1. The White House hosted travel industry executives to a briefing on planning for the 2026 World Cup. VP JD Vance offered a welcome:
“We’ll have visitors from close to 100 countries — we want them to come, we want them to celebrate, we want them to watch the games. But when the time is up, they’ll have to go home. Otherwise, they’ll have to talk to Secretary Noem,” Vance said, referring to the Homeland Security secretary and head of border enforcement.
The news report suggests that Vance’s remarks, “while taken in jest, fell flat.”
Let’s put the joke in context:
A British backpacker. A Harvard researcher. A Canadian actress. An Australian mixed martial arts coach. Dozens of international college students.
The Trump administration’s sweeping immigration-and-visa crackdown has begun ensnaring a class of people long-accustomed to being welcomed with open arms into the United States.
Canada, Germany, the UK, Ireland, The Netherlands, Denmark, and Finland have all issued travel advisories as a result of the detentions of their citizens.
But, no harm, no foul, right? Vance was just joking after all.
2. Senator Joni Ernst, responded dismissively to constituents’ concerns about Medicaid cuts, “Well, we are all going to die. For heaven’s sakes, folks.”
The next day she offered a sarcastic retort on social media, “I would like to take this opportunity to sincerely apologize for a statement that I made yesterday at my town hall.” The Senator explained that at her town hall,
a woman who was extremely distraught screamed out from the back corner of the auditorium, ‘People are going to die.’
I made an incorrect assumption that everyone in the auditorium understood that yes, we are all going to perish from this Earth. So, I apologize.
And I’m really, really glad that I did not have to bring up the subject of the tooth fairy as well. But for those that would like to see eternal and everlasting life, I encourage you to embrace my lord and savior, Jesus Christ.
In addition to offering scorn for her constituents, Ernst’s appeal to her “lord and savior, Jesus Christ,” appears to be part and parcel of facetious trolling (following reference to the tooth fairy), not exactly a sincere testimony of her faith. But that’s par for the course, isn’t it? She certainly wouldn’t let the message of the Gospel get in the way of denying medical care to her constituents.
3. ICE and Homeland Security, seeking workers who may have lacked documentation, served warrants at two popular restaurants in the South Park neighborhood of San Diego on Friday. Four people were taken into custody at the worksite.
“Tensions remain high” in the aftermath according to the Los Angeles Times:
“This was an unnecessary and alarming show of force deployed by those federal agents at a restaurant in a residential neighborhood,” Councilmember Stephen Whitburn, whose district includes South Park, told The Times. “Setting aside the debate over immigration policy, I would like to know the justification for sending dozens of agents, wearing masks, carrying machine guns and handcuffing all the workers to execute a warrant for somebody who might be undocumented. Are you serious?”
Is there another democratic country in the world where this would take place?
The White House’s Steven Miller responded as expected — with outright lies:
We are living in the age of leftwing domestic terrorism. They are openly encouraging violence against law enforcement to aid and abet the invasion of America.
There was an age — during the height of the LBJ’s and Nixon’s War in Vietnam — of “leftwing domestic terrorism” in the country. But this ain’t the age of the Weather Underground, nor are animal rights or environmental radicals on the left ascendant today.
In the 21st century, white supremacists, anti-Muslims, and anti-government extremists on the right have become far and away the greatest source of domestic terrorist violence in the U.S. And there is ample evidence that it’s not even a close call, not in recent years. The most significant terrorist threats to Americans by other Americans come from the right.
Donald Trump has celebrated violence repeatedly. And he began his second term with pardons for the January 6 rioters, including those convicted of violence against the police (as well as of seditious conspiracy.) That counts as open encouragement of violence against law enforcement. Miller’s “they” doesn’t specify a single Democrat (or any leftwing figure) of prominence who comes close to Trump in either rhetoric or action that encourages violence against the police.
And there is no invasion of the country. That’s another lie.
Finally, the masked agents who refuse to identify themselves, the staged arrests at various venues, militarized assaults on immigrants and Americans alike (as in the restaurant kitchens), the deportations to foreign prisons: these are all contrived to troll, to taunt, to intimidate, to create fear, to punish. And this campaign is directed more at Americans who oppose Trump politically (or may be tempted to oppose), than at any criminal element in the country.
Add the pardons (after those of the January 6 crew) to criminals of various stripes and the picture of authoritarian control becomes clearer. Lawlessness with a sneer.