Former President Obama, speaking on stand-up comedian Marc Maron’s final podcast on Monday, said the Trump administration’s policies are a “test” of whether universities, businesses, law firms and voters — including Republicans — will take a stand for the nation’s founding principles and values.
“If you decide not to vote, that’s a consequence. If you are a Hispanic man and you’re frustrated about inflation, and so you decided, ah, you know what, all that rhetoric about Trump doesn’t matter. ‘I’m just mad about inflation,’” Obama said. “And now your sons are being stopped in L.A. because they look Latino and maybe without the ability to call anybody, might just be locked up, well, that’s a test.”
“It’d be great if we weren’t tested this way, but you know what? We probably need to be shaken out of our complacency,” he said.
Obama also criticized some Democrats’ messaging as he touched on significant issues facing Californians and discussed the state of the nation’s democracy, core convictions and the weakening of institutional norms.
After Los Angeles-based Maron joked, “We’ve annoyed the average American into fascism,” Obama responded, “You can’t just be a scold all the time.
“You can’t constantly lecture people without acknowledging that you’ve got some blind spots too, and that life’s messy,” Obama said in the interview, which recently took place in the former president’s Washington, D.C., office.
Faulting language used by some liberals as “holier than thou,” Obama argued that Democrats could remain true to their principles while respecting those with whom they disagreed.
“Saying, ‘Right, I’ve got some core convictions [and] beliefs that I’m not going to compromise. But I’m also not going to assert that I am so righteous and so pure and so insightful that there’s not the possibility that maybe I’m wrong on this, or that other people, if they don’t say things exactly the way I say them or see things exactly the way I do, that somehow they’re bad people,’” he said.
Obama’s remarks come as the Democratic Party faces a reckoning after losing the presidential election in 2024, in part because of declining support from the party’s base, notably minority voters.
Maron, a comedian and actor, launched his “WTF With Marc Maron” podcast and radio show in 2009. Interviews with guests such as actor Robin Williams, comedian Louis C.K., filmmaker Kevin Smith and “Saturday Night Live” creator Lorne Michaels often took place at his Highland Park home.
Obama’s 2015 interview in Maron’s garage became the podcast’s most popular episode at the time — downloaded nearly 740,000 times in the first 24 hours after it was posted.
On Monday, the former president criticized institutions for capitulating to President Trump’s demands. His words come as USC leaders are debating whether to agree to a White House proposal to receive favorable access to federal funding if they align with Trump’s agenda.
“If you’re a university president, say, well, you know what? This will hurt if we lose some grant money in the federal government, but that’s what endowments are for,” Obama said. “Let’s see if we can ride this out, because what we’re not going to do is compromise our basic academic independence.”
Governor Gavin Newsom today issued the following statement in response to the Trump Administration deploying 300 California National Guard personnel into Portland, Oregon, after a federal district court blocked the attempted federalization of Oregon’s National Guard:“In response to a federal court order that blocked his attempt to federalize the Oregon National Guard, President Trump is deploying 300 California National Guard personnel into Oregon. They are on their way there now. This is a breathtaking abuse of the law and power. The Trump Administration is unapologetically attacking the rule of law itself and putting into action their dangerous words — ignoring court orders and treating judges, even those appointed by the President himself, as political opponents.This isn’t about public safety, it’s about power. The commander-in-chief is using the U.S. military as a political weapon against American citizens. We will take this fight to court, but the public cannot stay silent in the face of such reckless and authoritarian conduct by the President of the United States.” —Governor Gavin NewsomTrump illegally sends California troops to OregonDespite a federal court order finding no legal basis to deploy state National Guard troops to the streets of Portland and ordering that control of the Oregon National Guard be returned to state command, the Trump Administration is now sending 300 federally controlled members of the California National Guard to Portland to take their place. The troops had originally been federalized months ago in response to unrest in Los Angeles — conditions that never necessitated their deployment in the first place, and have long since subsided anyway. Courts rebuke Trump’s lawlessnessIn its ruling yesterday, the federal judge appointed by President Trump rejected the Trump Administration’s justification for deploying federalized troops, writing in its order: “This historical tradition boils down to a simple proposition: this is a nation of Constitutional law, not martial law. Defendants have made a range of arguments that, if accepted, risk blurring the line between civil and military federal power — to the detriment of this nation.”The court found that the President’s own statements regarding the deployment of federalized National Guard were not “conceived in good faith” and were “simply untethered to the facts.”
Governor Gavin Newsom today issued the following statement in response to the Trump Administration deploying 300 California National Guard personnel into Portland, Oregon, after a federal district court blocked the attempted federalization of Oregon’s National Guard:
“In response to a federal court order that blocked his attempt to federalize the Oregon National Guard, President Trump is deploying 300 California National Guard personnel into Oregon. They are on their way there now. This is a breathtaking abuse of the law and power. The Trump Administration is unapologetically attacking the rule of law itself and putting into action their dangerous words — ignoring court orders and treating judges, even those appointed by the President himself, as political opponents.
This isn’t about public safety, it’s about power. The commander-in-chief is using the U.S. military as a political weapon against American citizens. We will take this fight to court, but the public cannot stay silent in the face of such reckless and authoritarian conduct by the President of the United States.” —Governor Gavin Newsom
Trump illegally sends California troops to Oregon
Despite a federal court order finding no legal basis to deploy state National Guard troops to the streets of Portland and ordering that control of the Oregon National Guard be returned to state command, the Trump Administration is now sending 300 federally controlled members of the California National Guard to Portland to take their place. The troops had originally been federalized months ago in response to unrest in Los Angeles — conditions that never necessitated their deployment in the first place, and have long since subsided anyway.
Courts rebuke Trump’s lawlessness
In its ruling yesterday, the federal judge appointed by President Trump rejected the Trump Administration’s justification for deploying federalized troops, writing in its order:
“This historical tradition boils down to a simple proposition: this is a nation of Constitutional law, not martial law. Defendants have made a range of arguments that, if accepted, risk blurring the line between civil and military federal power — to the detriment of this nation.”
The court found that the President’s own statements regarding the deployment of federalized National Guard were not “conceived in good faith” and were “simply untethered to the facts.”
President Donald Trump’s crime and immigration crackdown hit a legal roadblock in Portland, Oregon, as new details emerged about the administration’s plan to send federal troops into Chicago. On Saturday, a federal judge temporarily blocked Trump’s effort to federalize 200 members of the Oregon National Guard. U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut said the plan to send troops to Portland likely overstepped Trump’s authority and threatened state sovereignty. “This is a nation of Constitutional law, not martial law. Defendants have made a range of arguments that, if accepted, risk blurring the line between civil and military federal power — to the detriment of this nation,” Immergut said. The decision was celebrated by state and local leaders who brought the lawsuit, but the White House vowed to appeal. “President Trump exercised his lawful authority to protect federal assets and personnel in Portland following violent riots and attacks on law enforcement — we expect to be vindicated by a higher court,” said White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson. An Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Portland has been at the center of recent protests. On Saturday, hundreds marched to the building, prompting federal agents to deploy tear gas, among other crowd-control munitions. At least six people were arrested. Similar demonstrations and a similar debate have been playing out in Chicago. On Saturday, the Department of Homeland Security said federal agents shot and injured one woman during what the agency described as a “defensive” response to an alleged vehicle-ramming attack. On Saturday, Trump authorized 300 troops to protect federal officers and assets in Chicago, despite opposition from Illinois Democratic Governor J.B. Pritzker. The timeline of the National Guard’s arrival was not immediately clear. More from our Washington Bureau:
President Donald Trump’s crime and immigration crackdown hit a legal roadblock in Portland, Oregon, as new details emerged about the administration’s plan to send federal troops into Chicago.
On Saturday, a federal judge temporarily blocked Trump’s effort to federalize 200 members of the Oregon National Guard. U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut said the plan to send troops to Portland likely overstepped Trump’s authority and threatened state sovereignty.
“This is a nation of Constitutional law, not martial law. Defendants have made a range of arguments that, if accepted, risk blurring the line between civil and military federal power — to the detriment of this nation,” Immergut said.
The decision was celebrated by state and local leaders who brought the lawsuit, but the White House vowed to appeal.
“President Trump exercised his lawful authority to protect federal assets and personnel in Portland following violent riots and attacks on law enforcement — we expect to be vindicated by a higher court,” said White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson.
An Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Portland has been at the center of recent protests. On Saturday, hundreds marched to the building, prompting federal agents to deploy tear gas, among other crowd-control munitions. At least six people were arrested.
Similar demonstrations and a similar debate have been playing out in Chicago. On Saturday, the Department of Homeland Security said federal agents shot and injured one woman during what the agency described as a “defensive” response to an alleged vehicle-ramming attack.
On Saturday, Trump authorized300 troops to protect federal officers and assets in Chicago, despite opposition from Illinois Democratic Governor J.B. Pritzker. The timeline of the National Guard’s arrival was not immediately clear.
Four of America’s nominally closest allies — Britain, Australia, France and Canada — disgraced themselves this week by recognizing a so-called Palestinian state. In so doing, these nations didn’t merely betray their Western civilizational inheritance. They also rewarded terrorism, strengthened the genocidal ambitions of the global jihad and sent a chilling message: The path to international legitimacy runs not through the difficult work of building up a nation-state and engaging in diplomacy, but through mass murder, the weaponization of transnational institutions and the erasure of historical truth.
The Trump administration has already denounced this craven capitulation by our allies. There should be no recognition of an independent Palestinian state at this moment in history. Such a recognition is an abdication not only of basic human decency, but also of national interest and strategic sanity.
The global march toward recognition of an independent Palestinian state ignores decades of brutal facts on the ground as well as the specific tide of blood behind this latest surge. It was less than two years ago — Oct. 7, 2023 — that Hamas launched the most barbaric anti-Jewish pogrom since the Holocaust: 6,000 terrorists poured into Israel, massacring roughly 1,200 innocent people in acts of unconscionable depravity — systematic rape, torture, kidnapping of babies. The terrorists livestreamed their own atrocities and dragged more than 250 hostages back to Gaza’s sprawling subterranean terror dungeons, where dozens remain to this day.
Many gullible liberal elites wish to believe that the radical jihadists of Hamas do not represent the broader Palestinian-Arab population, but that is a lie. Polls consistently show — and anecdotal videos of large street crowds consistently demonstrate — that Hamas and like-minded jihadist groups maintain overwhelming popularity in both Gaza and Judea and Samaria (what the international community refers to as the West Bank). These groups deserve shame, scorn and diplomatic rebuke — not fawning sympathy and United Nations red carpets.
The “government” in Gaza is a theocratic, Iranian-backed terror entity whose founding charter drips with unrepentant Jew-hatred and whose leaders routinely celebrate the wanton slaughter of innocent Israelis as triumphs of “resistance.” Along with the kleptocratic Palestinian Authority dictatorship in Ramallah, this is who, and what, Group of 7 powers like Britain and France have decided to reward with an imprimatur of legitimate statehood.
There is no meaningful “peace partner,” and no “two-state” vision to be realized, amid this horrible reality. There is only a sick cult of violence, lavishly funded from Tehran and eager for widespread international recognition as a stepping stone toward the destruction of Israel — and the broader West for which Israel is a proxy.
For decades, Western leaders maintained a straightforward position: There can be no recognition of a Palestinian state outside of direct negotiations with Israel, full demilitarization and the unqualified acceptance of Israel’s right to exist in secure borders as a distinctly Jewish state. The move at the United Nations to recognize a Palestinian state torches that policy, declaring to the world that savagery and maximalist rejectionism are the currency of international legitimacy. By rewarding unilateralism and eschewing direct negotiation, these reckless Western governments have proved us international law skeptics right: The much-ballyhooed “peace process” agreements, such as the Oslo Accords of the 1990s, are not worth the paper they were written on.
