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Monday, February 10, 2025

Bernie Sanders' Good Government vs. Steve Bannon's and Donald Trump's Dizzying "Muzzle Velocity"

Been meaning to post this. It should be read in tandem with this opinion by Ezra Klein titled, "Don't Believe Him," that you can read or listen to here. In particular, Klein underscores the power of Steve Bannon's strategy of "muzzle velocity." The idea is to "overwhelm the media — if you give it too many places it needs to look, all at once, if you keep it moving from one thing to the next — no coherent opposition can emerge. It is hard to even think coherently."

They want us all to get the sense that "this is Trump’s country now....It does what he wants. If Trump tells the state to stop spending money, the money stops. If he says that birthright citizenship is over, it’s over."

What gets obscured through this reckless bravado of muzzle velocity on steroids in his first few weeks in office is the reality of Trump's weakness.


Klein makes the excellent point that while he may be impacting the coherence of any opposition, what must also get recognized is that he's flooding his own pool. Lots of good nuggets here. What the opposition must do, Klein wisely says, is to not believe him that he is king. If we treat him that way by surrendering our power, it's as if he were king. 

But good isn't gold.

Muzzle velocity and sowing chaos. 

Geez, how devious.

Bernie is gold. If only he could have been our president.

-Angela Valenzuela

What Trump didn’t say in his inauguration speech


by Bernie Sanders

The simple truth is that Trump ignored almost every major issue facing this country’s working families in his first speech

Thu 23 Jan 2025 06.08 EST | The Guardian



‘Our healthcare system is broken, is dysfunctional and is wildly expensive.’ Photograph: Carlos BarrĂ­a/Reuters

I was at the Trump inauguration on Monday, and needless to say, I disagree with almost everything he had to say.

What really struck me, however, is not what he said, which was not surprising given his general rhetoric – but what he didn’t say. The simple truth is that Donald Trump gave a major speech, the first speech of his second presidency, and ignored almost every significant issue facing the working families of this country.

How crazy is that?

Our healthcare system is broken, is dysfunctional and is wildly expensive. We remain the only wealthy nation not to guarantee healthcare for all. Not one word from Trump about how he is going to address the healthcare crisis.

We pay, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs – sometimes 10 times more than the people in other countries – and one out of four Americans is unable to afford the prescriptions that their doctors prescribe. Not one word from Donald Trump on the high cost of prescription drugs.



Factchecking Trump’s inauguration speech, from inflation to healthcare


We have 800,000 Americans who are homeless and millions of our people spend 50% or 60% of their limited income on housing. We have a major housing crisis in America – everyone knows it. And Trump, in his inaugural address, did not devote one word to it.

Today in America, we have more income and wealth inequality than we have ever had. The wealthiest three people in America now own more wealth than the bottom half of our society. But Trump had nothing to say about the growing gap between the very rich and everybody else. And maybe that’s because he had those three people – the three wealthiest people in America – sitting right behind him at his inauguration. And, I should add, those three people – if you can believe it – saw their wealth increase by more than $233bn since the November elections. No wonder they were sitting right behind Trump. They couldn’t be happier.

During his inaugural speech, Trump did not have one word to say about how we are going to address the planetary crisis of climate change. The last 10 years have been the warmest ever recorded, and extreme weather disturbances and natural disasters are taking place all over the world – from California to India, across Europe to North Carolina. Not one word about climate change – except, of course, to make it clear that he intends to make this horrific situation even worse with “drill, baby, drill”. Brilliant.

We pay, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs – sometimes 10 times more than the people in other countries – and one out of four Americans is unable to afford the prescriptions that their doctors prescribe. Not one word from Donald Trump on the high cost of prescription drugs.

We have 800,000 Americans who are homeless and millions of our people spend 50% or 60% of their limited income on housing. We have a major housing crisis in America – everyone knows it. And Trump, in his inaugural address, did not devote one word to it.

Today in America, we have more income and wealth inequality than we have ever had. The wealthiest three people in America now own more wealth than the bottom half of our society. But Trump had nothing to say about the growing gap between the very rich and everybody else. And maybe that’s because he had those three people – the three wealthiest people in America – sitting right behind him at his inauguration. And, I should add, those three people – if you can believe it – saw their wealth increase by more than $233bn since the November elections. No wonder they were sitting right behind Trump. They couldn’t be happier.

During his inaugural speech, Trump did not have one word to say about how we are going to address the planetary crisis of climate change. The last 10 years have been the warmest ever recorded, and extreme weather disturbances and natural disasters are taking place all over the world – from California to India, across Europe to North Carolina. Not one word about climate change – except, of course, to make it clear that he intends to make this horrific situation even worse with “drill, baby, drill”. Brilliant.

As we enter the new Trump presidency, we have got to remain focused. We can’t panicz

In the coming months and years, our job is not just to respond to every absurd statement that Trump makes. That is what the Trump world wants us to do. They want to define the parameters of debate and have us live within their world. That’s a trap we should not fall into.

Our job is to stay focused on the most important issues facing the working families of our country, provide solutions to those crises and demand that Trump responds to us.

Let me mention just some of them:

Yes, healthcare is a human right and we must join every other major country in guaranteeing healthcare to all people through a Medicare for All, single-payer program.

Yes, we must take on the greed of big pharma and substantially lower the cost of prescription drugs in this country.

Yes, we must build millions of units of low-income and affordable housing.

Yes, we must make sure that all of our young people have the ability to get a higher education by making public colleges and universities tuition-free.

Yes, we must work with the global community to combat climate change by cutting carbon emissions and transforming our energy system away from fossil fuels and into sustainable energy.

Yes, we must pass legislation to raise the absurdly low federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour to a living wage of $17 an hour.

Yes, we must pass the Pro Act, and make it easier for workers to join trade unions and grow the union movement.

Yes, in order to help fund the needs of working families in this country, we must demand that the wealthiest people, including those multibillionaires sitting right behind Donald Trump, start paying their fair share in taxes.

Yes, we must end a corrupt campaign finance system, which allows a handful of billionaires to buy elections and move us rapidly into oligarchy.

Bottom line: as we enter the new Trump presidency, we have got to remain focused. We can’t panic. No matter how many executive orders he signs and statements he issues, our goal remains the same. We have got to educate. We have got to organize. We have got to bring people together around an agenda that works for all, not just the few.

