NBC NEWS: Trump administration says it is ending its immigration surge in Minneapolis

Parts of this report is wrong. ICE was well documented going into churches and schools to arrest worshipers and children who were brown. Also to save face Homan claims new agreements from the local jails and police to cooperate with ICE but those facilities / departments have always turned over convicted criminals who were accused of serious crimes. Officials claim nothing has changed so Homan is lying. The administration knows that the recent elections have shown that the people do not want these ICE gang thugs acting with out restraint and with out respect for the law or the people. This retreat is about the recent elections where democrats have stomped republicans badly in vote totals. Hugs

Trump administration says it is ending its immigration surge in Minneapolis
More than 4,000 undocumented immigrants have been apprehended since the operation began in November, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

Read in NBC News: https://apple.news/A6C08Xr5hRn-nUuSX5Iu2pg

Shared from Apple News

Best Wishes and Hugs,Scottie

“New Era Of Depravity”: AOC Rips Trump’s Cuba Blockade

The racism of the right is on full display.

In Regard To Scottie’s Search:

c’mon, everyone, Scottie can draw that toon! Cheer him on, and join him-draw one of your own! 🧑‍🎨

Make Your Own Comics

Exercises for the Classroom

Grant Snider

1. Start with a character

Will your character be an avatar of yourself? A plucky young heroine? A grizzled space pirate? A robot with feelings? Design your character with simple shapes that can easily be repeated from panel to panel. Put them in different poses, draw them far away and up close, from various views. Once the character starts moving on their own, you have the start of a story.

2. Journey from panel to panel

Draw the action from left to right, top to bottom across the page. The space between panels is called the gutter. In the gutter, time passes. This amount of time can be a millisecond (a character blinks) or an eon (a star collapses). Use small changes in expression and pose to show what the character is thinking and feeling. Add thought balloons and text bubbles for dialogue.

3. Create new characters

Make each character distinct in shape and personality. Let their form dictate their behavior and action. How do they complement or oppose the main character? What new direction can they take the story?

4. How does it end?

(Snip-this is a pretty long post with the art, so I’m snipping here. I wanted to leave the art big enough to be seen fairly clearly. We will know how our own toons end! Also, though I don’t recall thinking about it when I found this substack, no doubt there was subconscious inspiration from Michael Seidel’s blog. I read it over lunch.)

According To Libertarians,

(You can listen to this, on the page)

January 16, 2025 6:01AM

Biden Didn’t Cause the Border Crisis, Part 1: Summary

By David J. Bier

This is Part 1 of a four-part series on the origins of the border crisis: Read Part 2, Part 3, Part 4.

During President Joe Biden’s term, Border Patrol arrested an unprecedented number of immigrants who crossed illegally into the United States. Many believe Biden caused this increase in migration by reducing border enforcement. However, data obtained by the Cato Institute through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) challenges this narrative. In fact, the border crisis began before Biden took office and ended before he left.

From his administration’s first day in January 2021, Biden actually increased border enforcement—arrests, detentions, and removals of border crossers all increased. The prevailing narrative that blames Biden overlooks the real causes of the crisis: America’s robust labor market and bad immigration policies that incentivized illegal entries. However, Trump, not Biden, mostly started those policies. Biden eventually phased out some of them; he increased legal migration, and as the labor market cooled, the problem dissipated.

Summary

The main takeaways are:

Illegal immigration had already increased to a 21-year high before Biden entered office.
Biden immediately started increasing expulsions from his first day in office.
Biden tripled interior detention and increased border detention 12-fold.
Biden increased air removal flights by 55 percent over 2020 levels.
Biden negotiated broader expulsion deals with foreign countries than Trump.
Biden got many foreign countries to carry out crackdowns on illegal and legal migration.
Biden removed or expelled 3.3 million border crossers—three times as many as Trump.
Biden even managed to remove a similar percentage of crossers as Trump’s four years.

