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.
Exactly. And when they discover in a few years when Trump's gone, that there are mass graves, I don't want to hear that we didn't know. Maybe Democrats should focus on real horrific abuse taking place right now in their name. I wouldn't be surprised if lots of helpless girls aren't being sexually abused by guards and ICE agents. These are not good people.
And why isn't this being talked about by Democrats in every news outlet.
After WW2, the Germans claimed they didn't know about the death camps, and they were called liars. How many people here can state with certainty, that we are not running death camps?
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?
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...
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.
It is a salesman's tactic. Repetition of three times makes for easier remembering. DJT takes it to an all new level by repeating the same thing year after year after year.
True, but it also is the reason we learned our multiplication tables, at least we who were educated before adding machines in miniature form became ubiquitous.
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”.
Very true. Looked into this after the Goode shooting. Every law enforcement official who opined on the Goode shooting said that shooting the driver not only fails to stop the vehicle, but causes it to careen out of control because no one is steering it, and frequently causes the car to speed up because the loss of muscle control causes the dead driver to floor the pedal.
Just once, I would like to see in a news story, “It is unclear why the vehicle did not continue on its alleged trajectory and strike the officer once the driver was deceased and unable to steer or brake.”
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.
This is so true. Bob Dylan wrote a song about it The Story of The Hurricane, a boxer who was “ no gentleman Jim” who got framed for a murder in a bar. This and Masters of War. Both songs written long ago, the stories the same. Being black in the USA and the war machine.
With the help of internet obfuscation. When I read about the "Beast" in The Book of Revelation, it seems obvious to me that it is describing the internet - it's tentacles are everywhere spreading lies and misinformation to the masses.
As long as the victim was in a vehicle (or even just near one), they are always going to go with the "weaponized vehicle" story. They went with it again when that 1-year-old baby was shot and killed by police at a Texas Walmart. They claimed the baby's mother "aimed her car" at the officer. She hadn't committed any crime and others said she was actually driving away, but any excuse to open fire I guess.
I read somewhere that ICE agents also stand in front of cars way too often, and that no police force ever encourages their officers to do this except maybe for a mass murderer. You let them drive off, maybe shoot the tires, or more likely just catch them down the road. It seems that they are creating this situation. Disclaimer: I am not a cop and am repeating an article from somewhere
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.
There have been reports about the possibility kicking around since at least early June. Trump has also been musing about it for a while on the basis that he controls USPS and can order it to do whatever he wants. Unitary executive theory in action.
So they’re definitely thinking about using the USPS to mess with postal votes. It’s why I think that’s one of the likely methods they’ll use to rig the elections whatever the courts say. If they’re forced to deliver the ballots to voters then they’ll do something more extreme when those ballots are posted back. Once ballots have been destroyed there’s no remedy a court can provide to reverse that short of ordering a redo of the elections. I doubt this SCOTUS would let an order like that stand.
Here in CA, we have drop boxes for ballots. I hope everyone will do that instead of trusting the USPS. I am not sure if they have them in all other states, but I hope so.
Many Red-Hat states limit the total amount of boxes allowed in the state. Many toady Red-Hat counties have only one drop-box at the Board of Elections office, inside, with "hours of operation".
This includes very large populated counties in Texas (i.e. Travis, Dallas etc.) as well as other Neo-Confederate State blue-cities. Same game, slight variations.
Trump has criticised drop boxes on numerous occasions and they’re a bit of an obsession on the far right as a supposed conduit for fraudulent votes. There was that bullshit 2,000 Mules ‘documentary’ about the supposed use of them to dump illegal ballots in the 2020 election by that idiot D’Souza in conjunction with the ‘True the Vote’ (I really hate the amount of scare quotes I have to use when talking about people like these) non-profit.
I don’t know how often they’re emptied but I could see Trump ordering feds to guard them, checking IDs of anyone dropping off votes and preventing collection with the ultimate goal being to seize them in the name of ‘election integrity’ (more damn scare quotes). They’re killing civilians in the streets and lord knows how many more in the detention centres. The Rubicon has been well and truly crossed.
The planning has been going on for decades. People have been being compromised for decades leading up to this point. Black op CIA operations have been programming the populace for decades. How else can you explain the total capitulation of the Republicans in Congress? How can you explain why thousands of people answered Trump's call to DC on January 6th? How can you explain the evil of ICE? And how can you explain why a huge portion of America turns their hearts and eyes away from the obvious truth? The only solace I have is that they chose a total moron as their useful idiot - one who has no loyalty to anyone but himself. People who have been involved and come forth as whistleblowers are the only hope we have.
Populations don’t need to be programmed for things like this to happen and I’m sceptical the CIA have the competence or capacity to do anything like that. The idea that they’ve been doing this secretly for decades even under Democratic administrations is closer to conspiracy theory than I’m comfortable with. There’s also an element of special pleading “it didn’t work on me but only because I’m smarter than the other sheep” with these types of arguments which I’m not keen on.
In any event it’s doubtful populations even can be programmed and controlled in that way. A lot of governments, corporations and wealthy individuals have tried, but the numerous studies and experiments they’ve sponsored have shown that propaganda only works when it’s telling people something they want to be true. The usual solution is to force them to at least pretend they believe it or it’s off to the camps or a bullet to the back of the head.
So in a way I think what’s happening in America, like other nations that went totalitarian, is worse. It’s organic. A lot of individuals - including the fascists and other species of authoritarian who are present in all societies biding their time and hoping that an opportunity arises - reacting to circumstances and incentives in ways that are rational to them given their odious goals. Large numbers of American believe the far right drivel they’re served online, by talk radio and on cable news because they want it to be true. That makes it a cultural issue. It’s too big for any intelligence agency to be responsible for.
The Republicans capitulated because, like the conservatives in Weimar Germany, they worked themselves up into a frenzy about ‘the left’ (which they treat as a homogenous bloc lumping moderate social democrats in with the lunatic fringe) and the existential dangers they supposedly posed (Flight 93 Election and all that). They convinced themselves that anything was better than ’the left’. Hitler for the German conservatives; Trump for the Republicans. Each group comforting themselves with the thought that they’d be able to stop things before they went whatever they personally defined as ‘too far’. Until they found they couldn’t (if they still wanted to - a lot of initially cynical enablers become true believers over time to resolve the cognitive dissonance). In Nazi Germany because Hitler had no problem having his supposed allies murdered or jailed if they annoyed him too much (while the Night of the Long Knives is popularly best known for the eradication of the Röhm faction a lot of mainstream conservatives were also killed or arrested). In America because of a combination of gerrymandered districts and the primary system that enables Trump to dispose of Republicans who are insufficiently loyal.
People look away because that’s what people do. It’s easier and safer. That’s what the Niemöller poem is about.
