Politics

 Black Music Sunday is a weekly series highlighting all things Black music, with over 270 stories covering performers, genres, history, and more, each featuring its own vibrant soundtrack. I hope you’ll find some familiar tunes and perhaps an introduction to something new. I have covered multiple genres of Black music here over the years, but I have to admit that I have rarely touched upon rap and hip-hop. This is probably due to my age and generation, since I was born in 1947.  That generational point-of-view gets a very thorough examination in this 2023 interview conducted by Guy Emerson Mount, at Black Perspectives. “The Hip-Hop Generation”: An Interview with Bakari Kitwana  This is an interview with Guy Emerson Mount, Assistant Professor of History and African American Studies at Wake Forest University, and Bakari Kitwana, the internationally known cultural critic, journalist, activist, and thought leader in the area of hip-hop, youth culture, and Black political engagement. Kitwana is the Executive Director of Rap Sessions, which for the last fourteen years has conducted over 150 townhall meetings around the nation on difficult dialogues facing the hip-hop and millennial generations. His most recent book is the co-edited volume, Democracy Unchained: How to Rebuild Government for the People (The New Press, 2020). Guy Emerson Mount (GEM): As we reflect on the last fifty years of what we now call Hip Hop, I was hoping we might begin with your take on how the history of Hip Hop is currently being narrated both within popular culture as well as within scholarly discourses. What do we get right and what do we get wrong about the origin story of Hip Hop? Bakari Kitwana (BK): Hip-hop as a musical expression is relatively young. Its creation story and mythologies are routinely challenged, as its perceptions in popular culture meet the scrutiny of an emerging hip-hop scholarship. Some argue that the birth date is arbitrary. Others suggest that there are iterations of hip-hop that predate August 1973, including other musical forms and practices that hinted at hip-hop before hip-hop. All that aside, what the current Hip-Hop 50 celebrations across the country revel is that there are lots of takeaways from what has been achieved in this brief half century. The countless signed and unsigned artists, the many innovations and disruptions, the cross fertilization of Black diasporic youth cultures as they meet new technologies. There is lots to agree on and lots to debate fare beyond the origin story that answers the question, “What has 50 years of hip-hop history meant to the world?” Who is the greatest emcee of all time? Who’s on your top 10 list? What have different regions beyond the East and West coasts contributed to the hip-hop story? So, there is the debatable but there is also the indisputable: that hip-hop music emerged out of a cross cultural fertilization that impacted the American and world music scenes, that Black American vernacular was and remains central in its verbal expression; that DJ Kool Herc who hailed from Jamaica was one of its early innovators, that many emcees and djs came after, looked back at these earlier innovators and pioneers and attempted to build on their practices with varying degrees of success and depending on exposure captured the imagination of millions. And all of it has given us countless hours of music to listen to and lots of hip-hop history to reflect on. What we get wrong in the origin story, as is true of any history are the unsung. Let’s make sure we lift them up. GEM: How do you conceptualize Hip-Hop? What does it mean to you? BK: First and foremost, I think of hip-hop as a Black generational phenomenon. It was a theoretical framework that placed our generation in conversation with others most seamlessly. This was particularly essential for a generation coming of age in the aftermath of the civil rights and Black Power movements. In my earlier years as a hip-hop writer, I sought out the pioneering practitioners who I also deemed theorists because of their careful thinking about what is hip-hop. It’s important to understand that not every practitioner makes a worthy theorist. However, there are important exceptions. DJ Kool Herc. Africa Bambaataa. KRS-One, Chuck D, Popmaster Fabel were among the voices that not only gave a great deal of thought to what they were doing and where it was coming from, but also carefully articulated what they saw. Of course, there were others, but in my mind, they were among the dominant theoreticians whose thinking about the question “what is hip-hop” created a knowledge center that spread out from there and was adopted as the gospel by many. Countless hip-hop fans to this day cite their theories about hip-hop, many without realizing their origin. Scholars like Tricia Rose, Mark Anthony Neal, Joan Morgan, Marcyliena Morgan, Dawn-Elissa Fischer, James Peterson, Raquel Rivera, among others, have documented some of these theories and solidified their preservation with the study of hip-hop in the academy and in their books and scholarly essays. Equally important are hip-hop arts practitioners who sit at intersection of art and academia. 