Now more than ever, we have to fight to create an America based on economic, social and environmental justice. Let’s get to work.


Bernie Sanders is a US senator, and chair of the health, education, labor and pensions committee. He represents the state of Vermont, and is the longest-serving independent in the history of Congress

Sunday, February 09, 2025

Trump administration’s data deletions set off ‘a mad scramble, by Mike Stobbe & Mike Schneider

Friends: 

The U.S. statistical system—renowned globally for its excellence—is facing a critical threat that could erode public trust and compromise the integrity of essential data. Researchers are expressing grave concerns over recent removals of data, which they rightfully fear may set a dangerous precedent.

Beth Jarosz, a senior program director at the Population Reference Bureau, warns, 

"This sets a really dangerous precedent that any administration can come in and delete whatever they don't like. Regardless of your politics, this should alarm you since this is taxpayer-funded data and it belongs to the public."

We must act now to protect the transparency and reliability of data that serves as the foundation of informed decision-making and public policy. The integrity of this data is a public right, funded by taxpayers and critical to the nation's wellbeing. Let your voice be heard. Reach out to whoever represents you and demand accountability and the safeguarding of our data.

-Angela Valenzuela




By MIKE STOBBE and MIKE SCHNEIDER

February 3, 2025

NEW YORK (AP) — Researchers are in what one described as “a mad scramble” to sort out what public data the Trump administration has deleted from government websites and electronic publications.

Late last week, federal agencies took down scores of government webpages as staffers hurried to comply with President Donald Trump’s order rolling back protections for transgender people, which required the removal of “gender ideology” language from websites, contracts and emails.

Some of the sites were back online Monday, but data analysts say it’s not clear exactly what was removed or changed.

“You go looking for something and it’s just not there,” said Amy O’Hara, a Georgetown University researcher who is president of the Association of Public Data Users.

Social science researchers and other federal data users on Monday described feeling like a five-alarm fire was triggered when they discovered late last week that vital federal datasets were inaccessible.

It sparked “a mad scramble right now” to grab copies of whatever federal data was posted before, O’Hara said.

While the administration’s stated goal was to delete gender and transgender terminology, O’Hara said some researchers worry that other politically charged topics — such as climate change or vaccines — might be removed or altered.

A expert panel affiliated with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention demanded a meeting on the deletions.

The committee, chartered by Congress to advise the CDC director, asked the agency’s acting director, Susan Monarez, for an explanation about why it had cut off access to datasets “that allow people across the country to understand the health of their communities.”

The panel had yet to receive a response, said committee member Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, a former federal health official who is now a health policy expert at Johns Hopkins University.

Experts say datasets and summaries were affected, but so too were codebooks that explain different variables. They say they also saw changes to published research that used affected datasets, and even redactions to lists of publications about certain topics.

“The scale of this is quite stunning,” O’Hara said.

Researchers are still stumbling on what was taken down or changed, she added.

“We are finding out about omissions when somebody goes searching for it,” O’Hara said.

On Monday, for instance, when a query was made to access certain data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s most comprehensive survey of American life, users got a response that said the area was “unavailable due to maintenance.”

The CDC’s official public portal for health data, data.cdc.gov, was taken down entirely on Friday but went back up over the weekend, albeit with a yellow ribbon at the top saying: “CDC’s website is being modified to comply with President Trump’s Executive Orders.” The agency’s Youth Risk Behavior Survey data was restored too, but with at least one of the gender columns missing and its data documentation removed.

CDC officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Some researchers took steps to make sure federal information stays available. On Monday, the American Sexually Transmitted Diseases Association posted federal STD data and treatment guidelines that were hastily downloaded from the CDC website Thursday night.

“Taxpayers paid to collect those data, to analyze those data, and to make them public for people to use,” explained Abigail Norris Turner, an Ohio State University medical researcher who is the association’s president.

“Executive orders don’t change who has STIs or who needs evidence-based care for them,” she added. “We wanted to make sure that rigorous information continued to be available to people to provide the best possible care.”

The U.S. statistical system is considered the best in the world and researchers fear that the removals will undermine trust and put the integrity of the data at risk.

“This sets a really dangerous precedent that any administration can come in and delete whatever they don’t like,” said Beth Jarosz, a senior program director at the Population Reference Bureau. “Regardless of your politics, this should alarm you since this is taxpayer-funded data and it belongs to the public.”

In a joint statement, the presidents of the Population Association of America and the Association of Population Centers called the takedowns “unacceptable” and called on Congress and the Trump administration to restore the datasets.

Paul Schroeder, executive director of the Council of Professional Associations on Federal Statistics, said people looking for data may have to resort to suing for access or submitting Freedom of Information Act requests for the datasets.

“The removal of several public datasets from agency websites goes against everything the statistical agencies stand for and were intended for,” Schroeder said Monday. “Public data users are being left in the dark about what is going on.”

Schneider reported from Orlando, Florida. AP data journalist Kasturi Pananjady contributed to this story.
___


The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Friday, February 07, 2025

To: President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, Republicans Do NOT freeze or cut federal aid!

An urgent letter to Donald Trump about federal aid and abrupt cuts. Scary times.

-Angela Valenzuela

To: President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, Republicans

Do NOT freeze or cut federal aid!



Closing out his first week, President Donald Trump issued a catastrophic memo ordering a pause in all federal grants and loans that would go into effect with little more than 24 hours notice. States, organizations, and local officials are scrambling to respond and interpret the vague directive.

If not stopped, this memo could be devastating for people in the U.S. and globally–disrupting public services, eroding infrastructure and safety nets, and impacting jobs.

Trump is slashing resources for working class and everyday people—meanwhile his billionaire friends keep getting richer. Will you add your name to the petition to show that we, the people, OPPOSE Trump freezing federal funds that go toward our children, families, schools, and communities?

Why is this important?

The directive, issued by the White House Office of Management and Budget, impacts tens of billions of dollars in funding.

Children and families across the country could suffer from abrupt cuts to school breakfast programs, food benefits, child care block grants, and housing vouchers.

