This. I've been warning about the use of ICE at selective (read: blue cities) polling locations to intimidate voters from participating for fear of being profiled and wrongfully-detained or just worrying about protestors showing up and general chaos.
I'm concerned that they may take it farther and use ICE to intimidate election workers and/or actually try to seize ballots, causing so much chaos that getting an accurate count becomes impossible.
All the more reason to defund the current iteration of ICE. Being a member of Immigration and Customs Enforcement is one thing, Being a member of I Cause Emergencies (so the Boss can invoke the Insurrection Act) is quite another.
Suzanne - voter turnout can drop due to drizzle (we aren’t always a serious people)… so yeah, heavily gunned up gents with an earned rep for throwing shots, tossing tear gas indiscriminately, pushing & shoving of bystanders - one sees how that COULD be bit of a discouragement 🤬
The good thing is even the entire US Military couldn't cover every precinct in all 50 states. Realistically the GOP is on pace to lose 40+ districts and ICE can't cover all 40 districts. The state AG's need to ban together and protect their own constitutional prerogatives and let the Trump administration continue make a big enough disaster in the GOP that election fraud claims can't cover all the damage.
Just yesterday Rand Paul's committee had several victims of MPLS ICE tactics testify. It was such gripping and horrifying testimony to listen to. Unfortunately 98% of voters didn't see it. I never thought I would say that I agree on anything by Rand Paul but he has certainly stepped up here.
It's a hard sell to get people to vote *legally* out of civic duty. Persuading people to commit several felonies in order to cast one single vote is an absurdity-and the results of audits in several states bear that out.
For sure, it's one of the strange things about voter fraud paranoia. Almost no-one is motivated to plan and commit a crime that brings them no tangible short-term benefit and no guarantee of long-term benefit either.
As long as we are discussing conditions for ICE funding, I would strongly suggest a binding agreement to rescind funding for ICE prison camps as a precondition for funding. Those undocumented individuals arrested by ICE should be released on their own recognizance until such time as there can be a judicial of their status. Even if one is not swayed by concerns over basic decency/humanity, it makes absolutely zero sense to spend billions to create and lock people in such inhumane makeshift prisons, people who would otherwise continue working, going to school and contribution towards society. Besides, for an administration so concerned about optics, Stephen Miller’s prison camps are a bad look.
Kim - the claimed rationale for the prison camps proves that they’re wasteful, a fraud, and abuse of public resources & funds. Assume the vast majority of the imprisoned are going to be deported. Why on earth build infrastructure to keep them imprisoned? We know it’s not to provide them safekeeping while also providing them due process!
The only infrastructure Trump acts to build is infrastructure destined by definition NOT to be used, except temporarily.
…makes one wonder if “temporarily” isn’t really the plan?
I'm concerned about ICE and other federal agencies being used to intimidate voters. However, I think the focus on threats to voting is overdone. If the election is stolen, it is unlikely going to be due to voter intimidation, but more likely shenanigans regarding the counting and certification of the votes.
Absolutely! Thug life at precincts with higher minority populations or lower income. County and state level administrative and legalistic thuggery to get it all “right “.
Yeah, that's what I'm afraid of. Try to generally create chaos that can be a pretext to halt voting or throw out results until we can "figure out what the hell is going on". And then somehow the figuring all seems to figure in R's favor.
Similar to "just say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me". Throw ketchup at the walls to see what sticks, then use that as a beachhead to pry open more cracks until you're able to affect a favorable result.
I kind a think the presence of ICE could have an effect on voting. Look at what has happened in MPLS where people who are Latino, Somali, Asian are even afraid to go to work or go out Period. I' not dismissing shenanigans here(counting votes), but seeing this first hand, there has been a very definite effect of intimidation by ICE presence.
Springfield is maybe the most salient microcosm of JD Vance's sadism. He scares me roughly 10x more than even Trump. And Kennedy, still more somehow.
Bigger picture, the nerve center of the fascist movement is quite the Sadist/Narcissist axis. Sadists most prominently include Vance, Miller, Kennedy, Noem. Narcissists - Trump, Rubio, Gabbard (scariest of these three for the hybrid with her cult background and cultist persona).
The "crack" in the armor (to the extent one ever develops) will have to come from someone else.
The next Democratic President doesn’t have to abolish ICE. It’s about time Democrats started playing by Republican rules. Recissions packages exist. And it can be a party line filibuster proof simple majority vote. Make it part of a Democratic reconciliation package and tell Republicans to pound sand. We can starve the agency into a slow and prolonged death.
Yup. Use reconciliation on anything funding/tax related the way the GOP does--which includes taxes on the rich and defunding ICE!
And speaking of adopting tactics, where the fuck is our next Unitary Executive dem? I want to see a dem president willing to take up the unitary executive theory to hammer forward an agenda that a deadlocked senate is too slow to advance. Turnabout is fair play.
Absolutely. A combination of FDR and Juan Carlos I. Restructure the American system with prejudice, especially against fascist and authoritarian tendencies, while greatly expanding and concretizing democratic practices and mores. There's a position paper to written here.
Fair point, but even then, at least *make* them turn down EOs because throwing up your hands and saying to yourself "well the SC will shoot this down if I do it" makes you look impotent and uncaring. Taking action and then having the SC turn it down many months later makes it look like YOU care but the SC doesn't.
Oh absolutely! And I think the next Dem president will. The question is just how much of an "imperial president" do we want? I don't want our side to be just like them; to have the next Dem president who acts like a King. After all, this imperial president bullshit is so much of what we are fighting against.
