Morning all. Lot’s going on today. Let’s get to it……..
Later today, unless the far-right breaks with Trump and Johnson, the US House is expected to pass the Senate appropriations package that approves funding for five more appropriations bills and creates a two week Continuing Resolution (CR) for DHS funding. Four months after the legal deadline for finishing the fiscal year 2026 budget 10 of the 11 appropriations bills are now complete. The next two weeks, and perhaps longer, will now be about reining in ICE.
For more on my thinking about how we approach this fight to rein in ICE check out my new timely discussion with the great Stuart Stevens and review yesterday’s post, Reining In ICE, Reining In Trump.
Please plan on making calls and contacting Congress today, and encourage any political groups you are part of - Indivisible, local Party, other grassroots groups - to join you. My recommended message is simple - ICE should leave Minnesota and follow the law, rather than break it. We want ICE to become a law enforcement agency rather than a lawless one. The Democrats are discussing true meaningful reforms (here) and once it is clear what’s in negotiating package we will lobby for that directly too.
I have also recommended that in coming debate we focus on forcing the regime to explain what ICE’s mission is, and to reconcile that with the outrageous sums of money it has been given. For I think in addition to reining in ICE in the coming weeks we must also lay the predicate for clawing back all the additional funding it was given in the BUB (big ugly bill).
Last night a judge blocked the premature termination of TPS for over 300,000 Haitian immigrants in the US. The welcome ruling was, among other things, a powerful “sternly worded letter" (I am a big, big fan of sternly worded letters like this):
A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration from stripping temporary protected status from up to 350,000 Haitians, a status that allows them to legally live and work in the United States amid the turmoil in their homeland.
Judge Ana Reyes issued a temporary stay that prevents Kristi Noem, the US homeland security secretary, from implementing her decision to remove the status known as TPS, which was scheduled to expire on Tuesday.
Reyes notes that Noem, in announcing her decision to revoke TPS for Haitians, referred to those seeking refuge in the US as “killers, leeches, or entitlement junkies”.
She then notes that the plaintiffs who asked her to block the order, five Haitian TPS holders, “are not, it emerges, ‘killers, leeches, or entitlement junkies’”.
“They are instead: Fritz Emmanuel Lesly Miot, a neuroscientist researching Alzheimer’s disease; Rudolph Civil, a software engineer at a national bank; Marlene Gail Noble, a laboratory assistant in a toxicology department; Marica Merline Laguerre, a college economics major; and Vilbrun Dorsainvil, a full-time registered nurse”, the judge added.
Reyes said in an accompanying 83-page opinion that plaintiffs were likely to prevail on the merits of the case and that she found it “substantially likely” that Noem preordained her termination decision because of “hostility to nonwhite immigrants”.
“During the stay, the Termination shall be null, void, and of no legal effect,” the judge said in her two-page order, adding that for now, the termination has no bearing on their ability to work and to be protected from detention and deportation.
In recent weeks Judges have now blocked the regime’s cruel attempt to prematurely remove over 300,000 Haitians and 350,000 Venezuelans. This is another reason why we need a big discussion about the regime’s immigration strategy for their argument that they are targeting criminal migrants is a lie - they are targeting long-settled undocumented immigrants and millions of legal migrants to the country too. The only reason they need that extra ICE funding is to mount a decade long campaign to remove tens of millions of long-settled and legal migrants from the country, and keep ICE terrorizing our communities for years and years to come.
In an important development local prosecutors in the Twin Cities have launched a formal investigation into Renee Good’s murder and have demanded the full cooperation of the regime:
State prosecutors have formally demanded that the Trump administration turn over any evidence gathered by federal authorities after the shooting death of Renee Good by ICE agent Jonathan Ross.
Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty announced Monday that her office had served what are known as Touhy letters on the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security. The legal filing seeks a wide range of potential evidence from Good’s killing on Jan. 7 in south Minneapolis and gives a Feb. 17 deadline to respond. The demand letters come as the county attorney — alongside the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension and the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office — continues to pursue an independent state investigation into Ross’ deadly use of force.
“I expect the federal government to provide the requested information, documents and physical items to our office,” Moriarty said in a statement announcing the letters. “The federal government has been clear that they are not conducting an investigation into Renee Good’s death. But we are. We require these records as part of our ongoing thorough investigation into her death at the hands of a federal agent, Jonathan Ross.”
Touhy requests are a filing for information from federal agencies in legal proceedings. The name stems from a Supreme Court ruling in 1951 that clarified how and when the federal government needs to produce records or witness testimony.
