Sunday, March 22, 2026
Arizona Representative Yassamin Ansari Reports on "Slavery-Inhumane Conditions by Design" at Florence and Eloy Detention Centers-American Concentration Camps
Policy by Design"
"This is modern-day slavery supported by a failing immigration system and an administration that is not interested in fixing it."
"They don't care if people die. I think they're encouraging it in a way, by neglecting so many people and refusing to give them the care they need when they're in such severe pain."
A detainee, Emmanuel Damas, who needlessly died from a toothache after ICE and CoreCivic officials allowed his condition to morph to a point where he had a bulge "the size of a potato" and could not sleep at night.
Other detainees described the medical team at the Florence Detention Center with just one word: "Fatal."
"I met with my constituent, Arbella Yaddy Rodriguez Marquez (at the Eloy Detention Center), who has leukemia and has also endured severe medical negligence at the hands of ICE. The only positive news that I can report there is that Yaddy is getting better medication since our advocacy and she can now walk with the help of a walker again.
The ligaments in her arms and her legs are still feeling the impacts of months of medical neglect. Outside doctors are still testing her for a variety of conditions, such as lupus, lymphedema, leukemia, and arthritis. One alarming detail that is new is that she's grown small dark spots all over her back and stomach."
"Dirty clothes at the facility."
"Medical neglect" where none of the staff "has a heart" and "don't care."
"Detainees have to fight for ice that they let melt because that is their only source of filtered water."
"A 26-year-old Armenian man we spoke to has been waiting for over a year for dental care.He has a tooth infection and could very well be the next Emmanuel Damas."
"46-year-old Felipe. who has lived and paid taxes in Phoenix for more than 20 years. He has no criminal record, and this administration will not offer him any pathways for legal work. And today, he's still an undocumented worker, but working for a U.S. prison at two dollars an hour. But he doesn't deserve drinking water?"
"...An Iranian asylum seeker today who fled here with his daughter during Iran's 2022 protest movement. He's terrified of being sent back to Iran, where he could be killed by the regime, but described being treated as quote animals in ice custody..."
"A young LGBTQ plus Russian man who said he'd been threatened with rape if he didn't sign self-deportation papers."
These are the words of Arizona Representative Yassamin Ansari, who traveled to both the Florence and Eloy Detention Centers-American Concentration Camps on March 20.
During her two trips, Representative Ansari and her team interviewed many detainees, all of them not guilty of any serious crime, who reported on inhumane conditions at these facilities.
In her postings, the Congresswoman said:
"These private prison companies are making record profits, billions of dollars, and they're expanding across the country. Already, there's been over 40 deaths since the second Trump administration has taken office..."
"The Trump administration only cares about making private prison companies richer. Just this week, it was reported that Corey Lewandowski, the top aide for outgoing DHS Secretary Kristine Noem, sought payments from companies seeking contracts with the Department of Homeland Security."
"I'm working on new legislation as we speak to investigate and to stop this astounding corruption. The Trump administration is wasting billions of your taxpayer dollars torturing and killing innocent people in the process. Meanwhile, Americans cannot afford housing, health care, or child care.
But instead of funding any of these things, Donald Trump and Republicans ripped away Medicaid from millions of Americans and handed $75 billion to ICE. DHS and ICE cannot and should not expand in Arizona, period. Every time I visit these detention facilities, it brings me to tears.
It's sickening, it's traumatizing, and it is deeply, deeply anti-American."
Representative Ansari is right.
What is going on in these American Concentration camps should send a shiver down the spine of every American.
People are suffering while Mr. Trump and his allies in the private prison industry are profiting off the suffering of innocent people.
These are children, women, and men who have not committed any major crime and whose only offense in the minds of Mr. Trump and Judenrat Stephen Miller is their country of origin. No one sees illegal immigrants whose visas have expired from Canada or European nations being placed in these camps.
This is not the America we were taught to revere and admire, and the creatures that support this Nazi-type agenda have no business being in elected office.