ICE is possible because some people are just bad. No government anywhere at any point in history has ever had trouble recruiting thugs willing to engage in state sanctioned violence and murder. The SS and NKVD had far more applicants than they needed.
The circumstances in the US are very similar to those in late Imperial Russia and Weimar Germany. All great powers that lost in humiliating fashion one or more wars they fully expected to win easily in the 10 to 15 years before going totalitarian (respectively the Afghanistan and - perhaps more a Pyrrhic victory - Iraq Wars; WW1; and the Russia-Japan War of 1904-5), expending a great deal blood and treasure in the process.
This shook those countries to their cores and made their people start questioning the purpose and fitness of their form of government. The wars also created a class of radicalised veterans - by no means all, or even a majority, of them but not zero - angry about the loss and the realisation that everything they and their comrades had gone through was for nothing. They were happy to radicalise those too young to have fought but who were aggrieved by the loss and its impact on their future. Then the socio-economic dung keep (with apologies to Terry Pratchett) churns out a charismatic leader around whom they can coalesce and seek political power at a time when the general population thinks some radical change is needed (even if they disagree on what) and are looking for something new.
Russia might seem the odd one out here as it had a communist rather than fascist revolution. I’d point out that, before Nicholas II decided to try redeeming the Japan War by starting WW1 opening up different possibilities, it was sliding into fascism (the Black Hundreds and similar groups and the way the Whites behaved in areas they occupied during the Civil War). Also I doubt the bodycount would have differed much even if the identity of the victims might have (the Jews were out of luck either way). It ended up at least as totalitarian as Nazi Germany
Also I shouldn’t really be talking about America in the past tense. The Trump regime has not yet completed the entrenchment phase. It could still fail. We’ll know by the end of the year if they’ve managed to prevent a free and fair election. Then they’ll need to start ignoring and/or nullifying the courts to complete it.
My point, after going on far longer than I initially intended, is that an authoritarian tending towards totalitarian takeover doesn’t need decades of planning. It can happen in a generation or less. It just needs the right circumstances. There are always people who know how to effect an authoritarian coup and waiting to take advantage when those circumstances arise.
I could go on about the eerie parallels between the current US and late Imperial Russia but I have definitely gone on too long.
They chose the total moron because he was the only one among them charismatic enough to gain a massive personality cult, while also being morally bankrupt enough to go all-in on authoritarianism. His cult following is why they can't afford to lose him until they've completed their authoritarian takeover.
DHS/ICE claiming that they had to murder someone in "self-defense" because they were about to be runover by the assailant's car is too cute on the nose seeing as almost every ICE shooting story has come with the justification of ICE agents were about to be run over with a car.
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.
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.
Karl - I remember back to Pat Buchanan’s presidential fantasies, he was proto-Stephen Miller. Of course our messy relationship with immigrants dates waaay back. Like the Klan, the issue becomes more intense and fades periodically. Always on simmer somewhere tho
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.
I often say that if people who are "too busy" would simply listen to NPR on their commute, or while doing errands, et. they would be fairly well informed. NPR goes out of their way-to a fault, imo, to 'both sides' every issue, but at least they inform. I know people who voted for the rap*st and watch a bit of Fox, but are otherwise tuned out. They only listen to music in the car and watch sports. Nearly all of their social circle, including family are magae, and they apathetically go along. There really is no excuse to be completely uninformed about the world we live in. It is a huge problem for a healthy society.
This is so true. My ex husband was hippie like, I’ve known him since HS years. Started to listen to talk radio. I would beg him to listen to NPR half the time. Well he eventually joined the tea party which is ironic because he relies heavily on the social security net . I do to but pay for insurance. We each have an adult son and they’re girlfriends living with us to assist in what we can’t do. My son ( I don’t have contact with my ex unless about our sons) said he is semi maga , talk radio did him in . Maybe now it’s more tv. Fox News.
Medicine, especially the more specialized you get, can turn into a bubble. And the more specialized the field, the more it tends to attract the same kinds of personalities and then people spend long hours interacting with people who are so similar to them. Cardiothoracic surgery was my first clinical rotation in medical school and I was madly in love with it (it's so, so cool) but I felt like I didn't have the stamina physically or gumption personality-wise to spend all day cutting into peoples thoracic cavities.
So then the field fills up with burly men who are great at hyper-focusing on one thing at a time and have no qualms about sawing through rib cases and sternums. That's not an insult, I loved every single person I worked with on the rotation.
I have ended up being a generalist's generalist: Public health. I feel stupid most of the time, frankly, because I field is impossibly broad.
Personally, I’m happy that he is open to newer technologies and procedures. He’s thorough before implanting my pacemaker using a newer procedure he discovered that I also had issues with high pressure in my pulmonary artery.
Absolutely! (My mother went through all of this recently, so I get where you're coming from.) That said, there are a lot of Americans that are choosing to look elsewhere entirely (effectively sticking their fingers in their ears), simply because they want to avoid the cognitive dissonance of our current times. That works for a while, maybe even a long while (money helps here), but eventually everyone's going to have to confront it one way or another.
And it doesn't help that the mainstream media isn't constantly calling out the Trump Administration's criminal behavior. Someone who is only reading or viewing the mainstream media is probably under the impression that the ICE outrages stopped after Alex Pretti's shooting.
I’m able to follow some of the news because I have a great support network. Not only do I have my Bulwark family, but I have my Indivisible friends. Tonight I’m attending a meet ‘n greet with the Democratic candidate for county sheriff. Tomorrow I’m putting literature packets together, followed by my weekly protest. I have met lots of like-minded individuals.
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.
He barely won the popular vote and it was below 50% of those who voted. He is hated by the majority but with the ridiculous Electoral College only a few states determine the fate of our Nation. Job 1 in making our elections more fair is to abolish that monstrosity!
Tim - for sure not enough showed up. Question now seems to be whether enough have given up. Future’s unwritten… that dang Lennon lyric still stuck in my head these 55 years
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.
It is conventional wisdom( actually a good one) that Presidential elections are a rebuke of the previous president. The best example is when Jimmy Carter promised, "I will never lie to you". So in 2028, expect much the same from the Democratic President. (whether it is Buttigieg, Ossoff, Kelly, Shapiro or Beshear)
Dave Yell - ahhh, but liar’s paradox? Or according to DEVO : "The next thing I say to you will be true. The last thing I said was false. Remember to do nothing when you don't know what to do."
Tim, as long as it's black and brown people being killed, that apathy will remain. The administration got the message that killing white folks, even "objectionable ones", wouldn't fly. It was too easy for the low information folks to recognize the possible threat to themselves.
