I receive a couple of weekly emails from Friends Committee on National Legislation. I began working with them back when the US invaded Afghanistan. I’m copy-pasting today’s letter, which includes links for more info, and some even for taking a little action if someone cares to do it.Either way, it’s good to be informed.
After a months-long political standoff over immigration enforcement funding, congressional Republicans continue to push forward a $72 billion proposal, without measures to hold these rogue agencies accountable.
A ruling by the Senate parliamentarian Thursday set back the proposal for now. But we must continue the struggle against a blank check for more lawless, cruel enforcement.
One of the most impactful ways we can push back is by lifting up stories of the toll of these policies on our communities.
On Wednesday, a group of senators held a hearing spotlighting how immigrants brought to the U.S. as children are facing detention and deportation after being promised protections.
Stephanie Villarreal shared a story about her husband Juan, a DACA recipient who has lived in the U.S. for more than 25 years. On Feb. 18, Juan was driving to deliver breast milk to their newborn baby in the neonatal intensive care unit. He never arrived. On his way, Juan was seized by ICE agents as Stephanie listened on the phone helplessly. He has been in detention ever since, separated from his wife, his baby, and his other children.
“He did everything he was asked to,” Stephanie said. “But that didn’t matter.”
We were also moved by the story of Deiver Henao, a nine-year-old boy held in ICE detention.
“I don’t wanna be here anymore,” he said. “I want to be [in school] to be happy … I wish I could leave before the spelling bee.”
Thankfully, Deiver and his family were released after his case received media attention. But many other children like him remain detained.
These stories are not are exceptional: they are far too common. How we treat people like Juan and Deiver is a test of who are as a nation. We all deserve to be treated with dignity, love, and respect. It is up to us, as people of faith and conscience, to speak out against these heartbreaking injustices and demand better from our government.
“Congressional action depends on local, personal stories from the communities they represent,” FCNL’s Anika Forrest explained.“Let’s make sure that Congress can’t look away.”
Elsewhere
War Powers Resolution on Iran barely falls short Public pressure to end war on Iran is moving Congress. Just this week, we saw resolutions to end the war almost pass – falling only one vote short in the House and two votes short in the Senate.
Public opposition to the war is bipartisan and fierce, and growing in Congress. Let’s keep up the momentum and get this over the finish line!
As Trump visits China, cries for cooperation multiply President Trump visited China this week, meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, talking about trade, Taiwan, and other issues. FCNL joined a broad coalition of organizations in calling for a peaceful, cooperative relationship between China and the U.S.As our letter to Congress puts it,
“At a time when so many domestic needs are going unmet, a confrontational posture toward China is costing untold billions.” Every dollar spent on war or preparing for war takes away from the desperate needs we have at home and abroad to build the world we seek.
Members of Congress call on U.S. to stop Ecuador operations The U.S. military is supporting Ecuadorian forces to violently crack down on accused drug traffickers. Twenty members of Congress sent a letter to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth demanding that the U.S. stop and investigate serious accusations of human rights abuses: “The United States cannot continue to be complicit in abuses abroad. There must be accountability.”
The path to abolishing the Selective Service Plans for automatic draft registration were announced about a month ago, fulfilling the mandate from 2025’s defense bill. Just yesterday, a bipartisan group of senators introduced legislation which would end the Selective Service entirely.
FCNL’s Priya Moran explained what’s going on and what the future might hold, calling on Congress to “focus on preventing war, instead of maintaining a system designed to force young people to engage in it.” Call for Congress to act!
In peace, Bryan Bowman Social Media and Communications Strategist
Lately, it seems that Democrats cannot win, even when they win.
The Supreme Court has struck down the Voting Rights Act, ruling that race cannot be a factor in drawing congressional districts, which has now set off southern red states to redraw all their districts to guarantee that their entire congressional delegation will be lily white.
