I don't know that much about the City Church, but from what I have read it is affiliated with white and male supremacist groups that remember slavery fondly. At what point does a church become just another hate group?
"At what point does a church become just another hate group?"
What do you mean, "just another?" Perhaps the largest and most influential one of all. In the 2024 election, 85% of white Evangelical Christians voted for Trump. They voted for sending masked goons with guns into the streets of America to round up "those people," and to shoot in the face anyone who gets in the way. And these weren't just fringe members. Among white Evangelical Christians who attend services AT LEAST once a week, the number was 88%. Let that sink in. 88%.
Agreed completely. For those of us who are not religious, this is the image we get of Christianity in America far more than any other: that it's a breeding ground for bigotry, hatred and cruelty more than anything else, despite how that's completely antithetical to what Jesus is supposed to represent. It seems very apparent that a gigantic segment of Christians in America have completely discarded all the teachings of Jesus and instead now rally around a group of hatreds and that is what Christianity has now become.
If I hear someone profess to be a Christian I'm far more wary of them than I am of anyone who professes to be a member of any other religion now. That's what these Christians have wrought in this country. For the people who are actually good Christians, unfortunately this hateful majority has sullied your reputation for you, to where you're now associated with a hate group in the eyes of many.
This was a topic in Bible Study last night. We've reached the same conclusion you have. To share our faith now begins not at all or with caveating around things we don't believe and don't believe Jesus supported.
Will - please consider that the focus of Adrian’s article here was Christians being targeted at their places of worship by government operatives, typically masked, armed, and prone to violence. Please consider that these Christians are having their right to worship in freedom & safety interfered with by the federal government.
Our sisters and brothers in this article don’t sound at all like the Christians you’re describing.
Please consider that I was replying to the comment James made above, rather than the article itself, just like how you were replying to my comment, rather than the article.
The prior editor of Christianity Today, Mark Galli, was fired and run out of town on a rail for opposing Trump. He's now not even an evangelical--he's converted to Catholicism.
Agree, but I would not support government or mob intrusion into the right to worship. The answer to a church preaching hate is lawfull protest and reporting. Both are also protected by the 1st ammendment.
I agree Jim. The protestors should not have entered that church; however, Don Lemon and Georgia Fort had every right to enter and cover a news event. The protestors would have delivered their message more effectively outside the church than allowing themselves to become the story that got reported.
I support a protest outside the church but I’m having trouble understanding why we should give it a pass inside. Don Lemon and the other journalist probably have a better argument for following inside to report what happened. This may have been a rather unholy white supremacist church, the pastor sounds contemptible and in collusion with the horrible activities of ICE. But if a”church” has tax free status etcetera, is it up to us to pick which ones are okay to enter for a protest and which are not. I would genuinely like another Bulwark reader with expertise in this legal area to help me understand.thanks
I don't think that the alignment of one's inner life can be translated into a set of norms and rules for a society, much less a civilization. Can you imagine trying to enforce a Franciscan spirituality onto a population? It's absurd. Capitalism would die in 48 hours.
The purpose of ICE is to terrorize. First, it is to physically terrorize the people they are weaponized to terrorize. Then it is to terrorize the minds of people watching the terror. The message is clear. "This could happen to you!"
To think about terrorizing children at schools, or people worshiping at churches, or people who are suffering in and around hospitals is pathetic. They want to let you know that they will follow you and terrorize you at your weakest moments. They want you to feel vulnerable. Don't allow them to do this. Don't isolate. Don't be alone. Create solidarity with friends and family, or anyone. Find people who have your back, and watch others' backs. This is how you can find some peace.
Vought wants federal workers to go to work in fear. ICE wants you to be afraid just living. When this madness is over, these criminals should spend some time in jail. All of them.
Agreed. But our desire for justice, as instinctive and righteous as it is, leads us to project our wishes and hopes into the future. Let's gird ourselves so that we don't "dissolve" now. Let's not give them what they want.
So correct AR. Know that we are not into the final lap, but have miles to go. And most of all, do not become the thing you hate, because it will consume you. That’s the hardest. The adage “fight fire with fire” does not apply.
You have clarity. To get people to treat you like you want to be treated, you have to treat them like that, even if undeserved. Instinctively, this feels wimpy. But historically it's pragmatic.
That's why it's probably impossible to ever have a Christian society. Jesus was probably a mystic. Mystics don't deal with social and political structures. They deal with the life within. In my estimation, this is where religions go wrong.
