And here's the kicker: the recruiters of said people are keenly aware of that and want those types of people. They're chronically angry at any perceived slight, prone to blame others for their failures, and don't have the mental discipline to handle hardship and tense situations.
If you're looking for people who can be easily manipulated to violent ends, those are exactly the type of people you recruit.
Honestly, ICE is now America's version of the Brownshirts. I would not be surprised if Trump or alter ego Stephen Miller tries expanding their mission to crack down on "leftists" who are American citizens who are concerned with preserving our country's democratic values.
Becoming and expanding are doing a lot of work in your comment. I'd say they are the brownshirts, and they are cracking down on leftist American citizens. Especially those with dark skin.
I think you are going to see more white women ripped out of their cars and generally abused and intimidated. Trump is losing white women voters. Gotta get those f'ng bitches' back in line.
Yes, If there are laws of misogyny, one of them is that if a woman is murdered (especially by a male), it was her fault.
It's tactically necessary for Trump's minions to escalate the terror for their master's approval. Why not target white women, who the MAGA Christian right had claimed they were protecting from the "migrant (brown) crime wave".
You know that old gospel saying: Who Would Jesus Shoot in the Face?
Now I guess we know.
Maybe the fine courageous shooter, in addition to complete immunity (whatever the hell that is), also gets a bounty and a Go Fund Me account to pay for his therapy after the trauma of surviving the immensely dangerous situation of talking to an unarmed woman through a car window.
The administration's definition of "leftists" are anybody from Our Republican Legacy to moderate Democrats to Democratic Socialists of America to members of the Green Party.
Yes, it is exactly the same as social media that allows anonymous posting, they don't have to be responsible for their actions or words. The same trolls who mask their comments on line are now joining ICE so they can physically play out their sadistic fantasies of power - because instead of words, they now have access to guns to make their point. Both forms of intimidation are making America a much less safe place to be than it was just a few short years ago. The President should be held accountable for his menacing policies, but so should the the tech bros - because they are both harming the well being of ordinary Americans.
I look at DHS and ICE recruiters as agents to hire and train Trump's "Brownshirts". They are serving the same purpose as Hitler's Brownshirts: Create chaos and intimidation!
speaking of being too stupid, I saw reporting that the alleged $50K signing bonuses are not paid up front and will only be rewarded after 3-5 years of service. You know, after Trump is out of office (https://fortune.com/2026/01/08/former-ice-director-wartime-recruitment-bonus-officer-training-pay/). I guess they better hope the Republicans keep control of congress and the white house for the next 3-5 years, eh?
So, remember when you see ICE harassing women and minorities, engaging in white supremacist and patriarchal anti-american, anti-democratic, illegitimate violence, they are doing that out of their own heart's desire. They didn't even get the pay day yet.
Or, they are taking this sleight of hand scam out on the people who are available. Can’t complain to the Dear Leader until you get your money, or poof, it’s gone!
I read the linked article to say the bonus is paid out over 3 years. It may be backloaded (10%/30%/60%) for example and have some clawback provisions but recruits should get some cash and/or loan repayments during the term.
The regime is using our money to provide economically rational job options for its fans.
They are also dependent for their 'power' on their anonymity and their guns. Without those two things they are reduced to the status of mere inadequate semi-humans.
I... am radically pissed at ICE, and want it abolished, and those who have done crimes to be prosecuted. As a Catholic however, I do want to speak out whenever I see dehumanizing rhetoric though. They're still human. They're moral failures and cowards, but not at all "semi-human."
If anything, don't give them a pass. If indeed they were "semi-human" it could almost be seen as an excuse, right?
Animals after all do not have our moral agency, a slug is a slug because it is a slug. ICE agents are human beings who choose to act in the manner of slugs. That is worse.
Of course, Kotzsu. You're right. But functional humans do not degrade themselves to mindless animal behavior, which is what uncalled for violence against others is. In that context, many animals are superior.
Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face. Right now, I will not visit any business establishment that shows even the tiniest whiff of support for the Trump regime. Imagine any of these dudes listing ICE participation on their resume when they try to find employment after ICE has been abolished. Democrats will reject them on moral grounds, Republicans will reject them as ignorant failures. They better rake in the money while they can, because working for ICE may just be the last job they ever have.