Despite the turmoil and occupation tonight Minnesota Dems will caucus in over 4,000 locations to begin picking their delegates to the state convention and begin the process of party endorsements in the 2026 election. It’s our first election under an ICE occuption, and it’s why we rallied for the DFL a few weeks ago - to give them more resources to do what parties do under in these unprecedented circumstances times.
Good luck to everyone who is caucusing tonight in Minnesota!
Senator Blumental and Rep. Robert Garcia will be holding a shadow hearing on ICE’s lawless and violence at 3pm EST. Please spread this link through your networks and encourage people to watch live. They deserve a big audience for this important event:
Last night, despite our addled, corrupt, and compromised leader bragging about bringing about a pause in the fighting, Russia launched it’s biggest attack on civilian targets in Ukraine of this phase of their invasion:
This morning French officials raided the Paris offices of X:
French police raided the Paris offices of Elon Musk’s X Tuesday and summoned the tech billionaire for questioning as part of a widening probe into the social media company and its AI chatbot Grok.
The search was linked to an investigation opened in January 2025, the Paris prosecutor’s office said Tuesday, adding that its cybercrime unit conducted the raid with help from Europol.
Both X chairman Musk and former X chief executive Linda Yaccarino have been summoned to appear at hearings in April, while X employees will be questioned as witnesses, according to the Paris prosecutor.
……..
Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau said the investigation, which initially focused on suspected abuse of algorithms, had been broadened to include Grok’s “sexual deepfakes” and the circulation of “Holocaust denial content.”
Last week the European Commission launched a probe into Grok following criticism of its ability to produce sexually explicit pictures. Scrutiny of that function came to a head late last year, when it emerged that the chatbot had produced a flood of digitally undressed images – including of women and children – at the behest of users.
Reuters is reporting today that despite claims to have turned off the ability for Grok/X users to produce sexualized images of women without their consent the practice continues.
Yes, Trump openly discussed seizing control over the elections in blue states yesterday. We will be diving into his dark desires to deny the American people the chance to put Democrats back in power this November in the coming days but I want you to listen to the segment where he discusses this yesterday. He sounds drunk, incoherent, deeply unwell. It’s important you listen to this to understand how unhinged he has become (audio only thankfully):
On Sunday we learned that there is a measles outbreak at the main ICE detention facility in Texas. So we need to be clear about what that means - with people being transited from that facility to all over the world and throughout the US the lawlessness and cruelty of Noem and the eugenics of Kennedy appear to have created a global measles superspreader event.
Here is how my ChatGPT summarized measles for those who may have forgotten:
Measles is one of the most contagious and potentially dangerous infectious diseases, especially for people who are unvaccinated or medically vulnerable.
We cannot look away at the data we are seeing for we know from COVID what graphs like this mean:
It is time for blue/free state Governor and public health authorities, and their representatives in Congress to begin demanding, loudly, that the regime mobilize against this worsening public health crisis before it is too late.
Keep contacting your Congressional Reps and demand they rein in ICE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Big week ahead!
Fired up about our big win in Texas Saturday night? Contribute to our Audacious Expansion Fund which has already poured $70,000 into the Texas Democratic Party to help fuel this victory; fund the Texas Dems directly; watch my recent discussion with Kendall Scudder, the dynamic new Chair of the Texas Democratic Party discussing their ambitious 2026 plans.
Winning The Midterms - Support Our Candidates
Hopium’s Winning The House Campaign (2026) - $102,100 raised, $250,000 goal (new stretch goal) - Donate to all four endorsed House challengers with one click | Learn More | Enjoy our new conversations with Christina Bohannan (IA-01), Mayor Paige Cognetti (PA-08), Jo Mendoza (AZ-06), and Janelle Stelson (PA-10). Friends, we’ve hit $100,000 - thank you all!
Mary Peltola For Alaska Senate - $26,200 raised, $250,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer and learn more. Amazing start everyone!
Winning Ohio - $47,800 raised, $250,000 goal - Our new campaign splits contributions evenly among Sherrod Brown, the Acton/Pepper ticket, and the Ohio Democratic Party. Donate today and help us turn this critical 2026 battleground blue! | Watch my conversation with David Pepper, who does a great overview of the opportunities we have in Ohio this year. Note a generous donor has sent $21,000 worth of Hopium-infused contributions directly to the candidates which are not included in on-line goal tracker.