Not to mention how it could impact funding for public education, roads, and transportation. Health care programs and programs like Medicaid, cancer research, and suicide hotlines.

The people who provide these services and the people who rely on them are having their entire livelihoods thrown into limbo. Even temporary pauses to these critical programs could have long standing and lasting effects for everyday people.

Trump and his wealthy friends won’t be impacted by disruptions to federal aid. This is just another political stunt to them. But for the average American, stunts like this are devastating. It’s unacceptable for the people we trust and elect into office to play politics with the public services and social safety nets we rely on.

These federal grants are our tax dollars at work. Trump has no right to freeze necessary funding that puts our communities, jobs, and health at risk. Add your name to the petition to fight back against this or any future freeze to federal aid!

The Chaos of Compliance in Texas and Florida by Erin Gretzinger and Maggie Hicks

This is a helpful, descriptive piece on DEI implementation in Florida and Texas from the March 2024 issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education,

Best,

-Angela Valenzuela

The Chaos of Compliance: How Public Colleges in Two States are Actually Responding to DEI Bans 



‘New Terrain’
By Erin Gretzinger and Maggie Hicks 

March 22, 2024

After Texas acted last year to restrict diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives at public colleges statewide, students like Kaitie Tolman were eager to offer the programming their institutions no longer could.

The path to doing so seemed clear: Senate Bill 17, which took effect January 1, exempted student groups from its provisions, which included the banning of DEI offices and employees. But Tolman, a fifth-year student at the University of Houston and former president of the LGBTQ student organization GLOBAL, quickly learned that students’ hopes to take up the defunct programs wouldn’t be so simple.

When Tolman and her peers tried to determine what exactly was being eliminated on their campus, they were met with vague email responses from administrators and a couple of confusing meetings. Everyone they talked to reassured the students that they would help in any way they could. But when Tolman asked for specific details, like how to organize an LGBTQ graduation ceremony, many said they weren’t able to help out of fear of legal repercussions, she said.

To Tolman, administrators appeared to “err on the side of caution” in talking with students about DEI programming at all. As a result, students were being told they could supplement programs being lost, while simultaneously being blocked from any information about what those programs were. “We very much felt the solution they came up with was, ‘Well, y’all figure it out,’” Tolman said. “‘We were happy to help you, as long as we don’t have to actually do anything.’”

Tolman and her peers aren’t the only ones left in the dark about the consequences of anti-DEI legislation. Since last year, eight states have passed laws curtailing the type of diversity initiatives state-funded colleges can offer. Yet public knowledge of the laws’ on-the-ground effects has largely been limited to sporadic local news coverage, and sometimes filtered through politically distorted channels.

To assess how colleges have changed in response to these new laws, The Chronicle surveyed public colleges in two states that have enacted them: Texas and Florida. Of the 137 colleges surveyed, about 40 percent answered, many of which offered detailed accounting of changes they have made to comply with the laws. (Several other colleges answered, but failed to address The Chronicle’s specific questions or declined to participate.)

The result is the most comprehensive portrait yet of how colleges are reshaping themselves in response to legislation targeting DEI. And it reveals that campuses are reacting inconsistently — some dramatically and others not at all.

Nearly four dozen campuses in the two states offered substantive responses to The Chronicle: Over all, 24 colleges made changes to an office or department; 23 cut or reassigned jobs; seven ended DEI training for admission or employment; two axed funding for DEI activities; and 15 eliminated other DEI-related programming. Interestingly, 19 said they were already in compliance with the law and didn’t have to alter anything.

The responses yielded a familiar aura of uncertainty as administrators grapple with what is permissible under the legislation. The changes campuses did make varied greatly. While one Texas college eliminated its multicultural center, another opened one to replace its DEI office. While some colleges in Florida have simply reassigned their DEI employees, the University of Florida recently terminated 13 of its full-time staff. Experts previously told The Chronicle that the vague, sweeping laws leave large room for interpretation. The immediate effects, spelled out here, prove just how vast that gulf is in practice.

Activists and students like Tolman said The Chronicle’s findings illustrate a loss of community on campus. Programming offered to students, like social gatherings or counseling services, could dwindle. Some also worry that while some organizations are still running, they’ll lose funding and support. Students and faculty said they received little information about how administrators came to these decisions in the first place and worry colleges could be overreacting when so much is left up for interpretation.

“These DEI bills are new terrain. There’s not all this precedent that we have in other areas of the law. Florida and Texas are the vanguard,” said Antonio L. Ingram II, a civil-rights lawyer with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. “They’re using these overly conservative hermeneutics to really render many of these exemptions not actionable, and students and faculty are suffering as a result.”

For the laws’ advocates, questions remain about how colleges are complying — if at all. As some colleges have simply changed an office’s name or reassigned programs, they worry there is still more to be done to eliminate DEI altogether. And with some campuses opening activities to “everyone” that were traditionally catered to one group, they’re concerned administrators are creating workarounds rather than eradicating DEI completely.

“I understand why some admins are engaging in massive resistance to the idea of the colorblind merit-based system that the legislature has required and that’s because it goes against their ideological priors,” said Ilya Shapiro, a senior fellow and director of constitutional studies at the Manhattan Institute, where he co-authored model legislation that many states have used in writing anti-DEI bills. “My answer to that is: tough. You have to follow the law.”

To some extent, the rollout of these laws has left no one satisfied. And with fresh legislation being proposed each month, what’s unfolding in Florida and Texas may provide a glimpse into a messy and chaotic future.

In early 2023, conservative lawmakers began pushing to abolish DEI practices, which advocates argue help to mitigate discrimination on campus and provide support to historically marginalized communities. Among the most common targets were standalone diversity offices, mandatory diversity training, and the use of diversity statements in hiring — practices that critics called ineffective and discriminatory in their own way.

“We must ensure that our institutions of higher learning are focused on academic excellence and the pursuit of truth, not the imposition of trendy ideology,” Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida said in a January 2023 speech that effectively kicked off his campaign to reshape public higher education in the state.

What followed was a bonanza of legislative activity taking aim at colleges’ DEI practices. Since The Chronicle started tracking the legislation last year, at least 81 bills have been introduced — including 37 this year alone — in 28 states. The bills are often modeled after proposed legislation from the Goldwater and Manhattan Institutes, two conservative think tanks.