And Republicans, who hate fair elections anyway, have redrawn their congressional districts mid-decade in Texas, Missouri, North Carolina, and now in Florida, without putting it to a vote by the people, and can gain as many as 14 seats. But in Virginia, where the people did vote on it, four conservative justices have ruled it unconstitutional and thrown out the entire election. (snip-MORE)
Last week, The Wall Street Journal reported about the possibility that Iran could be using “mine-carrying dolphins” to attack U.S. warships. Seriously.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who does not want to acknowledge any strength of the Iranian military, said at one of his He-Man press briefings last week after being asked about kamikaze dolphins, “I cannot confirm or deny whether we have kamikaze dolphins, but I can confirm they don’t.”
We cannot confirm or deny whether Hegseth was joking or if he was serious because Republicans do not have a sense of humor. An example to prove this would be Greg Gutfeld. (snip-MORE)
Donald Trump declassified 162 files and identified flying objects last week. And it landed with a thud.
The files, hosted on a defense department website, include dozens of testimonials from civilians, federal agents, diplomats, and astronauts who reported seeing UFOs. There are also new videos, but they are like the ones that we’ve seen over the past few decades, grainy, squiggly, and usually creating more questions than answers.
It’s almost like it doesn’t matter what they release, as skeptics will see it as proof that there’s nothing out there, while true believers will claim it’s proof that we are being visited, while also claiming that the government is still withholding information.
Personally, I do believe there is life out there, but I don’t believe we are being visited. I also believe that the government is withholding information. For example, they’re withholding information on the Epstein files. And regarding these UFO files, I think the government may be embarrassed by how little it knows. (snip-MORE)
In this interview Graham Platner responds to his detractors accusations against him. He discusses the tattoo and the Jewish times report that says he had talked about it while working at a bar during the time frame he was not working there. So there is not any credible evidence that he knew what the tattoo was. As he said why would he have danced with it in full display to his extended Jewish family? He makes sense. He understands that people may not like him because he is not polished as a politician. He also says he stumbles verbally and struggles to correct and improve himself. It was a hard hitting interview and Platner came off as very reasonable. Hugs
Now, in this must-watch interview, Mehdi Hasan speaks to Platner not just about his vision for a progressive “political revolution” in Washington DC but also about some of his controversies, including his social media and his tattoo that resembled a Nazi symbol.
Anytime Donald Trump is accused of being a pedophile, his base runs to the rescue as if they were personally slapped in the face. Currently, there are over 80 comments on this cartoon on my Facebook page, with the bulk of them being MAGAts demanding “verifiable” evidence that Trump is a pedophile. Of course, the same people who are demanding “verifiable” evidence are posting memes with fake quotes about Joe Biden and his daughter.
But how is this for verifiable evidence? Donald Trump went on the Howard Stern show in 2005 and bragged about walking into dressing rooms for teenage contestants in his beauty pageants. He bragged about it as if he had just won Michigan.
Personal note. I am doing better. I am eating two meals a day most days. Not much for supper but something most nights. I am still fatigued / tired but I am not spending so many hours in bed. I am still going to bed early and staying in bed 12 to 14 hours. I go to in the morning and in the afternoon but that is partly due to the intense pain in my right butt and leg along with my back not just being too tired to stay up. I will try to get enough caught up enough to do a video. Ron has caught on and is paying a lot of attention to me. He is worried. He is doing everything he can around the house including doing the dishes when I am in bed so I find them done the next morning. But as I tell him this will take time. I did not get so ill overnight; I won’t get back to full strength quickly either. Hugs
Stay with me tonight. This one runs a little long, but it’s all information you’ll need.
It’s likely that much of this week will be overshadowed by investigation into what happened Saturday night at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, where Cole Thomas Allen, a 31-year-old California man with a master’s degree from Cal Tech, approached the ballroom at the Washington Hilton armed with a shotgun, a handgun and knives, and attempted to sprint through the magnetometer security checkpoint. He was stopped there. A Secret Service agent was shot, but was fortunately protected by a bulletproof vest. It’s not clear who shot him.
The White House Press Corps, still dressed in tuxedos and ball gowns, trooped into the press briefing room at the White House to hear from the President, who appeared, flanked by acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, FBI Director Kash Patel, and others. They, too, were still in tuxedos from the event.