They should spend some time in jail. But the most notorious of them all is deigned ‘immune’ from prosecution, and holds pardon power in his pocket (under the crypto codes and the Qutarie plane and some gold baubles gifted by the titans of business) to protect those who serve him well. Which is to say that some states may attempt to prosecute some people of various notoriety. But those with means will be well represented in court and such prospective prosecutions will not withstand the tests of delays and unfavorable court decisions truly protecting ‘the worst of the worst’. But most will only suffer along as overcompensated hosts of fascist TV shows, while others live in relative obscurity enjoying the wealth accumulated through insider trading and bribes. Sorry, that is about all I can contemplate today without falling into a deep state of depression. There’ll be little justice. There will be no reckoning.
Tim. I hope you are wrong but fear you are correct. I take consolation that states can and do disbar attorneys. If that is all Bondi, and the rest of the lawyers in this administration gets, I will be satisfied. I think the number of convictions of Reagan’s administration was 129. Different times now.
It would be enough (seriously) for me to witness so many of them - Bondi, sure - but by the THOUSANDS, just make a public display of remorse for what they have wrought on our country, to use a John Meacham reference, on the, ‘Soul of America’. Once some of them, I hope a lot of them, are hauled before a judge and charged with a crime, their displays will be colored by remorse for themselves, but not for what they have done to their own f’n country. I think it was during TNL pod the other day, where JVL & Tim were discussing that not one of them ever believed one damn thing they said to draw clicks and the attention of the dear leader, their claims about free speech, a free economy & the 2nd amendment come to mind as examples but there are plenty more and I think for the most part that’s true. But I don’t see how you or I could become so deluded as to support the absolute decimation of our country for no cause above personal enrichment and proximity to power. It sickens me. There. I’ve climbed off my high horse for the evening!
Thanks! Yes, the twin engines driving Trump 2.0 are actually "unelected bureaucrats," that is, Stephen Miller and Russell Vought. Without that pair, the behaviors, and fortunes, of Trump 2.0 would be very different.
Miller. Unelected. Unelectable. Always using elected officials to push his agenda. NOT A LAWYER, THOUGH HE PRETENDS TO BE, AND COMPLAINS CONSTANTLY ABOUT THE MOST STRAIGHTFORWARD JUDICIAL DECISIONS. A total turnoff. (The nicest word that I can use.) So frightened by some old neighbor lady in Virginia that he's moved his family onto a military reservation. American People, behold your true "Unitary Executive"!
P.S., He did get the Duke lacrosse case right (on balance). Good for him. Correct once in forty years.
Thanks for that link. "Chilling and detailed" for sure. Wow. I'll add "precise and powerful," and guaranteed to give you even more anxiety about Miller and where we could be headed>
I am fairly certain DHS agents entered churches during worship in the Rio Grande Valley before we moved to NC late last summer. I was appalled at the time. While I find the protesters in MN entering the church to be in error, it is rich that the rogue administration is making such a show of them. Don't even get me started on the Don Lemon (and other reporters) charges.
After reading Adrian's 1/25 newsletter describing various folks in Minneapolis working behind the scenes to help immigrants, I emailed one of the people profiled, Daniel Hernandez, who owns a small chain of latin grocery stores/restaurants and is delivering groceries for free to those who are too scared to leave their homes. I asked him how I could help, knowing that there were commenters on that newsletter who had asked the same thing.
ICE does not need to be armed. An “armed ICE” has proven to be too lethal to innocent citizens, dangerous to the careless gun-handling agents themselves, and injurious to fellow agents who are accidentally shot by another careless ICE agent. https://hotbuttons.substack.com/p/reform-homeland-security?r=3m1bs
Also, they don't need to be dressed like soldiers invading another country. Dress them as "officers of the peace," i.e. like mail carriers, and give them non-lethal weapons. If they are dealing with dangerous criminals, which at least for now they rarely are, they can work in conjunction with real, trained LEOs.
Their purpose is to create bewilderment, terror, social fracture. This is how authoritarianism works.
Authoritarians want to control your emotions, not your body. Where your emotions go, your body will naturally follow. They want you to hunker down in fear and stay out of their way. They are only interested in keeping you under their boot heels. The more fierce they look, the better.
Who do you suggest takes away their methods of Terror? DJT? DHS Secretary Kristi Noem? Please consider who's in charge here. We are not. The cliché that we can only control ourselves is apt in this situation.
I think it should be part of the reconstruction of ICE when it is taken down to the studs and rebuilt. Earliest possible time is after the midterms, but I think we should be talking about all of the ways it needs to be completely remade, not just tweaked around the edges.
From a pragmatic point of view, I think we need to figure out how to survive it today and tomorrow. If we actually have free and fair elections, we can talk about this later. Right now we are in it. We aren't above it.