Don’t forget the disturbingly large percentage of the population that is not just apathetic but that actively cheers on the brutal treatment of immigrants.
there are enough of us. the majority of the country is disgusted.
one big problem is that the 'kids' in their twenties and thirties that i know believe in the ideals, but not in the country anymore.
they don't believe in capitalism the way we practice it, they don't believe in the government or either party, and they don't believe we handed them the planet in such wretched shape. they show up in pundit patter as 'apathetic' or 'undecided' or such like.
they are passionately cynical about us, and the whole catastrophe.
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.
It is a numbers game, and even with the built-in inequities of the electoral college, these autocratic grievance merchants are the minority. I think it comes down to engaging the couch potatoes. I’m also heartened that there are always new 18 yr olds, tho it’s gotta be challenging for this current crop to viscerally understand an Obama presidency when they were 1 yr olds when he was first elected.
They don't really believe it, Frau. But they say they do to give themselves cover, and to avoid looking at their own complicity in enabling the rise of an authoritarian government.
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.
I speak here of what I see with my own MAGA parents—it’s not that they are happy about the cruelty, bc I truly believe that they don’t *want* people to suffer. The thing is they don’t *believe* it’s really happening. They really do believe that ICE is arresting violent criminals who are actively trying to take out ICE officers. They really do believe that if these people were not guilty of a crime, they would just let ICE do their job. It is instilled in them SO deeply that they think that *I* am the deluded one. They insist I’m the one getting biased takes, that I’m hopelessly naive, that I care more about immigrants than Americans. Call it willful ignorance if you like. But I watched them become slowly inculcated by conservative talk radio and Fox News for decades, and I’ve seen how they have completely convinced themselves they are not the ones being lied to. I cannot explain in words how frustrating it is to see your whole family fall for the lies and not be able to break that spell—whether I talk calmly and rationally, whether I snap and say mean things, or whether I break down crying. My family is otherwise sane, caring people, but they have allowed themselves to be poisoned by right wing media. It’s really amazing in a perverse way to watch how they deal with the cognitive dissonance.
I think we all have friends and family that have fallen under the FOX spell. Usually good, decent, even smart people who have been totally brainwashed. FOX is the most brilliant idea corrupt entities ever devised. It should be abolished. There should be much stricter laws about "news" organizations and politicians who tell political lies to America, with harsh punishments.
I didn’t mean to imply they were all cruel. What’s particularly jarring is the people whose parents or grandparents were immigrants who used to talk about what a bad time they had
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."
I want to know how long he was in cardiac arrest. Did he get any CPR at home and how quickly did it start? Within 4 to 6 minutes of cardiac arrest, there is enough brain/neuronal death occurring that some permanent brain damage is likely. I cared for patients with anoxic brain injuries. Those who survived were completely changed, from a brain function perspective.
Biden was never in a vegetative state! He never had a cardiac arrest, never had CPR performed on him, never spent time in a hospital bed! Yes, he slowed down and had a hard time keeping up with his daily schedule, and yes, we should have been told more about that. But for God’s sake—we need to stop saying “oh but Biden!” every f’ing time the Republicans are doing something *blatantly* wrong! We CAN point it out, because it’s happening *right now*. “Oh, but the emails! Oh, but the laptop!” If Republicans don’t have any better arguments to support their decisions, then they will continue to look like a parade of fools admiring their Emperor’s lack of clothing
The argument by commenters is McConnell is incompetent and that they are hiding it. To allow him to continue serving and misrepresent his condition is "blatantly" wrong. How is that different from Biden? "Yes, he slowed down and had a hard time keeping up with his daily schedule". Pretty charitable description of the confused, open-mouthed debater we all watched. Some might say that description of him is dishonest. Worse, his condition, and his handler's decision to allow him to run in the first place and continue after the debate was a significant contributor to four more years of DJT. Causative of Iran, causative of detention facilities, causative of a government that serves a few rather than many, causative of irreparable damage to our environment. I agree that "whataboutism" runs rampant on the right. It is, sometimes, an accurate response to hypocritical comment. The complete lack of self-critique, however, is uniquely a feature on the left. We are not always right. the sooner we understand that the better. Now, go ahead, set me straight.
I remember when that happened. I was stationed in England and when it was announced that Andropov took power we went on full alert. Full as in nukes too. Of course the conversations in the pub were about how long that Ol' Leo was dead before his successor was announced. Many did believe that months had passed.
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 🤔☁️
“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.
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.
It’s batshit insane that Congress refuses to exert any power over this war. Trump has no idea what he’s doing and Hegseth is a little boy, full of bluster and war movie cliches.
Answer to my question about this from Google AI this morning: "President Donald Trump has frequently attempted to portray the current Iranian leadership as 'very rational' and 'not radicalized' individuals to sell U.S.-Iran diplomatic efforts to the American public. In various remarks, he characterized the current figures in Tehran as 'reasonable people' who are 'smart' and focused on helping their nation. Trump went as far as claiming that regime change had been successfully completed in Iran, stating that the current third regime is vastly different from previous administrations." I imagine he said this last May in order to manipulate the markets and try to convince people that his bumbling real estate speculators, unsuccessfully trying to pass themselves off as "international negotiators," were making some progress at the time. But that was all just a fabricated smoke screen to cover the fact that they hadn't agreed on ANYTHING. So, yes, this very same regime are now "scum" and "sick.... vicious... violent people," according to Trump's diatribe yesterday. If he would only rely on expert diplomats who know the history and temperament of the people they are dealing with (as Obama did), we might have seen some actual progress. Instead, here we are again waiting for gas prices to rise anew as chaos reigns in the Middle East - thanks ENTIRELY to Donald J. Trump and his feckless whims. Looking for a relevant cultural reference I am divided between these two Scottish gems... "Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right" (Stealers Wheel folk band) or "Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive" from Sir Walter Scott. Since Trump's entire life has been based on lies, lies, and more lies, I guess I will go with Sir Walter Scott today, although the first quote also accurately describes this entire fiasco of a presidency.
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.
Schumer should have been thrown out of his leadership position decades ago. The corporate Democrats must share responsibility for their cowardice, and for putting their self-interest and greed above their oaths and the American people.
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.
It won't. Ridding ourselves of the damage and malign effects of 'Trumpism' will take a long, long time. But re Trump's eventual and inevitable demise: a bird in the hand, so to speak. :-)
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.
Houston and Harris County are often characterized as "blue," but in reality they are at best a bluish shade of purple. In general, I think that's an OK thing - I don't think the very-blue cities / counties of Dallas / Dallas, Austin / Travis, and San Antonio / Bexar are necessarily good examples to follow.
That said, Houston city government (and sometimes the Harris County government) can be a real clown show at times. And electing long-time Texas state legislators, who have never run large organizations (Houston doesn't have a city manager, so the mayor is very much the CEO), as mayors is unquestionably a bad idea - it guarantees incompetence, cravenness, and corruption - we all know the Texas state legislature thrives on corruption, especially among legislators who stick around a long time. (Definitely the previous mayor and probably the current one are examples.)
