Weekend Open Thread

Posted on July 11, 2026 by rikyrah

Good Morning.
I hope that you are enjoying this weekend with family and friends.

We lost the wonderful Bonnie Tyler this week at the age of 75.

RIP, Ms. Tyler.

Bonnie Tyler, singer of ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’, dies at 75
By Sarah Young
July 9, 20264:15 AM CDTUpdated 5 hours ago

LONDON, July 9 (Reuters) – The gravelly tone that made Bonnie Tyler’s singing instantly recognisable was the result of an accident.
After an operation to remove vocal cord nodules in 1977, she was ordered to rest her voice. But one day she screamed in anger, permanently altering ​it.

Six years on, the Welsh singer would release her best-known song, “Total Eclipse of the Heart”, which flaunted her husky sound and ‌was nominated for a Grammy Award.

“Holding Out for a Hero”, another dramatic rock ballad, was released soon after, helping Tyler make her mark on Britain’s pop scene. Both recordings have since featured in films, television shows and advertisements.
Tyler, whose releases also included “It’s a Heartache” and “Lost in France”, has died, BBC News reported on Thursday. She was 75.

‘I WOULDN’T SAY ​BOO TO A GOOSE’
Tyler was born Gaynor Hopkins in south Wales in 1951, the fourth of six children of a coal miner ​and a homemaker.
She grew up in a four-bed council house with a large garden in the village of Skewen, outside ⁠Swansea. “I think Mam and Dad had it really hard, bringing up a big family on very little,” she told The Guardian newspaper in 2012.

Music ​was a constant of daily life, whether played on a radiogram or sung by her mother, who would intone opera or “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polkadot ​Bikini” as she did housework.
At seven, Tyler went to see a musical at the local church. There she fell in love with Irving Berlin’s song “There’s No Business Like Show Business”, first giving the shy child the desire to perform.
“I wouldn’t say boo to a goose, and yet there was a part of me that yearned to sing ​in front of people,” she recalled in her memoir, “Straight from the Heart”.
‘THIS WAS THE SONG’
She started out as a teenage backing singer before releasing several ​albums of her own in the 1970s.
But it wasn’t until the early 1980s, when she started working with American lyricist Jim Steinman, that she had her commercial breakthrough.
She ‌won over ⁠Steinman, then already famous for composing “Bat out of Hell” for Meat Loaf, by sending him demos of the theatrical rock songs she knew would suit her voice.

Of the moment she first heard his composition, “Total Eclipse”, she recalled: “I knew this was the song I had been waiting for all my life.” Recorded by Tyler, the “Wagnerian-like onslaught of sound and emotion”, as Steinman described the piece, would go on to top the charts in both the UK and ​U.S.
Featuring the powerful lyrics “Once upon a time, ​I was falling in love, ⁠But now I’m only falling apart,” the song has been streamed more than one billion times on the online music platform Spotify.
It has featured in the movies “Old School” and “Bandits”, the television shows “Glee” and “Grey’s Anatomy”, as well as an ​advertisement for Mastercard.
CREATING ‘BONNIE TYLER’
From the 1990s onwards, she had more success in Norway, Austria and France than at ​home, although she represented ⁠Britain in the 2013 Eurovision Song Contest, and was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire, for services to music, in 2022.

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Posted in Music, Weekend Open Thread | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Open Thread | Conservatives Want the Antebellum Constitution Back

Posted on July 10, 2026 by rikyrah

They have been after the 14th Amendment because it is the foundation of BROWN V BOARD.
And BROWN V BOARD is the foundation of all the progress this country has made since 1954.

From The Atlantic:

Conservatives Want the Antebellum Constitution Back
The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments are in trouble.
By Adam Serwer

Last July, while on his way to his job as a security guard at a cannabis farm in California, George Retes was tear-gassed, pepper-sprayed, and arrested by federal agents conducting an immigration raid. The agents ignored the license plate on Retes’s car and the sticker on his windshield, both of which identified him as a U.S. Army veteran, and did not even bother to determine whether he was a citizen before strip-searching him and locking him up in a cell. Retes was detained overnight without any opportunity to call a lawyer or his family.

