Mr Salgado was murdered. If he wasn’t, we would already have body camera footage on every conservative news outlet to exonerate ICE of wrongdoing. But they will hang their hat on Mr Salgado’s immigration as though it justifies his murder. Just a long national nightmare. Incredible.
I don’t believe ICE’s story but I also don’t blame people for fleeing from ICE because you are then entered into a system with no judicial process or rights and effectively disappear into a concentration camp system worse than prisons with no processes. The system is meant to be cruel and unusual, and doesn’t follow the Constitution.
Basically it proves the point that having no rule of law and judicial processes makes as all less safe. I now have no faith in the judicial system because it isn’t followed or makes shit up (see the Supreme Court and courts doing nothing to stop ICE from violating our constitutional rights). ICE and DOJ have zero credibility and it’s enraging this murder is barely being covered nationally.
And if we find out there are many dead or dying people in these camps, we can't pretend we didn't know. Trump and his cronies couldn't care less if they all died in custody.
I can't believe they're still going with the whole "weaponized car" story. After Renee Goode, Miramar Martinez, and so, so many other times this rationale has gone down in flames, can they really believe it's going to pan out this time?
It's another way Trump's personality has infected the federal government; just throw some reasonable sounding easily deniable chum out for the media ecosystem to repeat and at least 30% off the electorate will believe it regardless of future reporting
"Say it often enough and people will believe it" is an explicit principle of Trump. It has clearly been adopted by others in his administration. Out in MAGA-land, people accept it out of gullibility, or out of cynicism, because they want it to be true.
I’m further infuriated to think this will turn into another warping of basic, physical reality for some % of the population: Killing the driver of a moving vehicle does not stop the vehicle!
But DHS says in case after case that they accomplished or attempted this feat, and the media doesn’t call out how implausible it is. At best, it’s treated as he said-she said, even though the thing “he said” is just slightly more likely than “teleported to a Waffle House”.
I'm not trying to excuse anything here but want to provide some perspective. This sort of lying is not unique to the current president. He certainly didn't invent it. Police officers involved in shootings of black and brown people have made up such stuff long before the current president was in office. This sort of lying is done by people trying to get away with law or rule breaking, trying to get out of trouble in many contexts. A little kid will do it too. There are a lot of things to criticize the president for, but this sort of lying by ICE agents is not one of them.
The DHS press release is their usual pre-written madlibs. Decoding guide:
targeted enforcement operation [care to show us the warrant?];
attempted to evade [didn't respond correctly to multiple & conflicting commands?];
From information we are receiving [from Stephen Miller?];
weaponized his vehicle [was in vicinity of a car or truck, even when parked];
firing his weapon in self-defense [shooting at someone supposedly fleeing away from you];
driver was struck [shot at point blank range];
emergency services were immediately contacted [what is time, really?];
DHS-OIG is leading an investigation into the agent-involved shooting [shooter will write a report on his strong & decisive action];
FBI Houston is leading an investigation into the potential assault on a federal law enforcement officer [allegedly attempting to evade = violent assault]
...clip'n'save for your next "incident" report. There WILL be a next... and a next...
The Trump administration has already completed the power consolidation steps that any aspiring authoritarian regime needs to take. Fill the civil service with political hacks, assert complete control over the domestic law enforcement and security services, and purge senior military leadership to replace them with regime loyalists.
We’re now well into the entrenchment phase. One of the most important parts of that is for the regime to have the security forces murder civilians on its behalf. This ensures the security services are bound to the regime by blood and will remain loyal to, and fight for it, no matter what to avoid the possibility that they might be held accountable following a future change in government.
The next part of the entrenchment phase is to prevent, or nullify the results of, free and fair elections. We’ll see what happens in November but the US is already so far down the authoritarian path that I’m 95 per cent certain that Trump will do something extreme. I think nullification is most likely. My guess is some combination of USPS seizing and destroying postal ballots per a Trump executive order, ICE hanging around polling stations to do Kavanaugh stop arrests of people of the ‘wrong’ ethnicity (all they’ve got to do is keep them detained until after voting is closed) and federal seizures of uncounted ballots in Democratic areas.
Good grief that’s depressing. At least yesterday I was able to talk about football.
Bill: "But we should recall that Trump campaigned on mass deportation, and that we then elected him. We as a nation are responsible for what’s happened. We can never fully make up for the human cost of what has been done in our name. All we can do now is to act as quickly and unambiguously as possible to reject these policies, and to defeat decisively the spirit of indecency and inhumanity that lies behind them."
Indeed. But we also have to recognize that a third of the country is totally down with the "indecency and inhumanity" behind these acts. There is also a percentage of the country that is apathetic to this indecency and inhumanity. I think it's safe to say that Trump didn't change the character of the United States. He simply revealed what was below the surface in the United States. Decent people are haunted by that revelation. The problem is there's not enough of us.
And aside from the 1/3 that sanctioned Trump’s personal indecency and inhumanity, another 1/3 of the potential electorate sat out the 2024 election out of indifference or an inability to distinguish between the candidates. So, 2/3 of Americans brought this upon us and we will all eventually suffer the consequences.
