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(This was a whole month ago.)

I planted a couple of dozen milkweeds in my yard last year and have only seen, like, 3 monarch butterflies. So I'm glad to see they're doing a bit better in this well-reported piece from Michoacán, Mexico.

So *that's* why the DNC is $2 million in debt.

More than half of aid to Colombia was cut during the Trump administration's first year, amid the closure of USAID. Colombia was the #1 security assistance recipient in Latin America; I'm not sure now (other money is in DOD accounts that've been opaque even during Democratic administrations).

Just noticed this, from Rep. Greg Stanton's questioning during a 7/15 House hearing on Colombia: "In a March 26 report to Congress, the Trump admin estimated the total assistance to Colombia declined from $400.7 million in FY24 to $186.9 million in FY25." foreignaffairs.house.gov/committee-ac...

we still have electricity and potable water

Will it pass that challenge? Unclear. DHS's and ICE's reporting of results and trends has grown erratic since January 2025, even as Congress has lavished a quarter-trillion dollars on the department. (CBP, notably, has been steady.) Rosenblum’s departure should sound alarms.

The departure of a careful, credible numbers guy who served under both parties is a blow to DHS's credibility. A few years into Hugo Chávez’s presidency, Venezuela stopped reporting even inflation and homicide statistics. DHS now faces a “don't turn into Venezuela challenge.”

Also, as we were nearing publication, the LA Times reported that boat strikes have killed at least 13 citizens of Mexico, many from a village in Nayarit who were at the bottom of the trafficking chain: running gas to the boats that actually had the drugs.

The Guardian reported that at least 16 fishers from Colombia’s Caribbean island department of San Andrés and Providence have gone missing since January. “Some of them might have been carrying drugs, but ‘certainly’ not all.”

The Washington Post saw a DEA assessment acknowledging that US street prices and purity (and thus availability) of cocaine haven’t changed: all the boat strikes have done is cause traffickers to adjust routes.

Since our report on the Trump administration’s “boat strikes” went out on Friday, two journalistic reports added outrageous new pieces to the puzzle.

Who in the 90s, the height of the CD era, didn’t have Pearl Jam’s “Ten” on vinyl

In the latest WOLA Border Update: Border Patrol migrant apprehensions declined little in June despite summer heat. Asylum denials have exceeded 90 percent for 4 straight months. ICE arrests are now at record levels.

The report we published yesterday on the "boat strikes" cites Brian a few times. Until recently, Latin America specialists had little occasion to think about presidential war powers, but that has changed—and Brian's smart work on the topic has been enormously clarifying.

Charting TRAC's latest data on immigration-court asylum decisions shockingly illustrates the Trump administration's full-on assault on the right to asylum in the US. Denials (brown in the chart) have shot up from the low 50%s two years ago to the mid-90%s now. From tracreports.org/phptools/imm...

All cocaine produced in a year could fit on just over 1% of a single container ship. Imagine that scattered worldwide across innumerable boats, planes, vehicles, and people. "Bombing boats" to stop drugs isn't just cruel and illegal—it's futile. See more: www.wola.org/analysis/kil...

I planted these last year, the best $3.50 I can recall spending. They're very tall, make dozens of flowers, and are native to most of the eastern US and Canada. www.prairiemoon.com/helianthus-g...

Unusual to see a goldfinch this close to the middle of DC. Glad I didn't deadhead the perennial sunflowers in our little backyard.

I think I did good.