The threat from these people isn't going away anytime soon (I know you know that!). I firmly believe the next Dem president—if there is a Dem Congress—needs to add judges to SCOTUS. We cannot make any progress with the status quo; in fact quite the opposite as we have seen.
The tricky part is not emphasizing this (which the base will demand) because if there is ONE issue that has consistently driven GOP voters to the polls, it's the courts. Dems and lefties long scoffed when you tried to warn them. Hopefully now my side sees why the judicial branch is so important and has a reason to vote D (or for an I who caucuses with the Ds).
"The question is just how much of an "imperial president" do we want?"
I'd say there's a difference between acting to the fullest extent of the Unitary Executive Theory (UET)--already in practice by the GOP--and going full autocrat. You can do the former without doing the latter. But if the other side is going to go full fash then at the very least we need to be going full UET to at least make them think twice about what precedents they're setting moving forward. Continuing to bring a feather duster to a gun fight only serves the side that brings guns.
Fair point, but then you are threading the needle between the "No Kings" and "I'm just using the authority laid down by SCOTUS." I don't believe in the unitary executive or the imperial presidency whatever you want to call it at all. It's an overreach made up by the conservatives to give a GOP president power if saddled with a Dem Congress.
Call me cynical but I don't think the GOP cares about setting terrible precedents. They only care about power. Nothing else matters. Not the nation's security, not the American people, not the judgment of history. Nothing. Only power and their own will to take this country back well more than a century.
Thanks for highlighting this true to life horror portrait. It’s almost like Miller was invented to get us to retune and do what it takes to realign this country to its essential promise.
Basically, Democrats can pass a bill that says, "We previously approved spending for this, but now we've changed our minds and we're withdrawing the funding."
If Democrats win control of Congress, specifically the Senate, they can negotiate a budget agreement with Republicans (only the Senate really matters) and then go back on their word to take away the DHS funding. And the package can specify how much money to take away. This is hardball.
Jim, great piece from Springfield. I read Timothy Snyder's piece that JVL included in the Triad yesterday also. It seems like such a betrayal of trust that Haitians in Springfield are looking at going from legal work one day to militarized army cop deportation the next day. It's a complete garbage policy that disregards people's dignity.
Regarding JD Vance - It seems to me that he has to understand the reality that Haitians are powering economic revitalization in Springfield. Maybe that's actually the reason he wants them gone. Is it a situation like a successful democratic Ukraine being intolerable to Russia? Hard working Haitian's revitalizing a town in Ohio cuts so hard against the stories he prefers to tell that he will support violently removing them and harming the city to protect MAGA's safe space.
Timothy Snyder’s piece was excellent. I am sure JD knows the economics but of course this never was about economics as it is about race. MAGA’s safe space comes with a ‘white’s only’ sign at the entrance.
The idea of a pluralistic, egalitarian, multi-ethnic community being stronger for its diversity is anathema to Vance and Miller. Their whole political project rests on convincing their marks that the country will be stronger if we enforce hierarchy and conformity.
That's why the "comply or die" stuff fits in so well with their White, Christian supremacist nationalist project.
If Springfield is successful because of cosmopolitanism, it needs to be destroyed so their opponents can't point to it as evidence that Vance and Miller are wrong.
That's definitely the dark line my mind is following. I struggle with accepting the idea that the motivation is really that despicable, but I don't see many credible alternative explanations.
Perhaps Vance wants to rip out Haitians in order to end the economic revitalization of Ohio and return it to a pit of hard times and despair, the perfect breeding ground for Trumpism.
I feel like it's more about getting rid of the Haitian community and less about breeding more Trumpism. I read hillbilly elegy at one point long ago and I remember a line about how in JD's view his hill people were just adamant they didn't like people who looked different than them.
HCR's post last night had an extended discussion of US District Court Judge Ana Reye's ruling on whether TPS for Haitians could be ended. The judge's opinion said, in part:
“There is an old adage among lawyers. If you have the facts on your side, pound the facts. If you have the law on your side, pound the law. If you have neither, pound the table. Secretary Noem, the record to-date shows, does not have the facts on her side—or at least has ignored them. Does not have the law on her side—or at least has ignored it. Having neither…, she pounds X ([formerly known as] Twitter). Kristi Noem has a First Amendment right to call immigrants killers, leeches, entitlement junkies, and any other inapt name she wants. Secretary Noem, however, is constrained by both our Constitution and the [Administrative Procedure Act] to apply faithfully the facts to the law in implementing the TPS program. The record to-date shows she has yet to do that." ("Secretary" Noem was italicized in the ruling.)
I read it. Very interesting and scary. The saving western civilization from erasure stuff really is poison for people's minds. It's not clear at all to me where people like Miller and maybe JD Vance would stop in their efforts to "save" our country for "their" people. Claw-back/cancellation of citizenship for some groups of people? More massive camps with non-white former citizens in them? Actual mass murder?
Another detail (besides NO MASKS) that should be demanded about self-identification for ICE or CBP or ANY OTHER Federal officer should be SHOULDER or SHIRT POCKET NAME LABEL that is plainly readable and correctly identifies that particular officer. EVERY military or Coast Guard officer has their own actual name on their uniform.
One more thing to investigate. Where has all of the ICE money gone. Some government official recently stated they would put body cameras on ICE if they could find the money. They received $85 billion. Where has that gone? Who stole it or overpaid from it to their friends and relatives? It seems that Trump isn’t the only grifter.
Thanks to Jim for traveling to Springfield to cover the Haitian community.