I have been amazed at the number of highly educated people have no idea why I protest. My guess is that people like my cardiologist spend so much time at work between the office, hospital, and surgical center that when they do get to spend time with family they shut our the rest of the world.
Yes, it is his choice. I do know my cardiologist rather well—he spends very long days with patients and surgeries in addition to keeping up with new techniques and treatments in his field. He’s frequently on call, but is no longer the cardiac trauma surgeon on call.
Tim - luv ya brother but I'm not quite there yet on "The problem is there's not enough of us." For me that's a question... math problem isn't answered yet, I'm still factoring 🔣. I'm hoping & striving to push our answer toward the positive.
It's an observational statement, not an empirical statement, and all I have to back it up is the fact Trump's in the Oval. It was clear two summers ago that if Trump won, Miller would have carte blanche to implement an unaccountable deportation system. And yet Trump won the popular vote. If we were a decent country, Trump would have been blown out. And yet, here we are.
We are here because an ossified, politically weak Congress repeated.y failed or refused, over 20 years, to reform a broken immigration system. And that lack of courage can be traced to the alt-media loudmouths who instilled "fear of the other" into much of the population on a daily basis. Had the system been fixed, we likely would not be where we are. But this is what Limbaugh, et. al., wanted all along.
Everybody who rallied around Trump and committed to defending him obviously has a high tolerance for indecency - no matter how much effort is put into claiming that he's serving a righteous agenda.
And this the bigger problem going forward. If you can condone the cruelty and lawlessness of ICE because you have so much grievance over your life, then how do we bring you back into a citizenry that is looking to rebuild a functioning system that works for the good of all?
I don't believe you can bring them back because they reject the principles on which this country was founded. They don't believe all people were created equal. They don't believe in democracy.
They, the Fox News crowd, love the cruelty, but think they can maintain plausible deniability. Didn’t one of Trumps lawyers once admit that no sane person would believe the stuff she had said about voter fraud.
“We as a nation are responsible for what’s happened. We can never fully make up for the human cost of what has been done in our name. All we can do now is to act as quickly and unambiguously as possible to reject these policies, and to defeat decisively the spirit of indecency and inhumanity that lies behind them.”
I couldn’t have said it better. I am sickened every day by what is being done in our name. I hope enough people are also sickened by it that in November they go out and vote for people who will try to impose some measure of accountability on this cruel and lawless administration.
As for the Mitch McConnell dead-or-alive drama, my wife - born and bred in Poland when it was under Soviet control - said it reminded her of when many people believed for months that Leonid Brezhnev's body was being propped up and driven around in a car. "It's just like Russia. You can't trust anything you hear or see."
Garvin - old enough to remember the National Lampoon magazine recurring news photo joke "I'm still not dead yet" ? In my mind there was Khrushchev, Franco... maybe I was in similar state as their writers, it was 1970-ish 🤔☁️
The long lasting consequence of this debacle is the words of the President of the United States no longer carry any weight. Trump's been all over the map with his public statements and social media posts, and none of it changes Iran's behavior. They're not afraid of Trump. In fact, I would argue they welcome the additional strikes because it keeps Trump trapped in a situation of his own making and they get to humiliate him over and over.
...and over and over until he just quits, brings his toys home and declares victory, which MAGA land will applaud because, after all, HE said it so it must be true.
Thanks as always to Bill, whose writing gives me hope for the nation. And same for everyone here. True patriots, you guys give me faith that everything ahead won’t be all bad.
No. Not "everything" will be *bad*, Kate. At least one good thing is bound to happen sooner or later, regardless of how it may seem right now: no one lives forever, not even Donald Trump.
America is an occupied country. Occupied by an authoritarian administration with it own violent, armed, masked private goon squad, state media, and rigged SC powered by white Christian Nationalist ethnic cleansing and dehumanizing most Americans.
But basically, all they’ve got the empty rhetoric of calling most Americans Communists, forgetting they are outnumbered by most Americans.
In the first Houston Chronicle story about the ICE shooting, the Chronicle included what has become a standard line in an article that references the local government, "The mayor’s office has not returned the Chronicle’s requests for comment since August."
You read that right. Houston's supposedly Democratic mayor has refused to answer any questions from Houston's principal newspaper for almost a year now. Mayor John Whitmire has also ordered HPD to cooperate with ICE. Under political pressure, the city council voted to reverse that decision, only to reverse their reversal after Gov. Greg Abbott threatened to starve the city of funding.
"There’s something wrong with them, they’re coo-coo. As far as I’m concerned, it’s over. . . . They can talk, but I think they’re wasting their time. They’re a bunch of lying guys." Trump is simply incapable of understanding people who do something for reasons other than money. So they must be insane.
Re: "But we should recall that Trump campaigned on mass deportation, and that we then elected him."
Yes, yes we did. And anyone who thinks "the walls are closing in" doesn't know half the country. Couple of weeks ago, I had a very unpleasant interaction with a die hard Trump supporter and his wife. "He's a narcissistic asshole, but he's the best."
