Last week, I read the headline “Fewer foreign tourists are visiting Boston this summer. Some blame Trump”. My first thought was “…and others also blame Trump?”. There really is no one else. It’s patently obvious that the despicable and inhumane actions of America’s border authorities, at the behest of President Trump, would lead to a reduction in visitors from abroad.

Sure enough, each and every person mentioned in the article rightly assigns the blame for this drop to Trump. I guess the headline uses “some” only because they didn’t have a chance to speak to everyone.

Rümeysa Öztürk was one of far too many people who have recently suffered at the hands of American authorities. After returning home to Boston from Mexico, Jemmy Jimenez Rosa was detained for ten days. During that time, she was not provided with access to a lawyer nor necessary medications.

When Rosa asked about his wife’s medical care, the agent cited HIPAA laws as a barrier to knowing her health issues. Taken aback, Rosa pointed out that doctors can share medical information with law enforcement when a patient is in custody, which is specifically outlined in HIPAA.

“He said a very disgusting joke after that,” Rosa recalled.

“He said, ‘We’ll notify next of kin if she dies.’ And at that moment, I knew that I was no longer dealing with humans.”

Eventually, after Rosa’s husband and a lawyer filed a successful motion for her release, she was turned loose into a rainy evening with no way to contact her family. No one should be treated this way.

According to the FDA, there might be radioactive shrimp in the food supply. That’s fun.

The Food and Drug Administration said Tuesday that the public should avoid eating certain frozen shrimp sold at Walmart due to concerns that the seafood may have been contaminated with radioactive material.

…

Among the products includes Walmart’s “Great Value brand frozen shrimp,” the health agency said.

The FDA alert warning folks away from this shrimp is unexpected, because that organization is overseen by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Anti-science idiot Robert F. Kennedy Jr. heads the HHS, and his history very much suggests he’d be pro-radioactive shrimp. Maybe he just hasn’t heard about this yet.

Speaking of Rümeysa Öztürk, recent testimony from Homeland Security agents confirmed that prior to being snatched off the street, she was not informed her visa had been revoked:

When asked by attorney Michael Tremonte if there had been a decision made by top officials to keep Ozturk’s visa’s revocation a secret from her, Cunningham responded: “We did not plan on alerting her to the fact that her visa had been revoked.”

As well, it seems the op-ed Öztürk co-authored last year was indeed the sole reason for her imbecilic visa revocation:

Cunningham testified that he received an email which included a memo from the Department of State as an attachment, which said that Ozturk’s visa had been revoked. The email also included a copy of an op-ed Ozturk co-wrote in the student newspaper calling on Tufts to divest from companies with ties to Israel.

…

When questioned about the op-ed Ozturk co-wrote, Cunningham said he did not see anything in the piece that indicated evidence of a crime.

This arrest absolutely stinks to high heaven, as do similar arrests of students like Mahmoud Khalil.

In a piece co-published by Vanity Fair and The Tufts Daily, Tufts graduate student Rümeysa Öztürk describes her reprehensible 45 days in an ICE detention facility in Louisiana. Her resilience and grace are astounding, and an incredible contrast to the inhumanity of her oppressors.

Over the next six and a half weeks, I found myself immersed daily in the love, beauty, resilience and compassion of these women. We each found ourselves trapped in our own individual nightmares, but we found comfort and relief in one another, and we shared our burden and pain by listening to each other.

…

Each conversation turned into a group therapy session where we would gather to open up about the grief we felt regarding the harsh realities and dehumanization occurring in a godforsaken, for-profit ICE prison in America, the place we had all come to pursue our dreams.

In her closing, Öztürk asks:

How is it possible to feel both unlucky and fortunate at the same time? How can suffering and compassion coexist in the same environment?

The positives of that dichotomy are the silver lining Öztürk has found. I hope it helps her through. But we must not accept this as normal. Every single American should read this piece, and every single American should feel shame after having done so.

On Friday, Pakistan recommended Donald Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize. Approximately 36 hours later, they condemned Donald Trump for bombing Iranian nuclear facilities. So it is that the AP writes the headline “Pakistan condemns Trump for bombing Iran a day after recommending him for a Nobel Peace Prize”.

Who exactly was asking for the return of asbestos?

Like so much of what the Trump administration is doing, this stinks.

In 2016, a more enlightened time, the US Navy named a ship after gay rights icon and former sailor Harvey Milk. In the dark age of 2025, the USNS Harvey Milk is going to be renamed on the absolutely pathetic order of Pete Hegseth.

A defense official confirmed that the Navy was making preparations to strip the ship of its name but noted that Navy Secretary John Phelan was ordered to do so by Hegseth. The official also said that the timing of the announcement — occurring during Pride month — was intentional.

Just how small of a person are you, Pete?