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What Paul Ryan’s Faked Soup Kitchen Photo Op Says About Romney Campaign

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Paul Ryan on Saturday morning, uninvited, walked into a Youngstown, Ohio soup kitchen with his wife, children, and a camera crew, and fake-washed already clean dishes, all so the Romney/Ryan campaign could get a good photo op.

There’s no question about any of this. The video, below, shows Paul Ryan, standing in front of the empty dish washing sink, where there clearly are no dirty dishes, and telling his children how they’re going to fake it for the cameras. “I’m going to water them — I’m going to get them wet,” he says, as he ties their aprons.

 

https://youtube.com/watch?v=M2WVJNxOpvY%3Fversion%3D3%26hl%3Den_US

 

So, it’s a political campaign photo op. What’s the big deal?

Consider this:

Paul Ryan didn’t ask the soup kitchen for their permission, and now the head of the soup kitchen, Brian J. Antal, president of the Mahoning County St. Vincent De Paul Society, which is strictly non-partisan, is now worried about losing funding.

Here’s how the Washington Post describes the issue:

“We’re a faith-based organization; we are apolitical because the majority of our funding is from private donations,” Antal said in a phone interview Monday afternoon. “It’s strictly in our bylaws not to do it. They showed up there, and they did not have permission. They got one of the volunteers to open up the doors.”

He added: “The photo-op they did wasn’t even accurate. He did nothing. He just came in here to get his picture taken at the dining hall.” Antal later told NBC News that Ryan had cleaned some dirty dishes.

Ryan had stopped by the soup kitchen for about 15 minutes on his way to the airport after his Saturday morning town hall in Youngstown. By the time he arrived, the food had already been served, the patrons had left, and the hall had been cleaned.

Upon entering the soup kitchen, Ryan, his wife and three young children greeted and thanked several volunteers, then donned white aprons and offered to clean some dishes. Photographers snapped photos and TV cameras shot footage of Ryan and his family washing pots and pans that did not appear to be dirty.

This is how the Romney/Ryan campaign treats poor people, those desperately in need, those whom they cannot for one moment consider — except as talking points and photo ops.

And what did Paul Ryan teach his children?

It’s OK to lie. It’s OK to “ramrod your way” — to quote Brian J. Antal — into a charity, a place created to help the poor, and use their plight as a photo op that’s not even real.

Can you imagine the headlines at Breitbart and Drudge, the sludge coming from Michelle Malkin’s mouth, and the vitriol from the rest of the rabid right, if President Obama pulled a stunt like this?

Paul Ryan’s photo op was a lie, just as the Romney/Ryan policies are.

Today, also in the Washington Post, Greg Sargent reports:

Romney’s claim that he will create 12 million jobs is central to his candidacy’s entire argument. It is the whole basis for Romney’s positioning of himself as the alternative to the unacceptable status quo — high (though falling) unemployment, and a too slugginh recovery — under Obama. The question of which candidate’s plans would actually fix the economic crisis is what this whole presidential campaign is supposed to be all about. And we’ve now learned that the studies the Romney campaign itself cites to back up the claim that his plan would create 12 million jobs don’t do anything of the kind. [Bolding ours]

At the Republican National Convention, we were told story after story about how Mitt Romney cares for the poor, the sick, the dying. Yet his policies will harm those people the most.

At the first presidential debate, Mitt Romney used the names of people he says he met (ok, we’ll buy it) to plead his case to the American public.

Last week, the mother of Glen Doherty asked Mitt Romney to stop using his so-called “relationship” with her son for political purposes against President Obama. Doherty was a Navy SEAL who was one of the SEAL Team Six members who killed Osama bin Laden. He later was killed in last month’s tragic September 11 attack on the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

“I met some remarkable people, one of whom was a former Navy SEAL,” Mitt Romney had been telling supporters as part of his new stump speech focusing on foreign policy. “I just learned a few days ago that he was one of the two former navy seals killed in Benghazi. It broke my heart.”

Not according to Doherty’s friend, whom says Romney approached Doherty four times in the space of about a half hour trying to get his endorsement.

Glen Doherty is not the only dead person Romney has been using for political purposes against their families’ will. The father of Ambassador Christopher Stevens also asked Romney to stop using his son’s death.

“It would really be abhorrent to make this into a campaign issue,” Stevens told BusinessWeek as he prepared for his son’s funeral.

The faked photo op of Paul Ryan, where he lied to the American people, taught his kids how to lie, and all but literally stepped on the backs of the poor to advance his own interests, tied to the lie that is “central to [Romney’s] candidacy’s entire argument,” along with the politicization — against their will — of those who died serving their country, our country, is what we’ve learned today.

