For all that Trump and other MAGA leaders throw at us, The Iowa League of Women Voters' cadre of principled, effective women is standing up to it, in court and elsewhere
Excellent essay/speech, Rekha! You eloquently speak for a large portion of Iowans and Americans. Thanks for all you do in support of justice, mercy, and integrity.
Congratulations on receiving this award. So well-deserved. And your speech! Such a shattering report of what has happened in just these first 100 days and no doubt will continue until America says, "Enough!"
The president of the United States is disappearing people to a Salvadoran prison for terrorists: a prison built for disappearance, a prison where there is no education or remediation or recreation, a prison where the only way out, according to El Salvador’s justice minister, is in a coffin. The president says he wants to send “homegrown” Americans there next. This is the emergency. Like it or not, it’s here.
Asha Rangappa is a former F.B.I. special agent and now an assistant dean and senior lecturer at the Yale Jackson School of Global Affairs, as well as a member of the board of editors for Just Security and the author of The Freedom Academy on Substack.
After last week’s episode, “The Emergency Is Here,” we got a lot of emails. And the most common reply was: You really think we’ll have midterm elections in 2026? Isn’t that naïve?
I think we will have midterms. But one reason I think so many people are skeptical of that is they’re working with comparisons to other places: Mussolini’s Italy, Putin’s Russia, Pinochet’s Chile.
But we don’t need to look abroad for parallels; it has happened here. Steven Hahn is a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian at New York University and the author of “Illiberal America: A History.” In this conversation, he walks me through some of the most illiberal periods in American history: Andrew Jackson’s Indian Removal Act of 1830, Jim Crow, the Red Scare, Japanese American internment, Operation Wetback. And we discuss how this legacy can help us better understand what’s happening right now.
Thanks for sharing that historical perspective, Gerald. It becomes more chilling here by the day, but it's heartening to see public opinion increasingly turning against this administration.
Congratulations, Rekha. Your voice has made a difference to so many people and so many organizations in our community and our state. Thank you for telling those stories. Thank you for making Iowa your home.
Congratulations Reka on all you've accomplished. May you continue to defend integrity in politics. There are great challenges during this time, and some, we are only beginning to face.
23,000IsraelSoldiers
IsraelSoldiersInUSUseChemicalWarfare
TENS OF THOUSANDS WAR CRIMINALS will soon be Entering the US. In fact, some of them are already here attacking anti-war protesters with chemical weapons they previously deployed in Israel. Others, who volunteered to participated in Israel's genocidal war, will be returning to countries like France and Britain to threaten our safety and weaken democratic institutions.
Why has no one raised the alarm over 23,000 U.S.A. citizens who have gone to Israel to fight in a genocidal war in Gaza? Isn't it illegal to join the military of another country to give your life & loyalty for the political goals of another government? Anti-war protesters in USA are losing jobs, being expelled, kidnapped and deported for being against the Israeli war and ethnic cleansing. Why aren't U.S. Citizens volunteering for the Israeli genocide being tried for treason, or arrested upon returning, or being stopped at the border and sent back to Israel and having their U.S. citizenship revoked? Over 23,000 Americans working for Israel - WHO ARE THEY? They need to be identified and held accountable for their role in Genocide. ICE refuses entry to innocent refugees yet allows murderous militants entry?
CHEMICAL WARFARE
At Columbia U, on Jan/19/24, two Israel Occupation Force soldiers were identified as two of the perpetrators in a chemical attack on anti-war students. The chemical spray, produced in Israel, is used by the Israeli military IDF on Palestinians to suppress protests against settler terrorists and the Israeli occupation. Both Israeli soldiers were current Columbia students. They were wearing keffiyeh disguises to spray protesters with a chemical weapon imported from Israel. Several of their victims were hospitalized for decontamination. Members of Jewish Voice for Peace reported being spat on and harassed by Israeli pro-war on-lookers. The soldier's names were hidden to protect their identity. The Israeli soldier-students weren't arrested for chemical warfare or even assault, but one who was suspended for a few months sued Columbia over his temporary suspension and was awarded almost half a million dollars ($395,000) by Columbia for his assaults on anti-war students. The Israeli soldiers apparently lied about the chemical spray, characterizing it as a novelty joke item of USA origin and its use by them simplyan expression of freedom of speech. A perversion of justice beyond cynical.