Despite Biden’s historic crackdown:

Expulsions did not deter migrants, even among demographics universally expelled.
The percentage increase in evasions of Border Patrol increased as much as Border Patrol arrests, implying that releases did not cause the crisis and that many people did not want Border Patrol to catch them but were undeterred by the threat.
Releases occurred not because Biden cut removals but because migration grew faster than the administration could increase them.
As a result, releases only occurred among specific demographic groups and in certain areas where removals were logistically complicated.
Biden could not easily remove groups to Mexico, like families, children, and immigrants from distant countries who were arrested in record numbers.

The actual causes of the increases in illegal immigration were:

Unprecedented labor demand, which incentivized and funded migration from around the world: From February 2021 to August 2024, there were more open jobs each month than in any month before Biden’s term began. During this time, economies worldwide were recovering far less quickly than the United States. As labor demand subsided in 2024, immigration fell.
Unprecedented access to information about migration through the Internet and social media: Internet access rose rapidly from 2018 to 2021, nearly doubling in Central America and reaching unprecedented highs in South America. Social media platforms gave people step-by-step instructions on migrating and connected them directly with smugglers. This opened migration from around the world, which contributed to the number of releases.
Novel and perverse enforcement policies: The Title 42 expulsion policy incentivized repeat crossings by returning people to Mexico, where they could immediately attempt to re-enter the United States. Title 42 also cut off access to asylum, incentivizing more Border Patrol evasions.
Novel and perverse legal migration policies: Title 42 not only banned asylum for people who crossed illegally but also prohibited legal entries by asylum seekers, including demographic groups that had traditionally always entered legally, like Haitians, Cubans, and Mexican families. Biden eventually increased legal entries by these groups and others, limiting the crisis’s extent and ultimately contributing to its end.

The border crisis did not end because Biden signed an executive order in June 2024. If he had signed his border executive order in 2021, it would have merely duplicated what Title 42 was already doing: ban asylum. Moreover, the border executive order did not significantly change the downward trend in arrivals in 2024, which had already fallen in half during the five months before he signed it. Finally, the order did not increase removals. Rather, the crisis primarily ended because labor demand subsided significantly and because Biden expanded legal migration.

Read Biden Didn’t Cause the Border Crisis, Part 2: Did Biden Cut Enforcement?

A Couple Of Shorts; More Topical But In A Humorous Fashion

I acquired this link to a David Nihil short in 3 different ways, but it will not embed. I promise it’s worth the click, and it’s short.

https://youtube.com/shorts/qdFI3Y1Xa2o?si=yhsp9ugIcxHkeAqi

I feel detached from reality

This morning I had an MRI on my lower back. It all went well and was quick. The reason for it is my right leg feels as if it is being tased and it makes it difficult and challenging to stand on the leg. I took an extra dose of instant morphine and a muscle relaxer before the MRI, as those tend to be very painful for me to lie on the table in one position for that length of time.

Since I got home I have felt more and more disconnected from reality My pain levels in my back have increased so I struggle to sit in my desk chair and have had to take even more more pain relievers of all kinds. But I still struggle, I am feeling lost like debrie in the wind of a storm. Ron has contacted me three times to forcefully tell me he loves me. But I feel lost, ungrounded, I find myself relieaziing I am simply staring into space or have not heard a word of what is playing on the video computer.

Plus, Sam Seder is talking to someone about the abuse of Palestinians in Gaza such as how their lands are being torn from them and they are being terrorized, yet I find I am not registering large parts of the video. I simply am missing large segments of the video and have to rewind to watch so much of it again. I am zoning out. I have seriously thought of going to bed. So much pain and abuse toward people who have no way to fight back or protect themselves. If I let my mind focus I am instantly thrown back to my own childhood situation as a child unable to fight back against all the abuse from much more powerful people who seemed to have all the authority behind them.