“No one deserves to be treated like this,” Retes told this magazine after his release. “To have no rights. It’s just crazy to think about—that they can just mask up and take someone off the street, no questions asked, and you’re just gone.”

Retes is one of an estimated 170 American citizens who have been detained by federal immigration agents as part of President Donald Trump’s mass-deportation campaign, according to ProPublica, which warns that the count is both incomplete and unofficial because the federal government is not documenting its own abuses of power. At least 20 of those citizens, ProPublica found, had been detained overnight and incommunicado—a violation of their constitutional rights. When questioned about these detentions, Trump-administration officials claimed that the citizens had assaulted federal agents—an assertion proved false in many cases by video evidence or an inability by the government to produce serious charges reflecting the accusations. (One thrown sandwich hardly counts.)

Across the country, federal agents are flagrantly and casually disregarding Americans’ due-process rights. And they have been remarkably forthright about how they choose their victims. As Gregory Bovino, a top Border Patrol commander, told a white reporter: Agents were arresting people based on “the particular characteristics of an individual—how they look. How do they look compared to, say, you?”

In Memphis, Reggie Williams told ProPublica that he was instructed by federal agents to keep his ID on him going forward, as though Black residents of the city were emancipated slaves forced to carry freedom papers lest they be kidnapped and returned to bondage. Bovino said basically the same thing after federal agents assaulted a Somali American citizen and refused to free him for hours despite his offers to show them a photo of his passport on his phone: “One must carry immigration documents,” Bovino posted on X. In Chicago, Maria Greeley was zip-tied by federal agents coming off a double shift at the bar where she worked. She had her passport and showed it to them, and still they detained her because, she said, she did not “look like” a Greeley.

This is racial profiling. And the Supreme Court has declined to stop it.

In September, an emergency docket decision effectively permitted this racial profiling by lifting a court order preventing it. “The Government sometimes makes brief investigative stops to check the immigration status of those who gather in locations where people are hired for day jobs,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in a lone concurrence. Although “apparent ethnicity alone” isn’t enough to detain someone, it can be a “relevant factor,” he continued. “Under this Court’s precedents, not to mention common sense, those circumstances taken together can constitute at least reasonable suspicion of illegal presence in the United States.”

What this means in practice is that if you are not white, you cannot go certain places without the risk of being kidnapped by federal agents. That is not “common sense”; it is the nullification of the Constitution’s guarantee of equal rights under the law.

This decision is only one of the ways that the Court, under Chief Justice John Roberts, has been chipping away at the parts of the Constitution dedicated to ensuring equal citizenship to all through rulings on voting rights, immigration, and equal protection. It has done this even as it insists—while striking down affirmative action and school-integration programs—that the Constitution is “colorblind.”
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Posted in Open Thread, Politics, Racial Profiling, Supreme Court | Tagged , , , , , , | 22 Comments

Open Thread | An Outline of the Corruption of This White House

Posted on July 8, 2026 by rikyrah

Spelled out by Senator Murphy

This Is What 500 Days of Trump’s Corruption Looks Like

Some more came out this week:

Kyle Griffin
@kylegriffin1

Some donors who intended to give to the bipartisan, congressionally chartered America250 initiative were instead steered to the partisan, Trump-backed Freedom 250, according to a new report from House Natural Resources Democrats.

The report says that could amount to “potential wire fraud and charitable solicitation fraud.” ms.now/news/inside-tr…
https://x.com/kylegriffin1/status/2072777424647962869

Ron Filipkowski
@RonFilipkowski

The corruption is staggering in scale and scope, it doesn’t stop, and Republicans in Congress refuse to do any oversight because, as Mike Johnson admitted this week, they serve as a protection racket to cover up the crimes of the regime.
https://x.com/RonFilipkowski/status/2073434375966843151

Posted in Corruption, Open Thread, Politics, The White House | Tagged , , , , , | 52 Comments

So…Mr. Blackwater With A Nazi Tattoo Has Been Accused of SA….Surprise Surprise

Posted on July 7, 2026 by rikyrah

NOT.
SO NOT SURPRISED.