This is an instance of using the US Courts to reward Israeli soldiers using military weapons to attack US students in order to suppress their speech and their protests against genocide and ethnic cleansing. Despite being legal residents, students are too terrified to fight back - for good reason.
The student, (who deployed chemical spray) according to a document, is a Jewish-Hispanic immigrant who served in the Israeli army and holds both American and Israeli citizenship. A senior at Columbia, he was one of two students suspended by the university until the end of the semester for spraying the protesters at a demonstration on January 17th 2024. Their names are being withheld to protect their identity and protect them from personal criticism.
AI facial recognition software company Betar spokesman Daniel Levy says people on his list were identified using a facial-recognition tool called NesherAI created by Hawila's company, Stellar Technologies, located in his apartment in Brooklyn. The software's name is from the Hebrew word for “eagle.” Demonstrating the software, Hawila allowed the computer code to assimilate the upload of thousands of photos from social media accounts. The software matched a screenshot of a masked protester Hawila photographed at a recent demonstration with publicity photos of a woman who he was then able to identify.
USA GULAG ARCHIPELAGO
Anti-war student arrests: Turkish student, Rumeysa Ozturk, who was studying for her doctorate at Tufts on a Fulbright scholarship with a student visa was surrounded by six government agents on a street near her home. She was man-handled, hand-cuffed and whisked off in a Gestapo-type operation. She was then secretly taken to a site in a part of the far-reaching USA Gulag Archipelago. Her sin was criticizing Tufts’ response to a student group’s call for the university to divest from Israeli companies.
Alireza Doroudi, a University of Alabama doctoral student originally from Iran, was also detained by ICE. He had been held at a jail, but was transferred to federal custody in Jena, La.
Momodou Taal, a doctoral candidate in Africana Studies at Cornell, had his student visa revoked for participating in anti-war protests protests and creating a hostile environment for Jewish students, according to US government officials. “I have lost faith I could walk the streets without being abducted,” Taal said, “Weighing up these options, I took the decision to leave on my own terms.”
Mahmoud Khalil, a graduate student at Columbia until December, was in his apartment when several ICE agents entered and took him into custody. Khalil was in the United States as a permanent resident with a green card,
Current student and a friend of Khalil’s, said: “Students are terrified to set foot on campus. I’m one of them, so just the fact that I’m here is scary because [of] the way that our colleagues have disappeared."
Yunseo Chung, a 21-year-old Columbia University student who has lived in the US since she was 7, filed a suit after immigration agents tried to arrest and deport her for participating in anti-war demonstrations.
HARVARD UNIV
Hedge fund billionaire and Harvard alumni Bill Ackman led the call for the ouster of the Harvard President accusing her of Anti-Semitism. The CEO of Pershing Square is well-known for pressure campaigns, having built much of his wealth by using aggressive propaganda techniques. He called for the names of all the students who signed an anti-war statement (calling on Israel to stop the bombings) so that he and other CEOs could blacklist them from ever being hired by their firms. Ackman had the students faces displayed on trucks around campus labeling the students "anti-Semites." He also sent mailings to everyone in the area naming the Anti-War students. In addition, he hired a helicopter to fly over the area with signs in the sky naming the students. Overkill to crush dissent and support the bombing of Gaza? Ackman said the Harvard Board was worried that if they fired president Gay, it would look like they were kowtowing to him.
UNIV OF PENN
Among the first to call on Elizabeth Magill to resign was Marc Rowan, CEO of private equity giant Apollo Global Management. Rowan is one of the university’s wealthiest donors.
