Two Men Spared From Border Patrol Arrest By Upstate NY Protesters

Collective action spared two men in Oswego, New York Wednesday following a multi-hour stand-off with federal immigration agents.

For seven hours, two men were trapped on the roof of a house in the central New York city as Border Patrol agents attempted to arrest them. But the agency’s efforts were upended when more than 50 people gathered in front of the house and, seemingly, rescued the men from the agents’ clutches.

The Oswego Police Department said their officers responded to the commotion after receiving complaints about a reckless driver in the area. Their investigation led them to the private residence on East Seventh Street, where Border Patrol’s Targeted Enforcement Division was attempting to apprehend multiple individuals on federal judicial warrants, according to a police statement.

The specific charges of the warrants have not yet been shared, CNYCentral reported Wednesday.

Around 5 p.m., the Oswego Fire Department arrived to provide a ladder for the pair of men to climb down. However, it quickly became clear that the men did not want to utilize the ladder, as they kicked and pushed it away from the rooftop’s edge. The fire department then decided to exit the scene, leaving the ladder behind them.

“I want to be clear that our efforts last evening were for safety first and not an effort to apprehend individuals,” said Oswego Fire Chief Paul Conzone. “Once we provided the ladder to safely assist the individuals on the roof, we cleared the scene and only returned to retrieve our ladder once the incident concluded.”

Border Patrol decided to cut their losses hours later, after which the remaining crowd decided to confront a group of broadcast journalists, throwing articles of clothing over the journalists’ camera lenses while demanding that they stop recording.

When the standoff was over, the two men had disappeared from the rooftop and escaped in waiting cars, according to CNYCentral.

“I recognize that incidents involving federal agencies can generate strong emotions,” said Oswego Mayor Robert A. Corradino in a statement Thursday. “Even so, our responsibility as a city is clear: we protect our residents, safeguard our neighborhoods, and maintain order.”

“Oswego’s strength has always been its people, and yesterday our community showed that even in challenging moments, safety and civility remain our priority,” Corradino added.

The Department of the Interior is paying more than $3 million to repair grass on the National Mall that was damaged during President Trump’s poorly-attended America 250 celebrations this summer, according to The Washington Sun. 

“TURF REPAIR FROM A250,’ reads the contract with Maryland landscaping company Custom Lawn Service Inc. The contract runs until March 2027.

The contract does not say where exactly the mall repairs will be. But Trump has been spinning tall tales about “vandals” destroying the grass  for a few months now. But that patchy, drab looking area is exactly where the main stage for his Fourth of July celebration event was. 

“Look what VANDALS did to the grass connecting the vandalized World War II Monument and the vandalized Reflecting Pool, which will be opened again, and better than ever, shortly,” Trump wrote in August. “Anybody who thinks the Reflecting Pool wasn’t vandalized should go back to Law School!”

The $3.4 million the Interior Department is now spending is likely due to increased foot, vehicle, and equipment traffic. What kind of vandals are tearing up grass and kicking up dirt and leaving? 

Trump himself has been the cause of most of the damage around the National Mall. The Justice Department found that it was indeed Trump and his hand-picked contractors who were responsible for the damage to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool that left the monument drained and shielded by chain-link fences. Those same federal contractors were also responsible for cracking the fountain at the German-American Friendship Garden.

In the past, members of the Republican Party have accused Democrats of waging a war on meat. Now, it appears that the bleeding-heart environmentalists at the Trump administration won’t stop sabotaging the beef industry.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Tuesday directing the secretary of agriculture and secretary of health and human services to begin exploring options for adding warning labels to food that contain “significant amounts” of alpha-galactose, a sugar molecule found in most mammals.

You may have heard of that substance before because of alpha-gal syndrome, an increasingly common and potentially life-threatening food allergy to red meat that can develop from a tick bite.

The Trump administration’s new rule was framed as one way of cracking down on tick-borne illnesses—but it may end up hurting the meat industry in the process. The new rule could potentially result in meat processors being forced to slap an allergy alert on every package of mammal products, including ground beef, steaks, pork loins, lamb chops, and even dairy. Just imagine a warning: This burger could kill you!