Adam Wren
@adamwren

A woman who dated Maine U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner tells us he sexually assaulted her. She detailed the alleged incident in a series of interviews.

Platner responded: “These allegations are troubling, serious, and false. Any accusation of non-consensual behavior is categorically untrue.”

Read the full story from me @jsscppr:

politico.com/news/2026/07/0…
https://x.com/adamwren/status/2074212911728427238

The phucking UNMITIGATED GALL

user avatar
Peter Baker
@peterbakernyt

Platner aide lists terms for dropping out: “If he was to step down it would only be with a guarantee of being replaced by a candidate who he believes is true to the values and vision and policy agenda of the campaign that Maine voted for.” @ShaneGoldmacher
https://x.com/peterbakernyt/status/2074284013955453051

She is me.
I don’t wanna hear no nonsense from folks clutching their pearls today.
LIKE THEY WEREN’T WARNED.

#JoeMama🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🌻🪷
@Mama4Obama1

Replying to @TVietor08
You were warned . The Nazi tattoo should have been enough ! But nope , yall didn’t listen to the Black voters that fucking warned you . Looked at that white electorate and dismissed us . Your judgement is nil.
9:50 AM · Jul 7, 2026
https://x.com/Mama4Obama1/status/2074430757917839582

UH HUH
UH HUH

Dominique Devereaux’s Son
@wondermann5

You know why Graham Platner was not vetted? He had the complexion for the protection.
10:36 PM · Jul 6, 2026
https://x.com/wondermann5/status/2074261321168867566

Daniel Pearson
@DPearsonPHL

Replying to @magi_jay
There was a screenshot of this exact woman in a Facebook group saying that people shouldn’t date Platner that was available last year. I’m one guy who doesn’t even really write about national politics for my job. US senators and others have staff who could have talked to her.
11:27 PM · Jul 6, 2026
https://x.com/DPearsonPHL/status/2074274172155331053

Continue reading →

Posted in 2026 Elections, Breaking News, Elections, Open Thread, Politics, United States Senate | Tagged , , , , , , | 50 Comments

Open Thread | About That Housing Bill That Trump Refuses to Sign

Posted on July 6, 2026 by rikyrah

This is an interesting take on that Housing Bill that Trump is refusing to sign.

Hannibal999
@Hannibal9972485

You guys are being TRICKED and its all a LIE ‼️‼️this BILL does not ban corporate landlords. It protects them. It enforces an oligopoly.🚨🚨🚨

News says “The legislation bans institutional investors from buying new homes if they own 350 or more units.”⬅️⬅️

This is the trick 👌 Who owns 350 homes? Only the Big Guys (Blackstone, Invitation Homes, Progress Residential). These are the firms who already bought up the neighborhood.

Who is trying to buy 350 homes today? Small competitors (Private equity firms trying to expand, regional investors).
So by setting the cap at 350, the government has effectively banned any new competitors from entering the market to challenge the giants.

The “350 Club” has been sealed. Blackstone can keep the 50,000 homes they already own. They are safe. But if a new try-hard private equity firm wants to grow to 351 units to compete with them they can’t.

This is not a restriction; it is a License to Exist as a Monopoly. It freezes the current power structure in place. It prevents new Wall Street giants from destroying the old Wall Street giants. The incumbents wrote this rule to kill their future rivals.🚨🚨🚨🚨

2. BUILD-TO-RENT” LOOPHOLE: THE 7-YEAR EXECUTION

The bill creates an exception for “build-to-rent” projects.⚠️

This ensures there are only new homes built specifically for rent.”

An earlier version of the bill required these “build-to-rent” homes to be sold to individual homeowners after seven years. This was designed to eventually turn rentals back into owned homes.🚨🚨🚨

Congress removed the seven-year sell-by provision in the final bill.

Reality? 🚨🚨🚨

Wall Street can now build massive subdivisions of starter homes and rent them out forever. They never have to sell. They just got permission to become “Feudal Lords” on newly built land, instead of just buying up old neighborhoods. The government just incentivized the creation of permanent renter-classes on brand-new land.⚠️⚠️⚠️
—-

3. THE REGULATORY STRIP-MINE

The bill “streamlines environmental reviews” and expands the “Community Development Block Grant.”