Billionaire Ronald Lauder, another powerful financial backer of school, threatened to do the same if more wasn’t done to fight "antisemitism." Brandeis Center, a Jewish civil rights legal organization, filed civil rights complaints with the US Dept of Education, accusing Penn of nurturing a hostile environment toward Jewish students. Stone Ridge Holdings CEO Ross Stevens, a major donor to Penn, sent a letter to Penn threatening to cost the school approximately $100 million for allowing students anti-war demonstrations.
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
Columbia President Minouche Shafik resigned after a little more than a year. She's the third female college president to lose her job. Students' protests over how Israel is fighting its war against the Palestinians has exposed cracks in the protection of the right to express an opinion publicly without being penalized or maligned.
New York GOP Rep. Elise Stefanik, a Harvard alumna, was relentless in her condemnation of the women college presidents. Hearing of Shafik's resignation Elise Stefanik said, “THREE DOWN, so many to go.”
A fourth woman, interim college President at Columbia, Katrina Armstrong, has been forced out after seven months. Armstrong’s resignation from Columbia U. comes after the Trump White House called for a ban on masks at campus anti-war protests as part of a list of reforms aimed at cracking down on "rampant antisemitism" that demonstrations against the massive bombing of Palestinians are being cast as.
Fifth woman: tenured Columbia University law professor Katherine Franke is stepping down after 25 years following a university investigation into her comments during an anti-war campus protest on January 2024 involving two IDF Israeli students who sprayed anti-war demonstrators with a chemical made and used in Israel by the IDF to suppress protests in Palestine. In an interview with Democracy Now! Franke claimed that Israeli students who had served in the Israel Defense Forces "have been known to harass Palestinian and other students on our campus."
Massachusetts Institute of Technology President Sally Kornbluth; although grilled by Stefanik, was spared ouster by the pro-Israel billionaires.
Reports have indicated that approximately 100 USA black sites exist all over the world, including in countries like Poland, Romania, Thailand, Lithuania (site Violet recently in the news, where Kalid Shaik Muhammad was waterboarded), Egypt, Guantanamo, etc. to hide prisoners being held and/or tortured by U.S. military or CIA agents.
How ridiculous that you left wingers believe anyone dreams about a whiter America. Americans simply want US immigration law upheld - on the boarder and in the courts. When two US judges are believed to have aided persons - most possibly violent criminals - to evade justice … well something is wrong. Oh, and so the IRS is ridding itself and us of 22,000 employees - who’s counting the 85,000 that Biden hired. Progressive liberals continue to decry actions to make America great. Neither whiter nor any other category leftists can dream up is an outcome equally desired.
I don’t know, Dean. Do you suppose this Administration would have deported three little white U.S. citizens – ages two, four and seven -- as it just did nonwhite ones? I can’t imagine what crimes they might have committed to justify that. Would this government have declared hundreds of white people to be gang members and terrorists without any proof or convictions and thrown them into a notorious El Salvador prison that people mostly don't return from? Why is it we’ve only heard of nonwhite foreign-born college students losing their visas for protesting against Israel? Do you really think no white ones protested? The list goes on and on. Open your eyes.
It’s fascinating that those that believe conservatives are racists are actually the ones who see everything through a racist lens. Barrack Hussein O deported over one and a half million people giving non of them due process. And, if white foreign-born college students protested illegally, they should lose their visas. Guessing there weren’t any.
Excellent essay/speech, Rekha! You eloquently speak for a large portion of Iowans and Americans. Thanks for all you do in support of justice, mercy, and integrity.
Thank you, John! Much appreciated.
I attended this event and I was honored to be there. I’ve followed your career since the DSM Register days. You deserved this award!
Wonderful event and excellent speech!
Thank you Rachel. Glad you enjoyed it. I found it to be such an inspired and uplifting group!
Congratulations on receiving this award. So well-deserved. And your speech! Such a shattering report of what has happened in just these first 100 days and no doubt will continue until America says, "Enough!"
May that time come much sooner than later.
Thank you for reminding us that hope lives.
Thanks, Andy. Good to meet you Saturday.
You're welcome. Nice meeting you as well.
