquote]President Trump is showing up for an annual gathering of the global elite here in the Swiss Alps, swinging a wrecking ball at the international order. […]
The reactions from many U.S. allies and partners, some of them aired in public, many of them still only expressed in private, are stark: Trump’s America seems to have lost its mind.
The most dramatic example of such perceptions came during Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s prepared remarks at the gathering, in which he declared, “We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition.” Without explicitly referencing Trump, Carney went on to describe “the breaking of the world order,” a “brutal reality” in which leading world powers no longer feel “subject to any constraint” as they “abandon even the pretense of rules and values for the unhindered pursuit of their power and interest.”
Carney was not alone. French President Emmanuel Macron similarly made clear that his country would not capitulate to Trump’s bullying. Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever said that he and his allies tried to “appease” the White House, but that those efforts have run their course.
“We were in a very bad position at the moment, we were dependent on the United States, so we chose to be lenient, but now so many red lines are being crossed that you have the choice between your self-respect,” he continued. “Being a happy vassel is one thing, being a miserable slave is something else. If you back down now, you’re going to lose your dignity, and that’s probably the most precious thing you can have in a democracy is your dignity.”......
The emerging picture is one in which leading nations — treaty allies, neighbors, trading partners and friends — see a Trump-led U.S. as an erratic menace, a once-great hegemonic power descending into madness and risking global stability.
In their wildest dreams, America’s foreign adversaries couldn’t have written a better script.
MaddowBlog-'Unabashed bigotry': GOP's Tuberville sparks backlash with anti-Muslim messages
Sen. Chris Van Hollen said the Alabama Republican’s anti-Muslim message represents “a stain on our Congress.”
Anti-Muslim rhetoric is too common among too many congressional Republicans, but Tommy Tuberville is taking this to levels that deserve to be seen as a scandal.
— Steve Benen (@stevebenen.com) 2026-01-20T16:32:26.668Z
@vanhollen.senate.gov said the Alabaman’s bigotry represents “a stain on our Congress,†which was exactly right www.ms.now/rachel-maddo...
https://www.ms.now/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/tommy-tuberville-anti-muslim-messages-mamdani
Almost three weeks later, Tuberville did it again.
Highlighting a video clip of Lt. Gov. Ghazala Hashmi of Virginia being sworn into office with her hand on the Quran, the Republican used social media to push the same six-word message: “The enemy is inside the gates.”
Tuberville didn’t elaborate, though the Alabamian’s missive wasn’t exactly subtle. It also generated a swift response from Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, who responded to the Republican’s message with a condemnation published on Bluesky:
This is pure, unabashed bigotry. If a politician said this about any other faith, they would rightfully be run out of their party.
But this kind of despicable anti-Muslim rhetoric is so normalized that a sitting Senator uses it without consequence.
...The Bulwark’s Joe Perticone recently wrote, “Almost a decade removed from President Donald Trump’s attempt to ban Muslims from entering the country during his first term — a vile passion project that has been given new life in his second presidency — a growing number of House and Senate Republicans are taking Islamophobia to a new level, actively calling for discrimination against Muslims and even arguing that some should be denaturalized and deported from the United States.”
Perticone’s piece was published four weeks ago. Tuberville isn’t just proving the thesis true, he’s also showing the degree to which the problem is getting worse.
MaddowBlog-Why Billy Long's 'joke' about Iceland becoming an American state was not well received
“These words of Billy Long … may have been said in half-hearted terms, but they are insulting to Iceland and Icelanders,” a local petition read.
Last week, Billy Long, Trump’s spectacularly unqualified nominee to serve as US ambassador to Iceland, “joked†about Iceland becoming the 52nd state. tinyurl.com/48js5d4p
— Steve Benen (@stevebenen.com) 2026-01-21T15:51:45.598Z
It’s a detail that seems newly relevant this morning.
https://www.ms.now/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/why-billy-longs-joke-about-iceland-becoming-an-american-state-was-not-well-received
How’s that working out? It could be better. Politico reported:
First Greenland, next Iceland? Reykjavík is concerned about America’s growing territorial ambitions, after POLITICO reported that President Donald Trump’s nominee for ambassador to Iceland Billy Long joked in Washington that Iceland will be the 52nd U.S. state and he’ll be governor.
“The Ministry for Foreign Affairs has contacted the U.S. Embassy in Iceland to verify the veracity of the alleged comments,” Iceland’s foreign ministry said in a statement.
Evidently, Long recently ran into Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry, who’s also serving as Trump’s special envoy to Greenland, at which point the former congressman joked about making Iceland the nation’s 52nd state. (Canada, evidently, was envisioned as the 51st state.)
The attempt at humor was not well received. Politico’s report noted that Icelanders launched a petition urging Foreign Minister Katrín Gunnarsdóttir to reject him as ambassador.....
Long backpedaled soon after, telling Arctic Today, “If anyone took offense to it, then I apologize.”
Whether this affects Long’s confirmation remains to be seen (he’s still awaiting a vote in the Senate), but it’s worth appreciating the context: Icelanders might have been inclined to shrug this off if the increasingly imperialistic Trump administration hadn’t already launched an effort to acquire Greenland, Canada, the Panama Canal and the Gaza Strip.
Given this context, it’s tough to blame Iceland for expressing discomfort with Long’s undiplomatic “joke.”