The Hidden Intent?⚠️

This is the “Bribe to Big Business” hidden inside the populist packaging.

Developers have been blocked for years by water rights, zoning, and NEPA reviews.

• This bill weakens those barriers.

The Exchange: The “Left” gets to say they punished Wall Street (the 350-cap). The “Right” gives the Developers what they really want: the ability to bypass environmental laws and penalties to build cheap, fast houses without oversight.
🚨🚨🚨

——

4. THE “CBDC” STEALTH BAN

Section 1001 prohibits the Federal Reserve from creating a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) until 2030.🚨

The Logic ?

What does banning digital currency have to do with housing?
Nothing. It is a completely unrelated subject.

But The Hidden Driver?⚠️

The “Anti-CBDC” lobbyists used this massive housing bill as a “Must Pass” vehicle to kill digital currency surveillance.

Because If a digital dollar existed, the government could track every rent payment.

Hedge funds and landlords want privacy. They attached their pet project to the “Housing Relief” bill so no politician would dare vote against it.⚠️🚨

So By passing the “Housing Bill,” Trump also signed the death warrant for Fed-issued cryptocurrency. The “Housing” title was a disguise for a financial coup against the Treasury.🚨

WHO WINS?
The Loser:
• New Startups: Private equity firms trying to enter the market are killed by the 350 cap.
• The Renters: They face a permanent future where “build-to-rent” is the norm because the law incentivizes corporations to build rental empires rather than sell to families.

@RepThomasMassie
bipartisanpolicy.org/explainer/what…

forbes.com/sites/zacharyf…

cnbc.com/2026/06/22/aff…
https://x.com/Hannibal9972485/status/2069641861942128691

Hannibal999
@Hannibal9972485

Replying to @Hannibal9972485
The Winner:

• The Incumbents (The 350 Club): Blackstone and its ilk.
• They get to keep their 50,000-home portfolios (protected by the ban on new entrants).
• They get to build new empires without selling (the build-to-rent loophole).
• They get to build faster without environmental reviews (streamlined regulation).

THE TRUTH:
This is not a bill to stop corporate landlords. It is a bill to stop new corporate landlords from challenging the old ones. It is a government-sanctioned cartel act signed into law under the disguise of “affordability.”
4:41 AM · Jun 24, 2026
https://x.com/Hannibal9972485/status/2069641989289615504

Hannibal999
@Hannibal9972485

Replying to @Hannibal9972485
The bill has an exception. If a corporation builds new homes specifically to rent them, the 350-cap does not apply.
An earlier version of the bill said these newly built rental homes had to be sold to individual families after seven years. Congress removed that requirement.
That means a corporation can now build 5,000 new homes, rent them out, and never sell them. Ever. The law just created a permanent pathway for corporations to build entire cities of renter-occupied housing with no obligation to ever let families buy them.
The politicians told you this bill helps families buy homes. The bill actually guarantees that new subdivisions can be owned by corporations forever.
4:48 AM · Jun 24, 2026
https://x.com/Hannibal9972485/status/2069643837878800672

Hannibal999
@Hannibal9972485

Replying to @Hannibal9972485
The bill says no corporation can own more than 350 single-family homes.
Here is the problem. The corporations that already own 10,000, 20,000, or 50,000 homes get to keep them. The law does not force them to sell. It only stops future buying.
That means Blackstone, Invitation Homes, and Progress Residential are locked in as the permanent owners of the rental market. No new competitor can ever grow large enough to challenge them because the law caps growth at 350.
4:59 AM · Jun 24, 2026
https://x.com/Hannibal9972485/status/2069646524963803162

Hannibal999
@Hannibal9972485

Replying to @Hannibal9972485
The bill expands manufactured housing production.
Manufactured housing is mobile homes and factory-built homes. These are the cheapest form of housing in America. The bill is not expanding luxury home construction. It is expanding the cheapest possible housing stock.
That tells you the real plan. The government is not trying to build middle-class neighborhoods. They are building cheap, mass-produced housing for a population that can no longer afford traditional homes. The standard of living is being lowered, and the bill calls it “affordability.”

