Morning all. Sharing a recording of yesterday’s conversation with former South Florida Congressman Joe Garcia. I asked Joe to report in from Miami to us on the impact there of three Trump policies - the revocation of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) of almost 1m Venezuelans, Cubans, Haitians and Nicaraguans 2) the throwing of legal Venezuelan migrants into a Salvadorian gulag 3) the new travel ban that restricts visitors from 19 countries, including Venezuela, Cuban and Haiti.
As Joe recounts these Trump-Stephen Miller actions are having a particular impact on South Florida which is home to most of those 1 million TPS holders who are now or soon will be without legal status here but cannot go home. These 1 million came to the US legally, have jobs, families, kids in school. And now all of a sudden they are no longer here legally, cannot work, do not want to go home and their home countries do not want to take them. Due to the new travel ban many can no longer visit their home countries and families there for they will not be able to return back to the US if they do, nor can their families back home visit here any longer either.
ICE has begun rounding up and arresting those without status in South Florida, and given the size of the population at risk, local detention facilities are already overflowing and conditions are deteriorating. Here’s a local Miami news report about a protest at one DHS’s Main Detention facility in Miami, Krome, which includes this passage:
Meanwhile, family members of detainees being held at Krome Detention Center have spoken out about the alleged harsh conditions of the facility.
Reports have poured in about a lack of water and food, unsanitary confinement and medical neglect. In April, the Trump administration shut down three Department of Homeland Security oversight offices charged with investigating such claims.
Here’s video of these Cuban detainees spelling out SOS on Thursday:
This important, timely and compelling discussion with my good friend Joe Garcia brings together many of the threads we’ve been discussing here in recent weeks about the breathtaking inhumanity and fanaticism of the hate-filled “more for me, less for you” and “we are all going to die” Trump regime. Vaporizing USAID is causing millions of the poorest people in the world to die around the world. Cutting Medicare, Medicaid, the ACA and weakening our public health system will cause many to suffer and die here in the US. Trump’s tariffs have raised taxes and prices on all poor, working and middle class Americans - illegally, unconstitutionally, fanatically. Trump continues to whitewash Putin’s Ukrainian genocide and daily wanton killing of civilians. Trump is championing the forced removal of all 2m Palestinians from Gaza to a third country against their will. This week the Administration revoked the Biden rule that pregnant women must be allowed emergency abortions if their lives were threatened. One million people - not migrants, not immigrants, not aliens, not illegals - one million people are now stateless in South Florida with no way to feed their families and no where to go. Over 200 men have been shipped to a foreign gulag without due process or even the ability of families to contact them. Others are at an airport in South Sudan and others are sitting in a container crate in Djibouti:
More for me, much more for me, and less, much less, for all of you.
The racial animus at the core of Trumpism has been weaponized against those perceived to be outside the MAGA tribe; though in this case, as is so often the case in these kinds of weaponization of blinding tribal hatred, the regime has lost control as it escalates and the target increasingly is not just those outside the tribe, but all of us, the nation itself and the future of our kids and grandkids.
As Martin Luther King, Jr once told us:
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that
Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that
More
Trump Is Putting The American Dream Out Of Reach (Post and Video)
Revisiting The Gray And The Brown With Ron Brownstein (Post and Video)
Charles Gaba On MAGA’s Savage Assault On Health Care in America (Post and Video)
Further Reflections On The Gray And The Brown, White Supremacy And The Great Tragedy Of The Southern Strategy (Post)
The Pro-Trump Cuban Rapper About To Get Deported (Politico)
Trump Ends Emergency Abortion Requirement For Hospitals (WaPo)
FIFA Under Fire As Trump’s Travel Bans Block Fans From Two World Cups (Yahoo)
Now, Let’s Get To Work - In last Saturday’s post I offered up some initial ideas of what our summer was going to look like. Please check it out if you haven’t gotten to it yet.
Job 1 for us this summer is fighting Trump’s ruinous economic agenda. We need to keep calling every day and demand our leaders vote down the reconciliation bill and roll back Trump’s terrible tariffs. This is the big, definitional battle of the summer and we need keep working it every day. Those of you in states with Republican Senators have a particularly important role to play.
Here’s a possible script for contacting your offices. Use whatever works for you:
I am calling to urge you to vote against the reconciliation bill and to roll back Trump’s terrible and illegal tariffs. Together these actions have raised taxes on all of us and will explode the deficit - things Republicans have always told us they did not believe in.
But your agenda is also causing all of us to “pay more and get less” for every day things including our health care; people to loses their jobs; and the economy to slow - all so you can give your rich donors a huge tax break. Your plans will weaken this great country and are an extraordinary betrayal of everything you promised during the campaign - which was to help people like me, not Elon Musk, get ahead.
Your plans are ones of sabotage, surrender and betrayal and I urge you to abandon them and to work with Democrats to find a better way.
I know many of you are involved in the June 14th No Kings events, town halls, Telsa take downs and all the other in person activities that have taken off of late. Thank you, and do keep working it everyone. I am still encouraging our community to explore ideas for how we can Own The Fourth and make our Independence Day an ugly day for our mad wannabe king. Hopium Merch is coming soon, and be sure to check our robust Events schedule as new events are being added daily.
Please self-report your activities to our daily paid subscriber chat. These reports help inspire me and I am sure others to do more, fight harder.
There are three additional efforts we’re working on now:
1 - Help Abigail Spanberger Win Virginia - Simply, the Virginia elections are the most important elections we have this year, and we must win them. We have narrow majorities in both legislative chambers and while our candidate Abigail Spanberger has a modest lead in current polling, this is going to be a close election where our money and volunteer time can make a real difference. If you are to give to only one candidate or election this year it should be this one. Here’s a link to do so today……
To learn more about Abigail check out my new discussion with her, watch her new TV ad, or head over to her campaign website We have now raised over $122,000 towards our June 30th goal of $200,000 - thank you all! We need to keep working it everyone!
2 - Support The Hopium House 7 - We’ve begun our work to help flip the House next year by supporting and shoring up the 7 newly-elected battleground House Dems we helped elect last year. Catch our interviews with Reps Derek Tran, Janelle Bynum, Tom Suozzi and Laura Gillen and give to all 7 through a single donation on our ActBlue page. Learn more about this important effort here.
We’ve already raised over $123,000 towards our $200,000 June 30th goal - great work everyone!
We also have ongoing campaigns to raise money for the new DNC, support the North Carolina Democratic Party and to thank Senator Cory Booker for his spirited leadership in a time of enormous challenge.
3 - Growing Hopium - We’ve set a goal of trying to grow the Hopium community from the 151,000 we are now to 175,000 by Labor Day. Do what you can to encourage your friends, family and colleagues to become a summer subscriber to Hopium, free or paid. To encourage the growth of our community annual paid subscriptions are 10% off through Labor Day too!
Keep working hard all. Proud to be in this fight with all of you - Simon
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