Biden to announce major immigration initiative
June 18, 2024
Hi, all! A short newsletter tonight and no audio version. Jill and I had to run up to our cabin on short notice to perform some repairs. I will return to the regular format for the newsletter on Wednesday evening.
Biden administration to make major immigration announcement on Tuesday
The Biden administration will announce on Tuesday that it will grant protection for 500,000 undocumented spouses of American citizens. The protection would shield long-term spouses from deportation. See NBC News, Biden plans to announce new policy shielding undocumented spouses of U.S. citizens from deportation. Per NBC,
The program, known as “parole in place,” would also make it easier for some undocumented immigrants to get a green card and a path to U.S. citizenship. The sources also say that the undocumented spouses would be allowed to obtain work permits on a case-by-case basis. Two of the sources said that the undocumented spouses will have to have lived in the U.S. and been married for at least 10 years before being eligible to apply for the work permit.
President Biden will also reportedly announce new protections for DACA recipients who have earned a degree in education and plan to work in that field.
News of the proposal provoked an ugly, racist rant from Trump advisor Stephen Miller, who was the architect of Trump's worst anti-immigrant policies in 2017-18. Miller’s rant included references to “illegal immigrants,” “rapists,” and “murderers.” Why should we care what Stephen Miller says? Because Trump will soon be reading Miller’s words from a teleprompter.
Immigration is a key issue in the 2024 election. Treating long-term spouses of US citizens with humanity and decency will help Biden more than it will hurt. And Trump's anti-immigrant rants will hurt him more than it will help him. As always, Biden’s humanity and generosity will prevail over Trump's hate and animosity toward others.
Supreme Court extra opinion day
For the second week in a row, the Supreme Court has added an “opinion day” to its regular schedule of one day per week. Accordingly, we should anticipate that the Court will sandbag the American public again, delaying significant opinions until Friday, hoping the outrage will be lost in the 48-hour weekend news cycle.
Sadly, it appears that strategy is working for the Court. Last Friday, the Court declared that two hundred million Americans could legally own and carry machine guns. The outrage over that opinion is invisible on Monday, June 17. That’s the problem with a 30-minute news cycle during the week, which follows the staccato pace of social media rather than the rhythms of a great democracy grappling with serious policy issues.
New York Times article on “What if Trump wins?”
Speaking of Trump's racist immigration policies, the New York Times has published a helpful but incomplete list of key agenda items in a second Trump term (which I do no believe will happen). The list is too antiseptic and omits some obvious issues—withdrawing from the Paris climate accords and cutting Social Security and Medicare, but it is a handy reference for those seeking to educate other about Trump's dark plans.
The article is here and is accessible to all: If Trump Wins.
As much as I appreciate the effort that went into the article, it repeats a mistake that most media is committing: It assumes that Trump will be able to accomplish everything he claims he will do. That is just not true. For example, he claims he will “impound” funds appropriated by Congress if he doesn’t like the program or recipient of the funds. But Congress has passed a law that prohibits unilateral impoundment. Indeed, Trump's unilateral withholding of funds appropriated for the defense of Ukraine was the cause of his first impeachment.
Moreover, as the Times noted in a separate article, the “resistance” to a possible second Trump terms has already begun. Civil liberty and pro-democracy organizations are already planning their litigation strategy against illegal actions by Trump. See New York Times, The Resistance to a New Trump Administration Has Already Started. This article is accessible to all.
Opportunity for Reader engagement
Virtual Event & Fundraiser in support of Tour To Save Democracy—Gen Z flipping seats red to blue!- with Robert Hubbell, Jessica Craven, and Jo Carducci
When: Thursday, June 20, at 5pm PT/8pm ET, on Zoom
RSVP HERE to receive the Zoom Link.
Support the Tour To Save Democracy HERE
Are you worried about the youth vote in 2024? Wondering what you can do to ensure Gen-Z takes action in November?
Please join Jessica Craven, Robert Hubbell, tour director Sam Schwartz and Democratic social media influencer Jo Carducci (@JoJoFromJerz) for an inside, behind-the-scenes look at the Tour To Save Democracy and the Gen-Z activists behind it.