I could go on, but will end with the fact that both the leading candidates for mayor in the last election were in their 70s and neither had applicable executive experience, while Houston is known as one of America's younger large cities. Pathetic.
Well, the Houston mayor just said there will be no local investigation into the shooting. Surely there's a happy medium between defund the police and whatever the fudge John Whitmire is doing.
You'd think so. He's being totally irresponsible on this. But I've heard there's a small group of wealthy old white guys who tell him what to do (just a rumor, but, believable). And the city's finances have been in such terrible shape that any risk of losing any $ from the state or feds puts huge (and unfair) pressure on local officials, especially one like Whitmire who's trying to show he's making progress on the issue while not cutting public safety.
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.
"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.
And can you imagine any other world leader calling someone coo-coo during a world summit?? It is beyond embarrassing to know we are being represented by an utter moron
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.
These long time residents who aren’t citizens seem to be an inferior caste. You can kill them and apparently that’s not a problem. (Watching from Canada).
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 💙
I think what they mean is: I voted for mass deportations because I’m a white nationalist. I’ll overlook lots to get that. The fair wasn’t impressive? In the grand scheme of things, who cares? The important thing is the deportations.
They would never say they're White Nationalists and if you called them that, they'd be offended. "Look, Biden and every other President before Trump let millions of people int this country without making any attempt to know who they were, where they were, what they were doing or what they'd done in the past. Nothing. Trump's the first guy who's even tried to do anything."
Now, that's not true. Obama deported lots of people, but he did it in accordance with the law and he did it quietly. But truth doesn't really matter to these people. They want the show.
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.
After Trump's terrible deal and the Taliban land gains over the year and a half prior, Biden would have send ground troops. Americans had no appetite for that, and granted we were fragile and recovering from an attempted coup. Personally I think we could have done a North/South partition like Korea or Vietnam but I'm probably overoptimistic, that would have likely required ground troops too just maybe less.
"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
Not only do they, and by they I mean Republicans, refuse to stop it, but they were willing to shut down the government for weeks over throwing tens of billions of dollars more into ICE and CBP's already way over-inflated budget, even after the killings in Minnesota. It's unconscionable.
Counting the days until the midterms at this point. ICE, sadly, cannot be stopped until we get a change in administration in '29, but a check from the House (and maybe the Senate) would at least slow them.
Accountability will be tough, however, since 47 was gifted SCOTUS's get-out-of-jail-free card and his commitment to pardoning anyone within whatever size bubble around the Oval as he imagines on any given day.
Reform is needed badly. SCOTUS needs guardrails they don't control, including substantial changes to its membership. That will take time, grit, and ugly, ugly politicking to achieve.
Until then, we cannot forget the Salgados, the Paktiawals, the Goods, or the Prettis mowed down by the Reich currently cosplaying governance.
"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."
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.
It is. But for those who wonder what they would have done in 1939 in Germany, you are finding out now.
Exactly. And when they discover in a few years when Trump's gone, that there are mass graves, I don't want to hear that we didn't know. Maybe Democrats should focus on real horrific abuse taking place right now in their name. I wouldn't be surprised if lots of helpless girls aren't being sexually abused by guards and ICE agents. These are not good people.
And why isn't this being talked about by Democrats in every news outlet.
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…
Many from lack of their live-sustaining medications.
Without a doubt
Was about to say the same thing.
After WW2, the Germans claimed they didn't know about the death camps, and they were called liars. How many people here can state with certainty, that we are not running death camps?
Absolutely. Really your only chance is to run and hide. Small chances, but wow the outcomes of going with them are so bad.
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?
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...
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.
It is a salesman's tactic. Repetition of three times makes for easier remembering. DJT takes it to an all new level by repeating the same thing year after year after year.
True, but it also is the reason we learned our multiplication tables, at least we who were educated before adding machines in miniature form became ubiquitous.
I wish the Dems would learn this lesson - keep repeating the truth over and over and over again to play defense against Trump/Republican lies.
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”.
Very true. Looked into this after the Goode shooting. Every law enforcement official who opined on the Goode shooting said that shooting the driver not only fails to stop the vehicle, but causes it to careen out of control because no one is steering it, and frequently causes the car to speed up because the loss of muscle control causes the dead driver to floor the pedal.
Just once, I would like to see in a news story, “It is unclear why the vehicle did not continue on its alleged trajectory and strike the officer once the driver was deceased and unable to steer or brake.”
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.
True but now they have carte blanche.
Here in Mn we have two great examples of this: George Floyd and Philando Castillo.
This is so true. Bob Dylan wrote a song about it The Story of The Hurricane, a boxer who was “ no gentleman Jim” who got framed for a murder in a bar. This and Masters of War. Both songs written long ago, the stories the same. Being black in the USA and the war machine.
37- 38 % still support this.
With the help of internet obfuscation. When I read about the "Beast" in The Book of Revelation, it seems obvious to me that it is describing the internet - it's tentacles are everywhere spreading lies and misinformation to the masses.
As long as the victim was in a vehicle (or even just near one), they are always going to go with the "weaponized vehicle" story. They went with it again when that 1-year-old baby was shot and killed by police at a Texas Walmart. They claimed the baby's mother "aimed her car" at the officer. She hadn't committed any crime and others said she was actually driving away, but any excuse to open fire I guess.
Because it plays with the base.
I read somewhere that ICE agents also stand in front of cars way too often, and that no police force ever encourages their officers to do this except maybe for a mass murderer. You let them drive off, maybe shoot the tires, or more likely just catch them down the road. It seems that they are creating this situation. Disclaimer: I am not a cop and am repeating an article from somewhere
They’re going with “weaponized car” because their base will believe it.
Yeah. Zero credibility. And minus-zero accountability.
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.
Didn't I see a headline something like "USPS will not deliver mail-in ballots in states that haven't turned over their voter rolls to the feds"??
Almost certainly.
There have been reports about the possibility kicking around since at least early June. Trump has also been musing about it for a while on the basis that he controls USPS and can order it to do whatever he wants. Unitary executive theory in action.
On 24 June the Postmaster General told a Senate committee that a proposed new rule would have that effect (see e.g. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/watch-under-proposed-rule-usps-wont-deliver-mail-ballots-to-states-that-dont-provide-voter-rolls-postmaster-general-says). I understand it’s being litigated and lower courts have blocked it so far.
So they’re definitely thinking about using the USPS to mess with postal votes. It’s why I think that’s one of the likely methods they’ll use to rig the elections whatever the courts say. If they’re forced to deliver the ballots to voters then they’ll do something more extreme when those ballots are posted back. Once ballots have been destroyed there’s no remedy a court can provide to reverse that short of ordering a redo of the elections. I doubt this SCOTUS would let an order like that stand.
