Theo Anderson at In These Times writes—Cities Go Rogue Against Trump and the Radical Right:
On January 25, President Donald Trump signed an executive order promising to strip funding from the so-called sanctuary cities that have vowed to defy his plan to deport millions of undocumented immigrants. Whether and how the order can be enforced is yet unclear, but it sent an unsubtle message to cities like New York, Chicago and Los Angeles: Resistance will not be tolerated.
In Texas, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott is already waging a proxy battle over immigration with the city of Austin. Sally Hernandez, the sheriff of Travis County, which includes Austin, announced on inauguration day that her department would cooperate minimally with federal officials on deportations. Abbott responded by cancelling $1.5 million in criminal justice grants to the county.
The emerging battle over sanctuary policies represents a new reality under the Trump administration: Faced with his reactionary agenda, cities are going their own way. Their battle to preserve local control is among the most momentous on the political horizon. Local governments are already one of the primary vehicles for passing progressive policies, having enacted a wave of labor and environmental protections in recent years. In 2016 alone, for example, 18 cities approved minimum-wage increases.
Now, cities are ground zero for the resistance to the Trump agenda. Sixty-eight mayors signed an open letter to Trump in November 2016, affirming that “each of our cities is committing to ambitious targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, … share lessons and hold each other accountable.” And as Trump attempts to stack his cabinet with Wall Street tycoons and anti-union CEOs, cities like Cleveland and Santa Fe, N.M., are exploring ways to build networks of worker cooperatives and establish municipally owned banks.
But in order to resist, local governments will have to stand up not only to Trump but to GOP-controlled statehouses. The former task may actually be easier. Many legal experts say that, under the 10th Amendment, the federal government cannot force states and cities to carry out its laws under threat of losing funding. On January 31, citing this rationale, San Francisco became the first city to file suit against the Trump administration for its order to withhold funding from sanctuary cities. [...]
Coming on Sunday Kos …
- Why a terrorist attack is more likely with a weak President, by David Akadjian
- Trump crowds evoke for me our ugly legacy of racial terrorism and lynching, by Denise Oliver Velez
- ‘The United States is not safe for refugees,’ by Mark E Andersen
- The resistance is real, even in the red state of Texas, by Egberto Willies
- Healing the great American divide one painful fracture at a time, by Frank Vyan Walton
- Subversive: How the Black Panthers fed kids for free and set a model for the government, by Kelly Macias
- Trump travel expenses hurt more than just our wallets, by Sher Watts Spooner
- For Democrats to win back the House in 2018, the first step is believing they can, by Jacob Smith
- While Kansas tries to dump job-killing, budget-busting GOP tax policy, Democratic California booms, by Ian Reifowitz
- Tom Hayden’s final ‘Hell no,’ by Susan Grigsby
QUOTATION OF THE DAY
“Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.”
~ President Harry S. Truman, Message to Congress, Aug. 8, 1950.
TWEET OF THE DAY
BLAST FROM THE PAST
At Daily Kos on this date in 2009—Green Diary Rescue & Open Thread: Green Stimulus Edition:
President Barack Obama said Tuesday in his not-a-state-of-the-union speech, "It begins with energy." That means investment in fossil-fuel alternatives, in expanding the number of high-mileage automobiles, a smart grid. Some of the plan is incredibly simple and straightforward.
Retrofitting homes is a labor-intensive endeavor. An average home retrofit takes a crew of three people about five days to complete. There are 111 million homes in this country. We can cut consumption in these homes 30 to 50 percent or $700 to $1150 annually on average. Every four crews or so needs a project manager. Every retrofit company needs accountants, executives, salesmen, and administrative staff. They need legal advice, they need office supplies, and they need to advertise. The insulation, caulk and sealants, appliances, and mechanical systems they install have to be manufactured. The money that each person saves from being wasted on energy will be spent, supporting other industries and creating more jobs. Add to this projection the 4.8 million commercial buildings in this country, representing 72 million square feet of space.
The stimulus bill includes $5 billion for weatherization, a project that could have been completed decades ago if Ronald Reagan hadn't chopped the budget for that the way he did most other conservation and efficiency measures. But even Jimmy Carter's weatherization budget didn't come close to what's in the stimulus package.
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