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Commitment to protecting immigrant families in schools
As agencies that are in service to the well-being of our diverse community, the Alameda County Office of Education (ACOE) and the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office (ACSO) jointly affirm our commitments to creating safe, informed and protected school environments for our communities.
ACOE acknowledges that there is heightened anxiety and concern among immigrant families after highly charged rhetoric and recent actions against immigrant communities from the federal government. This fear causes students and their families to disengage from their schools and communities.
We reaffirm our unwavering commitments to ensuring that all youth, regardless of skin color, gender, sexuality, immigration status and neighborhood continue to have equitable access to education in a safe and supportive environment.
In line with these commitments, we’d like to remind you that Alameda County schools and the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office do not collect information on immigration status. The Sheriff’s Office commitment to AB 2792 (Truth Act) and SB 54 (California Values Act) underscores our diverse communities. The Sheriff’s Office does not comply with administrative immigration warrants, and an individual’s immigration status will not influence how Agency members carry out their duties.
We will uphold our professional and moral responsibility to do all that we can to protect students. Ensuring a future where every student and those who serve them have what they need to thrive is our collective responsibility.
— Alameda County Sheriff-Coroner Yesenia Sanchez
— Alameda County Superintendent of Schools Alysse Castro
Trump looking out for America
It’s obvious Trump is looking out for America, the American citizens, its assets, its money (our tax dollars). The national debt increases $6.6 billion every day. The debt load of the U.S. is growing at a quicker pace in recent months, increasing about $1 trillion every hundred days.
Several countries have declared bankruptcy in the last 25 years due to overspending and social programs. Some examples include Russia, Greece, Germany, Brazil, Mexico, Uruguay, Chile and Spain. America is teetering, toward bankruptcy.
Trump survived two assassination attempts to be elected president. Chuck Schumer is on television this weekend promoting Mexican products. Strange he would not promote American made products.
Hopefully it is not too late for Trump, his cabinet and the Republican Congress to save this country, turn it around.
— Michael Austin
Latest on Trump administration
During week two, the Trump administration continued its intended purpose of inundating and confusing the American people with an ongoing avalanche of, “What Constitution? I don’t need any Constitution. I didn’t put my hand on the Bible at the inauguration,” authoritarian, Project 2025 actions.
* Announced a surprise, temporary pause of federal grant, loan and other financial assistance programs to be implemented the day of the announcement
* Offered federal workers who voluntarily resigned a buyout package; millions of workers received an email with the subject line “A Fork in the Road” — the same language Elon Musk used when purging X’s workforce
* Blamed the deadliest aviation crash the U.S. has seen in decades on DEI even as the cause remained unknown and the recovery mission was still underway
* Played tariff hide and seek: Tariffs were coming on one day — 25% on imports from Mexico and Canada, alongside 10% tariffs on China — and then they weren’t, and then they were.
Still nothing about lowering costs and the price of eggs continues to soar. And all of this doesn’t even include the nomination hearings for the cabinet picks where the big questions remain, “Who is the most incompetent?” and “Who is the most dangerous?” I’ll be back next week.
— Ward Kanowsky
Ban rodeo’s ‘steer tailing’ event
Back in 1994 California outlawed the Mexican charreadas’ inhumane “horse tripping” event. Accordingly, the U.S. Charro Federation changed their rules for the entire country. Progress!
Charreadas feature an even more brutal event, “steer tailing” (aka “colas” or “coleadero”), wherein a mounted charro grabs a running steer by the tail, wraps the tail around his leg, then rides off at an angle, slamming the hapless animal to the ground.
Tails may be broken, stripped to the bone (“degloved”), even torn off. Horses sometimes suffer broken legs when steers run the wrong way. “Steer tailing” is not a standard ranching practice anywhere in the U.S., already banned in Alameda and Contra Costa counties (1993 & 1994) and Nebraska (2008).
A California ban would likely result in a Charro Federation rule change banning “steer tailing” nationwide. Even Cesar Chavez was an outspoken critic. Deadline for bill introduction is Feb. 21. All legislators may be written c/o The State Capitol, Sacramento, CA 95814. Email pattern for all legislators: senator.lastname@senate.ca.gov; assemblymember.lastname@assembly.ca.gov
County ordinances are also in order. Let your representatives hear from you!
— Eric Mills, coordinator, Action for Animals
Departments in executive branch
Your readership needs to be aware of how far the Executive Order to halt funding for federal agencies goes and how that will impact our local institutions and residents. Although the memo from the OMB has been rescinded, many of our local institutions are still under assault.
The following departments are part of the executive branch (in parens I have named specific agencies that would be impacted):
Secretaries of Agriculture (wineries and food producers), Commerce, Defense, Education (preschools, schools, universities, junior colleges and Chabot Museum), Energy (LLNL and Sandia), Health and Human Services (research at universities and medical schools), Homeland Security (illegal use of military to enforce civil laws), Housing and Urban Development, Interior (national parks), Labor, State, Transportation (infrastructure for road and bridges, perhaps local transportation agencies such as BART and Caltrans), Treasury and Veterans Affairs (VA hospitals). And NASA.
You undoubtedly know more than I do and can expand on this. The general public needs to be informed how the POTUS is trying to expand his power/impose his policies and usurp funding approved by Congress.
— Catherine Johnson
Trump’s revenge agenda: Project 2025
During the 2024 presidential campaign, Donald Trump appeared on an episode of MSNBC’s “The ReidOut” with Joy Reid and Sen. Amy Klobuchar. They played a video where Trump said “revenge takes time” — they both shuddered — so did I, because he said it with such venom and meanness in his voice it was crystal clear he meant it.
Trump has had four years to carefully prepare his revenge agenda and it started last month when he returned to the Oval Office.
Trump’s agenda is outlined in “Project 2025”. One of his nominees, Russell Vought as budget chief, is one of its authors. Everything in the Project, from shutting down the federal government to mass deportations to destroying our healthcare system with the nominations of Bobby Kennedy, Jr. and Dr. Oz, has already begun.
His promises were so absurd most people did not believe it would ever happen. Guess what, it is happening. Read or watch the news and see for yourself.
In addition, Trump’s pick for VP, JD Vance, whose Senate position was bought for him by billionaire Peter Thiel, is a follower of blogger Curtis Yarvin. Yarvin believes that democracy and the federal government need to be “deleted” and replaced by a national CEO called a dictator. Look it up; he said it in 2012 in a recorded interview.
Trump said he’d be a dictator on Day 1, and he wasn’t kidding.
— Ramona Krausnick
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