All posts tagged "hakeem jeffries"

This tiny act could end the galling stupidity that keeps Trump in power

One of the most significant developments in what was another ear-shattering, soul-crushing week in American politics transpired quietly last Monday evening, when Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) announced he was stepping down.

Nadler, 78, has been a liberal force during his three decades in Congress, and by finally throwing in the towel signaled that maybe — just MAYBE — Democrats are starting to listen to their angry constituents, who are not at all pleased by the way the party has comported itself leading up to, and after, the most consequential election in American history this past November.

“Watching the Biden thing really said something about the necessity for generational change in the party, and I think I want to respect that,” Nadler said, before grudgingly adding, that a younger replacement “can maybe do better, can maybe help us more.”

Using the word “maybe” was Nadler’s ego talking, but it was the “Watching the Biden thing …” that really interested me. I’ll have more on that in a minute, but for now, it’s instructive to listen to how news of Nadler’s departure was received in Democratic circles. Put it this way: I have not heard from ONE person of note who thought this was a bad decision.

Basically, this is what I have been hearing:

“Thank you, sir, for your many years of service. I wish more Democrats would do the same.”

To put it kindly, the Democratic Party has become a stale, useless brand. It is a party crying for a new direction, and new leadership. It needs fresh faces, and new ideas. Again: Nobody I have talked to disputes this.

One only needs see what is transpiring in Nadler’s haunts in New York City for a vivid illustration of the party’s self-destructive clash of cultures.

Up-and-comer, Zohran Mamdani, 33, handily won the New York City Democratic Mayoral Primary in July, but instead of celebrating his victory, the Democratic old guard, led by Andrew Cuomo, are fighting hard against him.

This is grotesque, it really is, but is serving to expose all that is wrong with a party that refuses to get out of its own way.

Even Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries has not been able to bring himself to endorse his fellow New Yorker, most likely because his campaign has accepted upwards of $1 million from the America Israel Public Affairs Committee (which loathes Mamdani) in just the last year alone, and because Jeffries has proven himself to be too cute by half.

Once an up-and-comer himself, Jeffries has lately fallen flat, and is out of tune with the majority of his party these days, who see him as a lurker, not a leader. Sadly, he seems to be one of the only people who doesn’t see this.

Mamdani’s stunning victory in the July primary was a repudiation of the old guard, their failed ideas, and all that old money. Mamdani has proven he can reach the voters that Democrats must have to win elections, which begs the question:

Why then are so many old guard Democrats throwing rocks at him?

The easy answer is all that damn money, but there is also something else at play here: Sheer stupidity, as well as that ego even Nadler has found so hard to shelve.

Listen to me:

If there was just ONE thing Democrats could do to enhance their chances in every election for the next 20 years it would be this: Throw out that old guard, swap out your so-called leadership, and make good and damn sure every person in America knows you’ve done it.

REPEAT: Throw out the old guard, swap out your so-called leadership, and make good and damn sure every person in America knows you’ve done it.

Nothing would signal you are listening to your terrified and angry electorate more than that. Further, it would serve notice to the growing number of Americans who don’t see a difference between our two major parties that this version of the Democratic Party isn’t serving up just more of the same old bulls--t.

Politics is a competitive, bottom-line sport. And in every sport except politics, winners are rewarded with a second chance, while losers go home. When a team wins, coaches, players and general managers are rewarded for their efforts. When a team loses, coaches, players, and general managers are sent packing.

At least this is how the perennial winners do it …

Fans of these teams expect nothing less. Why would they pour their hard-earned money into the pockets of losers? Are these fans any different than the constituents of the Democratic Party? Why should the people who do all the heavy lifting, volunteering, door-knocking, and rallying and marching until their feet hurt keep showing up if their party is just going to trot out the same old, tired-a-- losing team?

If you’ve read even a little of my stuff, you know how I feel about the revolting, racist, misogynistic, anti-American Republican Party.

That this group of bought-off goons has been able to garner the support of something called the “working-class American” is not only patently insane, but speaks to the massive failures of the Democratic Party, which has allowed for the greatest heist in American history.

How can the party that stands with unions, workers’ rights, increased minimum wage, wages overall, healthcare, childcare, social security, Medicaid and Medicare be losing the working-class voters?????

And, by the way, have you seen the latest job reports, showing Trump’s predictable and massive failures?

We’ve heard a lot about Democrats’ inability to communicate to the American public, but I’m not sure if that messaging is as much of a problem as the people who are doing it — those losing players I was talking about.

Like it or not, most Americans are sick and tired of the Cuomos and the Clintons, the Chuck Schumers and Hakeem Jeffries, the Amy Klobuchars and the Steny Hoyers, the Mark Warners and the Cory Bookers …

The list is really long, and growing.

