Told Ya

They intend to come for it all.

Blanche assures anti-abortion supporters that Dobbs will be ‘permanent in every single state’

The acting attorney general made the remarks during a private call with faith leaders.

As his confirmation to lead the Justice Department hung by a thread last week, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche told faith leaders on a private call that he was preparing to take action to roll back abortion access nationwide.

On a recording of the call posted online Thursday by the religious group Intercessors for America and hosted by the White House Faith Office, Blanche lamented that the Trump administration’s efforts to restrict abortion are “taking longer than we want” but said the Justice Department was “working hand in hand” with federal health agencies and the White House “so that the Dobbs decision becomes permanent in every single state.”

Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the 2022 Supreme Court ruling that overturned the federal abortion protections of Roe v. Wade and allowed states to either ban or protect the procedure, created a national patchwork of access. To the consternation of abortion opponents, the number of abortions has increased since then despite dozens of states enacting restrictions.

“We don’t have complete victory yet, but we will have victory, and victory will be soon, and and and it will be permanent,” Blanche vowed.

In addition to those broad pronouncements, Blanche appeared to suggest specific restrictions were coming on telehealth prescription and mail delivery of abortion pills, saying the administration is “putting practices and policies in place” to stop shipment of the medications to states where they are banned.

Blanche’s remarks — made days before the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Tuesday morning vote on his nomination — go far beyond the actions on abortion he promised during his confirmation hearing. They also conflict with promises President Donald Trump made on the campaign trail to keep the federal government from enforcing restrictions on the pills.

Asked to explain what Blanche meant by “victory” and by making the high court decision “permanent in every single state,” the Justice Department said his comments were made solely “with respect to mail order abortion drugs” and did not elaborate further.

On the call, Blanche referenced the increase in blue-state doctors operating under shield laws prescribing the drugs mifepristone and misoprostol to patients living under bans and mailing the medications across state lines, and he promised to put a stop to the practice.

“If states have said, ‘We are going to protect the unborn and we’re going to protect every life from the moment of conception,’ we’re putting practices and policies in place so that other states and other organizations can’t attack that,” he said. “They can’t do things like they’re doing with mailing in mail-order drugs.”

Blanche did not tell the religious activists on the call whether he planned to block patients’ access to the pills using Food and Drug Administration drug safety regulations or the Comstock Act — a 150-year-old, long-dormant anti-obscenity law that some anti-abortion activists and elected officials have pushed as a tool for cutting off access to all drugs and surgical instruments used for abortion.

The distinction is meaningful. The FDA is considering reimposing restrictions on mifepristone, one of two pills needed to terminate a pregnancy. It is not looking at doing the same for the second pill, misoprostol, which is also widely used for treating ulcers and other health issues. Should the agency decide to cut off telehealth prescription and mail delivery of mifepristone, doctors and activists have contingency plans to continue prescribing and mailing misoprostol, which can cause an abortion on its own.

Invoking the Comstock Act, however, could block patients’ access to both pills through the mail throughout the U.S., though how the government would enforce the 1873 law to stop postal delivery of the medications to private homes remains unclear.

The Biden administration’s Justice Department in 2022 asserted that doctors could not be prosecuted for mailing abortion pills under the Comstock Act, arguing that since both pills are legal in every state for non-abortion purposes — such as treating miscarriages and postpartum bleeding — it wasn’t possible to prove that they were being mailed for an illicit purpose.

The Trump administration has yet to formally overrule that legal opinion. A Justice Department spokesperson said Monday that the opinion is now undergoing “a thorough review.”

When running for president in 2024, Trump angered anti-abortion groups by vowing not to use the Comstock Act to restrict access to abortion pills and arguing that “the federal government should have nothing to do with this issue.”

Blanche’s promises of imminent action to the activists on the call conflict with that pledge and surpass what the nominee said publicly in his confirmation hearing in mid-July.

Under questioning by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and other GOP committee members, Blanche agreed to “carefully evaluate every lawful action available to ensure the faithful enforcement of the Comstock Act,” but did not commit to any particular enforcement steps.

Blanche was also pressed multiple times during the hearing on the administration’s ongoing legal battle with Louisiana over mail-order abortion pills. In the leadup to the hearing, he faced demands from some conservative senators on the Judiciary Committee for a promise to settle the case — a move that could also lead to nationwide restrictions on mail delivery of the drugs. But he demurred when GOP senators pushed him publicly, saying: “I don’t think it’s appropriate to talk about our litigation strategy here.”

In the leadup to September, when the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals will hear Louisiana’s case against the FDA, anti-abortion activists have railed against the Trump administration for siding with the FDA over the conservative state in a case that could determine who can access mifepristone and how.

Blanche suggested in his confirmation hearing that the FDA’s ongoing review of mifepristone’s safety — which more than 100 peer-reviewed studies have confirmed — could give the administration the ammunition it needs to side with Louisiana in rolling back telehealth access to the drugs.