Your question is one I ask myself constantly, Claudia. Here is my partial response to myself:
We have a strong suspicion how we have come to this point. We saw it happen in Germany during the 1930s, to name one example. It happens because of flaws built into our human nature: greed, resentment, anger, and fear, not necessarily in that order.
Those are emotions that require great effort to work against within ourselves. The Germans didn't succeed overcoming them until it was over for them, and then they (most of them) found the way to live normal, healthy, prosocial lives again. Of course, it took WWII and the Marshall Plan to do it.
In other words, I "fear" that we have more of the spiral downwards to go before we can see our way up again. On a positive note, one way or another, we will see our way up again.
Part of how fast we can get our society moving in a humane, kind, and just way again depends on how willing we are to forgive those who are driving us downward in the present.
I'm not suggesting we forgive them now, but in the future when they are willing to see the cruelty, the inhumanity, and the injustice of what they have wrought.
Yes after WWII we did not trample the Germans or Japanese and they built strong democratic societies . I think the fight against MAGA is different because they have plenty of money and power and nothing to gain from joining civil society
Thank you. My storage tank of words is on the empty line and I’m running on reserve. I’m a fighter and also a yakker. This article just turned a screw in my brain and made me sadder. I’ll be ok, we all will, we just need to keep our eyes wide open and never give an inch! I wonder who is next? I have a sinking feeling that Homeland Security will not leave Minneapolis but send a new crop of thugs into Ohio or Pennsylvania or both. We’ll be fighting on lots of fronts. Midterms can’t come soon enough! 🤞🏽😡💙🇺🇸
We, humans, love quick answers to complicated questions. When it comes to social and political answers, often the most efficient answers involve suffering and violence. In other words, they involve blindness to the dignity of some human beings. When it comes to short-term efficiency, some people become a means to a different end. A very short and rough explanation of how we got this way, we wanted quick, easy answers to very complicated questions. It seems like we're attracted to unwise answers. It seems like we believe that wise answers take too long. Now we can all understand that patience is quite a virtue!
you continue to provide the best coverage of the immigration issues of any major media source. You are helping a guy like me, who is mobility bound to understand what the real facts are, beyond the rhetoric. Wish we could clone you.
The trump folk seem hell bent to destroy any institution that our pluralism and democracy need to survive. His 1930s outlook is so much scarier than is portrayed on the nightly news.He is a real and present danger.
Don Lemon, a journalist, recorded a demonstration by protesters in a Minneapolis church. The United States maintains that he violated provisions of the FACE Act by violating the civil rights of worshippers. The First Amendment provides in part that Congress shall make no law...abridging... freedom of the press...Case law regarding statutory construction requires that a court read every federal statute in a way that preserves its constitutionality. The FACE Act conflicts with the First Amendment if it is read to abridge the right of a journalist to witness an event and to report about it. The law cannot be constitutionally applied to Lemon or other Journalists then present, including Georgia Fort, and they cannot be convicted of violating a law that does not apply to them.
These fools don’t think about winning a court case. They know they will loose. The resulting fear that they can put in the minds of ordinary people is the goal.
Yes. But the cost to the defenders, and the turmoil to the community will be what this administration’s wants. The damage being forced on us is the desired outcome.
True. The Courts can speak but it won't matter if the Executive Branch refuses to apply the law. Eisenhower and Kennedy used the military to enforce the orders of the Courts in Arkansas and Alabama. We would still have segregated schools without those Executive actions. I attended integrated schools in a mostly white county. The schools had long been integrated because integration was less expensive than building a separate but equal school system for thirty students in grades 1-12.
You have two ideals, power and wealth. Gina, you are correct when you said that building an equal but separate school had to be sacrificed. Unequal, sure. That’s cheaper. But that was becoming less of an option by the 1950’s and 1960’s. JVL said it best “When we do something (fill in the blanks), it’s because we benefit from it.” War is expensive and regressive. Stop wars, save money. Give to charitable organizations, save hospitalizations and incarceration. Assimilation into the culture comes later. And ultimately everyone benefits. Unfortunately this president wants chaos and uncertainty because he benefits, in his twisted mind.
Yep. Pickpockets are good at distracting the victim by bumping into them. Hit on the right side, you don’t notice your wallet leaving your left side pocket.
This administration is the most anti-Christian of my lifetime. They are covering themselves in shame. I pray that their inner voices tell them to get out while they still have souls. The Devil is working hard these days.
It's quite something to see "Christian nationalists" and others who are ostentatious in their piety lifting up what George Will correctly called a "sickening moral slum of an administration."
