Politics

In this historic Black neighborhood in Milwaukee, the Biden question is met with indifference

Published

1 year ago

July 19, 2024

MILWAUKEE —

Lisa Collins sat in the shade of a green ash tree Wednesday in the Milwaukee neighborhood of Lindsay Heights handing out free hot dogs and hamburgers as part of a “joyful rebellion” against the nearby Republican National Convention.

Though she plans on voting for President Biden in the upcoming election, it is not without trepidation.

“That made me so mad at that debate, I said I’m not voting, I’m just not,” she said of Biden’s awful performance. “But you know I am.”

Hers is a kind of ambivalence common in this part of town, where the dreams of Black Americans have flourished, withered and risen again, in a city and state that will play a critical role in deciding which candidate wins the Oval Office.

Lisa Collins works the food station at the Milwaukee Childcare Collective event during the Republican convention.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

Much of the world is obsessing over big questions: Would a second term for Donald Trump be a step toward authoritarianism? Is Biden mentally competent? Should Biden step aside, and if he did, could Kamala Harris successfully carry a campaign? Should it be left to an open field of Democratic contenders?

But in Lindsay Heights, like many places, a lot of folks have yet to think about the election. Those who have are often uninterested in those soul-searching questions that dominate headlines.

At this event arranged by the Milwaukee Childcare Collective, most people didn’t know they were gathered in response to the convention. They came for the face painting and food, and their concerns are more mundane: teaching kids to read, paying the bills, finding a napkin to clean Popsicle juice off chubby toddler legs.

Deshay Majors, sitting with his son and young daughter, she of the sticky knees, said he has not yet decided whom he will vote for.

“It all depends what they are talking about,” he said of how he will make his decision, though he isn’t sure which issues will sway him, or what he wants to hear.

Community members get free clothes at the Milwaukee Childcare Collective event.

It’s a reminder that it ain’t over until it’s over, but time is running out.

On the national front, there is an air of despondency. Many are convinced that as long as Biden remains atop the ticket, the party is destined to lose the White House. Possibly in a Trump landslide. Very likely in addition to losing control of the Senate.

Even before his debate debacle, Biden was struggling to match his performance four years ago with Black voters, a vital Democratic constituency, especially in swing states.

Paul Maslin, who has been polling and strategizing in political contests since the days of Jimmy Carter, put Biden’s chances of reelection “somewhere between slim and none.”

“And slim,” he said, “is making reservations to leave town.”

Kids play basketball at the Milwaukee Childcare Collective event.

A recent poll by the Associated Press and University of Chicago found nearly two-thirds of Democrats surveyed said Biden should withdraw from the presidential race and let his party nominate someone else.

Biden’s standing with independent and undecided voters is even worse, said Maslin, who has decades of experience in Wisconsin politics.

“His campaign has to have told him, or should be telling him, ‘Mr. President, one thing the voters you need to win this election have in common is they don’t like you,’ ” Maslin said. “They owe it to themselves, to him, to the party, to the country.”

The upper echelon of Democrats (those “elites” Biden has taken to railing against) are voting with their wallets.

“I can tell you, having talked to a lot of donors, their depression and despair has curdled into anger,” said Paul Begala, a strategist who twice helped put Bill Clinton in the White House. “They’re very angry. And angry people don’t donate.”

But that outrage hasn’t reached this parklet, where the basketball hoops lack nets and the closest bathroom is in a nearby church.

The area is named for Bernice Lindsay, the first Black woman to obtain a journalism degree from Ohio State University. She moved to these narrow streets north of downtown in the 1920s, intent on helping to create a place where Black professionals could own homes and raise families. For awhile, the community thrived — until freeways, violence and neglect tumbled it into decline, like so many other minority enclaves in America.

Kids gather for free ice cream at the Milwaukee Childcare Collective event.

Now, it’s a community working to raise itself back up. Vacant-lot gardens grow strawberries, and residents organize to help themselves and win what they need from a government that has too often passed them by — Democrat or Republican.

Some of the Victorian and Queen Anne homes are fixed up, some are boarded up, and most have front porches where people gather.

Sheyenne Wilson, 25, has been visiting those porches to talk about Biden, though the organizer says she likes to mostly listen.

What she hears isn’t pro-Biden or pro-Trump, but more pro-Lindsay Heights.

Sheyenne Wilson, with her son, Khalif El, is an organizer for the Biden campaign.

“Basically people want someone who will support the community,” she said, her 10-month-old son, Khalif, on her lap.

That, said her fellow organizer Trasus Wright, is the opening he uses. He sees abortion as the kind of personal issue that can move voters — even his wife, Dea Wright, is undecided.

Dea Wright likes Trump’s stance on school choice — their six children benefited from such a program, she said.

“Where Trump gets me is where they start saying Christianity in schools,” she said.

Trasus Wright said he isn’t bothered by his wife’s uncertainty because he believes that “Joe is going to bring her around. His policies around advocating for women are going to be what matters.”

And what of Biden being too old?

“They’re both old,” said Eric Donelson, unbothered by reports of Biden’s mental decline as he ate a hamburger.

And what about Vice President Kamala Harris? Would she be a better candidate?

