So there is still no peace deal and Trump is left arguing whether Putin treated his envoy abysmally before rejecting it or just sent him packing after he was forced to listen to another 3-hour Putin lecture on his alternate version of European history.
this guy’s distinguishing quality is his boundless contempt for anyone who voices the slightest disagreement with him. you can see in his voice and mannerisms that he thinks he’s better than everyone around him. (which to my mind is just compensation for his palpable self-loathing)
NEW: Here are the 10 “democratic” senators that voted to sell out veterans, the American people, and their colleagues in the House. Cortez MastoDurbinFettermanGillibrandHassanKingPetersSchatzSchumerShaheen
As someone who has criticized Mark Kelly in the past, all I can say is that this video is fantastic, this message is fantastic, and can we have more of this from the Dems please.👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽
Made a mistake on the interest payment numbers. I took short term debt that needs to be refinanced and incorrectly extrapolated. So the interest savings won't be as significant as I stated.
1. Texas AG Ken Paxton is usurping the authority of Texas Courts in a brazen act of autocratic power.He's ordering court ordered gender changes void.He's demanding licenses and birth certificates revoked, with reverted replacements for trans people.Subscribe to support my journalism.
This was the DOGE staffer who was previously fired for racist and nazi tweets but was brought back after JD Vance and Elon supported him. http://www.yahoo.com/news/doge-st…
I’m not leaving the Dem party. I’ve been here for 33 years. If guys like Schumer wanna vote with republicans, THEY can leave the Dem party and join the GOP.
Why did Trump repeat Russian propaganda and lie about this? Why would he claim that a Ukrainian army in Kursk could only be saved from annihilation if Putin benevolently agreed to Trump’s request not to do so? Why is the US President deceiving Americans with Russian lies?
After all these are only migrant children being abuse, right. These people turn a blind eye to clergy abuse but claim just knowing LGBTQ+ people exist is sexualizing children. Just having a story read to them by a man dressed up in costume as a woman is sexual abuse, seeing a drag show is sexual abuse and they demand the erasing of drag queens along with all the LGBTQ+ to save the children. But a for profit detention center creditably accused of forced oral, anal, and in the cases of girls vaginal rape of children by staff as a means of punishment or control, that is OK because the kids are not white. Sick as fuck. Hugs
The lawsuit against Southwest Key included allegations of abuse at an El Paso facility. The administration said it will no longer use the company’s services.
Southwest Key national headquarters in Austin. A federal lawsuit against the company over allegations of abuse at its child migrant shelters has been dropped by the Trump administration. Credit: Eddie Gaspar/The Texas Tribune
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McALLEN — The Trump administration moved to drop a civil lawsuit Wednesday against the largest provider of housing for migrant children over allegations of sexual abuse and harassment of unaccompanied minors, saying it also would no longer be using that company’s services.
The motion to dismiss the suit against Austin-based Southwest Key Programs was filed after the federal government announced it had moved all unaccompanied children to other shelters and would no longer be using that provider.
The complaint, filed last year during the Biden administration, alleged a litany of offenses between 2015 and 2023 as Southwest Key Programs, which operates migrant shelters in Texas, Arizona and California, amassed nearly $3 billion in contracts from the Department of Health and Human Services.
“Out of continuing concerns relating to these placements, HHS has decided to stop placement of unaccompanied alien children in Southwest Key facilities, and to review its grants with the organization. In view of HHS’ action, the Department of Justice has dismissed its lawsuit against Southwest Key,” the HHS said in a statement.
Children were warned not to report the alleged abuse and threatened with violence against themselves or their families if they did, according to the lawsuit. Victims testified that in some instances, other workers knew about the abuse but failed to report or concealed it, the complaint said.
“DOJ’s lawsuit revealed horrific sexual abuse and inhumane treatment of children detained in Southwest Key shelters,” said Leecia Welch, an attorney who represents unaccompanied children in a separate case. “It’s shocking to me that the government now turns a blind eye to their own contractor’s actions. I hope the impacted children will have other legal recourse and support in healing from their abuse.”