Ross is a veteran and began with ICE in the W Bush years. I do think your characterization applies to the recent influx of 90 day wonder storm troopers.
It also verifies to me that so much of what’s going on is closely related to a building tsunami of misogyny. The end of no fault divorce is looming, as is making birth control illegal. Sounds impossibly extreme, but having armed secret police killing citizens without consequences sounds impossible too.
We're now living in a world where young women are lapping young men, and the former doesn't want anything to do with the latter when it comes to dating, sex and starting a family. Instead of helping out young men and getting them to become productive members of society, the administration is giving them license to hurt women. It's incredibly fucked up.
The built-in misogyny of this society is a primary cause of our current malady. Much of Trump's electoral success is due to the fact that for many voters any male is a better candidate than any female.
And what training gives you permission to just walk away, then drive away, from a crime scene where you just murdered somebody? I cannot believe the callousness and illegality of such a move. Where did he go, who did he talk to, whose authority did he submit to? These questions need to be answered, which is why we need a completely public investigation by the local authorities in Minnesota.
Having spent the afternoon with 2000 dedicated, outraged Americans in Providence RI, I am more optimistic than ever that Trump/MAGA's war on America is coming to and end. Trump's private armies will be gone from our cities. GOP voters are abandoning Trump. A National Strike is coming to drive out the Fascists. A simple reminder to Trump from 1776. "LIBERTY NOT DEATH IN AMERICA"
I'm not that sanguine, Merrill. Mind you, I do think we'll get to the other side of this, but there will be a lot of bloodshed before we get from here to there.
War is hell, so they say. Plenty of our citizens have been willing to, and have, put their bodies on the line to stand up to oppression. (I'm thinking of the Civil Rights Movement, specifically.) I don't relish it, but I don't think there will be much choice.
For what it's worth in these trying times, below is a link to Patrick Henry's entire famous 1775 speech to the Virginia legislature supporting independence from mad King George . "Give me liberty or give me death" is inspirational. But the entirety of the speech has many analogs to our time today and how to respond to tyranny waged by an authoritarian government. https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/patrick.asp
It's one step up from prison guard. People don't become guards because they love it. They become guards because they couldn't do better. ICE and Border Patrol are where people go when other agencies won't take you.
Unfortunately, they also do it for the money. I've known dedicated public school teachers, wonderful people, who became prison guards because it paid three times their salary. You can hardly blame them, as it is nearly impossible to raise a family, buy a home, etc. on what an average teacher makes. It's a sick world where the work of prison guards is more valued, financially, than the teaching of our children.
If we were living inside a functioning democracy, Trump never would have been elevated in the first place. Not because the electorate is virtuous, or wise, or immune to demagoguery, but because democracies are not built on trust in human goodness. They are built on mistrust. On friction. On deliberately engineered resistance. Institutions exist to absorb shock, to filter out pathological actors, to slow the conversion of mass impulse into sovereign power.
If we had a functioning justice system, he would be in prison. Not as a moral spectacle, not as a cathartic act of political revenge, but as the dull, procedural consequence of law encountering evidence and proceeding without fear.
If we had a functioning Supreme Court, he would have been ruled ineligible. The constitutional prohibitions were neither novel nor obscure. They were explicit, historical, and designed for precisely this scenario. The guardrails did not erode through ambiguity; they were dismantled through willful non-enforcement. Law did not fail because it was unclear. It failed because it was inconvenient.
If we had a functioning Congress, he would have been removed. Again and again. Not after solemn speeches or strategic delays, but decisively, without ritualized handwringing. Impeachment did not collapse under the weight of insufficient evidence. It collapsed under the cowardice of legislators who understood the consequences and chose personal survival over institutional survival. What died in those chambers was not procedure, but legitimacy.
In a healthy political system, one individual cannot inflict this much damage, or distort reality this thoroughly. The fact that he could, and did, is the diagnosis. Trump is not the disease. He is the symptom made visible. The real emergency is not the man. It is the hollowed-out architecture that was supposed to stop him, and instead stepped aside.
