DL Open Thread: Tuesday, June 10, 2025
Yep, Trump’s Deporting Folks Without Due Process. Courts be damned:
As protests over workplace raids in California’s largest city continued Monday and the Pentagon announced it would be sending 700 Marines to backstop National Guard troops, immigration lawyers, advocates and relatives were scrambling to find information about those detained. Mexico’s foreign minister said four immigrants detained in the raid had already been removed from the United States, a speed that some advocates said was unusual.
“The people who have been arrested are our neighbors and community members and the workers that make the city of Los Angeles run,” Bitran said. “We know there were arrests at car washes, at Home Depot — really the places where immigrants are just trying to go about their lives and go about their jobs.”
The administration has sought to ramp up its daily arrest numbers as part of an effort to fulfill President Donald Trump’s campaign promise to carry out the largest deportation operation in U.S. history. Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller said in May that the administration’s goal is for ICE to make a “minimum of 3,000 arrests” every day. Since then, the administration has increased its arrest numbers.
You saw that phrase ‘workplace raids’, right? Gotta get those numbers up, any way necessary.
RFK Jr. Fires All The Vaccine Experts. What happens when the certifiably-insane hire the certifiably-insane:
About two-thirds of the panel had been appointed in the last year of the Biden administration, Mr. Kennedy pointed out in announcing his decision in an opinion column for The Wall Street Journal.
The C.D.C.’s vaccine advisers wield enormous influence. They carefully review data on vaccines, debate the evidence and vote on who should get the shots and when. Insurance companies and government programs like Medicaid are required to cover the vaccines recommended by the panel.
The dismantling of everything good that government does continues unabated while the national Democratic Party dithers over how to remove “The Stench Of Teh Woke” from its brand:
Ambitious Democrats with an eye on a presidential run are in the middle of a slow-motion Sister Souljah moment.
Searching for a path out of the political wilderness, potential 2028 candidates, especially those hailing from blue states, are attempting to ratchet back a leftward lurch on social issues some in the party say cost them the November election.
Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, who is Black, vetoed a bill that took steps toward reparations passed by his state legislature. California Gov. Gavin Newsom called it “unfair” to allow transgender athletes to participate in female college and youth sports. And Rahm Emanuel has urged his party to veer back to the center.
“Stop talking about bathrooms and locker rooms and start talking about the classroom,” said Emanuel, the former ambassador to Japan and two-term Chicago mayor who said he is open to a 2028 presidential campaign. “If one child is trying to figure out their pronoun, I accept that, but the rest of the class doesn’t know what a pronoun is and can’t even define it,”
Each of these candidates are, either deliberately or tacitly, countering a perceived weakness in their own political record or party writ large—Emanuel, for example, has called the Democratic Party “weak and woke”; Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) has said the party needs more “alpha energy”; others like Newsom are perhaps acknowledging a more socially liberal bent in the past.
They sure have their priorities straight. Perhaps they could talk about, oh, I don’t know, our military junta government or the epidemic of disease that has already started. But, the Rethugs called them a bad name and that’s what they have to get rid of. Me? I’m just crossing them off my list of prospective presidential candidates. Especially Rahm Emanuel. And, yes, Pete Buttigieg. Buttigieg rejecting diversity, equity, inclusion is, um, ironic.
Speaking of our military junta government–may I present to you–Our Border Czar. Just call him The In-Fidel.
Speaker Minor-Brown’s Ignorance Shines Brightly. Why she deep-sixed the new tax brackets while embracing cigarette tax increases. You’re smart. You can read this and understand what I mean. OK, if you don’t read it, Minor-Brown says the new tax brackets would ‘only shake out to be roughly $12 to $14 in relief per year for the state’s lower earners.’ (Well, the bill is designed to increase revenue. But I digress.). She also. claims that:
…“When you increase tobacco tax, less people smoke. That is a fact. We’ve seen it happen in other states. We’ve even had the tobacco companies agree that when you increase tobacco tax, it reduces tobacco use, especially amongst our youth,” she said.”
Never mind the fact that those in the lower income brackets will pay disproportionately more because they are more likely to have the smoking habit:
Low socioeconomic status was generally associated with increased cigarette smoking prevalence by age, race/ethnicity, and region, irrespective of sex. The only exceptions were for Asian and Hispanic women, where low educational attainment was not associated with a high prevalence of cigarette smoking, and among Hispanic men and Asian women, where there was no association between poverty status and smoking.
So, if you live in the 17th RD and have been unable to quit smoking, be sure to thank your State Rep. for insuring that more of your disposable income goes up in smoke.
What do you want to talk about?
The Speaker pulling yet another fast one. Standard operating procedure is that, when the Speaker sponsors a bill, she designates someone to take over as Acting Speaker, and the real Speaker runs the bill.
In this case, the Speaker designated Rep. Harris to run the Speaker’s nursing bill for her, then stated that she, as Speaker, couldn’t answer questions because someone else was running the bill.
Democrats should be careful not to be seen as defending illegal employment or illegal residency. If we want people to stay, introduce a bill in Congress to make them legal, and campaign on that damn bill. But don’t defend perpetuating a permanent underclass of illegal workers or residents.
I’m in favor of controlled immigration based on the current labor market. Right now we could be welcoming some folks. But if the labor market contracts, I’d want to limit the inflow.
When jobs and wages are scarce, nobody wants to hear Democrats advocating for more illegal workers.
The national debate about immigration has nothing to do with the employment-based visas you’re talking about. It has to do with brown people who speak Spanish.
Congress had the sort of bill you’re talking about, one even Republicans agreed to, and Trump killed it because he knows a solution would quash their party’s big recruiting tool, which is squawking about immigration. MAGAts certainly never consider any solution beyond throwing out anyone who doesn’t speak English and/or has skin darker than a Klansman’s sheet, and they don’t have to, because a majority shares their closed-door policy.
When Wall Street still controlled the GOP we could count on the party’s funders to rein in the voters’ xenophobia, but now that the simple-minded hatemongers have taken over, no more.
Actually, I was thinking more about naturalization. Employment-based visas might be useful on a limited basis, as long as they don’t create a permanent sub-class.
We already have employment-based visas. Lots of them. We have ten times more tech workers than ag workers on employment visas.
so if we raise cigarette tax less people will be smoking so we will be actually decreasing revenue? makes sense
Absent from the comparison: How much each measure would raise. I thought nurses had to know some math.
Reducing the number of people smoking is an admirable public health goal, one that is constantly being worked on.
But this ostensibly is to attract an additional revenue stream to help defray the revenue from the failure to tax those most able to afford it.
Meaning, demographically, that a shitload of people in the Speaker’s district will suffer disproportionately.
True, but there’s also a vast disparity on how much each proposal would raise. Even if all you care about is the bottom line that makes this a stupid alternative.
Of course, there’s the “why not both?” argument, but she’s apparently too dim-bulbed to come up with an answer for that one.
I think she was ‘influenced’ by some connected people to pretty much single-handedly bury the new tax brackets. I don’t know who, but that’s what I sense.
Flying under the radar is the New Castle County budget vote is tonight. Always a few surprises in that…
Does that bill also have epilog language like the Delaware budget bill?
That’s often where surprises are buried.
Is there anything in particular we should be watching out for?
National Guard Troops Have Everything They Need–Except Cots, Food, and Water:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/6/10/2327027/-Maybe-Mike-Lindell-Can-Donate-Some-Pillows-To-National-Guard-Trump-Ordered-Into-LA
Spotlight Delaware on why Rep. Stell Parker Selby has not been able to occupy her seat in Dover.
https://spotlightdelaware.org/2025/06/09/rep-parker-selby-stroke/