Check out this article from USA TODAY:
Supreme Court lets Trump strip deportation protections for Venezuelan migrants
Best Wishes and Hugs,
Scottie
Kansas Supreme Court Delivers Big Win For Driver’s License Gender Markers
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Scottie
800 arrests amid Chicago immigration ‘blitz’ of helicopters and midnight raids
The USpublic is under assault from the government. In this raid against black people most were US citizens. It was a happy community. ICE made women and children go outside zip tied NUDE. Kids tied up NUDE! They help at least one US citizen for 0ver 3 hours zip tied even though he said he was a citizen and they refused to accept anything until they looked him up. Over 3 hours later. They used Appachie military helicopters in the US on US citizens and totally ignored all civil rights. Anyone who now thinks they are safe are maga white supremacists who don’t realize the country they are pushing for. The lost of every right the government don’t want you to have to voice your thoughts on anything negitive to the state. Just like the right is trying to claim that even legal immigrant here legally by law are the democrats trying to give free health care is giving it to illegals. Hugs
Check out this article from USA TODAY:
800 arrests amid Chicago immigration ‘blitz’ of helicopters and midnight raids
Best Wishes and Hugs,
Scottie
THE GUARDIAN: ‘They never told me where I was going’: a family falls into Louisiana’ s ‘black hole’ of deportation
‘They never told me where I was going’: a family falls into Louisiana’s ‘black hole’ of deportation
Exclusive: A mother and her two US citizen children – including one with stage 4 cancer – disappeared and were deported to Honduras
Read in The Guardian: https://apple.news/A6C4SVyMiTRmEOO_ly-O0jw
Shared from Apple News
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THE HILL: GOP on shaky ground with claim about Democrats’ shutdown demands
GOP on shaky ground with claim about Democrats’ shutdown demands
Amid a stalemate over government funding, Republicans have repeatedly accused Democrats of demanding free health care for immigrants in the country illegally in return for their support of a federal funding bill.
Read in The Hill: https://apple.news/ANQEsefbDQyO-I6ii6Vct2A
Shared from Apple News
Best Wishes and Hugs,Scottie
It’s not just a shutdown. I’m afraid of what this means for our democracy. | Your Turn
Check out this article from USA TODAY:
It’s not just a shutdown. I’m afraid of what this means for our democracy. | Your Turn
Best Wishes and Hugs,
Scottie
See Beethoven’s 9th-
Flowers & The Military
Maybe we all live in red states, and this won’t be a thing with which we deal (just maybe.) But, just in case, here is a pointer for coping. Pass it along!
As the Military Occupies your Town, Give them Flowers and a Note
Arnold Oliver 10/02/2025
An anti-Vietnam demonstration. Arlington, Virginia, USA. By S.Sgt. Albert R. Simpson. Department of Defense. Department of the Army. Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations. U.S. Army Audiovisual Center. – This media is available in the holdings of the National Archives and Records Administration, cataloged under the National Archives Identifier (NAID) 594360. Public Domain. Via Picryl.
Tiffin, Ohio (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – During some of the large anti-war demonstrations during the 1960’s some of the protesters gave flowers to the troops faced off against them. In the 1967 March on the Pentagon it was the 503rd Military Police Battalion, and elsewhere the National Guard was deployed. An iconic photo from 1967 shows a young man placing a flower into a soldier’s gun barrel during the protest. Let’s bring that custom back when the US military occupies your town in 2025, but this time let’s include a note along with the flower.
Allow me to explain.
The demonstrators of the 1960’s understood that the soldiers faced off against him were not the enemy. Nearly all of the soldiers were young and patriotic and trying to do the right thing. Many of them were under economic hardship and wanted help paying for their education. The flower symbolized the protesters’ belief that the soldiers were not their enemies, and they did not wish to be theirs. And in fact, as the almost entirely peaceful protests grew, many soldiers came to sympathize and began to actively oppose the war as well.
Now we have federalized Guard troops being called out by President Trump in Washington, DC, Los Angeles, Portland with other cities soon to follow. Chicago is likely next. The authority for this is said to be Title Ten of the US Code which says that the president may federalize the National Guard if the US “is invaded or is in danger of invasion by a foreign nation; there is a rebellion or danger of a rebellion . . or the president is unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States.”
Legitimate grounds for a US military or National Guard deployment do not exist. The claim that crime is spiraling out of control is false, and those pushing for the deployments know it. There is zero credible proof that crime is increasing. According to a recent FBI report (August, 2025) robbery, assault, rape and murder all continued a decline that began post-covid. We are not being invaded, there is no rebellion, and the laws are being enforced about as well as ever.
A second reason against deploying the military on our streets is that the Posse Comitatus act of 1878 forbids the use of US military forces within the country for active law enforcement except in exceptional circumstances such as insurrection, and explicitly approved by Congress. The military is forbidden from making arrests, conducting searches, issuing warrants, or interfering with local law enforcement. The law also applies to National Guard forces unless approved by state governors. No governors this year have made any requests for federalized National Guard troops.