It isn't just the cruelty toward immigrants and toward people who stand up for them. There's also the grotesque self-dealing by the Trump-aligned plutocrats, and the stench of moral impunity surrounding the Epstein matter.
It's a perennial truth that people with power and wealth often think they can live beyond rules. It has also often been the case that people use the cloak of religion to rationalize their own sins. But I've still been shocked by the way a lot of people who like to parade their own "conservative, Christian values" have valorized moral relativism and demanded indulgence of a sleazy sociopath -- to the point that some of them are either participating in or accepting the coverup of a massive underage sex trafficking operation, while so many allegedly immoral left-liberals and nonreligious people are showing far better moral judgment.
I'm not religious, but if I had to pick an existing Antichrist figure, the current president would be it. Especially since he is so profoundly unlike Christ, yet so many who call themselves "Christians" worship him like a god.
No, not Stephen Miller. The Antichrist is described as an evil but charismatic figure that falsely substitutes himself as a savior in Christ's place, duping many "Christians" into essentially worshiping him instead of Christ. This description fits Trump to a T. It does not fit Stephen Miller, even though Miller is evil as all hell, because he has no charisma and the MAGAts don't worship him like a savior. Not a single person voted for Miller. He is just one of the Antichrist's worst henchmen.
I believe this Bulwark article about ICE terrorizing worshipers in churches is extremely important in the aftermath to the arrest of Don Lemon & a 2nd independent journalist covering the protest in a Minneapolis church. Apparently, the protest was sparked by the involvement (employment?) of one of its ministers with ICE: protestors were objecting to this minister's engaging in activities that were anathema to many of his parishioners. The 2 independent journalists were at the church covering the protest.
Thus, the Bulwark's article about ICE 'terrorizing' parishioners in churches well BEFORE this particular incident adds critical context to this story: as it makes the charge that the journalists were 'interfering' with parishioners' rights to worship at this church appear quite hypocritical. Indeed, as ICE is breaking into churches, childcare centers, schools, hospitals, etc., the general public needs to know the facts about the great variety of venues that ICE has made vulnerable to brutal incursions.
The real question is when the general public will become fully aware of ICE's senseless, random brutality and insist on a great pullback in that agency's astonishing overreach. For example, I heard some of the testimony of ICE victims before Congress (all Dems unfortunately) on Feb. 3rd: e.g., especially horrifying was the experience of the young Montessori teacher (a citizen) in Chicago who had been apprehended while on an errand on Sat. & shot 5 times (7 wounds) by ICE. Hospitalized for treatment of her wounds, after 3 hours in the hospital for treatment, she was then incarcerated by ICE for the weekend(!). According to her written testimony, this pooe woman was only released when the school community & her family came out in force at her hearing the following Monday. Needless to say, there were no charges, & she was thereby released. How can this occur in the United States?
So far, there is a tissue paper veneer to this group of lawlessness - “We are only doing our job.” It is said so often, those hearing it go numb. My fear is that the tissue paper is being shredded and soon, there will be no rationalization. These people will want everyone to know that what they are doing is what they want to do. Just like the SS troops under Hitler. Then, we won’t hear that comment until they are on the witness stand, pleading for mercy.
The case of the Iranians is interesting. We may well be going to war to protect Iranian people from persecution by their religious leaders in Iran but we want to send those who came here to avoid persecution back to Iran to be persecuted . Are we trying to help these people because we care about their well-being or not? Are we committed to helping these people,but only as long as they stay out of our country? Is it reasonable to ask what our principles actually are.
I don't know that much about the City Church, but from what I have read it is affiliated with white and male supremacist groups that remember slavery fondly. At what point does a church become just another hate group?
"At what point does a church become just another hate group?"
What do you mean, "just another?" Perhaps the largest and most influential one of all. In the 2024 election, 85% of white Evangelical Christians voted for Trump. They voted for sending masked goons with guns into the streets of America to round up "those people," and to shoot in the face anyone who gets in the way. And these weren't just fringe members. Among white Evangelical Christians who attend services AT LEAST once a week, the number was 88%. Let that sink in. 88%.
prri.org/research/analyzing-the-2024-presidential-vote-prris-post-election-survey/
Agreed completely. For those of us who are not religious, this is the image we get of Christianity in America far more than any other: that it's a breeding ground for bigotry, hatred and cruelty more than anything else, despite how that's completely antithetical to what Jesus is supposed to represent. It seems very apparent that a gigantic segment of Christians in America have completely discarded all the teachings of Jesus and instead now rally around a group of hatreds and that is what Christianity has now become.