At least two employees have been indicted on criminal charges related to the allegations since 2020.
The civil lawsuit had sought a jury trial and monetary damages for the victims.
Southwest Key Programs furloughed employees across the country. “Due to the unforeseen federal funding freeze and the stop placement order on our unaccompanied minor shelters and Home Study Post Release programs by the Office of Refugee Resettlement, we have made the difficult decision to furlough approximately 5,000 Southwest Key Programs’ employees,” the company said in a statement shared Tuesday.
According to allegations in the 2024 lawsuit, Southwest Key employees, including supervisors, raped, inappropriately touched or solicited sex and nude images of children beginning in 2015 and possibly earlier.
Among the accusations: One employee “repeatedly sexually abused” three girls ages 5, 8 and 11 at the Casa Franklin shelter in El Paso, with the 8-year-old telling investigators the worker “entered their bedrooms in the middle of the night to touch their ‘private area.’ ”
The lawsuit also alleged that another employee, at a shelter in Mesa, Arizona, took a 15-year-old boy to a hotel and paid him to perform sexual acts for several days in 2020.
Children were warned not to report the alleged abuse and threatened with violence against themselves or their families if they did, according to the lawsuit. Victims testified that in some instances, other workers knew about the abuse but failed to report or concealed it, the complaint said.
“DOJ’s lawsuit revealed horrific sexual abuse and inhumane treatment of children detained in Southwest Key shelters,” said Leecia Welch, an attorney who represents unaccompanied children in a separate case. “It’s shocking to me that the government now turns a blind eye to their own contractor’s actions. I hope the impacted children will have other legal recourse and support in healing from their abuse.”
At least two employees have been indicted on criminal charges related to the allegations since 2020.
The civil lawsuit had sought a jury trial and monetary damages for the victims.
March 13, 1830 The term “rat,” referring to a worker who betrays the interests of fellow workers, first appeared in print. The New York Daily Sentinel reported on replacement workers who had agreed to work for two-thirds of the going rate. “ . . . [many printers are out of work, others are being paid about 2/3 the regular pay; they should join in cooperative associations, ‘as we have done’] “ [While] the master printers [fill] their offices with boys and two-thirds men, alias ‘rats,’ it will be difficult to find a remedy.”
March 13, 1864 The first contingent of 14,030 Navajo reached Fort Sumner, New Mexico. Men, women and children had been forced to march almost 400 miles from northeastern Arizona and northwestern New Mexico to Bosque Redondo, a desolate tract on the Pecos River in eastern New Mexico. Traveling in harsh winter conditions for almost two months, about 200 Navajo died of cold and starvation along the way. More died after they arrived at the barren reservation. The forced march, led by Kit Carson, an Indian agent and military leader in both the Mexican and Civil Wars, became known by the Navajos as the “Long Walk.” A grueling 400-mile march to imprisonment in a sterile land. More on The Long Walk
March 13, 1945 Pax Christi, an international Catholic peace organization, was founded in France. From their website: “Pax Christi is a ground up organization – it began with a few committed people who spoke out, prayed and worked for reconciliation at the end of the second world war, and is now active in more than 60 countries and five continents, with more than 60,000 members worldwide.” Pax Christi history
March 13, 1968 Clouds of nerve gas drifted outside the Army’s Dugway Proving Grounds in Utah, poisoning 6,400 sheep in nearby Skull Valley. Sign near Dugway: Warning Hazardous Area: This area may contain Chemical, Biological and Radiological contaminated material and explosives . . . Read more about Dugway – the home of Amerian WMD
Simply very bad news. Precisely what Project 2025/Agenda 47/Republican National Platform said they want to do. I’m sorry; I don’t like to bring bad news. But people need to prepare. This is written in editorial/opinion style, but facts are within and there are citations. For people like us who need time to prepare for austerity, it’s news we ought to read.
Also, there are Senator names included for who we should write to regarding this bill. That’s our last chance. Shutdown is on Republicans, not Democrats, no matter how they try to deflect. We need to tell the Dem senators to speak what’s in this bill, every chance they get, and to refuse to vote in favor, pointing at Republicans the entire time.