In the wake of Oct. 7, these nations condemned the massacre, proclaimed solidarity with Israel and even briefly suspended funding for UNRWA, the U.N. aid group for the Palestinian territories, after agency employees were accused of participating in the attack. Yet, under the relentless drumbeat of anti-Israel activism and diplomatic cowardice, they have now chosen to rehabilitate the Palestinian-Arab nationalist cause — not after the leaders of the cause renounced terrorism, but while its most gruesome crimes remained unpunished, its hostages still languish in concentration camp-like squalor and its leaders still clamor for the annihilation of Israel.
Trump should clarify not only that America will not join in this dangerous, high-stakes charade, but also that there could very well be negative trade or diplomatic repercussions for countries that recognize an independent Palestinian terror state. The reason for such consequences would be simple: Undermining America’s strongest ally in the Middle East while simultaneously creating yet another new terror-friendly Islamist state directly harms the American national interest. There is no American national interest — none, zero — in the creation of a new Palestinian state in the heart of the Holy Land. On the contrary, as the Abraham Accords peace deals of 2020 proved, there is plenty of reason to embolden Israel. Contra liberal elites, it is this bolstering of Israel that fosters genuine regional peace.
The world must know: In the face of evil, America does not flinch, does not equivocate and does not reward those who murder our friends and threaten the Judeo-Christian West. As long as the Jewish state stands on the front lines of civilization, the United States must remain at its side, unwavering, unbowed and unashamed. Basic human decency and the American national interest both require nothing less.
Josh Hammer’s latest book is “Israel and Civilization: The Fate of the Jewish Nation and the Destiny of the West.” This article was produced in collaboration with Creators Syndicate. X: @josh_hammer
MEXICO CITY — Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum on Monday called Israel’s siege on the Gaza Strip a “genocide,” marking a decisive shift in her government’s stance on the conflict — and putting it at odds with the United States.
Sheinbaum, who is one of a handful Jewish heads of state, has come under increasing pressure from members of her leftist coalition to more forcefully condemn Israel’s assault on the small Palestinian enclave, where at least 65,000 people have died and more than half a million are trapped in famine.
Speaking to journalists at her daily news conference, Sheinbaum said Mexico stands “with the international community to stop this genocide in Gaza.”
Claudia Sheinbaum, 63, is the first Jewish leader of Mexico, a nation that is overwhelmingly Catholic.
Her comments came amid a meeting in New York of the United Nations General Assembly, where several countries, including France, Britain, Canada and Australia, have formally recognized Palestine as a state. Mexico has formally supported Palestinian statehood for years.
Sheinbaum, 63, is the first Jewish leader of Mexico, a nation that is overwhelmingly Catholic. She grew up in a secular household and rarely talks about her Jewish identity.
Sheinbaum, who entered politics from the world of leftist activism, has long supported the Palestinian cause. In 2009, she wrote a letter to Mexican newspaper La Jornada fiercely condemning Israel’s actions in an earlier war with Gaza, where 13 Israelis and more than 1,000 Palestinian civilians and militants had been killed.
Sheinbaum evoked the Holocaust, saying “many of my relatives … were exterminated in concentration camps.”
“I can only watch with horror the images of the Israeli bombing of Gaza,” she wrote. “Nothing justifies the murder of Palestinian civilians. Nothing, nothing, nothing, can justify the murder of a child.”
The latest conflict broke out in 2023 after Hamas fighters broke through a border fence encircling Gaza and killed more than 1,000 Israelis, most of them civilians.
Israel responded with a punishing assault on Gaza from air, land and sea, displacing nearly all of the strip’s 2 million people and damaging or destroying 90% of homes.
Since taking office last year, Sheinbaum has repeatedly called for a cease-fire and reiterated Mexico’s support for a two-state solution in the region, but until Monday she had refrained from categorizing what is unfolding in Gaza as a genocide.
That was possibly to avert conflict with the United States, which has given more foreign assistance to Israel than any other country globally in the decades since World War II, and which has supported the war on Gaza with billions of dollars in weapons and other military aid.
Sheinbaum, whose nation’s economy depends heavily on trade with the U.S., has spent much of her first year in office seeking to appease President Trump on the issues of security and migration in order to avoid the worst of his threatened tariffs on Mexican imports.
Her comments on Gaza come amid growing global consensus that Israel is committing genocide.
The world’s leading association of genocide scholars has declared that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
The International Assn. of Genocide Scholars recently passed a resolution that says Israel’s conduct meets the legal definition as spelled out in the United Nations convention on genocide.
And this month, a U.N. commission of inquiry also found Israel has committed genocide.
An Israeli flag waves over debris in an area of the Gaza Strip, as seen from southern Israel last month. Israel’s assault on the Palestinian enclave has killed at least 65,000 people.
(Maya Levin / Associated Press)
“Explicit statements by Israeli civilian and military authorities and the pattern of conduct of the Israeli security forces indicate that the genocidal acts were committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip as a group,” the commission wrote.
It added that under the Genocide Convention, other nations have an obligation to “prevent and punish the crime of genocide.”
Israeli officials dismissed the report as “baseless.”
The Trump administration on Monday added Colombia to a list of nations failing to cooperate in the drug war for the first time in almost 30 years, a stinging rebuke to a traditional U.S. ally that reflects a recent surge in cocaine production and fraying ties between the White House and the country’s leftist president.Even as it determined that Colombia had failed to comply with its international counternarcotics obligations, the Trump administration issued a waiver of sanctions that would have triggered major aid cuts, citing vital U.S. national interests.Nonetheless, it is a major step against one of the United States’ staunchest allies in Latin America, which analysts said could hurt the economy and further hamper efforts to restore security in the countryside.President Gustavo Petro, who has said on several occasions that whisky kills more people than cocaine, lamented Trump’s decision during a televised cabinet meeting Monday, saying Colombia was penalized after sacrificing the lives of “dozens of policemen, soldiers and regular citizens, trying to stop cocaine” from reaching the United States.“What we have been doing is not really relevant to the Colombian people,” he said of the nation’s antidrug efforts. “It’s to stop North American society from smearing its noses” in cocaine.The U.S. last added Colombia to the list, through a process known as decertification, in 1997 when the country’s cartels — through threats of violence and money — had poisoned much of the nation’s institutions.”Decertification is a blunt tool and a huge irritant in bilateral relations that goes well beyond drug issues and makes cooperation far harder in any number of areas,” said Adam Isacson, a security researcher at the Washington Office on Latin America. “That’s why it’s so rarely used.”The president at the time, Ernesto Samper, was facing credible accusations of receiving illicit campaign contributions from the now-defunct Cali cartel and a plane he was set to use for a trip to New York to attend the U.N. General Assembly session was found carrying 4 kilograms of heroin.A remarkable turnaround began once Samper left office. Successive U.S. administrations — both Republican and Democrats — sent billions in foreign assistance to Colombia to eradicate illegal coca crops, strengthen its armed forces in the fight against drug-fueled rebels and provide economic alternatives to poor farmers who are on the lowest rungs of the cocaine industry.Cocaine production surgesThat cooperation, a rare U.S. foreign policy success in Latin America, started to unravel following the suspension a decade ago of aerial eradication of coca fields with glyphosate. It followed a Colombia high court ruling that determined the U.S.-funded program was potentially harmful to the environment and farmers.A 2016 peace accord with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the nation’s largest rebel group known as FARC, also committed Colombia to rolling back punitive policies likened to the U.S. spraying of Agent Orange during the Vietnam War in favor of state building, rural development and voluntary crop substitution.Since then, cocaine production has skyrocketed. The amount of land dedicated to cultivating coca, the base ingredient of cocaine, has almost tripled in the past decade to a record 253,000 hectares in 2023, according to the latest report available from the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime. That is almost triple the size of New York City.Along with production, drug seizures also have soared to 654 metric tons so far this year. Colombia seized a record 884 metric tons last year.But unlike past governments, manual eradication of coca crops under Petro’s leadership has slowed, to barely 5,048 hectares this year — far less than the 68,000 hectares uprooted in the final year of his conservative predecessor’s term and well below the government’s own goal of 30,000 hectares.A critic of U.S. policyPetro, a former rebel himself, also has angered senior U.S. officials by denying American extradition requests as well as criticizing the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown and its efforts to combat drug trafficking in neighboring Venezuela.“Under my administration, Colombia does not collaborate in assassinations,” Petro said on Sept. 5 after the U.S. military carried out a deadly strike on a small Venezuelan vessel in the Caribbean that the Trump administration said was transporting cocaine bound for the U.S.“The failure of Colombia to meet its drug control obligations over the past year rests solely with its political leadership,” Trump said in a presidential memo submitted to Congress. “I will consider changing this designation if Colombia’s government takes more aggressive action to eradicate coca and reduce cocaine production and trafficking, as well as hold those producing, trafficking, and benefiting from the production of cocaine responsible, including through improved cooperation with the United States to bring the leaders of Colombian criminal organizations to justice.”Under U.S. law, the president annually must identify countries that have failed to meet their obligations under international counternarcotics agreements during the previous 12 months.In addition to Colombia, the Trump administration listed four other countries — Afghanistan, Bolivia, Burma and Venezuela — as among 23 major drug transit or drug-production countries that have failed to meet their international obligations. With the exception of Afghanistan, the White House determined that U.S. assistance to those countries was vital to national interests and therefore they would be spared any potential sanctions.The redesignation of Venezuela as a country that has failed to adequately fight narcotics smuggled from neighboring Colombia comes against the backdrop of a major U.S. military buildup in the Caribbean that has already led to two deadly strikes on small Venezuelan vessels that the Trump administration said were transporting cocaine bound for the U.S.“In Venezuela, the criminal regime of indicted drug trafficker Nicolás Maduro leads one of the largest cocaine trafficking networks in the world, and the United States will continue to seek to bring Maduro and other members of his complicit regime to justice for their crimes,” Trump’s designation said. “We will also target Venezuelan foreign terrorist organizations such as Tren de Aragua and purge them from our country.”___Suarez reported from Bogota, Colombia. AP writer Manuel Rueda contributed to this report from Bogota.
MIAMI —
The Trump administration on Monday added Colombia to a list of nations failing to cooperate in the drug war for the first time in almost 30 years, a stinging rebuke to a traditional U.S. ally that reflects a recent surge in cocaine production and fraying ties between the White House and the country’s leftist president.
Even as it determined that Colombia had failed to comply with its international counternarcotics obligations, the Trump administration issued a waiver of sanctions that would have triggered major aid cuts, citing vital U.S. national interests.
Nonetheless, it is a major step against one of the United States’ staunchest allies in Latin America, which analysts said could hurt the economy and further hamper efforts to restore security in the countryside.
President Gustavo Petro, who has said on several occasions that whisky kills more people than cocaine, lamented Trump’s decision during a televised cabinet meeting Monday, saying Colombia was penalized after sacrificing the lives of “dozens of policemen, soldiers and regular citizens, trying to stop cocaine” from reaching the United States.
“What we have been doing is not really relevant to the Colombian people,” he said of the nation’s antidrug efforts. “It’s to stop North American society from smearing its noses” in cocaine.
The U.S. last added Colombia to the list, through a process known as decertification, in 1997 when the country’s cartels — through threats of violence and money — had poisoned much of the nation’s institutions.
“Decertification is a blunt tool and a huge irritant in bilateral relations that goes well beyond drug issues and makes cooperation far harder in any number of areas,” said Adam Isacson, a security researcher at the Washington Office on Latin America. “That’s why it’s so rarely used.”