And the bill permanently authorizes a major disaster recovery program.
This sounds like help for hurricane victims. But permanent authorization means the government expects disasters to keep happening at a frequency that requires a permanent federal program. They are not planning to prevent disasters. They are planning to manage them permanently.
5:02 AM · Jun 24, 2026
https://x.com/Hannibal9972485/status/2069647264247652623

Just some food for thought. Brings up points.

Posted in Affordable Housing, Open Thread, Politics | Tagged , , | 37 Comments

Happy July 4th!

Posted on July 4, 2026 by rikyrah

Happy July 4th!
Enjoy family and friends today.

As it always should have been.

As always, we present this classic:

What is the 4th of July to the American Negro?

From The NYT:

5 Words That Changed America
Jamelle Bouie
There is a moment for every American when she first encounters the Declaration of Independence. For most, it comes to her as scripture — the highest and most sacred text in the nation’s civic religion, encapsulated by its moving assertion of human equality: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

This Declaration is a profound statement of values: of a universal aspiration for human freedom. As President Gerald Ford said in a speech marking the nation’s bicentennial, “The Declaration is the Polaris of our political order — the fixed star of freedom. It is impervious to change because it states moral truths that are eternal.”

As a matter of civic faith, this is what the Declaration means. As a matter of history, however, the story is much more complicated.

As Thomas Jefferson wrote it, the Declaration was less an affirmation of human equality than a pointed claim about the nature of political authority and a powerful assertion of the right of revolution, informed by the Enlightenment writings of John Locke and other social contract theorists. It was meant as an argument about the preconditions of government — an assertion of the purity of prelapsarian life — not a road map for emancipation.

“The opening assertions of ‘self-evident’ truths concern men in a ‘state of nature’ before government was established,” the historian Pauline Maier observed in “American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence.” “With regard to persons, equality meant simply that no one held authority over others by right of birth or as a gift of God.”
In other words, Jefferson was channeling a common sentiment in Revolutionary-era America, “a political orthodoxy whose basic principles colonists could pick up from sermons or newspapers or even schoolbooks without ever reading a systematic work of political theory,” Maier wrote. Just look to Thomas Paine, who wrote in “Common Sense” — published about six months before the signing of the Declaration — that “all men being originally equals, no one by birth could have a right to set up his own family in perpetual preference to all others forever.”

Jefferson’s equality was a thought experiment. It did not extend to political society, nor was it meant for those placed beyond the political community. Men could be created equal and still be different; men could be created equal and still be subordinate.

This, for many of the Patriot leaders, was a given.
But then there were those outside the circle of belonging: women, Natives, landless laborers and, most starkly, Black Americans, both free and enslaved. They did not read — or, most likely, hear — the Declaration as an abstract claim about a prelapsarian past. They understood it as a radical statement of principle for the present. And they wielded this principle against a society that would not extend the Revolutionary promise of freedom and self-government to those held in bondage.

It was their Declaration — the one that they made for themselves — that stood for a universal claim of human equality in the here and now. And it was their Declaration that would come to supplant Jefferson’s historical and metaphysical one as the linchpin of America’s civic ideal, passing from Black Americans to abolitionists to the Republican Party and Abraham Lincoln, who consecrated their Declaration at Gettysburg as the spiritual foundation for a “new birth of freedom” and a “government of the people, by the people, for the people,” established “four score and seven years ago” in 1776.

It is this Declaration that is under assault from a political movement that rejects the credal vision of the American Republic in favor of an exclusionary racial nationalism, that defines American citizenship by blood and heritage, that sneers at the “five words about equality” in the Declaration and that worships at the altar of hierarchy and caste. But it is also this Declaration that still inspires Americans to fight for their place in this country and demand their right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

It is hard to exaggerate the alacrity with which Black Americans seized on the rhetoric of the Revolution to demand a free and equal place in the new and nascent American Republic.