There are parts in the article complaining about Democrats and their choices, etc., et. m. Read it if you want (you’ll have to click through for it,) but it won’t help anyone to read more complaining about Democrats. We the people need to energize Dem. Senators to speak out, and to vote no. Especially the speak out portion; Sen. Mark Kelly does that especially well, and is among those the author of this piece feels is wavering. I intend to start first thing in the morning, and I hope all of us will devote some time to this. It’s vital.
Without the luxury of Republicans falling apart, Democrats in the Senate need to decide whether to prevent a dangerous and harmful budget that shrinks the power of Congress in the government. Since operating on principle goes against their “adults in the room” mindset, they are wavering on what to do. But it should be an open-and-shut case.
A normal continuing resolution funds the government at the same level as the previous budget. This bill does not. It cuts non-defense discretionary spending by $13 billion below last year’s level, while increasing military spending by $6 billion. It zeroes out funding for programs that fund homeless shelters and prevent child abuse. It cuts health care funding for clinics and hospitals, emergency preparedness for communities, clean water projects and tribal assistance. Meanwhile, it adds money for mass deportations, just as Immigrations and Customs Enforcement has illegally detained a green card holder for his political beliefs.
Most of the budget cuts are achieved by removing earmarks, which members of Congress put in to direct projects. But usually when earmarks are removed, the money goes back to the agency to decide how to distribute it. This maneuver cuts the earmarks and the money.
The House Republican bill also fails to fix a carryover of a $20 billion rescission to IRS money from the Inflation Reduction Act, effectively doubling that cut. This was kind of pre-ordained when Democrats punted on this in a prior continuing resolution last December, but it still means that practically all of the IRA’s funding for greater enforcement of tax collection is now gone.
The bill not only adds $6 billion to the Department of Defense’s enormous budget, but adds $8 billion in “transfer authority” that allows the agency to shift spending where they deem important, a flexibility no other agency gets.
While Republicans tout a $6 billion increase in veterans health care in the bill, they neglect to mention the removal of a $23 billion appropriation to the Toxic Exposure Fund to implement the PACT Act, which cares for veterans exposed to burn pits and other cancer-causing chemicals. While there’s an extra $2.2 billion for the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s disaster relief fund, there’s no additional money to support the rebuilding in southern California after the January wildfires.
But most important, the bill grants an open invitation to Trump and Elon Musk to continue to ignore Congress and toss out disfavored spending. Vice President JD Vance, while selling the deal to House Republicans, stated outright that “Trump would continue cutting federal funding with his Department of Government Efficiency initiative and pursue impoundment — that is, holding back money appropriated by Congress.” This has been reiterated by others in the Trump administration.
In fact, the House Republican bill gives the president more leeway to move money around. It appropriates money for things that Musk has eliminated, meaning that money can operate as a floating slush fund for Trump’s priorities, as long as the courts don’t roll back the illegal impoundments.
… The Trump administration is saying that they will sign a bill appropriating specific funding, and then go about cutting funding anyway. If you’re a member of Congress, you’re being told that your work product doesn’t matter, that the constitutional power of the purse doesn’t matter, and that there’s no guarantee that anything you pass will actually reach the people you serve.
I can see why Republicans would take this deal: they want budget cuts but know they don’t have the votes for them, so they’re plenty happy to outsource that to the president, even if it turns Congress into a separate and unequal branch of government. But why would Democrats willingly submit to a fake budget on paper that can be so easily circumvented? As Rep. Greg Casar (D-TX), chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said on X, “The Republican spending plan will supercharge Musk’s theft from working people to pay for billionaire tax cuts. Senate Democrats must stop it.”
…
So far, only Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) has committed to voting yes. But as Josh Marshall has documented at Talking Points Memo, a number of Senate Democrats have stated no position on the bill, leaving their options open. In general, senators have been hedging their bets until forced to make a decision. That time has come.
