Tag: republicans

ICE Says 51 People Died in Custody Under Trump. Experts Say That’s an Undercount.

amuka Artmeladze, a 43-year-old Georgian national, was found dead on June 4, 2026, in federal immigration custody. Though his name did not appear in Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE’s) online death records by the time this article was published, Artmeladze was reported as the 50th person to die in ICE custody since President Donald Trump returned to office. One of two recent deaths at a notorious immigration prison in Louisiana, Artmeladze’s death is one of the latest signs that the president’s mass deportation campaign has predictably created a human rights crisis inside a sprawling system of immigration jails and camps.

At least 51 people have died while in ICE custody since Trump began his second term, federal records show. At least 19 deaths occurred between January 1 and June 4, 2026, an average of about one death every eight days over the first six months of this year.

Additionally, at least two disabled people died this year from exposure shortly after being released by immigration officials in freezing winter weather, including a 31-year-old Haitian woman who died after being left at a Pittsburgh bus stop for 30 hours in early March. While medical examiners determined both deaths to be homicides, ICE does not include them in its official tally, and experts say the 51 deaths reported since January 2025 could be an undercount.

For months, protesters, federal inspectors, and Democrats in Congress have sounded the alarm about the dangerous conditions of confinement faced by more than 68,000 adults and children swept up in Trump’s crackdown. While ICE claims to provide proper care for detainees, oversight data shows a clear pattern of abuse, medical neglect, and preventable deaths inside its jails and camps. Critics say the unprecedented number of deaths is the predictable result of Trump administration policy, including fighting in court to incarcerate immigrants for as long as possible while aggressively expanding privately run jails and prison camps.

“Using the windfall in funding from Congressional Republicans, they are inflicting as much pain as possible no matter the cost,” said Vanessa Cárdenas, executive director of the immigrant rights group America’s Voice, in a statement on June 22.

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Trump loyalist Jim Jordan linked to group that received ‘dark money’ from ICE detention contractor

Jim Jordan is among the most famous names in this stretch of Ohio.

The congressman and chair of the powerful House judiciary committee is considered among the most conservative and influential members in Congress, and is a longtime loyalist of Donald Trump.

But a report released last month by Pogo Investigates, a nonprofit newsroom, highlighted the close ties between Jordan and a company profiting from the Trump administration’s anti-immigration crackdown, which has sometimes been violent and even deadly.

The report found that the American Liberty Foundation, a political action committee (Pac) tied to Jordan, last year received $250,000 in “dark money” payments from Geo Group, the Florida-headquartered company that runs dozens of detention centers on behalf of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) across the country.

The money transfer came 11 days after the passing of the president’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act last July, which saw the federal government’s budget for ICE and other immigration enforcement efforts trebled to $170bn – an amount greater than the GDP of Morocco.

“A company and or a company’s political action committee is permitted to contribute funds to a Super Pac, but a federal contractor [such as Geo Group] is not,” says Nick Schwellenbach, the author of the Pogo Investigates report.

“Geo Group’s Pac had not disclosed this. Only American Liberty Foundation had. Both have legal obligations to disclose. This raises a lot of questions about the broader universe of dark money contributions from Geo Group or other private prison companies.”

Campaign Legal Center, a litigation advocacy organization, has since filed a complaint to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) against Geo Group, alleging it violated federal campaign finance laws by making an illegal, misreported contribution.

Critics say that taxpayer money is helping to create a “deportation-industrial complex” that puts Geo Group, which runs ICE detention facilities across 16 states, including Delaney Hall in New Jersey, at the forefront of the benefactors.

All the while, conditions at many of the 52 detention centers that Geo operates on behalf of ICE have been reported as being very poor. Detainees at Delaney Hall last month launched a hunger strike to protest against the state of their living conditions and accused the contractor of denying them access to medical care. This month, the state of New Jersey sued Geo Group, seeking full access in order to inspect the facility.

In Michigan, family members and friends of the estimated 1,500 immigrant detainees held at the North Lake Processing Center have reported being verbally abused by staff and refused permission to see their detained family members.

Repeated emails sent by the Guardian to Geo Group asking why the company donated to Jordan’s Super Pac and if it believes the money represents a conflict of interest were not responded to.

Some rights groups have suggested that the poor living conditions are a tactic to force immigrants to self-deport. Trump’s former attorney general, Pam Bondi, previously worked as a lobbyist for Geo Group before joining the Trump administration.