It’s not clear who the “designated survivor” for the event was. CBS’ Margaret Brennan pointed out Sunday morning that “Five of the top six officials in the presidential line of succession were in attendance: Vice President JD Vance, House Speaker Mike Johnson, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.”
Trump was in good spirits as he spoke, complimenting the press and laughing about the speech he had hoped to give after dinner. It was a much more affable Trump than we’ve seen in the course of the last year as he interacted with members of the media he has often been sharply critical, or dismissive of, during his first year in office. Trump went on the attack against the press even before his January 2025 inauguration, as we discussed at the time.
This was a different Trump who spoke in a very measured fashion, far more measured than usual, almost as if he saw this incident as providing the opportunity for a reset. He respectfully took questions from reporters like CNN’s Kaitlin Collins and NBC’s Garrett Haake. He was kindly toward the press; that’s the only way to characterize it. Whether that was a momentary blip or it suggests he will try to convince the media to rebuild its relationship with him remains to be seen. He did say that the Correspondents’ Dinner would be rescheduled within a month, without seeming to understand that the Correspondents’ Association puts on the dinner and controls the event.
At the press conference, Trump was asked why this keeps happening to him—this was the third attempt on his life since he announced his run for the presidency ahead of the 2024 election. He responded that he “has studied assassinations” and that it’s the “people who do the most” that assailants go after, using Abraham Lincoln as an example. Trump said that it “only happens to impactful people” and that he didn’t want to say he “was honored” by the repeated attempts on his life, but he let the implication hang in the room.
But he did not abandon politics. As he began his comments, Trump said the incident demonstrated why the ballroom he is building at the White House is needed.
Trump reiterated his comments in a Sunday morning post on Truth Social, claiming presidents have been demanding a ballroom like the one he’s building for 150 years.
His amen corner all took up the chant on Twitter, on cue.
But, as we noted above, the dinner is run by the Correspondents’ Association, not the White House. There is no reason to believe they would use a White House ballroom for a dinner designed to celebrate freedom of the press and its independence from government. Trump can make the argument he needs a safe space to entertain, but it’s a disconnect from the event last night.
Miles Taylor commented on Threads that “The WHCD shooter will be used to justify things that have nothing to do with the WHCD shooter. Mark this moment.” That seems likely.
The immediate investigation will focus on whether the shooter was a lone wolf, as it appears, or whether there is an ongoing threat. There is reporting today that Allen was a member of a group called The Wide Awakes, who appear, based on their web presence, to be committed to “radically” reimagining the future, but look to be a group of creative, peaceful people. Law enforcement will want to determine whether someone or something radicalized Allen and directed him toward violence.
There are sure to be, and there should be, questions about the Secret Service and how this happened. Asked about that during the press conference, Trump responded that he was “very impressed by the Secret Service.” But this is the third time a would-be assassin has gotten close to Trump, and one would have expected them to tighten ranks after the first attempt. Trump, however, does not seem to have viewed any of it as a failure by the Service and he was complimentary of the D.C. police, as well, in a phoner on Fox News.
It’s important to note that the Secret Service stopped Allen at the perimeter they had established. They succeeded in that sense. The real question will be whether the perimeter should have been set further back. I’ve attended the dinner multiple times and one observes layers of security that require guests to walk up the hill to the circular drive in front of the Washington Hilton before entering the hotel, but there are parties and receptions occurring in advance of the perimeter before entering the ballroom area, and, as we now know, Allen avoided scrutiny as a guest who checked into the hotel the day before the dinner. There are real questions that will have to be confronted here to ensure protection for future dinners, to say nothing of the scads of parties that happen in connection with this dinner, and other national events that are held at the Hilton.
Late Saturday evening, D.C. U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro announced that Allen would be arraigned on Monday. She said he will be charged with one count of assault on a federal officer using a dangerous weapon and two counts of using a firearm during a crime of violence. That could be fluid as officials learn new information. But the charges she identifies are found at 18 USC 111, which carries a 20-year maximum penalty, and 18 USC 924(c), which carries a 7-year penalty if a firearm is brandished and a 10-year penalty if it’s fired.
