Van Jones gives Trump credit for attending WHCA dinner before blasting his speech as ‘mean and small’

After Trump’s remarks at the event, Jones offered a harsh rebuke to the president’s comments.

Federal judge blocks Illinois laws giving illegal immigrants in-state tuition

A federal judge handed a loss to Gov. JB Pritzker (D-IL) and an immigration policy win to President Donald Trump on Friday after ruling that Illinois state laws providing in-state tuition and other public benefits to illegal immigrants are “unconstitutional and invalid” under the Supremacy Clause. The Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against Illinois […]

Trump DESTROYS the Press and Democrats at the WHCD. And Boy, the Media Couldn't Handle It!

ICE sparks fury for reportedly detaining pastors — then threatening to take their kids

Faith leaders are calling on US Immigration and Customs Enforcement to immediately free a pair of pastors who advocates say were wrongfully detained by ICE agents in Texas on Thursday while traveling to a religious retreat.Pastor Nepthalí Zozaya Saucedo and his wife, pastor Cinthia Saraí Cardona Otero, were detained by federal immigration enforcers after arriving at McAllen International Airport.According to the couple and their church leaders, the longtime pastors at the Comunidad Cristiana Emanuel Assemblies of God congregation in Edinburg, Texas were on their way to a marriage retreat in North Carolina organized by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association when they were detained and taken to a US Border Patrol processing center in McAllen.At a Friday press conference hosted by leaders from the Assemblies of God and the Latino Christian National Network, LCN board member Sandy Ovalle said that the couple has valid R-1 religious worker visas.“We are calling for their immediate release, the protection of their due process rights, and an urgent oversight into ICE’s conduct,” Ovalle said. “No one should be pressured to give up their rights under the threat of losing their children.”A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told Religion News Service that the pastors are “illegal aliens” who overstayed their visas.Addressing the conference by phone from the detention center, Nepthalí said that the couple was threatened with separation from their US citizen children if they did not sign papers authorizing their “voluntary” deportation.“They spoke with us about separation—to be separated from our children and even as married people,” he said, according to Religion News Service. “They spoke about how much time that we could end up spending here.”Speaking during the press conference, Comunidad Cristiana Emanuel senior pastor Sarai Martinez Luna said, “I think it’s very cruel that somebody that had no status for deportation be pressured to sign a voluntary deportation based on the separation of their children.”Friday’s news conference followed a Wednesday press briefing by faith leaders at the Texas Capitol in Austin to condemn the killings of Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero in Maine, Juan Jairo Coronilla Durán in Florida, and Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston.“This is not of God. This is no peace that we want a part of because let’s be honest, this isn’t a peacekeeping initiative. This is a terror campaign with the mission of traumatizing our neighbors until they self-deport,” said Dan De Leon, senior pastor at Friends Congregational Church in College Station. “We don’t need terror. We need peace.”Elyse Rosenberg of the National Council of Jewish Women and Temple Beth Shalom in Austin said during the press conference that “throughout our history, we have repeatedly seen first-hand the consequences of governments exercising unchecked power on vulnerable populations.”Friday’s event also preceded nationwide vigils in more than 300 communities across the nation on Saturday to demand justice for the dozens of people who have been killed by federal enforcers or died in ICE custody during President Donald Trump’s second term.“We refuse to grieve quietly. We refuse to accept this terror and violence as inevitable," Crystal Cron, executive director of Presente! Maine, said ahead of the vigils. “Johan Sebastián should still be here with his wife and daughter—and instead, his name joins a growing list of people killed by an institution that treats our communities as disposable.”“This is bigger than one shooting,” Cron added. “We will not stop fighting until there is justice for the Durán Guerrero family and a total dismantling of this lawless, criminal agency that took him from them.”

Jackson formally clinches Democratic nod to take on Collins in Maine Senate race

Former Maine Senate President Troy Jackson formally clinched the Democratic nod to take on Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) in November, giving the party just 100 days to quickly turn the tides in the must-win race. Jackson handily won on Saturday with 566 votes during the Democratic nomination convention in Bangor, Maine. His only challenger, biopharmaceutical executive Saundra…

Maine Dems pick Troy Jackson to replace Graham Platner and take on Susan Collins in high stakes Senate race 

The special nominating convention in Bangor served as a coronation for Jackson, who essentially locked up the nomination earlier this week.

"Cockroach Democracy": Arundhati Roy on India's Youth-Led Protest Movement & Modi's Collapsing Support

A youth-led protest movement in India is demanding an end to the country’s status quo. Sparked by the leak of national exam questions, tens of thousands of young people have taken to the streets. They are protesting under the banner of the Cockroach Janta (People’s) Party — a new party named to reflect the words of India’s chief justice, who compared unemployed youth to cockroaches and parasites. The movement has only swelled in response to a violent crackdown on protesters. Although the protesters’ initial demands were for the resignation of the country’s education minister, “everything has shifted to directly attacking [Prime Minister Narendra] Modi,” says Indian writer Arundhati Roy, who joins us from New Delhi, the physical center of a movement that first found exponential success online. The erosion of democratic principles under Modi’s right-wing Bharatiya Janata (Indian People’s) Party is being contested on a large scale for the first time, says Roy. “It’s really a generation whose parents and grandparents wore those Modi masks and chanted 'Modi, Modi, Modi,' and got him into power. It is their children now who are saying the emperor has no clothes.”

GOP lawmaker demands answers after Smithsonian chief urged moving beyond 'America First mentality'

Rep. Mike Carey grilled Smithsonian leadership on why the National Museum of American History dropped "American history" from its mission statement.