None of these people should be in leadership any longer, and none of them will ever become president despite all their unbridled ambition, so they need to finally get that out of their hard heads.

Like it or not, they are the faces of a failed brand. I am not saying they all need to go, but they do need to learn to lead from behind, while pushing new, aspiring leaders forward.

THAT is how you truly serve your country, and thank you in advance.

It was bad enough the party lost the House, the Senate and the presidency in the most consequential elections in American history last November, but they somehow made it even worse by the way they completely and callously mishandled their beating.

It was almost as if they couldn’t wait to surrender.

It was as if they didn’t give a good goddam about the people who spent their time and treasure working their tails off to get them elected, and were now terrified about what was coming down the pike in a second, vengeful Trump dictatorial term.

A term, by the way, that should have never been allowed to happen if we had a damn Justice Department that acted with the urgency Trump’s January 6, 2021, attack on our nation most certainly demanded.

Joe Biden himself was absolutely appalling in Kamala Harris’s defeat, what with his warm welcome to America’s dictator in front of that damn fire in the White House only days after the election. I will never be able to unsee or un-hear that grotesque spectacle.

Then there was the cheery Klobuchar handling the inauguration festivities of the fascist dictator as if hosting some terrible, pinky-out cocktail party, while Schumer took it all in doing his worst impression of Chuck Schumer.

The gall of these people …

Within months, polls started reflecting Americans distaste for this out-of-touch, ineffective group. As I type this, the Democratic Party’s approval ratings are at roughly 20 percent.

Four out of five Americans don’t like what they are being served by Democrats.

It almost makes Trump’s 40 percent approvals look stellar by comparison.

But maybe Democrats are finally opening the door a crack, to let the fresh air in.

In the past few weeks I have seen hints of a different party, with different tactics, even if I am still seeing the same galling stupidity out of too many selfish dimwits like the odious, women-groping Andrew Cuomo.

Maybe Jerry Nadler’s resignation is a sign Democrats really are beginning to listen to their bosses in the field. We need more of this, people.

FAR MORE OF IT.

We need to hear from the new politicians, with new voices and ideas, who are advancing all the good Democrats have done and are doing, while forcefully standing against the most dangerous party in our nation’s history.

And we need to see them competing in our Red States as well as the Blue and Purple ones. Quit conceding turf to these fascists, who offer nothing to their voters but vitriol and death.

WE are the good guys, dammit.

WE need fighters.

These are the people who I will support. I am done getting my a-- kicked by backing the same old losing team with the same old losing players.

(D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. You can find all his work here.)

This Democratic nobody just showed Chuck Schumer how to lead

I’m going to talk about Hakeem Jeffries’ recent appearance on CNN in which he made another one of his tone-deaf remarks about evil being a distraction from what’s important to the American people.

But before you say what I know you’re going to say, let me say he’s not hopeless yet! Leaders can change. They must be pushed. They must be made to hear the roar. Anyway, if Ken Martin can do it, so can Jeffries.

As you may know, Ken Martin is the head of the Democratic National Committee. Until recently, he was a dictionary squish. In Minnesota, a close friend of his was assassinated by a man who is clearly in thrall to Donald Trump. Yet when the opportunity came to blame Trump for creating the conditions for cold-blooded murder, Martin blinked. All he could do, in so many words, was ask why we all can’t get along.

But then something happened.

Martin grew a spine!

He was asked recently whether the Democrats should shut down the government in the next funding face-off if Trump keeps doing crimes (my word) like using “the Justice Department to go after his enemies or if he keeps National Guard troops on the streets?”

Martin said yes!

“You have a fascist in the White House,” he said. “We cannot be the only ones playing by the rules with a hand tied behind our back. That old playbook, the norms that used to have guardrails on our democracy and protect all of us, that doesn’t exist anymore.

“We gotta throw that playbook out the window, because the Republicans have.

“We cannot be the only party that’s playing by the rules anymore. That’s why I said this isn’t your grandfather’s Democratic Party, where you bring a pencil to a knife fight. We are bringing a bazooka to a knife fight. Donald Trump wants a showdown. The Republicans want a showdown. We’re gonna give it to them.”

This heel turn is new. Earlier this year, during the most recent funding showdown, Chuck Schumer said a handful of Senate Democrats would vote with the GOP to keep the government running, even though they knew the president would prosecute a totalitarian agenda. In essence, Schumer had argued, it was better to bargain with evil than fight it.

Now Martin is saying: “Fight! Fight! Fight!”

And that fighting spirit is almost certainly the consequence of traveling the country and listening to Democratic voters, who are tired of the Democrats asking the Republicans for permission to get along with the Republicans.

Jeffries can do the same. But we have to push him in more ways than one. Right now, the main focus is getting him to stop using the word “distraction.” Last Sunday, he again used that formulation on CNN.