The president at the time, Ernesto Samper, was facing credible accusations of receiving illicit campaign contributions from the now-defunct Cali cartel and a plane he was set to use for a trip to New York to attend the U.N. General Assembly session was found carrying 4 kilograms of heroin.
A remarkable turnaround began once Samper left office. Successive U.S. administrations — both Republican and Democrats — sent billions in foreign assistance to Colombia to eradicate illegal coca crops, strengthen its armed forces in the fight against drug-fueled rebels and provide economic alternatives to poor farmers who are on the lowest rungs of the cocaine industry.
Cocaine production surges
That cooperation, a rare U.S. foreign policy success in Latin America, started to unravel following the suspension a decade ago of aerial eradication of coca fields with glyphosate. It followed a Colombia high court ruling that determined the U.S.-funded program was potentially harmful to the environment and farmers.
A 2016 peace accord with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the nation’s largest rebel group known as FARC, also committed Colombia to rolling back punitive policies likened to the U.S. spraying of Agent Orange during the Vietnam War in favor of state building, rural development and voluntary crop substitution.
Since then, cocaine production has skyrocketed. The amount of land dedicated to cultivating coca, the base ingredient of cocaine, has almost tripled in the past decade to a record 253,000 hectares in 2023, according to the latest report available from the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime. That is almost triple the size of New York City.
Along with production, drug seizures also have soared to 654 metric tons so far this year. Colombia seized a record 884 metric tons last year.
But unlike past governments, manual eradication of coca crops under Petro’s leadership has slowed, to barely 5,048 hectares this year — far less than the 68,000 hectares uprooted in the final year of his conservative predecessor’s term and well below the government’s own goal of 30,000 hectares.
A critic of U.S. policy
Petro, a former rebel himself, also has angered senior U.S. officials by denying American extradition requests as well as criticizing the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown and its efforts to combat drug trafficking in neighboring Venezuela.
“Under my administration, Colombia does not collaborate in assassinations,” Petro said on Sept. 5 after the U.S. military carried out a deadly strike on a small Venezuelan vessel in the Caribbean that the Trump administration said was transporting cocaine bound for the U.S.
“The failure of Colombia to meet its drug control obligations over the past year rests solely with its political leadership,” Trump said in a presidential memo submitted to Congress. “I will consider changing this designation if Colombia’s government takes more aggressive action to eradicate coca and reduce cocaine production and trafficking, as well as hold those producing, trafficking, and benefiting from the production of cocaine responsible, including through improved cooperation with the United States to bring the leaders of Colombian criminal organizations to justice.”
Under U.S. law, the president annually must identify countries that have failed to meet their obligations under international counternarcotics agreements during the previous 12 months.
In addition to Colombia, the Trump administration listed four other countries — Afghanistan, Bolivia, Burma and Venezuela — as among 23 major drug transit or drug-production countries that have failed to meet their international obligations. With the exception of Afghanistan, the White House determined that U.S. assistance to those countries was vital to national interests and therefore they would be spared any potential sanctions.
The redesignation of Venezuela as a country that has failed to adequately fight narcotics smuggled from neighboring Colombia comes against the backdrop of a major U.S. military buildup in the Caribbean that has already led to two deadly strikes on small Venezuelan vessels that the Trump administration said were transporting cocaine bound for the U.S.
“In Venezuela, the criminal regime of indicted drug trafficker Nicolás Maduro leads one of the largest cocaine trafficking networks in the world, and the United States will continue to seek to bring Maduro and other members of his complicit regime to justice for their crimes,” Trump’s designation said. “We will also target Venezuelan foreign terrorist organizations such as Tren de Aragua and purge them from our country.”
___
Suarez reported from Bogota, Colombia. AP writer Manuel Rueda contributed to this report from Bogota.
Charlie Kirk, the conservative millennial influencer who galvanized young Americans to support the GOP and was assassinated this week in Utah, was the most influential modern-day catalyst of shifting voting trends among fledgling voters, according to Republican and Democratic strategists.
Kirk founded the nonprofit Turning Point USA in 2012 at the age of 18, and it grew into a force that promoted conservative views on high school and college campuses across the nation.
“He found something among young people that none of us identified,” said Shawn Steel, a member of the Republican National Committee from Orange County who knew Kirk for nearly a decade and invited him to speak before the RNC’s conservative steering committee.
“He found an entire movement in America that conservatives were not even aware they could find. Not only that, he nurtured and created an entire new generation of conservative activists,” said Steel, the husband of former Rep. Michelle Steel. “His legacy will endure.”
The admiration for Kirk’s political organizing skills and mental acuity cut across political lines.
“Whether you agreed with him or not — and to be clear, I didn’t — he was one of the most brilliant political organizers of his generation, and probably generations before that,” said Stephanie Cutter, a veteran Democratic strategist who served as an advisor to Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, First Lady Michelle Obama and Vice President Kamala Harris. “He could be controversial, but he struck a nerve with people who were likely disengaged in politics prior to Turning Point and built a powerful movement.”
In addition to appealing to young voters about the economic headwinds they faced as they sought to climb the career ladder and tried to buy a house, Kirk also espoused sharply conservative views.
Beyond espousing traditional conservative views — being anti-abortion, pro-gun rights and dubious of climate change — Kirk was critical of gay and transgender rights, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, saying last year that if he saw a Black airplane pilot, he hoped he was qualified. He was accused of being an anti-Semite because of repeated comments about the power of Jewish donors in the United States, and of being Islamophobic because of comments such as describing “large dedicated Islamic areas” as “a threat to America.”
Kirk, 31 and a father of two, died Wednesday after being shot in the neck while speaking at Utah Valley University. Kirk’s assassination was the latest instance of political violence in an increasingly politically polarized country.
President Trump survived two assassination attempts in 2024 as he successfully sought reelection to the White House.
Kirk’s “mission was to bring young people into the political process, which he did better than anybody ever, to share his love of country and to spread the simple words of common sense on campuses nationwide,” Trump said Wednesday.
On Thursday, Trump told reporters on the White House’s South Lawn that Kirk was partly responsible for his victory in the 2024 presidential election and repeated that he would posthumously award Kirk the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Turning Point USA, created a month before Kirk graduated from high school, became the new face of conservatism on college campuses and had chapters at more than 800 schools. Prominent conservatives heavily funded the group; in the fiscal year that ended in June of 2024, Turning Point reported $85 million in revenue.
Longtime GOP activist Jon Fleischman, the former executive director of the California Republican Party and the former chairman of the state’s chapter of Young Americans for Freedom in the early 1990s, said Kirk was pivotal to Trump’s election.
“Charlie Kirk was probably the single most prominent and successful youth organizer in the Trump movement,” Fleischman said, adding that Kirk superseded any other GOP organizer he knew at increasing conservative prospects among young voters.
“As somebody who cut their teeth as a youth organizer, I have nothing but awe for the level of sophistication he brought to that field of work,” he said.
Support for Trump among young voters exponentially increased in the 2024 presidential election, according to data compiled by Tufts University. While President Biden had a 25-point edge over Trump among voters ages 18 to 29 in the 2020 election, Harris had a four-point advantage among this cohort last year.
“This last election was the best performance Republicans have had with the youth vote, particularly male voters, in 20 years, maybe even going back to the ’80s,” said Steve Deace, a conservative radio host in Iowa who had known Kirk for a decade.
He gave credit for that success partly to work Kirk did on the ground at colleges across the country, notably being willing to amicably debate with people who disagreed with his beliefs.
“Charlie was basically a Renaissance man who was comfortable in a lot of settings. He wasn’t hoity-toity,” he said.
Deace and others added that this moment could be a turning point for the nation’s democracy and the split between the left and the right.
“We’re going to have a real conversation about whether we can share a country or not. The answer may be we can’t,” Deace said. “We have to decide if we are capable of the fundamental differences between us being adjudicated at the ballot box…. We have to decide if we can share a country. If we truly want to, we’ll figure it out. If we don’t, we won’t. That’s the conversation that needs to happen.”
Bombastic conservative commentator Roger Stone went further, arguing that modern-day Democrats are a greater threat to the nation than terrorists, drug cartels and foreign spies.
“The rot is too deep to reverse our course with mere rhetoric,” Stone wrote to supporters. “Sept. 10, 2025 was the day we crossed the Rubicon, lost our innocence and realized only one path remains to ensure humanity’s survival. The time for American renewal is at hand, and the tree of liberty shall germinate in warp speed with Charlie Kirk serving as the martyr of our glorious refounding.”
A state appeals court on Wednesday in a major decision ruled Florida’s ban on openly carrying guns is unconstitutional.A three-judge panel of the 1st District Court of Appeal, pointing to U.S. Supreme Court rulings on Second Amendment issues, said the open-carry ban is incompatible with the nation’s “historical tradition of firearm regulation.”The state’s Attorney General said his office “fully supports the Court’s decision.”He went on to say. “This is a big win for the Second Amendment rights of Floridians. As we’ve all witnessed over the last few days, our God-given right to self-defense is indispensable.”Lake County Commissioner Anthony Sabatini took to X and shared: “FLORIDA IS NOW AN OPEN CARRY STATE!””As a member of the Florida House of Representatives I fought for 4 years in Tallahassee for Open Carry—only to see my gun bills blocked by fake Republicans—thank you to Florida’s 1st District Court of Appeal for standing up for liberty while the Legislature failed.:Statement from the Orlando Police DepartmentThe Orlando Police Department does not provide opinions on legislative or judicial decisions. Our role is to uphold and enforce all applicable state laws and city ordinances as they are established.Statement from Flagler County Sheriff Rick Staly>> The News Service of Florida contributed to this story>> This is a developing story and will be updated
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. —
A state appeals court on Wednesday in a major decision ruled Florida’s ban on openly carrying guns is unconstitutional.
A three-judge panel of the 1st District Court of Appeal, pointing to U.S. Supreme Court rulings on Second Amendment issues, said the open-carry ban is incompatible with the nation’s “historical tradition of firearm regulation.”
The state’s Attorney General said his office “fully supports the Court’s decision.”
He went on to say. “This is a big win for the Second Amendment rights of Floridians. As we’ve all witnessed over the last few days, our God-given right to self-defense is indispensable.”
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Florida’s 1st District Court of Appeals just ruled that Florida’s open carry ban is no longer constitutionally enforceable statewide. Our office fully supports the Court’s decision.
This is a big win for the Second Amendment rights of Floridians.
Lake County Commissioner Anthony Sabatini took to X and shared:
“FLORIDA IS NOW AN OPEN CARRY STATE!”
“As a member of the Florida House of Representatives I fought for 4 years in Tallahassee for Open Carry—only to see my gun bills blocked by fake Republicans—thank you to Florida’s 1st District Court of Appeal for standing up for liberty while the Legislature failed.:
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BREAKING—FLORIDA APPELLATE COURT STRIKES DOWN FLORIDA’S BAN AGAINST OPEN CARRY OF FIRE ARMS AS UNCONSTITUTIONAL—FLORIDA IS NOW AN OPEN CARRY STATE!
As a member of the Florida House of Representatives I fought for 4 years in Tallahassee for Open Carry—only to see my gun bills… pic.twitter.com/Dl3A2Uyqt1
The Orlando Police Department does not provide opinions on legislative or judicial decisions. Our role is to uphold and enforce all applicable state laws and city ordinances as they are established.
Statement from Flagler County Sheriff Rick Staly
This content is imported from Twitter.
You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.
>> The News Service of Florida contributed to this story
Two assassination attempts on President Trump. The assassination of a Minnesota state lawmaker and her husband and the wounding of others. The shooting death of a top healthcare executive. The killing of two Israeli embassy employees in Washington. The storming of the U.S. Capitol by a violent mob intent on forcing the nation’s political leaders to their will.