“We have to have studies that we can defend in court,” he said. “We have to be able to say to a judge … that our change was not arbitrary or capricious.”

During the White House Faith Office call last week, Blanche told the religious activists he shared their values and concerns, calling himself “a preacher’s kid.” He also apologized for being late, saying he was “updating President Trump on a few things, and when he calls, I answer.”

The acting attorney general’s conversation with Trump appears to have taken place just hours after the president publicly mused about pulling Blanche’s nomination and instead trying to push through a fund that could be used to compensate Jan. 6 rioters and others who claim to have been persecuted by the Biden administration.

Announcements at the beginning and end of the Intercessors for America call stated that it was “not intended for press purposes.” A speaker told attendees that the call was “not on the record” and directed any journalists on the line to hang up.

POLITICO was not on the call on Thursday when it took place and did not agree to any limits on reporting. Audio of the session was posted on YouTube by Intercessors for America, which calls itself “the largest national prayer ministry dedicated to praying for our government and leaders.”

As of Monday, the recording remained publicly accessible.

ICEhole

When government needs a veil of secrecy to conduct public policy is a strong indicator of creeping authoritarianism.

ICE has quietly used this warehouse as a detention facility all summer, neighbors say

ROXBURY, N.J. — On a warm morning on Sept. 4, masked immigration agents rolled into Dover, N.J.

Footage of the raids rippled across social media, sent people into hiding and reignited rumors that had been circulating for months: Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were taking people to a nearby warehouse.

D.E., who requested NPR use his initials only, stands near the location two blocks from his home, in which he was violently arrested by ICE officials without a warrant, in Long Branch, NJ. D.E., 44, who has had a brain tumor growing in his head for years, was denied medication by ICE officers, and as a result, suffered from several seizures.

The warehouse in Roxbury was one piece of a billion-dollar plan by the Department of Homeland Security to detain migrants as part of President Trump's mass deportation efforts.

That plan to convert warehouses into detention centers faced fierce backlash and legal challenges from residents and immigrant advocates. It was largely abandoned, and in several sites, including Roxbury, the government is legally forbidden by a court order from converting them to a detention facility, pending environmental assessments.

But an NPR investigation has found signs that the New Jersey facility is being used. And the state's Office of the Attorney General says it is looking into similar reports.

Contractor says he was told Stephen Miller wanted facilities to be "cruel"

In early 2026, Homeland Security bought 11 warehouses to turn into ICE detention facilities. They spent about a billion dollars on these.

NPR spoke to an official at a government contractor whose company was approached to convert several of the warehouses into ICE facilities. He spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation from the government.

"No one that we spoke to at DHS was for this idea whatsoever. The deputy director told us point-blank that they had pushed back very hard on it. Everybody knew warehouses are horrible places to put people," he says.

At a meeting with a deputy director at DHS, he says, his company proposed an alternative: FEMA-style camps in Texas that would be more humane.

He says that idea was swiftly shot down. While White House adviser Stephen Miller was not at the meeting, they were told that this was not what Miller wanted.

The contractor says his understanding from that meeting was that "Miller did not want the facilities that were comfortable. He did not want facilities that were humane. We were told point-blank that that was not what the administration wanted."

"Steve Miller certainly seemed to make that point to everyone that he wanted it to be cruel. This was what Miller had stated to the DHS at that time, to the DHS director and deputy director. What surprised me was just how adamant the people were that it was going to happen. Damn the consequences. I would say in 25 years of working with the U.S. government, I've never been in that position before."

In a statement to NPR, White House spokesperson Lauren Bis said the contractor's comments were "false hearsay allegation(s) from someone who has never even met or talked with Stephen Miller." Bis also said that Miller "has never made any remarks to anyone about wanting illegal aliens to have worse detention facility conditions. It simply isn't true and this is defamatory."

The White House did not respond to repeated requests to speak to Miller directly.

DHS is holding on to the strategically positioned warehouses

Early on, the warehouse plan was met with protests in both conservative and liberal towns. Several state attorneys general filed lawsuits to halt construction, based on environmental concerns.

"It very quickly became an absolute boondoggle," says Michael Wriston, a former military intelligence analyst who co-founded Project SaltBox, a watchdog group that tracks ICE's expansion. "It was really about the optics of people being kept in these cages and these large warehouses. They wanted a lot of what they called B-roll to play on social media, but they didn't do any due diligence of making sure that they conformed with environmental policy or that the construction wouldn't disturb local water tables."

A DHS official who served during Trump's first term, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they feared government retaliation, says that while they were not in the meeting the contractor described to NPR, they had often heard higher-ups in the administration wanting to make a point of showcasing difficult conditions immigrants were being held in.

Then, with the departure of DHS Secretary Kristi Noem in March, there was a shift: Her replacement, Secretary Markwayne Mullin, sought to do less showy immigration crackdowns. Today, Homeland Security is selling several of the warehouses.