The motive seemed to be coming into focus throughout the day as some of Allen’s anti-administration writings were released. On Meet the Press, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said authorities believed the suspect may have been targeting Trump administration officials, including Trump himself. The basis for that belief appears to have been examination of electronic devices and some writings. But Blanche told CNN’s Dana Bash they were still looking at the motive.
As I heard seasoned journalists, many of them friends, discuss how frightening the shooting was on air Saturday night and Sunday morning, I couldn’t help but reflect on how much worse it is for America’s children. How many of them still suffer a lingering sense of trauma from the moment a shooter crashed into their classroom or their place of worship? If there’s ever been a time to pass sensible gun control laws, it’s now. If we’re going to play politics, as Trump did with immediately pivoting to justifying his ballroom, let’s play that kind and make some good trouble.
There will be in court developments in other matters to track, as well, this week:
This Wednesday will be the last regularly scheduled day for the Supreme Court to hear oral argument this term. The Court will take up two consolidated cases, Mullin v. Doe and Trump v. Miot, and consider whether the Trump administration acted properly when it revoked protected status for Syrians and Haitians living in this country. The cases involve decisions from New York and Washington, D.C., barring the administration from stripping more than 350,000 Haitians and 6,000 Syrians of protected legal status that protects them from deportation.
The cases hit the court just last month, on March 16. The Court allowed the lower courts’ decisions to remain in place, preventing deportations, determining that it would hear the case promptly, allotting an hour for oral argument. This has all happened very quickly, with the final brief being filed just last week on Monday.
There is also news on the voting front. Friday evening, Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves announced that he was calling a special session of the legislature so that new maps could be drawn.
I don’t typically make news on a Friday afternoon, but today I am going to make an exception:
I’m calling a special session.
During the recently completed regular session, the Legislature discussed drawing new maps to comply with a decision from a federal judge from the… pic.twitter.com/wEnFw5xkHk
This redraw would be limited to state Supreme Court districts. A federal court found Mississippi’s state Supreme Court districts violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and required the legislature to pass a remedial map. But it failed to do so during the regular session. A court hearing was scheduled for this week, and the court would have likely adopted its own map. So the Governor is calling this special session in hopes the court will hold off until the legislature has time to act.
In the election last November, voters ended the Republican supermajority in the legislature, but Republicans still hold a majority of the seats in both chambers and should be able to pass a map of their own devising. So the governor likely believes a map that comes out of the legislature will be superior to one created by the court.
And finally, the SAVE Act isn’t quite dead yet. We need to stay alert to any resurgence and be prepared to call our members of Congress to demand they resist its resuscitation. Trump is again demanding that his party end the filibuster and pass the Act, saying that not doing so will “lead to the worst results for a political party in the HISTORY of the United States Senate.” It reads as an acknowledgment that only voter suppression can save the Republican Party in the midterm elections.
Utah Senator Mike Lee followed up on Trump’s command with this tweet. Lee is not up for reelection until 2028. But he, too, seems to sense that this will be a dangerous election for Republicans. The SAVE Act is one of the last-ditch efforts Republicans have to suppress the vote and hold onto power this year and again in 2028. There is no mention of crafting policies designed to win the hearts and minds of American voters. It’s just about keeping eligible American citizens from voting. We must do everything we can to resist that.
If you’ve found this useful, it’s exactly the work I do every week—reading the filings, tracking the arguments, and explaining what it means before it becomes obvious. The headlines will keep coming, but understanding them takes more than a glance. That’s what this space is for. My goal is to give you clear, careful analysis you can rely on. If that’s the kind of work you value, I hope you’ll choose to subscribe.
Republicans are upset because tomorrow, they could lose at their own game.
After Texas redistricted in the middle of the decade to give Republicans more congressional seats, which Donald Trump demanded, Virginia decided to add more blue seats. This upset Republicans because, dammit, they invented this game.