About 10,000-15,000 Haitians live and work in Springfield, Ohio. They came by invitation, and have revitalized industries in a struggling city as well as adding new economic vitality through opening restaurants and other businesses.
Haitians now make up about a quarter of the city's population and account for about $300 million in spending in Clarke County. Ohio's Republican governor, Mike DeWine, has said their removal would be an economic disaster for both the community and the state.
Ohio currently has two Republican Senators. Bernie Moreno, an immigrant himself, has recommended these people "self-deport." The other, Jon Husted (former Lt. Governor and appointee for JD Vance's seat) is as absent on this issue as he is on every other issue facing Ohio.
What we are seeing in Minnesota is the elected Republicans seem to be in favor of destroying the economies of diverse places. It's hard to understand, but it feels like they find places where diversification has been a success to be an insult to their world view.
I have read stories that include comments from some of the factories and warehouses employing these people. They speak highly of their work ethic and value to the business.
I can't say what, if anything, these employers are doing behind the scenes to press the case for renewing TPS for Haitians
“How much time would that take? We don’t have enough judges. We don’t have enough time.” Well, here, Democrats should say: Let us help you out in this department."
Perhaps by offering to use the money cut from ICE to fund more immigration judges. The deeper the cuts, the faster warrants COULD be issued if they follow the law for warrants in the given case.
Make the MAGAts in Johnson's corner (all, what, 20, 40, 60 even 100 of them?) turn that down and then explain it to the voters that they prefer lawless thugs on the streets to educated, dedicated judges trying to work within the law.
>>>"... the idea that it is an achievable policy aim in the immediate term is a fantasy. "
Also yes, unfortunately.
They need to:
(1) raise issue salience using the shutdown,
(2) wedge squishier republicans worried about their own skins from both their hardline compatriots in congress and the White House whose narcissistic cult of personality cannot admit defeat or back down and so can easily be forced to die on an unpopular hill, and
(3) deliver something real for the base to begrudgingly accept, for now.
On 1 and 2, - so far so good. For 2 they have only begun to wedge. Hammer! Hammer away!
On 3, I think here's where you got to read between the lines, and understand what is outside messaging, versus your activist pushing, versus your pragmatic and realpolitik maneuvers.
The progressives ought to continue to push for abolish ICE. Their job is to establish the party's left flank and push the party towards that flank. They shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth though if they can get a partial win, like ending roving patrols, unmasking agents, and requiring judicial warrants.
Everyone who isn't an activist ought to be looking for pragmatic and politically useful deliverables. They also don't need to rush off a winning issue, so take your time and get something good.
Long term chipping at the edges in insufficient, they need to wake up to what time it is in America and do big things when they can. They need long term strategic planning and a clear-eyed appraisal of the enemy and the enemy's capabilities to win a war. But they must also in the immediate term win a string of battles to win the war.
SEPERATELY: I think we need to all wake up to what time it is in America. Noem, Miller, and Homan are increasingly adopting genocidal rhetoric and what they tried to do in Springfield, OH, with removing TPS for Haitians and descending on the city ala Minneapolis is ethnic cleansing. That's not hyperbole, that's what it is. Similarly, the media keeps referring to ICE 'detention centers' or even 'prison camps' but this is wrong. They are concentration camps. They meet every definition of a concentration camp.
Jim thank you for being on the ground there to cover it. God speed.
You may not get everything you want, but this is the opportunity to expand the Overton Window where Republicans have often dominated the narrative -/ make the Republicans squirm. After the Texas senate seat it is time to work on winning back the Latino vote. Republican immigration tactics and policies have the potential to lose them these votes for a generation. Democrats need to capitalize on this — I don’t think either party really comprehend the damage being done.
One problem with the list of demands by democrats regarding ICE; most of them are already laws that this regime has simply ignored. Case in point: entering a home without a judicial warrant. I really don't see that changing anytime soon; no matter what language is added to give the current law more teeth.
This is true of so many agencies under regulatory capture. Take BLM. Since the Wild Horse Act of 1971, the livestock industry has undermined it, pouring in cattle by the millions for taxpayer subsidized grazing while scapegoating wild horses and burros for range damage and removing them violently. The Big Ag/extraction interest lobby has subverted the Forest Service and other agencies under Repub and Dem administrations alike. Until we get campaign finance reform, the ugly pattern will persist. I’d like The Bulwark, my favorite read, to expand its vision in rhis direction as it impacts us all.
Yes, but a lot of people don’t understand what’s going on and dems need to make it clear; getting a public commitment to follow the law (in immig law and enforcement here) shines a much needed spotlight
States and localities need to get more aggressive with federal ICE and border patrol...when they break the law, lock them up and charge them. If they're later able to get out because of a claim of federal supremacy, so be it. It's not a slam dunk they get off.
That would be great, but ICE isn't playing by any rules. The Minneapolis police are out numbered - badly out numbered (600-2700). It's hard to arrest someone if your facing 20 heavily armed agen... oops, I mean Gestapo. That's why they're trying to pass a provision that ICE can't operate in large numbers or sweeps.
I saw an ad on TV this morning in support of ICE. I didn't check, but I presume paid for by the Government. Started by saying 'they're neighbor, coach little league, etc" referring to ICE agents. Then ending showing them in uniform "protecting us".
You know what they weren't wearing in any of the shots? Masks. Or weapons.
Last spring I wondered in an email to family members why they had to be wearing masks, and the reply was to protect them from doxing. I don't know whether that opinion still holds. I hope not but am not checking in case I'm wrong.
