Next SP, June 25: "Michigan politics, National politics, Immigration, maybe Iran" with Kate Kooyman, District Director for a Michigan State Senator
Details: “Michigan politics, National politics, Immigration, maybe Iran” with Kate Kooyman, District Director for a State Senator,. June 25, 7pm, Port 393, Holland, MI
Kate Kooyman follows state and national politics closely. Before becoming the District Director for Winnie Brinks, she worked in the now defunct Office of Social Justice in the Christian Reformed Church. Much of her time there was focused of immigration reform, which Marco Rubio helped to craft and John Boehner effectively killed by simply not allowing a vote on it in the House. Somehow, that was 2014, only 12 years ago.
Now we have mass deportation, which is actually just a way for Republicans to do as much ethnic cleansing of non-whites as possible. It requires terrorizing millions of immigrants and citizens. Two American citizens have been murdered by the government for protesting the terrorization of their neighbors. No one has been prosecuted for these murders, even though there is video evidence of both murders.
There is widespread abuse and neglect of detainees at ICE detention centers, which are nearly all privately run (90%)/. Detainees in Camp East Montana on the U.S. Army's Fort Bliss military base in El Paso, Texas, have filed a lawsuit against the government. NPR notes, "Detained people are regularly subjected to severe beatings or sexual harassment by guards; squalid living conditions; spoiled and inadequate food; no meaningful programming or recreation; inadequate access to basic hygiene products such as soap, razors or nail clippers, outbreaks of disease; and limited or no access to sunlight," according to the complaint.1
Kate and I will discuss the Senate race in Michigan. The Democratic primary for the Senate is fascinating. Support for the state of Israel is figuring prominently in this primary as Israel bleeds support amongst Democrats. I’m a big fan of Abdul El-Sayed. I’m anxious to hear Kate’s thoughts on this race.
We will discuss all of this, and probably a bit more. I apologize for not writing more. I will be getting back to it soon. I’ve been putting out a lot of videos on TikTok and Facebook. Here are a couple of my more recent posts.
This one focuses on the racism that is so prevalent in Israeli Jewish society.
This one focuses on Jesus’s racism toward Gentiles/non-Jews.
https://www.npr.org/2026/05/30/nx-s1-5841359/immigrant-detainees-sue-texas-camp-east-montana