9th Wonder, Bun B, Lupe Fiasco, Akua Naru immediately come to mind. But of course, there are others. What hip-hop means to me? As someone preoccupied with the way American society and white supremacy suppresses Black folks as a general practice, hip-hop for me has always pointed to possibility within a specific generational moment for how we get free. Its emergence from and continued rootedness in the Black grassroots gives it special appeal and power to transform the world as we know it. We see hints of that as hip-hop meets high school education, academia, politics, entrepreneurship, etc, but in my estimation, despite hip-hop’s commercialization, to a large degree much of its revolutionary and transformative potential in this regard, remains off the radar. To that end, we are just getting started.   There’s about a 20-year age difference between me and Kitwana, and as such, I can claim

Explaining the Right is a weekly series that looks at what the right wing is currently obsessing over, how it influences politics—and why you need to know. Over the last two weeks, President Donald Trump has been at odds with his MAGA base like never before. His administration has said it will not disclose any further information on the case of convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, and Trump has railed against his own supporters for not falling in line with the current narrative. President Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein at Mar-a-Lago in 1992. Meanwhile, Democrats have taken him to task, highlighting how the right claimed that Trump’s election would lead to further disclosures. But now the GOP has stonewalled any attempts at transparency and possibly implicating Trump himself in the fallout. Led by Trump, conservatives spent years pushing conspiracy theories about Epstein and his death because it fed into longstanding narratives about the elite and Democrats. Supporters told themselves that Epstein’s sex trafficking was used to benefit the super-rich and that Democrats were covering it all up for the purported “globalists” they work in concert with. But this isn’t a recent development. Modern conservatism has always been obsessed with this kind of wild conspiracy thinking. The John Birch right takes control The extremist John Birch Society rose to prominence on the right in the 1950s and 1960s in response to the rise of the so-called “liberal” world order under leaders like Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy.  But it wasn’t enough for Birchers to simply oppose liberal ideas; they had to indulge in bizarre conspiracies, like the notion that the population was being brainwashed to support communism via fluoridated water. After the conservative uprising that led to Sen. Barry Goldwater of Arizona and his acolytes taking control of the party—and losing the 1964 election in a landslide—the conspiracy-first mindset, described as “the paranoid style,” became the default on the right. Paranoia goes mainstream While some GOP leaders like Presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and George W. Bush stoked conspiratorial fires over and over, there was an understanding that this brand of extremism was a political nonstarter.  Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton The Republican establishment wanted the votes of conspiracy true believers without the public humiliation of standing by easily debunked absurdities. This began to change after President Bill Clinton ascended to the White House in 1993. Frustrated by Clinton’s win, conservatives openly accused him and Hillary Clinton of operating a drug-trafficking ring and committing a series of murders, among many other easily debunked conspiracies. This reached a fevered pitch when President Barack Obama was elected. The right couldn’t accept the legitimacy of a Black president and embraced the “birther” conspiracy, claiming that his birth certificate was false and that he was really Kenyan. Of course, Trump was the most prominent booster of this racist smear. Figures once on the outside, like Sandy Hook conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, became normalized under Trump and the MAGA movement. Suddenly, the right began openly accusing Democrats of being part of a child sex-trafficking ring called “Pizzagate,” which inspired believers to commit crimes, including the Alex Jones fan who stalked a Washington, D.C., pizza restaurant to liberate children from the establishment’s nonexistent basement. Conspiracies mean simple answers In a complex world with horrible things constantly happening that seem to defy explanation, conspiracy theories help to make things “make sense.” The right grasps onto these theories as a way to