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Mike Hixenbaugh @mikehixenbaugh.com · 11h

Look what the beaver hath wrought

Gene Kalesti, who has a “heave the beave” sign outside his home, said progress is slow. Just last week, Kalesti and Havenar both accused the other of hurling obscenities at the local Safeway. To this day, he said, neighbors don’t wave on his street — unless it’s a middle finger.

“It would literally probably take the dam breaking for us all to come together, and we literally have two dams above us,” he said.

Mike Hixenbaugh @mikehixenbaugh.com · 06/10/2026

As Chris Rufo considers "the Indian question" and X users debate if it's woke to study for spelling bees, I'm reminded of this moment from 5+ years ago I included in my book. Even before the backlash to "CRT" and DEI, suburban white folks were complaining about South Asians outdoing their kids.

Being new to the story, the backlash was what I still didn't under-stand. The story Jones was telling didn't match West's description of a hostile Black Lives Matter takeover of the school district. I'd gone back and watched a video of the 2018 school board meeting when parents of Black children came forward with painful stories similar to the one I was hearing from Jones. Back then, people appeared to be listening to one another, and everyone seemed genuinely committed to addressing the problem. What had brought things to the point of backlash?
Jones began to offer up her theory. Over the course of two decades, she'd watched as Southlake's population had grown ever more diverse with an influx of high-achieving South Asian immigrants. Over time, she said, fewer and fewer white Carroll students were graduating at the top of their class.
"I think," Jones told me, "this has a lot to do with preservation, and I believe_"
Just then, I cut her off mid-sentence. Throughout our hour-long conversation, I'd been keeping an eye on an MSNBC live feed on a computer monitor in my home office. I was suddenly distracted by the images flashing across the screen.

"I don't know if you've noticed your TV," I told Jones, my voice shaking slightly. "The MAGA protesters just stormed the Capitol.
There's shooting in the Capitol right now."
At the urging of their president, people had come by the thousands to stop Congress from certifying the results of the presidential election.
Some were members of white supremacist extremist groups. Others you might have thought of as regular folks. A realtor from a wealthy Dallas suburb. A West Virginia state lawmaker. A retired New York City police officer. One man, a construction worker from Delaware, marched through the besieged U.S. Capitol with a Confederate battle flag slung over his shoulder.
I told Jones I had to get off the phone to help cover the attack. But first, she wanted to complete her thought about the demographic changes that she believed were driving the unrest in her adopted hometown.
*There's complaints now that the valedictorian and salutatorian are…

no longer white," she told me. "That's really what's happening. They feel their children are being displaced."
Jones was, in effect, describing a hyper-local version of what's known as the Great Replacement Theory—a once-fringe belief by some on the far right that white Americans are being demographically, culturally, and politically replaced by non-white people through mass migration.
I couldn't say whether Jones's assessment was accurate; I'd only just started my reporting. But in time I would begin to realize that, at a certain level, the story I was pursuing in Southlake, and the one unfolding that day in Washington, were both part of the same long, messy
American narrative.
"T'll be in touch," I told Jones before hanging up.
Then I got to work.

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Mike Hixenbaugh @mikehixenbaugh.com · 02/10/2026

Two days before DOJ issued its memo abandoning the landmark Olmstead decision, Stephen Miller’s team previewed the broader strategy at a secret White House meeting with advocates and conservative think tank leaders.

In a secret meeting at the White House complex this summer, an aide to Stephen Miller laid out the plan: To make it easier for states to round up and institutionalize mentally ill homeless people, the Trump administration was pushing a drastic policy change that would weaken the rights of millions of disabled Americans.

Hugo Dwyer, one of those seated around the wooden conference table, couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

The strategy described by Miller’s aide, Daniel Wasserman, threatened to roll back decades of progress in the disability rights movement — all to serve the president’s demand to clear homeless encampments in U.S. cities.

“I really cannot support this,” Dwyer, an advocate for people with intellectual disabilities, recalled telling Wasserman. “You’re talking about forcing people into institutional settings.”

The June 16 meeting with advocates and conservative think tank leaders at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, which NBC News is revealing for the first time, came two days before the Trump administration did exactly what Wasserman previewed: The Department of Justice issued a sweeping legal opinion that repudiated decades of federal disability policy rooted in the landmark Supreme Court ruling Olmstead v. L.C.

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Mike Hixenbaugh @mikehixenbaugh.com · 22/09/2026

Corner Bakery is the new golf course. It’s where business happens.