So proud to know you, Rekha. You are entirely deserving of this honor! It was a beautiful event, and your remarks were moving!
Thanks dear Kelsey. So great to be with you and Caleb, whose words were so poignant and powerful.
Congratulations 🎉
Thank you, Steve!
I follow New York Times columnist/podcaster Ezra Klein. Two recent posts are related to the questions in this post, https://www.nytimes.com/column/ezra-klein-podcast
The president of the United States is disappearing people to a Salvadoran prison for terrorists: a prison built for disappearance, a prison where there is no education or remediation or recreation, a prison where the only way out, according to El Salvador’s justice minister, is in a coffin. The president says he wants to send “homegrown” Americans there next. This is the emergency. Like it or not, it’s here.
Asha Rangappa is a former F.B.I. special agent and now an assistant dean and senior lecturer at the Yale Jackson School of Global Affairs, as well as a member of the board of editors for Just Security and the author of The Freedom Academy on Substack.
After last week’s episode, “The Emergency Is Here,” we got a lot of emails. And the most common reply was: You really think we’ll have midterm elections in 2026? Isn’t that naïve?
I think we will have midterms. But one reason I think so many people are skeptical of that is they’re working with comparisons to other places: Mussolini’s Italy, Putin’s Russia, Pinochet’s Chile.
But we don’t need to look abroad for parallels; it has happened here. Steven Hahn is a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian at New York University and the author of “Illiberal America: A History.” In this conversation, he walks me through some of the most illiberal periods in American history: Andrew Jackson’s Indian Removal Act of 1830, Jim Crow, the Red Scare, Japanese American internment, Operation Wetback. And we discuss how this legacy can help us better understand what’s happening right now.
Thanks for sharing that historical perspective, Gerald. It becomes more chilling here by the day, but it's heartening to see public opinion increasingly turning against this administration.
Congratulations. Such a fabulous group of intelligent folks.
So powerful! Thank you, Rekha!
Iowa women from both sides of the political aisle have left a powerful legacy. These times are unprecedented and Iowa will continue to lead the way.
Here’s hoping, Phoebe! It’s been too long since Iowa has felt like a leader in the ways that count.
Congratulations, Rekha. Your voice has made a difference to so many people and so many organizations in our community and our state. Thank you for telling those stories. Thank you for making Iowa your home.
Thank you for your generous words, Kathi, and for all you do to support democracy and those standing up for it!
well said. Your award is past due.
PS I write as a male member of the League. :)
Thanks Ralph! Bravo for your membership.
More precisely, my spouse and myself are both members. we do voter registration.
Congratulations Reka on all you've accomplished. May you continue to defend integrity in politics. There are great challenges during this time, and some, we are only beginning to face.
23,000IsraelSoldiers
IsraelSoldiersInUSUseChemicalWarfare
TENS OF THOUSANDS WAR CRIMINALS will soon be Entering the US. In fact, some of them are already here attacking anti-war protesters with chemical weapons they previously deployed in Israel. Others, who volunteered to participated in Israel's genocidal war, will be returning to countries like France and Britain to threaten our safety and weaken democratic institutions.
Why has no one raised the alarm over 23,000 U.S.A. citizens who have gone to Israel to fight in a genocidal war in Gaza? Isn't it illegal to join the military of another country to give your life & loyalty for the political goals of another government? Anti-war protesters in USA are losing jobs, being expelled, kidnapped and deported for being against the Israeli war and ethnic cleansing. Why aren't U.S. Citizens volunteering for the Israeli genocide being tried for treason, or arrested upon returning, or being stopped at the border and sent back to Israel and having their U.S. citizenship revoked? Over 23,000 Americans working for Israel - WHO ARE THEY? They need to be identified and held accountable for their role in Genocide. ICE refuses entry to innocent refugees yet allows murderous militants entry?