Trump Lifts Oil Sanctions on...Wait for It...Iran, the Nation We are at War Against
To quote Dr. McCoy from Star Trek: The Motion Picture: "What the hell kind of strategy is this?"
Not wanting to see a blood bath at the polls on election day, thanks to the wrath of voters disenchanted with his policies, including his war of choice against Iran, resulting in higher gas prices at the pump, Donald Trump and his Know Nothing regime have relaxed some oil sanctions on...wait for it...Iran.
Earlier in the month, Mr. Trump relaxed oil sanctions on Russia, the country whose leadership is trying to take over Ukraine and is giving intelligence information to...wait for it again...Iran to use against us.
At first glance, these moves do not seem to come from a great thinker and military mind.
According to the New York Times, Trump's move resulted from:
"...How little success the Trump administration has achieved in calming global markets rattled by the American-Israeli military campaign against Iran, forcing it to turn to a measure that could benefit its adversary. Brent crude, the international benchmark, settled at $112 a barrel on Friday, a roughly 54 percent increase since the conflict began."
The Washington Post reported:
"As the cost of oil continues to soar, the Treasury Department on Friday lifted sanctions on 140 million barrels of Iranian crude already loaded onto vessels, which the Trump administration says will help ease prices — but which is also likely to provide revenue for Iran’s war effort...the action was met with bewilderment by many lawmakers and analysts, who said it will provide the Iranian regime a cash infusion as it actively tries to kill U.S. soldiers on the battlefield."
Again, what the hell kind of strategy is this? By giving aid and comfort to the enemy you started a war against, and that is currently shooting at you with apparently no reciprocal move from the Iranians.
Trump's war of choice against Iran has been nothing but one stupid move after another.
First, there was no legitimate reason to start this war. Iran posed no imminent threat.
Then, when they decided to go unto the breach without consulting N.A.T.O. allies or telling the American People, Mr. Trump's military plan did not include immediately securing the Strait of Hormuz, the waterway through which 20 percent of the world's oil traffic passes. Now Iran has control of the area.
Good thinking, Donald.
Trump continually says he has won the war.
To paraphrase Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov, who said, when he visited Berlin and German Foreign Minister Ribbentrop in October 1940 and heard claims that Britain was defeated, "then whose bombs (drones) are falling outside?"
Now he is relaxing sanctions on the very nation that just last month, he said, posed an imminent threat to the United States.
This should not be surprising.
This is the same Donald Trump who has ceded the clean energy market to another adversary, China, and who is besties with Russia's Putin, the leader who is, again, giving intelligence to Iran to use against the United States and trying to absorb Ukraine.
He is not a stable genius.
He is a dumb shit-moron who is making this country weaker and less safe.
He is everything America's enemies could have wanted in the Oval Office.
He is the Manchurian Candidate.
Third Way: Americans Should Get Guaranted, Affordable and Quality Care with a Health Care Bill of Rights
With health care inflation rising and the Trump Administration doing everything it can to undo Obamacare/the Affordable Care Act, like taking away government subsidies from people who use it to get medical attention they can afford, Democrats, when they return to power, need to offer solutions that will guarantee Americans never have to fear losing their health care again.
Many Democratic and Progressive Activists support Medicare for All, which would, in theory, reduce overall health costs for the American People, improve their medical care, and guarantee access.
Another idea, grounded in political realism, offered by the Center-Left-Pragmatic Progressive Think Tank Third Way, is to guarantee all Americans a Health Care Bill of Rights that builds on the successes of Medicare, Medicaid, Children's Health Insurance, the Prescription Drug Benefit, and the Affordable Care Act/Obamacare.