And it’s disgusting.

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News

Stephen Miller’s Latest Rant Prompts Priest to Cite Goebbels Propaganda

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15 hours ago

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July 11, 2025

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Stephen Miller’s latest anti-immigrant rant is drawing attention, including from a well-known Catholic Jesuit priest, who appeared to liken the White House Deputy Chief of Staff’s remarks to those made by Hitler’s notorious Reich Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, in 1941.

Miller, one of the most powerful members of the Trump administration, is seen as the principal architect of the President’s anti-immigration and deportation policies.

“U.S. Marines on the streets of Los Angeles. Masked immigration officers at courthouses and popular restaurants. Bans on travelers from more than a dozen countries,” Reuters reported on Friday. “For senior White House aide Stephen Miller, the architect of President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, things were going according to plan.”

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Denouncing the city government of Los Angeles as “waging a campaign of insurrection against the federal government,” Miller on Friday painted a scenario without undocumented immigrants in remarks made to Fox News.

“Let’s be very clear,” he said. “What would Los Angeles look like without illegal aliens?”

“Here’s what it would look like: You would be able to see a doctor in the emergency room right away, no wait time, no problem. Your kids would go to a public school that had more money than they know what to do with. Classrooms would be half the size. Students who had special needs would get all the attention that they needed.”

“There would be no violent transnational gangs. There would be no cartels. There would be no Mexican Mafia. There would be no Sureños. There would be no MS-13 There would be no TdA.”

“You would be living in a city that would be safe, that would be clean, there would be no fentanyl, there would be no drug dens,” he alleged. “That could be the future Los Angeles could have, but the leaders in Los Angeles have formed an alliance with the cartels and their criminal aliens.”

READ MORE: Record Majority of Americans Support Immigration in Massive Blow to Trump Agenda

Some of Miller’s claims are incorrect. For example, public schools often receive state funding in part based on the number of students and their attendance rate. Fewer students in classrooms means fewer dollars. And federal funding is tied to the number of low-income students and students with disabilities.

Miller’s claims about fentanyl and “drug dens” also don’t hold up. Most fentanyl comes into the U.S. via U.S. citizens, according to the Cato Institute.

Father James Martin, editor-at-large for America Magazine, which is published by the Jesuits, responded to Miller’s remarks by posting a quote from Goebbels:

“The enemy is in our midst. What makes more sense than to at least make this plainly visible to our citizens?”

It’s not the first time Father Martin has responded to Miller’s anti-immigrant rants with a quote.

In April, he quoted the Bible:

“‘I was a stranger and you did not welcome me’ (Matthew 25).”

See Martin’s post and video of Miller’s remarks below or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Racial Profiling’: Border Czar Blasted for Claim ICE Can Detain for ‘Personal Appearance’

 

Image via Shutterstock

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Record Majority of Americans Support Immigration in Massive Blow to Trump Agenda

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17 hours ago

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July 11, 2025

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A record-high majority—nearly eight in ten Americans—now view immigration positively, with similarly strong support for a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants—particularly those brought to the U.S. as children. The Gallup poll also found that most Americans favor maintaining or increasing current immigration levels.

Meanwhile, large segments of the public oppose expanding the number of immigration enforcement agents—a cornerstone of President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda. Overall, just 35% of Americans approve of Trump’s immigration policies, while 65% disapprove.

Gallup’s report deals a major blow to the very core of President Donald Trump’s agenda, and his “One Big, Beautiful Bill” that dramatically increases spending on immigration enforcement, including detention camps, deportations, and removal, even to third-party countries.

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“Americans have grown markedly more positive toward immigration over the past year, with the share wanting immigration reduced dropping from 55% in 2024 to 30% today,” Gallup reported on Friday. “At the same time, a record-high 79% of U.S. adults say immigration is a good thing for the country.”

“These shifts reverse a four-year trend of rising concern about immigration that began in 2021 and reflect changes among all major party groups,” the top-rated pollster also reported.

Now, just 38% of Americans support deporting all undocumented immigrants, in vast contrast to the stated Trump agenda. That’s down from 47% last year.

In what could be seen as a warning to the GOP, Gallup notes that “the desire for less immigration has fallen among all party groups, but it is most pronounced among Republicans, down 40 percentage points over the past year to 48%.”

Just this week, several top Trump administration officials have continued to promote his anti-immigrant policies.

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U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins this week told reporters there will be “no amnesty” for undocumented farm workers while insisting adults on Medicaid could replace them.

“There will be no amnesty, the mass deportations continue, but in a strategic way, and we move the workforce towards automation and 100% American participation,” Secretary Rollins said.