Against that backdrop, arguing about masks feels almost obscene, and yet the mask controversy is instructive, a kind of moral MRI. The same cohort that howled about personal liberty when asked to wear a mask to protect the vulnerable now insists on anonymity as a prerequisite for inflicting harm. The pivot is flawless. The logic is airtight in its cynicism. It was never about freedom. It was never about safety. It was about insulation. About severing action from consequence. About exercising force without leaving fingerprints.
This is not a debate over fabric. It is a referendum on accountability. Masks here are not protective equipment; they are instruments of moral laundering. They erase the face, and with it the burden of ownership. They convert state power into something feral and deniable, something that can be disowned the moment it becomes inconvenient.
What we are witnessing is not polarization. It is epistemic collapse. The abandonment of any shared, verifiable reality in favor of narrative allegiance. A nation in which vast numbers of people no longer ask whether a thing is true, only whether it sounds good, whether it arrives wrapped in the correct emotional cadence, whether it flatters grievance and sanctifies cruelty. Facts became optional. Truth became factional. Reality itself is demoted to an aesthetic choice, curated to preserve identity rather than describe the world.
This is how democracies don’t fall with tanks in the streets, but with language quietly unmoored from meaning. With accountability rendered optional. With power detached from names, faces, and consequences. When authority wears a mask long enough, it forgets it ever had a face, and when a society stops insisting that power be seen, identified, and answerable, democracy doesn’t collapse in a single, cinematic moment. It hollows out. It becomes a costume. A word we keep using long after the thing itself has slipped the leash.
Masks are incidental. The disappearance underneath them is the point.
It's true - all three pillars for the 'checks and balances' are dysfunctional today. We don't have a healthy democracy that follows its constitution right now. And it was a decades-long process that brought the country to this point, trump of course simply acting as an accelerationist to hurry the breakdown of constitutional guardrails. I think what began the process was actually built into the original wording of the constitution, though - the unforeseen and unintended consequences of unregulated free speech in its 1st Amendment. If you can spread propaganda widely and quickly (as cable TV and Mr. Murdoch proved) with no requirements that it be explicitly labeled as Opinion and not necessarily factual, you can't expect a country with unrestricted universal voting to have enough discerning citizens to know when they're being lied to. But it's impossible to regulate speech when there's such a fine line between stretching the truth by exaggerating something, or leaving out context about something being 'reported' by your on-air personalities, and outright lying by making something up entirely. I don't know if this country can withstand 3 more years of this particular accelerationist, but I do think removing trump is step 1 of any chance at correcting course.
Thank you Steve. I agree. I am fully on the side of removing him, it is a necessary survival reflex for the republic, but I also want everyone to be fully clear-eyed about what comes next. I worry that if he is removed without the iron-clad consequences that historically accompany treason, we aren't solving the problem; we are just advertising the vacancy.
The Supreme Court has already stripped the presidency of legal guardrails. If we demonstrate that a President has no laws and faces no reckoning, we are simply sitting on a ticking bomb, waiting for a more competent operator to pick up the detonator.
Either way, I'm honored to share a country with people like you, even if it's temporary.
Yep....simply removing him would be like draining the boil, but not taking ALL the required antibiotics. The infection comes back and even becomes resistant.
Thank you, my friend. I appreciate that. The sanity contained within these connections matters more with each passing day. I’m unconvinced America can be saved, but I remain convinced humanity can endure what this country has become because of people like you.
That so much of what made "America" great was the belief that norms and rational behavior would be enough to constrain the worst.
For so long, I kept reading in outlets like The Bulwark that "norm are important" and all through the Biden administration there was a sigh of relief from parts like here that the norms based world is in vogue again. Sure, there was a smidgen of concern that structural, legislative fixes weren't pursued (they were, but turns out that they are very difficult to enact) but the return of Trump, without any stabilizing members of his inner circle is now demonstrating how bad our beliefs were misplaced.
There is no quick return to sanity. Rick Wilson has a long piece about the process to restore America as we knew it. But like the half hearted efforts in the aftermath of the Civil War, and the inadequacy of the Nuremberg trials to truly punish the rank and file of the Nazi functionaries, I doubt that we as a nation will have the fortitude to do what is necessary. As near 40% of the population is just fine with everything that is happening (two of my 5 employees are gung ho about all that Trump and MAGA is doing, even the saber rattling over Greenland) and there isn't a benevolent coalition large enough to punish us like the allied forces utterly destroying Nazi Germany in 1945), I seriously doubt that the deep reflection and cleaning will happen.