Last night, I was chatting with a friend about this-and-that. He mentioned he'd been to DC. He'd visited "the fair." "It was great. We went to the Department of Agriculture booth [he described the stuff they had there] and the Department of Energy booth was pretty good."
I changed the subject.
These people, they're not seeing what Bulwark-reading people are seeing. If they see something, um, not great, they just look past it to the great stuff they want to see. Their media diet helps that, but it's not good enough to just point to Fox News as the problem. "The fair was great." That guy was THERE. He saw it. He experienced it. He walked that mall and took away that impression. And this guy is not some mouth-breather. He's an intelligent, educated, professional person.
Unless the Democrats can somehow put up someone who sounds and acts like a normal frickin' person, the Trump-supporting population of this country will win again. They're not fighting us. They're affirmatively voting for their preferences. They like what Trump is delivering to them. They want more of it.
Yeah I’m stuck in hospital and my life is changing. I’m very thankful for family coming to see me but discouraged by talk of our wonderful president over my hospital bed. Mention mass deportation and their eyes glaze over as if they think ignoring what they did will make it disappear.
Sorry to hear this, Kate. Please focus on healthful things! (Not easy with the current Awfulness, I know.). Hope you're not in pain or much discomfort. and glad you have family close by, even if they are MAGA.
Kate - all the best for your recovery. Family are a blessing, as you no doubt are to them! Life IS change. We have adaptability built in. You have a big world of good vibes headed your way from Bulwarklandia 💙
Where is the body cam footage justifying the shooting of Mr Salgado. I thought ICE were supposed to be wearing body cams.
The fact that makes this shooting a travesty is the man was here for 35 years as a productive citizen working construction. Am I to believe every construction company he worked for was unaware he was undocumented? Funny how Stephen Miller isn't at all concerned with stopping illegal immigration at it's primary consumer source, as in the companies that hire them. This whole deportation campaign is an exercise in institutional racism. It's a crime against humanity on a par with the gutting of USAID.
This. There is data that indicates that nearly 40% of drywallers in Texas are undocumented. An effective, targeted effort to remove the "bad guys" from the country would begin there, with their employers. Names, current addresses, etc., all available from one source. I wonder why the press release didn't identify the employer. A Trump/Paxton Rep., perhaps?
They are all sociopaths, color doesn't matter. Immigrants, to them, are just nameless, faceless entities that they can use to their benefit, i.e., to gin up their base. No act too cruel, no act too senseless. That said, sadly, I question how much traction this issue has.
So let's look at the ICE case. Biden did this incredibly horrible thing by leaving Afghanistan so quickly, leaving it to fall into Taliban hands, leaving valuable equipment behind, and of course not protecting those who fought along side us. We have heard over and over again that this was an unconscionable act, an embarrassment etc. Fast forward. Now you have an Afghan that we did save (one of many) and now we arrest him and subsequently he dies. And Trump/MAGA thinks it is fine, because we are fighting supposedly illegal immigration. Pardon the righteous indignation about the withdrawal from Afghanistan. Pardon the, "we only target the worst of the worst". None of it is real. They never cared about the Afghan people or those who helped us. They just want to get rid of immigrants. All immigrants regardless.
None of the outrage towards Biden for not protecting our Afghan allies was real. GOP always planned to abandon them. Those of us Cassandra’s who pointed out the obvious were ignored yet again.
Might I remind you who negotiated said withdrawal terms with the Taliban and then was not around to implement them? What was Biden supposed to do under the circumstances and what would have counted as a *successful* withdrawal.
Loomer's comment isn't as crazy as it sounds. The odds of someone surviving out-of-hospital CPR neurologically intact are really low. (There are exceptions like people who drown in cold water, but that's not the case here.)
McConnell has likely sustained a significant brain injury. Whether he's in a vegetative state remains to be seen, but it's absolutely plausible.
Also, not to be too graphic, but McConnell is a frail, elderly person, so the paramedics likely broke multiple ribs while doing chest compressions. It would be quite painful for him to talk, even if he was neurologically intact. The idea that he had a 20 minute conversation with John Thune about politics a few days after being resuscitated is absurd.
Yeah, am aware of cardiac / brain damage implications of out-of-hospital CPR, which I did numerous times a lifetime ago when I was and Advanced EMT / paramedic.
Even an in-hospital infarction that results in sustained v-fib or asystole requiring CPR has an average survival rate of only about 20% or so and comes with all the attendant chances for brain damage that exist in OHCA, for which the survival rate is only about 10%.
McConnell just being alive in *whatever* kind of state at this point means that he beat some pretty steep odds. But that doesn't necessarily mean he was "lucky".
It depends very much on the cause of the cardiac arrest. For some, it is very useful! And for laypeople outside the hospital, the cause of an arrest is usually unknowable or known to be one of the responsive types (e.g. witnessed drug overdose), so I think it’s good to default to trying CPR.
