Democrats Are Fighting Over ICE - Abolish It or Reform It, and the Midterms Are Getting Closer
At their summer meeting in Austin on Saturday, Democrats somehow managed to choose two opposing paths at the same time on one of the toughest issues ahead of the midterms. The Democratic National Committee approved both a proposal to abolish ICE and another calling only for "concrete reforms" of the immigration agency. Neither decision is binding, and the party platform will not be set until the 2028 convention, but the fight is now out in the open.
Since Trump's first term, part of the Democratic left has been calling for ICE to be abolished, and after the fatal shootings by agency officers in July, that demand has gotten louder again. Michele Johnson of Louisiana introduced the proposal to abolish the agency and said the party finally needs to take a position instead of sounding like every sentence had first been run through pollsters and focus groups. She pointed out that ICE's predecessor agency, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, was once dissolved as well.
Other Democrats see political explosives in that demand just months before the midterms. Yvonne Reeves-Chong voted against it and warned that while the proposal might excite one part of the party's base, it would bring fresh trouble with another group of voters. Her advice was simpler: win elections first, then change policy. DNC Chairman Ken Martin is trying to hold both sides together. For him, Democrats are at least united in believing that what ICE, the border agency CBP, and the federal government are doing right now has to stop. Martin is from Minnesota, where Renee Good and Alex Pretti were fatally shot during Trump's intensified immigration crackdown. But while the party agrees that something has to end, it does not know what should come next. Abolish it, rebuild it, or keep it going under different leadership - that is exactly the question hitting Democrats at a time when Republicans can use every fight like this in their campaign.
Trump himself is losing substantial support on immigration: only 39 percent of adults now approve of his performance on the issue, compared with 49 percent at the beginning of his second term. Even so, immigration remains politically stronger for him than the economy or Iran. Even after three people were killed in encounters with ICE within just a few days in July, his advantage on this issue is holding up better than elsewhere. That makes things even more uncomfortable for Democrats. They have to attack Trump's actions without agreeing among themselves on whether the agency carrying them out should be repaired or abolished. Just months before an election in which every seat counts, the debate is once again not only about Trump and ICE. Democrats are once again fighting over what they themselves actually want.
Canada Has Had Enough: More Than 170,000 People Want Trump's Ambassador Gone
U.S. Ambassador Hoekstra says he "absolutely" does not understand why Canadians are angry at the United States, and that it is "totally unfair" that "11 provinces" are no longer buying American alcohol.
Anger at the United States has grown so much in Canada that more than 170,000 people have now signed a petition demanding the removal of U.S. Ambassador Pete Hoekstra. Only 500 signatures would have been needed to bring it before Parliament. Hoekstra has long been seen in Canada as Trump's mouthpiece, and that is exactly the problem.
The petition accuses him not only of repeating Trump's talk about Canada becoming the "51st state," but of normalizing it. Hoekstra reposted such messages himself and later described Canadians' anger over the rhetoric as emotional and hard to understand. And that is not all: separatists from Alberta repeatedly met with officials from the U.S. State Department, fueling suspicion in Canada that Washington is interfering in the country's internal affairs. The petition therefore calls for Hoekstra to be declared "persona non grata" under the Vienna Convention and removed from Canada. At the same time, a parliamentary committee is supposed to investigate how far American interference has already gone.
The anger is no longer directed only at the ambassador. Just 35 percent of Canadians now consider the United States a reliable partner, down from 82 percent in 2022. Travel to the United States has fallen by more than a quarter within a year, American products are being avoided, and the trade war has turned what was once one of the closest relationships in the Western world into an open rupture. Hoekstra has done his share to help make that happen. In November, when asked whether he understood why Canadians were angry about Trump's annexation talk, his answer was basically: No, he doesn't. Then, for the Fourth of July, he also invited Tamara Lich, one of the best-known figures from the 2022 trucker protest that paralyzed Ottawa for weeks.
Hoekstra knows this kind of overstepping. Back in 2020, while serving as U.S. ambassador to the Netherlands, he hosted a meeting at the embassy with a nationalist, anti-immigration party. Business representatives still praise him as a direct point of contact and a reliable messenger for what Trump wants. That is exactly where the irony lies: Hoekstra is apparently doing his job so faithfully that more than 170,000 people in the country where he serves now say he should go do it somewhere else.
Oil Spill Off Oman Grows to 1,700 Square Kilometers - Authorities Had Reported Only 12 Kilometers of Polluted Coastline
The oil disaster off Oman is far larger than authorities had previously presented it. Greenpeace analyzed satellite images and concluded that around 40 kilometers of coastline are now polluted by oil from the damaged tanker Caroline Bezengi. Omani authorities had previously reported only 12 kilometers.