Credible sources indicate that the most likely Democrats to offer up the remaining seven votes to avoid a shutdown are Mark Kelly (D-AZ), Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), Michael Bennet (D-CO), John Hickenlooper (D-CO), Jon Ossoff (D-GA), Gary Peters (D-MI), Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), Maggie Hassan (D-NH), and Mark Warner (D-VA).
I am getting my grove back making videos. This is the best I have done since I started again. I realize I have to speak from my heart on issues I know and understand. I enjoy doing them when they are stress free like this one. In the future I will edit stuff into them, I have the program to do that. But right now I like doing what I did a few years ago. Back then I did not bother with lighting and fussing over the camera, I simply started up the recording program and talked directly to the camera. Please take a look at the video and tell me both what you think of the content. Hugs
I talk about how some people want to throw trans people under the bus and stop supporting them. That is not how to change people’s hearts and minds. I describe how we managed to change public opinion on gay people. Hugs
Hope you’re enjoying your weekend. To give you a bit more enjoyment, here’s all the good news I could find from the week that just ended. I’m certain there was more, but the below is a good sampling. As awful as things are right now—and they are awful—there’s much good happening as well.
Enjoy this list, read it a few times, and share it with friends. It is not by staring relentlessly at what’s wrong that we will prevail, but in lifting up what’s working and celebrating it. Really!
Let’s do that. Then tomorrow we’ll get back to work making new victories.
The Trump administration has rescinded its decision to cut off legal aid for unaccompanied immigrant children. You sent letters about that! Bravo!
After a public outcry, the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs has resumed the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, lowering energy bills for thousands of Alabamans.
The Supreme Court lifted its hold on a lower court order compelling the Trump administration to resume nearly $2 billion in foreign aid funding from USAID. HUGE!
Over the weekend after Trump and Vance’s meeting with Zelensky in the Oval Office supporters like you donated $2,597,908 to UNITED24, the Ukrainian government’s official fundraising website. Wonderful!
In Minnesota, House Republicans brought House File 12 to the Floor, legislation that would prohibit trans and non-gender conforming youth from participating in girls’ sports in Minnesota schools and subject all women and girls to inappropriate scrutiny about their bodies. Democrats defeated it!
Rep. Al Green, was ushered out of Trump’s address to Congress by security guards after raising his voice about Medicaid. THAT is resistance!
Campaign Legal Centerfiled a new lawsuit challenging the creation of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). They claimed Elon Musk’s and DOGE’s actions are unconstitutional.
The African Development Foundation is putting up a fight and denying DOGE and Pete Marocco — the State Dept official dismantling USAID — access to their building.
More than 34,000 Vermonters attended Rep Rebecca Balint’s town hall the night of the SOTU —she was joined by Sen Bernie Sanders and Peter Welch. Wow! (You can view a recording on Facebook.)
A federal judge extended a nationwide preliminary injunction on Trump’s executive order to end federal funding for gender-affirming healthcare for trans youth.
The White House pulled the expected signing of the executive order to dismantle the Department of Education
A federal judge ruled that the head of the Office of the Special Counsel, who is responsible for protecting whistleblowers, must be able to continue in his role through the duration of his term.
Alabama’s parole rate more than doubled in 2024. The board released 20 percent of prisoners last year compared to just eight percent in 2023. One lawmaker credited the boost to increased scrutiny from journalists.
A crowd hundreds strong gathered near the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association campus in Boulder on Monday to protest cuts made to the agency last week as part of the Trump administration’s effort to downsize the federal government.
The U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) reinstated about 5,600 probationary USDA employees that had been terminated by the Trump administration.
“Hamilton” is canceling plans to perform next year at the Kennedy Center, citing President Trump’s moves to impose his values on the venue. “We’re not going to be a part of it while it is the Trump Kennedy Center,” said its creator, Lin-Manuel Miranda. Couldn’t love him more.
Virginia lawmakers unanimously passed a bill to educate the public about common menstrual disorders like endometriosis and PCOS.
Educators in New York City are embracing rather than restricting discussions of race in schools. Leaders have said they’ll do so whether the Trump administration approves or not.