Where we go wrong is inside hospitals or in situations where the person’s medical history is clear enough that professionals can discern the cause of the arrest is one unlikely to respond to CPR, and we do it anyway. That rapidly became a standard of care that’s very hard to find a way out of culturally.
CPR alone is virtually useless, but with the advent of automatic defibrillators, the chances are better that you can get the heart beating again. Unfortunately, our brains do not tolerate being deprived of oxygen for any length of time. So, if the person is not immediately resuscitated, they're likely going to have some degree of brain injury.
Drowning in cold water is somewhat neuroprotective because it slows the body's metabolism (reducing oxygen consumption), which gives the brain a little more time.
I might describe it as being less "effective" as opposed to less "useful", but I get what you mean and yeah, I think most people are unaware of the actual statistics I cited about survival rates and circumstances, thinking them to be much higher... probably due in at least some part to all the successful "resuscitations" they see on TV and in movies, which the majority of the time reflect nothing with much acccuray about what *actually* transpires in real-life during cardiac arrest cases.
"To me, I think it’s over. I don’t want to deal with them anymore. They’re scum. You know what scum is? They’re scum. They’re sick people. They’re led by sick people. And they’re vicious, violent people. And if they had a nuclear weapon, they’d use it. As far as I’m concerned, it’s over. I’ll speak to our negotiators. They want to negotiate. They’re good people. Steve Witkoff. Jared Kushner. But they have to come back to me. As far as I’m concerned, it’s just a waste of time dealing with them. . . . There’s something wrong with them, they’re coo-coo. As far as I’m concerned, it’s over. . . . They can talk, but I think they’re wasting their time. They’re a bunch of lying guys."
"But we should recall that Trump campaigned on mass deportation, and that we then elected him. We as a nation are responsible for what’s happened. We can never fully make up for the human cost of what has been done in our name."
That's the thing. We can regret the deaths. People can say they didn't vote for ICE to kill people, just to deport them. We hear about Paktiawal and Aroujo because ICE killed them, and maybe that's not what a lot of immigration-enforcement focused voters voted for. But, these sorts of tragedies were always foreseeable before the election, and even if these two weren't killed, all those voters absolutely voted for Afghan allies, people who worked here for 35 years, and hundreds of thousands of others just like them, to be deported.
Some Trump voters may regret the deaths, maybe, but they still voted for a reckless, hideous, and iniquitous deportation regime, where the people who lay low and support this entire country and our way of life are ungraciously rounded up and tossed out like unsightly trash littering the highway. And it's going to be really hard for me to ever forgive my country for what we have become, in an age of social media, stupidity, and mean cruelty. And to even begin to forgive, we first must start on a path to become better people, and I have no reason to expect that will happen.
Agreed. And this doesn't have to continue. Congress could stop it, but they don't want to because, apparently, they believe this is what their constituents want. Or they don't care what their constituents want. Probably some of both.
KN - also, they won't disagree with Trump in public because they're afraid of him... unlike, say, Iran, Putin, E. Jean Carroll... a long & varied list with very different motivations but plenty proof he's not that big a deal when you stand up to him
Mr Salgado was murdered. If he wasn’t, we would already have body camera footage on every conservative news outlet to exonerate ICE of wrongdoing. But they will hang their hat on Mr Salgado’s immigration as though it justifies his murder. Just a long national nightmare. Incredible.
I don’t believe ICE’s story but I also don’t blame people for fleeing from ICE because you are then entered into a system with no judicial process or rights and effectively disappear into a concentration camp system worse than prisons with no processes. The system is meant to be cruel and unusual, and doesn’t follow the Constitution.
Basically it proves the point that having no rule of law and judicial processes makes as all less safe. I now have no faith in the judicial system because it isn’t followed or makes shit up (see the Supreme Court and courts doing nothing to stop ICE from violating our constitutional rights). ICE and DOJ have zero credibility and it’s enraging this murder is barely being covered nationally.
And if we find out there are many dead or dying people in these camps, we can't pretend we didn't know. Trump and his cronies couldn't care less if they all died in custody.
We can't pretend we didn't know about the possible abuse of women and girls in these concentration camps either. But still, nothing is being done.
Cruelty IS the point.
I would not be surprised if at some point we find that several more people have died in ICE custody than reporting indicates.
More likely dozens or hundreds. Most from beatings and neglect…
I can't believe they're still going with the whole "weaponized car" story. After Renee Goode, Miramar Martinez, and so, so many other times this rationale has gone down in flames, can they really believe it's going to pan out this time?
It's another way Trump's personality has infected the federal government; just throw some reasonable sounding easily deniable chum out for the media ecosystem to repeat and at least 30% off the electorate will believe it regardless of future reporting
"Say it often enough and people will believe it" is an explicit principle of Trump. It has clearly been adopted by others in his administration. Out in MAGA-land, people accept it out of gullibility, or out of cynicism, because they want it to be true.
Repetition is the mother of Retention.
I’m further infuriated to think this will turn into another warping of basic, physical reality for some % of the population: Killing the driver of a moving vehicle does not stop the vehicle!