“We should continue to support local law enforcement and not simply allow Donald Trump to play games with the lives of the American people as part of his effort to manufacture a crisis and create a distraction because he is deeply unpopular. The one big ugly bill is unpopular, ripping healthcare away from millions of Americans is unpopular, enacting tax breaks for their billionaire donors is deeply unpopular, and that’s why a lot of this is taking place.”

But I think “distraction” is only part of a larger problem.

Though he accuses Trump of diverting our attention away from the fact that he’s cheating us, Jeffries still accepts as valid the president’s “reasons” for doing things — in this case, commandeering local law enforcement and replacing police departments with US military personnel to patrol major cities, like Washington and Chicago.

The president’s “reasons”? Crime is so out of control that it’s tantamount to a national emergency demanding a military response.

That’s a lie.

We are seeing historically low levels of crime, especially violent crime.

But instead of calling out the lie, presenting the facts, and accusing Trump of attempting to grab power, Jeffries implicitly concedes that there’s some truth to it. He probably figures there’s no point in arguing the point and that he’ll make more hay by dismissing Trump’s power grab as a distraction before redirecting us to things like healthcare that he believes will be convincing to voters who believe Trump’s lies.

In other words, Jeffries is doing what Schumer was doing, which is what all centrist Democrats do: accept as valid the premise of the lies in order to make themselves seem moderate (especially not the “radical left Democrats” that Trump would have everyone believe), and as such, portrays themselves as honest brokers who care about “things that really matter to the American people.”

But when you accept as valid the premise of the lie, you forfeit the opportunity to confront it. You might even find yourself looking weak and on the defensive, as Jeffries did. When asked if people in Chicago are manufacturing concerns about crime, he sputtered and bumbled through the rest of the interview, spending his time trying to prove that his party cares about crime as much as Trump does, thus deepening the false impression that he cares at all. For God’s sake, the highest-ranking Democrat in the Congress looked like he was on trial!

Trump does not care whether there are high rates of crime in American cities. If there is, so be it. If there isn’t, he’ll lie about it. He’ll accuse the local cops of faking the data. (He’ll get his congressional goons to validate the allegation by launching an investigation into it.) What’s important isn’t the substance of the allegation but whether the allegation justifies what he wants to do. If it does, he’ll send in the troops. If it doesn’t, he’ll find some other rationale for his malign goals.

Facts don’t matter to Trump, because he doesn’t care what’s true. That seems to be the conclusion that Ken Martin finally came to. There is no point in searching for good faith in a president who has none. There is no point in compromising with a criminal when all a criminal sees in compromise is more reason to commit more crimes.

Go ahead, Martin seemed to say. Shut down the government.

But stay focused.

Because “playing by the rules” is the biggest distraction of them all.

Jeffries could prove hopeless, but not yet! As I said, if Ken Martin can make the journey from bargaining with evil to fighting it, he can too.

Hakeem Jeffries warns progressives of 'painful lesson' if challenged

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) is warning the progressive wing of his party, particularly those aligned with Zohran Mamdani, the party’s new nominee for the New York City mayoral race, that they will learn a “painful lesson” should he face any primary challenges.

A self-described Democratic socialist, Mamdani shook the Democratic Party with his upset victory last month, sparking panic among wealthy Wall Street financiers, conservatives and moderate Democrats with his progressive agenda. And now, a number of Mamdani supporters are considering launching primary challenges to New York’s Democratic congressional delegation, CNN reported Wednesday.

Speaking with CNN, Jeffries’ senior adviser Andre Richardson dared progressives to launch a primary challenge against the top House Democrat, and took a dig at the racial makeup of Mamdani’s base as being disproportionately white.

“Leader Hakeem Jeffries is focused on taking back the House from the MAGA extremists who just ripped health care away from millions of Americans,” Richardson told CNN. “However, if Team Gentrification wants a primary fight, our response will be forceful and unrelenting. We will teach them and all of their incumbents a painful lesson on June 23, 2026.”

Mamdani overperformed with white voters compared with his primary competitor in the race Andrew Cuomo, former New York governor who resigned amid sexual harassment allegations. Nearly half of Mamdani’s support “came out of white, native-born neighborhoods,” according to John Mollenkoph, CUNY Graduate Center director of the Center for Urban Research, told Politico.

Jeffries has frequently been pegged by the progressive wing of the party as being too moderate, citing his past record of voting to override union objections by imposing a contract on rail workers in 2022, his lack of vocal support for universal health care, and his overt support of Israel amid the country’s ongoing siege in Gaza that has left at least 57,500 dead, the majority of them women and children.

However, the Democratic Socialists of America, of which Mamdani is a member, along with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), say launching a primary challenge against Jeffries is not the organization’s top priority at the moment.

