‘America today is starting to feel like Europe in the 1930s': Mass. lawmakers condemn Trump's first 100 days in office
'As someone who lost family members to the Holocaust, I do not say this lightly, but what we are experiencing in America today is starting to feel like Europe in the 1930s,' Spilka said in her 20-minute speech. 'It's not just terrifying, it is enraging — this is not who we are.'
'We must demand more from our elected representatives in Congress to act as the check on unfettered executive power that the Constitution demands of them,' she later added.
Massachusetts state lawmakers have slowly become more vocal in opposing the administration as their
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The state Senate this month announced a 'Response 2025″ initiative intended to figure out how to respond to Trump at the state level. So far, they have endorsed a bill seeking to protect those who
The 13 Democratic senators who spoke Monday especially criticized
'What we are facing is a capricious, vengeful, and cruel administration that has co-opted federal law enforcement agents and openly defied our courts — the exact opposite of the law and order that Trump and his supporters have proclaimed to actually care about so much," Spilka said.
Several touched on other issues. Senator Adam Gomez of Springfield highlighted how efforts to
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What the Legislature can do to push back on Trump's 'firehose of law-defying, anti-democratic and truly, breathtakingly unbelievable actions' is limited, Spilka said. While she and others urged Congress to rein in his administration, it remains controlled by Republicans who endorse Trump's agenda.
Some senators noted opportunities where the state can step in, such as by passing already-filed bills to protect immigrants without legal documentation or crafting legislation to shield judges and others targeted by Trump. Senator Barry Finegold of Andover also called to increase funding for the attorney general's office as she
The remarks Monday were also intended to reassure residents concerned about the administration's actions, said Senator Lydia Edwards of East Boston.
'We hold up this mirror today and make a recommitment to our constituents: We will not forget you, we will fight, and we do this knowing that we are facing abnormal times and an acute, horrific oppression,' Edwards said.
Anjali Huynh can be reached at
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Trump says Zelenskyy can end Russia war 'almost immediately' before White House meet
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The president also repeated that Ukraine will not be allowed to join NATO, though White House special envoy Steve Witkoff and Zelenskyy have hinted at alternative security guarantees involving the U.S. "President Zelenskyy of Ukraine can end the war with Russia almost immediately, if he wants to, or he can continue to fight," Trump wrote on social media on Sunday. The president has previously incorrectly framed Ukraine as the initiator of the conflict, which began with Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022. That invasion followed Moscow's cross-border aggression in 2014, which saw Russia seize Crimea and parts of the eastern Donbas region. "Big day at the White House tomorrow," Trump added. "I've never had so many European leaders at one time. It's my great honor to host them!!!" "NO GOING INTO NATO BY UKRAINE," Trump added. "Some things never change!!!" Trump is expected to greet Zelenskyy outside the West Wing at 1 p.m. ET, according to a schedule published by the White House, after which they will hold a bilateral meeting. The president is scheduled to take photos with European leaders at around 2:30 p.m. ET and hold a multilateral meeting with them at 3 p.m. Zelenskyy said in a post to social media that he had arrived in Washington on Sunday night, expressing his gratitude to Trump for hosting the planned meeting. "We all share a strong desire to end this war quickly and reliably," Zelenskyy wrote. "And peace must be lasting," he added, noting Moscow's 2014 aggression plus the failure of the international community to enforce the 1994 Budapest Memorandum -- which was also signed by Russia -- that offered Ukraine "security assurances" in exchange for Kyiv surrendering its Cold War-era nuclear arsenal. "Ukrainians are fighting for their land, for their independence," Zelenskyy wrote. 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The nature of Western security guarantees for Ukraine will be a key topic for discussion, Macron said, explaining to journalists a two-pronged approach by which Ukraine's military would be bolstered and a Western "reassurance force" would be deployed to Ukraine to act as a deterrent against renewed Russian attacks. Any concessions will spark intense debate within Ukraine. The country's constitution dictates that any changes to the national borders must be approved by an all-Ukraine referendum. Kyiv's ambitions to join both NATO and the European Union are also enshrined in the constitution, meaning it may need to be amended for Ukraine to accept exclusion from either bloc. "Territorial concessions are impossible," Oleksandr Mrezhko, a member of the Ukrainian parliament and chair of the body's foreign affairs committee, told ABC News. "Under the present circumstances, we need a ceasefire and security guarantees to prevent Putin from violating the ceasefire." 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29 minutes ago
- New York Times
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New York Times
29 minutes ago