In Texas, Senate Bill 17 banned state funding of diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts. Following months of debate and amendments to the bill, the final version prohibited colleges from establishing a diversity, equity, and inclusion office, which it defines as a “unit of an institution” that influences hiring practices or promotes differential treatment of people based on race, color, or ethnicity. It also refers to an office that conducts training and programs on race, color, ethnicity, gender identity, or sexual orientation.

The law, signed by Gov. Greg Abbott in June, also bans colleges from hiring a person to perform the duties of a DEI office, requiring diversity statements, or mandating training that refers to race, color, ethnicity, gender identity, or sexual orientation, while exempting course instruction, research, and student organizations. (Section 59 of the state’s appropriations bill also banned spending on “unconstitutional” DEI programs.)

In Florida, House Bill 931 and Senate Bill 266 prohibited “political loyalty tests” as well as diversity, equity, and inclusion statements in hiring or promotion, and banned colleges from spending state or federal money on programs that “advocate for diversity, equity, and inclusion, or promote or engage in political or social activism.”

The Senate bill also carved out exemptions for student organizations, stating they can still receive funding through student fees and may use college-owned facilities, as well as programs that are required to comply with federal law, necessary to obtain accreditation, or those approved by the State Board of Education or the Board of Governors. After a series of amendments, DeSantis signed both bills into law in May. In January the Board of Governors banned Florida’s 12 public campuses from using state or federal dollars toward diversity programs or activities, aligning with the law.

Now that the laws have gone into effect, the impacts have emerged piecemeal through scattered news stories, general-counsel guidance documents, and reports from political actors watching the changes take shape on the ground. The resulting landscape — and the reasoning behind campuses’ responses — has been anything but clear.

To try to establish a clear picture of how campuses have responded to the legislation, The Chronicle contacted the two states’ public colleges between late January through the beginning of March. We asked for information on any updates the colleges had made to offices, programs, jobs, training, courses, and funding efforts in order to comply. While local media reports have captured a number of the individual changes that have transpired since the laws passed, this analysis focuses solely on the responses we collected.

Some campuses took sweeping action. The University of Houston told The Chronicle it nixed more than 40 student-affairs activities along with its LGBTQ Resource Center. The university also closed its Center for Diversity and Inclusion, opening up the Center for Student Advocacy and Community in its place and moving five employees into new roles.

That exemplified what The Chronicle found across other Texas colleges: Ten institutions created a new office after eliminating one, and four colleges changed the name of an old office. Names that included the words diversity, equity, or inclusion were out, replaced by terms like “engagement,” “community,” and “belonging.” For example, the University of North Texas and Texas Woman‘s University both created new centers — the Center for Belonging and Engagement and the Center for Belonging and First-Generation Students, respectively — to replace their shuttered DEI offices.

In Florida, colleges took an even more sweeping approach, often cutting programs and offices without any mention of a replacement. Florida State University and the Universities of Florida, South Florida, and North Florida reported to The Chronicle that they had eliminated their DEI offices, and reassigned or changed the roles of any DEI staff. Florida State and the University of Florida were the only colleges across both states that reported changes to funding practices. Florida State terminated a DEI mini-grant program, memberships to DEI organizations, and subscriptions to DEI-related publications, while the University of Florida re-routed $5 million in DEI funds to a faculty-recruitment fund.


The University of Florida was the only campus that said it had fired staff as a result of new laws. Others reassigned employees or changed their roles, and a handful said they let vacant posts remain unfilled. Florida State told The Chronicle it “repurposed” two human-resources positions that focused on DEI, while another position’s DEI-related responsibilities were replaced with other tasks. At Seminole State College, the former chief DEI officer became the “Associate Vice President for Organizational Culture and Strategy/Title IX Coordinator.”

It wasn’t always clear how new offices or titles represent different missions. Some colleges specified to The Chronicle that their newly created departments would support all students, or pointed to certain services for pregnant, first-generation, and veteran students within revamped offices.

Such changes have elicited suspicion from conservative lawmakers and accusations from some DEI opponents that colleges are attempting to subvert the legislation. “The idea that these changes are cosmetic, and that the administrators at these universities have not examined their goals with DEI, is disheartening and problematic because it clearly states that improving outcomes for Texas students is not a priority for them,” said Sherry Sylvester, a fellow with the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a conservative think tank based in Austin.

But DEI proponents argue that name changes are far from superficial and make it more difficult for students to find services that meet their needs. “The lack of transparency about how to find a resource that used to be obviously available, that’s a harm to students, and that’s a harm that’s due to compliance with a bill that erases DEI institutions,” said Ingram, the Legal Defense Fund attorney.

Whether these new offices, job titles, or other changes will stick remains to be seen. Already at the University of Texas at San Antonio, the college told The Chronicle that it had walked back its plans to launch a new center, the Office of Campus and Community Belonging, in place of its shuttered Office of Inclusive Excellence. It cited an “evolving understanding of SB 17 as well as continuing voluntary changes in staffing and personnel reappointments from that office.”

As colleges have taken steps to comply with the law, some campus community members say how they have gone about it has been shrouded in secrecy.

After Tolman, the University of Houston student, struggled to find information about what was being cut, she and other students filed a public-records request to get a precise answer. The list they received, which the university shared with The Chronicle, enumerated eliminations across identity-based hubs, as well as other departments such as student housing and residential life, counseling and psychological services, and university career services. A note next to nearly every program suggested that student groups could take it over — which struck Tolman as frustratingly ironic, given the resistance she had encountered in trying to do just that.

In response to The Chronicle’s inquiry, the university recognized its student-organization exemption but said it “did not go about assigning tasks/events to students,” and each student group “would need to make the decision on whether it wants to pursue any of the programming or events.” Texas A&M University had a similar response, saying that some student organizations had taken over programs that were previously organized by the Pride Center. Dallas College also pointed to its student-organization exemption in its response, noting that student groups may host a multicultural event or program, “even one that may include DEI elements.”

WE CHOOSE TO FIGHT: U.S. SENATE IN-STATE OFFICE VISIT TOOLKIT by Indivisible

 Friends,

I'm getting resources for the current moment we're in that I'm happy to share. I'll be uploading resources to my blog coming my way. 