Black churches across the country were awarded more than $8 million in grants by The National Trust for Historic Preservation, part of an effort to preserve buildings that played significant roles in Black history.
Stanford University chemists have developed a practical, low-cost way to permanently remove atmospheric carbon dioxide, the main driver of global warming and climate change, using rocks.
A federal judge ordered the reinstatement of Democratic NLRB member Gwynne Wilcox, whom Trump fired to eliminate the board’s quorum.
CBS has filed a motion to dismiss Trump’s $20 billion lawsuit over former Vice President Kamala Harris’ 60 Minutes interview last year, calling the suit an “affront to the First Amendment without basis in law or fact.”
Ontario will charge 25% more for electricity shipped to 1.5 million Americans starting Monday in response to Trump’s tariffs, Premier Doug Ford said Thursday.
A Federal judge in Rhode Island entered a preliminary injunction that indefinitely blocks Trump’s freeze on federal grants and loans, saying the Trump Administration “put itself above Congress.” This lawsuit was brought by Democratic state Attorneys General, led by New York AG Letitia James.
Watch This! 👀
Warning, this is slightly risque. But if you saw the weird AI-generated video about “Trump Gaza” that Trump reposted last week, you have to see this. (Full disclosure; I have not watched it. No time for videos today unless it’s one of you people here. Also, the scene shown has ruined my lunch. -A)
Story March 07, 2025 (Watch and/or listen on the page, linked just above.)
Republicans in Congress are pushing forward budget plans that would cut trillions in federal spending and give trillions more in tax cuts that disproportionately benefit corporations and the ultra-rich. This week, hundreds of faith leaders gathered on the Christian holy day of Ash Wednesday on Capitol Hill to voice their opposition. “There’s no way you can do the kinds of cuts they’re talking about — it’s mathematically impossible — without touching Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid,” says Bishop William Barber, one of the participants. Barber also reflects on the 60th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, when civil rights marchers were brutalized in Selma, Alabama, and stresses that economic justice was always at the heart of the movement alongside ending segregation and winning voting rights.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.
House Republicans narrowly adopted a budget proposal last week to cut as much as $2 trillion in spending over a 10-year period, in part to fund Trump’s tax cuts. A new analysis by the Congressional Budget Office shows the proposed budget would require massive cuts to Medicaid spending. Meanwhile, Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, has warned the U.S. government will go bankrupt without his Department of Government Efficiency, DOGE, which is working to slash a trillion dollars from the deficit.
This week, hundreds of faith leaders gathered to mark the Christian holy day of Ash Wednesday on Capitol Hill and to protest the impact the proposed cuts could have on the poor and the vulnerable. This is Bishop William Barber speaking at the protest Wednesday.
BISHOP WILLIAM BARBER II: If an unelected technocrat can delete the financial commitments of a government established for the people and by the people, and we don’t say anything, we betray our moral commitments to liberty.
AMY GOODMAN: Faith leaders also shared findings of a new report Wednesday called “The High Moral Stake: Our Budget, Our Future,” which details how President Trump and the Republican Party are taking more essential services and money away from working people while cutting taxes for the wealthiest. It was authored by Institute for Policy Studies, the Economic Policy Institute and Repairers of the Breach.
For more, we’re joined from North Carolina by Bishop William Barber, president and senior lecturer at Repairers of the Breach, national co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign, founding director of the Center for Public Theology and Public Policy at Yale Divinity School. He’s co-author of the new book White Poverty: How Exposing Myths About Race and Class Can Reconstruct American Democracy.
Bishop Barber, welcome back to Democracy Now! on this 60th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, when voting rights activists marched — tried to march over the Edmund Pettus Bridge, led by John Lewis, and were beaten down by Alabama state troopers. Five months later, the Voting Rights Act would be signed by President Johnson. Your thoughts on putting history and this moment together, and what you were demanding on Wednesday?
BISHOP WILLIAM BARBER II: Well, thank you so much, Amy.