In the final weeks of 2019, a top fundraiser for Sen. Susan Collins walked into a perilous meeting at a Corner Bakery in Washington, D.C.
For the first time in her two-decade Senate career, the Republican lawmaker from Maine was in danger of losing her seat. President Donald Trump’s dismal approval ratings were dragging her down in the polls, and she was falling behind her likely 2020 Democratic challenger in fundraising.
Scott Reed, head of the Collins super PAC, was on a mission to close that gap. Reed was meeting that day with three executives from a Hawaiian defense contractor, Navatek. A year earlier, Collins had helped their company land a multimillion-dollar Navy research contract in Maine. Now, seated at a coffee shop not far from the U.S. Capitol, Reed asked them for a $500,000 donation.

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Mike Hixenbaugh @mikehixenbaugh.com · 08/09/2026

Hard to overstate these folks’ desperation. www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...

LINCOLN, Neb. — The question haunted Susan Browne for decades: Who would care for her two disabled sons after she and her husband were dead?

Her fears took on new urgency last year when Browne, 72, was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive breast cancer.

Her sons David, 47, and John Michael, 45, have profound autism and need help with every daily task, from bathing and dressing to using the bathroom — care that has grown harder for Browne and her husband, Mike, to manage as they’ve aged.

She sometimes lay awake, her mind racing. Who would sit with them at meals to keep them from choking? Who would patiently roll their favorite ball around the living room or take them to the park? Would they end up locked in an institution?

The Brownes believed they had finally found a solution: Using Medicaid funding for people with disabilities, they created a nonprofit and assembled a trusted team to care for David and John Michael at home for the rest of their lives.

Now that plan is falling apart — thanks to a secretive computer algorithm.

The assessment tool, called interRAI, determined that David and John Michael, who without constant supervision might run into traffic or touch a hot stove, no longer needed one-on-one, around-the-clock care. It slashed their combined Medicaid funding by more than $220,000 a year.

“This just blew me out of the water,” said Browne, who has been appealing the decision while traveling to Houston for cancer treatments. “I’m so terrified for my sons now. Terrified.”

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Mike Hixenbaugh @mikehixenbaugh.com · 26/06/2026

I just noticed that HHS Civil Rights office has deleted its webpage about the Supreme Court's 1999 landmark Olmstead decision, which guaranteed the rights of disabled people to live in their homes rather than being institutionalized. It was live on May 25. Now it's "PAGE NOT FOUND"

Images show HHS webpage on Olmstead and a second showing a the link is now dead

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Mike Hixenbaugh @mikehixenbaugh.com · 21/06/2026

“Vandals … poured corrosive and destructive chemicals into the Pool.”

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Mike Hixenbaugh @mikehixenbaugh.com · 21/06/2026

After days and days of news coverage and footage showing workers pouring harsh and highly corrosive chemicals into the algae-filled Reflecting Pool, the president would like you to believe that vandals were the ones who did it.

Many additional people have been arrested having to do with the disgraceful Vandalism of our beautiful Reflecting Pool. It hasn't looked or worked like this since 1922, when it was originally built, but even then, it leaked badly, and didn't work. Ours worked perfectly, including the mirror like finish, perfectly reflecting the two Great Monuments, which it never had before! What these terrible Vandals have done is a true affront to both Presidents George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, and should be dealt with accordingly. We met with contractors today, will probably be forced to release and drain much of the water in order to do the necessary repairs, but will have them done as quickly as possible.
What they have damaged does not even include the earlier killing of a large amount of grass which was, by far, the least of it. They took some form of knife or blade, and put a 250 foot long gash into the beautiful facade of what took so much work, competence, and money to build and complete. They also poured corrosive and destructive chemicals into the Pool. The Reflecting Pool was never so beautiful as it was just one week ago, even going back to 1922 when it opened. We are very proud of what we have done with this magnificent structure, and we will get it repaired, quickly, to an equal level of Beauty. Thank you for your attention to this matter!
President DONALD J. TRUMP

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Mike Hixenbaugh @mikehixenbaugh.com · 02/06/2026

She used to be afraid to leave her husband — who suffers from dementia and other disabilities — alone at their home. That changed once they got Robbie, pictured here. “I can go ahead and go to that mahjong game or whatever. Robbie’s gonna take care of him."

Image shows a tablet device with glowing blue eyes connected to a wheeled robot

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Mike Hixenbaugh @mikehixenbaugh.com · 24/05/2026

Shotgunning a beer with your team down nine while your fiancé sits by mortified is the most Cleveland thing I’ve ever seen

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Mike Hixenbaugh @mikehixenbaugh.com · 12/05/2026

Eighth grader Ward Wooden on the private equity-backed education software that has taken over America’s classrooms: “I’m losing brain cells every time I do a lesson.” Kid wore a great shirt to his NBC News photo shoot. Read @tktk.bsky.social’s deep dive on i-Ready: www.nbcnews.com/news/educati...