If I hear someone profess to be a Christian I'm far more wary of them than I am of anyone who professes to be a member of any other religion now. That's what these Christians have wrought in this country. For the people who are actually good Christians, unfortunately this hateful majority has sullied your reputation for you, to where you're now associated with a hate group in the eyes of many.
This was a topic in Bible Study last night. We've reached the same conclusion you have. To share our faith now begins not at all or with caveating around things we don't believe and don't believe Jesus supported.
Will - please consider that the focus of Adrian’s article here was Christians being targeted at their places of worship by government operatives, typically masked, armed, and prone to violence. Please consider that these Christians are having their right to worship in freedom & safety interfered with by the federal government.
Our sisters and brothers in this article don’t sound at all like the Christians you’re describing.
Please consider that I was replying to the comment James made above, rather than the article itself, just like how you were replying to my comment, rather than the article.
The prior editor of Christianity Today, Mark Galli, was fired and run out of town on a rail for opposing Trump. He's now not even an evangelical--he's converted to Catholicism.
Agree, but I would not support government or mob intrusion into the right to worship. The answer to a church preaching hate is lawfull protest and reporting. Both are also protected by the 1st ammendment.
I agree Jim. The protestors should not have entered that church; however, Don Lemon and Georgia Fort had every right to enter and cover a news event. The protestors would have delivered their message more effectively outside the church than allowing themselves to become the story that got reported.
I don't like protests in front of people's houses either.*
Mar a Lago and the White House excepted.
Not to be confused with citizens in front of houses observing and trying to protect neighbors from abuse by federal agents?
Not a bit.
I support a protest outside the church but I’m having trouble understanding why we should give it a pass inside. Don Lemon and the other journalist probably have a better argument for following inside to report what happened. This may have been a rather unholy white supremacist church, the pastor sounds contemptible and in collusion with the horrible activities of ICE. But if a”church” has tax free status etcetera, is it up to us to pick which ones are okay to enter for a protest and which are not. I would genuinely like another Bulwark reader with expertise in this legal area to help me understand.thanks
I wouldn't either.
History appears to ask the same question of nearly all religions.
And over and over, we see religions failing the test.
Haven't they heard of Cliff's Notes?
I don't think that the alignment of one's inner life can be translated into a set of norms and rules for a society, much less a civilization. Can you imagine trying to enforce a Franciscan spirituality onto a population? It's absurd. Capitalism would die in 48 hours.
Ask the Native Americans, Incans, Mayans, ...
No fooling.
That point right there.
The purpose of ICE is to terrorize. First, it is to physically terrorize the people they are weaponized to terrorize. Then it is to terrorize the minds of people watching the terror. The message is clear. "This could happen to you!"
To think about terrorizing children at schools, or people worshiping at churches, or people who are suffering in and around hospitals is pathetic. They want to let you know that they will follow you and terrorize you at your weakest moments. They want you to feel vulnerable. Don't allow them to do this. Don't isolate. Don't be alone. Create solidarity with friends and family, or anyone. Find people who have your back, and watch others' backs. This is how you can find some peace.
Vought wants federal workers to go to work in fear. ICE wants you to be afraid just living. When this madness is over, these criminals should spend some time in jail. All of them.
Agreed. But our desire for justice, as instinctive and righteous as it is, leads us to project our wishes and hopes into the future. Let's gird ourselves so that we don't "dissolve" now. Let's not give them what they want.
So correct AR. Know that we are not into the final lap, but have miles to go. And most of all, do not become the thing you hate, because it will consume you. That’s the hardest. The adage “fight fire with fire” does not apply.
You have clarity. To get people to treat you like you want to be treated, you have to treat them like that, even if undeserved. Instinctively, this feels wimpy. But historically it's pragmatic.
thank you Katherine , I want revenge . That is not the Christian way . Justice yes . accountability (a secular word for same )
That's why it's probably impossible to ever have a Christian society. Jesus was probably a mystic. Mystics don't deal with social and political structures. They deal with the life within. In my estimation, this is where religions go wrong.
They should spend some time in jail. But the most notorious of them all is deigned ‘immune’ from prosecution, and holds pardon power in his pocket (under the crypto codes and the Qutarie plane and some gold baubles gifted by the titans of business) to protect those who serve him well. Which is to say that some states may attempt to prosecute some people of various notoriety. But those with means will be well represented in court and such prospective prosecutions will not withstand the tests of delays and unfavorable court decisions truly protecting ‘the worst of the worst’. But most will only suffer along as overcompensated hosts of fascist TV shows, while others live in relative obscurity enjoying the wealth accumulated through insider trading and bribes. Sorry, that is about all I can contemplate today without falling into a deep state of depression. There’ll be little justice. There will be no reckoning.