But DHS says in case after case that they accomplished or attempted this feat, and the media doesn’t call out how implausible it is. At best, it’s treated as he said-she said, even though the thing “he said” is just slightly more likely than “teleported to a Waffle House”.
I'm not trying to excuse anything here but want to provide some perspective. This sort of lying is not unique to the current president. He certainly didn't invent it. Police officers involved in shootings of black and brown people have made up such stuff long before the current president was in office. This sort of lying is done by people trying to get away with law or rule breaking, trying to get out of trouble in many contexts. A little kid will do it too. There are a lot of things to criticize the president for, but this sort of lying by ICE agents is not one of them.
The DHS press release is their usual pre-written madlibs. Decoding guide:
targeted enforcement operation [care to show us the warrant?];
attempted to evade [didn't respond correctly to multiple & conflicting commands?];
From information we are receiving [from Stephen Miller?];
weaponized his vehicle [was in vicinity of a car or truck, even when parked];
firing his weapon in self-defense [shooting at someone supposedly fleeing away from you];
driver was struck [shot at point blank range];
emergency services were immediately contacted [what is time, really?];
DHS-OIG is leading an investigation into the agent-involved shooting [shooter will write a report on his strong & decisive action];
FBI Houston is leading an investigation into the potential assault on a federal law enforcement officer [allegedly attempting to evade = violent assault]
...clip'n'save for your next "incident" report. There WILL be a next... and a next...
Executed is, to me, very likely to be more accurate than "mere" murdered.
The Trump administration has already completed the power consolidation steps that any aspiring authoritarian regime needs to take. Fill the civil service with political hacks, assert complete control over the domestic law enforcement and security services, and purge senior military leadership to replace them with regime loyalists.
We’re now well into the entrenchment phase. One of the most important parts of that is for the regime to have the security forces murder civilians on its behalf. This ensures the security services are bound to the regime by blood and will remain loyal to, and fight for it, no matter what to avoid the possibility that they might be held accountable following a future change in government.
The next part of the entrenchment phase is to prevent, or nullify the results of, free and fair elections. We’ll see what happens in November but the US is already so far down the authoritarian path that I’m 95 per cent certain that Trump will do something extreme. I think nullification is most likely. My guess is some combination of USPS seizing and destroying postal ballots per a Trump executive order, ICE hanging around polling stations to do Kavanaugh stop arrests of people of the ‘wrong’ ethnicity (all they’ve got to do is keep them detained until after voting is closed) and federal seizures of uncounted ballots in Democratic areas.
Good grief that’s depressing. At least yesterday I was able to talk about football.
Bill: "But we should recall that Trump campaigned on mass deportation, and that we then elected him. We as a nation are responsible for what’s happened. We can never fully make up for the human cost of what has been done in our name. All we can do now is to act as quickly and unambiguously as possible to reject these policies, and to defeat decisively the spirit of indecency and inhumanity that lies behind them."
Indeed. But we also have to recognize that a third of the country is totally down with the "indecency and inhumanity" behind these acts. There is also a percentage of the country that is apathetic to this indecency and inhumanity. I think it's safe to say that Trump didn't change the character of the United States. He simply revealed what was below the surface in the United States. Decent people are haunted by that revelation. The problem is there's not enough of us.
And aside from the 1/3 that sanctioned Trump’s personal indecency and inhumanity, another 1/3 of the potential electorate sat out the 2024 election out of indifference or an inability to distinguish between the candidates. So, 2/3 of Americans brought this upon us and we will all eventually suffer the consequences.
Bingo.
Kim - which suggests we have enough of us if we can keep working to get more on the same page together. At least for some things?
I have been amazed at the number of highly educated people have no idea why I protest. My guess is that people like my cardiologist spend so much time at work between the office, hospital, and surgical center that when they do get to spend time with family they shut our the rest of the world.
That's a choice. My brother is a physician, and he has time to follow the news and to protest.
Yes, it is his choice. I do know my cardiologist rather well—he spends very long days with patients and surgeries in addition to keeping up with new techniques and treatments in his field. He’s frequently on call, but is no longer the cardiac trauma surgeon on call.
One actually told me they had to shut it out, because they thought the despair was bad for the patients.
Tim - luv ya brother but I'm not quite there yet on "The problem is there's not enough of us." For me that's a question... math problem isn't answered yet, I'm still factoring 🔣. I'm hoping & striving to push our answer toward the positive.
It's an observational statement, not an empirical statement, and all I have to back it up is the fact Trump's in the Oval. It was clear two summers ago that if Trump won, Miller would have carte blanche to implement an unaccountable deportation system. And yet Trump won the popular vote. If we were a decent country, Trump would have been blown out. And yet, here we are.
We are here because an ossified, politically weak Congress repeated.y failed or refused, over 20 years, to reform a broken immigration system. And that lack of courage can be traced to the alt-media loudmouths who instilled "fear of the other" into much of the population on a daily basis. Had the system been fixed, we likely would not be where we are. But this is what Limbaugh, et. al., wanted all along.