According to reports, ICE is Geo Group’s biggest source of revenue, with 41% of its 2024 income coming from ICE. That figure is likely to have risen significantly under the Trump administration, with a host of new contracts signed.

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Moreno to Subpoena Newsom Over California Election Failures

Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) appeared on Donald Trump Jr.’s podcast Triggered on Monday, and he had a lot to say about Sunday’s election run-off in Colombia. Moreno, who is, of course, a Colombian immigrant, was back in his home country over the weekend as an international election observer. 

What he saw impressed him. 

In case you missed it, the right-wing candidate, Abelardo de la Espriella (aka El Tigre), beat out far-left president Gustavo Petro’s hand-picked successor, Iván Cepeda. Thankfully, El Tigre won. The numbers showed a tight race, a country divided. While it is a country divided, many say it’s not that divided, that there are many other factors at play here, but I’ll save that for another day. Petro is also carrying on about how it’s not a done deal and Israel and something else no one cares about blah blah blah, but it’s pretty much a done deal.

The right-minded world, including Marco Rubio, congratulated El Tigre almost immediately to show that we are watching. Plus, Petro’s hands are a bit tied with OFAC sanctions and other reasons why he doesn’t want to make Donald Trump and Rubio mad, so he doesn’t have much of a leg to stand on. He may make some short-term noise, but he’s gone in August and has his own personal agenda. 

But what struck Moreno and many of us who have been paying close attention to this situation is that despite all of that, the elections in Colombia actually went pretty smoothly. The country was able to have results ready in hours, thanks to its “world-class” system, which includes:  

  • Voter ID and proof of Colombian citizenship 
  • Paper, in-person ballots that are hand-counted. 
  • No widespread mail-in voting (Colombians living in other countries are allowed to vote)
  • Biometrics at some sites for additional security 
  • Transparent, observed elections that result in 99%-plus ballots counted the same night 

It’s the complete opposite of what we’ve seen recently in California, and Moreno wants to put an end to that and show people in the United States that it doesn’t have to be this way.  

“We made the decision, and I’ve talked to [Sens.] Rick Scott, Mike Lee, and Ron Johnson about this, we’re going to bring in the people who ran the Colombian election, we’re going to subpoena Gavin Newsom, and we’re going to have a hearing: California vs. Colombia,” Moreno said. “Why can Colombia run an election at that high level, and California is so incompetent? And I think the American people need to see this, Don — we’re going to put this right in their faces and say, ‘Look, the SAVE AMERICA act says prove you’re an American citizen and show who you are when you vote.’ And we can’t get 60 out of 100 Senators to vote for that? That’s a disgrace.”  

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House Republicans Threaten Democrat Fundraising Machine ActBlue with Contempt amid Foreign Donor Probe

House Republicans are pressuring the CEO of Democrat fundraising machine ActBlue to comply with subpoenas regarding documents important to the investigation into possible foreign donations.

In a press release Monday, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH), House Administration Committee Chairman Bryan Steil (R-WI), and House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) announced they sent a letter to ActBlue’s CEO Regina Wallace-Jones “threatening to hold ActBlue in contempt of Congress for its inadequate compliance with the Committees’ subpoenas.”

The committees have been probing the platform’s “fundamentally unserious approach to fraud prevention, which may allow foreign nationals and bad actors to make large-scale fraudulent donations on Democrats’ top fundraising platform,” the release said, noting the fundraising behemoth was obstructing the inquiry by trying to shield documents important to the lawmakers’ efforts:

The release detailed:

On July 22, 2025, following ActBlue’s suspension of voluntary cooperation with the Committees’ oversight, the Committees issued subpoenas for all documents and communications referring or relating to misconduct at ActBlue, whistleblower retaliation, and mass departures on ActBlue’s legal team. After the Committees raised concerns that ActBlue’s response to the subpoena was insufficient, ActBlue represented on October 27, 2025, that it had produced “all non-privileged documents with responsive, relevant information.

However, on April 2, 2026, the New York Times reported on ActBlue’s alleged acceptance of foreign donations and  Ms. Wallace-Jones’s misstatements to Congress and quoted from documents that ActBlue did not produce to the Committees. The documents, which included former Interim General Counsel Aaron Ting’s resignation letter and an internal message in which former Legal Counsel Zain Ahmad alleged that he was retaliated against for blowing the whistle on internal misconduct at ActBlue, are clearly responsive to the Committees’ subpoenas and unprotected by any reasonable assertion of the attorney-client privilege.