Robert Jackson and his daughter, Blessing, at the Milwaukee Childcare Collective event.

“Do we vote for somebody just because they look like us, or for what they represent?” said Wilson, who has concerns about Harris’ prosecutor past.

“I still don’t think there will ever be a lady president,” said Collins, the woman handing out food.

“We forget she’s vice president. She don’t talk,” Donelson said. “Speak up, woman.”

And as for anyone else? There aren’t any names familiar enough to warrant an opinion.

But Trump is no shoo-in here, either — despite his push for Black voters in recent weeks, including a convention airing of an Amber Rose/Forgiato Blow rap video meant to show the party’s inclusiveness.

“I am not voting for Trump, I’m letting you know. I don’t like nothing about Trump, I am going to keep it real,” Donelson said.

“Trump’s got a little more energy in his body than Biden,” Collins argued.

“Biden is getting old, but I’d rather work with old, senile than a crazy man,” Donelson shot back.

“I’m going to tell you something. I said, this is all a mess to me,” Collins said.

What Linsday Heights shows is the disconnect between the political elite and the voters, for either party.

A child runs past the phrase "Justice for Jah" — a reference to Samuel Sharpe Jr., who was killed by police in Milwaukee.

Biden will have to decide in a matter of days if he is staying or leaving — and the pressure has grown intense.

Democrats are set to have a virtual roll call for delegates in early August to formally pledge their allegiance. Once that is done, it becomes increasingly hard for another candidate to step in.

But for the voters in Lindsay Heights, mistrustful of politics and concerned about daily life, time is running out for either party to reach them with a message that carries enough meaning to carry them to the polls.

If that neglect continues, it probably won’t make much of a difference what Biden decides.

Politics

Trump says Venezuela has begun releasing political prisoners ‘in a BIG WAY’

Published

2 minutes ago

January 11, 2026

Press Room

Trump says Venezuela has begun releasing political prisoners ‘in a BIG WAY’

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President Donald Trump said Saturday that Venezuela has begun releasing political prisoners “in a BIG WAY,” crediting U.S. intervention for the move following last week’s American military operation in the country.

“Venezuela has started the process, in a BIG WAY, of releasing their political prisoners,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Thank you! I hope those prisoners will remember how lucky they got that the USA came along and did what had to be done.”

He added a warning directed at those being released: “I HOPE THEY NEVER FORGET! If they do, it will not be good for them.”

The president’s comments come one week after the United States launched Operation Absolute Resolve, a strike on Venezuela and capture of dictator Nicolás Maduro as well as his wife Cilia Flores, transporting them to the United States to face federal drug trafficking charges.

US WARNS AMERICANS TO LEAVE VENEZUELA IMMEDIATELY AS ARMED MILITIAS SET UP ROADBLOCKS

Government supporters in Venezuela rally in Caracas. (AP Photo)

Following the military operation, Trump said the U.S. intends to temporarily oversee Venezuela’s transition of power, asserting American involvement “until such time as a safe, proper and judicious transition” can take place and warning that U.S. forces stand ready to escalate if necessary.

At least 18 political prisoners were reported freed as of Saturday and there is no comprehensive public list of all expected releases, Reuters reported.

Maduro and Flores were transported to New York after their capture to face charges in U.S. federal court. The Pentagon has said that Operation Absolute Resolve involved more than 150 aircraft and months of planning.

TRUMP ADMIN SAYS MADURO CAPTURE REINFORCES ALIEN ENEMIES ACT REMOVALS

A demonstrator holding a Venezuelan flag sprays graffiti during a march in Mexico City on Santurday. (Alfredo Estrella / AFP via Getty Images)

Trump has said the U.S. intends to remain actively involved in Venezuela’s security, political transition and reconstruction of its oil infrastructure.

The White House did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

President Donald Trump said Saturday that Venezuela has begun releasing political prisoners. (Mark Schiefelbein/AP Photo)

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Fox News Digital’s Morgan Phillips and Greg Norman-Diamond contributed to this reporting.

Jasmine Baehr is a Breaking News Writer for Fox News Digital, where she covers politics, the military, faith and culture.

Politics

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth tours Long Beach rocket factory

Published

44 minutes ago

January 11, 2026

Press Room

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth tours Long Beach rocket factory

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, who is taking a tour of U.S. defense contractors, on Friday visited a Long Beach rocket maker, where he told workers they are key to President Trump’s vision of military supremacy.

Hegseth stopped by a manufacturing plant operated by Rocket Lab, an emerging company that builds satellites and provides small-satellite launch services for commercial and government customers.

Last month, the company was awarded an $805-million military contract, its largest to date, to build satellites for a network being developed for communications and detection of new threats, such as hypersonic missles.

“This company, you right here, are front and center, as part of ensuring that we build an arsenal of freedom that America needs,” Hegseth told several hundred cheering workers. “The future of the battlefield starts right here with dominance of space.”

Founded in 2006 in New Zealand, the company makes a small rocket called Electron — which lay on its side near Hegseth — and is developing a larger one called Neutron. It moved to the U.S. a decade ago and opened its Long Beach headquaters in 2020.