Everybody who rallied around Trump and committed to defending him obviously has a high tolerance for indecency - no matter how much effort is put into claiming that he's serving a righteous agenda.
Carol, not "high tolerance for indecency", "high approaching stratospheric desire for indecency" is IMHO more accurate.
Regarding ICE, no one believes anything they say (except perhaps the Fox new crowd).
They don't believe ICE, either. But they'd rather have ICE killing "the other" than have Democrats in charge.
And this the bigger problem going forward. If you can condone the cruelty and lawlessness of ICE because you have so much grievance over your life, then how do we bring you back into a citizenry that is looking to rebuild a functioning system that works for the good of all?
I don't believe you can bring them back because they reject the principles on which this country was founded. They don't believe all people were created equal. They don't believe in democracy.
That’s the neat part - you don’t.
Dir - dark but sadly the case for some. How many people does it take to change a lightbulb when the lightbulb doesn't want to change?
Unfortunately, you are right. So disheartening.
They just want “the other” killed, as far as I can see. Appalling.
The good Mr. Mullin is doing a great Kristi Noem impression. Can't way to see him sporting a cowboy hat with his new Mar-A-Lago face.
What @Tim Coffey said. After all, these are the same people who showed an empty field and insisted it was packed with fair visitors.
It’s all kayfabe, for the network and its cult — uh, viewers.
They, the Fox News crowd, love the cruelty, but think they can maintain plausible deniability. Didn’t one of Trumps lawyers once admit that no sane person would believe the stuff she had said about voter fraud.
“We as a nation are responsible for what’s happened. We can never fully make up for the human cost of what has been done in our name. All we can do now is to act as quickly and unambiguously as possible to reject these policies, and to defeat decisively the spirit of indecency and inhumanity that lies behind them.”
I couldn’t have said it better. I am sickened every day by what is being done in our name. I hope enough people are also sickened by it that in November they go out and vote for people who will try to impose some measure of accountability on this cruel and lawless administration.
As for the Mitch McConnell dead-or-alive drama, my wife - born and bred in Poland when it was under Soviet control - said it reminded her of when many people believed for months that Leonid Brezhnev's body was being propped up and driven around in a car. "It's just like Russia. You can't trust anything you hear or see."
They are Weekend-at-Bernie's-ing Mitch McConnell.
Hard to make this argument given Biden, circa 2024.
Garvin - old enough to remember the National Lampoon magazine recurring news photo joke "I'm still not dead yet" ? In my mind there was Khrushchev, Franco... maybe I was in similar state as their writers, it was 1970-ish 🤔☁️
Wait, so the Iranians who a week ago (according to Trump) were "not radicalized" and "actually quite nice" are now crazy scum ?
The long lasting consequence of this debacle is the words of the President of the United States no longer carry any weight. Trump's been all over the map with his public statements and social media posts, and none of it changes Iran's behavior. They're not afraid of Trump. In fact, I would argue they welcome the additional strikes because it keeps Trump trapped in a situation of his own making and they get to humiliate him over and over.
...and over and over until he just quits, brings his toys home and declares victory, which MAGA land will applaud because, after all, HE said it so it must be true.
Whatever fits the current mood of the speaker is what is said.
Thanks as always to Bill, whose writing gives me hope for the nation. And same for everyone here. True patriots, you guys give me faith that everything ahead won’t be all bad.
That's a mutual feelings. And, not just concerned & well-informed patriots, but also bright & engaging readers & commentators.
Thanks!
If only our elected officials who have the power to end this felt as we do!
It's time to throw out every incumbent who countenances this.
You mean anyone with an (R) attached to their name, right? I long for the days when that R could be read to stand for Responsible not Reprehensible.
No. Not "everything" will be *bad*, Kate. At least one good thing is bound to happen sooner or later, regardless of how it may seem right now: no one lives forever, not even Donald Trump.
I don't know. I always thought that "Faust" was fiction but I'm no longer sure.
America is an occupied country. Occupied by an authoritarian administration with it own violent, armed, masked private goon squad, state media, and rigged SC powered by white Christian Nationalist ethnic cleansing and dehumanizing most Americans.
But basically, all they’ve got the empty rhetoric of calling most Americans Communists, forgetting they are outnumbered by most Americans.
Meanwhile, they carry water for an *actual* socialist who happens to be POTUS.
Socialist is too polite of a word.
In the first Houston Chronicle story about the ICE shooting, the Chronicle included what has become a standard line in an article that references the local government, "The mayor’s office has not returned the Chronicle’s requests for comment since August."
You read that right. Houston's supposedly Democratic mayor has refused to answer any questions from Houston's principal newspaper for almost a year now. Mayor John Whitmire has also ordered HPD to cooperate with ICE. Under political pressure, the city council voted to reverse that decision, only to reverse their reversal after Gov. Greg Abbott threatened to starve the city of funding.
This isn't Minneapolis, folks.
"There’s something wrong with them, they’re coo-coo. As far as I’m concerned, it’s over. . . . They can talk, but I think they’re wasting their time. They’re a bunch of lying guys." Trump is simply incapable of understanding people who do something for reasons other than money. So they must be insane.