Even more dangerous is the fact that the oil is still moving and, according to environmentalists, could reach the coast of Masirah Island within the next few hours, an area that official reports say has so far remained untouched. Greenpeace is therefore demanding that the tanker finally be stabilized, that further leaks be prevented, and that the oil still on board be transferred to another vessel. Coral reefs and seagrass beds are under threat, along with the sensitive coastal areas of the Khuriya Muriya Islands, home to rare turtles, migratory birds, and marine mammals. The Caroline Bezengi has been grounded since June 12. Before that, there had been several explosions on board, the cause of which remains unclear to this day. Afterward, oil began leaking into the sea. The numbers show more clearly than any reassurance just how fast the disaster is spreading: on July 26, the oil slick covered around 45 square kilometers, and by August 2 it was about 150. Two days later, 600 square kilometers were already polluted, and by August 10 it was around 1,000. By August 13, the affected area had reached roughly 1,700 square kilometers. In just a few weeks, the pollution has multiplied many times over, while officials on land initially talked about only twelve kilometers of affected coastline.
At the time of the accident, the tanker was carrying Russian oil from Novorossiysk to India. The OSINT project Russian Forces Spotter believes it is possible that the ship was damaged by magnetic limpet mines, but that has not been proven. The formal owner of the Caroline Bezengi is Shanghai-registered Rentoor Shipmanagement. The vessel also belongs to a group of tankers said to be linked to Cyprus-based Lagosmarine Ltd. These ships regularly transported Russian oil from Primorsk, Ust-Luga, and Kozmino to India and China. A damaged tanker on one of those routes has now become an environmental disaster that is growing by the day. And while satellite images already show 40 kilometers of polluted coastline, the official numbers are lagging far behind reality.
Trump Wants Aircraft Carriers That Look Like World War II - The Navy Is Studying a Multibillion-Dollar Redesign
Donald Trump is reaching ever deeper into the construction of American warships, and this time it is not about a new weapon, but about what an aircraft carrier looks like. According to seven current and former U.S. officials, the Navy is examining whether to move the command center of the new Ford class farther forward again. Trump does not like the "island" sitting far toward the rear of the modern carriers. He wants the ships to look more like the aircraft carriers used during World War II. What at first sounds like a matter of taste could cost billions of dollars and delay a shipbuilding program that is already years behind schedule even further. The Navy looked at this idea during Trump's first term.
Read also our article: Command From the Bridge of a Confused Man? Trump Forces His Admirals Back to 1954 Technology
The result back then was pretty clear: moving the island would be technically possible, but the cost in money and time would be extraordinary. Now the Navy has to deal with it again. The position of the command center on the Ford class was not changed by accident. Putting it farther back creates more space for aircraft near the catapults, speeds up launches, and reduces turbulence for planes landing on the carrier. Moving it would also change the ship's weight and buoyancy. Bryan Clark, himself a former Navy officer, therefore calls it a fundamental redesign. And it would already be Trump's second intervention in the technology of the new carriers within just a few days.
On Thursday, he ordered in a national security memorandum that the Navy develop a plan to move back from modern electromagnetic catapults to old steam technology. The Navy itself now praises the electromagnetic system as highly effective. Trump wants to go back to steam anyway. Now the ships themselves may also be rebuilt to look the way they did decades ago. Three more Ford-class carriers are already in different stages of construction: the USS John F. Kennedy is undergoing sea trials, while the USS Enterprise and USS Doris Miller are being built. As many as ten ships of this class are planned over the next four decades, and future units could cost around $22 billion each. The USS Gerald R. Ford alone took 17 years to complete. Billions more for redesigns would therefore hit a Navy whose shipyards have been struggling for years with delays, maintenance backlogs, and poor readiness.
At the same time, the Iran war is demanding more and more from the carrier fleet. The Ford only recently returned from a long combat deployment after a fire made parts of the crew's sleeping quarters uninhabitable and problems also emerged with the toilet system. Conditions aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln have meanwhile become so bad that crew members' families are publicly sounding the alarm and Democratic lawmakers are demanding that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth investigate. The crew had spent 200 days at sea without a port call, and a man-overboard incident is being investigated for possible links to mental health problems. Hegseth calls the reports "completely misrepresented." One day later, Trump said the Lincoln had been at sea "not nearly long enough."
Read also our article: Desperate Sailors Aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln Are Trying to Go Overboard After 250 Days Without Setting Foot on Land
While sailors and ships are being pushed to their limits, the political leadership is also busy asking whether an aircraft carrier looks enough like World War II. On top of that comes Trump's planned "Golden Fleet" with a new class of battleships that, according to Congressional Budget Office calculations, could cost around $275 billion over 30 years. After the first ship, additional units would cost roughly $18 billion each. The Navy has long since stopped having only a problem with money, shipyards, and readiness. It now also has to calculate what it costs when the president wants warships rebuilt to suit his personal taste.