As I was listening to that song, “We Shall Overcome,” there’s another line that says, “We are not afraid.” And I want to thank Representative Green for his courage and showing the way of courage. He’s a dear friend of mine. He’s exactly right: You cannot wait until a dictator is in charge. You must challenge the way toward that dictatorship.
And we must remember, on this day 60 years ago, we did see that Bloody Sunday, but for nearly 40 years, Amelia Boynton, who was also beaten that day, a woman that John Lewis held in his arms, they have been working against voter suppression in that particular city. They also connected the issues of voter suppression and voter denial to economic injustice. Remember, the voting piece was supposed to be a part of the Civil Rights Act of ’64 along with raising the minimum wage to a living wage, and those things were gutted out of the ’64 Civil Rights Act, which made the ’65 march and the ’65 Voting Rights Act necessary.
At the end of that march, when they finally did reach Montgomery, Dr. King gave an amazing sermon. And he chose not to just talk about voting rights, but he chose to connect voting rights to economic injustice. And in that sermon, he said that the greatest fear of the greedy oligarchs in this country was for the masses of Black people and poor white people to join together and form a voting bloc that could fundamentally shift the economic architecture of the nation, and that every time this possibility becomes possible, the forces of extremism and the forces of division sow that division to keep it from happening.
I think we see that here today, what’s going on with this Congress. And it’s amazing to me, for instance, that they would censure Representative Green. They didn’t censure our sister out of Georgia. They didn’t censure the man who called Obama a liar on the floor. It’s a strange time that — the cheering, the applauding. But I think we are in a crisis of civilization, really, not just a crisis of democracy. It’s going to call people to have to stand, regardless of where they are.
So, what we’re dealing with right now, Amy, before I even talk about the specific policy, is this immoral philosophy that’s at work. Number one, they are operating off of the deliberate attempt to use executive orders as a way of intentionally violating the Constitution, thereby creating enough confusion to distract people from what’s going on in the Congress, because what happens in the Congress has the weight of the law, and EO doesn’t have the weight of law.
Number two, we are seeing the tyranny of technology and the dehumanization of people.
Number three, we’re seeing the attempt to make people justify their existence, which has its roots in racism, apartheid and Nazism.
Number four, we’re seeing the denial of equality on every front.
Five, we’re seeing the outright violation of freedom of speech, due to the process — due process and equal protection under the law for all persons, and an attempt to end birthright citizenship.
Number six, we are seeing the outright betrayal of liberty.
Number seven, we are seeing the idolatry of the certainty of white supremacy, that some people can decide who’s in, who’s out, who’s right, who’s wrong.
And number eight, we’re seeing the misuse of religious Christian nationalism in an attempt to falsely claim that their immoral actions are moral.
This is what is underneath, if you will, what we see going on. It is dangerous. It leads us to dictatorships and worse. And we must be courageous in this moment. I think that what you saw happen with Representative Green is just the tip of the kind of pushback we’re going to see as the weather gets warmer and as people see more and more the kind of damage that’s being suggested by this current budget and this current Congress. (snip-MORE; watch/listen on the page)
March 10, 1968 Cesar Chavez ended a 23-day fast for U.S. farm workers in a Delano, California, public park with 4000 supporters at his side, including Senator Robert Kennedy (D-New York). Cesar Chavez led the effort to organize farm workers into a union for better pay, working and living conditions.
March 10, 1969 James Earl Ray was sentenced to prison for 99 years by a court in Memphis, Tennessee, after admitting he murdered American civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. King, who preached and practiced nonviolence, was shot dead by a sniper in Memphis as he stood on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel. The building now houses the National Civil Rights Museum. Witnesses pointing toward the source of the shot that killed King. National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel
March 10, 2006 Turkish conscientious objector (CO) Mehmet Tarhan was released unexpectedly from a military prison after being held for having refused service in the army. A court decided that he had already been held longer (23 months) than any possible sentence for the crime. Mehmet TarhanMehmet Tarhan’s supporters He was ordered, however, to present himself again for military service and thus be subject to re-arrest for the same offense.