The Week that Was ...
Ending Sunday, March 23, 2025
Welcome to the latest edition of The Week that Was, my rundown of what happened last week, curated, in the loosest sense of the word, for your reading pleasure, or displeasure.
Last week I got positive. Enough of that. I’m not getting cynical, but sober and grounded.
1. Photos of the Week: ICE and Its Jails
2. Karma Is a Bitch: Trump Voter’s Spouse Facing Deportation
3. The Most Depressing Yet Unsurprising News of All: The Democratic Party Establishment Candidates
4. Tesla Cybertruck Sales Tank, in an Odd Echo of the Vehicle’s Moloch-Like Appearance
5. The Neoliberal Press Just Cannot Comprehend Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum
6. Kenya Exits the IMF Plan, Exposing the Contradictions of Neoliberal Journalism
7. Resources for Protest
1. Photo of the Week: ICE and Its Jails
© John Moore — Getty Images
That pic was from six years ago, by the way. It’s worse now.
2. Karma Is a Bitch: Trump Voter’s Spouse Facing Deportation
In the “Karma Is a Bitch” category, Bradley Bartell’s wife Camila Muñoz was arrested by ICE while they were returning from Puerto Rico, which is part of the United States, from their honeymoon.
Bradley and Camila had enjoyed a storybook romance:
“They met through mutual friends, had a first date at the local steakhouse, married after two years and were saving to buy a house and have kids. Muñoz was already caring for Bartell's now 12-year-old son as her own.”
However, cue ominous music, Muñoz was pulled aside by an ICA agent:
"’Are you an American citizen?’ asked the agent. She answered no, she wasn't. She's from Peru. But she and her husband had taken the legal steps so that one day she might get U.S. citizenship.”
“It took days for Bartell to find his wife after she was detained at the airport.
“Before agents led her away, Muñoz pulled off her wedding ring, afraid it might get confiscated.
“It was nearly a week before Muñoz appeared in the ICE detention system. Her name finally turned up in an online locator, assigned to a privately run detention center in Louisiana. On a video call, her black curls hang askew. She wears a tan uniform, reflecting her lack of criminal record.
“There are nearly 80 other women in the dormitory. The cost to taxpayers for detaining an adult was $282 per day in 2020 ….”
Of course, this is really about rolling up numbers and making quotas.
“The reality of immigration enforcement is that targeting convicted criminals requires time and manpower; it can take half a dozen agents to arrest a single person.
“An airport checkpoint – like the one at the San Juan airport in mid-February – can quickly round up multiple people ….”
© Bradley Bartell
He voted for Trump. Now his wife sits in an ICE detention center.
But that is not all. A Canadian woman was detained for two week and shuttled around, either confined or chained hand and foot.
“In my 30s, I found my true passion working in the health and wellness industry. I was given the opportunity to help launch an American brand of health tonics called Holy! Water – a job that would involve moving to the US.
“I was granted my trade Nafta work visa, which allows Canadian and Mexican citizens to work in the US in specific professional occupations, on my second attempt. It goes without saying, then, that I have no criminal record. I also love the US ….
None of that mattered, of course. The for-profit private prisons of ICE were in full force.
“I was taken to a tiny, freezing cement cell with bright fluorescent lights and a toilet. There were five other women lying on their mats with the aluminum sheets wrapped over them, looking like dead bodies. The guard locked the door behind me.”
These private prisons kept her for two weeks, billing the U.S. government a shit ton of money.
“I was still detained for nearly two weeks.
“A small group of us were transferred back to San Diego at 2am – one last road trip, once again shackled in chains. I was then taken to the airport, where two officers were waiting for me. The media was there, so the officers snuck me in through a side door, trying to avoid anyone seeing me in restraints. I was beyond grateful that, at the very least, I didn’t have to walk through the airport in chains.”
“Companies like CoreCivic and GEO Group receive government funding based on the number of people they detain, which is why they lobby for stricter immigration policies. It’s a lucrative business: CoreCivic made over $560m from Ice contracts in a single year. In 2024, GEO Group made more than $763m from ICE contracts.
I’m the Canadian who was detained by Ice for two weeks. It felt like I had been kidnapped
The case of Mahmoud Khalil is truly sickening. His words tell the story the best:
My Name is Mahmoud Khalil and I Am a Political Prisoner
3. The Most Depressing Yet Unsurprising News of All: The Candidates that the Democratic Party Establishment Are Seriously Considering Backing in 2028
The Etteringermentum Newsletter, by Joshua Cohen, came to my attention recommended by the always-interesting Rick Perlstein, of The American Prospect, author of the great Nixonland, among other brilliant books.