Saw the same ad, and also wondered if it was bought by DHS, but noticed there was the (required, I think) sponsorship ID at the end.
"[A] group calling themselves American Sovereignty, with no on-the-record spokesperson or disclosed donors, has launched what they say is a multi-million-dollar ad campaign in [an] effort to bolster public perception of ICE agents."
They've also put up billboards in San Francisco, apparently aimed at tourists coming in for the Super Bowl, showing an Aryan-ish police officer holding a trophy with the text "Defensive Player of the Year: ICE".
I love Jim's reporting on Springfield. But the only reason a small media outlet like The Bulwark can have frontline reporting is because the warzones they're covering are in places like Minneapolis and Springfield!
Thank you. I was wanting to feel good about this situation because it felt like a win. But I've become hesitant these days to think of anything as good news.
“Republican leaders had hoped to whisk DHS funding quickly and unobtrusively into law” -
Why don’t Republicans think DHS has enough money already? The ICE initiatives are more than unpopular. Does anyone think these cities need masked men with bullet proof vests and guns? Does anyone think the streets of either Portland are so dangerous they need to be invaded by iCE? I truly don’t understand why Republicans would agree to give DHS more money.
My sense from monitoring local NextDoor feeds is that rank-and-file MAGA can be quite energetic in parroting the administration line about the value of ICE invasions of blue communities.
Indeed, some commentators are quick to call for intervention in our fairly idyllic suburb in response to pretty much any crime-related local problem. It's knee-jerk and simple-minded thinking, but that seems to be its great advantage in their eyes.
Their tunes might change when their house cleaning, grass cutting, home repair folks are snatched up by ICE. Would love to see some of those faces eaten by the leopards.
Don't forget DHS is not just ICE ... Coast Guard and FEMA are under DHS, and those programs do need to be funded as appropriations. The money bucket that ICE got was in the Big Beautiful Bill, separate from the appropriations.
I would think Dems are trying to get money for the good programs and limit what they can for the bad.
Like the Republicans did last year with our then-functioning government, once in power Democratic pols need to rescind budgeted funding for these grifting authoritarian projects and start rebuilding an actual republic.
“We had three House Republican candidates who were ahead on election day in the last election cycle, and every time a new tranche of ballots came in they just magically whittled away until their leads were lost.” - Mike Johnson. Question for Mike....if the elections are so corrupted by the Democrats (as he wants the MAGA base to believe) then why did they not win the White House, the Senate and the House of Reps in 2024? The fact that their MAGA leader is promoting nationalization of elections pretty much shows who is trying to corrupt our elections doesn't it?
The stupidity of Johnson's statement ranks right up there with his statement that "we know millions of non citizens are voting" his premise for this statement the number of votes democrats get is ludicrous.
I'd also like to know whether EVERY election that has resulted in a Democrat winning the presidency was rigged, corrupted, and only a victory because of millions of illegal votes cast. I really had no idea election fraud was so rampant!! ( /s )
I’d add one more requirement to the Democrats demands. ICE and CBP must not be allowed to be anywhere near voting precincts in the fall.
GOOD NEWS EVERYONE, it’s already illegal for undocumented immigrants to vote so no need to monitor polling places! Wheeeee!
I better start to hear A LOT more about protecting our elections. A LOT MORE.
The story of Springfield made me cry. What are we even doing America? My God. The stain of this moment will and never should be erased.
This. I've been warning about the use of ICE at selective (read: blue cities) polling locations to intimidate voters from participating for fear of being profiled and wrongfully-detained or just worrying about protestors showing up and general chaos.
I'm concerned that they may take it farther and use ICE to intimidate election workers and/or actually try to seize ballots, causing so much chaos that getting an accurate count becomes impossible.
All the more reason to defund the current iteration of ICE. Being a member of Immigration and Customs Enforcement is one thing, Being a member of I Cause Emergencies (so the Boss can invoke the Insurrection Act) is quite another.
Suzanne - voter turnout can drop due to drizzle (we aren’t always a serious people)… so yeah, heavily gunned up gents with an earned rep for throwing shots, tossing tear gas indiscriminately, pushing & shoving of bystanders - one sees how that COULD be bit of a discouragement 🤬
Agree - my concern is that they will attempt to both suppress the vote and disrupt the count.
The good thing is even the entire US Military couldn't cover every precinct in all 50 states. Realistically the GOP is on pace to lose 40+ districts and ICE can't cover all 40 districts. The state AG's need to ban together and protect their own constitutional prerogatives and let the Trump administration continue make a big enough disaster in the GOP that election fraud claims can't cover all the damage.
What if everyone who can vote early by mail were to do so, then travel to a city under threat to serve as pollwatchers/observers/documenters?
Just yesterday Rand Paul's committee had several victims of MPLS ICE tactics testify. It was such gripping and horrifying testimony to listen to. Unfortunately 98% of voters didn't see it. I never thought I would say that I agree on anything by Rand Paul but he has certainly stepped up here.
It’s almost as though if we looked for it we could find points of agreement. I too have been surprised to find myself cheering Paul and Thomas Massie.
It's a hard sell to get people to vote *legally* out of civic duty. Persuading people to commit several felonies in order to cast one single vote is an absurdity-and the results of audits in several states bear that out.
Exactly. People who are here illegally, don't want to put themselves on the government's radar by voting. The allegation is so absurd.
I must be missing something here but Illegals can't vote anyway.
The whacko narrative is that they do, because their Democrat-America-hating overlords required it.
EXACTLY!! Thank you!!
