January, 03 2017,  11:00pm EDT
Six-Figure Ad Buys Launched in AZ and NV Urging Senators to Reject Trump's Treasury Nominee
Today, Allied Progress launched two six-figure network and cable television ad buys in Arizona and Nevada calling on Senators Jeff Flake (R-AZ) and Dean Heller (R-NV) to reject President-elect Donald J. Trump's nomination of Steven Mnuchin for Secretary of Treasury. The ads, entitled "Best," highlight how former Goldman Sachs banker Mnuchin made millions of dollars off the foreclosures of thousands of family homes -- including in Arizona and Nevada where the foreclosure crisis during the Great Recession was particularly horrific.
WASHINGTON
Today, Allied Progress launched two six-figure network and cable television ad buys in Arizona and Nevada calling on Senators Jeff Flake (R-AZ) and Dean Heller (R-NV) to reject President-elect Donald J. Trump's nomination of Steven Mnuchin for Secretary of Treasury. The ads, entitled "Best," highlight how former Goldman Sachs banker Mnuchin made millions of dollars off the foreclosures of thousands of family homes -- including in Arizona and Nevada where the foreclosure crisis during the Great Recession was particularly horrific.
The ads, which begin airing today on broadcast and cable television in Arizona and Nevada, are the first major paid media effort targeting the incoming Trump administration.
"Donald Trump promised he would hire the best to serve in his administration, but instead he's picked a former Goldman Sachs executive who made millions when his own bank foreclosed on the family homes of thousands of hard-working Americans," said Allied Progress executive director Karl Frisch. "Arizona and Nevada were hit particularly hard by the foreclosure crisis that Steven Mnuchin and his Wall Street buddies helped to create -- and profited from. Senators Flake and Heller have a simple choice: will they stand with Mnuchin and Goldman Sachs or with their constituents who were brutalized by Wall Street greed during the Great Recession?"
Steven Mnuchin is a longtime Wall Street insider, formerly a second-generation executive at Goldman Sachs. At the height of the Great Recession, Mnuchin purchased IndyMac, later renamed OneWest Bank. Under his leadership, OneWest foreclosed on thousands of homeowners, including in Arizona and Nevada, with the federal government absorbing the losses while the bank made billions in profits for Mnuchin and his colleagues.
The foreclosure practices of Mnuchin's bank came under intense fire, with one judge finding that OneWest committed "harsh, repugnant, shocking and repulsive" acts, characterizing the bank's conduct as "inequitable, unconscionable, vexatious and opprobrious." In another case, OneWest foreclosed on a 90-year-old woman over a payment that was short by 27 cents.Gl
Last month, Allied Progress launched Trump Transparency Project, an initiative aimed at holding the incoming administration accountable for its economic appointments and policies that will hurt America's middle class. The Project will continue to hold the Trump administration accountable for advancing policies that hurt working Americans.
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New Lawsuit Details 'Horrific and Inhumane Conditions' in ICE Broadview Facility
"Community members are being kidnapped off the streets, packed in hold cells, denied food, medical care, and basic necessities, and forced to sign away their legal rights," said the lead attorney for the case.
Oct 31, 2025
A few weeks after a federal judge sided with journalists and protesters attacked by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement outside of an ICE building in the Chicago suburb Broadview, detainees on Friday sued over "deplorable and inhumane conditions" inside the "de facto immigration detention facility right outside the city limits."
"Huge numbers of people are being arrested and detained" as part of President Donald Trump's "massive and inhumane immigration enforcement operation in the Chicago area—Operation Midway Blitz," notes the class action complaint, filed in the Northern District of Illinois by the ACLU of Illinois, MacArthur Justice Center, and Chicago office of the law firm Eimer Stahl.
Like plaintiffs Pablo Moreno Gonzalez and Felipe Agustin Zamacona, most immigrants targeted in the operation have been brought to the Broadview facility. There, the complaint states, federal defendants "have created a black box in which to disappear people from the US justice and immigration systems," and they "are perpetrating mass constitutional violations."