“His leadership has left a vacuum that organizations like DSA are filling,” said Gustavo Gordillo, DSA New York chapter co-chair, speaking with CNN. “I think that is more important right now. To me, it often seems like he is the one picking the fight with the left, and I think he should focus on fighting the right.”

Dear Dems: Please chuck Schumer, before it's too late for us all

Summertime used to be fun — relaxing even.

Kids were out of school, driving the adults crazy, while the adults were giving it hell burning up their two weeks of hard-earned vacation, and doing their level best to ignore the kids, so that everybody could get some much-needed space and happiness.

People would collect around a grill for dinner, and report on their day, before separating again to find some good trouble chasing laughs, lightning bugs and pretty girls and boys. If you were lucky, there was time spent by a pool, and if you were luckier yet, toes were curled in the sand of a yawning beach where the waves yanked at us for a dip or better yet, a ride.

Mungo Jerry’s 1970’s hit In the Summertime will always frame the season for me. Have a drink, have a drive, and go off and give it a listen … I’ll be sure to ruin your mood when you return.

We're not grey people, we're not dirty, we're not mean
We love everybody, but we do as we please
When the weather's fine, we go fishing or go swimming in the sea
We're always happy, life's for living
Yeah, that's our philosophy

Politics was almost never discussed during the summer because there was fun to find back then. Yeah, that was America’s philosophy.

We trusted that barring the unforeseen, nobody would screw things up too badly in Washington while we were sheltering from the constant grind.

This summer, we are under brutal attack by a mad king who is intent on getting even for every awful thing that has made him miserable the past 79 years. Because he can’t escape his pathetic life, he is spending his summer making sure ours is as terrible as possible.

Young Trump spent his summers torturing everybody around him, until one day his parents decided even they’d had enough. After he returned home from yanking the ponytails of the girls who couldn’t run fast enough to escape his fat grip, they shipped him kicking and screaming off to a military boarding school so that he could become their problem instead.

Now he’s everybody’s problem.

This summer, 75 percent of America is worried our Democracy is under direct attack. The other 25 percent are doing the attacking, led by the burnt-orange architect of the most violent attack on our Capitol since 1814.

The yacht club bully has grown into the most dangerous person in the world.

America hasn’t been this divided since the Civil War, which is appropriate because we are back to fighting about the same things. Namely: the notion that all men and women are created equal.

People on the left say they are.

People on the right say they aren’t.

Hard as it is to believe, our first Civil War could have been even worse if we didn't have arguably our greatest president in office, Abraham Lincoln.

This Civil War promises to escalate because we have without question our most grotesque president in office, whose singular talent is to split families and vindictively go lower. He’s sees only upside in dividing us.

He’s a got a lifetime of grievances to settle, and a political party in tow that spends all its time on its knees kissing his two-ton backside to appease his grotesque cult, which is only too happy to hurt itself just as long as everybody else feels its pain.

All of this would be plenty bad enough to spoil any hazy, lazy day at the pool or the beach, except, of course, we know it’s even worse, because the political team that has assembled itself in Washington to battle this evil has to be a collection of some of sorriest-ass politicians on record.

Instead of bringing baseball bats to this war for our survival, they are bringing catcher’s mitts.

At a time we’ve never needed bare-knuckle, inspirational fighters more, the opposition party is doing everything it can to give us even less. So a warning: I will not stop typing this until things change: The Democratic Party cannot be taken seriously as long as Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries are leading it.

THEY HAVE TO GO.

The only impressive thing about these two relentlessly boring men is their unyielding arrogance. Both act like low-energy robots who are plugged into some 1970 political algorithm that spits out talking points with all the gusto of a short-circuiting word processor.

Who is it these guys think they are connecting with? I mean, besides 86-year-old guys like Steny Hoyer?

It would embarrassing if it wasn’t so damn insulting, but we don’t have to put up this, people.

On Tuesday, in the wake of perhaps the most catastrophic vote in American history, Schumer immediately ran off to post this on Elon Musk’s crooked social media platform. It might be the most 2025 Democratic thing I have ever seen:

Whoa! He got the name of the bill changed! You won’t see this kind of shrewd political maneuvering just anywhere, my friends.

I think Lyndon Johnson just tried to die again ...

And about this bizarre picture HE purposely chose to amplify after the Great Name Change …

Well, that’s the electrifying Schumer himself burying his face in the lectern, surrounded by Senator Patty Murray who is burying her face in her hands, Senator Jack Reed who is burying himself in sleep, and some dude on the lower-right with the thought-bubble over his head that reads: “Please, God, just bury me now …”

THIS is who is leading the Left while Trump and his Orcs drag us into hell.