For sure, it's one of the strange things about voter fraud paranoia. Almost no-one is motivated to plan and commit a crime that brings them no tangible short-term benefit and no guarantee of long-term benefit either.
As long as we are discussing conditions for ICE funding, I would strongly suggest a binding agreement to rescind funding for ICE prison camps as a precondition for funding. Those undocumented individuals arrested by ICE should be released on their own recognizance until such time as there can be a judicial of their status. Even if one is not swayed by concerns over basic decency/humanity, it makes absolutely zero sense to spend billions to create and lock people in such inhumane makeshift prisons, people who would otherwise continue working, going to school and contribution towards society. Besides, for an administration so concerned about optics, Stephen Miller’s prison camps are a bad look.
Kim - the claimed rationale for the prison camps proves that they’re wasteful, a fraud, and abuse of public resources & funds. Assume the vast majority of the imprisoned are going to be deported. Why on earth build infrastructure to keep them imprisoned? We know it’s not to provide them safekeeping while also providing them due process!
The only infrastructure Trump acts to build is infrastructure destined by definition NOT to be used, except temporarily.
…makes one wonder if “temporarily” isn’t really the plan?
Hmm, surely not? 💀
I’ve read about resistance in a number of small towns like Paxton, TX. They need the jobs but maybe don’t want them that bad.
Agree with all of this, too!
May you and everyone on this thread be housed on the same cell block with me . It's a good thing that I like baloney and cheese sandwiches . 🙄🌊
I just hope they still let me play my daily word games in the gulag! 🤞🏻🤞🏻
I'm concerned about ICE and other federal agencies being used to intimidate voters. However, I think the focus on threats to voting is overdone. If the election is stolen, it is unlikely going to be due to voter intimidation, but more likely shenanigans regarding the counting and certification of the votes.
Oh I have no doubt they are planning both ways!
Absolutely! Thug life at precincts with higher minority populations or lower income. County and state level administrative and legalistic thuggery to get it all “right “.
Cumulative effects, cover the bases
Yeah, that's what I'm afraid of. Try to generally create chaos that can be a pretext to halt voting or throw out results until we can "figure out what the hell is going on". And then somehow the figuring all seems to figure in R's favor.
Similar to "just say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me". Throw ketchup at the walls to see what sticks, then use that as a beachhead to pry open more cracks until you're able to affect a favorable result.
Yes, the "real steal" will be done behind closed doors!
The Supreme Court is the usual place for the steal in our modern era.
I have seen that there has been a lot of pushback from Republican Senators and congressman regarding Trump's "nationalizing" elections.
I kind a think the presence of ICE could have an effect on voting. Look at what has happened in MPLS where people who are Latino, Somali, Asian are even afraid to go to work or go out Period. I' not dismissing shenanigans here(counting votes), but seeing this first hand, there has been a very definite effect of intimidation by ICE presence.
Not only is it a stain on all of us but the world is watching.
Our children and grandchildren are watching us do all this!
Every old liberal in America has apologized to our children by now. It's not enough.
But what do we do if the FBI sweeps in to take the ballots after the elections? Post-Fulton County this seems like a possibility.
We take to the streets. En masse. For weeks and months if needed. This fucking regime does not get to destroy our democracy without a fight.
Try probability.
Also that ICE reinstate it's policy not to go into churches, hospitals and schools.
Springfield is maybe the most salient microcosm of JD Vance's sadism. He scares me roughly 10x more than even Trump. And Kennedy, still more somehow.
Bigger picture, the nerve center of the fascist movement is quite the Sadist/Narcissist axis. Sadists most prominently include Vance, Miller, Kennedy, Noem. Narcissists - Trump, Rubio, Gabbard (scariest of these three for the hybrid with her cult background and cultist persona).
The "crack" in the armor (to the extent one ever develops) will have to come from someone else.
Plus little jaydee really frightens the furniture.
Of course, no icehole thugs at polling places should be a non negotiable demand.
The next Democratic President doesn’t have to abolish ICE. It’s about time Democrats started playing by Republican rules. Recissions packages exist. And it can be a party line filibuster proof simple majority vote. Make it part of a Democratic reconciliation package and tell Republicans to pound sand. We can starve the agency into a slow and prolonged death.
Yup. Use reconciliation on anything funding/tax related the way the GOP does--which includes taxes on the rich and defunding ICE!
And speaking of adopting tactics, where the fuck is our next Unitary Executive dem? I want to see a dem president willing to take up the unitary executive theory to hammer forward an agenda that a deadlocked senate is too slow to advance. Turnabout is fair play.
Absolutely. A combination of FDR and Juan Carlos I. Restructure the American system with prejudice, especially against fascist and authoritarian tendencies, while greatly expanding and concretizing democratic practices and mores. There's a position paper to written here.
You assume SCOTUS believes in the unitary exec universally. If that were the case, they wouldn't have overruled Biden's executive orders as they did.
The majority of SCOTUS is tragically political and rule in the president and admin's favor when he/it is GOP. A Dem? LOL.
Humongous truth, 6 of these clowns are not judges they are radical right wing political operatives. Emphasis on RADICAL.
Fair point, but even then, at least *make* them turn down EOs because throwing up your hands and saying to yourself "well the SC will shoot this down if I do it" makes you look impotent and uncaring. Taking action and then having the SC turn it down many months later makes it look like YOU care but the SC doesn't.
Oh absolutely! And I think the next Dem president will. The question is just how much of an "imperial president" do we want? I don't want our side to be just like them; to have the next Dem president who acts like a King. After all, this imperial president bullshit is so much of what we are fighting against.