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Posted in Happy July 4th | Tagged , , | 14 Comments

Open Thread | A Post for America

Posted on July 3, 2026 by rikyrah

This is a love letter to this country from The Establishment Bar:

My America
Posted by Liberal Librarian
July 02, 2026

Let me tell you about my America.

My America is where my neighbors set off fireworks when Mexico wins a World Cup match. It is also where my neighbors set off fireworks when the US wins.

My America is a Salvadoran cook making Japanese sushi at a restaurant owned by Koreans.

My America is where my white sister-in-law lives with her Black ex-husband in a platonic relationship and takes care of her daughter’s golden doodle.

My America is where my Black grandniece dresses as a different anime character every Halloween.

America is not, and never has been, a land of blood and soil. At least, not when it is true to itself.

My America is an America which recognizes the crimes it has committed in the past and rectifies them.

My America is the America of Langston Hughes, Dolores Huerta, Dorothy Day. And this America is far stronger than the one of Andrew Jackson, Joe McCarthy, and Donald Trump.

My America is the America where its people strive to make perfect an imperfect Union, knowing that it will never be perfect, but in the struggle is where life and hope lay.

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Posted in Open Thread, Politics | Tagged , , , | 39 Comments

BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP STANDS

Posted on June 30, 2026 by rikyrah

SHOULD HAVE BEEN 9-0

Fourteenth Amendment
Section 1

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

5-4
F-O-H

SCOTUSblog
@SCOTUSblog

The court strikes down President Trump’s executive order on birthright citizenship, holding that children born in the U.S. to parents unlawfully or temporarily present are “subject to the jurisdiction” of the U.S. and are citizens at birth.

supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf…

SCOTUSblog
@SCOTUSblog

Replying to @SCOTUSblog
Justice Kavanaugh filed an opinion concurring in the judgment and dissenting in part. Justice Thomas wrote a dissenting opinion, joined by Justice Gorsuch. Justices Gorsuch and Alito also wrote dissenting opinions.

https://x.com/SCOTUSblog/status/2071966331029627105

TRUTH

Greg Sargent

‪@gregsargent.bsky.social‬
The explosion of MAGA rage at birthright citizenship ruling confirms again that MAGA is really a movement for ethnic cleansing.

As we discuss on the pod, it’s telling that sealed border and end to TPS/asylum don’t sate MAGA. They want dramatic ethnic purges.

Listen:
newrepublic.com/article/2125…

Greg Sargent

‪@gregsargent.bsky.social‬
Here’s the argument: MAGA can’t accept a sealed border, an end to TPS/asylum, and the closing of other legal pathways as success. Their movement isn’t really about securing the border. It’s about ethnically cleansing the country.

My exchange with Raul Pinto on this:

newrepublic.com/article/2125…
https://bsky.app/profile/gregsargent.bsky.social/post/3mplnyybibk26


Continue reading →

Posted in Birthright Citizenship, Supreme Court | Tagged , , , , , | 31 Comments

Open Thread | The Court That Will Believe Absolutely Anything Is ‘Race-Neutral’

Posted on June 30, 2026 by rikyrah

More excellent writing from The Atlantic:

The Court That Will Believe Absolutely Anything Is ‘Race-Neutral’
The majority gives Trump yet more license to discriminate.

By Adam Serwer

Trump-administration officials have made no secret of their desire to purge the United States of nonwhite immigrants. Donald Trump has declared, “If you import The Third World, you become The Third World,” a common refrain repeated by his advisers. Trump has also said that immigrants have “bad genes,” that they are genetically predisposed to crime, and that they are “poisoning the blood of our country”—coming, as they are, “from Africa, from Asia, all over the world.”

In many instances, Trump’s vitriol has been directed at Black immigrants, particularly from Africa and the Caribbean. He has said that allowing in Haitian immigrants was a “death wish for our country” and that “they all have AIDS,” and accused them of eating household pets. He has referred to Haiti as a “filthy, dirty, disgusting” place, a “shithole” country, while complaining that America doesn’t take in enough people from Norway and Sweden. That last statement is crucial—Trump has not proved hostile to all immigrants. Removing all possibility that the president’s xenophobia is nonracial, the administration has implemented what is effectively a whites-only refugee policy that accepts solely South Africans of European descent.