The suit names not only ICE and key agency leaders—Acting Director Todd Lyons, Enforcement and Removal Operations Executive Associate Director Marcos Charles, and Interim Chicago Field Office Director Samuel Olson—but also the US Department of Homeland Security, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, Customs and Border Protection, and CBP Commander-at-Large Greg Bovino.
"DHS personnel have denied access to counsel, legislators, and journalists so that the harsh and deteriorating conditions at the facility can be shielded from public view," said ACLU of Illinois legal director Kevin Fee in a statement. "These conditions are unconstitutional and threaten to coerce people into sacrificing their rights without the benefit of legal advice and a full airing of their legal defenses."
Echoing recent reporting by Chicago journalists, the filing features several anecdotes from attorneys and people who have been detained in Broadview, where "there is blood, other bodily fluids, and hair in the sinks and on the walls," and holding rooms are "infested with cockroaches, centipedes, and spiders."
"This is a vicious abuse of power and gross violation of basic human rights by ICE and the Department of Homeland Security."
One person quoted in the complaint said that immigrants at Broadview were confined in cells "like a pile of fish," while another said that "they treated us like animals, or worse than animals, because no one treats their pets like that."
In September, Fredy Cazarez Gonzalez was "held in a small room with hundreds of people" and "forced to lay down near the toilet, where there was urine on the ground," the filing says. He "was unable to shower for the five days he was at Broadview. Officers did not give him any soap, toothpaste, a toothbrush, or anything else to clean himself with."
Juan Gabriel Aguirre Alvarez "saw a man get sick and vomit in and around the toilet in his holding room. The officers did not provide medical care, nor did they clean up the vomit," the document details. "On the final night that Aguirre Alvarez was detained at Broadview, another man in the room defecated in his pants. The man's soiled pants were placed in the garbage. No staff members came to clean it up, so it was left there the entire night and smelled terrible."
"Jose Guerrero Pozos was detained with some individuals who were diabetic, but they received the same food—a small amount of bread—as all the other detainees, which can lead to dangerous and uncontrolled surges in blood sugar," according to the complaint.
The details alleged in the suit get pretty lurid. Per multiple declarations, detainees are forced to sleep on the floor, amid "urine and dirty water" caused by clogged toilets. The suit also claims there are cameras pointed at the toilets, causing detainees anxiety and concern over sexual abuse.
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— Dave Byrnes (@djbyrnes1.bsky.social) October 31, 2025 at 10:02 AM
Alexa Van Brunt, director of the MacArthur Justice Center's Illinois office and lead counsel on the suit, stressed in a statement that "everyone, no matter their legal status, has the right to access counsel and to not be subject to horrific and inhumane conditions."
"Community members are being kidnapped off the streets, packed in hold cells, denied food, medical care, and basic necessities, and forced to sign away their legal rights," she said. "This is a vicious abuse of power and gross violation of basic human rights by ICE and the Department of Homeland Security. It must end now."
Chicago, the third-largest US city, has been a primary target of Trump's immigration crackdown and his attempt to deploy National Guard troops—the latter of which is before the US Supreme Court after being blocked by a federal judge in response to a suit filed by the Democrat-led city and state.
However, "the conditions at Broadview are not an anomaly," the complaint highlights. "Similar overcrowding, unsanitary conditions, lack of basic hygiene, insufficient food and water, inadequate sleeping conditions, substandard medical care, and extreme restrictions on attorney-client communications are pervasive at immigration facilities in New York, Baltimore, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Alexandria, and other cities throughout the country."
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The United Nations' top human rights official said Friday that US President Donald Trump's deadly strikes on boats in international waters in recent weeks amount to "extrajudicial killing" that must stop immediately, remarks that came as the White House appeared poised to expand the unlawful military campaign to targets inside Venezuela.
Volker Türk, the UN high commissioner for human rights, said of the administration's boat strikes that "these attacks—and their mounting human cost—are unacceptable."
