The “No Kings” protests in every state may have been the biggest day of demonstrations in American history, a data analyst has suggested. “Based on hundreds of crowd-sourced records of No Kings Day event turnout, and extrapolating for the cities where we don’t have data yet, it looks like roughly 4-6m people protested Trump across the U.S. yesterday,” independent data journalist G Elliott posted to X Sunday.
For reference, that’d mean Saturday’s demonstrations featured 1-2 percent of the total population of 340 million taking to the streets in more than 2,000 cities to voice their opposition to the increasingly authoritarian, far-right policies the president has pursued since assuming office for the second time.
The “No Kings” rallies follow after a spate of demonstrations against immigration raids carried out in Los Angeles and the surrounding area last week, to which Trump deployed 4,000 members of the National Guard and 700 Marines over the objection of California Governor Gavin Newsom.
In a full report on the figures from Saturday’s demonstrations, Morris added that mounting backlash against Trump’s second term has also witnessed “dramatically more protest activity” than during his first stint in the White House. Since his inauguration in January, Trump’s administration has witnessed more than 15,000 protests and rallies, representing a threefold increase in the number of public demonstrations that had taken place by this point in 2017.
I just read that the LAPD used tear gas this week downtown Los Angeles to disperse protesters. It’s clear that situations like this can really complicate things for companies, especially those coming from abroad who don’t fully know how U.S. laws work.
U.S. Senate GOP wants to hike debt limit by $5 trillion in mega-bill
Source: Nebraska Examiner
By: Jennifer Shutt - June 16, 2025 6:27 pm
WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Republicans unveiled Monday that they plan to raise the country’s debt limit by $5 trillion in the “big, beautiful bill,” a full $1 trillion more than House GOP lawmakers proposed in their version.
The provision is tucked into the Senate Finance Committee’s 549-page section of the package, which also includes tax law changes and how Republicans in the upper chamber plan to rework Medicaid.
The bill is one of 10 the Senate will bundle together in the days ahead before bringing the full package to the floor for debate and amendment votes.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., hopes to approve the legislation before the Fourth of July break, but because the chamber is changing the House bill in numerous ways, it will have to go back across the Capitol.
700 troops have been mobilized to help ICE in raids in Florida, Louisiana and Texas
Source: The Independent
Tuesday 17 June 2025 17:04 EDT
The Defense Department has mobilized 700 troops to assist Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Florida, Louisiana and Texas. These troops will “not participate in law enforcement activities” but will “provide logistical support, and conduct administrative and clerical functions,” according to Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell. The troops were deployed last week, Parnell said.
The three states have seen several large-scale ICE raids since Trump took office in January and implemented his hardline anti-immigration agenda, promising to carry out the “largest deportation operation in American history.”
There are several ICE detention centers in Louisiana and Texas, and local police officers have already started assisting ICE efforts in Florida, the agency announced in April.
Reports emerged Tuesday of raids in southwest Louisiana. Federal and local agents raided the Delta Downs Racetrack, Casino and Hotel near Vinton, Louisiana, about two hours west of Baton Rouge, according to the Louisiana Illuminator. It’s unclear how many people were detained.
Sure, countries can and should vet people who wanna enter the country. It's the criteria I'm concerned about. Some are hella vague. And some are unduly restrictive on support for peaceful protest.
Judge Rules that Anti-woke is Just Racism By Liz Dye
June 18, 2025
Introduction:
(Public Notice) Earlier this week, a federal judge in Boston explicitly called out the Trump administration for its “palpably clear” discrimination against racial minorities and LGBTQ+ Americans in a case involving canceled grants from the National Institutes of Health.
…
A coalition of 16 blue states sued, and the case was joined with a similar one filed by several public health and labor groups. They argued that NIH “adopted a series of directives that blacklist certain topics — e.g., ‘DEI,’ ‘gender,’ or ‘vaccine hesitancy’ — that the Administration disfavors.”
…here the plaintiffs make another argument in defense of their “woke” priorities. They note that statutes passed by Congress mandate that NIH fund research that supports racial equity and better health outcomes for gender and racial minorities.