Here is an excellent legislative toolkit from Indivisible. You can check out their website here. As Florida Union leader Karla Hernandez-Matts conveyed in a meeting today, now is not a time shrink." I couldn't agree more.

Peace/paz,

Angela Valenzuela





WE CHOOSE TO FIGHT: U.S. SENATE IN-STATE OFFICE VISIT TOOLKIT


Register your event: https://indivisi.org/register-choose-to-fight 

Find an event happening near you: https://indivisi.org/find-choose-to-fight 


TOOLKIT CONTENTS:

WHAT’S HAPPENING?

THE ASK

HOW TO PLAN YOUR SENATE STATE OFFICE VISIT

TALKING POINTS FOR SENATE DEMOCRATS

TALKING POINTS FOR SENATE REPUBLICANS


WHAT’S HAPPENING?


We are in crisis. The Trump administration is attempting to shut down the functions of the federal government while it hands unchecked power and access over to an unelected billionaire. We need to delay, fight, and defeat everything we can, and that starts with Congress standing up and saying “no.”

This week, that fight is focused on Russell Vought, the nominee for Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), who is the human embodiment of the effort to freeze federal funding and the architect of Project 2025. As Trump and Musk are moving to raid the Treasury, it’s essential that Democrats (and Republicans) in Congress send a clear message: “We will fight. Vought will not glide through to join you in your efforts to take money from the American people.”

THE TRUMP-MUSK FUNDING GRAB: THE QUIET COUP

Since taking office, President Trump and Elon Musk have worked together to defund the federal government from the inside while consolidating power into the hands of a right-wing elite. Their goal is clear: gut federal agencies, strip public resources, and redirect power and money into their own hands.

Agencies Are Starved of Ability to Help People: Key federal agencies—including the Departments of Health, Education, and Transportation—have been forced into bare-bones operations, unable to implement vital programs we depend on.


FEMA and Disaster Relief Blocked: Funding for emergency relief programs is being deliberately slowed or denied, leaving communities vulnerable.

Social Security and Medicare Under Threat: Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” has gained full access to the U.S. Treasury's federal payment system, which processes Social Security, Medicare, and tax refunds. His team now has access to millions of Americans’ financial data and can manipulate payments.

DOGE is a Smokescreen for Dismantling the Federal Government: Under the guise of “efficiency,” Musk has proposed cutting $1 trillion in government spending, targeting social programs, education, healthcare, and regulatory agencies that protect consumers and workers.

At the same time, Trump and Senate Republicans are fast-tracking Russell Vought as OMB Director to oversee this attack on federal funding.
VOUGHT IS THE ARCHITECT OF PROJECT 2025

Vought wrote a chapter of Project 2025, which starts by outlining the role that OMB should play in implementing the massively unpopular playbook. If confirmed, Russell Vought will control federal spending. That means he will claim to have the power to:

Freeze funding for critical programs like Medicaid, public schools, environmental protections, and infrastructure.


Redirect federal dollars to right-wing priorities, including tax cuts for the wealthy and corporate handouts.


Defund regulatory agencies that keep corporations in check and protect workers and consumers.

THE PROCESS: HOW THE SENATE WILL PROCEED WITH THE VOUGHT CONFIRMATION VOTE

Monday: Motion to Proceed (MTP) passes, allowing debate on the nomination.


Immediately After: Republican Sen. John Thune can file cloture, starting the two legislative day clock before a cloture vote.


Wednesday: Cloture vote happens, kicking off 30 hours of debate.


Wednesday - Thursday: Senate Democrats must use the full 30 hours to expose this crisis and block the nomination at every turn.


Thursday (or Friday!): Final vote on Vought’s confirmation. If he is confirmed, the Trump-Musk takeover accelerates.

Senate Democrats must treat this as the constitutional crisis it is. They must use every tool to block and delay. But Republicans are fully complicit in this power grab. We need public outrage, attention, and accountability focused on every Senator who is backing this takeover.

Republican Senators must feel the heat. They need to know that their constituents see what they are doing and that there will be political consequences.

THE ASK

This week, between Monday and the vote on Vought, we’re asking people from all over the country to plan a visit to their U.S. Senators’ In-State Offices to demand Democrats fight and to hold Republicans accountable for their complicity.

DEMOCRATS MUST USE EVERY PROCEDURAL TOOL TO SHUT DOWN TRUMP’S AGENDA

Yes, we need Democrats to vote no on Vought’s nomination, but no is not enough. Democrats have the power to grind Senate business to a halt and force Republicans to feel the political cost of backing Trump’s extremist agenda. Here’s how:

Deny a Quorum: If Republicans don’t have 51 votes in the chamber, Democrats can walk out and shut down Senate business entirely.


Block Unanimous Consent: Object to every procedural shortcut, forcing Republicans to take the longest possible route for every step of the confirmation process.


Max Out Debate Time: Use all 30 hours of debate on Vought to expose Project 2025, Musk’s Treasury takeover, and the funding freeze.


Delay and Disrupt: Force roll-call votes, quorum calls, and procedural delays to slow everything down.


Blanket Opposition: Democrats cannot continue to vote for Trump’s other nominees, helping to install more MAGA loyalists into powerful positions in the federal government while this power grab continues.


No Business as Usual: This is a constitutional crisis. Democrats must abandon the old rules and fight with everything they have.

Bottom line: Senate Democrats must block, delay, and obstruct every step of this process—no cooperation, no easy votes, no fast-tracking Trump’s takeover. To learn more about how Senate Democrats can shut down Trump’s agenda with procedural hardball, check out our explainer here.

HOW TO PLAN YOUR SENATE STATE OFFICE VISIT

Find Your Senator’s State Office


Locate the nearest in-state office for your U.S. Senators. Your Senators typically list the addresses for each of their offices at the bottom of their official Senate homepage or on a “Contact” page.

Target both Democratic and Republican Senators. Democrats need to be pushed to fight harder, and Republicans need to be exposed for their complicity.

Pick a Date & Time

Plan your visit for Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday morning.

Aim for business hours (9 AM - 5 PM) for maximum visibility.
Gather and Prepare Your Group

Organize a group of 5-15 people (the bigger, the better — but showing up is what counts!)