Starting in Texas on July 12th, the tour will visit over 20 “red-to-blue” flippable swing districts to inspire youth action and get out the vote to secure a Democratic trifecta in Congress in November! Completely led by young people, the Tour To Save Democracy is a summer bus trip across the nation with one goal: Flip. Seats. Blue!
“Our generation has to deal with the detrimental impact of the climate crisis, daily mass shootings, and a national abortion ban, all while democracy faces unprecedented challenges. More than anything, we want progress on solving these issues, but that is impossible while Republicans hold a majority in Congress. We’re going on tour to change that.”
—Sam Schwartz, Executive Director of Tour To Save Democracy
Co-hosted by Robert Hubbell, Jessica Craven, Jo Carducci, Downtown Nasty Women Social Group, Markers For Democracy, Team Min, The Wednesday Group, and Seniors Taking Action.
Don’t miss this special, one-time event supporting the upcoming Tour To Save Democracy, organized by Gen-Z activists to engage fellow young voters in swing districts and obtain a Democratic trifecta!
Concluding Thoughts
As my wife and I drove across California’s Central Valley heading to our cabin, I found myself yelling at the radio. Since I assume all of you engage in similar behavior from time to time, I am not worried about the state of my mental health.
Why was I yelling? Because of the host and a guest on MSNBC’s mid-afternoon programming. The guest was a “political expert” who was opining on “What Joe Biden needs to do turn his campaign around.” The high-paid consultant said Biden needed to do two things: “Bring inflation under control and fix immigration.” That’s it! Easy-peasy!
Of course, presidents do not set prices and have little control over the macro-economic factors that drive inflation. So, telling Biden to do something about inflation betrayed monumental ignorance—which was exacerbated when the MSNBC host accepted the impossible task with unquestioning silence.
So, too, with immigration. Neither the political expert nor the MSNBC host managed to squeeze in the fact that Biden had successfully negotiated a bi-partisan immigration bill that was on the verge of passage until Trump ordered spineless Republicans to kill it. If a host is going to prescribe campaign strategy for Biden, a nod to reality seems in order. And the shocking failure of the MSNBC host to include the relevant facts is inexplicable (unless she wants to preserve her favored status as a point-of-contact if Trump is reelected).
Really, we deserve better—from anchors and political experts. But there is little chance we are going to get it. Stick with people you can trust. For me, that’s Lawrence O’Donnell, Rachel Maddow, Chris Hayes, Jen Psaki, Jennifer Rubin, Josh Marshall, Eugene Robinson, Heather Cox Richardson, Dan Rather, Judd Legum, Robert Reich, Joyce Vance, Barbara McQuade, Jill Wine Banks, Neal Katyal, Andrew Weissman, . . .
There are others, but I will let you fill in the rest in the Comments section. The last few days have made me realize we are largely on our own in the news environment. We need to create and shape the news by supporting good sources of independent reporting and by becoming messengers of the truth ourselves!
That’s it for this evening. Wish me luck with some advance carpentry tomorrow!
Note: Hello, this is Robert’s daughter, Jennifer. He lost internet connectivity before he finished formatting and proofreading. Please excuse typos and mistakes.
Your final word of advice is what I have been doing since I joined your Substack a while ago, Robert. I share you, Heather Cox Richardson, some of the less technical Joyce Vance, Jennifer Rubin, Dan Rather, and Judd atPopular Information, among others. At almost 78, I find this is the best thing I can do to motivate people to stay out of a media slough, think, and vote. You are my inspiration!
I totally agree with the list of media people Robert mentions in today’s edition. They are my go to people whom I listen to and read. Writing letters to local newspaper editors is an important way of challenging critical , unfair, unbalanced and untrue writings about Biden. He is so often getting a bad rap. We all need to be positive and speak politely about misconceptions. The other day a GOP friend said Biden is going nothing about the economy. I asked him, What should he do and what can he do?” My friend stammered and I pointed out that the President does not
control prices. And the Federal Reserve is the chief influence on the economy with interest rates etc. The President can pass or veto legislation that is brought to him by Congress but he does not control prices. Supply and demand is the main factor in prices. My friend listened and learned and was decent enough to say “Thank you. I did realize that.” So maybe there is one less person griping about “Biden’s economy”!
My point is that we need to educate people who will listen and learn!!!