And that's why Trump was elected. His followers give him absolute, god-like trust, and can't abide any disrespect of the deer leader. In their fevered minds, Trump is infallible and always 100% correct, even when he contradicts himself. That's why they're willing to let him move their jobs overseas, gut their healthcare, close their local hospitals, make their children die of preventable diseases, and excuse him being a pedophile. And now they're dug in too deep and will never admit they (or he) were wrong.
This is very well put. Even were Trump to keel over tomorrow, there is no reason to expect the ruination of what Jonathan Rauch calls the the epistemic commons not to continue apace.
...also, I appreciate General Hertling's comments this morning. But at the end of the day, Trump is attempting to destroy the United States, and anyone who has signed up with ICE since last January is fully onboard with that project. They don't give a shit about accountability or the rule of law. They want to fuck people up, and especially women who are considered "mouthy".
Nice to know that the president of the United States will defend street protesters in Iran and sanction violence against them here in the country that elected him.
It has to be a fig leaf for the common denominator of OIL. He still thinks oil is the future. He has the mind of a child. A very antisocial, damaged child.
Yes, he is not content with just destroying America, with his anti-environmental policies he will not be happy until he destroys the future of the entire world, including his own grandchildren. What an uncaring, ignorant ass.
Democrats should be throwing this in his face every single day. Along with the fact that he cares about the quality of life for Venezuelans, but Americans? Not so much.
Everything else bill kristol wrote about resisting trumpism is true but his delusion that collins or mcconnell ( there's a fractional chance that situational votes by murkowski and tillis are gettable) in particular will rise to the occasion by caucusing with dems isn’t going to happen, much as it should.
I agree. Collins, of course, famously has never had a spine, like those wind-blown wigglies in front of car dealerships, and McConnell has been an enemy of "The People" in his entire career as Senate leader by refusing to do his one job, as laid out in the founders' Constitution, of legislating and if necessary compromising with those of the opposing viewpoints to pass legislation. Outright refusal to allow anything Obama proposed to get a hearing, unconstitutionally stuffing the Supreme Court with two partisans of his party by defying the founders' stated intentions, on and on - doing absolutely nothing to honor their description of "We the people".
Yeah those 4 """moderates""" couldn't even coordinate to vote down a single Trump cabinet appointee. Instead they passed around 'who gets to be the deciding vote on this particular unqualified clown' like a hot potato.
Yes. Bill remembers that McConnell could have ensured that djt was impeached OUT of office after the first impeachment, and/or the second one. Why, Bill, would you ever think McConnell would do anything to help now?
Of all the enablers who have disgraced themselves and the Constitution, McConnell is singularly responsible for failing to stop the megalomaniacal djt, because he had the power to do so when we were at the brink.
It's my belief that McConnell, like many Republican politicians, HATES Donald Trump - as a person and as a leader. As McConnell gets closer and closer to the end of his career there is a chance that his abhorrence of Trump may motivate him to bring him down. Maybe. Perhaps he is just biding his time. There is always hope.
As Collins said in 2020, Trump "learned his lesson" - the lesson being that he can wield absolute power and no one in the GOP will even pretend to care.
I was in North Carolina in August when Tillis stood up to Trump for 30 minutes to protect rural hospitals. If rural hospitals for his own constituents only gave him 30 minutes of courage, I suspect Powell will only give him 2 hours of courage. Donors get more courage than sick people, but enjoy it while it lasts.
I wish the Sunday shows had asked the guests should that Louisville, Kentucky police officer have shot Scottie Scheffler that Friday morning of the PGA Championship last year:
After all, Scheffler disobeyed a police officer and “was dragged trying to stop his car”. It’s a damn good thing this ICE agent wasn’t there or we’d be looking for a new world #1 golfer. Turned out it was a simple misunderstanding. Imagine that when you have people yelling in a chaotic situation and he was thinking he was obeying the officer then before he knew it he was arrested. And that police department being normal dropped the charges once they saw how ludicrous it was.