But they're still holding on to a few, including in Hagerstown, Md., Surprise, Ariz., and Roxbury, N.J. "These locations are very critical to ICE's deportation agenda," says Wriston, "because they fill in the gap in places where ICE does not have a robust detention network. They don't have a lot of jails there." They are also located in areas where there are no partnerships with the police who can house detainees in local jails.

In Maryland, Arizona and New Jersey, following lawsuits from each of the state attorneys general, DHS has either agreed or been ordered by a judge to halt the conversion of the warehouses into detention centers, pending environmental impact assessments. But throughout the summer, in the towns surrounding the Roxbury warehouse, rumors started to bubble.

A summer of arrests and rumors

Over the summer, there was a historic surge in ICE arrests: around 100,000 people in July and August.

In New Jersey, the rumor mill started churning. The Roxbury warehouse is located in a wooded area, on a road right off Route 46. Project NINJA (No ICE in North Jersey Alliance), a coalition that opposes ICE detention expansion, says several neighbors reported vehicles, often in a caravan, speeding up the road.

"They're holding people in that warehouse," one woman says in a WhatsApp group in the town of Dover, which is about 15 minutes from Roxbury. "I have a co-worker who was taken there. They hold them there and at night they take them somewhere else." The message was forwarded to NPR by Dover Council Member Sandra Wittner.

"But, you know, it's like third- and fourth-hand accounts," says Wittner. "It just didn't seem probable at the time because of the court order. But it kind of made you scratch your head a little bit."

Then the morning of Sept. 4 happened.

"We were taken to the Roxbury warehouse"

A woman says she was driving to work when she saw a raid taking place in Dover. She decided to follow the car carrying people who were detained. "I just needed to know, is he going to Roxbury?"

She took video as she trailed them up Route 46. She asked that NPR not use her name because what happened next made her fearful of what the government might do.

She says the car she was following turned onto the woodsy road that leads to the warehouse.

She says she waited to see if there was any more movement.

"And then maybe five minutes after that, a white Dodge Durango started kind of circling around me," she says. "And then on his last loop, he started filming me. He had a yellow case on his cellphone. After that, a black Tahoe started doing the same thing. I was on a public sidewalk, and it was intimidating. It was really intimidating. I'm scared. But I am more scared for our community."

Councilwoman Wittner says she strongly suspects ICE is using the Roxbury warehouse: "The immigration enforcement activity happened in Dover between 7 a.m. and 8 a.m." Wittner points to the woman who was able to follow the vehicle up Route 46: "The last vehicle entered the warehouse road at 8:25 a.m."

Meanwhile, footage of the raid started circulating on social media.

Back in Dover, another woman says she saw the videos as she got her kids ready for school. NPR viewed the videos and confirmed their authenticity.

In one of them, a worker is cornered against a wall by two masked agents. She says she was thunderstruck.

"That's my father," she told NPR.

She asked that we not use her name because she fears being targeted.

At 8:25 a.m., she says, she got a call from her father. He's 59, she says, and he sounded disoriented. He told her he was handcuffed in some kind of jail.

She found it strange, she says, because the Roxbury warehouse would be the only place he could have been taken in that short a time span.

She also discovered a friend of hers had been picked up.

She hasn't been able to speak to her father since then, and neither has NPR. But NPR located her friend in Honduras, where he's been deported. He requested anonymity, because he fears repercussions for his loved ones who are still in the U.S.

"I was picked up on my way to work, on Friday, Sept. 4. The agents loaded me into a van. They took us to Roxbury," he said.

He says he and the other people detained were handcuffed and held in the parking lot for several hours. He counted nine other men with him. "I just went into a state of shock," he says. "I signed my deportation papers. The next morning I regretted it. But I was scared. Eventually, they transferred us to a real facility."

In a statement to NPR, DHS did not respond to a question about whether it was holding people at the Roxbury location. But it did give NPR a statement it has previously sent about ICE detention, saying DHS upholds strict standards and that immigrants can choose to leave detention by being deported.

"We need our Congress members to conduct an oversight visit yesterday"

The activists at NINJA say ICE's actions violate the legal order. The order lists several actions ICE can take with the site — mainly upkeep — but nowhere on that list is detention an acceptable action, they say.

Harvard professor Andrew Mergen, a former attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice Environment & Natural Resources Division, says ICE may technically not be violating the court order, which stipulated it would not convert the place into a detention center pending an environmental assessment.

Ultimately, Mergen says, the situation shows the limitations of using environmental claims. "The community is acting here to prevent people from being detained," says Mergen. "And the administration seems to have cleverly elided that intention, by sort of saying, 'Well, we're not going to build this facility, but we're going to use this space in furtherance of detention.'"

He says he understands the frustration: "It's just infuriating if what you are trying to do is say 'No. Not here. Not here.' "

Wittner says since the raid, she's heard from other close relatives or close friends of two men who were picked up that day, who say they were inside the Roxbury warehouse.