The most recent edition lists the top ten contenders for the nomination of the Democratic Party for the Presidency of the United States in 2028. First, a couple of the worst:
Former Mayor/Ambassador Rahm Emanuel: In case you were still wondering how Democrats managed to lose two presidential elections to Trump, the fact that party elites are reportedly seriously considering an Emanuel 2028 campaign should be a good enough answer.
Former [New York] Governor Andrew Cuomo: Even though faces very stiff competition, the success of Andrew Cuomo’s mayoral bid in New York City still stands out as one of the most depressing stories in politics right now.
And now, a recap of some of the other awful, really awful:
California Governor Gavin Newsom.
“An obvious contender even in a list of obvious contenders, Gavin Newsom’s long-running shadow campaign for the presidency made a major step forward with the launch of his podcast this month. For all of the discussion it inspired about his tactics and the potential future of the Democratic Party, it didn’t really tell us much about Newsom himself that we didn’t already know. As always, he’s a vapid trend-chaser whose idea of strategy is following the conventional wisdom in a way that gets him as much attention as possible.”
“Even now, there are already signs that this tactic is failing to work out for him—and, even more concerningly for him, that voters simply like Newsom less the more they see of him. According to a recent poll of California voters, the number of respondents who said that his podcast worsened their view of him was more than double the number who said that it bettered their view of him.”
In number two on the list, sadly is:
Former Vice President Kamala Harris.
“She’s a bad politician who just lost to a convicted felon by the largest margin of any Democrat this century. In the immediate aftermath of said loss, she mostly ignored her home state while it was burning to the ground. Since Trump’s inauguration, she’s been completely MIA with the exception of one speech at an awards show and trips to Broadway. If the prevailing desire within the Democratic base is that of change, Kamala Harris, for all of her connections and fame, will likely be swept away. Her one, very big saving grace is that a very large constituency in the party does not seem to want change, and they have already made her a meaningfully strong frontrunner in early polling. While I’m down enough on her skills to believe that this could change or that she could fumble things regardless, make no mistake: for all of the anger out there, this status quo vote is very real. It still likes Joe Biden, it still approves of Chuck Schumer, and Kamala Harris represents the sum total of its vision of the future. As long as it exists—and it will—she will always have a base to work from.
Etteringermentum Newsletter’s taps Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro as the most likely Democratic candidate in 2028.
Keep your passport up to date.
The Official 2028 Democratic Power Rankings
4. Tesla Cybertruck Sales Tank, in an Odd Echo of the Vehicle’s Moloch-Like Appearance
Sales of a tank-like cybertruck are, well tanking, making their resemblance to Moloch all too real.
“Motorists appear to be eager to part ways with their Tesla vehicles, with Tesla trade-ins reaching a record high this month ….
And not only that, investors are worrying that Elon Musk’s actions for the Trump Administration are causing Tesla’s share price to, well, tank:
“Wedbush Securities technology analyst Dan Ives, a longtime Tesla bull, has also warned that Musk's political actions are an ‘overhang’ on the company's stock, and that the company is in the midst of a ‘dark brand crisis tornado’ that only Musk himself can fix.”
Tesla trade-ins spike amid anti-Elon Musk backlash, Edmunds data shows
5. The Neoliberal Press Just Cannot Comprehend Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum
In 2023, as an avid observer of Mexican politics, I knew that Dra. Claudia Sheinbaum was the favorite, by a wide margin, to be the next president of the Mexican Republic. And I knew that the neoliberal press would never be able to deal with an educated Ph.D. of Jewish ancestry who spoke English, had served on a Nobel prize winning committee, and was resolutely opposed to neoliberalism.
And I was right.
First there was this howler from the word processor of Christine Murray in The Financial Times.
Sheinbaum turned over cartel members to the U.S.A. to placate Trump? No, the corrupt Mexican judiciary, now on its way out due to constitutional reform, were about to set them free.
Sheinbaum fired judges? No, it is a constitutional reform. Their terms are ending.
Murray is a master of reporting non-news news: “experts”; “investors”; “commentators.” She quotes from such a small sample one would think that the population of Mexico was 130, not 130,000.000. And she quotes exclusively from conservative or business interests.