It’s impossible to question habitual liars and expect anything different but I would’ve enjoyed seeing them try to square the circle with a question like that.
He’s clearly a Trump supporter but also known as a man of deep faith who demonstrates calm and kindness wherever he goes. I imagine he would be horrified about her death as he was arrested for an honest mistake and originally overcharged.
Schefflers original account has some analog to Goods situation:
He stated he was confused, thought the officer was aggressive, and pulled away out of fear, not realizing it was a police officer initially. He said he was just trying to get to his tee time and was "shaking with fear".
They all went aggressively at Good and she responded not ideally but reasonably.
Trump supporter and man of faith are two words that cannot coexist together. Unless you have evidence that Scheffler can see the analogy, I would be careful claiming anything about him. He would probably say he made a *honest* mistake while Good clearly intended to harm the officer. Just because something similar happened to someone does not mean that person has the self awareness to realize it in another context.
Trump running Venezuela sounds like a great idea as long as he takes JD and Marco with him. Or they can become the new monarchy in Iran he will get even more adulation there. Anywhere but the United States is fine with me.
I bet Mike "Jellyfish" Johnson hasn't seen any of the Minneapolis video or know a single thing about Trump's bloviating about Greenland, Mexico, Cuba, or Canada, too.
You are probably correct. I sometimes think Republican politicians never watch TV or anything other than their own social media accounts so they can plausibly deny knowing anything about Trump's corruption or idiotic policies. "I, personally, don't know anything about that," or "I haven't seen the coverage yet" have become pat excuses for not knowing what is going on right under their noses.
I’ve yet to read a news outlet discuss the glaring hypocrisy of Trump threatening to attack Iran over their killing of protesters, when Trump’s secret police did exactly that last week. I’m stuck in Irrational Land.
The news also forgot to report that the Epstein files haven't been released in violation of federal law. I wonder why they forgot about that? She wonders while she reads about all the people at the NY Times on the Epstein list.
Oh phooey. Why has this never occurred to me that NYT is invested in the cover up for the obvious reasons. I still have one foot in Normal Land. Has this been somewhat validated?
David Brooks was in the released photos and the NY Times ran to his defense. They also had a reporter, Landon Thomas Jr., who warned Epstein when the cops were onto him instead of, you know, reporting things.
Thomas was most definitely assisting a pedophile to get away with crimes. He no longer works at the Times. There is no proof that Brooks did anything wrong, other than hanging out with the pedophiles, but the fact that the Times and PBS have chosen to promote the guy photographed with Epstein and run his "Epstein was no big deal" op-eds at this point in time disgusts me. No clearer way to communicate to victims that child rape is just fine if you're rich and famous enough.
I better start reading The Guardian. Thanks for the link. And maybe it explains Brook’s ongoing smarmy morality essays. I was shocked at his tepid response compared to Jonathan Capehart’s on their Friday Newshour segment about the killing of Renee Good. Wow. The scales keep falling from my eyes.
The Guardian is an excellent source of information, and no paywall. If you read the entire article about Brooks, it does not implicate him in anything other than being in attendance at a TED talk dinner that Epstein also attended, which I imagine is a situation common to thousands of people.
I agree; no evidence of guilt. But a possible thread of weird nervousness and a lack of Brooks taking a strong stance on topics where he used to jump right in without moral equivocation.
I paid for the subscription even without the paywall. Independent journalism is essential right now.
I will give Brooks the benefit of the doubt. He said the 2011 photo was at a widely-attended dinner adjacent to a TED talk, the type of thing he frequently attends. He says that in 2011 he had no idea who Jeffrey Epstein was, had never met him, and never spoke to him at that event. It was not until the investigations of 2018 that he became aware of the name Jeffrey Epstein. Attending the same public event as someone does not equal personal involvement with that person. I want facts, not supposition. I will agree that it looked suspicious as Brooks had just written a column expressing his belief that people were spending too much time on Epstein. If anybody has any solid proof that Brooks was doing anything nefarious I am open to learning about it.