She says the situation is unacceptable: "We need our Congress members to conduct an oversight visit yesterday, quite honestly. We need our state to aggressively pursue this investigation and demand to get inside."

She says DHS has had time "to go in and clean up their mess if they, in fact, got caught doing something that they shouldn't have."

Meanwhile, in Dover, the streets where the raid happened remain deserted.

At an empty diner at lunchtime, a waitress who did not want to be named because of the climate of fear in town says one of the workers who was taken used to come here for a bite.

Then she leans over and asks: "Do you know where they took those men?"

Where's The Line, MAGA?

Der Doppelstaat

Dual State

The dual state is a model in which the functioning of a state is divided into a normative state, which operates according to a set rules and regulations, and a prerogative state, "which exercises unlimited arbitrariness and violence unchecked by any legal guarantees". The term was coined by Ernst Fraenkel to describe the functioning of the Nazi state, and especially law in Nazi Germany, which he described in his 1941 book The Dual State: A Contribution to the Theory of Dictatorship.

Although it was originally intended as an analysis of authoritarian states, some elements of the prerogative state are present in democracies.

The model has also been applied to other states, including Israel, the United States, South Africa, Fascist Italy, 21st-century China, Russia, Lebanon, and post-2015 Turkey.

United States

In 2025, amid changes in the way the U.S. government operated during the first year of Donald Trump's second term, some began to argue that the United States was beginning to resemble a dual state. The idea received increased attention after Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson cited The Dual State in a dissenting opinion on the Trump v. CASA case.

David French:

Today's Aaron

So, hang on a minute - are Republicans in Congress actually surprised that some of their main drivers and top-tier benefactors are moving closer to full blown White Nationalism?

Say what now? Where have these guys been?

Today's Agent Provocateur

They get more and more desperate for that Reichstag Fire thingie.

Today's Hawk

We are the majority.

America's Most Dangerous

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A post shared by Liz Oyer (@lawyer_oyer)

How It Happens

It's Not Hypocrisy

The authoritarian gangs mocked Trayvon Martin, and George Floyd, and Paul Pelosi, and Melissa Hortman, and and and. Now they've got their dander up because of Charlie Kirk. But that's not about hypocrisy. That's about normalizing and reinforcing "Us vs The Other".

ie:

MAGA's guy is a martyr deserving of sainthood, those other guys are Undesirables destined for the camps and extermination.

And all of you not toeing the line will suffer.

Now That's A Headline

Nobody has made it clear what crime problem we've got on The National Mall, and in Georgetown and NW DC.

Trump is looking to provoke a violent reaction, but if that doesn't materialize, he thinks he still "wins" by getting us accustomed to seeing big force in the streets.

Trump crime crackdown deploys troops in Washington's safest sites

Summary

• National Guard troops deployed in tourist district, not high-crime areas
• City leaders suggest it's more about a show of force by Trump
• Some troops say they doubt they will be involved in fighting crime

WASHINGTON, Aug 23 (Reuters) - Hundreds of National Guard soldiers in military fatigues and combat boots mingled with tourists, posed for selfies, and treated themselves to ice cream from food trucks on Thursday along Washington's National Mall, one of the safest parts of America's capital.

On occasion an angry local would hurl verbal abuse at them, but the soldiers simply shrugged and carried on what appeared to be an undemanding assignment.

Outside the National Museum of African American History and Culture, five members of the West Virginia National Guard were standing on the street corner far away from the city's crime hot spots.

"It's boring. We're not really doing much," said Sergeant Fox, who declined to give his first name.

Fox is among almost 2,000 troops, including 1,200 from six Republican-led states, who are being deployed in Washington as part of an extraordinary militarization inside the Democratic-led city.

The soldiers, some of whom told Reuters they did not get involved in arrests, are officially in Washington to support a federal crackdown on what President Donald Trump calls a crime epidemic. But that depiction appears to run counter to the fact that crime rates overall have shrunk in recent years.

That disconnect, combined with the troop concentration near the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial and in view of the U.S. Capitol, highlights criticism by the city's Democratic leaders that this massive deployment is more a show of power by Trump, rather than a serious effort to fight crime.

Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser said this week she did not think the arrival of troops was about tackling crime. She also expressed concern about the presence of "an armed militia in the nation's capital."

The soldiers seen by Reuters on Thursday were not armed, but the Pentagon said on Friday the troops will soon be on mission with their service-issued weapons.

By contrast with central Washington, residents of Ward 8 in the city's southeast - the area with the highest crime rate - said there was not a guardsman in sight. With the ward's murder rate dwarfing that of most other neighborhoods, many locals said they would welcome troops on their streets.

"I haven't seen any. This is where they need to be," said Shawana Turner, 50, a housing case manager on a Ward 8 street.

The Joint Task Force for the District of Columbia, which is leading the crime crackdown, said where National Guard troops are deployed is based on requests from law enforcement agencies.

