Tabby Thursday

• Via AZPM: U.S. citizen in Arizona detained by immigration officials for 10 days. Basically he ended up being detained because he was brown in the wrong place without his papers. This is inevitable when there is such an emphasis on deportations, as law enforcement will racially profile, whether consciously or not.
• Via ABC News: Van Hollen: ‘I am not defending the man, I am defending the rights of this man to due process’. As it should be.
• Via the NYT: White House Assesses Ways to Persuade Women to Have More Children. (sorry, I am out of gift links to the Times). First, this sounds just like people like Viktor Orbán. Second, I am no expert on these policies, but experts I have read state that these policies do not work. BTW, if the administration thinks we need more people in the US, there is an easy way to make that happen: make immigrating easier.

And you have to love this.

“Look at the number of kids that major leaders in the administration have,” Ms. Collins said, adding: “You didn’t hear about kids in the same way under Biden.”

[…]

Much of the movement is built around promoting a very specific idea of what constitutes a family — one that includes marriage between a man and a woman, and leaves out many families that don’t conform to traditional gender roles or family structures. In contrast to the intense emphasis on cost cutting so far during Mr. Trump’s second term, this focus on families could result in spending more money to back a new set of priorities.

First, as one may recall, Biden had four children. His first daughter was killed in a car accident along with his first wife and one of his sons famously died of brain cancer. He talked about his kids, you know, a lot.

Second, in terms “a very specific idea of what constitutes a family,” you mean like major leaders who have six children with three marriages, two of which ended in divorce? (And where one of the daughters is almost entirely ignored?). Or the kind of major leader who has at least 14 children with multiple women, only two of whom he married?

I guess having families that don’t conform to traditional family structures is just for the little people.

• Via WaPo: The ‘5 things’ emails are going by the wayside as Musk readies his exit.

It is unclear precisely when Musk will leave the government; his status as a special government employee is expected to expire at the end of May. The billionaire is ready to exit because he is tired of fielding what he views as a slew of nasty and unethical attacks from the political left, according to a person familiar with his thinking. He believes his departure will not diminish the power or work of DOGE, his brainchild, the person said, noting that DOGE team members are already established across scores of federal agencies. DOGE stands for the Department of Government Efficiency, though it is not a Cabinet-level agency.

Funny, he has faded since he failed to deliver that Wisconsin Supreme Court seat. Plus, he is likely getting bored with his new toy.

“No one can say DOGE has not achieved a historic amount of success. The results speak for themselves,” said a senior White House official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

I can. I can say that. And a lot of other people can, too. The results do, in fact, speak for themselves: diminished state capacity to do important work while cruel and unnecessarily disrupting the lives of thousands of people to achieve a pittance of “savings.” Heckuva job, Muskie.