In their rationale for this Health Care Bill of Rights, Third Party Health Policy Advisors Gaby Hartney and David Kendall wrote:
"We are not going to throw out the baby with the bathwater. American health care has a lot of positives: life-saving innovations, amazing doctors and nurses, and high standards for care. But it also is full of glitches, gaps, and infuriating costs and complexities, which Republican budget cuts have made worse. As a result, we’re paying more and getting less:
- Hospital prices are soaring without improving health care for patients.2
- Workers spend 12 million hours each week dealing with health insurance problems.3
- Wait times to get an appointment are growing longer; patients must wait an average of more than two months to see a specialist about painful arthritis.4
- Groundbreaking therapies can cure chronic diseases like sickle cell, but the costs are prohibitive.5
- One hundred million Americans have medical debt.6
- Medical offices still use fax machines to exchange medical records.7
- The health care billing system is simply a nightmare for everyone. To pay a doctor’s bill, employees and employers have to navigate multiple sources of funds like flexible spending accounts and health savings accounts.8
Over the last generation, the government has regularly stepped in to address issues within our health care system and put in place better protections. Because Democrats fought for Medicare, Medicaid, the Children's Health Insurance Program, and the Affordable Care Act, people have health insurance when they can’t get it through a job or in retirement. Thanks to limits on surprise health care bills—a bipartisan effort—patients don’t have to worry about high priced bills for out-of-network care with in-network providers (except for ambulance rides, of all things). Now, there is an urgent need for government to step in again and address the next generation of issues with a sweeping Health Care Bill of Rights."
Included in the Ten Health Care Bill of Rights put forth by Third Way are:
- Cap costs for everyone.
- End medical debt
- Choose your own doctor
- Provide a simple Health Dividend Account
- End health care deserts.
- Ban junk insurance.
- Stop hospital price gouging
- Provide a single health record
- Streamline medical bills.
- Ban all surprise bills
Concluding their position paper, Hartney and Kendall wrote:
"Thankfully, the Affordable Care Act is here to stay. That signature law provides a strong foundation to build on, which presents an extraordinary opportunity for Democrats to unite behind an effort that speaks to what the public wants to see—and that is not chock full of high costs like single payer. That’s why a Health Care Bill of Rights fits the moment, guaranteeing that health care is affordable and easy for every American."
Kaitlyn Perez, Third Way Deputy Director of Communications, along with Economic Policy Vice President Gabe Horwitz, also released a social media video explaining their Health Care Bill of Rights proposal, saying:
Kaitlyn Perez: "Affordable health care is a key ticket to a middle-class life, but since 2000, health care costs have more than tripled, and the average price of a family plan has more than quadrupled. Amid these high deductibles and unexpected costs, more than 100 million people, including one in six middle-class families, struggle with medical debt. And as of 2021, the American people owed more than 220 billion in medical bills.
American health care has a lot of positives. Amazing doctors and nurses, high standards for care, and life-saving innovations. But it also has a lot of gaps, glitches, inconsistencies, high costs, all of which were made worse by Republican budget cuts.
That's why our next president needs to call for a health care bill of rights, guaranteeing that health care is easy and affordable for every American. Here's Gabe Horwitz, SVP of our economic program, to tell you more.
Gabe Horwitz: "Over the last generation, government has routinely stepped in to fix issues in our health care system.
Most recently, that was with the Affordable Care Act. That law is popular, it gives us a great foundation on which to build, and it's not shock full of high costs like Medicare for All. A health care bill of rights would build on the Affordable Care Act and create a set of guarantees for people.
Things like ending medical debt, capping costs no matter where you get your insurance, allowing patients to see any doctor they wanted, stopping hospitals from price gouging, and creating one health record for everybody.
Kaitlyn Perez: "They're just half the tenants that we list in our memo. With these alone, millions of Americans will have the burden of debt lifted from their shoulders, be able to more readily access care, and stress less about the care that they want to receive."