CHEMICAL WARFARE
At Columbia U, on Jan/19/24, two Israel Occupation Force soldiers were identified as two of the perpetrators in a chemical attack on anti-war students. The chemical spray, produced in Israel, is used by the Israeli military IDF on Palestinians to suppress protests against settler terrorists and the Israeli occupation. Both Israeli soldiers were current Columbia students. They were wearing keffiyeh disguises to spray protesters with a chemical weapon imported from Israel. Several of their victims were hospitalized for decontamination. Members of Jewish Voice for Peace reported being spat on and harassed by Israeli pro-war on-lookers. The soldier's names were hidden to protect their identity. The Israeli soldier-students weren't arrested for chemical warfare or even assault, but one who was suspended for a few months sued Columbia over his temporary suspension and was awarded almost half a million dollars ($395,000) by Columbia for his assaults on anti-war students. The Israeli soldiers apparently lied about the chemical spray, characterizing it as a novelty joke item of USA origin and its use by them simplyan expression of freedom of speech. A perversion of justice beyond cynical.
This is an instance of using the US Courts to reward Israeli soldiers using military weapons to attack US students in order to suppress their speech and their protests against genocide and ethnic cleansing. Despite being legal residents, students are too terrified to fight back - for good reason.
The student, (who deployed chemical spray) according to a document, is a Jewish-Hispanic immigrant who served in the Israeli army and holds both American and Israeli citizenship. A senior at Columbia, he was one of two students suspended by the university until the end of the semester for spraying the protesters at a demonstration on January 17th 2024. Their names are being withheld to protect their identity and protect them from personal criticism.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/private-groups-identify-report-student-041123910.html
STALKING STUDENT DEMONSTRATORS:
AI facial recognition software company Betar spokesman Daniel Levy says people on his list were identified using a facial-recognition tool called NesherAI created by Hawila's company, Stellar Technologies, located in his apartment in Brooklyn. The software's name is from the Hebrew word for “eagle.” Demonstrating the software, Hawila allowed the computer code to assimilate the upload of thousands of photos from social media accounts. The software matched a screenshot of a masked protester Hawila photographed at a recent demonstration with publicity photos of a woman who he was then able to identify.
USA GULAG ARCHIPELAGO
Anti-war student arrests: Turkish student, Rumeysa Ozturk, who was studying for her doctorate at Tufts on a Fulbright scholarship with a student visa was surrounded by six government agents on a street near her home. She was man-handled, hand-cuffed and whisked off in a Gestapo-type operation. She was then secretly taken to a site in a part of the far-reaching USA Gulag Archipelago. Her sin was criticizing Tufts’ response to a student group’s call for the university to divest from Israeli companies.
Alireza Doroudi, a University of Alabama doctoral student originally from Iran, was also detained by ICE. He had been held at a jail, but was transferred to federal custody in Jena, La.
Momodou Taal, a doctoral candidate in Africana Studies at Cornell, had his student visa revoked for participating in anti-war protests protests and creating a hostile environment for Jewish students, according to US government officials. “I have lost faith I could walk the streets without being abducted,” Taal said, “Weighing up these options, I took the decision to leave on my own terms.”
Mahmoud Khalil, a graduate student at Columbia until December, was in his apartment when several ICE agents entered and took him into custody. Khalil was in the United States as a permanent resident with a green card,
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/30/columbia-alumni-diplomas-mahmoud-khalil
Current student and a friend of Khalil’s, said: “Students are terrified to set foot on campus. I’m one of them, so just the fact that I’m here is scary because [of] the way that our colleagues have disappeared."
Yunseo Chung, a 21-year-old Columbia University student who has lived in the US since she was 7, filed a suit after immigration agents tried to arrest and deport her for participating in anti-war demonstrations.
HARVARD UNIV
Hedge fund billionaire and Harvard alumni Bill Ackman led the call for the ouster of the Harvard President accusing her of Anti-Semitism. The CEO of Pershing Square is well-known for pressure campaigns, having built much of his wealth by using aggressive propaganda techniques. He called for the names of all the students who signed an anti-war statement (calling on Israel to stop the bombings) so that he and other CEOs could blacklist them from ever being hired by their firms. Ackman had the students faces displayed on trucks around campus labeling the students "anti-Semites." He also sent mailings to everyone in the area naming the Anti-War students. In addition, he hired a helicopter to fly over the area with signs in the sky naming the students. Overkill to crush dissent and support the bombing of Gaza? Ackman said the Harvard Board was worried that if they fired president Gay, it would look like they were kowtowing to him.