Assign roles ahead of time:

✔ Spokesperson: Opens the meeting and states the demand—Vote NO on Vought and fight every step of the way.
✔ Storyteller(s): Share personal stories about how this crisis affects real people.
✔ Note-Taker: Records the meeting and any responses from the Senator’s staff.
✔ Social Media Lead: Captures video, posts updates, and ensures maximum visibility.
✔ Backup Disruptor: If staff tries to dismiss you, they reinforce the message and demand action.
Prepare Your Ask

For Democrats: Not just a NO vote—they must obstruct and delay.

✔ Block unanimous consent: Force full roll-call votes on everything.
✔ Demand the full 30 hours of debate: No fast-tracking Vought’s confirmation.
✔ Make the Senate unmanageable: Delay, disrupt, and derail Trump’s funding freeze.

For Republicans: Force them to publicly defend their complicity.
Execute the Visit

Sign in at the front desk. If staff tries to brush you off, be persistent.

Demand to speak with the State Director. If unavailable, get a firm commitment for a follow-up.

Leave behind materials—a printout of our demands and the latest reporting on Musk’s Treasury access.

If locked out? Rally outside, record videos, and call them out publicly.
Document Everything & Follow Up

Take photos and videos. If the office refuses to engage, let the public see their silence.

Post updates on social media using #VoughtNo and tag Indivisible, MoveOn, and Working Families Party (we love Bluesky!)

Follow up with an email or phone call summarizing your visit and asking for a response.

Register Your Event & Invite Others

Register your event on Mobilize so others in your area can join. You can also check to see if there’s already an event planned near you.



Do I need to register an event, or can I just go? Please register your event! It’s really helpful for us to know about all the events that are happening so that we know how much each senator is hearing about this urgent demand. If you don’t want anyone else to be able to see and join your drop-by, you can make your event ‘private’ when you create it.

Will you help me recruit? Given the timeline we’re working with, we encourage you to take the lead on bringing together some people to join you. That said, posting a public event will definitely allow Indivisible, MoveOn, and the Working Families Party to help spread the word and get some people to join you.

Do I need to call in advance? Nope! You definitely can, particularly if you have a preexisting relationship with the office. But there’s no rule that you need to have an appointment to talk to your elected official’s staff. Staff might tell you that it's impossible to schedule a meeting at this short notice, but you can stop in anyway—there isn’t time to wait for this one!

Can I do a virtual event? We are asking people to make in-person visits this week.


I can’t go in person—is there anything else I can do? Yes, if you can’t visit an office in person, it’s still very helpful to call your Senators’ offices and make the same request over the phone. Although a personal visit is harder, it shows how serious the issue is to you, but a call is still great.


There’s already a visit listed for my senator — should I join that one or add another event? Either! If you see an event near you that you want to join, please do! But if you can’t attend that event (say, because you have a work or family conflict at that time), you should register your own event!

This is our moment to act. Trump and Musk are already consolidating power. If Senate Democrats don’t shut this down, no one will.

TALKING POINTS FOR SENATE DEMOCRATS

Recognize the Crisis

Trump and Musk are orchestrating a hostile takeover of the federal government.


Vought is not just a nominee—he is a direct threat to democracy.

Use Every Procedural Tool to Block This

No is not enough. Yes, we expect every Senate Democrat to vote NO on Russell Vought’s confirmation, but no is not enough. We need Democrats to grind Senate business to a halt and force Republicans to feel the political cost of backing Trump’s extremist agenda.

Deny a quorum. Walk out if necessary to stop Senate business.

Block unanimous consent. Force full roll-call votes on everything.

Max out debate time. Speak for the full 30 hours of debate.

Gum up the works. Object to every procedural motion, force procedural votes, demand roll calls, and delay every possible action. This is not business as usual. We need Democrats to fight with everything they have.

Blanket opposition. Oppose vote NO on every Trump nominee while the coup continues.

Expose Republican Complicity

Force Republicans to defend their vote. Make them answer to the American people.

Call out the risks to Social Security, Medicare, and government programs that millions of people depend on.
SIGN IDEAS FOR SENATE DEMOCRATS

You can download printable versions of some of these signs here.


VOUGHT NO


NO ISN’T ENOUGH—FIGHT BACK!


STOP TRUMP & MUSK’S POWER GRAB


NO ONE VOTED FOR ELON MUSK


VOTE NO ON VOUGHT. STOP PROJECT 2025


DEMOCRACY IS ON THE LINE—ACT LIKE IT


ELON DOESN’T RUN THIS COUNTRY—WE DO


SENATE DEMS: BLOCK, DELAY, OBSTRUCT—NO EXCUSES


TRUMP & MUSK WANT TO RAID THE TREASURY—STOP THEM


FIGHT LIKE OUR LIVES DEPEND ON IT


TALKING POINTS FOR SENATE REPUBLICANS

You Are Enabling an Unconstitutional Authoritarian Takeover

Supporting Vought = supporting Trump’s plan to dismantle the federal government.

You are allowing a billionaire to dictate public policy.

Your Complicity Will Cost You

Blocking federal funding is deeply unpopular.

If you confirm Vought, you will be held accountable, and your constituents are paying attention.

A No Vote is the Only Way to Avoid Political Fallout

There is no way to spin this. A vote for Vought means selling out your constituents.

Vote NO on Vought.

SIGN IDEAS FOR SENATE REPUBLICANS

You can download printable versions of some of these signs here.


VOUGHT NO


IT’S ELON MUSK OR US: WHOSE SIDE ARE YOU ON?


AMERICANS AGAINST BILLIONAIRE CAPTURE


COMPLICIT


YOU SWORE AN OATH TO US, NOT ELON


TRAITOR


WE WON’T FORGET

Trump and Musk are moving fast, and we need to stop them. While Republican senators will be in DC, our goal is to make them receive panicked phone calls from their state staff about backlash from constituents. We’re not letting Republicans get away with this power grab. We choose to fight. We say #VoughtNo.

Saturday, February 01, 2025

Who is an Immigrant? The Identity of a Nation

Friends:

I love pieces like these (see below), the work of dedicated scholars who do the hard, granular, decades-long work of trying to understand truly complex phenomena like national identity, attitudes toward immigrants by the larger population, attitudes among immigrants themselves toward immigrants and immigration, as well as the prevalence of ideologies like the American Dream.