For Murray and the entire neoliberal press corps, Sheinbaum’s immense popularity has to be because of Trump, and the U.S.A. Murray simply cannot give credit to Mexicans and Mexican leaders.
Mexico’s Claudia Sheinbaum is riding high on Donald Trump’s trade war
The New York Times, this time from the word processor of Natalie Kitroeff, under the guise recognizing Mexico’s success and Sheinbaum’s success, has to get in some digs that pretend to be compliments.
The reading line:
“A scientist and leftist with limited foreign policy experience, Claudia Sheinbaum seems to have connected with President Trump with her calm demeanor and toughness on the border.”
And, guess what, the NYT quotes some of the same people as The Financial Times, among them Carlos Bravo Regidor, the neoliberal “independent” “commentator” who cannot seem to credit his own people with the ability to look at the world and make choices.
“’Nobody expected her to be this good, or this lucky,” said Carlos Bravo Regidor, a Mexican political analyst. ‘Whatever it is, it’s working.’”
Yes, when you’re wrong, the person you were wrong about must have been lucky.
‘You’re Tough’: How Mexico’s President Won Trump’s Praise
Bloomberg continues the emphasis on superficiality.
“Claudia Sheinbaum’s dispassionate style on the campaign trail was once seen as such a political weakness that her opponent in last year’s Mexican presidential election branded her ‘The Ice Queen.’”
To seriously quote Xóchitl Gálvez’s desperate attacks during a campaign she lost two to one is ridiculous.
“Ice Queen” is, of course, terribly sexist. And the sexist characterization behind it is terribly wrong. Claudia Sheinbaum has been a passionate fighter for social justice and a better Mexico since her student days.
‘Ice Queen’ No More: Sheinbaum Charms Trump on Tariffs
You wanna see passion? Look at this:
President Sheinbaum in a student protest.
And guess what? President Sheinbaum can dance salsa.
6. Kenya Exits the IMF Plan, Exposing the Contradictions of Neoliberal Journalism
Bloomberg News reports that Kenya has unceremoniously exited its IMF rescue plan, and let me tell you, investors are really put out about it.
“Kenya has fallen foul of the International Monetary Fund and investors are none too happy about it.
“Under a $3.6 billion funding program signed in 2021, the East African nation undertook to curb spending and bolster tax collection, but the government failed to meet its obligations.”
So, the investors are staying away? Are they, now? It turns out that Kenya has other sources:
“A $1.5 billion loan was negotiated with the United Arab Emirates — a facility that could potentially inflate state borrowing beyond the level agreed with the IMF and carries foreign-exchange risks.
“The government has also rearranged a eurobond, pushing its maturity out by 11 years, enabling it to settle some expensive syndicated loans.”
Kenya Exits IMF Program, Infuriating Investors
So, why would a nation not want the IMF bailout plan? Why this impertinence? Because they want to live, perhaps?
“’People are dying from hunger, children are not going to school,’ David Ngooma, a resident from Kibera, Kenya’s biggest slum, told Jacobin. ‘We don’t see any help from the government.’ On top of that, according to Ngooma, the president is taxing the poorest Kenyans too much.
“Over the last year, the price of sugar, a staple in Kenyan households, has risen by 32 percent, while the price of vegetables like carrots and onions has risen by more than 50 percent. The price of maize flour, another Kenyan staple, has also doubled in the last two years.
“On top of that, nine out of ten Kenyans are currently earning the same or less than they were at the start of the pandemic. According to a recent report by Infotrak, 73 percent of Kenyans are either in severe financial distress or are failing to make ends meet. Today, the debt-to-GDP ratio stands at a massive 68 percent, and according to Finance Uncovered, in 2023 ‘Kenya spent more money on servicing its debt than all other items in the national budget combined.’”
What is the result of all of this “help” from the IMF?
“As a result of structural adjustment programs, sub-Saharan Africa transferred $229 billion to the West from 1980 to 2004, in the form of debt payments.”
The IMF’s Policies Are Destroying Kenya, Again
7. Several European Countries Issue Travel Advisories Concerning Travel to the U.S.A.
The United Kingdom, Germany, Denmark, Finland, and Canada have all issued travel advisories about travel to the U.S.A.
These countries have issued advisories about travelling to the U.S.
8. Resources for Protest
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