And, on Wednesday, the fatal shooting of one of the nation’s most prominent conservative political activists — close Trump ally Charlie Kirk — as he spoke at a public event on a university campus.
If it wasn’t already clear from all those other incidents, Kirk’s killing put it in sharp relief: The U.S. is in a new era of political violence, one that is starker and more visceral than any other in decades — perhaps, experts said, since the fraught days of 1968, when two of the most prominent figures in the civil rights movement, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, were both assassinated in a matter of months.
“We’re very clearly in a moment where the temperature of our political discourse is extremely high,” said Ruth Braunstein, an associate professor of sociology at Johns Hopkins University who has studied religion and the far right in modern politics. “Part of what we see when that happens are these outbursts of political violence — where people come to believe that violence is the only solution.”
While the exact motives of the person who shot Kirk are still unknown, Braunstein and other experts on political violence said the factors shaping the current moment are clear — and similar to those that shaped past periods of political violence.
Intense economic discomfort and inequity. Sharp divisions between political camps. Hyperbolic political rhetoric. Political leaders who lack civility and constantly work to demonize their opponents. A democratic system that many see as broken, and a hopelessness about where things are headed.
“There are these moments of great democratic despair, and we don’t think the political system is sufficiently responsive, sufficiently legitimate, sufficiently attentive, and that’s certainly going on in this particular moment,” said Jon Michaels, a UCLA law professor who teaches about the separation of powers and co-authored “Vigilante Nation: How State-Sponsored Terror Threatens Our Democracy.”
“If we think there are no political solutions, there are no legal solutions, people are going to resort to forms of self help that are really, really deeply troubling.”
Michaels said the country has been here before, but also that he worries such cycles of violence are occurring faster today and with shorter breaks in between — that while “we’ve been bitterly divided” for years, those divisions have now “completely left the arena of ideas and debate and contestation, and become much more kinetic.”
Michaels said he is still shaken by all the “defenses or explanations or rationalizations” that swirled around the country after the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in New York City in December — which some people argued was somehow justified by their displeasure with UnitedHealthcare’s policies or frustration with the American healthcare system.
That the suspect, Luigi Mangione, would attract almost cult-like adoration in some circles seemed like an alarming shift in an already polarized nation, Michaels said.
“I understand it is not the beliefs of the typical person walking down the street, but it’s seeping into our culture slowly but surely,” he said — and in a way that makes him wonder, “Where are we going to be in four or five years?”
People across America were asking similar questions about Wednesday’s shooting, wondering in which direction it might thrust the nation’s political discourse in the days ahead.
How will Kirk’s many conservative fans — including legions of young people — respond? How will leaders, including Trump, react? Will there be a shared recognition that such violence does no good, or fresh attempts at retaliation and violence?
Leaders from both parties seemed interested in averting the latter. One after another, they denounced political violence and defended Kirk’s right — everyone’s right — to speak on politics in safety, regardless of whether their message is uplifting or odious.
Democrats were particularly effusive in their denunciations, with Gov. Gavin Newsom — a chief Trump antagonist — calling the shooting “disgusting, vile, and reprehensible.” Former President Obama also weighed in, writing, “We don’t yet know what motivated the person who shot and killed Charlie Kirk, but this kind of despicable violence has no place in our democracy.”
Many seemed dismissive of such messages. In the comments on Obama’s post, many blamed Obama and other Democrats for rhetoric demonizing Republicans — and Trump and his followers in particular — as Nazis or racists or fascists, suggesting that the violence against Kirk was a predictable outcome of such pitched condemnations.
Trump echoed those thoughts himself Wednesday night, blaming the “radical left” for disparaging Kirk and other conservatives and bringing on such violence.
Others seemed to celebrate Kirk’s killing or suggest it was justified in some way given his own hyperbolic remarks from the past. They dug up interviews where the conservative provocateur demonized those on the left, suggested liberal ideas constituted a threat to Western civilization, and even said that some gun violence in the country was “worth it” if it meant the freedom to bear arms.
Experts said it is important to contextualize this moment within American history, but with an awareness of the modern factors shaping it in unique ways. It’s also important to understand that there are ways to combat such violence from spreading, they said.
Peter Mancall, a history professor at USC, has delved into major moments of political violence in early American history, and said a lot of it stemmed from “some perception of grievance.”
The same appears to be true today, he said. “There are moments when people do things that they know are violating their own sense of right or wrong, and something has pushed them to it, “ he said. “The trick is figuring out what it is that made them snap.”
Braunstein said that the robust debate online Wednesday about the rhetoric of leaders was a legitimate one to have, because it has always been true that “the way our political leaders message about political violence — consistently, in public, to their followers and to those that don’t support them — really matters.”
If Americans and American political leaders truly want to know how we got here, she said, “part of the answer is the intensification of violent political rhetoric — and political rhetoric that casts the moment in terms of an emergency or catastrophe that requires extreme measures to address it.”
Democrats today are talking about the threats they believe Trump poses to democracy and the rule of law and to immigrants and LGBTQ+ people and others in extremely dire terms. Republicans — including Kirk — have used similarly charged rhetoric to suggest that Democrats and some of those same groups, especially immigrants, are a grave threat to average Americans.
“Charlie Kirk was one of many political figures who used that kind of discourse to mobilize people,” Braunstein said. “He’s not the only one, but he regularly spoke about the fact that we were in a moment where it was possible that we were going to see the decline of Western civilization, the end of American society as we know it. He used very strong us-vs.-them language.”
Particularly given the wave of recent violence, it will be important moving forward for politicians and other leaders to reanalyze how they speak about their political disagreements, Braunstein said.
That’s especially true of Trump, she said, because “one of the most dangerous things that can happen in a moment like this is for a political leader to call for violence in response to an act of violence,” and Trump has appeared to stoke violence in the past, including on Jan. 6, 2021, at the Capitol and during racist marches through Charlottesville, Va., in 2017.
Charlie Kirk speaks during a town hall meeting in March in Oconomowoc, Wis.
(Jeffrey Phelps / Associated Press)
Dr. Garen Wintemute, director of the Centers for Violence Prevention at UC Davis, agreed messaging is key — not just for responding to political violence, but for preventing it.
Since 2022, Wintemute and his team have surveyed Americans on how they feel about political violence, including whether it is ever justified and, if so, whether they would personally get involved in it.
Throughout that time frame, a strong majority of Americans — about two-thirds — have said it is not justified, with about a third saying it was or could be.
An even smaller minority said they’d be willing to personally engage in such violence, Wintemute said. And many of those people said that they could be dissuaded from participating if their family members, friends, religious or political leaders urged them not to.
Wintemute said the data give him “room for hope and optimism,” because they show that “the vast majority of Americans reject political violence altogether.”
“So when somebody on a day like today asks, ‘Is this who we are?’ we know the answer,” he said. “The answer is, ‘No!’”
The job of all Americans now is to reject political violence “out loud over and over and over again,” Wintemute said, and to realize that, if they are deeply opposed to political policies or the Trump administration and “looking for a model of how to resist,” it isn’t the American Revolution but the civil rights movement.
“People did not paint over how terrible things were,” he said. “People said, ‘I will resist, but I will resist without violence. Violence may be done to me, I may die, but I will not use violence.’”
Typically, when some product becomes too expensive, people buy less of it.
Not so with beef. Despite record high prices for the red meat — thanks to a record low number of cattle raised for slaughter — demand for the fresh protein keeps rising.
Folks are more interested in a Jucy Lucy than following the law of supply and demand, it seems.
A recent report from CoBank said the “remarkably steady allure of beef, even at current prices” stems from “heightened interest in dietary protein, changing health perceptions surrounding beef and the availability of restaurant-quality beef at retail grocery stores.”
The ag-lending cooperative found beef demand is at the highest level this century even as average fresh beef prices across all cuts have hit a record $8.90 per pound nationally, 9% above prices last summer.
Brian Earnest, CoBank’s lead animal protein economist, wrote budget-conscious grocery shoppers are looking for cheaper cuts or more ground beef instead of the more spendy steaks. But that helped push ground beef prices to a record of $6.25 per pound in July.
A pound of ground ran around $3.80 before the pandemic, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
“This consumer pressure on ground beef supply has contributed to tighter availability and interest from other top-producing nations,” Earnest wrote.
On the demand side, it’s similar to the high egg prices conundrum: If consumers bought fewer cartons when eggs were hitting records this spring, prices might have come down faster.
But the inelasticity — a term for the willingness of consumers to accept price increases for goods they consider necessities — means there might be more records set for beef prices in the months and years to come.
“While larger macroeconomic shifts could influence purchasing behavior in the future, so far, consumers have shown little appetite for sacrificing beef,” according to CoBank.
On the supply side, the U.S. beef herd is at a 75-year low, and slaughter rates are dropping. Imports, especially from Brazil, are incurring higher tariffs.
“Most observers suggest the nation’s cattle supply will remain strained through at least 2026 and likely through 2027,” CoBank’s report found. “That means retail beef prices will remain elevated for the foreseeable future.”
One winner in all this: Ranchers. Drought and poor forage conditions in some areas made for a few lean years, but they’re now lassoing a good bounty for their bovines.
I don’t know how I managed to beat COVID-19 for so long, even as family, friends and colleagues got hit with the coronavirus. Although I took precautions from the beginning, with masking and vaccinations, I was also out in public a lot for work and travel.
But my luck has finally run out, and it must have been the air travel that did me in. I returned from a cross-country trip with a razor blade sore throat and a stubborn headache, followed by aches and pains.
The first test was positive.
I figured it had to be wrong, given my super-immunity track record.
The second test was even more positive.
So I’ve been quarantined in a corner of the house, reaching alternately for Tylenol and the thermometer. Everything is a little fuzzy, making it hard to distinguish between the real and the imagined.
For instance, how can it be true that just as I get COVID for the first time, the news is suddenly dominated by COVID-related stories?
It has to be a fever-induced hallucination. There’s no other way to explain why, as COVID surges yet again with another bugger of a strain, the best tool against the virus — vaccine — is under full assault by the leaders of the nation.
They are making it harder, rather than easier, to get medicine recommended by the overwhelming majority of the legitimate, non-crackpot wing of the medical community.
Under the new vaccine policies, prices are up. Permission from doctors is needed. Depending on your age or your home state, you could be out of luck.
Meanwhile, President Trump fired Susan Monarez, the head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, essentially for putting her own professional integrity and commitment to public service above crackpot directives from a cabal of vaccine skeptics.
My eyes are red and burning, but can COVID be entirely to blame?
I got a booster before my travels, even though I knew it might not stand up to the new strain of COVID. It’s possible I have a milder case than I might have had without the vaccine. But on that question and many others, as new waves keep coming our way, wouldn’t the smart move be more research rather than less?
Trump downplayed the virus when it first surfaced in 2019 and 2020. Then he blamed it on China. He resisted masking, and lemmings by the thousands got sick and died. Then he got COVID himself. At one point, he recommended that people get the vaccine.
Now he’s putting on the brakes?
My headache is coming back, my eyes are still burning, and unless my Tylenol is laced with LSD, I think I just saw a clip in which Kennedy and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth attempted 50 pull-ups and 100 push-ups in 10 minutes.
I appreciate the health and fitness plug, and because Kennedy and I are the same age — 71 — it’s impressive to see him in the gym.
But there’s something that has to be said about the Kennedy-Hegseth workout tape:
They’re cheating.
Take a look for yourself, and don’t be fooled by the tight T-shirts worn by these two homecoming kings.
Those were not full chin-ups or push-ups.
Not even close.