“The Challenged Directives purport to restrict research on subjects that Congress has expressly required NIH to support,” they write. “In declaring research related to DEI, gender identity, and transgender health off-limits, defendants’ actions are contrary to congressional mandates.”
…
“I’ve never seen a record where racial discrimination was so palpable,” Judge Young fumed. “I’ve sat on this bench now for 40 years. I’ve never seen government racial discrimination like this.”
Supreme Court OKs rapid deportations to countries where immigrants have no ties
The Supreme Court on Monday cleared the way for the Trump administration to swiftly deport foreigners to countries where they have no previous ties.
The justices lifted an order from a federal judge in Boston who had placed restrictions on the deportations to those countries. U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy had issued a nationwide injunction that required the administration to give immigrants “meaningful” advance notice and a chance to raise objections before they are sent to so-called third countries — nations not specified in their original deportation orders. But the Supreme Court granted the Trump administration’s emergency request to put Murphy’s injunction on hold.
The high court’s majority offered no explanation for its ruling, but all three of the court’s liberal justices dissented. Writing for the liberals, Justice Sonia Sotomayor called the ruling an “abuse” of the court’s power that amounted to “rewarding lawlessness” on the part of the administration.
The high court’s action grants officials added flexibility to carry out President Donald Trump’s mass deportation plans, particularly in cases involving countries that resist taking back their own citizens when they are ordered deported from the U.S. The justices’ ruling came in a case that produced explosive controversies over the Trump administration’s attempts to deport some immigrants with criminal records to Libya and South Sudan.
'Not going to pass': Another MAGA senator turns on megabill over GOP provision
Source: Raw Story
June 23, 2025 6:37PM ET
A prominent pro-Trump senator is coming out against one of the more controversial provisions proposed for President Donald Trump's "big, beautiful bill."
Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT) told Punchbowl News congressional reporter Max Cohen that the plan by Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) to sell off portions of federally-owned land to build housing is a dead letter as far as he is concerned.
“I oppose it. The way it’s written right now, it’s not going to pass," he said. Lee tried to win over Daines's vote by exempting Montana from the sale of public lands, but to no avail.
Public land is an issue that starkly divides the east and west of the United States. In many western states, an outright majority of land is owned by the federal government through various agencies, as a result of the unique way in which this area was settled during westward expansion. It's a commonly debated issue, with many westerners supporting the system as preserving free movement and natural beauty, and others seeing it as a federal intrusion on their way of life.
US Senate mega-bill drops requirement states help pay for SNAP program
WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Democrats have succeeded in eliminating more than a dozen policy changes from Republicans’ “big, beautiful bill” after successfully arguing before the chamber’s parliamentarian that the elements didn’t comply with the strict rules that go along with writing a budget reconciliation bill.
Removed is language that would have transferred some of the cost of running the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program to state governments, potentially leaving states on the hook for billions in added spending on the food aid program for lower-income people.
Democrats also fended off a proposal to eliminate funding for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which fields complaints on banking and other financial institutions, and another that sought to bar federal district court judges from issuing nationwide injunctions.
Among the contested items that remained, Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley announced in a social media post that his years-long effort to reauthorize the Radiation Exposure Compensation Fund, or RECA, passed what’s known on Capitol Hill as the “Byrd bath” test.
Supreme Court curbs injunctions that blocked Trump's birthright citizenship plan
Source: NBC News
June 27, 2025, 10:08 AM EDT
WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court on Friday allowed the Trump administration to take steps to implement its contentious proposal to end automatic birthright citizenship.
The court granted a request by the Trump administration to narrow the scope of nationwide injunctions imposed by judges so that they apply only to groups and individuals that sued. That means the birthright citizenship proposal can move forward in the states that challenged it as well as those that did not.
The policy remains blocked for now in one additional state, New Hampshire, as a result of a separate lawsuit that is not before the Supreme Court.
The court also said that the administration can continue working administratively on how the policy would be implemented.