Here in CA, we have drop boxes for ballots. I hope everyone will do that instead of trusting the USPS. I am not sure if they have them in all other states, but I hope so.
Do you remember when a couple of those were set on fire last cycle? Hope states are coming up with a solution for that vile insanity.
Yes, I do remember. I think I remembered that after that, they installed cameras?
Many Red-Hat states limit the total amount of boxes allowed in the state. Many toady Red-Hat counties have only one drop-box at the Board of Elections office, inside, with "hours of operation".
This includes very large populated counties in Texas (i.e. Travis, Dallas etc.) as well as other Neo-Confederate State blue-cities. Same game, slight variations.
Trump has criticised drop boxes on numerous occasions and they’re a bit of an obsession on the far right as a supposed conduit for fraudulent votes. There was that bullshit 2,000 Mules ‘documentary’ about the supposed use of them to dump illegal ballots in the 2020 election by that idiot D’Souza in conjunction with the ‘True the Vote’ (I really hate the amount of scare quotes I have to use when talking about people like these) non-profit.
I don’t know how often they’re emptied but I could see Trump ordering feds to guard them, checking IDs of anyone dropping off votes and preventing collection with the ultimate goal being to seize them in the name of ‘election integrity’ (more damn scare quotes). They’re killing civilians in the streets and lord knows how many more in the detention centres. The Rubicon has been well and truly crossed.
Edit: autocorrect error.
They are emptied every night. With 2 people, monitored by gps.
A fork lift is needed when they want to move those things.
Oh boy...
For that reason I will go to vote early.
The planning has been going on for decades. People have been being compromised for decades leading up to this point. Black op CIA operations have been programming the populace for decades. How else can you explain the total capitulation of the Republicans in Congress? How can you explain why thousands of people answered Trump's call to DC on January 6th? How can you explain the evil of ICE? And how can you explain why a huge portion of America turns their hearts and eyes away from the obvious truth? The only solace I have is that they chose a total moron as their useful idiot - one who has no loyalty to anyone but himself. People who have been involved and come forth as whistleblowers are the only hope we have.
Populations don’t need to be programmed for things like this to happen and I’m sceptical the CIA have the competence or capacity to do anything like that. The idea that they’ve been doing this secretly for decades even under Democratic administrations is closer to conspiracy theory than I’m comfortable with. There’s also an element of special pleading “it didn’t work on me but only because I’m smarter than the other sheep” with these types of arguments which I’m not keen on.
In any event it’s doubtful populations even can be programmed and controlled in that way. A lot of governments, corporations and wealthy individuals have tried, but the numerous studies and experiments they’ve sponsored have shown that propaganda only works when it’s telling people something they want to be true. The usual solution is to force them to at least pretend they believe it or it’s off to the camps or a bullet to the back of the head.
So in a way I think what’s happening in America, like other nations that went totalitarian, is worse. It’s organic. A lot of individuals - including the fascists and other species of authoritarian who are present in all societies biding their time and hoping that an opportunity arises - reacting to circumstances and incentives in ways that are rational to them given their odious goals. Large numbers of American believe the far right drivel they’re served online, by talk radio and on cable news because they want it to be true. That makes it a cultural issue. It’s too big for any intelligence agency to be responsible for.
The Republicans capitulated because, like the conservatives in Weimar Germany, they worked themselves up into a frenzy about ‘the left’ (which they treat as a homogenous bloc lumping moderate social democrats in with the lunatic fringe) and the existential dangers they supposedly posed (Flight 93 Election and all that). They convinced themselves that anything was better than ’the left’. Hitler for the German conservatives; Trump for the Republicans. Each group comforting themselves with the thought that they’d be able to stop things before they went whatever they personally defined as ‘too far’. Until they found they couldn’t (if they still wanted to - a lot of initially cynical enablers become true believers over time to resolve the cognitive dissonance). In Nazi Germany because Hitler had no problem having his supposed allies murdered or jailed if they annoyed him too much (while the Night of the Long Knives is popularly best known for the eradication of the Röhm faction a lot of mainstream conservatives were also killed or arrested). In America because of a combination of gerrymandered districts and the primary system that enables Trump to dispose of Republicans who are insufficiently loyal.
People look away because that’s what people do. It’s easier and safer. That’s what the Niemöller poem is about.
ICE is possible because some people are just bad. No government anywhere at any point in history has ever had trouble recruiting thugs willing to engage in state sanctioned violence and murder. The SS and NKVD had far more applicants than they needed.
The circumstances in the US are very similar to those in late Imperial Russia and Weimar Germany. All great powers that lost in humiliating fashion one or more wars they fully expected to win easily in the 10 to 15 years before going totalitarian (respectively the Afghanistan and - perhaps more a Pyrrhic victory - Iraq Wars; WW1; and the Russia-Japan War of 1904-5), expending a great deal blood and treasure in the process.
This shook those countries to their cores and made their people start questioning the purpose and fitness of their form of government. The wars also created a class of radicalised veterans - by no means all, or even a majority, of them but not zero - angry about the loss and the realisation that everything they and their comrades had gone through was for nothing. They were happy to radicalise those too young to have fought but who were aggrieved by the loss and its impact on their future. Then the socio-economic dung keep (with apologies to Terry Pratchett) churns out a charismatic leader around whom they can coalesce and seek political power at a time when the general population thinks some radical change is needed (even if they disagree on what) and are looking for something new.
Russia might seem the odd one out here as it had a communist rather than fascist revolution. I’d point out that, before Nicholas II decided to try redeeming the Japan War by starting WW1 opening up different possibilities, it was sliding into fascism (the Black Hundreds and similar groups and the way the Whites behaved in areas they occupied during the Civil War). Also I doubt the bodycount would have differed much even if the identity of the victims might have (the Jews were out of luck either way). It ended up at least as totalitarian as Nazi Germany
Also I shouldn’t really be talking about America in the past tense. The Trump regime has not yet completed the entrenchment phase. It could still fail. We’ll know by the end of the year if they’ve managed to prevent a free and fair election. Then they’ll need to start ignoring and/or nullifying the courts to complete it.
My point, after going on far longer than I initially intended, is that an authoritarian tending towards totalitarian takeover doesn’t need decades of planning. It can happen in a generation or less. It just needs the right circumstances. There are always people who know how to effect an authoritarian coup and waiting to take advantage when those circumstances arise.
I could go on about the eerie parallels between the current US and late Imperial Russia but I have definitely gone on too long.
Bigotry, misogyny, homophobia, greed and thirst for power are all the words that are needed.
Heh. True enough.
