Pres. Reagan Signs Stewart B. McKinney Homeless Assistance Act, & More in Peace & Justice History for 7/22

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryjuly.htm#july22

Priorities

(This is here in part because clicking through to read on Substack for free is good for her numbers, and she deserves all the numbers. -A)

My Thoughts on the ‘Gen Z Stare’ by Charlotte Clymer

And I do have thoughts. Read on Substack

Legacy media is very concerned with the ‘Gen Z Stare’

In the past week, there’s been robust discourse in legacy media about the so-called ‘Gen Z Stare’ and the bursts of generational conflict it reportedly captures.

It’s gotten write-ups by The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Today, The Boston Globe, NBC News, ABC News, CNBC, Newsweek, Indy100, Axios, Fortune, Vox, Vice, Business Insider, The Independent, Forbes, Buzzfeed, Slate, HuffPost, Glamour, People, and Marie Claire, among others.

As a millennial, I am apparently urged to be concerned about this phenomenon of Gen Z folks supposedly failing to appropriately interact with me through sufficiently pleasant facial expressions, so I thought it might be helpful to offer my thoughts:

The sitting president of the United States is currently covering up a massive sex trafficking operation that targeted children and likely implicates a number of powerful people who are currently out in the world and free to continue preying on children.

The sitting president of the United States just successfully pressured Paramount and CBS to cancel the #1 late-night talk show on broadcast television as part of what appears to be a blatant bribery deal because the host has been critical of him.

The sitting president of the United States just got the extremist Republican majority in Congress to strip 11 million Americans of health care coverage by the end of 2026 and upwards of 17 million Americans when you account for new federal work requirements. (snip-MORE; it’s succinct and quick, and it’s all good facts for grocery/other places lines, for discussion.)

Peace & Justice History for 7/21

https://www.gocomics.com/lards-world-peace-tips/2025/07/20

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryjuly.htm#july21

ICE Raids Are Getting WAY More Dangerous

I would like people to compare the “tough guy” speech given by the ICE person about removing child molesters and kidnappers, rescuing children from forced labor, the worst criminals, murders, making mom and pop safe with the four crimes they mentioned that of the dozens and dozens arrested were accused of. One guy was charged with fentanyl distribution, one was charged with trespass, a third was charged with driving without a license and refusing to show identification. Wow mom and pop are so much safer now that the worst of the worst are in detention with no due process. Let’s be clear, they are going after legal immigrants, they are going after those following the rules, they are showing up at places where these people are working and looking for work because the goal is to remove all the brown people. It is that simple, it is a white supremacy thing driven by racist like Stephen Miller who hates Spanish speaking people and those with brown skin. They held a US citizen veteran for three days with no due process and no explanation. Take a guess of his skin color? Brown? Great guess and correct. These gang thugs are not trying to make the US safer for anyone, they are determined to make it whiter. At the 5:21 mark ICE thugs abruptly stop their car in the middle of the street and with guns and tasers ready while masked and in no uniform they rush a woman who is a well known activist who has been openly filming them for weeks. This is an attempt to cause fear and stop people from viewing and reporting their actions. This is such a 1930s Hitler’s Germany moment in the US. And Vaush talks about how the nation if flooded with guns and these masked people with no uniforms rushing at people could be shot by people in reasonable fear for their lives as Roger also has been saying. Hugs

More clips from The Majority Report on different subjects I feel are important to share.

Some The Majority Report clips on ICE and the democrats

Frederick Douglass Does Some Great Work at Seneca Falls, Dockum Drug Store Sit-Ins, & More, in Peace & Justice History for 7/19

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryjuly.htm#july19

The Young GOPer Behind “Alligator Alcatraz” Is the Dark Future of MAGA

https://newrepublic.substack.com/p/the-young-goper-behind-alligator

The Young GOPer Behind “Alligator Alcatraz” Is the Dark Future of MAGA

James Uthmeier is the real brains behind this notorious migrant detention camp in the Everglades. The more barbarities that emerge, the brighter his star will no doubt shine.

The New Republic

and

Greg Sargent

Jul 14, 2025

Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images

The other day, Stephen Miller went on Fox News and offered a plea that got surprisingly little attention given its highly toxic and unnerving implications. Miller urged politicians in GOP-run states to build their own versions of “Alligator Alcatraz,” the state-run immigration detention facility that officials just opened in the Florida Everglades.

“We want every governor of a red state, and if you are watching tonight: pick up the phone, call DHS, work with us to build facilities in your state,” Miller said, in a reference to the Department of Homeland Security. Critically, Miller added, such states could then work with the federal government by supplying much-needed detention beds, helping President Trump “get the illegals out.”

Keep all that in mind as we introduce you to one James Uthmeier.