And it is worth noting that Trump’s military forays into cities are only being used in areas run by Democratic officials. High crime in red state cities is ignored. And the Trump administration refuses to realize the obvious danger of political violence and threats from MAGA and the American right which are much higher than those from the left, according to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and others. Antifa is officially (and improperly) designated as domestic terrorists while violent right wing groups get a pass from the administration.
The President’s rhetoric seems aimed at inflaming and dividing. The “enemy from within”, “full force”, “thugs”, “vermin”, and much more. And there is hardly a peep of protest from the Republican party.
So this time around, how about if we give the troops a note along with the flower? You could use wording such as this:
Dear US soldier –
Your service oath included a pledge to uphold the US constitution, and your training taught you to disobey illegal orders.The orders sending you here (insert name of your city or town) are unlawful and unjust. You have a legal obligation to disobey.
We encourage you to go home, and we will support you in that decision.
About the Author
Arnold Oliver is an emeritus professor of political science at Heidelberg University in Tiffin, Ohio. A Vietnam veteran, he belongs to Veterans For Peace, and can be reached at soliver@heidelberg.edu.
Public Campaign Finance & Elections
(I’m in favor of an overhaul that includes only public campaign finance, along with 3 month campaign seasons, limits on airtime except for debates, and more. -A)
How New York’s public financing system has shaped the 2025 mayoral race
By Hien An Ngo
New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani holds a campaign event on Sept. 24. (Photo by Stephanie Keith/Getty Images)
In early September, Zohran Mamdani, the leading candidate to be the next mayor of New York, announced he could no longer accept campaign contributions even though the election was two months away.
“Do not send us any more money,” the Democratic nominee said in a video posted to social media.
That’s an odd statement from a candidate for office, but a necessary one from a person running in the Big Apple, where candidates rely not just on donations from supporters but also additional dollars provided by a public financing system.
Ian Vandewalker, a campaign finance expert at the Brennan Center for Justice, said this year’s mayoral race stands out for the difference in how candidates are raising money. One candidate — Mamdani — has run a small-donor campaign, maxed out on public funds and can’t take anymore money because he’s hit expenditure limits.
“And then other candidates, multiple of whom have focused more on large donations and have benefited from or attempted to benefit from large super PAC spending, it’s just a real contrast,” Vandewalker said.
The matching funds program, operated by the New York City Campaign Finance Board, is one of the oldest of its kind in the nation. Since its inception in 1988, the agency has worked to limit the influence of private money in elections through the matching funds program.
The program allows candidates to opt into a program through which the city matches individual donations under the condition they abide by certain spending and contribution limits.
- Mayoral candidates who opt in to the program face contribution limits of $2,100 per individual donor compared to non-participants, who have contribution limits of $3,700.
- While mayoral candidates who opt in aren’t allowed to receive as much money per individual, they’re able to receive $8 for every $1 donated per individual up to $250 of the donation. That means they could receive up to $2,000 in public funds per donor.
- Participants in the program are subject to a $7.9 million spending limit, while non-participants have no limit.
- To qualify for the program, mayoral candidates must raise at least $250,000 from more than 1,000 individuals.
- Mayoral candidates can receive up to roughly $7 million in public funds for the primary and another $7 million for the general election.
Mamdani announced in March that he had hit the $7.9 million spending limit for the primary election and then released the Sept. 5 video announcing he had hit the same spending cap for the general contest.
Mamdani has led all candidates — including former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and current Mayor Eric Adams — in total fundraising, with the majority of his dollars coming from public funds. Cuomo has raised the most in private donations received, but has received much less public matching, according to the most recent campaign reports filed in August. (Mamdani defeated both Adams and Cuomo in the Democratic primary; they both entered the general election as independents but Adams withdrew from the race on Sept. 28.)
Prior to withdrawing from the race, Adams was denied public funding more than 10 times because his campaign failed to submit requested documents and may have violated election law.
On Oct. 3, the campaigns will file updated fundraising reports. In the last filing from August, the four candidates on the general ballot reported having raised a total $35.7 million since the start of the 2025 race, about 55 percent of which came from public funds.
Vandewalker said given the limitations prior Supreme Court rulings have set on campaign finance regulations, public matching fund programs are powerful tools in responding to big money in politics.
“Public financing is the most effective and powerful reform because we can’t stop super PACs and rich donors from spending as much as they want, but we can sort of lift everybody else’s voices up with matching funds,” Vandewalker said.
In races with public matching funds, donors often reflect a more diverse and representative cross-section of candidates’ potential constituents in comparison to races without such programs. And candidates who opt in are able to focus their fundraising efforts on residents of their districts, rather than larger corporate sources
Public matching programs don’t just escalate the power of small donors, they can increase the diversity of candidates who can run.
“We hear that testimony consistently where candidates say, ‘I never could have run because I don’t have a network of lawyer friends or whatever,’” Vandewalker said. “The ability to throw your hat in the ring and start up a campaign is much better with public financing.”
This article was originally published by OpenSecrets, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that tracks money in politics. View the original article.
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