So now yer asking me who would do better. Well, besides literally ANYBODY, a less vague answer:

In the Senate, up until six weeks ago, I would have advocated for New Jersey Senator Cory Booker. That’s when he balled up his fingers and punched himself in the face by being the lone Democrat to vote for Charles Kushner, a convicted felon and father-in-law to Ivanka Trump, as the new U.S. ambassador to France.

The things people will do for money …

So why not one of the Georgia’s senators, namely Raphael Warnock, who has more fight and passion than the entire New York delegation? Yes, I understand putting people in purple states in these positions is risky, but is there a better state than Georgia to dig in and hold the line?

(And don’t you dare hit me with some seniority argument, when it’s the seniors in the party that have in large part led to this catastrophic mess.)

As for the House? You got me. There are scores to choose from. The one thing I know for sure is that the miscalculating Jeffries ain’t it.

His refusal to back Zohran Mamdani in the New York City mayoral race after his convincing victory over the reprehensible Andrew Cuomo was the last straw for me. The people want change, and Jeffries could care less.

Barbaric prisons are being opened in Florida, and millions of Americans are going to pay a terrible price thanks to a monstrous spending bill, so that affluent lowlifes like Trump can keep filling their bottomless pockets with our money.

This long, hot summer is only two weeks old, and promises to only heat up as Republicans eagerly clamor to burn more oil and coal, and leave our planet in worse shape than they found it.

We are in a war for our survival, and Democratic patriots are being led by guys like Schumer, who can’t even write a strongly worded tweet without making a damn fool of himself and his party.

It’s time to put some serious heat on these ineffective fools, and demand change and real fighters at the top, because as hot as this summer is, it well might be our last as a Democratic Republic.

D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. You can find all his work here.

'Audacious!' Mike Johnson pats himself on back for passing megabill 'day early'

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) credited President Donald Trump's "big beautiful bill" with creating a "unified government" that allowed the House and Senate to work together toward a common goal.

Democrats, however, were not at all unified behind the bill, due to SNAP and Medicaid cuts, as well as tax breaks for the wealthy. In a record-breaking 8-hour and 44-minute speech meant to delay the vote Thursday, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) blasted the measure and called on Democrats to stay strong in their beliefs.

“Press on for the left behind,” he said. “Press on for the rule of law. Press on for the American way of life. Press on for democracy. We’re going to press on until victory is won."

During his victory lap, Johnson spoke of his "audacious timeline" to first move the bill by Memorial Day — which he bragged they beat by four days — and to ultimately pass the bill by July 4.

"We got this one done a day early," he proclaimed to cheers and applause.

When asked, "Why did you think this was possible?" Johnson replied, "It's a belief. We had a vision for what we wanted to do as a group. It's the great blessing of a unified government."

Johnson continued, "I believe in the people that are standing here behind me. I know their hearts...they will give their all for this country. I believed in the vision, I believe in this group, I believe in America."

Trump plans to sign the bill into law on the Fourth of July holiday.

'Take a drug test:' GOP lawmaker attacks Jeffries over filibuster performance

Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN) took aim at House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) Thursday over what he called Jeffries’ “low-T” filibuster on President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

“Dollar Store Obama has been hysterically rambling for over three and a half hours, whining about tax cuts for working Americans, bonuses for our brave law enforcement, and mass deportations of illegals,” Ogles said Thursday in a social media post on X.

“He’s still droning on like a broken record… Hakeem needs to get off the House floor, take a drug test, and start putting America first – not last.”

Jeffries has been taking advantage of a loophole in House floor rules that allows party leaders to speak for as long as they want during debate, sometimes referred to as the “magic minute.” The OBBBA, Trump’s budget reconciliation package, advanced in the House early Thursday after a number of Republican holdouts were persuaded to vote in favor of moving the bill forward for a final vote.

Now, as it’s become clear Republicans likely have the votes to pass the bill outright, Jeffries appears to be holding off the final vote for as long as he can, and much to the ire of Republicans like Ogles.

“Not sure if his batteries are running low or if he's just low-T, but someone needs to hand Discount Dollar Store Obama some caffeine ASAP,” Ogles said.

With Republicans’ slim majority in the House, the party can afford no more than three dissenting votes on the OBBBA for it to pass. Amid his filibuster, Jefferies has repeatedly called for “only four Republicans” to dissent and join Democrats in stopping the bill from passing.

‘Image of creepiness’: Fury over masked ICE agents has Tommy Tuberville laughing

WASHINGTON — Masked ICE agents are the mysterious and menacing face of the Trump administration’s mass deportation drive.

Increasingly alarmed, Democrats are trying to conduct oversight on the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and related offices.

But Republicans care a lot less. In exclusive interviews with 10 senior senators, Raw Story found many of the most senior GOP figures on relevant committees aren’t even thinking about migrants’ rights, let alone debating the issue.

Furthermore, some of President Donald Trump’s top allies say migrants don’t have rights at all.