The threat from these people isn't going away anytime soon (I know you know that!). I firmly believe the next Dem president—if there is a Dem Congress—needs to add judges to SCOTUS. We cannot make any progress with the status quo; in fact quite the opposite as we have seen.
The tricky part is not emphasizing this (which the base will demand) because if there is ONE issue that has consistently driven GOP voters to the polls, it's the courts. Dems and lefties long scoffed when you tried to warn them. Hopefully now my side sees why the judicial branch is so important and has a reason to vote D (or for an I who caucuses with the Ds).
"The question is just how much of an "imperial president" do we want?"
I'd say there's a difference between acting to the fullest extent of the Unitary Executive Theory (UET)--already in practice by the GOP--and going full autocrat. You can do the former without doing the latter. But if the other side is going to go full fash then at the very least we need to be going full UET to at least make them think twice about what precedents they're setting moving forward. Continuing to bring a feather duster to a gun fight only serves the side that brings guns.
Fair point, but then you are threading the needle between the "No Kings" and "I'm just using the authority laid down by SCOTUS." I don't believe in the unitary executive or the imperial presidency whatever you want to call it at all. It's an overreach made up by the conservatives to give a GOP president power if saddled with a Dem Congress.
Call me cynical but I don't think the GOP cares about setting terrible precedents. They only care about power. Nothing else matters. Not the nation's security, not the American people, not the judgment of history. Nothing. Only power and their own will to take this country back well more than a century.
You gotta read this. Sam Freedman has written a chilling and detailed profile of Stephen Miller, the dark heart of the Trump regime.
https://kathleenweber.substack.com/p/the-most-dangerous-man-in-america
Thanks for highlighting this true to life horror portrait. It’s almost like Miller was invented to get us to retune and do what it takes to realign this country to its essential promise.
How does this work? I'm not familiar with the process.
Like how Republicans killed funding for public media (PBS, NPR) we can do the same to ICE/CBP as long as we have a Senate majority.
Basically, Democrats can pass a bill that says, "We previously approved spending for this, but now we've changed our minds and we're withdrawing the funding."
Sure bet. Their hero is like the Red Queen, only he reverses directions six times before breakfast.
If Democrats win control of Congress, specifically the Senate, they can negotiate a budget agreement with Republicans (only the Senate really matters) and then go back on their word to take away the DHS funding. And the package can specify how much money to take away. This is hardball.
Got it. That's hardball. And if you have a critical mass of Americans behind you, against observable 'evil,' there's no real down side.
As of now, I give Democrats a 40 % chance of tying or winning the Senate. A year ago it was close to zero.
Jim, great piece from Springfield. I read Timothy Snyder's piece that JVL included in the Triad yesterday also. It seems like such a betrayal of trust that Haitians in Springfield are looking at going from legal work one day to militarized army cop deportation the next day. It's a complete garbage policy that disregards people's dignity.
Regarding JD Vance - It seems to me that he has to understand the reality that Haitians are powering economic revitalization in Springfield. Maybe that's actually the reason he wants them gone. Is it a situation like a successful democratic Ukraine being intolerable to Russia? Hard working Haitian's revitalizing a town in Ohio cuts so hard against the stories he prefers to tell that he will support violently removing them and harming the city to protect MAGA's safe space.
Timothy Snyder’s piece was excellent. I am sure JD knows the economics but of course this never was about economics as it is about race. MAGA’s safe space comes with a ‘white’s only’ sign at the entrance.
The idea of a pluralistic, egalitarian, multi-ethnic community being stronger for its diversity is anathema to Vance and Miller. Their whole political project rests on convincing their marks that the country will be stronger if we enforce hierarchy and conformity.
That's why the "comply or die" stuff fits in so well with their White, Christian supremacist nationalist project.
If Springfield is successful because of cosmopolitanism, it needs to be destroyed so their opponents can't point to it as evidence that Vance and Miller are wrong.
That's definitely the dark line my mind is following. I struggle with accepting the idea that the motivation is really that despicable, but I don't see many credible alternative explanations.
Perhaps Vance wants to rip out Haitians in order to end the economic revitalization of Ohio and return it to a pit of hard times and despair, the perfect breeding ground for Trumpism.
I feel like it's more about getting rid of the Haitian community and less about breeding more Trumpism. I read hillbilly elegy at one point long ago and I remember a line about how in JD's view his hill people were just adamant they didn't like people who looked different than them.
Maybe he’s just embracing his heritage then, as is MAGA. Xenophobia.
His people fought the coal barons in the streets while JD licks their boots. He doesn't deserve his ancestors.
He also said his fellow white hillbillies were lazy and unmotivated in that book.
HCR's post last night had an extended discussion of US District Court Judge Ana Reye's ruling on whether TPS for Haitians could be ended. The judge's opinion said, in part:
“There is an old adage among lawyers. If you have the facts on your side, pound the facts. If you have the law on your side, pound the law. If you have neither, pound the table. Secretary Noem, the record to-date shows, does not have the facts on her side—or at least has ignored them. Does not have the law on her side—or at least has ignored it. Having neither…, she pounds X ([formerly known as] Twitter). Kristi Noem has a First Amendment right to call immigrants killers, leeches, entitlement junkies, and any other inapt name she wants. Secretary Noem, however, is constrained by both our Constitution and the [Administrative Procedure Act] to apply faithfully the facts to the law in implementing the TPS program. The record to-date shows she has yet to do that." ("Secretary" Noem was italicized in the ruling.)
