Michigan advocates call to end Iran war, defund ICE ahead of Saturday's No Kings protests

"Thousands of people in our state have family in Lebanon, Israel, the West Bank, Gaza, places where bombs are falling right now," Masson said. "These aren't headlines. These are parents, children, cousins, friends. People here are grieving. People here are terrified." 

 Linda Gruber, the founder of the Michigan Democratic Party Senior Caucus, criticized the expansion of ICE officials into communities across the country. 

"ICE has murdered American citizens in broad daylight. There are...grotesque abuses happening away from the cameras," Gruber said. She added that the majority of individuals in detention have no criminal convictions…

https://www.michiganpublic.org/politics-government/2026-03-26/michigan-advocates-call-to-end-iran-war-defund-ice-ahead-of-saturdays-no-kings-protests 

 

Michigan elected officials, local leaders, activists call to defund ICE

Dingell said immigrants are central to the country's economy. "They're present in childcare, transportation, hospitality and manufacturing sectors that keep communities functioning every single day," Dingell said. "And they're not replacing American workers. They're working alongside of them, filling critical gaps." 

"National security and civil liberties are not mutually exclusive," Dingell said. "Funding Homeland Security should go hand in hand with ensuring agencies follow the law, respect civil rights, and use taxpayer dollars responsibly." …

https://www.michiganpublic.org/politics-government/2026-02-19/michigan-elected-officials-local-leaders-activists-call-to-defund-ice 

 

Trump’s efforts to defund Planned Parenthood threatens US healthcare system, study suggests

"They haven't been able to ban abortion outright, so they're trying to take away the money for services like cancer screening, STI testing, birth control, and essentially trying to shut us down that way so that we can't provide abortion," said Nichole Ramirez, senior vice-president of communication and donor relations at Planned Parenthood of Orange and San Bernardino Counties. 

 "They're taking away this vital care from mostly underserved communities. They're willing to have an increase in STIs, have a potential increase in cancer rates so that they can try to get rid of abortion."…

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/13/trump-planned-parenthood-healthcare

 

The New Dark Age - The Atlantic

"By destroying knowledge, Trumpists seek to make the country more amenable to their political domination, and to prevent meaningful democratic checks on their behavior. Their victory, though, would do much more than that. It would annihilate some of the most effective systems for aggregating, accumulating, and applying human knowledge that have ever existed. Without those systems, America could find itself plunged into a new Dark Age.,,"

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/05/trump-defund-schools-research-republicans/682742/ 

Dozens of Republicans vote for Marjorie Taylor Greene’s anti-NATO bill

Roughly a fifth of the House Republican conference thought it'd be a good idea to defund NATO as members prepared to recognize the anniversary of D-Day...

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/marjorie-taylor-greenes-anti-nato-bill-gets-dozens-gop-votes-rcna156104

GOP lawmakers threaten to defund special counsel, impeach Biden over Trump charges

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1TRQNLW1KQ

GOP lawmakers once praised Catholic Charities. Now they want to defund the group. - The Washington Post

Some Republicans don't like the work of Catholic Charities and other faith-based groups helping migrants at the U.S. border…

https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2023/07/28/gop-lawmakers-once-praised-catholic-charities-now-they-want-defund-group/

Some Republicans push to ‘defund the FBI’ at an unfortunate time

Just this morning, Republican Rep. Chris Stewart of Utah appeared on Fox Business and said there's "a growing number" of GOP members who believe it's "time to disband the FBI."…

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/republicans-push-defund-fbi-unfortunate-time-rcna84631

Opinion | First order of business for the GOP House? Defunding the (tax) police - The Washington Post

In recent weeks, high-level Republicans have said their top legislative priority is clawing back the $80 billion that Democrats recently appropriated to the Internal Revenue Service over the next decade. About half of this money will go toward beefing up enforcement; the rest for other functions such as improving customer service and modernizing the agency's embarrassingly decrepit IT systems…

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/01/05/first-task-for-gop-house-defunding-tax-police/

How to FINALLY defund Fox News (Brian Tyler Cohen interview)