They chose the total moron because he was the only one among them charismatic enough to gain a massive personality cult, while also being morally bankrupt enough to go all-in on authoritarianism. His cult following is why they can't afford to lose him until they've completed their authoritarian takeover.
Executed is, to me, very likely to be more accurate than "mere" murdered.
DHS/ICE claiming that they had to murder someone in "self-defense" because they were about to be runover by the assailant's car is too cute on the nose seeing as almost every ICE shooting story has come with the justification of ICE agents were about to be run over with a car.
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.
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?
Bingo.
Minority rules
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.
Karl - I remember back to Pat Buchanan’s presidential fantasies, he was proto-Stephen Miller. Of course our messy relationship with immigrants dates waaay back. Like the Klan, the issue becomes more intense and fades periodically. Always on simmer somewhere tho
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.
I often say that if people who are "too busy" would simply listen to NPR on their commute, or while doing errands, et. they would be fairly well informed. NPR goes out of their way-to a fault, imo, to 'both sides' every issue, but at least they inform. I know people who voted for the rap*st and watch a bit of Fox, but are otherwise tuned out. They only listen to music in the car and watch sports. Nearly all of their social circle, including family are magae, and they apathetically go along. There really is no excuse to be completely uninformed about the world we live in. It is a huge problem for a healthy society.
This is so true. My ex husband was hippie like, I’ve known him since HS years. Started to listen to talk radio. I would beg him to listen to NPR half the time. Well he eventually joined the tea party which is ironic because he relies heavily on the social security net . I do to but pay for insurance. We each have an adult son and they’re girlfriends living with us to assist in what we can’t do. My son ( I don’t have contact with my ex unless about our sons) said he is semi maga , talk radio did him in . Maybe now it’s more tv. Fox News.
Medicine, especially the more specialized you get, can turn into a bubble. And the more specialized the field, the more it tends to attract the same kinds of personalities and then people spend long hours interacting with people who are so similar to them. Cardiothoracic surgery was my first clinical rotation in medical school and I was madly in love with it (it's so, so cool) but I felt like I didn't have the stamina physically or gumption personality-wise to spend all day cutting into peoples thoracic cavities.
So then the field fills up with burly men who are great at hyper-focusing on one thing at a time and have no qualms about sawing through rib cases and sternums. That's not an insult, I loved every single person I worked with on the rotation.
I have ended up being a generalist's generalist: Public health. I feel stupid most of the time, frankly, because I field is impossibly broad.
100% a choice.
Personally, I’m happy that he is open to newer technologies and procedures. He’s thorough before implanting my pacemaker using a newer procedure he discovered that I also had issues with high pressure in my pulmonary artery.
Absolutely! (My mother went through all of this recently, so I get where you're coming from.) That said, there are a lot of Americans that are choosing to look elsewhere entirely (effectively sticking their fingers in their ears), simply because they want to avoid the cognitive dissonance of our current times. That works for a while, maybe even a long while (money helps here), but eventually everyone's going to have to confront it one way or another.
Good luck! Hope all is well for you!
And it doesn't help that the mainstream media isn't constantly calling out the Trump Administration's criminal behavior. Someone who is only reading or viewing the mainstream media is probably under the impression that the ICE outrages stopped after Alex Pretti's shooting.
One actually told me they had to shut it out, because they thought the despair was bad for the patients.
My cardiologist encourages anything that keeps me active!
Unfortunately too many people choose not to follow what happens for various reasons.
My sister has stopped following the news in detail because it’s too depressing.
I’m able to follow some of the news because I have a great support network. Not only do I have my Bulwark family, but I have my Indivisible friends. Tonight I’m attending a meet ‘n greet with the Democratic candidate for county sheriff. Tomorrow I’m putting literature packets together, followed by my weekly protest. I have met lots of like-minded individuals.
She doesn’t get out much. She’s had rheumatoid arthritis for decades and is now over 70 so she’s not very mobile.
She does have a husband fortunately.
I agree that getting out can really lift your spirits (if you can get out).
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.
He barely won the popular vote and it was below 50% of those who voted. He is hated by the majority but with the ridiculous Electoral College only a few states determine the fate of our Nation. Job 1 in making our elections more fair is to abolish that monstrosity!
He still won it, Richard. A W is a W. Not enough people showed up in November 2024 to stop it.
You are right, but it is easier said than done.
Yes. And here we are.
Tim - for sure not enough showed up. Question now seems to be whether enough have given up. Future’s unwritten… that dang Lennon lyric still stuck in my head these 55 years
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.
Higher than Elon Musk's Space X rockets fly.
Dave, do you mean (F)elon Musk?
Good one! How about this one DOJ : Don's orangeman Justice.
David Court - I submit “both/and”
It is conventional wisdom( actually a good one) that Presidential elections are a rebuke of the previous president. The best example is when Jimmy Carter promised, "I will never lie to you". So in 2028, expect much the same from the Democratic President. (whether it is Buttigieg, Ossoff, Kelly, Shapiro or Beshear)
Dave Yell - ahhh, but liar’s paradox? Or according to DEVO : "The next thing I say to you will be true. The last thing I said was false. Remember to do nothing when you don't know what to do."
It is the apathy that drives me the most insane. Many think that not being actively evil makes you a good person.
Tim, as long as it's black and brown people being killed, that apathy will remain. The administration got the message that killing white folks, even "objectionable ones", wouldn't fly. It was too easy for the low information folks to recognize the possible threat to themselves.
Don’t forget the disturbingly large percentage of the population that is not just apathetic but that actively cheers on the brutal treatment of immigrants.
I feel like it's too hot out for Lagavulin. Perhaps I'll have a Negroni. Because a good stiff drink is the only sane response to this reality.
I love Lagavulin, but you're correct: too hot for that. I usually make my wife and me limoncello martinis on the weekend, and those hit the spot.
there are enough of us. the majority of the country is disgusted.
one big problem is that the 'kids' in their twenties and thirties that i know believe in the ideals, but not in the country anymore.
they don't believe in capitalism the way we practice it, they don't believe in the government or either party, and they don't believe we handed them the planet in such wretched shape. they show up in pundit patter as 'apathetic' or 'undecided' or such like.
they are passionately cynical about us, and the whole catastrophe.
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.
Also, they hate us. They hate who we are and what they think we stand for.
So where do we go from here?
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.
It is a numbers game, and even with the built-in inequities of the electoral college, these autocratic grievance merchants are the minority. I think it comes down to engaging the couch potatoes. I’m also heartened that there are always new 18 yr olds, tho it’s gotta be challenging for this current crop to viscerally understand an Obama presidency when they were 1 yr olds when he was first elected.
I have said that we need to engage the, as you said, the couch potatoes. I would love to come ip with a creative way to do this.
Also, I am the mother of a Gen Zer. They have a complicated view of our country and politics.