Abigail Jackson, a White House spokeswoman, said teams of federal law enforcement officials are making arrests in Washington's highest crime areas every night.

"The National Guard is not making arrests at this time, their role is to protect federal assets - including law enforcement officers - and provide a visible law enforcement presence," she said.

The troops are one element of a surge of local and federal law enforcement agents in Washington, including the FBI, who have conducted active arrest operations since Trump announced earlier this month that he was federalizing law enforcement responsibility in Washington.

RARE DEPLOYMENTS

Deploying troops on American streets is rare and controversial. National Guard have been sent to Washington in recent years, to help bolster security at presidential inaugurations and during protests, including the January 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters.
But the city's declining crime rate, coupled with the limited involvement of the troops in crime fighting, has raised questions about the political motivations behind the current deployment.
Randy Manner, a retired National Guard major general, said he believed the deployment is a step towards Trump sending National Guard troops into other Democratic-led cities.
"Not in our lifetimes has a president said that I'm going to use uniformed soldiers to reduce crime," Manner told Reuters.

"There will be soldiers in other cities in the not-too-distant future. We're turning this into a militarized environment, and it's extremely sad."

During a visit to a police base in Washington on Thursday, Trump said his law enforcement crackdown will "go onto other places." Earlier this month Trump suggested he could shift his focus to cities including Chicago and New York.

To be sure, the presence of the guard in the heart of Washington was welcomed by some visitors.

As troops on the National Mall mingled with tourists from the U.S. and abroad, a group of guardsmen from Mississippi were walking alongside Anu Pokharel, his wife, and two daughters aged 8 and 5.

The software engineer, 43, who lived in Washington in the 1990s, was visiting the city with his family from Boston.

He said he supported the deployment. "It feels cleaner and safer," he said.

PRINTED STATEMENTS

As they strolled around central Washington, some soldiers told Reuters that they did not expect to get involved in arrests.

Specialist Nevaeh Lekanudos, part of West Virginia's National Guard, was outside a Metro station in the National Mall with several fellow guard members. She said she had not assisted in crime incidents or arrests.

Asked if she thought that is likely, she said, "Honestly at this rate I don't believe so." She added by being deployed in the National Mall, "it frees up the local law enforcement to do what they need to do."

Reuters spoke to 20 National Guard members, from West Virginia, South Carolina, Mississippi, and Tennessee. Governors from two other Republican-led states, Ohio and Louisiana, have also sent National Guard troops at Trump's request.

Most of the soldiers told Reuters they had been instructed not to talk to the press. Instead they had all been issued with a printed statement they produced from their pockets. It states that they are in the city to support "district and federal law enforcement by keeping DC beautiful and safe."

Our History Is Now

Lessons of the past are there for us to apply to what's happening now.

First they came for the illegals,

but I'm not an illegal, so I didn't speak up for them.

Then they came for the law firms and the media companies,

but I'm not a lawyer or a journalist, so I didn't speak up for them.

Then they came for the universities,

but I'm not a student or a professor or a researcher so I didn't speak up for them.

Then they came for the mayors and the governors,

but I'm not a politician so I didn't speak up for them.

When they finally turn and come for you and me - and they will because they always do -

who will be left to speak up for us?

So Do It Already

When you're going thru hell, keep going.

Horny For - Something

It sucks that The Daily Show gets better as the slide towards plutocracy accelerates.

Another Step Down The Slope

What Trump is doing doesn't have to mean the dark and foreboding Nazi shit that it definitely looks to be.

But if it isn't that Nazi shit, it shouldn't look so much like that Nazi shit.

And all that really bad Nazi shit didn't start with gas chambers and crematoria - it started with "common sense" ideas like restoring law and order, and taking back the streets.

ACLU Condemns Trump Executive Order Targeting Disabled and Unhoused People

WASHINGTON – President Trump signed an executive order today directing states to criminalize unhoused people and institutionalize people with mental health disabilities and substance use disorder.

The order, titled “Ending Crime and Disorder on American Streets,” directs the Justice Department to expand indefinite forced treatment for people with mental health disabilities or substance use disorder, and those living on the street who “cannot care for themselves.” The order also purports to eliminate federal funding for evidence-based programs, like harm reduction and housing first, that save lives, and directs federal funds toward cities and states that criminalize substance use disorder, punish people for sleeping outdoors, or enforce other laws targeting unhoused people.

The order also calls for sweeping federal data collection on unhoused people and those with mental health disabilities, raising serious concerns about surveillance, privacy, and how such data could be used to justify further criminalization. Instead of funding services or support, the administration is prioritizing profiling and control.

Scout Katovich, senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union’s Trone Center for Justice and Equality, issued the following statement in response to the executive order:

“From the so-called ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ that will strip health care from millions to this dangerous executive order, every action this administration takes displays remarkable disdain for the rights and dignity of vulnerable people.