explain why the world doesn’t go their way. Trump supporters during the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection of the U.S. Capitol ignited by the conspiracy theory that the 2020 election was stolen. For instance, many Republicans have simply never believed that a Black person is qualified to be president. Obama purportedly being a Kenyan with a sprawling conspiracy keeping him in office appears to them as a rational explanation. Similarly, following Trump’s disastrous first term, many on the right had convinced themselves that he did a great job. Instead of reckoning with failures like the COVID-119 death toll on his watch, the right—led by Trump—argued that the 2020 election was stolen. Republicans have capitalized on this mindset, feeding their supporters a steady stream of conspiratorial nonsense, including debunked theories about the origins of COVID-19 and the QAnon conspiracy that involves elites attacking children for their blood. Trapped in their own trap Conspiratorial thinking is the domain of the right. But in the Epstein saga, Republicans are suffering from backlash to something that they created. The story has morphed from something to easily associate with the left into a story being suppressed by one of their own, Trump. Related | Trump and MAGA turn on each other over Epstein files Now, a culture that has told conservatives not to believe evidence that they witness with their own eyes is instructing them to simply drop it and move on. That is proving difficult for many and impossible for some. Trump wants the right to shut up about this storyline, either because his administration realizes there’s nothing there to expose, or because Trump himself is directly implicated. But his own MAGA world has been told for so long that this event is the easy solution to so many of their problems, so they aren’t so willing to let it go. The right needs this conspiracy to be true so reality can be explained away. Trump can’t stop it, he’s just along for the ride.

A cartoon by Clay Bennett. Related | DOJ’s latest firing ensures Epstein scandal won’t go away

A cartoon by Tim Campbell. Related | RFK Jr. is steering public health agencies off a cliff

Federal housing officials spent years investigating cities from Chicago to Memphis to Corpus Christi for putting industrial plants and unwanted facilities in poor, nonwhite neighborhoods. Now, under Trump, the agency plans to drop the cases. By Jesse Coburn for ProPublica The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development is preparing to shut down seven major investigations and cases concerning alleged housing discrimination and segregation, including some where the agency already found civil rights violations, according to HUD records obtained by ProPublica. The high-profile cases involve allegations that state and local governments across the South and Midwest illegally discriminated against people of color by placing industrial plants or low-income housing in their neighborhoods, and by steering similar facilities away from white neighborhoods, among other allegations. HUD has been pursuing these cases — which range from instances where the agency has issued a formal charge of discrimination to newer investigations — for as many as seven years. In three of them, HUD officials had determined that the defendants had violated the Fair Housing Act or related civil rights laws. A HUD staffer familiar with the other four investigations believes civil rights violations occurred in each, the official told ProPublica. Under President Donald Trump, the agency now plans to abruptly end all of them, regardless of prior findings of wrongdoing. Four HUD officials said they could recall no precedent for the plan, which they said signals an acceleration of the administration’s retreat from fair housing enforcement. “No administration previously has so aggressively rolled back the basic protections that help people who are being harmed in their community,” one of the officials said. “The civil rights protections that HUD enforces are intended to protect the most vulnerable people in society.” In the short term, closing the cases would allow the local governments in question to continue allegedly mistreating minority communities, said the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation. In the long term, they said, it could embolden local politicians and developers elsewhere to take actions that entrench segregation, without fear of punishment from the federal government. Related | Yes, Trump’s trying to make America segregated again HUD spokesperson Kasey Lovett declined to answer questions, saying “HUD does not comment on active 3 matters or individual personnel.” Three of the cases involve accusations that local governments clustered polluting industrial facilities in minority neighborhoods. One concerned a protracted dispute over a scrap metal shredding plant in Chicago. The facility had operated