HCR's full post is worth a read. https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/february-3-2026
I read it. Very interesting and scary. The saving western civilization from erasure stuff really is poison for people's minds. It's not clear at all to me where people like Miller and maybe JD Vance would stop in their efforts to "save" our country for "their" people. Claw-back/cancellation of citizenship for some groups of people? More massive camps with non-white former citizens in them? Actual mass murder?
Another detail (besides NO MASKS) that should be demanded about self-identification for ICE or CBP or ANY OTHER Federal officer should be SHOULDER or SHIRT POCKET NAME LABEL that is plainly readable and correctly identifies that particular officer. EVERY military or Coast Guard officer has their own actual name on their uniform.
Name and rank.
One more thing to investigate. Where has all of the ICE money gone. Some government official recently stated they would put body cameras on ICE if they could find the money. They received $85 billion. Where has that gone? Who stole it or overpaid from it to their friends and relatives? It seems that Trump isn’t the only grifter.
I'm sure Noem and Lewandowski have their arms shoulder deep into that bag o' money!
Good catch, and it was Pet Killer Noem who used that less-than-lame excuse.
Doesn't Noem have two private jets at her disposal. Those aren't cheap, nor is the crew that flies them.
Thanks to Jim for traveling to Springfield to cover the Haitian community.
About 10,000-15,000 Haitians live and work in Springfield, Ohio. They came by invitation, and have revitalized industries in a struggling city as well as adding new economic vitality through opening restaurants and other businesses.
Haitians now make up about a quarter of the city's population and account for about $300 million in spending in Clarke County. Ohio's Republican governor, Mike DeWine, has said their removal would be an economic disaster for both the community and the state.
Ohio currently has two Republican Senators. Bernie Moreno, an immigrant himself, has recommended these people "self-deport." The other, Jon Husted (former Lt. Governor and appointee for JD Vance's seat) is as absent on this issue as he is on every other issue facing Ohio.
What we are seeing in Minnesota is the elected Republicans seem to be in favor of destroying the economies of diverse places. It's hard to understand, but it feels like they find places where diversification has been a success to be an insult to their world view.
Are the larger local employers of these folks stepping up and speaking out in support of the immigrant work force?
I have read stories that include comments from some of the factories and warehouses employing these people. They speak highly of their work ethic and value to the business.
I can't say what, if anything, these employers are doing behind the scenes to press the case for renewing TPS for Haitians
"Kyle Rittenhouse called for her firing"
Congratulations Republicans for creating a world where you have to care about what Kyle Rittenhouse thinks.
He panicked and shot a couple people for no apparent reason. That makes him an authority on ICE. I guess.
“How much time would that take? We don’t have enough judges. We don’t have enough time.” Well, here, Democrats should say: Let us help you out in this department."
Perhaps by offering to use the money cut from ICE to fund more immigration judges. The deeper the cuts, the faster warrants COULD be issued if they follow the law for warrants in the given case.
Make the MAGAts in Johnson's corner (all, what, 20, 40, 60 even 100 of them?) turn that down and then explain it to the voters that they prefer lawless thugs on the streets to educated, dedicated judges trying to work within the law.
>>>" Should ICE be abolished?"
Yes.
>>>"... the idea that it is an achievable policy aim in the immediate term is a fantasy. "
Also yes, unfortunately.
They need to:
(1) raise issue salience using the shutdown,
(2) wedge squishier republicans worried about their own skins from both their hardline compatriots in congress and the White House whose narcissistic cult of personality cannot admit defeat or back down and so can easily be forced to die on an unpopular hill, and
(3) deliver something real for the base to begrudgingly accept, for now.
On 1 and 2, - so far so good. For 2 they have only begun to wedge. Hammer! Hammer away!
On 3, I think here's where you got to read between the lines, and understand what is outside messaging, versus your activist pushing, versus your pragmatic and realpolitik maneuvers.
The progressives ought to continue to push for abolish ICE. Their job is to establish the party's left flank and push the party towards that flank. They shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth though if they can get a partial win, like ending roving patrols, unmasking agents, and requiring judicial warrants.
Everyone who isn't an activist ought to be looking for pragmatic and politically useful deliverables. They also don't need to rush off a winning issue, so take your time and get something good.
Long term chipping at the edges in insufficient, they need to wake up to what time it is in America and do big things when they can. They need long term strategic planning and a clear-eyed appraisal of the enemy and the enemy's capabilities to win a war. But they must also in the immediate term win a string of battles to win the war.
SEPERATELY: I think we need to all wake up to what time it is in America. Noem, Miller, and Homan are increasingly adopting genocidal rhetoric and what they tried to do in Springfield, OH, with removing TPS for Haitians and descending on the city ala Minneapolis is ethnic cleansing. That's not hyperbole, that's what it is. Similarly, the media keeps referring to ICE 'detention centers' or even 'prison camps' but this is wrong. They are concentration camps. They meet every definition of a concentration camp.
Jim thank you for being on the ground there to cover it. God speed.
You may not get everything you want, but this is the opportunity to expand the Overton Window where Republicans have often dominated the narrative -/ make the Republicans squirm. After the Texas senate seat it is time to work on winning back the Latino vote. Republican immigration tactics and policies have the potential to lose them these votes for a generation. Democrats need to capitalize on this — I don’t think either party really comprehend the damage being done.
One problem with the list of demands by democrats regarding ICE; most of them are already laws that this regime has simply ignored. Case in point: entering a home without a judicial warrant. I really don't see that changing anytime soon; no matter what language is added to give the current law more teeth.
It's a sad commentary on our country that to reform an agency a huge first step is to get them to follow already established rules and regulations.