“Pushing people into locked institutions and forcing treatment won’t solve homelessness or support people with disabilities. The exact opposite is true – institutions are dangerous and deadly, and forced treatment doesn’t work. We need safe, decent, and affordable housing as well as equal access to medical care and voluntary, community-based mental health and evidence-based substance use treatment from trusted providers. But instead of investing in these proven solutions, President Trump is blaming individuals for systemic failures and doubling down on policies that punish people with nowhere else to go – all after signing a law that decimates Medicaid, the number one payer for addiction and mental health services.

“Homelessness is a policy failure. Weaponizing federal funding to fuel cruel and ineffective approaches to homelessness won’t solve this crisis.”

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered:

Section 1.  Purpose and Policy.  Endemic vagrancy, disorderly behavior, sudden confrontations, and violent attacks have made our cities unsafe.  The number of individuals living on the streets in the United States on a single night during the last year of the previous administration — 274,224 — was the highest ever recorded.  The overwhelming majority of these individuals are addicted to drugs, have a mental health condition, or both.  Nearly two-thirds of homeless individuals report having regularly used hard drugs like methamphetamines, cocaine, or opioids in their lifetimes.  An equally large share of homeless individuals reported suffering from mental health conditions.  The Federal Government and the States have spent tens of billions of dollars on failed programs that address homelessness but not its root causes, leaving other citizens vulnerable to public safety threats.

Shifting homeless individuals into long-term institutional settings for humane treatment through the appropriate use of civil commitment will restore public order.  Surrendering our cities and citizens to disorder and fear is neither compassionate to the homeless nor other citizens.  My Administration will take a new approach focused on protecting public safety.

Sec. 2.  Restoring Civil Commitment.  (a)  The Attorney General, in consultation with the Secretary of Health and Human Services, shall take appropriate action to:

(i)   seek, in appropriate cases, the reversal of Federal or State judicial precedents and the termination of consent decrees that impede the United States’ policy of encouraging civil commitment of individuals with mental illness who pose risks to themselves or the public or are living on the streets and cannot care for themselves in appropriate facilities for appropriate periods of time; and

(ii)  provide assistance to State and local governments, through technical guidance, grants, or other legally available means, for the identification, adoption, and implementation of maximally flexible civil commitment, institutional treatment, and “step-down” treatment standards that allow for the appropriate commitment and treatment of individuals with mental illness who pose a danger to others or are living on the streets and cannot care for themselves.

Sec. 3.  Fighting Vagrancy on America’s Streets.  (a)  The Attorney General, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, and the Secretary of Transportation shall take immediate steps to assess their discretionary grant programs and determine whether priority for those grants may be given to grantees in States and municipalities that actively meet the below criteria, to the maximum extent permitted by law:

(i)    enforce prohibitions on open illicit drug use;

(ii)   enforce prohibitions on urban camping and loitering;

(iii)  enforce prohibitions on urban squatting;

(iv)   enforce, and where necessary, adopt, standards that address individuals who are a danger to themselves or others and suffer from serious mental illness or substance use disorder, or who are living on the streets and cannot care for themselves, through assisted outpatient treatment or by moving them into treatment centers or other appropriate facilities via civil commitment or other available means, to the maximum extent permitted by law; or

(v)    substantially implement and comply with, to the extent required, the registration and notification obligations of the Sex Offender Registry and Notification Act, particularly in the case of registered sex offenders with no fixed address, including by adequately mapping and checking the location of homeless sex offenders.

(b)  The Attorney General shall:

(i)    ensure that homeless individuals arrested for Federal crimes are evaluated, consistent with 18 U.S.C. 4248, to determine whether they are sexually dangerous persons and certified accordingly for civil commitment;

(ii)   take all necessary steps to ensure the availability of funds under the Emergency Federal Law Enforcement Assistance program to support, as consistent with 34 U.S.C. 50101 et seq., encampment removal efforts in areas for which public safety is at risk and State and local resources are inadequate;

(iii)  assess Federal resources to determine whether they may be directed toward ensuring, to the extent permitted by law, that detainees with serious mental illness are not released into the public because of a lack of forensic bed capacity at appropriate local, State, and Federal jails or hospitals; and

(iv)   enhance requirements that prisons and residential reentry centers that are under the authority of the Attorney General or receive funding from the Attorney General require in-custody housing release plans and, to the maximum extent practicable, require individuals to comply.

Sec. 4.  Redirecting Federal Resources Toward Effective Methods of Addressing Homelessness.  (a)  The Secretary of Health and Human Services shall take appropriate action to:

(i)    ensure that discretionary grants issued by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration for substance use disorder prevention, treatment, and recovery fund evidence-based programs and do not fund programs that fail to achieve adequate outcomes, including so-called “harm reduction” or “safe consumption” efforts that only facilitate illegal drug use and its attendant harm;

(ii)   provide technical assistance to assisted outpatient treatment programs for individuals with serious mental illness or addiction during and after the civil commitment process focused on shifting such individuals off of the streets and public programs and into private housing and support networks; and

(iii)  ensure that Federal funds for Federally Qualified Health Centers and Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics reduce rather than promote homelessness by supporting, to the maximum extent permitted by law, comprehensive services for individuals with serious mental illness and substance use disorder, including crisis intervention services.