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Mike Hixenbaugh @mikehixenbaugh.com · 01/05/2026

Estefany Rodriguez, the Nashville journalist detained by ICE in March, is speaking at the Logan Symposium in Berkeley. She fled Colombia and sought asylum because her work as a journalist made her a target; now she says that story is repeating in the U.S.

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Mike Hixenbaugh @mikehixenbaugh.com · 07/04/2026

Meanwhile, on Earth, the president of the United States posts: “A whole civilization will die tonight.”

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Mike Hixenbaugh @mikehixenbaugh.com · 03/04/2026

It’s not just Ms. Rachel. The biggest names in children’s educational programming are coming out in force to call for kids to be freed from ICE detention. Here’s “Reading Rainbow” host @mychal3ts.bsky.social outside the Dilley Immigration Processing Center.

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Mike Hixenbaugh @mikehixenbaugh.com · 25/03/2026

This morning at the Phoenix airport, ICE is scanning IDs and manning the TSA posts where the job is to tell you to take out your laptop, please keep your shoes on and ask “got any water in here?”

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Mike Hixenbaugh @mikehixenbaugh.com · 23/03/2026

This DailyMail headline says my reporting on Ms. Rachel sparked a “firestorm.” The evidence: The article quotes three anonymous social media comments. 🤔

Headline: Ms. Rachel sparks firestorm with ICE comments and campaign to close detention center

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Mike Hixenbaugh @mikehixenbaugh.com · 23/03/2026

“I am political,” Ms. Rachel told me of her new effort to free kids from ICE detention. “It’s political to believe that children are worthy of love … and that our care shouldn’t stop at what we look like, our family, at our religion, at a border. Mr. Rogers was very political.”

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Mike Hixenbaugh @mikehixenbaugh.com · 21/03/2026

“It’s cruelty, it’s child abuse and neglect.” Listen to part of my conversation with Ms. Rachel as she discusses what it was like to speak to two children trapped at the ICE detention center in Dilley, Texas, and her latest humanitarian cause: to help “close Dilley”

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Mike Hixenbaugh @mikehixenbaugh.com · 21/03/2026

Here’s Ms. Rachel slipping into character while trying to comfort Gael, a non-verbal 5-year-old who’s being held in ICE detention with his parents. I spoke with the boy’s family yesterday. They say he’s been hitting himself. “No human being should ever go through this,” Gael’s dad told me.

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Mike Hixenbaugh @mikehixenbaugh.com · 18/03/2026

Wait until Amazon bosses learn how many thousands of dollars their competitor spent on this "story unit" www.nytimes.com/2026/03/18/u...

We had received a tip in 2021 that the civil rights leader had abused women and girls over his life, including allegations of rape. As we reported, we heard about Ms. Murguia and Ms. Rojas and contacted them.

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Mike Hixenbaugh @mikehixenbaugh.com · 17/03/2026

“Children and parents detained at Dilley have found live worms, bugs, and mold in their meals. The lights are on all night, making it difficult to sleep. … Children and families should be immediately released.” 4/

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Mike Hixenbaugh @mikehixenbaugh.com · 17/03/2026

“One night at Dilley, their mother heard a strange sound ... She went to check on him and found that he had managed to pull the drawstring out of his sweatpants, put it around his neck and was pulling it tightly, believing at the age of 5 that it would be better to die than remain in detention.” 3/

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Mike Hixenbaugh @mikehixenbaugh.com · 17/03/2026

“Kenek has severe autism. He could not understand why he was detained at Dilley for weeks on end. While he was at Dilley, he grew increasingly distressed, increasingly disoriented. He began hitting himself, crying through the night, and begging to return to his home and his school in Louisiana.” 2/

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Mike Hixenbaugh @mikehixenbaugh.com · 17/03/2026

“Dilley is a hellhole. It’s a prison for babies, toddlers and children.” Elora Mukherjee of Columbia Law School shares the stories of several families detained at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in Texas — including several featured in our reporting for @nbcnews. 1/

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Mike Hixenbaugh @mikehixenbaugh.com · 14/03/2026

The U.S. must restore faith in America’s independent press by allowing the federal government to decide what news is acceptable to report, FCC chairman declares

Brandon Carr on Twitter:

Broadcasters that are running hoaxes and news distortions - also known as the fake news - have a chance now to correct course before their license renewals come up.

The law is clear. Broadcasters must operate in the public interest, and they will lose their licenses if they do not.