Now, the same groups that want to add more red seats in Texas are spending big money to argue against adding more blue seats in Virginia. The commercials have been wild, with some of them warning that Richmond Democrats are engaged in a “power grab.” Some of the ads warn that this disenfranchises Black voters. Others state that if you vote, yes, that means more “illegals” will invade the state to commit crimes. It’s getting nasty, but Republicans don’t know how to win any other way. They use this information, and they cheat. (snip-MORE)
Last week in Cameroon (in case you are a Republican, that is a nation on the continent of Africa), Pope Leo quoted a Bible verse, which was, “Jesus told us, ‘Blessed are the peacemakers, but woe to those who manipulate religion in the very name of God for their own military, economic, or political gain, dragging that which is sacred into darkness and filth.’” And then, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, while claiming that God is on his side to wage war, quoted a fake Bible verse at a prayer breakfast.
The verse was inspired by Ezekiel 25:17 and comes from one of my favorite movies, Pulp Fiction. It was delivered brilliantly and forcefully by one of my favorite actors, Samuel L. Jackson. (snip-MORE, also deliberate and forceful!)
We seem doomed to another week of war news. On Sunday, Trump announced on Truth Social that the U.S. military seized an Iranian-flagged ship that he said tried to run the U.S. blockade in the Strait of Hormuz. Marines boarded the cargo ship Touska after it was disabled. Trump posted that the USS Spruance “gave them fair warning to stop,” but that “The Iranian crew refused to listen, so our Navy ship stopped them right in their tracks by blowing a hole in the engineroom.”
But what’s happening with the president as he conducts his war is now completely out of bounds. This morning, just after 8 a.m., he had a long rambling post on Truth Social that concluded, “if they don’t, the United States is going to knock out every single Power Plant, and every single Bridge, in Iran. NO MORE MR. NICE GUY!”
Notice how Trump speaks in the language of an all-powerful businessman, a CEO without a board to tell him what to do. He is sending “My Representatives” to Pakistan and “if they (Iran) don’t take the DEAL,” he’ll do “what has to be done.” It’s crazy on steroids, and well past the point where even his own party should be giving him a pass. The president of the United States is threatening to bomb civilian targets and devastate a civilian population. War crimes, plain and simple.
All of this from the candidate who, in November of 2024, in the closing days of his campaign for the White House, said that “If Kamala wins, only death and destruction await because she is the candidate of endless wars. I am the candidate of peace.”
Every accusation is a confession. And the Truth Social posts happened after Trump called NATO and our allies “absolutely useless” at a Turning Point USA event Friday night. If you’re exhausted, and honestly, at this point, who isn’t, take a deep breath, plan for a little extra fellowship with friends (more on my plans at the end), and remind yourself that we cannot afford to put our heads in the sand and that the effort to overwhelm us in intentional—that’s how authoritarians do it. It’s a good week to talk with people about what’s going on, to encourage them to stop and think, and then to make sure they’re registered to vote.
The U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., Mike Waltz, was on ABC’s “This Week,” Sunday morning, and he chimed right in with the president. Host John Karl asked if Trump was prepared to go back to “full-on war” and Waltz responded, “all options are on the table. We could take that infrastructure out relatively easily. The Iranian air defenses have been absolutely decimated.”
He continued, without being prompted, “And just to get ahead of a lot of the critics and hand-wringing, throwing out irresponsible terms like ‘war crimes’, attacking, destroying infrastructure that has clearly and historically been used for dual military purposes is not a war crime.”
Then Waltz did it again on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” where volunteering to Kristen Welker, who hadn’t asked about it, that the U.S. could still target civilian infrastructure in Iran if a ceasefire deal wasn’t reached, again claiming that wouldn’t amount to war crimes. “We have a long history of taking down bridges, power plants and other infrastructure that is powering Iran’s military,” Waltz said, as though that somehow made it acceptable. “In the laws of land warfare and the rules of engagement, any type of infrastructure that is co-mingled is absolutely a legitimate target.” He reiterated on CBS, appearing on “Face the Nation,” that because the IRGC is running bridges and power plants, they are “legitimate military targets,” again rejecting the notions that bombing them would be “some type of war crime.”
So bombing civilian targets seems to be top of mind for the president and one of his key spokespeople on these issues, which should concern all of us.