(b)  The Attorney General shall prioritize available funding to support the expansion of drug courts and mental health courts for individuals for which such diversion serves public safety.

Sec. 5.  Increasing Accountability and Safety in America’s Homelessness Programs.  (a)  The Secretary of Health and Human Services and the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development shall take appropriate actions to increase accountability in their provision of, and grants awarded for, homelessness assistance and transitional living programs.  These actions shall include, to the extent permitted by law, ending support for “housing first” policies that deprioritize accountability and fail to promote treatment, recovery, and self-sufficiency; increasing competition among grantees through broadening the applicant pool; and holding grantees to higher standards of effectiveness in reducing homelessness and increasing public safety.  

(b)  The Secretary of Housing and Urban Development shall, as appropriate, take steps to require recipients of Federal housing and homelessness assistance to increase requirements that persons participating in the recipients’ programs who suffer from substance use disorder or serious mental illness use substance abuse treatment or mental health services as a condition of participation.

(c)  With respect to recipients of Federal housing and homelessness assistance that operate drug injection sites or “safe consumption sites,” knowingly distribute drug paraphernalia, or permit the use or distribution of illicit drugs on property under their control:

(i)   the Attorney General shall review whether such recipients are in violation of Federal law, including 21 U.S.C. 856, and bring civil or criminal actions in appropriate cases; and

(ii)  the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, in coordination with the Attorney General, shall review whether such recipients are in violation of the terms of the programs pursuant to which they receive Federal housing and homelessness assistance and freeze their assistance as appropriate.

(d)  The Secretary of Housing and Urban Development shall take appropriate measures and revise regulations as necessary to allow, where permissible under applicable law, federally funded programs to exclusively house women and children and to stop sex offenders who receive homelessness assistance through such programs from being housed with unrelated children. 

(e)  The Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, in consultation with the Attorney General and the Secretary of Health and Human Services, shall, as appropriate and to the extent permitted by law:

(i)   allow or require the recipients of Federal funding for homelessness assistance to collect health-related information that the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development identifies as necessary to the effective and efficient operation of the funding program from all persons to whom such assistance is provided; and

(ii)  require those funding recipients to share such data with law enforcement authorities in circumstances permitted by law and to use the collected health data to provide appropriate medical care to individuals with mental health diagnoses or to connect individuals to public health resources.

Sec. 6.  General Provisions.  (a)  Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:

(i)   the authority granted by law to an executive department or agency, or the head thereof; or

(ii)  the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.

(b)  This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.

(c)  This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.

(d)  The costs for publication of this order shall be borne by the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

DONALD J. TRUMP

THE WHITE HOUSE,

July 24, 2025.

A Question For A.I.

From The Bulwark

An oldie but a goodie from Nov 18, 2024

It’s Time to Consider the Worst-Case Scenario
Let’s go to the Bad Place together.

Jonathan V. Last

Until today I’ve resisted writing about the worst-case scenario for Trump’s second term. Instead, I’ve written (twice) about the best-case scenario.

But the conventional wisdom seems to have settled on the view that, Sure, this is all very bad. But also: It’s ultimately fine.

I view this as a dangerous failure of imagination.

So I’m going to lay out two big ideas for you today. The first is something like the worst-case scenario. It isn’t the literal worst-case scenario. The real worst case is always some version of “nuclear holocaust and everyone dies.” Instead what I’m going to describe is a 90th percentile variant: A set of outcomes that are the worst of the unlikely-but-not-black-swan timeline.

The second idea is that I’m going to try to persuade you that if Trump were actively pursuing such a set of outcomes, it would look very much like what we’re already seeing, right now.

In short, I’m going to ask you to expand your mind and peek over the horizon with me. But be warned: This isn’t going to be any fun.

Buckle up.

1. Forests and Trees

Last week Freddie deBoer wrote that liberals shouldn’t panic because, sure, Trump would be bad. But he wouldn’t be that bad.

A lot of awful stuff is going to happen. Some immediate pain points include the replacement of Lina Khan at the FTC with a pliable pro-corporate stooge, the dismantling of Joe Biden’s excellent NLRB, and an immediate gutting of federal wildlife and environmental protections. A lot worse will follow, very likely including even more tax cuts, which are the real reason so many upper-crust types held their nose and voted for Trump. (At the end of the day, there’s always enough will in Congress to cut taxes.) The incoherence that’s inherent to Trump’s foreign policy means that an honest-to-go shooting war might be possible. No relief will be coming for the Rust Belt or any other part of the United States hurt by deindustrialization. This all sucks and there’s going to be some dark times ahead.