"The US must halt such attacks and take all measures necessary to prevent the extrajudicial killing of people aboard these boats, whatever the criminal conduct alleged against them," said Türk, noting that the administration has not substantiated its claim that those killed by the strikes in waters off Central and South America were smuggling drugs.
The Trump administration has also kept secret a US Justice Department memo purportedly outlining an internal legal justification for the deadly strikes.
Türk noted that "countering the serious issue of illicit trafficking of drugs across international borders is—as has long been agreed among states—a law-enforcement matter, governed by the careful limits on lethal force set out in international human rights law."
"Under international human rights law, the intentional use of lethal force is only permissible as a last resort against individuals who pose an imminent threat to life," said the UN human rights chief. "Based on the very sparse information provided publicly by the US authorities, none of the individuals on the targeted boats appeared to pose an imminent threat to the lives of others or otherwise justified the use of lethal armed force against them under international law."
The Trump administration's strikes have killed more than 60 people thus far. At least one of the targeted vessels appeared to have turned around before the US military bombed it, killing 11 people.
Türk's statement came as the Miami Herald reported that the Trump administration "has made the decision to attack military installations inside Venezuela and the strikes could come at any moment."
Trump has said publicly that land strikes inside Venezuela would be the next phase of the military assault, which he has described as a "war" on drug cartels. The president has not yet received—or even sought—congressional authorization for any of the military actions taken in the Caribbean and Pacific.
In a statement last week, a group of UN experts denounced the Trump administration's strikes and belligerent posturing toward Venezuela as "an extremely dangerous escalation with grave implications for peace and security in the Caribbean region."
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Trump Administration Has ‘Made the Decision to Attack Military Installations Inside Venezuela’: Report
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Two reports claim that the Trump administration is poised to launch strikes against military targets inside Venezuela.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday night that the administration is preparing to attack a variety of targets inside Venezuela, including "ports and airports controlled by the military that are allegedly used to traffic drugs, including naval facilities and airstrips."
Reports from the US government and the United Nations have not identified Venezuela as a significant source of drugs that enter the United States, and the country plays virtually no role in the trafficking of fentanyl, the primary cause of drug overdoses in the US.
While the WSJ report said that the administration had not yet decided to carry out the operations against Venezuela, the Miami Herald reported on Friday morning that the administration "has made the decision to attack military installations inside Venezuela and the strikes could come at any moment."
A source who spoke with the Miami Herald didn't explicitly say that Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro would be the target of these actions, but they nonetheless hinted that the goal was to weaken his grip on power.
"Maduro is about to find himself trapped and might soon discover that he cannot flee the country even if he decided to,” the source said. “What’s worse for him, there is now more than one general willing to capture and hand him over, fully aware that one thing is to talk about death, and another to see it coming."
While the Trump administration has accused Maduro of leading an international drug trafficking organization called the Cartel de los Soles, some experts have expressed extreme skepticism of this claim.
Phil Gunson, analyst at the International Crisis Group think tank, said in an interview with Agence Presse-France earlier this year that he doubts that so-called "Cartel de los Soles" even exists, and noted that "direct, incontrovertible evidence has never been presented" to show otherwise.
Earlier this year, the administration attempted to tie Maduro to another gang, Tren de Aragua, despite US intelligence agencies rejecting the notion that the street gang had government connections.
Launching strikes on Venezuelan soil would mark a major escalation in the administration's military campaign targeting purported drug traffickers, which so far has consisted of drone strikes against boats in international waters that many legal experts have described as a campaign of extrajudicial murder.
Dozens of political leaders throughout Latin America earlier this month condemned the administration's attacks on the purported drug boats, and they warned that they could just be the start of a regime change war reminiscent of the coups carried out by the US government in the last century that installed military dictatorships throughout the region.
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Medea Benjamin, cofounder of anti-war group CodePink, accused the Trump administration of using a fight against alleged drug trafficking as a false pretext to seize Venezuela's vast oil reserves.
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