Tim. I hope you are wrong but fear you are correct. I take consolation that states can and do disbar attorneys. If that is all Bondi, and the rest of the lawyers in this administration gets, I will be satisfied. I think the number of convictions of Reagan’s administration was 129. Different times now.
It would be enough (seriously) for me to witness so many of them - Bondi, sure - but by the THOUSANDS, just make a public display of remorse for what they have wrought on our country, to use a John Meacham reference, on the, ‘Soul of America’. Once some of them, I hope a lot of them, are hauled before a judge and charged with a crime, their displays will be colored by remorse for themselves, but not for what they have done to their own f’n country. I think it was during TNL pod the other day, where JVL & Tim were discussing that not one of them ever believed one damn thing they said to draw clicks and the attention of the dear leader, their claims about free speech, a free economy & the 2nd amendment come to mind as examples but there are plenty more and I think for the most part that’s true. But I don’t see how you or I could become so deluded as to support the absolute decimation of our country for no cause above personal enrichment and proximity to power. It sickens me. There. I’ve climbed off my high horse for the evening!
they should be in a prison with both black and Latinos in the usual proportions for incarcerated people
That might be a little uncomfortable for more than a few of them. Maybe they could form a ‘reconciliation commission’….
You gotta read this. Sam Freedman has written a chilling and detailed profile of Stephen Miller, the dark heart of the Trump regime. https://kathleenweber.substack.com/p/the-most-dangerous-man-in-america
Thanks! Yes, the twin engines driving Trump 2.0 are actually "unelected bureaucrats," that is, Stephen Miller and Russell Vought. Without that pair, the behaviors, and fortunes, of Trump 2.0 would be very different.
Miller. Unelected. Unelectable. Always using elected officials to push his agenda. NOT A LAWYER, THOUGH HE PRETENDS TO BE, AND COMPLAINS CONSTANTLY ABOUT THE MOST STRAIGHTFORWARD JUDICIAL DECISIONS. A total turnoff. (The nicest word that I can use.) So frightened by some old neighbor lady in Virginia that he's moved his family onto a military reservation. American People, behold your true "Unitary Executive"!
P.S., He did get the Duke lacrosse case right (on balance). Good for him. Correct once in forty years.
Thanks for that link. "Chilling and detailed" for sure. Wow. I'll add "precise and powerful," and guaranteed to give you even more anxiety about Miller and where we could be headed>
I am fairly certain DHS agents entered churches during worship in the Rio Grande Valley before we moved to NC late last summer. I was appalled at the time. While I find the protesters in MN entering the church to be in error, it is rich that the rogue administration is making such a show of them. Don't even get me started on the Don Lemon (and other reporters) charges.
After reading Adrian's 1/25 newsletter describing various folks in Minneapolis working behind the scenes to help immigrants, I emailed one of the people profiled, Daniel Hernandez, who owns a small chain of latin grocery stores/restaurants and is delivering groceries for free to those who are too scared to leave their homes. I asked him how I could help, knowing that there were commenters on that newsletter who had asked the same thing.
I heard back from him on 1/31, and he sent me a link to a GoFundMe he started, which can be found here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-colonial-markets-community-efforts
thank you
ICE does not need to be armed. An “armed ICE” has proven to be too lethal to innocent citizens, dangerous to the careless gun-handling agents themselves, and injurious to fellow agents who are accidentally shot by another careless ICE agent. https://hotbuttons.substack.com/p/reform-homeland-security?r=3m1bs
Also, they don't need to be dressed like soldiers invading another country. Dress them as "officers of the peace," i.e. like mail carriers, and give them non-lethal weapons. If they are dealing with dangerous criminals, which at least for now they rarely are, they can work in conjunction with real, trained LEOs.
Their purpose is to create bewilderment, terror, social fracture. This is how authoritarianism works.
Authoritarians want to control your emotions, not your body. Where your emotions go, your body will naturally follow. They want you to hunker down in fear and stay out of their way. They are only interested in keeping you under their boot heels. The more fierce they look, the better.
Yes, which is why I would like that to be taken away from them.
Who do you suggest takes away their methods of Terror? DJT? DHS Secretary Kristi Noem? Please consider who's in charge here. We are not. The cliché that we can only control ourselves is apt in this situation.
I think it should be part of the reconstruction of ICE when it is taken down to the studs and rebuilt. Earliest possible time is after the midterms, but I think we should be talking about all of the ways it needs to be completely remade, not just tweaked around the edges.
From a pragmatic point of view, I think we need to figure out how to survive it today and tomorrow. If we actually have free and fair elections, we can talk about this later. Right now we are in it. We aren't above it.