After the TomĂ¡s JimĂ©nez piece, I post below, the equally provoking "The American Dream, Revised," authored by Stanford Economics professor, Ran Abramitzky. These concise articles are part of a larger Stanford Magazine special issue that you should read, as they address historical tensions about immigration dating back to 1790 and the other, a focus on the meaning of citizenship.

At the outset, none of the articles in the special issue make note of the fact that the "nation of immigrants" myth is one that consists of shared stories within not solely, "a culture," but a dominant one, at that. So when we use this phrase, scholars included, this reflects a myth that is premised on the erasure of Native Americans that wittingly or unwittingly gets reinscribed even by what we know to be excellent scholarship, which this is.

As a side note, read OlĂºfẹ́mi O. TĂ¡Ă­wĂ²'s book, Elite Capture, to unpack how it happens that dominant myths acquire unquestioned status.

This myth is so profound that it keeps us from acknowledging that from 1790 to the present is the most recent part of our history here on "Turtle Island"—the name for this continent that consists of Canada, the U.S., Mexico—and, for many, the Caribbean Islands and Greenland, as well.

When we factor in the Indigenous history of Native North America, not only did our ancestors travel freely up and down the continent, but they were also, as a consequence, intermarried and interconnected. After all, native North American tribes were mostly exogamous, meaning that they married outside their tribe, clan, or nation for purposes of strengthening alliances and promoting genetic diversity (Zion & Yazzie, 1997).

Similarly, take, for instance, the Uto-Aztecan language family, representing two Indigenous language groups, Ute and Nahuatl, that linguists like de la Cruz (2021) and Haugen (2025) know belong together. This, of course, concurs with the notion that the ancestral homeland of the Nahuatl-speaking Mexicas or Aztecs resides in what is known today as the state of Utah.

This is not a flight of fancy, but rather appears on the Disturnell map of 1847, which specifically notes "AztlĂ¡n," the Aztec's ancestral homeland, where the Colorado and Green rivers meet in Utah. This map was attached to the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo. Read: Aztlanahuac: Mesoamerica in North American (April 7, 2005). The late Dr. Roberto Cintli Rodrigues is credited for bringing the Disturnell map to light.

De-tribalized Mexican Americans like myself are often viewed as "Mexica-centric," valuing the Aztec, as opposed to other forms of Indigenous identities. I think it's more than a false consciousness of privileging an imperialistic nation—although those kinds of logics can also simultaneously be at play for some. 

I still wonder at how these deep histories that connect us to this continent at our root accords us that depth for connection not just to our Indigenous identities, but also to the land, our land, Turtle Island where no one is neither illegal, nor an immigrant. Rather, the original peoples of native North America were enormously diverse (see Stiffarm & Lane, 1992) such that today's "inmigrantes," "migrants," or "immigrants" are largely our cousins returning home.

Finally, our complex, cultural heritage and the resilience of our ancestors should absolutely inspire a sense of pride and identity that transcends modern political boundaries and politics that want to make us forget that the longest part of our history on Turtle Island precedes July 4, 1776, the founding date of this nation, by millennia

This connection to our past helps us navigate our present and envision a future where our diverse Indigenous identities and languages are celebrated and preserved—while maintaining, as always, a sense of openness and compassion towards sojourners, refugees, and others today who want to make this place their home.

Enough said, enjoy these illuminating short pieces.

-Angela Valenzuela

Reference

de la Cruz, A. (2021). Introduction to Nahuatl: The Language of the Aztecs. University of New Mexico. Digital Repository.

Haugen, J. (2025). Uto-Aztecan. In S. Wichmann (Ed.), The Languages and Linguistics of Mexico and Northern Central America: A Comprehensive Guide (pp. 159-208). Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter Mouton.

Stiffarm, L.A. & Lane Jr., P. (1992). Demography of Native North America: A suggestion of American Indian survival,” in M. Annette Jaimes, ed., The State of Native America: Genocide, Colonization and Resistance. Boston: South End Press.

Zion, J. W., & Yazzie, R. (1997). Indigenous law in North America in the wake of conquest. Boston College International and Comparative Law Review, 20, 55.


The Immigration Puzzle:Four ways to think about the path to citizenship.

Winter 2025
Illustration: Alex Albadree

Photo: Do Pham/School of Humanities and Sciences/Stanford University 

The Identity of a Nation

TomĂ¡s JimĂ©nez is a professor of sociology and the founding co-director of Stanford’s Institute for Advancing Just Societies. He is also director of the Qualitative Initiative within Stanford’s Immigration Policy Lab. His latest book, States of Belonging: Immigration Policies, Attitudes, and Inclusion, examines how state-level immigration policies shape belonging among Latino immigrants, U.S.-born Latinos, and U.S.-born whites in Arizona and New Mexico.


My grandfather, a migrant farm worker from Mexico, used to tell my adolescent father: “Di me con quiĂ©n andas, y te dirĂ© quiĂ©n eres.” Tell me who you walk with, and I’ll tell you who you are, a warning prompting my father to think twice about the company he kept. A version of that warning guides how we understand American identity in response to immigration: Show me your immigration politics and policies, and I’ll tell you what kind of nation you are. Following that guidance draws attention to big and loud events—hasty policy responses, election outcomes, and politicians’ bombastic statements—that might lead us to conclude that we are a nation of immigrants no more.

But a fuller picture comes from the perspectives of the everyday individuals who make up the nation. As a sociologist who studies how immigrant newcomers and long-established populations adjust to each other, I have spent nearly two decades observing immigration opinion data and talking with hundreds of individuals from all walks of life about how immigration shapes their understanding of American identity. My observations lead me to conclude that the idea of the nation of immigrants is a nostalgic, historically oriented view more than an aspirational future-facing perspective. For 400 years, people worldwide have come to the land that would become the United States. They and their descendants have defined what the United States has become socially, politically, and economically. These very people laud immigrants from a bygone era, as well as contemporary immigrants who are well-settled. But they are also reluctant to allow future immigrants for fear of the resulting cultural changes.