And frankly, changing course is in their own business interests since trust in legacy media has now fallen to an all time low of just 9% and are ratings disasters.

The American people have subsidized broadcasters to the tune of billions of dollars by providing free access to the nation’s airwaves.

It is very important to bring trust back into media, which has earned itself the label of fake news.

When a political candidate is able to win a landslide election victory after in the face of hoaxes and distortions, there is something very wrong. It means the public has lost faith and confidence in the media. And we can’t allow that to happen.

Time for change!

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Mike Hixenbaugh @mikehixenbaugh.com · 14/03/2026

Ms. Rachel met over zoom with a 5-year-old boy with autism detained at Dilley whose mother says he hasn’t been able to poop in nine days. After trying to cheer him up on the call, she’s calling for his release this morning.

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Mike Hixenbaugh @mikehixenbaugh.com · 13/03/2026

The federal government isn't supposed to detain immigrant children for longer than 20 days. But when a Russian asylum seeker with 5-year-old twins asked why they'd been held for longer, an ICE officer falsely claimed the 20-day rule had been voided. Says who? he asked. "Trump," ICE responded.

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Mike Hixenbaugh @mikehixenbaugh.com · 11/03/2026

I wrote this a decade ago after traveling to Bahrain while investigating the U.S. Navy's aging minesweeping systems, which had fallen into disrepair: "One potential nightmare scenario: A few mines in the Strait of Hormuz in the Middle East could shut down the key shipping channel for days or weeks"

The Navy is increasingly concerned that the Islamic State or other terrorist groups could acquire and deploy cheap naval mines, which analysts say are available on the international black market to any group able and willing to pay.

One potential nightmare scenario: A few mines in the Strait of Hormuz in the Middle East could shut down the key shipping channel for days or weeks. A fifth of the world’s oil supply moves through the narrow passage, the only route connecting the oil-rich Persian Gulf region to the open sea. Blocking it for even a few days could have a significant impact on global markets.

To emphasize the concern, the mine-clearing exercise led by the U.S. this spring tested how the international community would respond if a terrorist group placed mines in Hormuz or in other strategic choke points in the region. Reporters for The Virginian-Pilot and the Investigative Reporting Program traveled to Bahrain in April to observe the exercise.

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Mike Hixenbaugh @mikehixenbaugh.com · 04/03/2026

The Kornacki Cam is must-watch TV.

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Mike Hixenbaugh @mikehixenbaugh.com · 03/03/2026

Sen. Durbin spotlights the case of 18-month-old Amalia, the detained toddler who spent 10 days in the hospital with life-threatening respiratory illnesses, only to be returned to Dilley.

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Mike Hixenbaugh @mikehixenbaugh.com · 27/02/2026

“Frio County 911. What is your emergency?” “I’m calling from the Dilley immigration center … I’m calling for a little kid going through respiratory distress.” At least 11 times since September, EMS crews have been called to a Texas detention center for children in crisis. Listen to the audio:

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Mike Hixenbaugh @mikehixenbaugh.com · 27/02/2026

“Frio County 911. What is your emergency?” “I’m calling from the Dilley immigration center in Dilley, Texas. I’m calling for a little kid going through respiratory distress.” Listen to 911 calls for children held at Dilley www.nbcnews.com/video/listen...

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Mike Hixenbaugh @mikehixenbaugh.com · 22/02/2026

Absolutely gutted by this @ahylton26.bsky.social interview with a first grader who was left home alone for hours last month after ICE arrested her father outside their apartment.

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Mike Hixenbaugh @mikehixenbaugh.com · 19/02/2026

As part of my reporting on children held in immigrant detention in Dilley, Texas, I’ve gotten to review some medical records from the facility. This is where ICE brought 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos. One detail that has gnawed at me: The medical forms refer to the children as inmates.

Image shows screenshot of medical records listing a child as “Inmate.” The child’s name and “Inmate ID” is redacted

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Mike Hixenbaugh @mikehixenbaugh.com · 14/02/2026

The drawing Kamilla made at Dilley while I spoke to her parents over Zoom this week. It shows her near the lone tree that stands on the detention center’s grounds, butterflies fluttering around it — one of the few places, her mother said, where children sometimes see something alive and colorful.

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Mike Hixenbaugh @mikehixenbaugh.com · 13/02/2026

On Thanksgiving, the immigrant children held at the Dilley detention center gathered in the gym for what they thought was a holiday feast. The kids salivated over a spread of turkey, sandwiches, pastries and pies, a family told me. But the food wasn’t for detainees — it was for the staff.

On Nov. 16, a mental health counselor recorded in Kamilla’s medical records that her mother reported the girl had lost her appetite after being “served food that contained worms.”