Cutting corners is the wrong message to send to the nation’s children, or to any age group. And how is anyone going to make it to the gym if they come down with COVID because they couldn’t get vaccinated?
Honestly, the whole thing has to be a fever dream I’m having, because in the middle of the workout, Kennedy said, and I quote, “It was President Trump who inspired us to do this.”
He is many things, President Trump. Fitness role model is not one of them, no matter how many times he blasts out of sand traps on company time.
Getting back to cutting corners, Kennedy said in slashing mRNA research that “we have studied the science,” with a news release link to a 181-page document purportedly supporting his claim that the vaccines “fail to protect effectively.”
That document was roundly eviscerated by hordes of scientists who were aghast at the distortions and misinterpretations by Kennedy.
“It’s either staggering incompetence or willful misrepresentation,” said Jake Scott, an infectious-disease physician and Stanford University professor, writing for the media company STAT. “Kennedy is using evidence that refutes his own position to justify dismantling tools we’ll desperately need when the next pandemic arrives.”
I lost my sense of smell a few days ago, but even I can tell you that stinks.
More than $250 million down, another $530 million to go.
That’s how much of a projected $783 million state budget hole the Colorado legislature filled by the time a special session called to address the impact of the federal tax bill ended Tuesday afternoon — and the larger amount that still remains. Erasing the rest of the red ink will fall to Gov. Jared Polis, who plans to rebalance this year’s budget in the coming days through a mix of cuts to state funding and a big dip into the rainy-day fund.
Over six days, the legislature’s majority Democrats fulfilled their part of a plan worked out with the governor’s office: to pass legislation that is expected to generate enough revenue to close about a third of the shortfall projected for the state’s budget in the current fiscal year, which began July 1. They ended tax breaks and found other ways to offset declining state income tax revenue, while leaving spending cuts largely for Polis to decide.
“What we did here in this special session is soften the blow,” said Sen. Jeff Bridges, a Greenwood Village Democrat who chairs the legislature’s budget committee. “But when the federal government cuts $1.2 billion in revenue from the state with a stroke of a pen, after we’ve already cut $1.2 billion (from the budget) in the regular session, that’s a tough deficit to come back from in a way that doesn’t impact the people of Colorado.”
The special session ended with 11 bills going to Polis for final approval. Five sought to fill the budget gap, largely by ending tax incentives for businesses and high-income earners.
The single largest revenue-raising measure, House Bill 1004, will auction off tax credits that can be claimed in future tax years for a discount. Backers expected that bill to bring in an additional $100 million to state coffers this year, at the expense of about $125 million in future years.
Together, those measures add up to $253 million in revenue to reduce the projected deficit — money that Democrats say represents averted cuts to Medicaid, schools and hospitals.
“Colorado legislators stepped up and helped protect children’s food access and minimized the devastating cost increases to health insurance premiums across the state, to the best of our ability,” Polis, who signed two of the new bills earlier Tuesday, said in a statement.
The legislature’s Joint Budget Committee expects to meet Thursday to hear Polis’ plan to address the remaining $500 million or so, including mid-year spending cuts.
As part of his call for a special session on Aug. 6, Polis announced a statewide hiring freeze. He said in an interview before the session started that he hoped to avoid cuts to K-12 education, but he has left all other options on the table, including Medicaid program spending.
The plan also factors in a significant use of reserves to offset some of the remaining gap.
Partisan debates
Over the past week, Republicans fought the Democrats’ bills, but strong Democratic majorities in both legislative chambers all but preordained the outcome.
“Not only did we increase taxes, we’re balancing the budget on the back of small businesses,” said Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer, a Brighton Republican on the budget committee.
One of the bills heading to Polis would erase a fee paid by the state to businesses for collecting sales taxes — an outdated subsidy, according to Democrats, and an unnecessary new burden now put on businesses, according to Republicans.
Republicans said before the session that they’d likely challenge several bills in court over allegations that they violate provisions in the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights that require voter approval for tax increases. Kirkmeyer and Rep. Rick Taggart, a Grand Junction Republican who’s also on the budget committee, said bills going to the governor that would eliminate some tax credits and allow the sale of tax credits against future collections seemed particularly vulnerable to a challenge under TABOR.
Debate throughout the special session took a distinctly partisan edge. Democrats laid the cuts on congressional Republicans and President Donald Trump and called the federal tax bill a de facto theft of benefits from the poorest Coloradans to benefit the wealthiest.
Republicans countered that the federal bill delivered much-needed tax cuts, and they said Democrats sought to yank those away instead of cutting partisan priorities.
Legislators begin to gather in the Senate Chambers before the start of another day of the special legislative session at the Colorado State Capitol in Denver on Aug. 26, 2025. (Photo by RJ Sangosti/The Denver Post)
Bills on wolves, artificial intelligence
Other bills passed sought to respond to different aspects of the federal bill, formerly known as the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” as well as other priorities.
Lawmakers stripped general fund money away from the voter-approved program to reintroduce wolves in the state, though releases are expected to continue this winter. They tweaked ballot language for a measure about taxes for universal school meals to allow that money to go to general food assistance, as well, if voters approve it in November.
The legislature also approved a bill allowing state Medicaid program to pay Planned Parenthood for services provided, after the federal government specifically barred federal money from going to the organization.
Polis included in his call of the session that lawmakers address concerns swirling around the state’s first-in-the-nation regulations of artificial intelligence after a similar effort in the spring blew up. The rules now in law go into effect in February.
After days of bruising negotiations, lawmakers punted on any new changes and delayed the existing rules from going into effect until the end of June — giving them time to resume the debate during the next regular legislative session in January.
Some National Guard units patrolling the nation’s capital at the direction of President Donald Trump have started carrying firearms, an escalation of his military deployment that makes good on a directive issued late last week by his defense secretary.A Defense Department official who was not authorized to speak publicly said some units on certain missions would be armed — some with handguns and others with rifles. The spokesperson said that all units with firearms have been trained and are operating under strict rules for use of force.Video above: President Trump greets, thanks National Guard and federal agents during trip into D.C.An Associated Press photographer on Sunday saw members of the South Carolina National Guard outside Union Station with holstered handguns.A statement from the joint task force that has taken over policing in the nation’s capital said units began carrying their service weapons on Sunday and that the military’s rules say force should be used “only as a last resort and solely in response to an imminent threat of death or serious bodily harm.” It said the force is committed to protecting “the safety and wellbeing” of Washington’s residents.The defense official who spoke to The Associated Press said only troops on certain missions would carry guns, and that would include those patrolling to establish a law enforcement presence throughout the capital. Those working in transportation or administration would likely remain unarmed.The development in Trump’s extraordinary effort to override the law enforcement authority of state and local governments comes as he is considering expanding the deployments to other Democratic-led cities, including Baltimore, Chicago and New York.Earlier Sunday, the president threatened to expand his military deployments to more Democratic-led cities, responding to an offer by Maryland’s governor to join him in a tour of Baltimore by saying he might instead “send in the ‘troops.’” He earlier said he was considering deploying troops to Chicago and New York.Thousands of National Guard and federal law enforcement officers are now patrolling the district’s streets, drawing sporadic protests from local residents.Trump made the threat to Baltimore in a spat with Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, a Democrat who has criticized Trump’s unprecedented flex of federal power aimed at combatting crime and homelessness in Washington. Moore last week invited Trump to visit his state to discuss public safety and walk the streets. In a Truth Social post on Sunday, Trump said Moore asked “in a rather nasty and provocative tone,” and then raised the specter of repeating the National Guard deployment he made in Los Angeles over the objections of California’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom. Video below: National Guard deployment increases in Washington, D.C.”Wes Moore’s record on Crime is a very bad one, unless he fudges his figures on crime like many of the other ‘Blue States’ are doing,” Trump wrote, as he cited a pejorative nickname he uses frequently for the California governor. “But if Wes Moore needs help, like Gavin Newscum did in L.A., I will send in the ‘troops,’ which is being done in nearby DC, and quickly clean up the Crime.”Moore said he invited Trump to Maryland “because he seems to enjoy living in this blissful ignorance” about improving crime rates in Baltimore. After a spike during the pandemic that matched nationwide trends, Baltimore’s violent crime rate has fallen. The 200 homicides reported last year were down 24% from the prior year and 42% since 2021, according to city data. Between 2023 and 2024, overall violent crime was down nearly 8% and property crimes down 20%.”The president is spending all of his time talking about me,” Moore said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday. “I’m spending my time talking about the people I serve.”Trump is “spouting off a bunch of lies about public safety in Maryland,” Moore said in a fundraising email. In Washington, where Trump is surging National Guard troops and federal law enforcement officers, a patchwork of protests popped up throughout the city over the weekend, while some normally bustling corners were noticeably quiet. In some of the most populated areas, residents walked by small groups of national guardsmen, often talking among themselves. Videos of arrests and detainments circulated on social media.Trump has said Chicago and New York are most likely his next targets, eliciting strong pushback from Democratic leaders in both states. The Washington Post reported Saturday that the Pentagon has spent weeks preparing for an operation in Chicago that would include National Guard troops and potentially active-duty forces.Asked about the Post report, the White House pointed to Trump’s earlier comments discussing his desire to expand his use of military forces to target local crime.”I think Chicago will be our next,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Friday, adding, “And then we’ll help with New York.”Trump has repeatedly described some of the nation’s largest cities — run by Democrats, with Black mayors and majority-minority populations — as dangerous and filthy. Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott is Black, as is Moore. The District of Columbia and New York also have Black mayors.The Rev. Al Sharpton, speaking during a religious event Sunday at Howard University in Washington, said the Guard’s presence in the nation’s capital was not about crime: “This is about profiling us.””This is laced with bigotry and racism,” he later elaborated to reporters. “Not one white mayor has been designated. And I think this is a civil rights issue, a race issue, and an issue of D.C. statehood.”Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, a Democrat, said there is no emergency warranting the deployment of National Guard troops in Chicago.”Donald Trump is attempting to manufacture a crisis, politicize Americans who serve in uniform, and continue abusing his power to distract from the pain he’s causing families,” Pritzker wrote on X. “We’ll continue to follow the law, stand up for the sovereignty of our state, and protect Illinoisans.”Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson said the city doesn’t need “a military occupation” and would sue to block one. He said there has been no communication from the White House about a possible military deployment.”We’re not going to surrender our humanity to this tyrant,” Johnson said Sunday on MSNBC. “I can tell you this, the city of Chicago has a long history of standing up against tyranny, resisting those who wish to undermine the interests of working people.” Cooper reported from Phoenix.
WASHINGTON —
Some National Guard units patrolling the nation’s capital at the direction of President Donald Trump have started carrying firearms, an escalation of his military deployment that makes good on a directive issued late last week by his defense secretary.
A Defense Department official who was not authorized to speak publicly said some units on certain missions would be armed — some with handguns and others with rifles. The spokesperson said that all units with firearms have been trained and are operating under strict rules for use of force.
Video above: President Trump greets, thanks National Guard and federal agents during trip into D.C.
An Associated Press photographer on Sunday saw members of the South Carolina National Guard outside Union Station with holstered handguns.
A statement from the joint task force that has taken over policing in the nation’s capital said units began carrying their service weapons on Sunday and that the military’s rules say force should be used “only as a last resort and solely in response to an imminent threat of death or serious bodily harm.” It said the force is committed to protecting “the safety and wellbeing” of Washington’s residents.
The defense official who spoke to The Associated Press said only troops on certain missions would carry guns, and that would include those patrolling to establish a law enforcement presence throughout the capital. Those working in transportation or administration would likely remain unarmed.
The development in Trump’s extraordinary effort to override the law enforcement authority of state and local governments comes as he is considering expanding the deployments to other Democratic-led cities, including Baltimore, Chicago and New York.