Roy Cooper for NC Senate (2026) - $73,000 raised, $250,000 goal - Donate | Learn More | Volunteer | Enjoy my conversation with Gov. Cooper and a new, terrific one with NC Dem Party Chair Anderson Clayton
Jon Ossoff GA Senate (2026) - $119,000 raised, $250,000 goal - Donate | Learn More | Volunteer | Enjoy my inspiring conversation with Senator Ossoff
Expanding The Senate and Electoral College Maps, Winning In Red States and Red Places (2026-2032)
Hopium’s Audacious Expansion Fund - $347,300 raised, $500,000 goal (new stretch goal) - Join our new campaign to expand our map by investing in the Democratic Parties of Alaska, Florida, Iowa, Maine, and Texas. Many thanks to two generous Hopium community members who have audaciously donated $10,000 to each of our five state parties
3 Campaigns Where We’ve Hit Our Goals, But Are Still Active - We have three campaigns where we’ve hit our goals but that folks can still participate in - Ken Martin’s New DNC, Anderson Clayton and the North Carolina Democratic Party, and the Democratic Party of Minnesota (DFL).
We got the following note from Cynthia this week. She is one of the 3,000 Hopium subscribers in Minnesota:
I am a Minnesotan and cannot adequately express the depth of my gratitude to Simon for this conversation with Richard and organizing this fundraiser and to each person that donated. My heart is full and tears are running down my face. Thank you to everyone who has supported and spoke up for Minnesota in any way and pushed back against ICE and DHS anywhere.
This is the absolutely the most unsafe I’ve ever felt where I live. It far exceeds anything I’ve experienced, and I am white. It affects my decisions every time I go outside. I continue to call my reps and work with my friends and my partner to offer mutual aid, get training, and help others. My neighborhood has been quiet and we’re looking for more ways to help others in more affected areas. We are attending the Solidarity Mobilizations this coming Tues and next: https://www.mobilize.us/surj/event/885616/
I attended an excellent online event with Indivisible this week about the caucuses, plan to attend myself, and have gotten 2 more people to go already, with more on my call list.
I went to the annual art sled rally this weekend. It is one of my favorite events of the year! So much laughter, fun, and delight. Thankfully, there wasn’t ICE presence during the event that I’m aware of. Look for the Minnesota 2026 art sled rally on YouTube if you haven’t seen it yet!
Why We Must Invest Early, Now, And Not Wait - In three new essays (here, here, here) I discuss how one of the ways we win the 2026 midterms is by providing early support to our candidates and parties to allow them to staff up, be loud, define the terms of the debate now, before the inevitable onslaught on AI slop, Russian disinfo, and Trumpian lies funded through bribes and corruption wash across the land.
The midterms could be won or lost in these next few months - not in the fall of 2026 - and we need be fighting now with everything we got.
1 - Call Your Senators and Member Of The House And Demand They Act Upon Our Five-Part Agenda - We need to be loud people, very, very loud and make the case for our now five part agenda:
Stand with Ukraine and our European allies, and far more forcefully challenge Trump’s traitorous efforts to sell out the US and the West to Russia; demand Congress rebuke/issue a no confidence vote on his new threats to seize Greenland and his new, dangerous European tariffs;
Congress must stand forcefully for rule of law in the Caribbean and the Pacific - these illegal strikes must end; no war can be waged without Congressional approval; there must accountability for those who have broken the law, and the US must withdraw from Venezuela and cease other threats to violate the UN Charter and the sovereignty of other nations
Roll back Trump’s terrible, illegal tariffs that are re-igniting inflation, driving up prices, shifting the tax burden from the wealthy to working people, hurting small businesses and farmers, reviving tyrannical “taxation without representation,” and alienating governments and people throughout the world. To put America on a sounder fiscal course due to the enormous deficits brought by Trump’s 2025 tax cuts we should reverse the cuts to the wealthy and corporations
Defend our democracy, rule of law, and our liberties by blocking the expansion of ICE; restoring due process for immigrants across the country; vigorously defending the 1st Amendment; warring against his outrageous targeting of his domestic political opponents; ending the use of the military on our streets and the dangerous occupation of our cities; stopping the unprecedented regime corruption; and by forcing the Administration to finally comply with Congress end the rancid cover up of the Epstein crimes.
Fight Trump’s war on science, higher education and our public health; reverse - not delay - the cuts to the ACA, Medicaid and our clean energy investments; support and co-sponsor the Stand Up For Science/Rep. Haley Stevens effort to remove Robert Kennedy from HHS.
Keep working hard all. The momentum is with us, and we need to keep fighting as hard as we can - Simon
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