Much of this evidence, including statements by Kristi Noem, the former head of the Department of Homeland Security, was presented to the Supreme Court when it considered in Mullin v. Doe whether the Trump administration had lawfully ended temporary protected status for hundreds of thousands of immigrants from Syria and Haiti. Yet the right-wing majority shrugged off the clear racially discriminatory intent in the president’s rhetoric, and sided with Trump. As long as one can find a valid justification for the policy decision, the opinion suggests, then it doesn’t actually matter what Trump said. The racist statements mean nothing so long as, in another, hypothetical universe, Trump could have made the same policy choice without making the racist statements first.

The immediate impact of Thursday’s ruling will be that 350,000 Haitians and 6,100 Syrians are now at risk of deportation, despite the dangers they face in their home countries. Yet the ruling has implications beyond immigration law, because it suggests that no amount of evidence of racial animus against Black people will be enough to convince a majority of justices that racial discrimination has occurred. As Guy-Uriel Charles, a professor at Harvard Law, put it to me, Justice Samuel Alito’s majority opinion “basically sets up an impossible burden for plaintiffs because race is rarely going to be the sole justification” for a policy.

“None of the cited statements by either the President or the Secretary was overtly racial, and in substance all expressed policy views that could rest on race-neutral justifications,” Alito wrote in his opinion. “One may oppose TPS and favor tighter restrictions on immigration for economic or other reasons that have nothing to do with race.”

Alito’s insistence that “none of the cited statements” was “overtly racial” does not pass the laugh test. Trump’s remarks were not just “overtly racial”; they were the essence of racism: assuming the value of individual human beings solely on the basis of their origin, regardless of their individual characteristics. Shortly after the decision, the White House adviser Stephen Miller gushed, “We can finally remove these Haitian illegal migrants.”

Continue reading →

Posted in Open Thread, Politics, Racial Bias, Racial Oppression, Racial Profiling, Racism, Supreme Court, Systematic Racism | Tagged , , , , , , , | 18 Comments

Open Thread | The Disability Community is UNDER ATTACK By This Administration

Posted on June 29, 2026 by rikyrah

Celine Castronuovo
@cecelou18

SCOOP: White House adviser Stephen Miller was the driving force behind DOJ’s memo authorizing states to institutionalize people with disabilities rather than fund community-based care, said people briefed on the situation.

From @benjaminpenn and me:
https://x.com/cecelou18/status/2069518347641786506

Without the Department of Education there to lead the charge and challenge against evil like this, who is there to stop this?

ost
user avatar
LongTime🤓FirstTime👨‍💻
@LongTimeHistory

Texas school district plans to segregate 5,000 students with disabilities—bus them to far away separate, but equal facilities.

Now even Trump’s Dept. of Education has opened civil rights investigation.

“Longer bus rides could create challenges for students with medical needs,” federal government report states.

“Schools cannot exclude students with disabilities simply because of their disability status.”
The school district’s plan would move kids from their neighborhood schools starting this year—to designated “Special Education Specialty Schools.”

Parents argue that it removes children from their communities, long-time friendships, routines, and established support networks.

Houston Independent School District officials claim busing students with disabilities will help the district address long-standing compliance issues.
https://x.com/LongTimeHistory/status/2071202703833985232

Just horrible

LongTime🤓FirstTime👨‍💻
@LongTimeHistory

Replying to @LongTimeHistory
Texas’ largest school district is consolidating special education services to select campuses beginning in 2026-27.

This prompted an ongoing investigation by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights.

One of the parents’ core concerns about the changes is that they were issued without the families’ consent.

“It’s unethical, it’s amoral, it’s illegal,” Mayer Cunningham said of the district’s changes.
Despite the investigation, Houston ISD has defended the changes and is moving forward with them.

Link to full story:

houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/educa…

By — Bianca Seward @HoustonPubMedia
https://x.com/LongTimeHistory/status/2071259374694088956

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