When asked by the Blog for Arizona why Mr. Horwitz claimed Medicare for All, despite two independent studies (one from Public Citzien and the other from Duane Morris, would be more costly for Americans than their proposal for a Health Care Bill of Rights, Third Way Senior Communications Director Kate deGruyter provided the below organizational response, grounded in political reality and what is likely to pass a Congress where Democrats will, in all likelihood, not have a supermajority:
"On its face, single payer would cost less overall simply because the legislation says it would. The bill dictates a 40% cut in providers’ pay from what they currently receive from private health plans. That generates about two-thirds of its overall savings. But let’s be real: Congress is unlikely to make such a large cut and sustain it under intense lobbying pressure from hospitals, physicians, and all other providers and facilities. Instead, single payer would create new cost pressures by making every health care dollar a matter of public debate. Providers would argue that funding their care above all else is critical for patients’ health. Congress and the Administration are simply not well-positioned to say no.
Single-payer is often portrayed as a better value, but that ignores the problem of higher taxes. Single payer would require new revenue equal to double the current level of federal income and corporate taxes to offset a massive shift of spending from private bank accounts to the US Treasury.
The quality of coverage under single payer would depend primarily on the amount of taxes the government could raise. The $17.5 trillion in revenue (over ten years) to pay for Sen. Bernie Sanders’s single payer bill would include an 11.5% tax on the income of workers (4% paid by employees on income above $29,000 and 7.5% paid by employers, which most economists believe would come out of the employee’s paycheck).9 Getting Congress to raise taxes to adequately fund coverage without higher deficits is anything but simple or guaranteed."
On the two studies showing that Medicare for All would better reduce costs, deGruyter commented:
"Just want to reemphasize that Medicare for All raises costs significantly for taxpayers. But it is not the only way to cut costs in health care. Most of those savings studies, like those cited, come from reducing prices for medical care, which T
While Americans Die in Trump's War and Suffer an Affordability Crisis, Senate Republicans Work to Take Away Your Voting Rights
When asked yesterday if he could name one incident of major voter fraud as the Senate began debate on the Orwellian voter restrictive SAVE (Safeguard Voter Eligibility Act), House Speaker and Holy Roller Hypocrite Mike Johnson said:
"Look, we're not going to get into all that. I'm going to tell you what I tell Democrats. You should listen to the American People...This is a 90/10 issue in public opinion polling, and Democrats agree that you should be a citizen and have a photo ID to vote...If they want free and fair elections. If they don't think fraud should be a problem, they should vote..."
Johnson was both evasive and negligent in his remarks.
There is a reason he did not want to litigate the issue of voter fraud yesterday.
It is because it largely does not exist.
A study by the Project 2025 staff at the Heritage Foundation did a study on voter fraud and found that in the swing states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, the instances of voter fraud was less than one percent in all those states.
The Center-Left Progressive organization Third Way cited the Heritage study in its below take on the voter restrictive Save Act.
"President Trump has already admitted that this bill is about winning the midterms, not election integrity or fraud prevention. The far-right Heritage Foundation found just 77 documented cases of a noncitizen voting over more than 20 years. This bill is a drastic measure in search of a problem. And it would create massive new problems. Approximately 69 million American women have changed their names after marriage, rendering their birth certificates insufficient proof of identification under this bill. And it will create chaos, forcing major changes to voter registration and verification processes, and requiring significant training requirements, and imposing criminal penalties for election workers if these unfunded mandates aren’t implemented quickly enough. It took the US government nearly 20 years to implement REAL ID, which standardized driver’s licenses. Republicans now want states and counties to begin overhauling voter registration systems in just 30 days—without paying for it."
Johnson is right in asserting that most Americans support voter ID.
Duh.
But what he does not say is that Americans would not favor the restrictive identification and voting process provisions contained in the Republican SAVE Act. These are:
- Requiring proof of citizenship, such as a birth certificate or passport. As Third Way stated in its comment, for many Americans, that could be costly because they would have to pay to get copies of their birth certificates, which have been lost through the years. Many women and some men would have to jump extra hurdles because they have married and changed their names. Then again, Vice President Vance has had several names through the years. Let's see if he can get through this process.
- Mr. Trump's request to put restrictions on voting by mail and discriminate against trans athletes and minors.