At the same time, recent doomsaying has a lot of that usual Trump-era liberal chauvinism in it, where the relentless panic seems competitive and performative. . . . Yes, things are bad, but they’ve been bad before, and as destructive as the first Trump term was it wasn’t as terrible as people predicted. We’ve also had a worse presidential administration in clear living memory.

Is this a joke? Because I’m sorry but if you look at Trump’s second term and put “wildlife and environmental protections” in your top hundred concerns then something is deeply wrong with your priorities.

And the assertion that Trump’s first term “wasn’t as terrible as people predicted”?

He fired the federal government’s pandemic response team and then talked about injecting people with bleach while a global pandemic killed a million fucking Americans.

Then he assembled an armed mob and directed them to march on the Capitol in an attempt to prevent the duly elected incoming president from taking power.

If anyone had predicted either of those outcomes in 2016, they would have been dismissed as barking mad. The reality of Trump 1.0 turned out to be every bit the Worst-Case Scenario 1.0.

DeBoer is, like many people grappling with Trump 2.0, making a bunch of category errors and failing to imagine what a true worst-case scenario could look like.

And let me tell you: It has nothing to do with tax cuts, the FTC, and the NLRB.

Today's WTF

Seriously - what the fuck are we doing?

At CPAC yesterday

Gov Pritzker

It took the Nazis 1 month, 2 days, 8 hours, and 40 minutes to dismantle Germany's constitutional democracy.

JB Pritzker, sounding the alarm. Fascism is here, y'all. 2025 America is 1934 Germany. 😳👇 pic.twitter.com/XZOSx5ILUX

— Bill Madden (@maddenifico) February 20, 2025

The road to tyranny

is crowded
with people telling us
we're overreacting. 

Driving On

It has to be pretty obvious by now that everything Trump and Elon are doing is aimed at pushing towards that magic moment - The Constitutional Crisis.

I don't think we're there yet, but I can't deny we're practically on the brink. 

Trump's gang is attempting to line up as many issues as possible at the edge of the abyss so it would only take a fairly minor instigating incident to get enough people amped up - so it could all crash over the edge - seemingly as if it was inevitable and nobody's really to blame.

There could still be a Reichstag Fire, but if you have all the pieces in place, you don't really need it. In fact, you don't want that. You just pull the last lever, and all the other levers are activated, and away it goes, practically all by itself.

You want people to go fascist a little at a time, so it feels like a seduction instead of a rape.

Anyway, here's another step towards the edge. 

Fourth judge blocks Trump’s birthright executive order

A fourth federal judge blocked President Trump’s executive order to restrict birthright citizenship in the U.S., yet another blow to the president’s controversial idea.

In a pair of lawsuits, U.S. District Judge Leo Sorokin agreed that a group of 19 states and the District of Columbia as well as nonprofit organizations were “exceedingly likely” to prevail on the merits of their claims against the Trump administration.

“It is difficult to imagine a government or public interest that could outweigh the harms established by the plaintiffs here,” Sorokin wrote. “Perhaps that is why the defendants have identified none. Instead, they point only to the Executive Branch’s discretion in matters of immigration.”

Sorokin argued that birthright citizenship is guaranteed by 14th Amendment in the Constitution and has been moved “beyond the bounds” of executive authority from the president.

The attorneys representing an anonymous mother and immigrant groups celebrated the judge’s decision.

“We are gratified by today’s ruling,” Oren Sellstrom, the litigation director for Lawyers for Civil Rights, said in a statement. “Birthright citizenship is a sacred right granted by our Constitution, and the President cannot change that with the stroke of a pen.”

Hegseth responds to blowback from Ukraine, NATO remarks

On his first day back in the White House, Trump signed an executive order narrowing birthright citizenship by limiting the 14th Amendment’s birthright citizenship guarantee to exclude children born in the U.S. to parents without permanent legal status.

Sorokin’s ruling joins him with judges in several other states who have blocked Trump’s executive order.

Just days ago, a judge in New Hampshire granted an injunction. Two nearly identical injunctions were granted by two other judges, both criticizing the decision and protecting birthright citizenship across the country, at least temporarily.

The legal battle kicked off immediately after Trump signed the executive order. The original injunction, set forth by a judge appointed by former President Reagan, was set to expire when the two near-identical injunctions came in.

A 10th lawsuit was filed Thursday afternoon challenging Trump’s order, this time from the New York Immigration Coalition.

In his ruling, Sorokin pointed to the 1898 Supreme Court decision that allowed birthright citizenship and noted that the Trump administration could try to revisit that case, but it would have to be brought to the Supreme Court. Still, Sorokin said there have been no presidents in the past who have had issue with the more than a century-old ruling.

The judge slammed the Trump administration for not having a “legitimate interest” for the order and said it has not attempted to demonstrate how the continuation of birthright citizenship would harm the American public. The judge also pointed out that birthright stood under Trump’s first term.