How have we come to this? Words fail me.
Your question is one I ask myself constantly, Claudia. Here is my partial response to myself:
We have a strong suspicion how we have come to this point. We saw it happen in Germany during the 1930s, to name one example. It happens because of flaws built into our human nature: greed, resentment, anger, and fear, not necessarily in that order.
Those are emotions that require great effort to work against within ourselves. The Germans didn't succeed overcoming them until it was over for them, and then they (most of them) found the way to live normal, healthy, prosocial lives again. Of course, it took WWII and the Marshall Plan to do it.
In other words, I "fear" that we have more of the spiral downwards to go before we can see our way up again. On a positive note, one way or another, we will see our way up again.
Part of how fast we can get our society moving in a humane, kind, and just way again depends on how willing we are to forgive those who are driving us downward in the present.
I'm not suggesting we forgive them now, but in the future when they are willing to see the cruelty, the inhumanity, and the injustice of what they have wrought.
Yes after WWII we did not trample the Germans or Japanese and they built strong democratic societies . I think the fight against MAGA is different because they have plenty of money and power and nothing to gain from joining civil society
Thank you. My storage tank of words is on the empty line and I’m running on reserve. I’m a fighter and also a yakker. This article just turned a screw in my brain and made me sadder. I’ll be ok, we all will, we just need to keep our eyes wide open and never give an inch! I wonder who is next? I have a sinking feeling that Homeland Security will not leave Minneapolis but send a new crop of thugs into Ohio or Pennsylvania or both. We’ll be fighting on lots of fronts. Midterms can’t come soon enough! 🤞🏽😡💙🇺🇸
We, humans, love quick answers to complicated questions. When it comes to social and political answers, often the most efficient answers involve suffering and violence. In other words, they involve blindness to the dignity of some human beings. When it comes to short-term efficiency, some people become a means to a different end. A very short and rough explanation of how we got this way, we wanted quick, easy answers to very complicated questions. It seems like we're attracted to unwise answers. It seems like we believe that wise answers take too long. Now we can all understand that patience is quite a virtue!
you continue to provide the best coverage of the immigration issues of any major media source. You are helping a guy like me, who is mobility bound to understand what the real facts are, beyond the rhetoric. Wish we could clone you.
The trump folk seem hell bent to destroy any institution that our pluralism and democracy need to survive. His 1930s outlook is so much scarier than is portrayed on the nightly news.He is a real and present danger.
Don Lemon, a journalist, recorded a demonstration by protesters in a Minneapolis church. The United States maintains that he violated provisions of the FACE Act by violating the civil rights of worshippers. The First Amendment provides in part that Congress shall make no law...abridging... freedom of the press...Case law regarding statutory construction requires that a court read every federal statute in a way that preserves its constitutionality. The FACE Act conflicts with the First Amendment if it is read to abridge the right of a journalist to witness an event and to report about it. The law cannot be constitutionally applied to Lemon or other Journalists then present, including Georgia Fort, and they cannot be convicted of violating a law that does not apply to them.
These fools don’t think about winning a court case. They know they will loose. The resulting fear that they can put in the minds of ordinary people is the goal.
My guess is that the cases will be dismissed after aggressive pre-trial motion practice.
Yes. But the cost to the defenders, and the turmoil to the community will be what this administration’s wants. The damage being forced on us is the desired outcome.
The Constitution is just toilet paper to the sociopaths in the Executive.
True. The Courts can speak but it won't matter if the Executive Branch refuses to apply the law. Eisenhower and Kennedy used the military to enforce the orders of the Courts in Arkansas and Alabama. We would still have segregated schools without those Executive actions. I attended integrated schools in a mostly white county. The schools had long been integrated because integration was less expensive than building a separate but equal school system for thirty students in grades 1-12.
You have two ideals, power and wealth. Gina, you are correct when you said that building an equal but separate school had to be sacrificed. Unequal, sure. That’s cheaper. But that was becoming less of an option by the 1950’s and 1960’s. JVL said it best “When we do something (fill in the blanks), it’s because we benefit from it.” War is expensive and regressive. Stop wars, save money. Give to charitable organizations, save hospitalizations and incarceration. Assimilation into the culture comes later. And ultimately everyone benefits. Unfortunately this president wants chaos and uncertainty because he benefits, in his twisted mind.
if there is a lot of chaos and uncertainty, it is easy to miss the billions of dollars in grift happening.
Yep. Pickpockets are good at distracting the victim by bumping into them. Hit on the right side, you don’t notice your wallet leaving your left side pocket.
Somehow, a pickpocket seems like a quaint, fairly benign entity, in comparison to the heinous administration occupants.