Democratic Political Consultant Rachel Bitecofer, in a recent op-ed on The Cycle Substack site, wrote that the SAVE measure "as It was written to produce inevitable no votes from Democrats to build a narrative to reject the results of 2026 and 2028," calling it "a political trap" that Republicans and their allies in corporate media could use to frame the Democrats as anti voter id. She suggested retitling the bill as the Strip Americans of Voting Ease Act and called on media and Democrats to focus on all the ways Republicans are trying to make it harder for Americans, including their own base supporters, to vote.
Democrats appear to be taking Bitecofer's advice.
In NBC reporting, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said:
“The SAVE Act is nothing more than Jim Crow 2.0. It could disenfranchise millions of American citizens...This is not a voter ID bill. This is about purging the voter rolls in a massive way, so you never even get the chance to show a voter ID when you showed up to vote because you’d be knocked off the rolls.”
Independent Senator Angus King, knowing that instances of voter fraud are minscule, commented to NBC:
“We don’t have it in Maine. Here’s what we have in Maine: We have Election Day registration, no voter ID, unlimited absentee voting by mail, and drop boxes. The old saying in Maine is: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
Georgia Senator Rapahel Warnock supports voter id but questions that some form of IDs are given preference over others, saying:
“You should have to prove that you are who you say you are when you vote. I’ve never opposed that. But they use voter identification as a pretext for determining the electorate that they think will keep them in power. That’s why, for example, a student ID is not good enough, but a military ID is. So, I can tell you, as someone who ran in Georgia and saw what they tried to do with my runoff, that there’s some people that they don’t want to vote.”
Arizona's two Senators also offered their perspectives on Republicans spending precious time on this when there are more important issues like ICE reform and funding Homeland Security, the war against Iran, the blockade against Cuba, and the affordability crisis to deal with.
Senator Mark Kelly posted:
"The SAVE America Act doesn’t “Save” America. And this isn’t about voter ID. This bill requires everyone to re-register to vote in person and your driver’s license, REAL ID, or military ID aren’t even good enough. Imagine all of our seniors who don’t have valid passports and haven’t seen their birth certificates in decades? What about them? How hard will it be for them to register? And how do they get a passport if they can’t find their birth certificates? And what about the cost? If this becomes law, it will disenfranchise many Americans."
Senator Ruben Gallego, focusig on the political reality of Republican electoral misfortunes in the midterms, published a social media video, saying:
"Well, you're all hearing about this thing called the SAVE Act, and supposedly it's to protect the elections. Really, it's to save Donald Trump's ass, because the Republicans are going to lose heavily this election. And not just the House, but also the Senate.
So instead of having a real conversation about how they're going to bring down the costs, they're just going to make it more difficult for people to vote. And this is not about voter ID, because if it's voter ID, then we'd all be able to just use our real ID. No, they want you to use a passport, or an original birth certificate.
And let's not forget, they also want to get rid of vote by mail. They also want to purge in every state, you know, all the voter rolls, and then make it difficult for people to even get back on, should the federal government purge you from your state voter roll. This is all designed to protect the Republicans and the President, because they are losing.
They're losing on the redistricting front, they're losing on the voter front, they're losing on special elections. This is one of many, many things they're going to do, leading up to the 2026 election. So first they'll try to change, you know, who people vote for.
They try to do that on the redistricting front. Now they're going to change who can actually vote, and that's what they're going to do with the massive purge right now. And next after that, they're going to try to change how the votes are counted.
So be ready, beware. This is not a real, real bill about election integrity. This is one big bill to make sure that Donald Trump and the Republicans stay in power, even though they pissed off every demographic of this country, and they want them out."
Chances are nil that the MAGA Save Act, thanks to internal Republican opposition (they like their voters to vote by mail in rural areas) and the Senate filibuster, will see Mr. Trump's desk for a signature.
That said, any officeholder who says they support the SAVE Act at the federal, state, county, or local level and prioritizes this over paying for TSA agents at airports, putting affordable food on your table and health care for your family, and providing oversight of Mr. Trump's war of choice against Iran, should be voted out of office.
They are not on your side and do not serve you.