Re: "But we should recall that Trump campaigned on mass deportation, and that we then elected him."
Yes, yes we did. And anyone who thinks "the walls are closing in" doesn't know half the country. Couple of weeks ago, I had a very unpleasant interaction with a die hard Trump supporter and his wife. "He's a narcissistic asshole, but he's the best."
Last night, I was chatting with a friend about this-and-that. He mentioned he'd been to DC. He'd visited "the fair." "It was great. We went to the Department of Agriculture booth [he described the stuff they had there] and the Department of Energy booth was pretty good."
I changed the subject.
These people, they're not seeing what Bulwark-reading people are seeing. If they see something, um, not great, they just look past it to the great stuff they want to see. Their media diet helps that, but it's not good enough to just point to Fox News as the problem. "The fair was great." That guy was THERE. He saw it. He experienced it. He walked that mall and took away that impression. And this guy is not some mouth-breather. He's an intelligent, educated, professional person.
Unless the Democrats can somehow put up someone who sounds and acts like a normal frickin' person, the Trump-supporting population of this country will win again. They're not fighting us. They're affirmatively voting for their preferences. They like what Trump is delivering to them. They want more of it.
Yeah I’m stuck in hospital and my life is changing. I’m very thankful for family coming to see me but discouraged by talk of our wonderful president over my hospital bed. Mention mass deportation and their eyes glaze over as if they think ignoring what they did will make it disappear.
Sorry to hear of your trouble, Kate. Very best wishes for a good outcome.
Sorry to hear this, Kate. Please focus on healthful things! (Not easy with the current Awfulness, I know.). Hope you're not in pain or much discomfort. and glad you have family close by, even if they are MAGA.
You're one of my faves here. Here's wishing nothing but the best for a prompt and successful resolution!
Get better Kate. Here's hopes for a fast recovery.
Keep their eyes glazed over as laughter is the best medicine.
Oh Kate! Please know you're in my thought-prayers.
Sorry you're in hospital, Kate. Hope you get better soon!
Oh no! Get well soon. 🪻🌸🌺(since I can’t send any)
Sorry, Kate. Is TCM available?
OMG. So sorry about your misfortune. Kate, I always appreciate your comments and your support. Get well.
Be well Kate, I hope things improve for you.
Sending healing thoughts. Try to find something funny on tv or your phone. It'll pass the time and take your mind off of negative things.
So sorry to hear about this, Kate! I'm hoping for a quick and good outcome for you.
Kate - all the best for your recovery. Family are a blessing, as you no doubt are to them! Life IS change. We have adaptability built in. You have a big world of good vibes headed your way from Bulwarklandia 💙
Where is the body cam footage justifying the shooting of Mr Salgado. I thought ICE were supposed to be wearing body cams.
The fact that makes this shooting a travesty is the man was here for 35 years as a productive citizen working construction. Am I to believe every construction company he worked for was unaware he was undocumented? Funny how Stephen Miller isn't at all concerned with stopping illegal immigration at it's primary consumer source, as in the companies that hire them. This whole deportation campaign is an exercise in institutional racism. It's a crime against humanity on a par with the gutting of USAID.
This. There is data that indicates that nearly 40% of drywallers in Texas are undocumented. An effective, targeted effort to remove the "bad guys" from the country would begin there, with their employers. Names, current addresses, etc., all available from one source. I wonder why the press release didn't identify the employer. A Trump/Paxton Rep., perhaps?
They are all sociopaths, color doesn't matter. Immigrants, to them, are just nameless, faceless entities that they can use to their benefit, i.e., to gin up their base. No act too cruel, no act too senseless. That said, sadly, I question how much traction this issue has.
So let's look at the ICE case. Biden did this incredibly horrible thing by leaving Afghanistan so quickly, leaving it to fall into Taliban hands, leaving valuable equipment behind, and of course not protecting those who fought along side us. We have heard over and over again that this was an unconscionable act, an embarrassment etc. Fast forward. Now you have an Afghan that we did save (one of many) and now we arrest him and subsequently he dies. And Trump/MAGA thinks it is fine, because we are fighting supposedly illegal immigration. Pardon the righteous indignation about the withdrawal from Afghanistan. Pardon the, "we only target the worst of the worst". None of it is real. They never cared about the Afghan people or those who helped us. They just want to get rid of immigrants. All immigrants regardless.
None of the outrage towards Biden for not protecting our Afghan allies was real. GOP always planned to abandon them. Those of us Cassandra’s who pointed out the obvious were ignored yet again.
The mainstream media fell for the ruse and that's the only thing that matters.
Not true that they just want to target immigrants. They also want to have spurious attacks against Democrats.
One preliminary step...the Trump Administration negotiated the terms of the pull out.
Might I remind you who negotiated said withdrawal terms with the Taliban and then was not around to implement them? What was Biden supposed to do under the circumstances and what would have counted as a *successful* withdrawal.
RE: Laura Loomer tweeting that Mitch McConnell is brain dead...