“I’m for ICE agents wearing anything they want to protect themselves,” Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) told Raw Story while walking through the Capitol.

“Don’t American citizens deserve the right to know who's knocking on their door?” Raw Story pressed.

“No!” Tuberville replied, with a loud laugh. “Not when they're looking for illegals that's killing people.”

Never mind reports such as one from the American immigration Council that showed “immigrants have had lower incarceration rates than the U.S.-born for each of the last 150 years,” and concluded that “immigrants are 60 percent less likely to be incarcerated than those who were born in the United States.”

In Trump’s Washington, studies are less important than anecdotes, talking points are more prized than facts, and rhetoric parades as reality.

Among Capitol Hill conservatives, in the midst of Trump’s rush to hunt, detain and deport entire communities, no one’s debating due process.

Rather, some Republicans are fighting to enshrine ICE agents’ legally questionable ability to permanently hide their faces, rallying around errant accusations that Democrats and the press are “doxxing” such operatives.

Even as Senate Republicans debate what to do with the House-passed “One Big Beautiful Bill,” and the roughly $185 billion it allocates to mass deportation efforts, there’s little to no discussion about trying to exert even some of the authority the Constitution explicitly gives to Congress.

“What are your thoughts on ICE agents wearing masks here in America?” Raw Story asked Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), the Senate Homeland Security Committee chair. “Do American citizens deserve to know who these agents are?”

“I don't have anything for you on that,” the self-described limited government libertarian dismissively replied.

Some Republicans defend ICE agents’ heavy-handed, secretive tactics. But that doesn’t mean they’re bothering to look into allegations that agents are running roughshod over the Constitution’s promise of due process for all.

“They should comply with the law — whatever that is on that — but we've got, you know, plainclothes police officers all the time,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) told Raw Story, while rushing to vote.

Hawley was attorney general of Missouri. He has no problem with ICE agents playing dress-up — dress-down, really — because local, state and federal law enforcement regularly work undercover.

“Sometimes they wore badges, sometimes they wouldn’t,” Hawley recalled.

‘Doxxing’ debate

Like many on the right, Hawley says his biggest concern is the safety of ICE agents, especially after the House minority leader, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) joined rank-and-file Democrats in calling for agents’ identities to be released.

“What’s outrageous is Hakeem Jeffries and others saying that we ought to doxx these agents,” said Hawley, a member of the Senate Homeland Security Committee. “That's ridiculous.”

So ridiculous, it didn’t happen.

Doxxing means publishing someone’s private information, especially their home address, without consent. Responding to a question from Migrant Insider’s Pablo Manríquez, Jeffries called for the release of names of ICE agents, not addresses.

Jeffries was referring to agents accused of wrongfully detaining a staffer for Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), as well as agents in Newark, New Jersey who members of Congress say roughed them up last month.

Just last week, Democratic Newark Mayor Ras Baraka sued Interim New Jersey U.S. Attorney Alina Habba, once Trump’s personal lawyer, for falsely arresting him at an ICE facility in May.

Jeffries says the Constitution doesn’t just protect elected officials. He says everyone on U.S. soil has a right to know the identity of badge-waving — and especially badge-hiding — accusers.

“Every single ICE agent who’s engaged in this aggressive overreach and are trying to hide their identities from the American people will be unsuccessful in doing that,” Jeffries said.

“This is America. This is not the Soviet Union. We're not behind the Iron Curtain. This is not the 1930s and every single one of them, no matter what it takes, no matter how long it takes, will, of course, be identified.”

But Jeffries’ words are meeting the far-right messaging machine. While he never called for agents’ addresses to be released, you wouldn’t know that from listening to top Trump officials.

In the Republican-run Capitol, meanwhile, Trump officials’ talking points are treated as gospel.

Raw Story asked Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, if he had “any concerns over ICE agents wearing masks and sometimes not identifying themselves?”

“Not if the reports I've heard [are right], that they get doxxed, and their families are threatened,” Grassley replied.

“We've got to make sure that people that are hired to enforce the law can do it without harm to themselves,” added Grassley, 91 and president pro tempore of the Senate, third in line for the presidency, flanked by a large security detail.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), 91, chairs the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein

“And if [masks are] what it takes, I've got no problem with it because I don't want people to be terrorized just because they're doing their job of enforcing the law.”

“It doesn't raise any due process concerns?” Raw Story pressed.

“I'll let the courts take care of that,” Grassley said.

Other Republicans want the Senate to take care of it.

Just last week, Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) dropped a new anti-doxxing bill. The rumored 2026 gubernatorial candidate’s new measure, the Protecting Law Enforcement from Doxxing Act, makes doxxing federal agents illegal.

The fact no one has released the addresses of any ICE agents doesn’t matter, given few Republicans have even stopped to think about roving deportation squads of faceless agents knocking down doors and shattering windows.