Rocket Lab is among a new wave of companies that have revitalized Southern California’s aerospace and defense industry, which shed hundreds of thousands of jobs in the 1990s after the end of the Cold War. Large defense contractors such as Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin moved their headquarters to the East Coast.

Many of the new companies were founded by former employees of SpaceX, which was started by Elon Musk in 2002 and was based in the South Bay before moving to Texas in 2024. However, it retains major operations in Hawthorne.

Hegseth kicked off his tour Monday with a visit to a Newport News, Va., shipyard. The tour is described as “a call to action to revitalize America’s manufacturing might and re-energize the nation’s workforce.”

Long Beach Mayor Rex Richardson, a Democrat who said he was not told of the event, said Hegseth’s visit shows how the city has flourished despite such setbacks as the closure of Boeing’s C-17 Globemaster III transport plant.

“Rocket Lab has really been a superstar in terms of our fast, growing and emerging space economy in Long Beach,” Richardson said. “This emergence of space is really the next stage of almost a century of innovation that’s really taking place here.”

Prior stops in the region included visits to Divergent, an advanced manufacturing company in aerospace and other industries, and Castelion, a hypersonic missile startup founded by former SpaceX employees. Both are based in Torrance.

The tour follows an overhaul of the Department of Defense’s procurement policy Hegseth announced in November. The policy seeks to speed up weapons development and acquisition by first finding capabilities in the commercial market before the government attempts to develop new systems.

Trump also issued an executive order Wednesday that aims to limit shareholder profits of defense contractors that do not meet production and budget goals by restricting stock buybacks and dividends.

Hegseth told the workers that the administration is trying to prod old-line defense contractors to be more innovative and spend more on development — touting Rocket Lab as the kind of company that will succeed, adding it had one of the “coolest factory floors” he had ever seen.

“I just want the best, and I want to ensure that the competition that exists is fair,” he said.

Hegseth’s visit comes as Trump has flexed the nation’s military muscles with the Jan. 3 abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who is now facing drug trafficking charges to which he has pleaded not guilty.

Hegseth in his speech cited Maduro’s capture as an example of the country’s newfound “deterrence in action.” Though Trump’s allies supported the action, legal experts and other critics have argued that the operation violated international and U.S. law.

Trump this week said he wants to radically boost U.S. military spending to $1.5 trillion in 2027 from $900 billion this year so he can build the “Dream Military.”

Hegseth told the workers it would be a “historic investment” that would ensure the U.S. is never challenged militarily.

Trump also posted on social media this week that executive salaries of defense companies should be capped at $5 million unless they speed up development and production of advanced weapons — in a dig at existing prime contractors.

However, the text of his Wednesday order caps salaries at current levels and ties future executive incentive compensation to delivery and production metrics.

Anduril Industries in Costa Mesa is one of the leading new defense companies in Southern California. The privately held maker of autonomous weapons systems closed a $2.5-billion funding round last year.

Founder Palmer Luckey told Bloomberg News he supported Trump’s moves to limit executive compensation in the defense sector, saying, “I pay myself $100,000 a year.” However, Luckey has a stake in Anduril, last valued by investors at $30.5 billion.

Peter Beck, the founder and chief executive of Rocket Lab, took a base salary of $575,000 in 2024 but with bonus and stock awards his total compensation reached $20.1 million, according to a securities filing. He also has a stake in the company, which has a market capitalization of about $45 billion.

Beck introduced Hegseth saying he was seeking to “reinvigorate the national industrial base and create a leaner, more effective Department of War, one that goes faster and leans on commercial companies just like ours.”

Rocket Lab boasts that its Electron rocket, which first launched in 2017, is the world’s leading small rocket and the second most frequently launched U.S. rocket behind SpaceX.

It has carried payloads for NASA, the U.S. Space Force and the National Reconnaissance Office, aside from commercial customers.

The company employs 2,500 people across facilities in New Zealand, Canada and the U.S., including in Virginia, Colorado and Mississippi.

Rocket Lab shares closed at $84.84 on Friday, up 2%.

Politics

Trump signs order to protect Venezuela oil revenue held in US accounts

Published

12 hours ago

January 10, 2026

Press Room

Trump signs order to protect Venezuela oil revenue held in US accounts

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President Donald Trump has signed an executive order blocking U.S. courts from seizing Venezuelan oil revenues held in American Treasury accounts.

The order states that court action against the funds would undermine U.S. national security and foreign policy objectives.

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President Donald Trump is pictured signing two executive orders on Sept. 19, 2025, establishing the “Trump Gold Card” and introducing a $100,000 fee for H-1B visas. He signed another executive order recently protecting oil revenue. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

Trump signed the order on Friday, the same day that he met with nearly two dozen top oil and gas executives at the White House.

The president said American energy companies will invest $100 billion to rebuild Venezuela’s “rotting” oil infrastructure and push production to record levels following the capture of Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro.

The U.S. has moved aggressively to take control of Venezuela’s oil future following the collapse of the Maduro regime.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

Michael Dorgan is a writer for Fox News Digital and Fox Business.

You can send tips to michael.dorgan@fox.com and follow him on Twitter @M_Dorgan.