Survey and interview data highlight three traits of people’s belief in the nation of immigrants. The first is that, collectively, they are ambivalent—they like the immigrants we have had but want to limit who comes next. Data from Gallup, a survey organization, showcases the ambivalence. Majorities of Americans have accommodating views of immigrants already here: They think immigration is good for the country, are sympathetic toward undocumented immigrants, support allowing undocumented immigrants to become citizens if they meet specific requirements, and have the same view of individuals brought to the United States without legal status as children. And yet, Americans also support beefed-up border security, expanding border wall construction, and limiting the number of individuals seeking asylum on the border.

Second, taken individually, Americans’ views defy contemporary caricatures of the close-the-border-and-deport-them-all Republicans versus open-the-border-to-everyone Democrats. True, Democrats and, to a lesser degree, independents express more accommodating views, while Republicans hold more restrictive opinions. Responses to hundreds of interviews my colleagues and I gathered in the 2010s in California, Arizona, and New Mexico animate how Americans defy partisan caricatures. Self-described liberal Democrats who believed in the benefits of immigration also told us there should be some controls. For example, when asked about border security, a Latino and liberal Democrat in Arizona said: “I’m for the border security. We can’t let everybody [in].” He added, “It sucks, you know. I feel they should let them be citizens. It’s a long process but let them be here.” Republicans who favored muscular border security also expressed sympathy for undocumented immigrants, which included allowing them to legalize and even become citizens. When we asked a staunch Donald Trump supporter whether she would favor more welcoming policies in her home state of New Mexico, she said, “I would support [restrictive policies], depending on how it was done. I don’t want people rounded up. I’d like to see it done more like, if you’ve been here for a number of years and can show proof of residency and proof you’ve got a job, you should be able to walk into an office somewhere and sign up for the road to citizenship.”

Third, survey data and interviews reveal that Americans’ concerns about immigration are principally tied to cultural change, with the English language front and center. The importance of English comes from a belief in the practical need for people to share a common language and from what it shows about a commitment to being part of the nation. Beyond that, Americans leave room for immigrants to weave their cultural threads into the national fabric. Responding to a question about English-only laws, a middle-aged woman in California encapsulated the consensus: “America is not one culture; it’s not a society of people. It’s multicultural. And why should people from other countries be stripped of their culture because they are now living in America? And I think English should be the first language. And if it means you learn, you have to learn.”

It would be easy to conclude from election-year immigration politics that the United States is no longer a nation of immigrants. But that’s not quite true. According to the people who make up the nation, we are more like a nation of immigrant descendants, confident in and proud of the country’s immigration history and the contributions that immigrants and their descendants have made. With the next administration, more restrictive immigration policies are likely to further entrench that notion.

The American Dream, Revised

Professor of economics Ran Abramitzky is the senior associate dean for the social sciences in the School of Humanities & Sciences. His research is in economic history and applied microeconomics, with a focus on immigration and income inequality. He is a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and a senior fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research. 


For some readers, the phrase “streets of gold” evokes the age-old dream that immigrants can come to the United States penniless but quickly find opportunity. But my research partner, Leah Boustan, and I chose it as the title for our book for a different reason. We were inspired by the words of an unknown Italian immigrant, painted on the wall of the Ellis Island Museum, who is credited with saying, “I came to America because I heard the streets were paved with gold. When I got here, I found out three things: First, the streets weren’t paved with gold; second, they weren’t paved at all; and third, I was expected to pave them.”

In Streets of Gold: America’s Untold Story of Immigrant Success, we build new “big data” on millions of immigrant lives to reassess some of the common myths about immigration over the past two centuries. Think of us like curious grandchildren searching branches of their family tree online, but a million times over. We dug through genealogical websites like Ancestry.com that allow the public to search for their relatives, and developed methods to automate these searches so we could follow immigrants and their children as they moved up the economic ladder. As the unknown Italian immigrant knew all too well, we found that the “rags to riches” narrative of quick immigrant success has long been a myth. Both in the early 1900s and today, immigrants who have arrived with few skills have often continued to work in low-paying jobs throughout their lives.

In contrast, the children of immigrants have been very upwardly mobile, especially those who’ve grown up in poverty. The narrative that today’s immigrants and their families are stuck in a permanent underclass is another myth not borne by the evidence. 

For example, consider what happens when we compare children raised in families with similar earnings. And let’s think about children growing up at the 25th percentile of the income distribution, which is around $31,000 a year today, roughly equivalent to two adults working full time for the federal minimum wage. What we find in this apples-to-apples comparison is striking: The children of immigrants are able to move beyond the economic position of their parents more so than the children of U.S.-born parents. This mobility advantage shows up in every historical period and from nearly every country of origin and is particularly strong for the poorest families.

Focusing on children raised in the late 1970s and early 1980s, so that they are old enough for us to capture in the data their incomes in adulthood, we find that even children of parents from very poor countries like Nigeria and Laos earn more than the children of the U.S.-born raised in similar households. The children of immigrants from Central American countries—countries like Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua, which are often demonized for contributing to the “crisis” at the southern border—move up faster than the children of the U.S.-born, landing in the middle of the pack (right next to children of immigrants from Canada).

What’s more, some of the immigrant groups that politicians accused in the late 19th and early 20th centuries of having little to contribute to the economy—the Irish, Italians, and Portuguese—actually achieved the highest rates of upward mobility. Today, the children of immigrants from Mexico and the Dominican Republic are just as upwardly mobile as the children of Swedes and Danes were 100 years ago, going from the 25th percentile to the 50th percentile. One key factor that enabled the children of immigrants to escape poor circumstances and move up the economic ladder had to do with location. Immigrant parents have tended to move to areas that offered upward mobility for everyone. In the past, this mostly meant that immigrants did not settle in the American South, a region that offered fewer economic opportunities for them. The U.S. born, by comparison, were (and are) more rooted in place. 

One broad takeaway from our book to policy is that the short-term view that politicians tend to take for immigration undermines immigrants’ success. Catching up with the U.S. born might not happen for the immigrants themselves, but it does for their children. A long view of immigration policy, from the perspective of 100 years of U.S. immigration history and looking at the children of immigrants, could lead politicians to a more welcoming immigration policy that appreciates immigrants’ contributions to the U.S. economy and society.