Earlier Sunday, the president threatened to expand his military deployments to more Democratic-led cities, responding to an offer by Maryland’s governor to join him in a tour of Baltimore by saying he might instead “send in the ‘troops.’” He earlier said he was considering deploying troops to Chicago and New York.
Thousands of National Guard and federal law enforcement officers are now patrolling the district’s streets, drawing sporadic protests from local residents.
Trump made the threat to Baltimore in a spat with Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, a Democrat who has criticized Trump’s unprecedented flex of federal power aimed at combatting crime and homelessness in Washington. Moore last week invited Trump to visit his state to discuss public safety and walk the streets.
In a Truth Social post on Sunday, Trump said Moore asked “in a rather nasty and provocative tone,” and then raised the specter of repeating the National Guard deployment he made in Los Angeles over the objections of California’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom.
Video below: National Guard deployment increases in Washington, D.C.
“Wes Moore’s record on Crime is a very bad one, unless he fudges his figures on crime like many of the other ‘Blue States’ are doing,” Trump wrote, as he cited a pejorative nickname he uses frequently for the California governor. “But if Wes Moore needs help, like Gavin Newscum did in L.A., I will send in the ‘troops,’ which is being done in nearby DC, and quickly clean up the Crime.”
Moore said he invited Trump to Maryland “because he seems to enjoy living in this blissful ignorance” about improving crime rates in Baltimore. After a spike during the pandemic that matched nationwide trends, Baltimore’s violent crime rate has fallen. The 200 homicides reported last year were down 24% from the prior year and 42% since 2021, according to city data. Between 2023 and 2024, overall violent crime was down nearly 8% and property crimes down 20%.
“The president is spending all of his time talking about me,” Moore said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday. “I’m spending my time talking about the people I serve.”
Trump is “spouting off a bunch of lies about public safety in Maryland,” Moore said in a fundraising email.
In Washington, where Trump is surging National Guard troops and federal law enforcement officers, a patchwork of protests popped up throughout the city over the weekend, while some normally bustling corners were noticeably quiet. In some of the most populated areas, residents walked by small groups of national guardsmen, often talking among themselves. Videos of arrests and detainments circulated on social media.
Trump has said Chicago and New York are most likely his next targets, eliciting strong pushback from Democratic leaders in both states. The Washington Post reported Saturday that the Pentagon has spent weeks preparing for an operation in Chicago that would include National Guard troops and potentially active-duty forces.
Asked about the Post report, the White House pointed to Trump’s earlier comments discussing his desire to expand his use of military forces to target local crime.
“I think Chicago will be our next,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Friday, adding, “And then we’ll help with New York.”
Trump has repeatedly described some of the nation’s largest cities — run by Democrats, with Black mayors and majority-minority populations — as dangerous and filthy. Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott is Black, as is Moore. The District of Columbia and New York also have Black mayors.
The Rev. Al Sharpton, speaking during a religious event Sunday at Howard University in Washington, said the Guard’s presence in the nation’s capital was not about crime: “This is about profiling us.”
“This is laced with bigotry and racism,” he later elaborated to reporters. “Not one white mayor has been designated. And I think this is a civil rights issue, a race issue, and an issue of D.C. statehood.”
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, a Democrat, said there is no emergency warranting the deployment of National Guard troops in Chicago.
“Donald Trump is attempting to manufacture a crisis, politicize Americans who serve in uniform, and continue abusing his power to distract from the pain he’s causing families,” Pritzker wrote on X. “We’ll continue to follow the law, stand up for the sovereignty of our state, and protect Illinoisans.”
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson said the city doesn’t need “a military occupation” and would sue to block one. He said there has been no communication from the White House about a possible military deployment.
“We’re not going to surrender our humanity to this tyrant,” Johnson said Sunday on MSNBC. “I can tell you this, the city of Chicago has a long history of standing up against tyranny, resisting those who wish to undermine the interests of working people.”
Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi’s decision to appoint an “emergency police commissioner” in Washington is just the latest attempt to change an increasingly uncomfortable subject for the White House. Last month President Trump told the American people he was never briefed on the files regarding Jeffrey Epstein, who in 2019 was charged with sex trafficking minors. We now know that Bondi told the president in May that his name appeared multiple times in those files, which traced Epstein’s operation back to the mid-1990s.
So — either you believe a city experiencing a 30-year low in crime is suddenly in need of an emergency police commissioner or you agree with Joe Rogan’s assessment: This administration is gaslighting the public regarding those files.
Now there will be pundits who will try to say Republicans are too focused on kitchen table issues to care about the Epstein controversy.
If only that were true.
According to the Consumer Price Index, goods cost more today than they did a month ago. And prices are higher than they were a year ago. It would be wonderful if Congress were in session to address kitchen table issues like grocery prices. However, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) ended the House session early to avoid a vote on the release of the Epstein files — a vote that could have displeased Trump. Those are the lengths some in the MAGA movement are willing to go to prevent the public from knowing the truth about Epstein’s clients. That is the backdrop for what is currently happening in the streets of Washington. It’s not inspired by a rise in crime, but by a fear of transparency.
It’s important to look at Bondi’s “emergency police commissioner” decision with clear, discerning eyes because the administration is purposefully conflating the issues of crime and homelessness in order to win back support from Trump’s base. While it is true that the district has made huge progress against crime, and the number of unhoused residents is far lower than a decade ago even though homeless populations nationwide have soared, the rise of conspicuous encampments around Washington is one of the reasons Virginia was almost able to lure away the city’s NBA and NHL teams. However, the nation’s capital was able to keep those sports franchises because of the leadership of Mayor Muriel Bowser.
Instead of taking over the city’s police force, perhaps Bondi should ask Bowser for some advice that could be replicated in other cities nationwide. Ask the mayor’s office what resources it might need to continue its progress on homelessness and crime. But again, this really isn’t about what benefits the people, is it? It’s really about what’s in the best interest of one person.
Now there will be pundits who will try to tell you Republicans are too focused on making this country “great” to worry about who is in the Epstein files. I ask you, when has trampling over democracy ever made us great? In Iran, we contributed to the overthrowing of Mohammad Mosaddegh in the 1950s, and we continue to be at odds with the nation. In Chile in the early 1970s, we moved against Salvador Allende, and it took 20 years to normalize our relationship again.
Here at home, in 2010, the state of Michigan took over the predominantly Black city of Benton Harbor under the guise of a financial emergency. The City Council was prevented from governing as state officials tried to save the city from a crippling pension deficit and other financial shortages. There was temporary reprieve, but Benton Harbor is still on economic life support. That’s because the issue wasn’t the policies of the local government. It was the lasting effects of losing so much tax revenue to a neighboring suburb due to white flight. The explanation for Benton Harbor’s woes lies in the past, not the present.
The same is true in Washington. The relatively young suburbs of McLean and Great Falls, Va., are two of the richest in the country. When you have the same financial obligations of yesteryear but less tax revenue to operate with, there will be shortfalls. And those gaps manifest themselves in many ways — rundown homes, empty storefronts, a lack of school resources.
Those are legitimate plagues affecting every major city. What Bondi is doing in Washington isn’t a cure for what ails it. And when you consider why she’s doing what she’s doing, you are reminded why people are so sick of politics.
The following AI-generated content is powered by Perplexity. The Los Angeles Times editorial staff does not create or edit the content.
Ideas expressed in the piece
The author argues that Attorney General Pam Bondi’s appointment of an “emergency police commissioner” in Washington D.C. serves as a deliberate distraction from the Jeffrey Epstein files controversy, rather than addressing any legitimate public safety emergency.
The author contends that President Trump misled the American public by claiming he was never briefed on the Epstein files, when Bondi actually informed him in May that his name appeared multiple times in documents tracing Epstein’s operation back to the mid-1990s.
The author emphasizes that Washington D.C. is currently experiencing a 30-year low in crime rates, making the justification for an “emergency police commissioner” appear fabricated and politically motivated rather than based on actual public safety needs.
The author criticizes House Speaker Mike Johnson for ending the legislative session early specifically to avoid a vote on releasing the Epstein files, suggesting this demonstrates how far the MAGA movement will go to protect Trump from transparency.
The author argues that the administration is purposefully conflating crime and homelessness issues to win back support from Trump’s base, while ignoring the actual progress Washington D.C. has made under Mayor Muriel Bowser’s leadership in reducing both crime and homelessness.
The author draws historical parallels to failed U.S. interventions in Iran and Chile, as well as Michigan’s takeover of Benton Harbor, arguing that federal takeovers of local governance consistently fail and represent an assault on democratic principles rather than effective problem-solving.
Different views on the topic
Trump administration officials justify the federal intervention as part of a broader crime-reduction initiative, with National Guard forces working alongside law enforcement teams to carry out the president’s plan to reduce violent crime in the city[1].
The administration cited legal authority under Section 740 of the Home Rule Act, which grants the president the power to place the Metropolitan Police Department under federal control during a declared emergency, marking the first time a president has invoked this unprecedented authority[2].
Federal officials defended the directive as necessary for enforcing immigration laws, with the revised order specifically directing D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser to provide assistance with “locating, apprehending, and detaining aliens unlawfully present in the United States” regardless of local D.C. law and police policies[1].
The administration’s approach focused on nullifying the city’s sanctuary city policies and ensuring that all Metropolitan Police Department leadership obtain federal approval for policy decisions moving forward, framing this as essential for effective federal law enforcement[2].
Following legal challenges, the Justice Department demonstrated flexibility by scaling back the original directive after meeting with D.C. officials, ultimately leaving the local police chief in charge while maintaining federal oversight for immigration-related matters[1].
One of California’s most influential labor organizations endorsed redrawing the state’s congressional maps to counter President Trump’s effort to push Republican states, notably Texas, to increase his party’s numbers in Congress in next year’s midterm election.
The California Federation of Labor Unions voted unanimously Tuesday to support putting a measure on the ballot in November. The proposal, backed by Gov. Gavin Newsom and many of the state’s Democratic leaders, would ask voters to temporarily change congressional district boundaries that were drawn by an independent redistricting commission four years ago, with some conditions.
Republicans could potentially lose up to a half dozen seats in California’s 52-member delegation to the U.S. House of Representatives. After it returns for its summer recess on Aug. 18, the California Legislature is expected to vote to place the measure on the statewide ballot in a special election.
“President Trump has said that Republicans are ‘entitled’ to five more congressional votes in Texas. Well, they aren’t entitled to steal the 2026 election. California’s unions refuse to stand by as democracy is tested,” Lorena Gonzalez, president of the federation, said in a statement. “California Labor is unified in our resolve to fight back against President Trump’s anti-worker agenda.”
Redistricting — the esoteric redrawing of the nation’s 435 congressional districts — typically occurs once every decade after the U.S. census tallies the population across the nation. Population shifts can result in changes in a state’s allocation of congressional seats, such as when California lost a seat after the 2020 census the first time in the state’s history.
The political redistricting process had long been crafted by elected officials to give their political parties an edge or to protect incumbents — sometimes in brazen, bizarrely shaped districts. Californians voted in 2010 to create an independent commission to draw congressional maps based on communities of interest, logical geography and ensuring representation of minority communities.
The ballot measure being pushed by Newsom and others would allow state lawmakers to help determine district boundaries for the next three election cycles if Texas approves a pending measure to reconfigure districts to increase Republican-held congressional seats in that state. Line-drawing would return to the independent commission after the 2030 census.
The California Federation of Labor is committed to spending several million dollars supporting a mid-decade redistricting ballot measure, on top of what it already planned to spend on competitive congressional races next year, according to a person familiar with the plans who asked for anonymity to speak candidly about the strategy.