for years in the largely white neighborhood of Lincoln Park. But residents complained ceaselessly of the fumes, debris, noise and, occasionally, smoke emanating from the plant. So the city allegedly pressured the recycling company to close the old facility and open a new one in a minority neighborhood in southeast Chicago. In 2022, HUD found that “relocating the Facility to the Southeast Site will bring environmental benefits to a neighborhood that is 80% White and environmental harms to a neighborhood that is 83% Black and Hispanic.” Chicago’s mayor called allegations of discrimination “preposterous,” then settled the case and agreed to reforms in 2023. (The new plant has not opened; its owner has sued the city.) Related | Chicago’s plan to replace lead pipes puts it 30 years behind the federal deadline In another case, a predominantly white Michigan township allowed an asphalt plant to open on its outskirts, away from its population centers but near subsidized housing complexes in the neighboring poor, mostly Black city of Flint. The township did not respond to a ProPublica inquiry about the case. Still another case involved a plan pushed by the city of Corpus Christi, Texas, to build a water desalination plant in a historically Black neighborhood already fringed by oil refineries and other industrial facilities. (Rates of cancer and birth defects in the area are disproportionately high, and average life expectancy is 15 years lower than elsewhere in the city, researchers found.) The city denied the allegations. Construction of the plant is expected to conclude in 2028. Three other cases involve allegations of discrimination in municipal land use decisions. In Memphis, Tennessee, the city and its utility allegedly coerced residents of a poor Black neighborhood to sell their homes so that it could build a new facility there. In Cincinnati, the city has allegedly concentrated low-income housing in poor Black neighborhoods and kept it out of white neighborhoods. And in Chicago, the city has given local politicians veto power over development proposals in their districts, resulting in little new affordable housing in white neighborhoods. (Memphis, its utility and Chicago have disputed the allegations; Cincinnati declined to comment on them.) The last case involved a Texas state agency allegedly diverting $1 billion in disaster mitigation money away from Houston and other communities of color hit hard by Hurricane Harvey in 2017 and toward more rural, white communities less damaged by the storm. The agency has disputed the allegations. Flood-damaged debris from homes lines the street in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey in Houston in Sept. 2017. All of the investigations and cases are now slated to be closed. HUD is also planning to stop enforcing the settlement it reached in the Chicago recycling case, the records show. The move to drop the cases is being directed by Brian Hawkins, a recent Trump administration hire at HUD who serves as a senior adviser in the Fair Housing Office, two agency officials said. Hawkins has no law degree or prior experience in housing, according to his LinkedIn profile. But this month, he circulated a list within HUD of the seven cases that indicated the agency’s plans for them. In the cases that involve Cincinnati, Corpus Christi, Flint and Houston, the agency would “find no cause on [the] merits,” the list reads. In the two Chicago cases and the one involving Memphis, HUD would rescind letters documenting the agency’s prior findings. Hawkins did not respond to a request for comment. The list does not offer a legal justification for dropping the cases. But Hawkins also circulated a memo that indicates the reasoning behind dropping one — the Chicago recycling case. The memo cites an executive order issued by Trump in April eliminating federal

Trump’s Justice Department has forged ahead in this case even as it has withdrawn from several other voting lawsuits brought under the Biden administration. By Alexander Shur for Votebeat What happened? A federal appeals court ruled Monday against a Wisconsin town that disavowed electronic voting machines, siding with the U.S. Justice Department’s argument that this would unfairly harm voters with disabilities. What’s the dispute? Leaders of Thornapple, a town of 700 people in northern Wisconsin’s Rusk County, voted in 2023 to stop using electronic voting machines, in favor of allowing only hand-marked ballots. They did without the machines for two elections in a row, in April and August 2024. The DOJ, under the Biden administration, sued the town in September 2024, arguing that its decision violated the Help America Vote Act, which requires every “voting system” to be accessible for voters with disabilities. Accessible voting machines allow voters with disabilities to hear the options on the ballot and use a touch-sensitive device to mark it. The town argued that it wasn’t subject to the