“I hadn't thought about it,” Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL), who sits on the Homeland Security Committee, told Raw Story. “You want them to be safe, so if it's a safety issue, I completely understand it.”

“Don't American citizens have a right to know who's charging them?” Raw Story pressed.

“It's important for them to be clear who they are,” said Scott, a former Florida governor. “I don't know if it's important for them to know the exact person.”

‘Core concern’

Democrats are aghast.

Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) told Raw Story there was a “long history in the United States of law enforcement having identifying badges with their names so that people can know who is carrying out an arrest, from what agency.”

Facing your accuser is central to the American justice system — or, at least, it was.

“It is a core due process concern if those who are facing arrest, detention, deportation, and their families, which in many cases includes American citizens, don't know what this is, who it is,” Coons said.

Coons fears heavy-handed ICE tactics will have repercussions in migrant communities.

“Trust between law enforcement and our communities is an important part of effective law enforcement,” Coons said. “Knowing that the person who's arresting someone or detaining someone is duly authorized is a key part of a system of order.”

It’s about more than masks. Coons argues checks and balances built into America’s legal system are being erased in real-time.

“Due process requires transparency, traceability and following court orders — all of those have been somewhat in play in recent months,” Coons said. “It's important that they be followed.”

Nonetheless, masked agents are central to the deportation debate.

After recent ICE raids across Virginia, its two Democratic senators, Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, addressed what they called an “alarming and dangerous turn.”

On May 23, in a fiery three-page letter documenting ICE-related unrest nationwide, the two former governors lectured Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Deportation Czar Tom Homan and two ICE directors about the “unintended consequences” of secretive tactics.

“Such actions put everyone at risk – the targeted individuals, the ICE officers and agents, and bystanders who may misunderstand what is happening and may attempt to intervene,” Warner and Kaine wrote.

“We urge you to direct ICE officers and agents to promptly and clearly identify themselves as law enforcement officers conducting law enforcement actions when arresting subjects, and limit the use of face coverings during arrests and other enforcement.”

‘The fear’

Before Trump swept back into the White House, American policing had been bending slowly towards transparency, according to Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), a former state attorney general.

While many police forces and unions initially resisted body cameras, they’ve now become the norm in major cities.

“Even body cams are there to show the public that in fact [officers] behaved well,” Whitehouse said. “So I think that's the message [of ICE agents masking and operating without badges.] They intend to create a sort of image of creepiness and unaccountability, because that helps with the fear that they're trying to inculcate.”

That’s why Whitehouse and most other Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee are vehemently opposed to officers wearing masks.

“It's not consistent with the best traditions of American law enforcement,” Whitehouse told Raw Story. “It conjures unpleasant images. It runs contrary to the transparency that we customarily worked on, where people's name and badge number has to be visible.”

To hell with it all: Why I've had it with this pathetic farce

While I am typing this, members of the Democratic National Committee aren’t spending every second fighting the greatest threat to America in its history. They are wasting everybody’s time attacking themselves.

Instead of spending the gobs of money they have raised from countless hundreds of thousands of scared, hardworking Americans to form and communicate a viable alternative to the most dangerous political party on the planet, they are backhanding themselves in the backrooms of their pathetically out-of-touch, inside-the-Beltway country club to get a seat near the bottom of the top of the fading party they claim to lead.

And man, am I long past sick and tired of them — so sick and tired, in fact, I am making the case for them to just go away for good.

I’m not going to sit here and argue for a third party, because that would be another waste of the time the DNC seems to think is endless, even if America has never needed one more ...

I am arguing that the DNC itself has proven itself to be mostly a non-functioning arm of the party and a waste of time, that needs to be smashed for good into tiny bits.

Bare minimum 50 tiny bits, because I think the party would continue to be best served by micro-local leadership at the city and county level, that listens to and serves the needs of the people living in these places. Instead, we get what passes for leadership from this front-loaded group of out-of-touch political sharpies in D.C. who are climbing over each other to ignore us.

Look, most Americans aren’t registered Republicans or Democrats. For some, politics just turn their stomachs, and they have no faith in either party. Others believe the antiquated political system in this country has failed them. Others — too many — have stopped giving a damn together.

There’s no excuse for giving up, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t get the inclination to just wander off, and say the hell with it all.

Fact is, most Americans are independent people with independent ideas and independent feelings about what they are experiencing in their independent lives. No party has all the answers, so we vote with the one we think is best.

I am one of them.

And while I will never vote for one of these revolting, anti-American Republicans ever again, too many Democrats have made themselves almost impossible to like, much less love.

I am demanding better. We should demand better.