Thank you Gen. Hertling for saying what should be obvious about authorities hiding their identity, but apparently isn't. And Bill for calling on Dems to up their game: I sent emails to my Senators over the weekend demanding they include defunding and disbanding ICE in any CR they vote for. And yes, there should be bipartisan support for enforcing the Epstein Files law. I continue to call on my Senators to replace Schumer with someone who can lead, like Sens. Murphy or Booker. The People are leading while our leaders follow.
"Democrats could also refuse to vote to fund the government until Trump’s Justice Department obeys existing law and releases the Epstein files."
This should be a complete no-brainer. If you make this the main tenet of why the government is shut-down, it gives the Trump administration nowhere to go and would likely be supported by a lot of MAGA people - assuming they still believe the files are important to release to capture those bad Dems in the files
Couldn't agree more. Jeffries, too. He may be able to do the job of Speaker well, but he does not do well as a public speaker. He should admit that and appoint someone else to make public appearances for the House. He doesn't seem able to make any facial expressions, and he talks with something of a whine - nobody likes that. We need dynamic people who the public can relate to. Also from Oregon - lifelong native.
How Presidential. Felon Trump condemning an autocratic Iranian ruler for attacking and killing his protesting citizens, calling them insurgents and terrorists, while condemning and killing his own citizens and calling them the enemy. That’s our would be king, Felon Donald.
And that’s partly why I think the time is at hand for consumer and worker strikes. It will hurt. But there will be pain whether we resist or submit. Time to choose.
In case you missed it, this MSNOW segment on "Who are the ICE agents behind the masks?" was really good. They show body cam footage of ICE agents being stopped or arrested for various offenses, and how these thugs respond to authority.
Trump’s retribution agenda of do what I want or else is especially pathetic in this case as the Fed Chairman’s term is up in just a few months.
Then there is Trump’s life time of crime and he has the gall to want to investigate and prosecute.
Come election time, remember that Republicans have nominated Trump for the presidency three times in a row. Republicans are not fit to be a political party.
DJT, "...highly disrespectful..." Ms. Good, "That's fine, dude. I'm not mad at you." ICE Agent (perhaps the shooter) post shooting, "F***ing bitch." That which we do, we will accuse of you.
I don't know who said it, but someone described ICE as people who are too chickenshit to join the military and too stupid to be cops.
And here's the kicker: the recruiters of said people are keenly aware of that and want those types of people. They're chronically angry at any perceived slight, prone to blame others for their failures, and don't have the mental discipline to handle hardship and tense situations.
If you're looking for people who can be easily manipulated to violent ends, those are exactly the type of people you recruit.
Honestly, ICE is now America's version of the Brownshirts. I would not be surprised if Trump or alter ego Stephen Miller tries expanding their mission to crack down on "leftists" who are American citizens who are concerned with preserving our country's democratic values.
Becoming and expanding are doing a lot of work in your comment. I'd say they are the brownshirts, and they are cracking down on leftist American citizens. Especially those with dark skin.
I think you are going to see more white women ripped out of their cars and generally abused and intimidated. Trump is losing white women voters. Gotta get those f'ng bitches' back in line.
The rightwing, Christian nationalists have been waging a war on women for a long time.
Yes, If there are laws of misogyny, one of them is that if a woman is murdered (especially by a male), it was her fault.
It's tactically necessary for Trump's minions to escalate the terror for their master's approval. Why not target white women, who the MAGA Christian right had claimed they were protecting from the "migrant (brown) crime wave".
You know that old gospel saying: Who Would Jesus Shoot in the Face?
Now I guess we know.
Maybe the fine courageous shooter, in addition to complete immunity (whatever the hell that is), also gets a bounty and a Go Fund Me account to pay for his therapy after the trauma of surviving the immensely dangerous situation of talking to an unarmed woman through a car window.
The administration's definition of "leftists" are anybody from Our Republican Legacy to moderate Democrats to Democratic Socialists of America to members of the Green Party.
Anybody who isn’t fully behind the dictator.
Suggested revision: replace "becoming" with "is".
Point taken. Changed to "is now" to differentiate between Trump's ICE thugs
and those of other administrations in which the agency adhered to the law and proper training and accountability of their agents.
Ha! I wasn't actually thinking you would, but I'm done coddling the administration. I'm done hedging my words.