federal law’s accessibility provision because its use of paper ballots didn’t constitute a “voting system.” A district court judge rejected the town’s argument last September, and ordered it to use electronic voting machines for the November presidential election. The town appealed that order, but did use a machine in November. Related | Election officials face limited options as federal security resources fall away On Monday, a three-judge panel on the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the lower-court order, finding that “individuals with disabilities would lack the opportunity to vote privately and independently if they only had access to a paper ballot.” The court based that finding partially on Thornapple Chief Inspector Suzanne Pinnow’s testimony about a blind woman who relied on her daughter’s assistance to fill out a ballot, and a man who had a stroke and who needed Pinnow to guide his hand so he could mark a ballot. Who are the parties? The DOJ had sued two northern Wisconsin towns and their officials in September after both decided not to use electronic voting equipment for at least one federal election. One of the towns, Lawrence, immediately settled with the Justice Department, vowing to use accessible voting machines in the future. Related | Trump launches new ‘lawless’ attack on voting rights Thornapple officials decided to fight the case. They’re currently represented by an attorney with the America First Policy Institute, a group aligned with President Donald Trump. Why does it matter? The case reaffirms what has long been election practice in Wisconsin: Every polling place must have an electronic voting machine that anybody can use but is especially beneficial for voters with disabilities. Distrust of voting machines, which has grown on the right following misinformation about the 2020 election, has led to a movement to ban them across Wisconsin. But the Thornapple case shows that for now, municipalities still have obligations under federal law to allow voters to cast ballots on electronic machines. The case is relevant nationally, too. Since Trump took office in January, the U.S. Justice Department has withdrawn from multiple voting-related cases. But the Justice Department forged ahead in this lawsuit, signaling that, at least for now, it is not backing the movement to forgo electronic voting equipment entirely. What happens now? Thornapple is “considering our options,” said Nick Wanic of the America First Policy Institute. The case could get appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court or proceed in the lower federal court. Although the order that required Thornapple to use accessible voting machines applied only to the November 2024 election, at this point, two federal courts in this case have ruled that towns must have accessible voting machines for people with disabilities. Related | Work on new voting system guidelines already in motion after Trump executive order “Voters with disabilities already face many barriers in the electoral process, and making sure they have access to a voting system which allows for basic voting rights to be met is a minimum — and legal — standard that they should not be worried about when exercising their right to vote,” said Lisa Hassenstab, public policy manager at Disability Rights Wisconsin.

Rep. Wesley Hunt may be about to make an already chaotic Texas GOP Senate primary even messier. The Houston-area congressman has reserved ad time on Fox News in the Washington, D.C., market, with the spot scheduled to air on Saturday, according to ad-tracking firm AdImpact. Axios reports Hunt is also spending six figures on ads in the Dallas and Houston media markets—an unmistakable sign he’s eyeing a statewide run. And this isn’t his first appearance outside his district. In April, a political action committee ran biographical ads about Hunt in cities far from Houston—including Washington, D.C., and West Palm Beach, Florida, home to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago—according to the Associated Press. Medium Buying, another ad-tracking firm, says Hunt’s congressional campaign also aired spots on Newsmax in Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio from July 12-18. Rumors of Hunt running for Senate have been swirling for months. But this latest media blitz marks his clearest signal yet. Axios reports the newest ad features Hunt alongside his wife and three young children, with a voiceover declaring: “Family, faith, freedom. These are the values that define Texas, and they’re the values that define Wesley Hunt.” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton The message seems aimed at creating a stark contrast with Attorney General Ken Paxton, the scandal-plagued front-runner who’s now going through a high-profile divorce. State Sen. Angela Paxton filed last week on “biblical grounds,” accusing her husband of adultery and saying the couple has lived apart for over a year. Paxton didn’t exactly deny the allegations. Instead, he released a statement saying, “I could not be any more proud or grateful for the incredible family that God has blessed us with, and I remain committed to supporting our amazing children and grandchildren.” That kind of baggage may give Hunt the opening he needs. He’s been emphasizing his military background—a time-tested selling point for Texas Republicans—and his ads have reached beyond major metros, airing in Amarillo, San Antonio, and Waco. With Paxton mired in scandal and Sen. John Cornyn trailing badly in primary polling, Hunt could emerge as a viable alternative for Republican voters fed up with both. Cornyn, who has held his seat since 2002, still has party leadership support, but that might not be enough to carry him through a tough primary. Sen. John Cornyn Even Trump is holding back. According to Senate GOP sources, White House officials recently told Minority Whip John Thune that the president plans to stay neutral, at least for now. He’s waiting to see if Cornyn can close the gap before weighing in. Meanwhile, more potential candidates are eyeing the race. Rep. Ronny Jackson—Trump’s former White House physician—is also said to be considering a bid. And Democrats are preparing for their own fight. Former Rep. Colin Allred, who challenged Ted Cruz in 2024, has already entered the race. But other high-profile Democrats—Rep. Joaquin Castro, state Rep. James Talarico, and former Rep. Beto O’Rourke—are also considering runs, setting the stage for a possible intraparty showdown. For now, the Republican field is fractured, the front-runner is under scrutiny, and the establishment pick is struggling. If Hunt enters, it almost guarantees a fierce primary fight. So, yes—grab your popcorn. Texas Republicans are gearing up to tear each other apart—again.

Injustice for All is a weekly series about how the Trump administration is trying to weaponize the justice system—and the people who are fighting back. Everybody hates Emil What’s it like having more than 900 former employees from your current job write a letter saying you shouldn’t get to be a judge? Does it feel worse or better than over 75 former state and federal judges writing a letter saying that you shouldn’t be a judge? Emil Bove gets to find out which stings more, since both letters were sent to the Senate in opposition to Bove’s nomination to the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. How dare they interfere with Bove’s reward for having been one of President Donald Trump’s many criminal defense attorneys? Regrettably, we’re long past the point where Bove’s track record of allegedly demanding his employees defy federal court orders would be enough of a reason for Senate Republicans not to confirm him. However, the GOP knows full well that Bove is an absolutely appalling candidate and the best approach was to simply break the rules and jam Bove through the Senate Judiciary Committee by refusing to let Democrats even air their objections, so this now moves to the whole Senate. There, the GOP will likely confirm Bove, because they will do whatever Trump wants and have given up on the whole advice and consent thing. Related | Democratic senators are fed up with GOP colleagues’ bullsh-t Trump’s D.C. prosecutor pick not exactly a champion of law enforcement Jeanine Pirro, shown in 2024 Jeanine Pirro, last seen pitching a fit about bottled water, provided written answers ahead of her Senate confirmation hearing as Trump’s pick for U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C. Her answers did not exactly instill confidence that Pirro, who is vying to be the top prosecutor, backs the blue. Or perhaps it’s just that Pirro has an incredibly faulty memory, which also seems like a suboptimal feature for a United States attorney. “I am also not aware that ‘rioters who were convicted of violent assaults on police officers’ were given ‘full and unconditional pardons,’” she said in her written statement, regarding the cases around the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Huh. You’d think she’d have seen that, what with it being covered everywhere and her having had a job in TV news.  Pirro also apparently couldn’t recall saying, on her own radio program, that DOJ prosecutors who worked on Jan. 6 cases should be criminally charged.  Ultimately, none of Pirro’s shortcomings mattered to the Republicans in the Senate Judiciary Committee, as they advanced her nomination to the full Senate. Going to be so terrific to have another election denier in the administration, right?  