Gray Panthers of South Dade

08/22/2026

A personal perspective [by Richard LaVoy in a Comment] on the sailors and Marines aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln.

I flew P-3 Orions in the Navy. Our basic mission was antisubmarine warfare, and because we were land based, our deployments were very different from life aboard a carrier.

We typically deployed for six months to various locations around the world.

During those six months we worked seven days a week, but we also had required crew-rest periods. And typically we were afforded several week-long R&R periods when we could get away, travel a little and simply wind down.

Pretty cushy duty compared with a shipboard deployment.

But even with all of that, I can tell you this:

THE BEST DAY OF EVERY DEPLOYMENT WAS THE DAY WE PACKED UP AND HEADED HOME.

Now think about the sailors and Marines aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln.

They have been deployed for MORE THAN 260 DAYS.

They have gone MORE THAN 200 DAYS WITHOUT A PORT CALL.

More than 200 days without simply walking off that ship, getting away from your workplace, eating somewhere different, seeing something different or having a little time to decompress.

And they have been doing it while supporting sustained combat operations against Iran.

Yet this is an operation the Trump administration has resisted treating as a war in the conventional sense.

When President Trump was asked whether the Lincoln’s deployment had gone on too long, his response was:

“NO, NO, NO. NOT NEARLY LONG ENOUGH.”

Mr. President, I spent twelve years in the Navy. I understand deployments. I understand that military service requires sacrifice.

But there comes a point when the people making that sacrifice deserve something more than a dismissive answer.

MORE THAN 260 DAYS DEPLOYED.

MORE THAN 200 DAYS WITHOUT A PORT CALL.

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH, MR. PRESIDENT.

Bring these sailors and Marines home.

08/22/2026

ICE had an idea for a mentally ill woman. Drive her an hour in the wrong direction, drop her off in a city she had never been to without a jacket or a working phone, and wait.

Daphy Michel was 31, and her family was waiting at home for the call telling them where to pick her up.

Last September, a neighbor called police because Daphy was screaming at people who were not there. She was in the middle of a psychiatric crisis. Police arrested her.

Her family could not post the $10,000 bond, so she sat in jail for almost six months, through multiple psychiatric examinations and seven postponed hearings. Her mental illness was no secret to anyone.

When a judge finally heard the case, he threw out both charges. She had not threatened a single identifiable person.

Daphy had entered the United States legally under humanitarian parole and was still waiting for her asylum hearing. Her brother left court relieved that Daphy was finally coming home. He went home to wait.

Instead of a call, ICE strapped a GPS monitor to Daphy's ankle and dropped her off alone in Pittsburgh. She did not speak English. Her attorney says she could not read. Her cell service had expired while she was jailed. She was dressed for September weather.

It was 22 degrees — below freezing.

Bus after bus passed. The sun went down. Daphy barely moved.

Someone reported a Haitian woman in Pittsburgh wearing an ankle monitor who appeared to "need help." Using Google Translate, the caller understood that she believed someone was coming to pick her up and take her home.

Just before 10 a.m., a maintenance worker found Daphy without a pulse.

She froze to death.

ICE says its "first alert" came when the medical examiner cut the GPS monitor off her body.

Trump's DHS says ICE had "NOTHING to do" with what happened to her. Its defense: the "sun was out" and public transportation was nearby.

The medical examiner just ruled Daphy's death a HOMICIDE.

Daphy's family was waiting at home for her. ICE drove her the other way...

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08/22/2026

National Senior Citizens’ Dsy 8/21/026

National Senior Citizens Day 2026 falls on Friday, Aug. 21. The observance was formally established in the United States in 1988 and continues to provide an opportunity to appreciate older adults through family, community and volunteer activities.

08/21/2026

Read this from Ultraviolet:

… “Flock Safety” is a company responsible for deploying 120,000 cameras across the US that use artificial intelligence (AI) to read and track our license plates.1 Companies and politicians say that these cameras are for safety …but safety for whom?

The company has blown up since Trump took office last year, and is used extensively by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).2,3 So far, Flock cameras have been used to hunt women seeking reproductive care, pull over innocent people, track protesters, monitor a children’s gymnastics room, and terrorize immigrant families.4,5,6,7,8 Oh, and police are illegally using the Flock database to stalk and harass their exes.9

Women deserve real safety, not a mass surveillance tool that puts us at even greater risk. That’s why we’re going after the biggest companies responsible for deploying Flock cameras, starting with Lowe’s Home Improvement.10

Join us in calling on Lowe’s to sever all ties with Flock IMMEDIATELY.
…
According to the ACLU, companies like Flock that deploy automatic license plate readers (ALPRs) “violate our privacy across the country by taking photos of every vehicle passing their cameras, logging detailed information about them into a massive nationwide database, and making it possible to track those vehicles and apply AI to uncover their occupants’ private patterns of life.”11 ….

https://act.weareultraviolet.org/sign/lowes_drop_flock

“Flock Safety” is a company responsible for deploying 120,000 cameras across the US that use artificial intelligence (AI) to read and track our license plates. The company has blown up since Trump took office last year, and is used extensively by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Com...

08/20/2026

The wonderful scholar Johanna Fernández recently died at age 55. We were lucky enough to interview her a few years ago about her extraordinary history of the Young Lords, the Puerto Rican counterpart to the Black Panther Party. She was incredibly kind to us, and it was a fascinating conversation. We’re very saddened by her passing and grateful to have had the opportunity to learn from her.

🦩 Read more: https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/2023/08/lessons-in-organizing-from-the-young-lords
🎨 llustration by John Biggs