NATO Leaders Give Trump the Diplomatic Middle Finger, and Refuse Involvement in His War of Choice
When Donald Trump joined with Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu two and a half weeks ago in starting a war of choice with Iran with no clear imminent threat, he did not inform or consult his N.A.T.O. allies, many of whose leaders he has made their lives miserable since he has returned to office with assertions that he wanted Greenland, openly musing that Canada should become part of the United States, made nice with Putin over Ukraine even though Russia is supplying intelligence to Iran, imposing onerous tariffs, and whining, while forgetting the reaction to 9/11, that the collective security organization would never help America when the nation needed it.
Fast forward to the last 48 hours, and the Stable Genius who claimed victory was around the corner in his war of choice against Iran has asked N.A.T.O. to assist in securing access for shipping to traverse the predominantly Iranian-controlled Strait of Hormuz.
Why the United States went into a war against Iran without securing control of that vital waterway at the beginning of the combat operation should be a question coming from the lips of members of Congress now, and when they convene oversight hearings on the conduct of the war.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Joint Chiefs Chairman Dan Caine warned that the Iranians would close the Strait, but Trump went ahead with the war anyway, thinking the Iranians would surrender first.
Remember this is the same Donald Trump whose great strategic thinking bankrupted a casino, mismanaged the response to the Coronavirus, and is in the process of tanking the United States economy in two separate terms.
Anyway, the response from N.A.T.O. to Trump's request has been a resounding 'forget it.'
Does anyone want to take a bet on how many of these leaders, after being bullied and belittled by Trump for over a year, were laughing hysterically after they ended their plea for assistance phone call from him or his designee?
According to the New York Times, Article Five of N.A.T.O., which requires assistance to a member nation if it is attacked, does not apply because the United States started the war.
Furthermore, N.A.T.O. leaders are irrate that they were not consulted or given any briefing that the United States was abandoning negogiations with Iran on their nuclear program and going to war.
In reporting from NBC, Germany's Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said "This is not our war; we have not started it.”
French President Emmanuel Macron said France would "never take part in operations to open or free the Strait of Hormuz in the current context”
In a report by the Washington Post, Canada's Foreign Minister Anita Anand said during meetings with Turkish leaders:
“Canada was not consulted, did not participate in the military action, and has no intention of participating in the offensive military operation. Our foreign policy is focused on de-escalation and the protection of civilians and humanitarianism generally.”
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer committed to finding a path to secure the Strait but would not let Britain "be drawn into the wider war."
Even Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, the Western leader closest to Trump in ideology, said no thanks, saying last week that Trump's war of choice against Iran was “an intervention in which Italy does not take part and does not intend to take part."
Trump has gone back and forth in his response to N.A.T.O.'s diplomatic middle finger, saying comments ranging from "We don't need them" to warning about "A very bad future" if they do not assist in securing shipping traffic in the Strait of Hormuz.
Reacting to N.A.T.O. leaders' position, Arizona Representative Yassamin Ansari nailed it when explaining their reluctance to join what Mr. Trump calls his excursion, telling a reporter from Mediastouch:
"I think Donald Trump has never presented a justification to the American people about why he has embarked upon an illegal and highly reckless war that has already resulted in thousands of civilian deaths, not just in Iran, but in Lebanon, across the region, has left Americans stranded in the Middle East with no help from the State Department. He has not ruled out troops on the ground. 5,000 American troops are on their way to the Middle East.
Americans don't want their sons and daughters dying in a war. And as it relates to NATO, he has consistently offended and betrayed our allies in NATO. And so the expectation that NATO would now support his reckless endeavors is unbelievable."
Representative Ansari, the first Iranian American Woman to serve in Congress, also described her feelings about Trump's botched war of choice in an interview with the New York Times.
No one wants Iran to develop nuclear weapons or their theocratic authoritarian state to remain in power.
That said, no one wants Americans, Israelis, Iranians, or anyone else in the region to lose their lives in an ill-conceived military venture that has no endgame on how the war leaves the Middle East in a better position than when combat operations began.
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