UNIV OF PENN
Among the first to call on Elizabeth Magill to resign was Marc Rowan, CEO of private equity giant Apollo Global Management. Rowan is one of the university’s wealthiest donors.
Billionaire Ronald Lauder, another powerful financial backer of school, threatened to do the same if more wasn’t done to fight "antisemitism." Brandeis Center, a Jewish civil rights legal organization, filed civil rights complaints with the US Dept of Education, accusing Penn of nurturing a hostile environment toward Jewish students. Stone Ridge Holdings CEO Ross Stevens, a major donor to Penn, sent a letter to Penn threatening to cost the school approximately $100 million for allowing students anti-war demonstrations.
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
Columbia President Minouche Shafik resigned after a little more than a year. She's the third female college president to lose her job. Students' protests over how Israel is fighting its war against the Palestinians has exposed cracks in the protection of the right to express an opinion publicly without being penalized or maligned.
New York GOP Rep. Elise Stefanik, a Harvard alumna, was relentless in her condemnation of the women college presidents. Hearing of Shafik's resignation Elise Stefanik said, “THREE DOWN, so many to go.”
A fourth woman, interim college President at Columbia, Katrina Armstrong, has been forced out after seven months. Armstrong’s resignation from Columbia U. comes after the Trump White House called for a ban on masks at campus anti-war protests as part of a list of reforms aimed at cracking down on "rampant antisemitism" that demonstrations against the massive bombing of Palestinians are being cast as.
Fifth woman: tenured Columbia University law professor Katherine Franke is stepping down after 25 years following a university investigation into her comments during an anti-war campus protest on January 2024 involving two IDF Israeli students who sprayed anti-war demonstrators with a chemical made and used in Israel by the IDF to suppress protests in Palestine. In an interview with Democracy Now! Franke claimed that Israeli students who had served in the Israel Defense Forces "have been known to harass Palestinian and other students on our campus."
Massachusetts Institute of Technology President Sally Kornbluth; although grilled by Stefanik, was spared ouster by the pro-Israel billionaires.
Reports have indicated that approximately 100 USA black sites exist all over the world, including in countries like Poland, Romania, Thailand, Lithuania (site Violet recently in the news, where Kalid Shaik Muhammad was waterboarded), Egypt, Guantanamo, etc. to hide prisoners being held and/or tortured by U.S. military or CIA agents.
https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2016-10-10/site-violet-how-lithuania-helped-run-a-secret-cia-prison
How ridiculous that you left wingers believe anyone dreams about a whiter America. Americans simply want US immigration law upheld - on the boarder and in the courts. When two US judges are believed to have aided persons - most possibly violent criminals - to evade justice … well something is wrong. Oh, and so the IRS is ridding itself and us of 22,000 employees - who’s counting the 85,000 that Biden hired. Progressive liberals continue to decry actions to make America great. Neither whiter nor any other category leftists can dream up is an outcome equally desired.
I don’t know, Dean. Do you suppose this Administration would have deported three little white U.S. citizens – ages two, four and seven -- as it just did nonwhite ones? I can’t imagine what crimes they might have committed to justify that. Would this government have declared hundreds of white people to be gang members and terrorists without any proof or convictions and thrown them into a notorious El Salvador prison that people mostly don't return from? Why is it we’ve only heard of nonwhite foreign-born college students losing their visas for protesting against Israel? Do you really think no white ones protested? The list goes on and on. Open your eyes.
It’s fascinating that those that believe conservatives are racists are actually the ones who see everything through a racist lens. Barrack Hussein O deported over one and a half million people giving non of them due process. And, if white foreign-born college students protested illegally, they should lose their visas. Guessing there weren’t any.