This is true of so many agencies under regulatory capture. Take BLM. Since the Wild Horse Act of 1971, the livestock industry has undermined it, pouring in cattle by the millions for taxpayer subsidized grazing while scapegoating wild horses and burros for range damage and removing them violently. The Big Ag/extraction interest lobby has subverted the Forest Service and other agencies under Repub and Dem administrations alike. Until we get campaign finance reform, the ugly pattern will persist. I’d like The Bulwark, my favorite read, to expand its vision in rhis direction as it impacts us all.
America is so racist! Of course the cattle ranchers are undermining Black Lives Matter! 😉😉
Yes, but a lot of people don’t understand what’s going on and dems need to make it clear; getting a public commitment to follow the law (in immig law and enforcement here) shines a much needed spotlight
States and localities need to get more aggressive with federal ICE and border patrol...when they break the law, lock them up and charge them. If they're later able to get out because of a claim of federal supremacy, so be it. It's not a slam dunk they get off.
That would be great, but ICE isn't playing by any rules. The Minneapolis police are out numbered - badly out numbered (600-2700). It's hard to arrest someone if your facing 20 heavily armed agen... oops, I mean Gestapo. That's why they're trying to pass a provision that ICE can't operate in large numbers or sweeps.
Make it a felony with a minimum of one year in jail. I hear cops do real well in the incarceration striped suits.
The problem with that is the DOJ would be the ones to enforce that law. I don't really see that happening.
Not if it's state law. DOJ doesn't enforce state law. Thank God for federalism.
Yes, that's true. But we are talking about federal law, not state law. This fight is happening in the US congress.
Beat me to it, Paul. Thanks.
Please see my response to Paul above. Thanks!
I saw an ad on TV this morning in support of ICE. I didn't check, but I presume paid for by the Government. Started by saying 'they're neighbor, coach little league, etc" referring to ICE agents. Then ending showing them in uniform "protecting us".
You know what they weren't wearing in any of the shots? Masks. Or weapons.
Last spring I wondered in an email to family members why they had to be wearing masks, and the reply was to protect them from doxing. I don't know whether that opinion still holds. I hope not but am not checking in case I'm wrong.
Apparently they just started recruiting in Colorado. Saw online job postings yesterday that were shared by a friend.
Saw the same ad, and also wondered if it was bought by DHS, but noticed there was the (required, I think) sponsorship ID at the end.
"[A] group calling themselves American Sovereignty, with no on-the-record spokesperson or disclosed donors, has launched what they say is a multi-million-dollar ad campaign in [an] effort to bolster public perception of ICE agents."
They've also put up billboards in San Francisco, apparently aimed at tourists coming in for the Super Bowl, showing an Aryan-ish police officer holding a trophy with the text "Defensive Player of the Year: ICE".
Require them to wear I.D.
In the end, Schumer and Jeffries will soften. We need stronger Dem leaders.
I have absolutely no faith in them! They're living in and "governing" a country that no longer exists.
I love Jim's reporting on Springfield. But the only reason a small media outlet like The Bulwark can have frontline reporting is because the warzones they're covering are in places like Minneapolis and Springfield!
It helps I live nearby, tbh!
Thank you. I was wanting to feel good about this situation because it felt like a win. But I've become hesitant these days to think of anything as good news.
“Republican leaders had hoped to whisk DHS funding quickly and unobtrusively into law” -
Why don’t Republicans think DHS has enough money already? The ICE initiatives are more than unpopular. Does anyone think these cities need masked men with bullet proof vests and guns? Does anyone think the streets of either Portland are so dangerous they need to be invaded by iCE? I truly don’t understand why Republicans would agree to give DHS more money.
My sense from monitoring local NextDoor feeds is that rank-and-file MAGA can be quite energetic in parroting the administration line about the value of ICE invasions of blue communities.
Indeed, some commentators are quick to call for intervention in our fairly idyllic suburb in response to pretty much any crime-related local problem. It's knee-jerk and simple-minded thinking, but that seems to be its great advantage in their eyes.
Their tunes might change when their house cleaning, grass cutting, home repair folks are snatched up by ICE. Would love to see some of those faces eaten by the leopards.
“Whoever had created humanity had left in a major design flaw. It was its tendency to bend at the knees.” - Sir Terry Prachett
Thanks - I am baffled by so much lately!
Don't forget DHS is not just ICE ... Coast Guard and FEMA are under DHS, and those programs do need to be funded as appropriations. The money bucket that ICE got was in the Big Beautiful Bill, separate from the appropriations.
I would think Dems are trying to get money for the good programs and limit what they can for the bad.
Like the Republicans did last year with our then-functioning government, once in power Democratic pols need to rescind budgeted funding for these grifting authoritarian projects and start rebuilding an actual republic.
“We had three House Republican candidates who were ahead on election day in the last election cycle, and every time a new tranche of ballots came in they just magically whittled away until their leads were lost.” - Mike Johnson. Question for Mike....if the elections are so corrupted by the Democrats (as he wants the MAGA base to believe) then why did they not win the White House, the Senate and the House of Reps in 2024? The fact that their MAGA leader is promoting nationalization of elections pretty much shows who is trying to corrupt our elections doesn't it?
The stupidity of Johnson's statement ranks right up there with his statement that "we know millions of non citizens are voting" his premise for this statement the number of votes democrats get is ludicrous.
I'd also like to know whether EVERY election that has resulted in a Democrat winning the presidency was rigged, corrupted, and only a victory because of millions of illegal votes cast. I really had no idea election fraud was so rampant!! ( /s )