INTERVIEW: Brian interviews Angelo Carusone, the president and CEO of Media Matters, about Fox News’ lunge off the deep end and what steps we can actually take to stop them.
https://youtu.be/xfZ0rUq2p34

Activist Ady Barkan tells top Republican to apologise over doctored video

The progressive activist Ady Barkan, who has amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, or motor neurone disease), said a top Republican in Congress owes “the entire disability community an apology” for spreading a digitally altered video of Barkan, who speaks through a computer, interviewing the Democratic presidential nominee, Joe Biden. ....
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/aug/31/ady-barkan-steve-scalise-doctored-video-disability-biden

Column: Trump tax deferral poses a bigger threat to Social Security than you might think - Reuters

"What Trump has shown is that he believes he has the authority and to decide when FICA contributions are due," she said. "One option for him, if he is re-elected, is to say that the pandemic has us in such bad economic straits that he will defer FICA collections until 2024. That would drain the Social Security trust fund to zero in about two years - at which point he has all the leverage."

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-column-miller-socialsecurity-idUSKCN2591V5

Trump clashes with Fox News interviewer over false claim about Biden

Challenged by an interviewer about his claim Joe Biden wants to defund the police, Donald Trump called for a copy of the policy charter Biden agreed with Bernie Sanders and released this week. The document did not prove his claim.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jul/17/donald-trump-fox-news-interview-chris-wallace-joe-biden

Unpolicing Mental Illness (The 1A)

If someone is in a mental health crisis, are the police the right people to call?

Law enforcement officials have become “the de facto facilitators of treatment for people with serious mental illness in America,” according to a survey of law enforcement from last year.

But some say the police were never meant to handle these types of situations. A 2016 Boston Globe investigation revealed that nearly half the people killed by Massachusetts police officers “over the last 11 years were suicidal, mentally ill, or showed clear signs of crisis.”

With protestors calling to defund the police, communities across America are exploring ways to divert money from police budgets to mental health services.

Will these changes be a boon to our mental health system? How did jails and prisons become America’s largest mental health institutions in the first place?

A note to listeners: We played some audio at 0:35 of a police officer tasing a man with a mental disability in distress. This is a non-lethal encounter that took place in Glendale, Arizona last summer. The audio is disturbing. If you’d like to skip it, it lasts for about 30 seconds.
Interview:
https://the1a.org/segments/1a-across-america-unpolicing-mental-illness/

Police Reform: How It Works And What It Might Look Like (On Point)

In Congress, and across the country, there are calls for the reform of police departments. We look at what that would mean.
Interview:
https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2020/06/09/police-reform-how-it-works-and-what-it-might-look-like

What Defund the Police really means: replacing social control with investment

Protests over brutality and racism highlight how far the US has travelled from any sort of equality. Real change is needed
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jun/20/defund-the-police-social-control-investment-donald-trump-protests-race-george-floyd

'Who will protect you from rape without police?' Here's my answer to that question

The reality is that the police are often more likely to hurt women than to help us. Let’s face the grim facts
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jun/17/abolish-police-sexual-assault-violence

Defunding the police will happen naturally without state and local aid - Vox

He’s proposed cuts in budget after budget, and is holding up needed fiscal aid. https://www.vox.com/2020/6/16/21286669/donald-trump-is-defunding-the-police

Republicans are hypocrites. They happily 'de-funded' the police we actually need

Conservatives claim to love law enforcement - but they cut cops who protect us from powerful and dangerous criminals
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jun/15/republicans-are-hypocrites-they-happily-de-funded-the-police-we-actually-need

Defund the police? Lessons from Sweden, England, Scotland, Finland, Switzerland - The Washington Post

Amid the protest wave following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, the rallying cry of "defund the police" has gained momentum. President Trump is “appalled” by the movement, according to White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany. To some critics, it sounds radical. But advocates say it is simply about narrowing the role of police and investing in services specifically designed to address issues such as mental health, rehabilitation and homelessness. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/police-protests-countries-reforms/2020/06/13/596eab16-abf2-11ea-a43b-be9f6494a87d_story.html