The dented party has a severe image problem, and is viewed by more than 70 percent of registered voters as out of touch and ineffective, because it turns out that is exactly what it is. As unpopular as the morbid Donald Trump is, and he’s as popular as a cloudy day, the Democrats are viewed in an even dimmer light.

In fact, since we started keeping track of such things 35 years ago, they have never been more unpopular. So how are they reacting to this?

By doing absolutely nothing to change the way they are going about their business, and in the DNC’s case, re-litigating insider elections in their fancy club and ignoring people like us who pay their bills.

In this week’s sordid episode of “Inside the DNC” a select team of crusaders voted to void the results of their own election in February that made David Hogg a party vice chair, and Malcolm Kenyatta a second vice chair. Why? Because apparently some members who form something called “the credentials committee” ruled that their earlier election had not followed proper parliamentary procedures.

I’d ask you to read that again, but you might get sick, and we need you more than ever. While the world burns, these pinky-outs are sipping tea and kicking each other in the shins under the table about their shoddy “parliamentary” conduct.

According to a story in The New York Times:

“The decision — which came after roughly three hours of internal debate and one tie vote — will put the issue before the full body of the Democratic National Committee. It must decide whether to force Mr. Hogg and a second vice chair, Malcolm Kenyatta, to run again in another election later this year.”

'I said it was!' Leading Dem snaps as CNN's Dana Bash grills over 'constitutional crisis'

House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) appeared to grow frustrated when asked if President Donald Trump had plunged the country into a constitutional crisis.

CNN's Dana Bash said on Thursday's Inside Politics, "The Trump administration is finding ways to defy the courts on a few fronts right now," citing the case of a Maryland father wrongly deported to an El Salvadoran prison, and the White House's refusal to allow the Associated Press to cover the administration.

"Sir, I know that you have said that the president defying court orders would create a constitutional crisis. Are we there?"

"Certainly, we're in a crisis across the board," Jeffries answered. "I mean, that is obvious for everyone to see. This is not normal. The president is assaulting the economy, assaulting social security, assaulting health care, assaulting the American way of life, and assaulting our democracy. None of this is normal. It is all a crisis."

ALSO READ: 'Alarming': Small colleges bullied into silence as Trump poses 'existential threat'

Jeffries said that regarding the case of Abrego Garcia, the man imprisoned on El Salvador, "The Supreme Court needs to take a close look at enforcing its orders, and that is generally going to involve not the president, of course, at this moment in time, but is going to involve cabinet secretaries and other administration officials who are responsible for the actual execution of these orders or the noncompliance."

"How is that not a constitutional crisis?" Bash interrupted.

"I said that we are in a crisis across the board!" Jeffries snapped. "We are in a crisis across the board in every way possible, including the assault on the democratic way of life. Now the courts are going to have to aggressively enforce its — we are in a crisis! We've apparently been in a crisis, I think, since January 20th, across the board. We're in an economic crisis, we're in a democracy crisis, we're in a crisis as it relates to the assault on health care, the assault on social security — none of this is normal."

Watch the clip below via CNN.

'I don't even like the Democratic Party': Even James Carville mad at post-Trump Dems

Democratic strategist James Carville sounded off on CNN about the current defeatist attitude consuming the Democratic Party following Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer's (D-NY) capitulation on the GOP-crafted funding bill.

"I'm mad at the Democratic Party," Carville told Wolf Blitzer. "You see, when you lose an election — a party exists for one reason, and one reason only. And that is, to win the election. We lost, but there's nothing permanent about this."

Carville said he believed that Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) do have a plan.

"And, look, if this is not evident here in the next three or four months, then there will be an uprising within the Democratic Party. But, let's give 'em a chance, let's see what their plan and their strategy is," Carville said.

Blitzer asked about a new CNN poll showing just 29% of voters have a favorable view of the Democratic Party.

"That's an all-time low. What does this say about your party right now?" Blitzer asked.

ALSO READ: 'Not much I can do': GOP senator gives up fight against Trump's tariffs

"Don't lose an election because Democrats will get mad at you," Carville quipped. He then declared, "I don't even like the Democratic Party. I do not like losing, and most Democrats feel the same way. If we start winning elections, that's going to come back."

"Trump's head of his council of economic advisers said growth in the first quarter was going to be 2.5%. Well, let's just, I don't know what it's going to be. Predictions about the future are especially hard, but I got a feeling these guys have no idea of what they're doing. And when these opportunities come forth, you have to seize these opportunities, and hopefully we do."

Carville pointed out, "The way to get the base back is to be clever and win, and show them that we got something going in our favor, and I think we can do that. But you you can't be emotional about this; you have to be strategic. We're in a really sticky wicket here. And I'm hopeful that Senator Schumer and Leader Jeffries, I think that is a good plan brewing in there. I really do. But the best plan is not going to be very good because we don't have the vote, we don't have the power."

Watch the clip below via CNN.