Maybe. But just as likely it's as clear a case of projection as you're ever likely to find.
Loomer's comment isn't as crazy as it sounds. The odds of someone surviving out-of-hospital CPR neurologically intact are really low. (There are exceptions like people who drown in cold water, but that's not the case here.)
McConnell has likely sustained a significant brain injury. Whether he's in a vegetative state remains to be seen, but it's absolutely plausible.
Also, not to be too graphic, but McConnell is a frail, elderly person, so the paramedics likely broke multiple ribs while doing chest compressions. It would be quite painful for him to talk, even if he was neurologically intact. The idea that he had a 20 minute conversation with John Thune about politics a few days after being resuscitated is absurd.
I think the phone call is plausible. Here's my transcript:
Caller: 19.9 minute monolog on the topics in question.
McConnel: uh huh.
Summary: we had a great discussion!
That's probably exactly how it went!
Yeah, am aware of cardiac / brain damage implications of out-of-hospital CPR, which I did numerous times a lifetime ago when I was and Advanced EMT / paramedic.
Even an in-hospital infarction that results in sustained v-fib or asystole requiring CPR has an average survival rate of only about 20% or so and comes with all the attendant chances for brain damage that exist in OHCA, for which the survival rate is only about 10%.
McConnell just being alive in *whatever* kind of state at this point means that he beat some pretty steep odds. But that doesn't necessarily mean he was "lucky".
I do have my certification, but it's my understanding that CPR is much less useful than is commonly believed.
It depends very much on the cause of the cardiac arrest. For some, it is very useful! And for laypeople outside the hospital, the cause of an arrest is usually unknowable or known to be one of the responsive types (e.g. witnessed drug overdose), so I think it’s good to default to trying CPR.
Where we go wrong is inside hospitals or in situations where the person’s medical history is clear enough that professionals can discern the cause of the arrest is one unlikely to respond to CPR, and we do it anyway. That rapidly became a standard of care that’s very hard to find a way out of culturally.
CPR alone is virtually useless, but with the advent of automatic defibrillators, the chances are better that you can get the heart beating again. Unfortunately, our brains do not tolerate being deprived of oxygen for any length of time. So, if the person is not immediately resuscitated, they're likely going to have some degree of brain injury.
Drowning in cold water is somewhat neuroprotective because it slows the body's metabolism (reducing oxygen consumption), which gives the brain a little more time.
I might describe it as being less "effective" as opposed to less "useful", but I get what you mean and yeah, I think most people are unaware of the actual statistics I cited about survival rates and circumstances, thinking them to be much higher... probably due in at least some part to all the successful "resuscitations" they see on TV and in movies, which the majority of the time reflect nothing with much acccuray about what *actually* transpires in real-life during cardiac arrest cases.
Amen. She's a trip and a half who frequently writes during narcoleptic episodes.
From his remarks overnight:
"To me, I think it’s over. I don’t want to deal with them anymore. They’re scum. You know what scum is? They’re scum. They’re sick people. They’re led by sick people. And they’re vicious, violent people. And if they had a nuclear weapon, they’d use it. As far as I’m concerned, it’s over. I’ll speak to our negotiators. They want to negotiate. They’re good people. Steve Witkoff. Jared Kushner. But they have to come back to me. As far as I’m concerned, it’s just a waste of time dealing with them. . . . There’s something wrong with them, they’re coo-coo. As far as I’m concerned, it’s over. . . . They can talk, but I think they’re wasting their time. They’re a bunch of lying guys."
So much projection. So little time.
"But we should recall that Trump campaigned on mass deportation, and that we then elected him. We as a nation are responsible for what’s happened. We can never fully make up for the human cost of what has been done in our name."
That's the thing. We can regret the deaths. People can say they didn't vote for ICE to kill people, just to deport them. We hear about Paktiawal and Aroujo because ICE killed them, and maybe that's not what a lot of immigration-enforcement focused voters voted for. But, these sorts of tragedies were always foreseeable before the election, and even if these two weren't killed, all those voters absolutely voted for Afghan allies, people who worked here for 35 years, and hundreds of thousands of others just like them, to be deported.
Some Trump voters may regret the deaths, maybe, but they still voted for a reckless, hideous, and iniquitous deportation regime, where the people who lay low and support this entire country and our way of life are ungraciously rounded up and tossed out like unsightly trash littering the highway. And it's going to be really hard for me to ever forgive my country for what we have become, in an age of social media, stupidity, and mean cruelty. And to even begin to forgive, we first must start on a path to become better people, and I have no reason to expect that will happen.
Very predictable from a president who asked in his first term if they could be shot in various parts of their anatomy as they tried to enter the U.S.
Agreed. And this doesn't have to continue. Congress could stop it, but they don't want to because, apparently, they believe this is what their constituents want. Or they don't care what their constituents want. Probably some of both.
KN - also, they won't disagree with Trump in public because they're afraid of him... unlike, say, Iran, Putin, E. Jean Carroll... a long & varied list with very different motivations but plenty proof he's not that big a deal when you stand up to him