Donald J Trump is not flirting with being a dictator. Donald J Trump is a dictator.
We are not "becoming" a fascist nation. We are living under fascism.
The United States is no longer the "good guys". We are a predatory state.
Yup to all you said.
Unthinking, uneducated, bully boy mentality are the desired candidates for ICE Agency. And being masked gives them feeling of invincibility.
Well, the body armour and guns when facing people armed with cellphones also helps that feeling!
Feel like "real men", just the kind desired by Hiccup Hegseth and the other wannabes of this group of playactors.
Yep, "wannabes" is exactly the right word for it.
Yes, it is exactly the same as social media that allows anonymous posting, they don't have to be responsible for their actions or words. The same trolls who mask their comments on line are now joining ICE so they can physically play out their sadistic fantasies of power - because instead of words, they now have access to guns to make their point. Both forms of intimidation are making America a much less safe place to be than it was just a few short years ago. The President should be held accountable for his menacing policies, but so should the the tech bros - because they are both harming the well being of ordinary Americans.
I look at DHS and ICE recruiters as agents to hire and train Trump's "Brownshirts". They are serving the same purpose as Hitler's Brownshirts: Create chaos and intimidation!
And they make themselves vulnerable to another Night of the Long Knives, when their predecessors fell shouting Heil Hitler! to SS bullets.
Interesting deal that was......
Tey probably administer reverse IQ tests.
You mean, someone just like Trump himself. “Mini-Me”
To be fair, Trump is too chickenshit and too stupid to have been a police officer or in the military.
And yet he now holds the most powerful position in the world. I am reminded of Theoden's "How did we come to this?" speech.
In short, ICE is recruiting J6'ers, Proud Noys and Joe Rogan fanboys.
Yep, sounds like MAGA and their boss.
speaking of being too stupid, I saw reporting that the alleged $50K signing bonuses are not paid up front and will only be rewarded after 3-5 years of service. You know, after Trump is out of office (https://fortune.com/2026/01/08/former-ice-director-wartime-recruitment-bonus-officer-training-pay/). I guess they better hope the Republicans keep control of congress and the white house for the next 3-5 years, eh?
So, remember when you see ICE harassing women and minorities, engaging in white supremacist and patriarchal anti-american, anti-democratic, illegitimate violence, they are doing that out of their own heart's desire. They didn't even get the pay day yet.
silly me I thought the bonus came in a brown bag from a food joint!
Only the top dogs get that special treatment. Everyone else just has to wait their turn.
I'm hip ! 😎
“Golden handcuffs.”
See that's why I firmly believe that the Russian pee tape is real. The showers were golden after all. 🙄
Or, they are taking this sleight of hand scam out on the people who are available. Can’t complain to the Dear Leader until you get your money, or poof, it’s gone!
Kotzsu - for sure, trusting Trump's promises always works out well for people 😵
That ought to be another taunt they receive.
"How smart are you, tough guy? You fell for another Trump scam! 'Don't worry ... we'll pay you later!"
Fat, stupid, lazy bastards, every last one of them.
I suspect they do get access to female prisoners though...
I read the linked article to say the bonus is paid out over 3 years. It may be backloaded (10%/30%/60%) for example and have some clawback provisions but recruits should get some cash and/or loan repayments during the term.
The regime is using our money to provide economically rational job options for its fans.
Probably to be paid in Trump family crypto currency...
Unemployable in any non-criminal context.
They are also dependent for their 'power' on their anonymity and their guns. Without those two things they are reduced to the status of mere inadequate semi-humans.
I... am radically pissed at ICE, and want it abolished, and those who have done crimes to be prosecuted. As a Catholic however, I do want to speak out whenever I see dehumanizing rhetoric though. They're still human. They're moral failures and cowards, but not at all "semi-human."
If anything, don't give them a pass. If indeed they were "semi-human" it could almost be seen as an excuse, right?
Animals after all do not have our moral agency, a slug is a slug because it is a slug. ICE agents are human beings who choose to act in the manner of slugs. That is worse.
Of course, Kotzsu. You're right. But functional humans do not degrade themselves to mindless animal behavior, which is what uncalled for violence against others is. In that context, many animals are superior.