A spokesperson for several organizations devoted to fighting any effort to change the state’s redistricting process said that Charles Munger Jr., the son of a billionaire, and who bankrolled the ballot measure to create the independent commission, is committed to making sure it is not weakened.
“While Charles Munger has been out of politics since 2016, he has said he will vigorously defend the reforms he helped pass, including nonpartisan redistricting,” said Amy Thoma, spokesperson for the Voters First Coalition. “His previous success in passing ballot measures in California means he knows exactly what is needed to be successful. We will have the resources necessary to make our coalition heard.”
Amid relentless criticism from former President Trump that she is responsible for out-of-control illegal immigration, Vice President Kamala Harris on Friday made her first visit to the U.S.-Mexico border since 2021, announcing more stringent measures she would take as president to restrict border entry.
“The United States is a sovereign nation, and I believe we have a duty to set rules at our border, and to enforce them,” Harris told a crowd in Douglas, Ariz., gathered in a small auditorium at Cochise College Douglas Campus, where the stage was flanked by large signs that read, “Border security and stability.” “We are also a nation of immigrants. The United States has been enriched by generations of people who have come from every corner of the world to contribute to our country and to become part of the American story.”
Harris said she would go beyond Biden administration policies to further restrict border access outside of official ports of entry.
Earlier in the afternoon, Harris visited a port of entry less than 10 miles from the campaign event. Two Border Patrol agents walked with her along the towering fence, which was built during the Obama administration. Harris later told reporters that she had thanked them for their work.
“They’ve got a tough job and they need, rightly, support to do their job. They are very dedicated,” she said. “And so I’m here to talk with them about what we can continue to do to support them.”
She advocated for hiring more officers and adding more fentanyl detection systems at border entry points.
“I reject the false choice that suggest we must either choose between securing our border or creating a system of immigration that is safe, orderly and humane,” Harris said. “We can and we must do both.”
Immigration reform has bedeviled presidents of both parties for decades.
A bipartisan proposal earlier this year that combined increased funding for border security and foreign aid for Ukraine appeared to be the first breakthrough until it was derailed when Trump urged Republicans to oppose it.
Kamala Harris speaks at Cochise College Douglas Campus in Douglas, Ariz., on Friday.
(Carolyn Kaster / Associated Press)
That deal fell short of comprehensive plans discussed for decades that would revamp the asylum system and the legal immigration process and provide a pathway to citizenship for an estimated 11 million people in the country without legal authorization, including those who arrived as children. Harris on Friday mentioned farm workers and immigrants who arrived as children, known as “Dreamers.”
“As president, I will put politics aside to fix our immigration system and find solutions to problems which have persisted for far too long,” Harris said.
In advance of Harris’ visit to the border, Trump pointed to reports that there are more than 425,000 convicted criminals who are in the country illegally but not detained by federal authorities, according to data provided by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in response to a lawmaker’s request.
That includes more than 13,000 convicted of homicide and more than 15,800 convicted of sexual assault, according to the ICE data shared on X, formerly Twitter, by Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas).
Trump said Thursday that 21 million people entered the country illegally in just the last four years. He framed the bipartisan effort that he helped defeat as “her atrocious border bill.”
“It was not a border bill. It was an amnesty bill … ,” he said at a news conference in Manhattan. “Fortunately Congress was too smart for it.”
The bill would not have provided a path to citizenship for people who lack legal status.
The GOP nominee’s appearance at Trump Tower was reminiscent of his 2015 campaign announcement there, notably his references to other nations purposefully sending criminals to the United States.
His remarks included multiple falsehoods, such as saying Harris approved a raft of changes to the nation’s immigration policies that as vice president she had no control over, and that she was the Biden administration’s “border czar.” She had been charged with trying to improve conditions in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras to stop those nations’ residents from fleeing their homelands.
That assignment has been a political headache for Harris — drawing criticism from the left and right.
In a 2021 visit to Central America, Harris told would-be migrants that they would be deported if they crossed the border, angering allies of immigrants who said they were fleeing poverty, corruption and violence.
“Do not come,” she said at the time. “You will be turned back.”
On the same trip, Harris laughed off questions in a nationally televised interview about why she had not yet visited the border as vice president, inflaming critics on the right.
Border stops hit a record in December, with agents making nearly 250,000 arrests. As the political problem raged, Biden signed an order in June to heavily restrict asylum claims, prompting a sharp drop in border encounters, to fewer than 60,000 in July and August.
Republicans have been hammering the issue, with GOP members of Congress filing a resolution that “strongly condemns the Biden Administration and its Border Czar, Kamala Harris’s, failure to secure the United States border” one day after the president announced he would not seek reelection.
While some of the former president and his allies’ claims are demonstrably false and have been denounced by GOP elected officials, such as allegations that Haitian migrants are eating pets in Springfield, Ohio, concerns among some voters about the impact of an insecure border on the economy, crime and the fentanyl crisis are palpable in many communities.
Friday’s visit was Harris’ second to Arizona since she became the Democratic presidential nominee, according to the Harris-Walz campaign. While Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff and others have swung through the southwestern battleground state, Harris has focused much of her in-person campaigning in critical states farther east, such as Pennsylvania, Michigan and Georgia.
Hours before the vice president landed in Arizona, Republicans held a press call featuring two mothers whose daughters were raped and killed by immigrants who were in the country illegally and the mother of a teenage son who overdosed on fentanyl. The women lambasted Harris for the administration’s immigration policy and for visiting the border so close to the election.
“I’m trying very hard not to cry. We live 1,800 miles away from the border,” said Patty Morin, the mother of Rachel Morin, a mother of five who was brutally attacked while walking a bucolic and well-traveled public trail in Maryland. Her body was discovered in a drain pipe.
“No one is safe in America, no one is safe. If you have a sanctuary city in your state, you’re not safe,” she said. “They have bused, flown, trained illegal immigrants to literally every nook and cranny and every tiny town in the whole of the United States.”
Such fears are among the reasons the Harris campaign released an ad about immigration in Arizona on Friday, and visited the Southern border less than a month and a half before election day. As vice president, she previously visited the region once in 2021, when she toured the port of entry and border operation in El Paso.
Mehta reported from Phoenix and Pinho reported from Douglas. Times staff writers Noah Bierman and Andrea Castillo contributed to this report from Washington, D.C.
Discover how the internet propagates “information pollution” and how it threatens our collective understanding of facts and truth. Here’s how to navigate the chaos and find clean water to drink.
In a healthy and functional society, shared common resources are essential for the well-being and sustainability of the community.
These resources can include natural goods such as land, water, and the environment, as well as man-made goods such as public schools, parks, and libraries.
Generally, the ability to manage, sustain, and distribute these resources determines the success of a society, community, or nation as a whole.
The Tragedy of the Commons
The tragedy of the commons is a concept introduced by ecologist Garrett Hardin in 1968, describing a scenario where individuals, acting in their own self-interest, overuse and deplete a shared resource, ultimately harming the entire community.
Classic examples include overgrazing on common land, overfishing in shared waters, and pollution of air and water. The key issue is that while the benefits of exploitation are enjoyed by individuals, the costs are distributed among the entire community.
Information as a Shared Resource
One common resource that is often neglected is news and information.
Over the last century, newspapers, radio, TV, and the internet have become the lifeblood of many nations, shaping public opinion and collective consciousness.
Truth and reliable information function as shared resources critical for various societal functions, including governance, public health, and social interaction.
Just as a community depends on clean water, society relies on accurate information to make decisions, build trust, and maintain peace and harmony.
When these information resources are polluted, the consequences can be severe, leading to mistrust, division, and poor decision-making.
Information Pollution
Information is a shared resource that is susceptible to degradation through neglect or deliberate actions, leading to a type of “information pollution.”
This phenomenon mirrors the “tragedy of the commons,” where the self-interested actions of individuals can spoil a common resource for everyone.
Information pollution occurs when false, misleading, or harmful information is introduced into the public discourse. This can happen through:
Misinformation: Incorrect or misleading information spread unintentionally.
Disinformation: False information spread deliberately to deceive.
Malinformation: Information that is true but presented in a misleading context to cause harm.
All three types of information pollution hurt people’s ability to discern truth from fiction.
Well-Poisoning on the Internet
The internet can be a wonderful place to learn new things, but it’s also littered with information pollution, especially on social media sites filled with bots, spammers, and grifters.
When a water well is poisoned, everyone in the town ends up drinking dirty and contaminated water. The same is true for information pollution on the internet – and social media is dirty water.
There are a lot of factors that drive information pollution on the internet, but key ones include:
Clickbait and engagement farming – For most people, the only measure of success on the internet is how much attention you get. An outrageous lie or falsehood will get a million impressions before anyone tries to confirm what’s been said. People rarely correct themselves if a lie is getting them a lot of impressions.
Grifting and easy money – Many people see the internet as an opportunity for a quick buck, so a lot of content you see is purely money-driven, including advertisements, sponsored content, or superficial merchandise (mugs, t-shirts, diet supplements, brain enhancement pills, etc.) If you see anyone selling these types of products on the internet, you can be certain that truth is not their main motivation.
Bots and algorithm-hacking – Artificial engagement on the internet is a huge problem. A lot of viral content you see these days is pushed by bot farms and clever algorithm manipulation. Organic growth by independent thinkers and creators used to be a genuine thing about a decade ago, but most big e-celebrities and influencers you see today are completely astroturfed.
Politics and propaganda – A lot of misinformation and disinformation is politically driven propaganda. Governments and corporations are known to create their own bots and internet campaigns to shape public opinion in one direction or another.
Echo chambers and groupthink – While it’s natural to associate with people who think like us and share the same beliefs, the internet tends to heighten this tendency. People only spend time on online spaces that confirm their existing beliefs and very rarely seek out different perspectives.
All of these factors make the internet a less reliable place for seeking truth and information. These phenomenon have only increased over the past decade, making the internet increasingly harmful and stupid (to be frank).
Filtering Dirty Water
Now more than ever we need to find ways to filter the information we are being exposed to online. Effective strategies you can employ include:
Pay attention to your digital environment – Ideas and information can often seep into our brain without us even realizing it, especially when we are consistently exposed to the same information over and over again. What are the top five websites you visit? Where do you go for news and current events? What’s your social media feed look like? All of these make up a part of your digital environment which is having an influence on you whether you realize it or not, so pay close attention to the types of online spaces you’re spending time in.
High value vs. low value information – Not all information is created equal. A random social media post that goes viral doesn’t have the same level of rigor as a peer-reviewed study. The information pyramid is a helpful guideline for assessing what information sources tend to be more trustworthy, accurate, and high value. Please note that this doesn’t mean a social media post is always wrong, or a scientific study is always right, just that one source tends to have more substance than another and you should generally give it more weight.
Be your own fact-checker – Too many people take funny memes, shocking screenshots, and catchy headlines at face value without ever digging deeper. This causes a lot of misinformation and disinformation to go viral, and it can also lead to some comical and embarrassing errors (“You actually believed that?!”). While there are many professional “fact checkers” on various sites, even those can be misleading and ideologically motivated. Unfortunately, in our low trust information world, there’s only one fact-checker you can really count on and that’s yourself. Learn how to double-check sources, dig up original links, and read full articles so you understand the context before accepting something as true.
Learn basic statistical literacy – Numbers can be very persuasive on a purely psychological level; if someone can make a claim with a statistic to back it, we tend to automatically think it must be true. However, statistics and graphs can be easily manipulated and deceptive. Understanding basic statistical literacy (such as knowing “correlation doesn’t mean causation,” or checking the “y” and “x” axis before looking at a graph) can give you a clearer idea of what a number is really telling you, and what is just being speculated, guessed, or misunderstood.