A week later, the couple said, children were told to gather in the gym for what they believed would be a Thanksgiving celebration. Excitement spread as families saw tables set with turkey, sandwiches, pastries and pies, they said. The children waited expectantly. But when a parent asked when the celebration would begin, Oksana said, staff told them the holiday meal was for employees, not detainees.

The children, she said, watched despondently as the feast was packed away.

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Mike Hixenbaugh @mikehixenbaugh.com · 10/02/2026

Love this story share from Bad Bunny backup dancer Pedro Pascal

Pedro Pascal Instagram story sharing an NBC News article on poor conditions at the family immigrant detention center in Dilley, Texas

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Mike Hixenbaugh @mikehixenbaugh.com · 09/02/2026

The top two stories on Fox News this morning: Bad Bunny “divides viewers”; Kid Rock “earns praise”

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Mike Hixenbaugh @mikehixenbaugh.com · 09/02/2026

When you write about a sick baby whose parents entered the country legally

I honestly hate people like you. I hope the absolute worst for you and your family. I hope some illegal does horrible things to your family and you have to sit and think about bs articles like this you write to cause outrage towards ICE and more importantly Trump. Thats the real issue to left wing little cuck boys like you is Trump. Of course instead of the article saying illegal immigrants risk their own childs life coming to America illegaly instead if taking proper steps to become a citizen sadly are not provided medical care......nope. You blame ICE? The people defending our country from an invasion. How fucking retarded can you get? Even if 1% of them are criminals guess what there are literally millions of them thats hundreds of thousands of convicted criminals loose in oyr country with mo documentation to just run back to Mexico without a trace when they do something really fucked up. Fuckin stupidty and spreading this disease for fuckin what? Clicks you pathetic fuckin worm!

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Mike Hixenbaugh @mikehixenbaugh.com · 08/02/2026

This is Amalia. She spiked a fever of 104 in ICE lock up, a lawsuit says. Her oxygen levels dropped to 50% Officers stood watch during her 10-day emergency hospital stay. When she was well enough to leave, doctors said Amalia should go home. Instead, ICE put her and her mom back in detention.

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Mike Hixenbaugh @mikehixenbaugh.com · 06/02/2026

Drawing by a 5-year-old who has been held at the family detention center in Dilley, Texas, for more than eight months: Stick figure children behind bars saying, "Let us go."

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Mike Hixenbaugh @mikehixenbaugh.com · 06/02/2026

This is Maria, a 6-year-old detained by ICE last year. She began to unravel soon after arriving at a detention center in Texas, wetting the bed after years without accidents, crying through the night and begging to breastfeed again. Most of all, she wanted to be reunited with her cat, Milo. 1/

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Mike Hixenbaugh @mikehixenbaugh.com · 02/02/2026

Some important context for anyone writing about that Texas special election shocker

Some local activists cautioned against overinterpreting Wambsganss’ loss as a national political signal, arguing instead that it reflected distinctly local fallout from her role in contentious school board fights that reshaped public education politics in North Texas.

In 2020, Wambsganss co-founded Southlake Families PAC to back school board candidates who pledged to root out critical race theory, which centers on the idea that racism is systemic in the nation’s institutions, and what they described as “woke” diversity initiatives in local schools. She later expanded that work as director of Patriot Mobile Action, the political arm of a right-wing Christian cellphone company, which poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into school board races across the region, helping elect slates of anti-DEI Republicans.

Wambsganss’ campaign to put “God back in schools” helped elevate her to national prominence, with frequent appearances on Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast and other conservative media. But in more recent elections, opponents say, the policies she championed — including aggressive curriculum battles, book bans and public funding for private Christian schools — triggered resistance not just from Democrats, but also from independent and Republican parents who said the fights sowed division and instability in high-achieving suburban school systems.

Laney Hawes, a parent of four in one of those districts and a co-founder of the Texas Freedom to Read Project, said many in Tarrant County had come to see Wambsganss as “the villain of public education.” While Hawes said she was energized by the outcome, she warned that the result was being read too broadly outside the region.

“This win was about parents’ coming together from every notch on the political spectrum and trying to protect our children and our community,” Hawes said. “Even Republicans and moderates were pissed off at her.”

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Mike Hixenbaugh @mikehixenbaugh.com · 31/01/2026

A defining image from Minneapolis.

Image shows a hand opening blinds to peak outside amid ICE operations in the city

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Mike Hixenbaugh @mikehixenbaugh.com · 30/01/2026

Anchors, please consult the “Grapevine” podcast or the “They Came for the Schools” audiobook for pronunciation on Wambsganss.

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