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But what emerged over the weekend were more stories like Mr. Brown's. Many people are on the move, seeing their lives uprooted and their futures become even more precarious, whether as a result of force or out of fear. Some have moved into shelters. Others have secured temporary hotel rooms with the help of nonprofit groups. Some have taken buses to surrounding areas, or are using donated metro cards to ride the subways back and forth at night. Still others have simply moved to another spot on the streets. David Beatty, who was removed from an encampment between the Kennedy Center and the U.S. Institute for Peace, said he spent the first night after being cleared out behind bushes near the Foggy Bottom subway station. But without his tent or foam mat, he was getting little sleep. His other belongings had been put into storage, thanks to the Georgetown Ministry Center — but he kept his broom and dustpan, which he carried with him as he walked around the city during the day, sweeping up cigarette butts and litter. Making the city safe and beautiful includes 'removing mentally disturbed individuals and homeless encampments,' Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said at a news conference last week. The White House also said that scores of homeless encampments have been cleared since the president issued an executive order in March that included creating a program to beautify the district. His supporters, including Scott Turner, the housing secretary, say the president's measures have been needed to rid the city of blight. Mr. Trump has claimed on social media that authorities would give homeless people somewhere to stay far from the capital, and Ms. Leavitt said they would be offered shelters or addiction and mental health services. But advocates for homeless people say no federal aid to get them help has materialized. 'Precisely zero resources — no money, no vacant federal buildings, no housing — have come from the federal government to support moving people inside,' Amber W. Harding, the executive director of the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless, said in a statement. Organizations that provide support in the region estimate that several hundreds of people in Washington remain without a place to sleep. They also said that news of the clearings had driven fear through homeless communities even though the moves may not have displaced huge numbers of people. The district does not have large encampments similar to ones in other big cities. Homelessness was a vexing problem for the district well before Mr. Trump's crackdown. Mayor Muriel Bowser made the issue a focus of her administration when she took office in 2015, vowing to end long-term homelessness in the district and make it a 'rare, brief and nonrecurring experience' by 2020. Advocates say those goals are far from being met and that the district's latest budget for 2026 will undermine the social safety net for the neediest. While city data shows that the number of homeless people in the city dropped by 9 percent over the past year, it had been rising for two years before that. The city acknowledges that more work needs to be done but points to the decrease over the past year as evidence of progress. It says it has expanded its shelter system and that one of its programs has diverted nearly 400 people from entering homelessness. Still, the sudden disruption of the past week has left city workers and volunteers scrambling to assemble a patchwork safety net. Claire Wilson, the executive director of Georgetown Ministry Center, said that close to a dozen of the more than 60 individuals her organization sees on a regular basis were displaced on Friday. It was done without warning, she said, which was out of the norm. Ms. Wilson added that on Saturday morning, more than 50 people came to the center for shelter — a much larger crowd than what the ministry typically sees on a Saturday. 'Yesterday was frantic — and traumatic,' said Ms. Wilson, talking about Friday. She added that it was unlike any other crisis she had seen homeless individuals face in about a decade of working on housing issues. On Friday night, as federal and local law enforcement patrolled the streets of Washington, advocates for the homeless were roaming transit hubs in Montgomery County, Md., wealthy suburbs that border of Washington, searching for unhoused people who had left the city. John Mendez, Bethesda Cares's executive director, and Renee Siepierski, the group's street outreach program director, drove to Chevy Chase, a wealthy enclave on the northwest border of Washington. They pulled on bright orange wind breakers and walked the hollow concrete transit hubs in the area, tucked away behind luxury retail stores and bars. Mr. Mendez anticipated that some of Washington's homeless would seek refuge by blending in at libraries and coffee shops during the day and on public transit at night. But they were unlikely to permanently leave the city they called home, Mr. Mendez said. He counted four people who appeared to be homeless, which he said was a higher than usual number. They were laden with bags of belongings. Some of them took a pair of new socks he offered them. They all climbed onto a bus back to Washington that pulled away just before midnight. In Bethesda, Md., Erica Jones got off a bus from the city. She said she did not have a place to live but relied on the generosity of friends and family. On Friday night, she was heading to her mother's apartment in Silver Spring, Md. Ms. Jones said her friends and acquaintances, who are homeless, were intimidated by the number of law enforcement in the streets. And she was alarmed by the way people are being treated. 'These are people like me and people like you,' she said, adding later, 'That's just where they sleep.'