Reality Is Just Getting in the Way of Governing Now, or: The Most Convenient Ancestor Is the One You Painted Yourself
The art of ruling has always suffered from one nuisance: reality does not do what you tell it to do. Donald Trump has eliminated the nuisance. He gives the order to the machine instead of the world, and the machine obeys within seconds. Where a commander once had to fight a battle to count as a victor, today all it takes is a typed command and a computer that delivers the triumph by breakfast. You have to admire the efficiency. Washington rode through real mud for years to earn his place among the greats; his successor rides beside him by having him generated into the picture, with the white horse thrown in for free. The dead Founding Father gets no say in the matter, which is extremely convenient, because living witnesses to greatness tend to ask uncomfortable questions. The most convenient ancestor is the one you painted yourself.
Even the Constitution, that stubborn piece of paper with its two-term limit, has already been overcome in the image. "TRUMP 2028" is printed on a cap he puts on in a tuxedo like a crown, and a third term can be advertised long before anyone would have to win it. The law applies to people who are bound by reality, and he has long since calculated himself out of that obligation. The rest is loot. A seized oil tanker, a foreign flag underfoot. Next to it Kim Jong Un, the dictator he says he gets along with brilliantly, because strongmen recognize one another through their shared smallness. War becomes a photo album, diplomacy a souvenir photo with the executioner. A victory no camera has ever seen cannot be disproved, and that is its entire advantage. The only thing missing is the question of where the sailors are who would have to hold the real tanker.
And so the purest form of power ever invented comes of age, one that no longer has to convince anyone or accomplish anything because it supplies its own audience and its own victories. Napoleon still needed a pope and a cathedral for his coronation. This one needs a graphics card and the patience to applaud himself until nobody notices that none of it happened outside.
The Rhine Falls to a Record Low - German Industry Has to Take Its Freight Off the Ships
The Rhine is becoming a problem for the German economy in this summer heat, and by now it is no longer just about smaller loads on ships. A large share of freight is already being shifted to trucks and trains because the river level fell overnight to a new record low. At the Kaub gauge near Koblenz, one of the crucial choke points for shipping on the Rhine, just 6 centimeters were recorded late Friday evening, and 8 centimeters early Saturday morning. Even Friday morning's 10 centimeters had already fallen well below the previous record low of 25 centimeters set in 2018. The gauge reading does not mean the Rhine itself is only a few centimeters deep there - the navigable channel is actually about a meter deeper - but for ships, that number determines how much cargo they can still carry at all. Kaub was last above 78 centimeters in mid-July. That exact level matters economically: if the gauge there stays below 78 centimeters for 30 straight days, German industrial production falls by around one percent, according to calculations by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy.
That already happened in 2018 and 2022, and 2026 is now heading in the same direction. The Rhine is one of Europe's most important transport routes, carrying chemicals, raw materials, fuel, and many other goods to factories and warehouses. German companies are already reporting the first disruptions. Chemical companies, energy firms, steel producers, and agricultural traders are warning of higher costs, overloaded roads and railways, and lower production if the situation does not change. A ship that can carry only a fraction of its normal load because the water is too low quickly becomes an expensive way to move freight. Whatever no longer fits on the water ends up on trucks or freight trains, exactly where capacity is not unlimited either. And the Rhine is not alone. The Danube has already fallen so far this summer that Serbia had to tap fuel reserves because of shipping problems. In Budapest, river cruises were suspended and several ferry routes were interrupted.
In Romania, low water on the Danube even forced the complete shutdown of the country's only nuclear power plant, Cernavodă, because there was no longer enough cooling water available for operations. Now the Rhine has reached its lowest level so far earlier than even the forecasts had expected. The cause is the continuing extreme heat and an almost complete lack of rainfall. Europe's great rivers are therefore not becoming an economic problem at some distant point in the future. The trucks now taking freight off the Rhine are already on the road.
The Rhine is falling to a record low, Europe's rivers are losing their water, industry and power plants are coming under pressure - and the AfD denies man-made climate change. It describes CO2 as positive plant food rather than a pollutant, rejects the EU Green Deal, and calls for international climate agreements to be scrapped, while climate research worldwide considers human influence proven.
The party argues that climate change is a natural process and that the human impact on it has not been scientifically proven or is insignificant.Downplaying CO2: CO2 is often described as a gas essential for plant life, which is why efforts to reduce it are portrayed as hostile to the economy and contrary to nature. Rejection of climate policy: The AfD calls for withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement, an end to the expansion of renewable energy, and the rollback of CO2 rules. The party calls for reversing the nuclear phaseout and returning to nuclear power.It argues that nuclear power is needed as reliable baseload power to keep electricity affordable and secure. The only question is: Where is it going to get the water? Reality apparently just needs to try a little harder.