DOJ working on what really matters: forced assimilation Given that it isn’t really enforcing civil rights or voting rights, the DOJ has plenty of time for a project that is sure to increase efficiency and should definitely be a top priority: overseeing a government-wide effort to eliminate multilingual services. You may be thinking this doesn’t sound like something the DOJ should be overseeing, what with its job as the nation’s top cop and enforcer of civil rights, but somehow folks at the DOJ have time on their hands, despite the fact that they’ve lost thousands of employees. Nonetheless, they’re making the implementation of Trump’s racist, nativist executive order proclaiming English as the official language of the United States.  According to the DOJ, eliminating multilingual services will force people to assimilate, but it sure looks intended to make it harder for non-English speakers to navigate the government.   Judicial ethics, DOJ style The Trump administration is continuing its quest to frame lower courts as a threat to the rule of law. The rest of us know that the only truly lawless court here is the U.S. Supreme Court, which is giving Trump whatever he wants and kneecapping the lower courts in the process.  This time around, it’s the DOJ whining that a judge said something true about the administration’s actions.  At the March 2025 Judicial Conference, the policymaking body of the federal courts, a leaked memorandum obtained by hard-right rag The Federalist alleges that U.S. District Judge James Boasberg told Supreme Court Justice John Roberts that his colleagues were “concern[ed] that the Administration would disregard rulings of federal courts leading to a constitutional crisis.” Well, yes? Like, multiple times? Like, in front of Boasberg just about a week later, when they defied his court order to turn around the deportation planes bound for Venezuela? A DOJ whistleblower provided emails showing that Emil Bove, currently on the threshold of a lifetime seat on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, told DOJ attorneys they would need to weigh telling the courts “fuck you” and ignore a court order.  The Department of Justice logo is seen on a podium before a press conference on May 6 in Washington. To be scrupulously fair to conservatives—a grace they extend to no one else—Boasberg’s reported comments at the Judicial Conference slightly predated the plane-deportation case. However, by the time of Boasberg’s reported remarks, there was already litigation about Trump’s illegal removal of members of independent agencies, challenging the administration’s expedited removal process and funding freezes. With the administration fighting those every step of the way, often relying only on the assertion that if the president does it, it’s legal, it isn’t surprising that judges were concerned about the possibility of defying court orders.  Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, another of Trump’s former criminal defense lawyers, is running around framing Boasberg’s mild comments as evidence that judges are biased against Trump. Hilariously, the Federalist’s post also complains about how this is extra-unfair because Trump is also a personal defendant in multiple lawsuits, and how dare the courts not treat him well. Not sure why the fact that the president is mired in personal lawsuits matters here.  There’s also the whole thing of how The Federalist obtained the memorandum on which Blanche’s breathless accusations are based. The Federalist

PoliticusUSA is 100% independent news for readers who want their information with no corporate influence. Please support our work by becoming a subscriber. Subscribe now Donald Trump clearly has something to hide in the Epstein files, and members of Congress aren’t buying his distractions and bogus attempts at looking like he is doing something. On MSNBC, Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) said that Trump’s order to AG Pam Bondi to get the Epstein grand jury testimony released is a sham. Rep. Jayapal said:  Look, this incredible fury of defensiveness from Donald Trump is just showing that he’s got something to hide. Calling for Pam Bonde to release the grand jury testimony is a tiny piece of the whole thing. As you and I both know, that is a very long, complicated legal process, first of all. But secondly, it involves a lot of redactions. Essentially, if you look at her letter, she says, redact anybody’s name that is important to protect privacy. And there are a whole bunch of other files, photographs, videos, testimony that is not going to be released with the grand jury testimony. Read more