It is a difficult hill to climb.
Yes! Creative and positive. I’m all in
💙🇺🇸💙
They just want “the other” killed, as far as I can see. Appalling.
I’ve encountered many who believe the “weaponized car” excuse.
They don't really believe it, Frau. But they say they do to give themselves cover, and to avoid looking at their own complicity in enabling the rise of an authoritarian government.
Who knows what they’re thinking? I’ve seen articles with hundreds of comments claiming weaponized cars.
But you are correct about this: they will NOT admit there’s any authoritarian government about, much less one they’re enabling.
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.
And also showed a green reflecting pool and insisted it was blue!
"Don't believe what your eyes see. Believe me". DJT
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.
He still retains the dumbest in Washington award.
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.
I speak here of what I see with my own MAGA parents—it’s not that they are happy about the cruelty, bc I truly believe that they don’t *want* people to suffer. The thing is they don’t *believe* it’s really happening. They really do believe that ICE is arresting violent criminals who are actively trying to take out ICE officers. They really do believe that if these people were not guilty of a crime, they would just let ICE do their job. It is instilled in them SO deeply that they think that *I* am the deluded one. They insist I’m the one getting biased takes, that I’m hopelessly naive, that I care more about immigrants than Americans. Call it willful ignorance if you like. But I watched them become slowly inculcated by conservative talk radio and Fox News for decades, and I’ve seen how they have completely convinced themselves they are not the ones being lied to. I cannot explain in words how frustrating it is to see your whole family fall for the lies and not be able to break that spell—whether I talk calmly and rationally, whether I snap and say mean things, or whether I break down crying. My family is otherwise sane, caring people, but they have allowed themselves to be poisoned by right wing media. It’s really amazing in a perverse way to watch how they deal with the cognitive dissonance.
I've seen the same thing with my now ex-husband. He was a really nice guy who became poisoned by listening to Rush Limbaugh every day.
I think we all have friends and family that have fallen under the FOX spell. Usually good, decent, even smart people who have been totally brainwashed. FOX is the most brilliant idea corrupt entities ever devised. It should be abolished. There should be much stricter laws about "news" organizations and politicians who tell political lies to America, with harsh punishments.
I didn’t mean to imply they were all cruel. What’s particularly jarring is the people whose parents or grandparents were immigrants who used to talk about what a bad time they had
Plenty still believe 2020 was “stolen.”
Sydney Powell.
And 37-38% of them
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.
I want to know how long he was in cardiac arrest. Did he get any CPR at home and how quickly did it start? Within 4 to 6 minutes of cardiac arrest, there is enough brain/neuronal death occurring that some permanent brain damage is likely. I cared for patients with anoxic brain injuries. Those who survived were completely changed, from a brain function perspective.
Hard to make this argument given Biden, circa 2024.
Biden was never in a vegetative state! He never had a cardiac arrest, never had CPR performed on him, never spent time in a hospital bed! Yes, he slowed down and had a hard time keeping up with his daily schedule, and yes, we should have been told more about that. But for God’s sake—we need to stop saying “oh but Biden!” every f’ing time the Republicans are doing something *blatantly* wrong! We CAN point it out, because it’s happening *right now*. “Oh, but the emails! Oh, but the laptop!” If Republicans don’t have any better arguments to support their decisions, then they will continue to look like a parade of fools admiring their Emperor’s lack of clothing
Thank you Amy! (gotta love Jersey Girls when they set people straight!)
The argument by commenters is McConnell is incompetent and that they are hiding it. To allow him to continue serving and misrepresent his condition is "blatantly" wrong. How is that different from Biden? "Yes, he slowed down and had a hard time keeping up with his daily schedule". Pretty charitable description of the confused, open-mouthed debater we all watched. Some might say that description of him is dishonest. Worse, his condition, and his handler's decision to allow him to run in the first place and continue after the debate was a significant contributor to four more years of DJT. Causative of Iran, causative of detention facilities, causative of a government that serves a few rather than many, causative of irreparable damage to our environment. I agree that "whataboutism" runs rampant on the right. It is, sometimes, an accurate response to hypocritical comment. The complete lack of self-critique, however, is uniquely a feature on the left. We are not always right. the sooner we understand that the better. Now, go ahead, set me straight.
I remember when that happened. I was stationed in England and when it was announced that Andropov took power we went on full alert. Full as in nukes too. Of course the conversations in the pub were about how long that Ol' Leo was dead before his successor was announced. Many did believe that months had passed.
He was apparently in ill health for years before he died, with details of condition scant.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonid_Brezhnev
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 🤔☁️
I'm old enough to remember the early SNL episodes ubiquitously insisting that , "yes, Francisco Franco is still dead."
Yup. And he was Chevy Chase and we’re still not!
“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.
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.
Sadly, this is a very true statement
I wonder when the cognitive dissonance of the MAGAe becomes too intense to ignore.
Then again, this assumes they're capable of cognition. Scratch that.
He’s tried that. But the Iranians are determined to exert control of the vital Strait and Trump keeps getting dragged back in.
Keep in mind that the Strait was open before the war started.
Whatever fits the current mood of the speaker is what is said.
It’s batshit insane that Congress refuses to exert any power over this war. Trump has no idea what he’s doing and Hegseth is a little boy, full of bluster and war movie cliches.
Answer to my question about this from Google AI this morning: "President Donald Trump has frequently attempted to portray the current Iranian leadership as 'very rational' and 'not radicalized' individuals to sell U.S.-Iran diplomatic efforts to the American public. In various remarks, he characterized the current figures in Tehran as 'reasonable people' who are 'smart' and focused on helping their nation. Trump went as far as claiming that regime change had been successfully completed in Iran, stating that the current third regime is vastly different from previous administrations." I imagine he said this last May in order to manipulate the markets and try to convince people that his bumbling real estate speculators, unsuccessfully trying to pass themselves off as "international negotiators," were making some progress at the time. But that was all just a fabricated smoke screen to cover the fact that they hadn't agreed on ANYTHING. So, yes, this very same regime are now "scum" and "sick.... vicious... violent people," according to Trump's diatribe yesterday. If he would only rely on expert diplomats who know the history and temperament of the people they are dealing with (as Obama did), we might have seen some actual progress. Instead, here we are again waiting for gas prices to rise anew as chaos reigns in the Middle East - thanks ENTIRELY to Donald J. Trump and his feckless whims. Looking for a relevant cultural reference I am divided between these two Scottish gems... "Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right" (Stealers Wheel folk band) or "Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive" from Sir Walter Scott. Since Trump's entire life has been based on lies, lies, and more lies, I guess I will go with Sir Walter Scott today, although the first quote also accurately describes this entire fiasco of a presidency.
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.