My favorite part of the opinion that removed Halligan as Acting US Attorney
You should never go out of your way to piss off a Federal Judge. Halligan and the DOJ filed to a response to a federal judge on the question of whether it was legal or appropriate for Halligan to claim to be an action US Attorney that was very rude. The judge called these assholes out for this filing
This is also my favorite part of this opinion
My favorite part of Judge Novak's ruling on Lindsey Halligan is that basically she's too dumb to disbar.
— Mueller, She Wrote (@muellershewrote.com) 2026-01-21T17:34:37.362Z
This opinion will haunt Halligan for the rest of her career.
Mike Luckovich-Finally an award that trump has earned
— Mike Luckovich (@mluckovich.bsky.social) 2026-01-21T18:51:48.501Z
Vote centers have made it easier to vote. Cleta Mitchell is coming for them
I have been working on voter protection since 2004 when I went to Florida for the Kerry Edwards voter protection team. Prior to 2016, my county had precinct voting where on election day you had to vote in your local precinct. This meant that on election day you could only vote at one location. As a favor to the county election administrator, I was the election judge for the GOP primary and run off in my precinct. I was nice but I was irked to see so many republicans vote using handgun license that we could not electronically check in.
I was on the committee that approved county wide voting in my county and later testified before the Harris County Commissioners Court on the adoption of Countywide voting for Harris County.
The GOP now wants to do away with county wide voting so as to suppress the vote.
https://x.com/DemocracyDocket/status/2014061991917240580
https://www.democracydocket.com/analysis/vote-centers-have-made-it-easier-to-vote-cleta-mitchell-is-coming-for-them/
“We have to change the dynamic of how we conduct elections and return to a time when accuracy and accountability and transparency were the rule of the day,” Mitchell said. “My main mission… is that all voting takes place locally.”
Mitchell and EIN are hoping to change the dynamic of the 2026 midterms by pressuring state and local election officials to only allow voting to take place in small neighborhood precincts, rather than the vote centers — usually large locations where anyone in a county can cast a ballot — that, in recent years, have greatly expanded access to the ballot box.
An EIN paper released January 9 made the case that vote centers have “distinct vulnerabilities” — like the “co‑mingling of ballots from across an entire county” — that could allow for election fraud to flourish......
Abolishing vote centers is part of EIN’s broader election strategy, including a push to end voting machines in favor of paper ballots. Experts fear this is a step for anti-voting activists to achieve their ultimate goal of nixing all early and mail voting in favor of one-day elections as a way for Republicans to hold onto power — even as support for Trump and the GOP continues to fall.
“You’re basically concentrating all of the potential points of failure into a single 12-hour period in a single place,” David Becker, the executive director of the Center for Election Innovation & Research and a former DOJ voting section attorney, told Democracy Docket. “Imagine if they told everyone grocery stores are going to be open only for 12 hours on one day a month, and you all have to go shopping there. It is a recipe for disaster.”
My youngest child was the election judge for our precinct for the last election where there was only precinct voting on election day. I left the voter protection boiler room to check on her. In Texas if you are in line at the close of voting, you get to vote. I ended up standing at the end of the line to keep other people from getting in line. Voting finished up at after 9 PM and my youngest did not drop off the voting machine and until after 11 PM. Voting at voting centers is usually more efficient and they are done earlier.
I usually vote during early voting which has always had voting centers. I am disappointed in the concept of making voting harder.
Trump pauses Greenland-linked tariffs on 8 European countries
TACO-Trump Always Chicken Out. NATO has no ability to negotiate ownership of Greenland.
Trump pauses Greenland-linked tariffs on 8 European countries
— Donald Pedersen (@watchingevil.bsky.social) 2026-01-21T19:49:15.233Z
www.nbcnews.com/business/eco...
https://www.nbcnews.com/business/economy/trump-pauses-greenland-tariffs-rcna255270
On Saturday, Trump said he would hit Denmark, the U.K. and other countries involved in NATO exercises with a 10% tariff starting next month.
"Based upon a very productive meeting that I have had with the Secretary General of NATO, Mark Rutte, we have formed the framework of a future deal with respect to Greenland and, in fact, the entire Arctic Region," Trump wrote on Truth Social.
"Based upon this understanding, I will not be imposing the Tariffs that were scheduled to go into effect on February 1st," he added.
Trump had said if those countries did not comply with his demands by June, the tariff would rise to 25%
Trump pauses Greenland-linked tariffs on 8 European countries
Source: NBC
President Donald Trump on Wednesday said that he would not impose tariffs on eight European countries that were set to go into effect on Feb. 1 unless those countries allowed the United States to take control of Greenland.
On Saturday, Trump said he would hit Denmark, the U.K. and other countries involved in NATO exercises with a 10% tariff starting next month.
"Based upon a very productive meeting that I have had with the Secretary General of NATO, Mark Rutte, we have formed the framework of a future deal with respect to Greenland and, in fact, the entire Arctic Region," Trump wrote on Truth Social.
"Based upon this understanding, I will not be imposing the Tariffs that were scheduled to go into effect on February 1st," he added.
Trump had said if those countries did not comply with his demands by June, the tariff would rise to 25%.
Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/business/economy/trump-pauses-greenland-tariffs-rcna255270
TACO Trump always Chickens Out
Trump pauses Greenland-linked tariffs on 8 European countries
— Donald Pedersen (@watchingevil.bsky.social) 2026-01-21T19:49:15.233Z
www.nbcnews.com/business/eco...
Profile Information
Member since: Mon Apr 5, 2004, 03:58 PMNumber of posts: 175,693