Waltz is a former Army Special Forces Officer, decorated for his bravery. He graduated from Virginia Military Academy, according to his bio from his time in Congress, but he is not a lawyer. Apparently, concerns about launching attacks against civilian populations didn’t stick. Waltz was Trump’s first National Security Advisor this term, but he resigned following Signalgate after serving for just 101 days. (Tonight’s trivia: That’s the second shortest tenure of any NSA. Mike Flynn, who was Trump’s first NSA in 2017, resigned after just 24 days, two Scaramuccis, and was ultimately convicted of lying to the FBI before Trump pardoned him.) Trump nominated Waltz to serve as the U.N. Ambassador the same day he stepped down.
Today, the United States struck yet another vessel in the Caribbean. Three people were killed. The U.S. Southern Command account on Twitter said they were narco-terrorists. These attacks used to be shocking. Now, they barely garner notice. As of the last strike, four days ago, Reuters reported the death toll was “over 170.” Three people were killed in that strike last Wednesday, as well.
Also appearing on the Sunday shows, FBI Director Kash Patel said he would file a defamation case on Monday against The Atlantic, which reported last week, in a story headlined, “The FBI Director Is MIA,” that Patel’s colleagues are “alarmed” by “episodes of excessive drinking and unexplained absences.” Two dozen people interviewed for the story “described Patel’s tenure as a management failure and his personal behavior as a national-security vulnerability.”
Nominees for important government positions, and Director of the FBI is among the highest because of access to national security information, are heavily vetted before they take office. But as with so many other norms in the time of Trump, Patel’s questionable personal choices have continued to come to light since he took office. The report says that Patel is “drinking so heavily that meetings need to be rescheduled and his security detail has trouble waking him up. Among the report’s most chilling revelations, “Current and former officials told me that they have long worried about what would happen in the event of a domestic terrorist attack while Patel is in office, and they said that their apprehension has increased significantly in the weeks since Trump launched his military campaign against Iran. ‘That’s what keeps me up at night,’ one official said.”
Screen grab of Patel “celebrating” with the U.S. Men’s Hockey team after their Olympic victory.
This morning, Fox host Maria Bartiromo asked Patel, “So you’re gonna sue them?” “Absolutely,” he responded. “It’s coming tomorrow.” He added that it would be for defamation.
I’m looking forward to discovery. Especially the part where Patel is deposed, under oath. Expect the lawsuit, which he probably has to file to look tough for the audience of one, to be dismissed before it gets that far. Patel would face questioning about his drinking and other misconduct while in office. And he would be exposed to penalties of perjury.
The Atlantic’s report concludes with this story: “Patel has publicly proclaimed that the FBI needs to demonstrate that it is ‘fierce,’ and officials I spoke with said that he is fixated on that image in private as well.” So what is he doing about that? Apparently, Patel “recently expressed frustration with the look of FBI merchandise, complaining that it isn’t intimidating enough.” The Atlantic explains that “Officials have grown accustomed to such behavior, and they have learned to roll their eyes at it. But they said that the absurdity masks real concerns about what Patel’s leadership has meant for an institution that the country relies on for national security and the safety of its citizens. ‘Part of me is glad he’s wasting his time on bullshit, because it’s less dangerous for rule of law, for the American public,’ one official told me, ‘but it also means we don’t have a real functioning FBI director.’”
It’s likely that Patel has little support inside of the building, and that could mean this is just one of many stories that get launched in an effort to ease him out before it’s too late. When the “that” in “That’s what keeps me up at night,” is the Director of the FBI, not a foreign terrorist or criminal threat, then it’s highly likely the career folks, and maybe even some of the politicos, want a “real functioning FBI director” in place.
I started out by saying we’re entering this week already exhausted and it’s important to keep taking care of ourselves. My plan this week involves spending time in person with my #SistersInLaw cohosts Kimberly Atkins Stohr, Barb McQuade, and Jill Will-Banks, when we do the podcast live in Denver on April 23rd. If you’re in Denver, I hope I’ll see you there! If you’re in Atlanta, we’ll be live there on May 3. There is nothing as important as being with the people that we love right now.
Scottie's Playtime 