I'm an atheist, but will admit that church buildings have been a sanctuary for people fleeing persecution for centuries.
Until now, with the "Christian" nationalists in charge.
I'm an atheist, too, and I'm reminded of incidents like Oradour-Sur-Glane, 1944, where a church has become a pyre instead of a sanctuary.
ICE has precedent on its side. /s
I just reread this post and could not help but realize how inadequate the noun "incidents" sounds here. Please read it as "atrocities."
This administration is the most anti-Christian of my lifetime. They are covering themselves in shame. I pray that their inner voices tell them to get out while they still have souls. The Devil is working hard these days.
It's quite something to see "Christian nationalists" and others who are ostentatious in their piety lifting up what George Will correctly called a "sickening moral slum of an administration."
It isn't just the cruelty toward immigrants and toward people who stand up for them. There's also the grotesque self-dealing by the Trump-aligned plutocrats, and the stench of moral impunity surrounding the Epstein matter.
It's a perennial truth that people with power and wealth often think they can live beyond rules. It has also often been the case that people use the cloak of religion to rationalize their own sins. But I've still been shocked by the way a lot of people who like to parade their own "conservative, Christian values" have valorized moral relativism and demanded indulgence of a sleazy sociopath -- to the point that some of them are either participating in or accepting the coverup of a massive underage sex trafficking operation, while so many allegedly immoral left-liberals and nonreligious people are showing far better moral judgment.
I'm not religious, but if I had to pick an existing Antichrist figure, the current president would be it. Especially since he is so profoundly unlike Christ, yet so many who call themselves "Christians" worship him like a god.
Or Stephen Miller. So many choices.
No, not Stephen Miller. The Antichrist is described as an evil but charismatic figure that falsely substitutes himself as a savior in Christ's place, duping many "Christians" into essentially worshiping him instead of Christ. This description fits Trump to a T. It does not fit Stephen Miller, even though Miller is evil as all hell, because he has no charisma and the MAGAts don't worship him like a savior. Not a single person voted for Miller. He is just one of the Antichrist's worst henchmen.
OK!
Thoughts and prayers always work. Your check is in the mail. The Tooth Fairy is real. Take your pick. YMMV.
I believe this Bulwark article about ICE terrorizing worshipers in churches is extremely important in the aftermath to the arrest of Don Lemon & a 2nd independent journalist covering the protest in a Minneapolis church. Apparently, the protest was sparked by the involvement (employment?) of one of its ministers with ICE: protestors were objecting to this minister's engaging in activities that were anathema to many of his parishioners. The 2 independent journalists were at the church covering the protest.
Thus, the Bulwark's article about ICE 'terrorizing' parishioners in churches well BEFORE this particular incident adds critical context to this story: as it makes the charge that the journalists were 'interfering' with parishioners' rights to worship at this church appear quite hypocritical. Indeed, as ICE is breaking into churches, childcare centers, schools, hospitals, etc., the general public needs to know the facts about the great variety of venues that ICE has made vulnerable to brutal incursions.
The real question is when the general public will become fully aware of ICE's senseless, random brutality and insist on a great pullback in that agency's astonishing overreach. For example, I heard some of the testimony of ICE victims before Congress (all Dems unfortunately) on Feb. 3rd: e.g., especially horrifying was the experience of the young Montessori teacher (a citizen) in Chicago who had been apprehended while on an errand on Sat. & shot 5 times (7 wounds) by ICE. Hospitalized for treatment of her wounds, after 3 hours in the hospital for treatment, she was then incarcerated by ICE for the weekend(!). According to her written testimony, this pooe woman was only released when the school community & her family came out in force at her hearing the following Monday. Needless to say, there were no charges, & she was thereby released. How can this occur in the United States?
Adrian, muchas gracias for your deep reporting on this. And for all your reporting on this issue.
So far, there is a tissue paper veneer to this group of lawlessness - “We are only doing our job.” It is said so often, those hearing it go numb. My fear is that the tissue paper is being shredded and soon, there will be no rationalization. These people will want everyone to know that what they are doing is what they want to do. Just like the SS troops under Hitler. Then, we won’t hear that comment until they are on the witness stand, pleading for mercy.
I was just following orders.
The refrain of a person who has no moral center.
The case of the Iranians is interesting. We may well be going to war to protect Iranian people from persecution by their religious leaders in Iran but we want to send those who came here to avoid persecution back to Iran to be persecuted . Are we trying to help these people because we care about their well-being or not? Are we committed to helping these people,but only as long as they stay out of our country? Is it reasonable to ask what our principles actually are.