Uthmeier, the attorney general of Florida and a longtime ally of Governor Ron DeSantis, is widely described in the state as the brains behind “Alligator Alcatraz.” Peter Schorsch, the publisher of Florida Politics, sums him up this way: “In Uthmeier, DeSantis found his own Stephen Miller.”

Uthmeier is indeed a homegrown Florida version of Miller: Only 37 years old, he brings great precociousness to the jailing of migrants. Like Miller, he is obscure and little-known relative to the influence he’s amassing. Also like Miller, he is fluent in MAGA’s reliance on the spectacle of inhumanity and barbarism.

“You don’t need to invest that much in the perimeter,” Uthmeier said of “Alligator Alcatraz” in a slick video he recently narrated about the complex, which featured heavy-metal guitar riffs right out of a combat-cosplay video game. “People get out, there’s not much waiting for them other than alligators and pythons. Nowhere to go, nowhere to hide.”

Any migrant who dares escape just might get devoured alive by an animal—one animal eating another. Dehumanization is so thrilling!

The real-world “Alligator Alcatraz” is already gaining notoriety for its very real cruelties. After Democratic lawmakers visited over the weekend, they sharply denounced the scenes they’d witnessed of migrants packed into cages under inhumane conditions. Meanwhile, detainees and family members have sounded alarms about worm-infested food and blistering heat. And the Miami Herald reports that an unnervingly large percentage of the detainees lack criminal convictions.

But Uthmeier is getting feted on Fox News and other right wing media for this new experiment in spite of such notorieties—or perhaps because of them. There’s good reason to think more red state politicians will seek to create their own versions of “Alligator Alcatraz” or get in on this action in other ways—and that more young Republican politicians will see it as a path to MAGA renown and glory.

For one thing, the money is now there. Buried in the big budget bill that Trump recently signed is a little-noticed provision that immigration advocates increasingly fear could fund more complexes like this one. It makes $3.5 billion available to “eligible states” and their agencies for numerous immigration-related purposes, including the “temporary detention of aliens.”

When Miller told GOP politicians to follow Uthmeier by collaborating with federal officials to develop new versions of “Alligator Alcatraz,” he was probably talking about this slush fund. State officials can try to tap into it for building out such facilities. “For Republican states across the country that want to copy the ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ model, this bill will give them that money,” immigration analyst Austin Kocher tells me.

What’s more, red state politicians are paying attention. Fox News contacted numerous gubernatorial offices to ask if they intend to take up Miller’s invitation. The responses were positive, with many eagerly touting plans for detention complexes. While it’s unclear if these will resemble “Alligator Alcatraz,” the underlying impulse is clear: Many red states want to expand state-run detention efforts. And again: The money is there.

This is a bad development. “Alligator Alcatraz” should not be the model for the future of migrant detention in much of the United States.

Here’s why. The facility is funded and operated by the state of Florida, but the state can use it to detain undocumented people under a federal program that allows ICE to authorize local law enforcement to carry out immigration crackdowns. That puts “Alligator Alcatraz” in a grey area: Local law enforcement agencies are using it to carry out Trump’s immigration detention agenda even as ICE does not run the facility.

Lauren-Brooke Eisen of the Brennan Center, who specializes in criminal justice, points to a toxic combination built into the idea of more versions of this arrangement. ICE detention is subject to federal oversight. But huge influxes of federal money for migrant detention—as in Trump’s new bill—could create new incentives for states to ramp up their own detention efforts. Yet because “Alligator Alcatraz” is a new experiment, she says, it’s unclear what sort of federal oversight future imitation efforts would receive, even if they get some federal money.

“What will access to counsel look like for detainees?” Eisen asks. “What will access to family members look like? It’s difficult to imagine state-run facilities where conditions and due process are prioritized.”

Illustrating the point, when a reporter recently asked ICE for comment on what’s going on inside “Alligator Alcatraz,” ICE said, well, it isn’t their facility. In other words, the federal government is not responsible for what happens inside those walls—even as Miller and Trump call on other states to build more of them.

Which brings us back to Uthmeier and the future of MAGA.

It’s easy to see Uthmeier and his “Alligator Alcatraz” becoming a model for other young Republicans seeking a route into MAGA celebrity. Consider his career trajectory: It’s fairly conventional establishment-Republican stuff. A native of Destin, a small beach city in the deep red Florida panhandle, he earned a law degree from Georgetown and then worked for the Commerce Department in the first Trump administration—and then for the ultra-establishment D.C. law firm Jones Day.

Uthmeier has also made appearances at the conservative Federalist Ssociety, which is as establishment-conservative as it gets. He joined DeSantis’s first administration as a senior legal adviser, and then got appointed as attorney general when the slot was vacated by the appointment of former AG Ashley Moody to now-Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s Senate seat.