Beware of personality-driven consumption – Many people get their news and information from famous personalities such as news commentators, celebrities, influencers, or podcasters. While it’s natural to listen to people we like and trust, this can backfire when we end up mindlessly accepting information rather than confirming it on its own merit. For many, there’s an entertainment factor too: it’s fun to root for your “leader/clan” and make fun of the other “leaders/clans,” some people even form parasocial relationships with their favorite personalities, seeing them as a type of best friend. However, what often happens in these hyper personality-driven spaces is that they devolve into petty drama and gossip. That may be “fun” to participate in for some people, but it’s not education.
If you keep these guidelines in mind, you’ll be able to navigate the dirty waters of the internet more effectively and hopefully find some springs of fresh and clean water to drink from.
Conclusion
Truth and reliable information are vital commons that underpin a healthy and functional society. Just as communities must manage natural resources responsibly to avoid the tragedy of the commons, societies must actively protect and nurture the integrity of their information ecosystems. Each of us plays a role in managing the information commons and minimizing information pollution.
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Two new officers who are also Gloucester natives have joined the ranks of the Gloucester Police Department.
Officers Ryan Muniz and Kalyn Koller bring a wealth of knowledge, enthusiasm, and a commitment to serving Gloucester, the department said.
Muniz graduated from the Massachusetts Police Training Committee Northern Essex Community College Police Academy in May. He attended Gloucester Public Schools and graduated from Gloucester High in 2019. In high school, he played hockey, golf, and tennis, and captained the hockey and golf teams.
After high school, Muniz attended the University of Massachusetts Amherst, graduating in 2023 with a bachelor’s degree. Following his graduation, he worked at the Essex County Sheriff’s Department before joining the Gloucester force. Muniz recently completed his field training and is now eager to make a positive impact and engage with the community he has always called home, the department said.
Koller graduated from the MPTC Lynnfield Police Academy last Tuesday and began her field training shortly thereafter. Koller, 24, is a Gloucester native who graduated from Rockport High in 2019, where she played softball and basketball. She earned her criminal justice degree from Endicott College, graduating with dean’s lst honors. During her time at Endicott, Koller interned with the Gloucester Police Department, an experience that solidified her dedication to a career in law enforcement.
“I am honored to announce my appointment as a new officer with the Gloucester Police Department. I look forward to serving and giving back to the community I have always called home,” she said.
Chief Edward Conley expressed his confidence in the new officers, saying, “We are thrilled to welcome Officers Muniz and Koller to our team. Their dedication, local roots, and commitment to service will undoubtedly strengthen our department and enhance our ability to serve the Gloucester community.”
Do you see yourself as more of a “trader” or a “hero?” Learn about these two distinct mindsets, and understand how balancing moral duty and economic ambition can lead to a more harmonious and sustainable future for humanity.
The hero mindset vs. the trader mindset are two distinct ways people see their roles and responsibilities in a healthy society.
Each one focuses on different values and priorities, but a balance of both is often needed for a society to function and flourish.
Here’s an outline of what defines each mindset.
Trader Mindset
The trader mindset dominates our current culture. It places emphasis on individualism, material gain, and personal freedom. This mentality often asks, “What can life give me?” and is driven by the pursuit of happiness, pleasure, and profit.
It’s especially characteristic of American life and contemporary Western thinking, where people tend to see their value only in terms of economic or material output: “What do you do for a living? How much money do you make? How big is your house?”
Key attributes of the trader mindset include:
Rights-Oriented: The trader mindset focuses on personal rights and freedoms, operating on the principle of doing what one wants as long as it doesn’t harm others.
Materialism: The trader mindset is materialistic and money-driven, placing a high value on comfort, pleasure, and luxury.
Individualism: The trader mindset is competitive, individualistic, and often sees life as a series of transactions aimed at maximizing personal advantage rather than collective well-being.
Utilitarian Approach: They adopt a business-minded and utilitarian perspective, often focusing on what is pragmatic and realistic, rater than engaging in abstract and idealistic goals.
Status Climbing: Traders often strive for increased status, wealth, or power, engaging in frequent social comparison, and viewing most aspects of life as a social ladder to climb.
The trader mindset is a product of liberal and Enlightenment philosophy, reflecting the values of individual rights and free market capitalism. It promotes a “mind your own business” attitude which emphasizes personal freedom and the pursuit of happiness, but can also lack a sense of social duty.
In excess, the trader mindset can lead to negative behaviors such as excessive swindling, grifting, corruption, and fraudulent schemes. People become willing to seek material gain at any moral cost, believing that everyone is inherently greedy and selfish, thus creating a “dog eat dog” world.
Hero Mindset
The hero mindset is less common and in many ways it’s more needed in our current society.
The heroic mindset is characterized by a focus on duty, sacrifice, and the greater good. Those with this mentality often ask, “What can I give to life?” rather than “What can life give me?” This approach emphasizes responsibilities over rights and prioritizes the well-being of others over personal gain.
Key attributes of the hero mindset include:
Duties-Oriented: Heroes feel a strong sense of duty and responsibility toward others and society. They ask themselves how they can best serve their family, community, nation, or humanity as a whole.
Idealism: The hero mindset seeks higher ideals than just status or wealth, such as honor, loyalty, and devotion to a higher purpose, striving to do what is right at all costs, even if it means facing death.
Collectivism: The hero mindset is communitarian-minded, often emerging in contexts like the military, team sports, or tight-knit organizations where serving a greater whole is paramount.
Warrior Spirit: Heroes embrace challenges and are willing to sacrifice their comfort and security for the common good, embodying a warrior mindset that values moral and spiritual achievements over material ones. The hero isn’t afraid to ask, “What am I willing to die for?”
Leadership and Accountability: Heroes are willing to stand up and take charge when no one else will. This means assuming leadership roles and taking risks, as well as accepting blame and responsibility when things go wrong.
In essence, the heroic mindset is about fighting for something greater than oneself.
Heroes can take many different forms. It’s not only about sacrificing yourself on a battlefield or saving a child from a burning house. Being a hero can also mean dedicating your life to a social cause, being a leader in your local community, taking care of your family, or creating more beauty in the world through art or music.
While the heroic mindset can lead to noble actions, in excess it can also result in zealotry, self-destructive martyrdom, or an inflexible approach to moral issues. Extreme idealism might push individuals to pursue their goals without considering practical consequences, potentially leading to conflict and alienation.
Balancing the Mindsets
Ultimately, both the hero and trader mindsets offer valuable insights into different motivations behind our behaviors and life choices. While the heroic mindset emphasizes sacrifice, duty, and the greater good, the trader mindset focuses on personal gain, freedom, and material success.
A healthy and sustainable society needs both traders and heroes. A society run solely by traders may prioritize profit over moral values, leading to widespread corruption and a lack of social responsibility. On the other hand, a society with only a heroic mindset might struggle with practicality and flexibility, leading to social conflicts and unrest.
Striking a balance between these mindsets can help us achieve a harmonious approach to personal fulfillment and social responsibility, creating a society that values both individual rights and communal well-being.
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Voters rank the economy and inflation as the most important issues facing the country, and in spite of good news on both fronts, discontent over pocketbook issues remains steady. There’s one stretch of Southern California where, one could say, that all began: Los Angeles’ harbor and coast.
As the center for U.S. Pacific trade and an archetype for exuberant housing markets everywhere, the region’s waterfront clarifies why so many Americans feel frustrated and under pressure — and just how challenging it may be to fix this, no matter who becomes the next president.
Stretching back to the mid-19th century, when the United States annexed Southern California from the Mexican Republic, Americans looked to Pacific trade and westward settlement to stabilize their nation. That’s why our local ports were developed.
In the 1850s, a federal agency, then called the U.S. Coast Survey, identified San Pedro Bay as a focal point for shipping efforts. Since the 1910s, this has been home to the Port of Los Angeles and the Port of Long Beach, collectively the busiest shipping hub in the Western Hemisphere, making the region prominent in global supply chains and transpacific trade.
Officials believed Pacific trade and settlement to be a safety valve for turmoil back East, that over slavery most of all. The results proved them wrong. Commerce and settlers intensified political conflict, both in Washington and in California, by increasing the stakes. Land speculators — in most places pushing out Indigenous people and Mexicans — looked to grab former rancho claims near California’s prospective harbors, in Southern California’s enviable climate. It was a rush for beachfront property like the region had never seen. Their actions set Los Angeles’ property lines and the basis for today’s real estate markets from Malibu to Newport Bay.
This history was invisible to me as I grew up around L.A., but its effects were and are all around, continuing to reshape Southern California during my lifetime. By the early 2000s, container ships, larger than before, accumulated in the outer waters as the ports were sometimes overwhelmed. Semitrucks crowded the 110 and 710 freeways. At the same time, the coastal real estate market boomed yet again. My parents — new arrivals to the region — found it full of opportunity. They purchased their first and only home, in a subdivision on former rancho lands, and they paid it off as valuations exploded around them and their nest egg grew. The region’s economy was a dynamo, a safe harbor in more ways than one.
Shipping and competitive real estate — two legacies of 1850s Southern California — remain with us. Moreover, they are part of an ongoing story of Los Angeles and its place in American life. Today’s voters’ sense of their economic well-being is based on the prices of household necessities, mostly imported goods, and about one-third enter the U.S. through the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. Historically, the ships and containers that crowd San Pedro Bay have expanded affordability, but the COVID-19 pandemic and international crises disrupted their flow. Suddenly transpacific trade was blamed for soaring costs, not credited with making household items affordable. Even after the disruption abated, high prices and memories of scarcity have lingered. Nationally, politicians and the public have come to doubt the virtues of globalization. The clash between high hopes for Los Angeles’ harbors and the realities of global trade contribute once more to Americans’ sense of an uncertain world, and once again the high stakes linked to Southern California’s economy feed into tensions nationwide.
Sure investments, meanwhile, no longer offset troubled times. Americans’ primary investment — triumphant in the post-World War II era — is the single-family home. However, the nation’s high-priced real estate has unsettled this convention. Rather than absorbing newcomers and providing a path to financial security, it has multiplied voters’ sense of distress by locking many out of homeownership. The exhilarating prices and low interest rates of recent decades — profit and security to prior home purchasers — now put inflationary pressure on renters and prospective buyers, and on middle-income, low-income or young voters especially. This is most true around coastal Los Angeles, west and south of the 405 Freeway. It is true as well in markets farther afield, such as Phoenix and Las Vegas, long shaped by Southern California migrants and money.
The Southland’s residents and visitors were drawn to the promise of Pacific waters, just as generations before have been. And while many in all eras have benefited from the region’s industries and real estate appreciation, many others have always been left behind. Remembering such connections with history can clarify uncertain times. Recent polarization in U.S. politics has been compared to the Civil War era, but there is perhaps a more apt parallel between today and the 1860s: the economic ideas of trade and land investment, intended to calm political passions and to distribute prosperity, fell short in both moments.
The consequences will play out in the months ahead as pocketbook issues quite likely decide the presidential election. But regardless of the election’s outcome, we should understand that Southern California is never a place apart from U.S. politics and its dilemmas. Instead, these have deep roots in the region. And today, the region continues to invest in imports and real estate as vehicles for prosperity — even as the adverse costs accumulate in national politics.
That makes Southern California the opportune place to resolve these dilemmas of history and to lead the U.S. forward, whether by policy experimentation or new principles for how wealth might be built, sustained and shared. Shaping the nation’s better future will involve tough choices. It certainly will take visionaries and daring. Yet that, too, is a legacy of Southern California’s past, one ready to be reclaimed.
James Tejani, an associate professor of history at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, is the author of “A Machine to Move Ocean and Earth: The Making of the Port of Los Angeles and America.”