But it is more than the normal remember, be very upset, cry, sob, and try to find a way to deal. Currently I simply am lost like I am moving in slow motion as I struggle to focus on what I need to do. I feel like I am on go …

I just realized that for some time, I am not sure how long I have had my head down on my folded arms on my desk. I was not crying, I was not sleeping, I simply checked out. This seems much scarier than when I sob and cry out of control. For an unknown part of time I just checked out of reality. This is not normal. I am going to go lie down for a few minutes. Hugs

I went to lie down. I had texted Ron with my situation. I was just lying there not thinking, no intrusive thoughts which is strange enough, just checked out when he called all upset. He offered to start for home right away. I explained to him that was not needed. I am not feeling upset. Just lost. Just like I don’t comprehend what is happening within my eye sight and hearing. My mind was not registering what the inputs were. I admit it feels a bit like when I had my stroke, everything stopped making sense for a while. Anyway while I was laying down the medication started working and I feel a bit more connected to reality. I am not writing this to upset or concern anyone but to try to explain what is happening to me in my life. Thank you for letting me have a place to explain my feelings and for all of you who are willing to listen. I appreciate it, it means a lot to me. I can’t explain how important it is for me to have this space to exspress my feelings / life and know the people reading care about me. Hugs.

Your Josh Day Next Day

All device beverage cautions should be in place.

I need your help looking up a meme / cartoon story.

Hello everyone. I am looking for a meme / cartoon story I had a few years ago and can’t find again. It is of a kid going out in the morning with a sign hanging from their neck down to their chest. The sign said something like I am good and I am happy. Then through the day every insult and attack on the kid tore pieces of the sign off so when the kid got home the sign was destroyed being just a bit of what they started out with. I really want to find it again but every search I try to do fails to give me what I am looking for. Thanks. Hugs

GOP Official Snatches Thomas Massie’s Mic In the Midst of Comments at Kentucky Event

As much as they wish to deny it maga republicans cannot stand an independent Republican not sucking up to tRump so they yanked his mic before he could convince the audience of the truth / reality. Hugs

GOP Official Snatches Thomas Massie’s Mic In the Midst of Comments at Kentucky Event

Jennifer Bowers BahneyFeb 7th, 2026, 3:48 pm

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) had a microphone snatched right out of his hand Friday night as he spoke at the Oldham County, KY, Republican Party’s Lincoln Day Dinner.

Massie was in the midst of saying, “If you are a congressman, you work not for the Speaker of the House, I work for you!” pointing to the audience, when event emcee and state House Speaker David Osborne (R) decided he’d heard enough.

Osborne grabbed the mic away as someone yelled, “Welcome to the snake pit, baby!”

Massie then walked off “in solidarity” with supporters who left the event because he’d been cut off, according to the Louisville Courier Journal.

Massie told the paper that he joined supporters for drinks at Ernesto’s Mexican Cuisine in La Grange.

“I said, ‘Well, if they’re going to walk out for me, I’ll walk out and meet with them,’” Massie said.

Oldham County Republican Party Chair Blaine Anderson said Massie’s mic was taken only because he had gone over his allotted time limit.

In a text message to the paper, Anderson said Massie and his primary opponent Ed Gallrein were given “explicit instructions that they had five minutes to speak.”

After Massie was given an extra minute “as a courtesy,” Anderson said Osborne took away the mic.

“This had nothing to do with what was being said by the Congressman,” Anderson wrote. “It was about speaking time expiring.”

Massie called Anderson a “great guy” and said he didn’t blame the chairman for the mic incident. “But he’s swimming upstream,” Massie added. “There’s some Massie Derangement Syndrome in Oldham County among the establishment.”

President Donald Trump threw his support behind Gallrein after a series of rogue moves Massie made against House Republicans. Massie has stood firm in his call for a full release of the Epstein files, condemned U.S. involvement in Iran, and denounced Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” that became law last summer.

Earlier Friday, Trump called Massie a “moron” while remarking at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C.

“There’s something wrong with him,” Trump said of Massie who continues to challenge the president on the release of the Epstein files. “We call him Rand Paul Jr. They just vote no. They love voting no. They think it’s good politically.”