All in all, it’s in some ways a conventional path to GOP success. In fact, Uthmeier actually has a track record of criticizing Trump in the past on things like Covid-19 and abortion. But J.D. Vance survived such heresies, and now, in the party that Trump remade, Uthmeier apparently recognizes that “Alligator Alcatraz” is his big ticket. It’s a reminder that in today’s GOP, the MAGA and older-line Republican establishments are bleeding into one another—and that getting attached to such an idea is a path to national MAGA stardom.

Put another way, in the cut-throat world of the MAGA attention economy, association with things like “Alligator Alcatraz” can carry enormous weight. It’s hard for people who don’t swim in MAGA’s rancid information currents to grasp, but when Trump recently toured the facility with DeSantis, it was a huge MAGA propaganda coup for the Florida governor (yes, he apparently still harbors national ambitions).

Indeed, one person who very much noticed this was apparently Uthmeier himself. According to one Florida operative in touch with Uthmeier’s staff, there’s considerable sensitivity in his inner circle over who is getting credit for “Alligator Alcatraz,” with some worrying that Uthmeier isn’t reaping enough of it.

Uthmeier needn’t worry, however. When Trump toured the facility, he said of Uthmeier: “That guy’s got a future.” In this, the MAGA God King himself gave a big boost to Uthmeier’s 2026 electoral bid to keep his appointed AG role, which will be a platform for even higher ambitions. And if more barbarities emerge from “Alligator Alcatraz,” as they surely will, his MAGA future will only get that much brighter.

Some clips from The Majority Report dealing with Racism in the US and Israel and ICE.

Please Join Me!

Writting and calling the US Senators about this. We’ve already paid for this money to be disbursed, with the understanding that it will be. This recission is UnAmerican.

Rescission Package Would Sabotage Recent Funding Deal, Cripple Future Ones

July 15, 2025, 1:47 pm

President Trump’s proposal to rescind $9.4 billion in previously approved spending, which the Senate is expected to vote on this week, is a bad idea for several reasons, as noted in a recent CBPP report. The rescission package would significantly damage life-saving global health programs, peacekeeping efforts, and economic development abroad, and would hurt domestic community TV and radio stations supported by the Public Broadcasting Service and National Public Radio. It also builds on the Administration’s broader effort to illegally impound funds, which includes withholding for months the spending that was ultimately included in the rescissions package prior to the formal request and unlawfully delaying or blocking billions of dollars for other programs from going out.

What’s less obvious but no less important, the package — combined with the Administration’s broader campaign of illegally impounding funds — could also make it far more difficult for Congress to fund the government in a bipartisan way in the future.

Here’s why:

Most of the funds in the rescission package were enacted in March legislation that was passed by Congress — including on a bipartisan basis in the Senate — and signed into law by the President to fund the government for the rest of fiscal year 2025. To provide the 60 votes required to avoid a Senate filibuster, at least eight Democratic senators needed to join with 52 Republican senators to invoke cloture on the funding bill.

But presidential rescission requests operate under different rules and require only 51 votes to pass the Senate, so no Democratic votes are needed. If the Senate approves the package (which passed the House on a party-line vote), this would show that Republicans could quickly revise on a partisan basis, with merely 51 votes in the Senate, a bipartisan funding agreement reached only a few months earlier that required support from no fewer than 60 senators.

Nothing has changed about the provisions in the package since the funding was approved in March. They are simply policies President Trump has long opposed and doesn’t want to carry out. But that is not a justification for a rescissions request. After all, it’s typical in an appropriations deal that no one gets everything they want. That means congressional negotiators may get more or less funding than they prefer for a given agency; it also means the Administration may be required to implement programs it does not support.

But if Senate Republicans go along with the Administration’s efforts to simply remove spending they had earlier agreed to as part of the March deal, this would undermine the ability to strike future deals. Office of Management and Budget director Russell Vought has also indicated that the Administration “will strongly consider” sending further rescissions requests to Congress. And of course, the trust needed to make these deals is further undermined when the Administration also chooses to withhold money illegally without even submitting a rescissions package.

The result would likely be lasting damage to our ability to fund the government in a bipartisan way, and the consequences will become clearer in just the next few months. Enacting appropriations for fiscal year 2026, which starts October 1, will require Democratic senators to join with Republicans to reach the needed 60-vote threshold. This Democratic support may not materialize if Democrats believe the President and congressional Republicans will later undo, by rescission or impoundment, any agreement they sign onto.

More generally, there’s little reason for the minority party in Congress to agree to a deal when the Administration and the majority party can strip away funding they don’t like in a purely partisan way, or if the Administration may attempt unilaterally — and illegally — not to implement it at all, with no pushback from the majority party in Congress. As a result, it would be far more difficult to reach the bipartisan agreements necessary to fund the government on time and with the resources required to serve the country’s needs.

Senators should keep those consequences in mind as they consider the President’s current rescission request.

Topics:

Federal Budget