Wallace-Jones agreed in May to testify on June 10 before the House Administration Committee, per Breitbart News.

At the time, Steil said, “Ms. Wallace-Jones allegedly misled our committee at the outset of our investigation into ActBlue’s fraud prevention standards. It’s past time we set the record straight and got answers for the American people. I look forward to hearing her testify.”

During the hearing, she dodged questions from Jordan and repeatedly invoked her Fifth Amendment rights when he asked how many foreign contributions the organization accepted and why its legal team quit.

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Democracy Dies In Sunny South Florida

A legacy media publication famously claims that “Democracy Dies in Darkness.” In Miami-Dade County, however, democracy is dying in broad daylight. A substantial majority of local incumbents are cruising to re-election without a single challenger in either the primary or general election. Their only potential barrier to continued tenure is statutory term limits. In some cases, incumbents were appointed to their posts and have never faced the voters at all.

I. State Representatives
At least five of the roughly dozen local state representatives have already secured re-election without opposition:

House District 110: Tom Fabricio (R-Miami Lakes)
House District 111: David Borrero (R-Doral)
House District 112: Alex Rizo (R-Hialeah)
House District 114: Demi Busatta (R-Coral Gables)
House District 120: Jim Mooney (R-Florida Keys)

The following incumbents have also advanced to the November general election without primary challengers:

House District 115: Omar Blanco (R-Dadeland)
House District 116: Ashley Perez-Biliskov (R-Westchester), sister of outgoing Republican House Speaker Danny Perez
House District 119: Juan Carlos Porras (R-The Hammocks)

Your correspondent expects to endorse every one of these legislators in the general election. Still, representative government would be healthier if incumbents were forced to defend their records, character, and policies before the voters.

A few races remain contested:

House District 113 (Brickell, Coconut Grove, Little Havana, Shenandoah, and Key Biscayne): Republicans Tony Diaz and Bruno Barreiro are waging spirited primary campaigns against RINO Frank Lago. See: Tony Diaz for Florida House District 113. Lago has distributed mailers featuring his photo beside President Trump’s, despite no involvement or endorsement from Trump. See: Fishy Frank Lago Is Swimming to an Open Seat Near You.

House District 117 (Homestead and Florida City): Republican Miguel Granda is challenging incumbent Democrat Kevin Chambliss in the general election.
House District 118 (mostly unincorporated areas near Kendall-Tamiami Executive Airport): Incumbent Republican Mike Redondo, the incoming House Speaker, faces a primary challenge from independent Republican Marco Insua, who lives in the district.

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California GOP Senator Suggests Putting Marijuana Back On The Ballot To ‘Reverse’ Legalization

A California Republican senator says it is time to have a “serious discussion” about putting a measure on the ballot to potentially “reverse” legalization of marijuana in the state—also raising concerns about President Donald Trump’s move to reschedule cannabis at the federal level.

“I think it’s time to assess the effects, the significant unintended consequences of the legalization of marijuana, which has not just happened in California, but in other states too,” Sen. Roger Niello (R) said at a hearing of the Senate Business, Professions and Economic Development Committee last week.

“Now we can’t change it without going back to the people, but I think we should have a serious discussion, a serious analysis of the obvious…unintended negative consequences I don’t think that the writers of the proposition cared about,” he said as first reported by State Affairs, referring to the cannabis legalization ballot initiative that California voters approved in 2016. “I think these could have been predicted. They just wanted recreational use to be legalized.”

Niello raised concerns that “we’re even seeing our current president now advocating that by downplaying the classification of marijuana at the federal level.”

“We have seen significant negative consequences of this legalization, both here as well as in other states,” the senator, who was speaking at a hearing at which lawmakers approved a bill to legalize marijuana dispensary drive-thru windows in California, said. “I think it’s time for us to have a serious analysis of that, and whether or not we want to develop a proposition to go back to the voters and either reverse it or somehow reform it so that we don’t continually deal with the problems that we do.”

“I oppose the legalization of marijuana,” he said, citing data about cannabis use by young people and an alleged link to mental health problems and claiming that the 2016 reform was “written to please everybody” which resulted in a “dysfunctional policy that is bound for unintended consequences.”