To be clear, from a public health standpoint, the policy is potentially a pretty great idea, considering just how severe alpha-gal is. But the rule likely won’t go over well with a certain group of longtime GOP allies who are already not too happy with Trump: farmers, herders, and ranchers.

In August, the American Farm Bureau Federation criticized Trump’s plan to grant farmers and ranchers the right to slaughter and process their own meat instead of requiring that they rely on USDA-inspected facilities. Farmers also condemned Trump’s plan to import tariff-free beef, which has yet to actually bring down prices.

All of this comes as the shrinking American herd struggles to keep up with high demand, and Trump’s tariffs and military campaign in the Middle East have kept prices elevated. Farmers in the Midwest—who were once some of the president’s most steadfast supporters—say they are facing the toughest economic crisis in decades.

The only explanation for a policy that will so obviously irritate his MAGA supporters is that it isn’t MAGA at all—it’s MAHA. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has spent months talking about alpha-gal without really doing anything at all, and has been an outspoken advocate for slapping warning labels on all kinds of foods. As for pleasing the rest of Trump’s base, the social media comments beneath the administration’s announcement indicate that they’re more concerned with discussing conspiracy theories about how alpha-gal started in the first place.

President Donald Trump doesn’t seem that concerned over whether the ongoing Iran war will hurt his party in November’s midterm elections.

At the White House Thursday, a reporter noted to Trump that his daughter-in-law Lara Trump said that the war “may threaten the midterms for you,” and asked if he agreed with her.

“Well, it’s possible, I don’t know, it should help, because Iran will not have a nuclear weapon,” the president replied, shrugging. “When you say, ‘Is it OK for Iran to have a nuclear weapon?’ I would say a hundred percent of the people say no, including worldwide. So when you say it that way, it would help. If you don’t say that, it could hurt.”

The way Republican candidates frame the war in their campaigns is not the problem. The problem is the ongoing closures of the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait on either side of the Arabian Peninsula, which have led to skyrocketing fuel prices, damaging the economy not just in the U.S. but worldwide.

That in turn has increased inflation, making various goods and services more expensive. Fertilizer costs have gone up as a result of the war, as well as commodities such as helium and ethanol. These increased costs have been passed to American consumers, leading to Trump and Republicans polling at record lows.

The war also continues to cost American taxpayers billions of dollars. Meanwhile, Republicans in Congress aren’t helping their own cause by refusing to end the war with legislation, while Trump flip-flops between saying peace talks are going well and making apocalyptic threats against Iran. If Trump thinks all of this doesn’t matter for voters in November, he is sorely mistaken.

Republican Representative Tom Tiffany has raised more than $26 million in his bid to become Wisconsin’s next governor, the vast majority of which appears to have come from three billionaires.

Between August 13 and September 19, the Republican Party of Wisconsin funneled more than $24 million into Tiffany’s coffers.

A good chunk of that money likely came from Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein, the billionaires behind the Uline packaging and shipping company, who each gave $11 million to the state Republican Party that month, according to campaign finance reports obtained by The New York Times.

A third billionaire also contributed a sizable sum to the Wisconsin Republican Party that month: Diane Hendricks, the co-founder of ABC Supply Co. Inc and the state’s largest conservative political donor.

The transfers accounted for 92 percent of all the money that Tiffany raised since the end of June, and have given him an enormous cash advantage in the final weeks of the race. By comparison, Tiffany’s Democratic opponent, Milwaukee County executive David Crowley, raised $10 million in the same time period.

Tiffany’s campaign details mark the first time since Wisconsin reworked its campaign finance rules that a candidate has been catapulted by such a small number of donors.

But it remains to be seen if the billionaire-provided funds will make a difference at the ballot box. A Marquette Law poll published Wednesday placed Crowley with a narrow lead among Wisconsin voters, besting Tiffany’s late-September odds by just one percentage point (46 percent versus 45 percent favorability).

Crowley’s chances were a hair better among likely voters, 49 percent of whom said they were planning to vote for the Democratic candidate, while 46 percent said they would vote for Tiffany. Five percent of likely voters told the pollster that they were still undecided.