Saturday, July 11 — the fracture and the watch

0:00 Two big stories today, and they're not the ones screaming from cable news. One is about immigration and a state constitution. The other is about a vice president breaking with his own party's economics.

0:14 Let's get into it.

0:16 We start in New York, where a Republican candidate for governor, Bruce Blakeman, is threatening to use a little-known clause in the state constitution to block Mayor Zohran Mamdani's sanctuary policies.

0:30 Blakeman says he'll issue a day-one executive order that strips New York City of its authority to set its own immigration enforcement rules.

0:40 This isn't just a campaign promise — it's a direct challenge to the Progressive Caucus's whole sanctuary strategy, which has been one of the main tools for protecting immigrant communities from federal deportation.

0:55 If it happens, it would be a state-level preemption of local sanctuary ordinances, and it would almost certainly trigger a court fight between Albany and New York City.

1:07 The concrete effect would be a loss of community trust in local law enforcement, and that's not something you fix with a press release.

1:15 Across the country in Washington, Vice President JD Vance is on a book tour for something called 'Communion,' and he's using it to blow up the economic consensus that has governed his own party for forty years.

1:30 Vance is telling audiences the GOP needs to 'undo 40 years of failed economic policy' and abandon the free-market playbook of Reagan and Milton Friedman.

1:42 This is a direct break with President Trump's own midterm message, which is all about global 'anti-communism.' Vance is instead fighting a domestic class war against the free-market establishment.

1:56 That doesn't mean Trump and Vance are about to have a public feud — but it does mean the Republican Party is having an internal argument about whose vision wins, right in the middle of a midterm election cycle.

2:10 That's the kind of fracture that can haunt a party when it's time to govern. Then there's the Justice Department.

2:17 On July 10th, a federal judge — a Trump appointee, by the way — granted the DOJ's motion to dismiss the seditious conspiracy convictions of four Proud Boys leaders for the January 6th attack.

2:32 Legally, the judge was just following standard practice: courts generally defer to prosecutorial discretion. But the political context is what matters.

2:43 Attorney General Pam Bondi has spent the last year politicizing the Justice Department, cutting pattern-or-practice investigations, terminating police consent decrees, and pursuing a two-tiered system of justice.

2:59 The dismissal of these convictions, while legally unremarkable, signals that political violence on behalf of the president may now go unpunished.

3:09 That's a rule-of-law concern, and it doesn't go away just because the judge did his job.

3:16 Closer to home, Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield dropped a civil investigative demand for Paramount's records and withdrew a motion to delay the Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery merger.

3:29 That's a state-level antitrust check, gone. The merger is on track to concentrate an already oligopolistic media industry even further. The old norm was that enforcers at least pretended to apply the law neutrally.

3:46 That norm is gone. Also today, the American Immigration Council released two reports documenting ICE's expansion of powers and enforcement priorities during the Trump administration's second term.

4:00 The February 2026 report, 'How ICE Went Rogue,' and the April 2026 analysis, 'New ICE Arrest Statistics,' together describe an agency that has become more paramilitary, with reduced oversight.

4:16 The solution — independent oversight, mandatory body cameras, due-process protections — is clear. But the pattern of concern is already established.

4:27 On the housing front, a bipartisan bill is headed to the president's desk. It includes zoning reform incentives and extended affordable housing tax credits. That's real progress.

4:41 But it doesn't cap rent increases, create a national eviction database, or permanently fund rental assistance. Housing justice organizers know this is a step, not a solution.

4:55 The People's Action Homes Guarantee Agenda — the federal rent cap, the landlord registry, the eviction database — that's the road not taken.

5:06 Finally, a quick correction: the Klamath River dam removal was completed in October 2024, before this administration took office.

5:16 The genuinely stalled project is the Lower Snake River dam removal in Washington, blocked by lack of congressional authorization. Maine's alewife recovery on the Sebasticook River remains a jurisdiction-tested success.

5:32 And a drug seizure at the Pharr port of entry? The substance is reported as both methamphetamine and cocaine. No official CBP release. So we put that one in the 'not confirmed' file.

5:48 Meanwhile, Russia's Ministry of Defense claimed its missiles can penetrate all Ukrainian air defenses. That's straight-up disinformation, designed to erode Western will to keep supplying military aid.

6:03 The concrete harm is not a physical strike — it's a coordinated attack on confidence. And the U.S. response should be transparent: declassify performance data, reaffirm the systems work. And the New York Times subpoenas?

6:19 The bundle does not contain a verifiable source for Attorney General Bondi rescinding DOJ protections or for U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton subpoenaing reporters.

6:31 What the bundle does show is a broader pattern: the administration suing outlets, defunding public media, and pressuring journalists. That pattern is real, even if today's specific headlines aren't confirmed.

6:46 And while all this happens, the watch continues. We have now read and reframed 147 of Project 2025's specific actions, with 1,143 distinct actions on record and mapped. The work goes on, piece by piece.

7:04 We are not reversing anything single-handedly — we are documenting, tracking, and making sure the public knows what's being planned and what's being done.

7:14 What comes next: the bipartisan housing bill heads to the president's desk for signature. The Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery merger proceeds without state-level scrutiny.

7:26 The New York sanctuary policy fight may land in court. And the internal Republican economic argument will play out on the campaign trail through the summer. I'm Gus Calloway.

7:38 That's the end of your briefing for July 11th. We'll be back tomorrow with what the day brings.