Elsewhere in the U.S., marijuana legalization opponents are currently collecting signatures to put measures to roll back the reform in Maine and Massachusetts—though those anti-cannabis campaigns have faced accusations of misleading petitioning tactics.

A separate anti-marijuana effort in Arizona for a similar measure was dropped after its lead organizer said his initial concerns about the legal cannabis industry were misplaced.

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What’s In A Name? Alaska GOP Succeeds In Stopping Democrats From Stealing The Senate Election

Alaska’s election officials may have just saved a U.S. Senate seat from one of the more brazen ballot schemes in recent memory. The state’s Division of Elections issued a preliminary ruling this week that Dan J. Sullivan of Petersburg is ineligible to appear on the 2026 Senate ballot, dealing a significant blow to Democrats – in what Republicans have characterized as a coordinated Democratic effort to siphon votes from incumbent Sen. Dan Sullivan through deliberate name confusion.

Dan J. Sullivan is a 69-year-old retired teacher who filed to run as a Republican for the U.S. Senate mere days before the late-May filing deadline. Not only is his name virtually identical to the incumbent senator’s, but he’s also recycled the incumbent’s former campaign slogan, and is using a logo similar to the senator’s own branding. The attempt to deceive voters is obvious, and under Alaska’s ranked-choice voting system, where ballot position and name recognition carry outsized weight, the potential for voter confusion was significant and consequential

According to a report from the Anchorage Daily News, Carol Beecher, director of the Division of Elections, made the state’s position clear in a letter to Dan J. Sullivan on Wednesday. “Based on a review of the evidence presented and in the Division’s possession, the Division has determined that the preponderance of evidence does not support your eligibility for the office of United States Senator,” Beecher wrote.

The ruling is preliminary, with the fake Sullivan given until 5 p.m. Thursday to submit additional evidence before the division issues its final decision.

Sullivan’s response to scrutiny has been consistent and unconvincing. He denied coordinating with Democratic operatives and presented himself as a legitimate independent GOP candidate, but he also refused to submit a sworn affidavit requested by Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom, who announced Monday that the state was investigating his candidacy and warned him he could face exposure for perjury if his sworn answers proved false.

Sullivan called the allegations baseless, argued Dahlstrom’s questions were irrelevant, and insisted the state had no “credible basis” to remove him from the ballot. On Thursday morning, after receiving the preliminary ineligibility notice the night before, Sullivan said he would not be available for comment and added, “We decide where we go next.”

The paper trail contradicts Sullivan’s denials. According to voter registration records attached to formal complaints filed by the Alaska Republican Party, the fake Sullivan listed his party affiliation as “undeclared” as recently as March 26, 2026. Before 2024, he had consistently been listed as undeclared or nonpartisan. Last year, he was affiliated with the Alaskan Independence Party.

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Senate wants to force US to share sensitive intel with Israel

Buried deep inside a 192-page intelligence authorization bill is Section 622, titled “United States-Israel Intelligence Sharing Enhancement.” It would require the president, acting through the director of national intelligence and as necessary the secretary of defense, to “expand and enhance intelligence sharing with the Government of Israel” on a list of subjects that encompasses almost every topic of intelligence interest in the Middle East.

The bill, put forward by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, would prohibit any suspension, reduction, or limitation of such sharing “except on the basis of a specific and identifiable national security concern determined by the President.” Any such exception would require a report to Congress within fifteen days detailing not only the reason for the change but also the categories of information involved. The same report would require an assessment of the anticipated impact on regional security and various other matters.

This proposal is one of several recent moves by those in Washington who carry the Israeli government’s water to keep the United States tied to Israel despite plummeting support for the country among the American public. The most salient form of U.S. support to Israel has been more than $300 billion in economic and especially military assistance. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has tried to get ahead of the declining public support and avoid embarrassing losses by suggesting it would be fine with him to phase out the military aid.

Israel’s strategy and that of its U.S. supporters is now to rely on ties with, and support from, the United States that are not as salient as the military aid with its prominent price tag. The strategy includes forms of military integration that are less visible than congressionally appropriated grant aid and therefore less publicly accountable. Section 224 of a defense authorization bill currently in the House of Representatives embodies this form of integration.