Caribbean Matters is a weekly series from Daily Kos. Hope you’ll join us here every Saturday. If you are unfamiliar with the region, check out Caribbean Matters: Getting to know the countries of the Caribbean. While much of the recent reporting around the racist Trump administration’s anti-Caribbean actions has focused on ICE and deportation, not as much attention has been given to President Donald Trump’s travel bans and their impact. So here are some recent reports: CitizenX co-founder and CEO Alex Recouso posted: Recently, a potential travel ban affecting several Caribbean countries has raised significant concerns among travelers, investors, and citizens of these nations. … If you’re planning to travel to the Caribbean, have business interests in the region, or are considering citizenship-by-investment programs, these developments deserve your attention. The implications extend beyond mere travel inconvenience—they could affect economic stability, investment value, and the global mobility that many seek through Caribbean citizenship programs. And Oumou Fofana reported for Essence: The Trump administration is considering a dramatic expansion of its travel ban policy, which would impose entry restrictions on citizens from 36 additional countries, primarily in Africa and the Caribbean, according to a State Department memo reviewed by The Washington Post. The memo, signed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, sets a 60-day deadline for these nations to meet new security and documentation requirements. Countries that do not comply risk facing full or partial entry bans to the United States. This move follows a presidential proclamation signed earlier this month that blocked entry or imposed partial restrictions from 19 nations, including Afghanistan, Iran, Libya, Haiti, Cuba and Venezuela, according to Reuters. That order went into effect on June 9. Now, the administration’s internal memo reveals a larger list of countries under review.  Caribbean countries on the list include Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Saint Kitts and Nevis and Saint Lucia. The list also includes countries in Central Asia and the Pacific, such as Kyrgyzstan, Bhutan, Cambodia, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu. Meanwhile, the Washington Office on Latin America posted about the specifics of Trump’s proclamation: What does the proclamation say about Haitians, Cubans and Venezuelans in particular? Haitians In the proclamation, the President justified the inclusion of Haiti by claiming that “hundreds of thousands of illegal Haitian aliens flooded into the United States during the Biden Administration,” which, according to the text, created threats to national security. As a result, the entry of Haitian nationals into the United States is fully suspended for both immigrants and nonimmigrants. Cubans Cuba is subject to partial travel restrictions under the proclamation. The President cited several reasons for this decision, including Cuba’s designation as a state sponsor of terrorism, its alleged failure to adequately cooperate with U.S. law enforcement, and its historical refusal to accept back its nationals who are subject to removal. Consequently, the entry of Cuban nationals as immigrants, as well as nonimmigrants traveling on B-1 (business), B-2 (tourist), B-1/B-2, F (student), M (technical studies), and J (exchange program) visas, is suspended. In addition, consular officers are instructed to limit the validity period of all other nonimmigrant visas issued to Cuban citizens. Venezuelans Venezuela’s inclusion in the proclamation is based on concerns over the country’s lack of a functioning or cooperative central authority for issuing civil documents and passports, as well as insufficient screening and vetting procedures. The text also notes that Venezuela has refused to accept the return of its nationals, despite more than 5,900 Venezuelans having been deported between January and June 2025. As a result, just as in the case of Cubans, Venezuelan nationals are barred from entering the United States as immigrants and as nonimmigrants on B-1, B-2, B-1/B-2, F, M, and J visas. Similar to Cuba, consular officers must also reduce the validity period of all other nonimmigrant visas granted to Venezuelan nationals. Interestingly, while the Trump administration touts and promotes restrictions, Caribbean nations have been doing the exact opposite, furthering their plans for a future that will allow a freer flow of people from nation to nation.  People who live in the continental United States are used to a free flow between states—no visas or passports are required to travel from one state to another. Not so for Caribbean nations, who have been developing plans to tear down barriers between and among their membership for a number of years, which are now beginning to come to fruition. Unsurprisingly, I didn’t see any reporting on this in U.S. media.  But here are two reports from Barbados: YouTube Video YouTube Video The news of the launch attracted quite a bit of attention in the Caribbean press: For example, News Room Guyana posted this video report: YouTube Video But there have been security concerns raised by this new moment, which were addressed by Barbados Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade Kerrie Symmonds: YouTube Video Carib21 Network weighed in from Jamaica with a similar take and concerns: YouTube Video Unsurprisingly, while Trump closes doors, the Caribbean moves to open them. Please share your thoughts and responses in the comments section below, and join me for the weekly Caribbean News Roundup.