Very well said! And Reprehensible is a good name for them.
I agree with you, which is why I quit the party in 2018 when I realized that the GOP had sold their souls to Donald Trump.
There is no Republican party. Just the RINO MAGA Trump party of perjurers.
May they be punished by the voters and beyond for allowing this man to trash the Constitution and our republic.
and some of the spineless ones with a (D) as well. Replace with another (D) that will honor the spirit of their role
Schumer should have been thrown out of his leadership position decades ago. The corporate Democrats must share responsibility for their cowardice, and for putting their self-interest and greed above their oaths and the American people.
Once they see which way the wind blows, they will come back to the fold ... if they are allowed to.
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.
Mark Antony, "The evil that men do lives after them . . ." I'm not sanguine that this all dies with Trump.
It won't. Ridding ourselves of the damage and malign effects of 'Trumpism' will take a long, long time. But re Trump's eventual and inevitable demise: a bird in the hand, so to speak. :-)
I don't know. I always thought that "Faust" was fiction but I'm no longer sure.
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.
That’s massively disappointing.
Houston and Harris County are often characterized as "blue," but in reality they are at best a bluish shade of purple. In general, I think that's an OK thing - I don't think the very-blue cities / counties of Dallas / Dallas, Austin / Travis, and San Antonio / Bexar are necessarily good examples to follow.
That said, Houston city government (and sometimes the Harris County government) can be a real clown show at times. And electing long-time Texas state legislators, who have never run large organizations (Houston doesn't have a city manager, so the mayor is very much the CEO), as mayors is unquestionably a bad idea - it guarantees incompetence, cravenness, and corruption - we all know the Texas state legislature thrives on corruption, especially among legislators who stick around a long time. (Definitely the previous mayor and probably the current one are examples.)
I could go on, but will end with the fact that both the leading candidates for mayor in the last election were in their 70s and neither had applicable executive experience, while Houston is known as one of America's younger large cities. Pathetic.
Well, the Houston mayor just said there will be no local investigation into the shooting. Surely there's a happy medium between defund the police and whatever the fudge John Whitmire is doing.
You'd think so. He's being totally irresponsible on this. But I've heard there's a small group of wealthy old white guys who tell him what to do (just a rumor, but, believable). And the city's finances have been in such terrible shape that any risk of losing any $ from the state or feds puts huge (and unfair) pressure on local officials, especially one like Whitmire who's trying to show he's making progress on the issue while not cutting public safety.
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.
I think you misspelled "fascist."
Socialist is too polite of a word.
"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.
And can you imagine any other world leader calling someone coo-coo during a world summit?? It is beyond embarrassing to know we are being represented by an utter moron
Humiliating, even.
Cuckoo liars - it's all projection, isn't it?
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.
These long time residents who aren’t citizens seem to be an inferior caste. You can kill them and apparently that’s not a problem. (Watching from Canada).
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.
Thank you so much for your well wishes!
You're one of my faves here. Here's wishing nothing but the best for a prompt and successful resolution!
Aw, Mike, that means a lot. Thank you!
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.
Thanks so much! They took out my colon on an emergency basis. A long route back but yes I am very blessed.
That doesn't sound like fun! Here's to a speedy recovery!
Get better Kate. Here's hopes for a fast recovery.
Keep their eyes glazed over as laughter is the best medicine.
Thanks Coleen, I’m counting on you and the rest of the smart people here for some laughter!
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 💙
Thank you! Believe me, the good vibes help tremendously.
Sorry you're in hospital, Kate. Hope you get better soon!
I’m home! Thank you for your well wishes.
Oh no! Get well soon. 🪻🌸🌺(since I can’t send any)
Thank you so much!
Oh Kate! Please know you're in my thought-prayers.
Believe me, the prayers are helping! Thank you so much.
Good! I thought I caught a glimpse of a pretty strong Hope current aloft , moving west to east and headed straight for Buffalo NY.
OMG. So sorry about your misfortune. Kate, I always appreciate your comments and your support. Get well.
Thank you so much, I’m getting well with the help of so many good wishes.
Sorry, Kate. Is TCM available?
My husband and I are binging ABC movies of the week from the 1970s on YouTube. Highly recommended. 😁
Be well Kate, I hope things improve for you.
Thanks, they do almost every day.
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.
All suggestions are welcome! Thanks for the well wishes.
So sorry to hear about this, Kate! I'm hoping for a quick and good outcome for you.
Thank you very much!
We're all pulling for you!
I’m really feeling it! And I’m very grateful.
Hope you get well soon!
Thank you!
I'm sorry about your health situation and hope you're better soon.
Thank you so much,
I think what they mean is: I voted for mass deportations because I’m a white nationalist. I’ll overlook lots to get that. The fair wasn’t impressive? In the grand scheme of things, who cares? The important thing is the deportations.
They would never say they're White Nationalists and if you called them that, they'd be offended. "Look, Biden and every other President before Trump let millions of people int this country without making any attempt to know who they were, where they were, what they were doing or what they'd done in the past. Nothing. Trump's the first guy who's even tried to do anything."
Now, that's not true. Obama deported lots of people, but he did it in accordance with the law and he did it quietly. But truth doesn't really matter to these people. They want the show.
I didn’t mean they’d literally say that out loud. Definitely they go for exactly that argument about Biden.
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.
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.
After Trump's terrible deal and the Taliban land gains over the year and a half prior, Biden would have send ground troops. Americans had no appetite for that, and granted we were fragile and recovering from an attempted coup. Personally I think we could have done a North/South partition like Korea or Vietnam but I'm probably overoptimistic, that would have likely required ground troops too just maybe less.
All those options would have required troops and probably have encouraged further Taliban attacks. There really weren’t good options.
One preliminary step...the Trump Administration negotiated the terms of the pull out.
Not true that they just want to target immigrants. They also want to have spurious attacks against Democrats.
"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
Not only do they, and by they I mean Republicans, refuse to stop it, but they were willing to shut down the government for weeks over throwing tens of billions of dollars more into ICE and CBP's already way over-inflated budget, even after the killings in Minnesota. It's unconscionable.
Counting the days until the midterms at this point. ICE, sadly, cannot be stopped until we get a change in administration in '29, but a check from the House (and maybe the Senate) would at least slow them.
Accountability will be tough, however, since 47 was gifted SCOTUS's get-out-of-jail-free card and his commitment to pardoning anyone within whatever size bubble around the Oval as he imagines on any given day.
Reform is needed badly. SCOTUS needs guardrails they don't control, including substantial changes to its membership. That will take time, grit, and ugly, ugly politicking to achieve.
Until then, we cannot forget the Salgados, the Paktiawals, the Goods, or the Prettis mowed down by the Reich currently cosplaying governance.
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.
Mr “Art of the Deal” is anything but!