The mandating of intelligence sharing carries this strategy further by moving it into the shadowy world of relations between intelligence agencies. That world is even farther removed from public visibility and accountability than the defense integration, and even less likely to stimulate thoughts about American taxpayers’ money going to a foreign country. So far, Section 622 of the intelligence bill has received less attention than Section 224 of the defense bill.

The notion of legislating an intelligence liaison relationship in this way, with any foreign country, is bizarre. Liaison with counterpart foreign services, including exchanges of information, is an important but complex part of the intelligence business. The nature of a liaison relationship depends partly on the temperature of the overall political relationship with the country in question but also on other factors known mostly to intelligence officers.

These include the collection requirements levied on them, their ability or inability to meet those requirements with national resources, their assessment of the foreign service’s ability and willingness to fill collection gaps, the role that any trading of information plays as quid pro quos in operational cooperation, and the risks of compromising intelligence sources and methods.

Moreover, no single liaison relationship exists in isolation. The U.S. intelligence services need to consider possible implications for their other foreign relationships. For example, one generally does not share with country A information about country B if the United States has a relationship with B that is about at the same level as it has with A.

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House passes GOP’s $70B border security and immigration bill

The House of Representatives officially passed a roughly $70 billion budget reconciliation package on Tuesday, securing a major legislative victory that guarantees three years of dedicated funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

Clearing the chamber in a razor-thin 214–212 party-line vote, the enforcement package bypassed traditional filibuster hurdles in the Senate through the reconciliation process, effectively cementing long-term fiscal resources for enhanced border operations, detention center expansions, and thousands of new field agents.

Having now successfully cleared both chambers of Congress following an intense final hour of floor debate, the spending bill officially heads to President Trump’s desk, where it is expected to be signed into law.

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Nude Shrek Text to Ohio State Senator Reportedly Lands Blogger in Jail

Last week, The Columbus Dispatch reported that D.J. Byrnes—an Ohio blogger who runs a Statehouse gossip Substack called The Rooster—was arrested on a misdemeanor warrant at the Ohio Statehouse. Byrnes’ arrest, according to reporting by Signal Ohio, likely stems from a picture he texted to state Sen. Jerry Cirino (R–Kirtland) on May 6. The offending image? A “digitally altered version of Shrek, the ogre with a titular children’s movie franchise, with his penis exposed,” according to Signal Ohio. Police records did not identify Cirino by name, but the outlet confirmed he was the “recipient of the text messages based on the text messages themselves and other details within the police report.”

An affidavit with Byrnes’ arrest report described the ogre as “fully nude with an exposed and erect humanlike penis engaged in an act of masturbation,” according to the outlet. The text exchange also included a message calling Cirino “Young Mussolini.”

On May 8, Cirino reportedly emailed the Kirtland Police Department asking officers to file charges against Byrnes.

“Not only is the message harassing but the disgusting picture is pornographic in nature and not something I want to see on any of my devices,” said the email sent to Kirtland police.

After his arrest on June 1, Byrnes was booked into the Franklin County Jail, where he says he spent 23 hours in custody, according to a statement posted on The Rooster. The Columbus Dispatch reported that he was released on bond on June 2. Byrnes wrote that he would not comment on the specifics of the allegations, but he says he believes he will be found innocent in court. He was arrested on telecommunications harassment charges, according to Signal Ohio, and could face up to six months in jail.

In its analysis of the case, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), a pro–free speech organization, cautioned that, “as in essentially all First Amendment cases, context and details matter.” Based on the available facts, however, the organization wrote that “Byrnes should not be facing telecommunications harassment charges.”

FIRE argues that Byrnes’ “shrexting” did not amount to obscenity because the image fails to pass the three-prong obscenity test set by Miller. v. California: Would the average person see the work as appealing “to the prurient interest”? Does it depict sexual conduct in a “patently offensive way” as defined by state laws? And finally, does the work lack “serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value”? The text was clearly a piece of “political mockery,” and it was not intended to “arouse anyone’s sexual interest,” FIRE wrote, meaning it fails the Miller test. The “handful of afternoon texts,” from what FIRE reviewed, did not constitute harassment either.

More details about Byrnes’ case may emerge when he appears in court, but if a public official did in fact direct the police department to arrest Byrnes because of his texts, that poses a clear threat to free speech. The Shrek image may be absurd, shocking, and hilarious (depending on your sense of humor), but being punished for exercising your free speech right to criticize and troll (or ogre) public officials is no laughing matter.

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