Republican Senators have been promoting the Trump anti-immigrant agenda as well. On Thursday, U.S. Senator Ashley Moody (R-FL) called Democrats who oppose the often warrantless raids and tactics used by the DHS’s frequently masked ICE agents, “ignorant pawns of a subversive anarchist agenda.”

President Donald Trump’s and the Republican Party’s budget, which Trump signed into law last weekend, is tremendously unpopular, including his exponential expansion of immigration enforcement budgets, as well as aspects that gut vital social safety net programs like Medicaid and Medicare.

Critics praised Gallup’s findings.

“Nativism had its 6 months and now it’s clear that it’s not the answer,” wrote Cato Institute Director of Immigration Studies David J. Bier.

NBC News senior national political reporter Sahil Kapur, pointing to the Gallup statistics, called it “backlash politics.”

“Turns out, mass kidnappings and deportations are deeply unpopular when put into practice,” observed New York State Democratic Assemblywoman Emily Gallagher.

See the social media post above or at this link.

READ MORE: Luxury Air Force One, Rose Garden Reno? ‘Priorities’ Says Trump Budget Chief

 

Image via Reuters

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News

‘Racial Profiling’: Border Czar Blasted for Claim ICE Can Detain for ‘Personal Appearance’

Published

20 hours ago

on

July 11, 2025

By

President Donald Trump’s hand-picked border czar, Tom Homan, is facing backlash from legal and political experts after asserting that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents do not need “probable cause” to detain individuals—and can do so based on factors like “personal appearance.”

“Look, people need to understand,” Homan told Fox News on Friday. ICE officers “don’t need probable cause to walk up to somebody, briefly detain and question them.”

“They just need to tally the circumstances, right?” he claimed. “They just go through their observation, you know, get out typical facts based on the location, the occupation, their physical appearance, their actions.”

“A uniformed border police officer walks up to them, for instance, at a Home Depot. And they got all these … facts, plus the person walks away or runs away,” Homan said, offering one scenario. “Agents are trained. What they need to detain somebody temporarily and question them.”

READ MORE: ‘Dumb-Dumb’: Fox News Host Declares Rising Democrat a ‘Mental Deficient’ Amid Senate Buzz

“It’s not probable cause,” he insisted. “It’s reasonable suspicion.”

“We’re trained on that. Every agent, every six months, gets Fourth Amendment training over and over again,” Homan said.

Legal experts blasted Homan’s remarks.

Professor of Law, former U.S. Attorney and MSNBC/NBC News legal analyst Joyce Vance summed up Homan’s remarks: “Racial profiling.”

“This is patently false,” declared U.S. Rep. Daniel Goldman (D-NY), also an attorney, “DHS has authority to question and search people coming into the country at points of entry. But ICE may not detain and question anyone without reasonable suspicion — and certainly not based on their physical appearance alone. This lawlessness must stop.”

Attorney and California Democratic state Senator Scott Wiener charged, “This is literally the definition of a white nationalist police state.”

U.S. Rep. Yvette Clark (D-NY) warned, “Trump’s thugs will racially profile you, then go on national television to brag about getting away with it.”

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Attorney and CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Evan Gold explained, “Walking up to people (without threatening) is legal. But ‘detaining’ people without ‘reasonable suspicion’ of criminal or quasi-criminal activity is illegal. Racial profiling is not cause for the required reasonable suspicion. ‘Let me see your papers’ is un-American.”

U.S. Senator Alex Padilla (D-CA), who, in a highly-publicized incident was forcibly removed and handcuffed by federal agents at a DHS press conference, wrote: “And there you have it. Under the Trump Administration, ICE and Border Patrol are being empowered to stop and question you based solely on how you look. No probable cause. No real reason. Just your ‘physical appearance.’ That’s not justice—it’s profiling.”

“They’re saying the quiet part out loud now,” wrote New York Democratic State Senator Gustavo Rivera. “Don’t get it twisted: if we let them keep doing this, they’ll find a reason to come for ANY ONE OF US soon enough.”

“THEY ARE ADMITTING IT,” wrote David J. Bier, Cato Institute Director of Immigration Studies and an expert on legal immigration, border security, and interior enforcement. “Homan is admitting to participating in a criminal conspiracy against the Constitution of the United States,” he alleged.

Max Flugrath, communications director for Fair Fight Action, wrote: “Trump’s Border Czar and Project 2025 contributor says ICE can detain anyone based on ‘suspicion’ and physical ‘appearance.’ That’s not immigration policy, it’s fascism.”

Watch the video below or at this link:

READ MORE: Trump Dodges, Denies and Deflects Questions as Ukraine Weapons Scandal Grows

Image via Reuters

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