What disturbs: their Mommies would be proud of them.
The murder Jonathan Ross' dad is.
The one line of employment where a clean background check is disqualifying, except maybe for gangbanger/mafioso.
Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face. Right now, I will not visit any business establishment that shows even the tiniest whiff of support for the Trump regime. Imagine any of these dudes listing ICE participation on their resume when they try to find employment after ICE has been abolished. Democrats will reject them on moral grounds, Republicans will reject them as ignorant failures. They better rake in the money while they can, because working for ICE may just be the last job they ever have.
Ross is a veteran and began with ICE in the W Bush years. I do think your characterization applies to the recent influx of 90 day wonder storm troopers.
Ross's "fucking bitch" comment after he shot Renee Good reveals a dark soul.
It also verifies to me that so much of what’s going on is closely related to a building tsunami of misogyny. The end of no fault divorce is looming, as is making birth control illegal. Sounds impossibly extreme, but having armed secret police killing citizens without consequences sounds impossible too.
Their hatred of women knows no bound. Policies, actions, rhetoric, it is all toxic masculinity all the way down
We're now living in a world where young women are lapping young men, and the former doesn't want anything to do with the latter when it comes to dating, sex and starting a family. Instead of helping out young men and getting them to become productive members of society, the administration is giving them license to hurt women. It's incredibly fucked up.
The built-in misogyny of this society is a primary cause of our current malady. Much of Trump's electoral success is due to the fact that for many voters any male is a better candidate than any female.
Yes, and anger. Not the best reason to shoot a person from the legal point of view.
Indeed, “from the legal point of view”. From the data point of view probably every shooting is rooted in anger.
Probably. In this case, it seems like the anger was mostly at Becca, Renee's partner.
She didn't act scared of him, and that clearly made him irate.
He didn't think his life was in danger, he was triggered because she didn't respect his "authoritah" </eric cartman>
Ice is not hiring “our best”. “Murderers, rapists, and people out of asylums”. If only I were joking.
Definitely an angry person.
You mean "47 day" as the training has been halved to be 47, the number of Trump's term in office
And yes, that is real, and apparently the reason for shortening the training period.
Fucking hell. I would love to see Adam Schiff grill Noem about that choice.
Shouldn't need a trained cross-examiner to shoot that dog in a barrel, I mean fish.
I would like Moskowitz to grill Noem. Watching him fillet Comer-Fudd is just delish, and she's no smarter than him.
And what training gives you permission to just walk away, then drive away, from a crime scene where you just murdered somebody? I cannot believe the callousness and illegality of such a move. Where did he go, who did he talk to, whose authority did he submit to? These questions need to be answered, which is why we need a completely public investigation by the local authorities in Minnesota.
Indeed, he jumped in the car to go get his post-execution meal.
He didn't look shaken up or upset at all. He almost seemed jubilant.
I read where they are given 47 days of training. 47, get it. 47th President. I'm sure DJT thought that was clever.
DJT isn't that clever. This is yet another display by the cult of MAGA bootlickers to demonstrate that they are "clever" and "subservant".
The comedian's post last night nailed it: "ICE updates recruiting policies to automatically reject anyone without a prior criminal conviction".
Having spent the afternoon with 2000 dedicated, outraged Americans in Providence RI, I am more optimistic than ever that Trump/MAGA's war on America is coming to and end. Trump's private armies will be gone from our cities. GOP voters are abandoning Trump. A National Strike is coming to drive out the Fascists. A simple reminder to Trump from 1776. "LIBERTY NOT DEATH IN AMERICA"
I'm not that sanguine, Merrill. Mind you, I do think we'll get to the other side of this, but there will be a lot of bloodshed before we get from here to there.
War is hell, so they say. Plenty of our citizens have been willing to, and have, put their bodies on the line to stand up to oppression. (I'm thinking of the Civil Rights Movement, specifically.) I don't relish it, but I don't think there will be much choice.
I don't relish it either, OJVV. In fact, I'm dreading what's coming. But this has been thrust upon us, and like you said, there won't be much choice.
A national strike will need to happen, but it will need to be massive, coordinated, and many weeks long.
Merrill, I'll give you a like because I can use your optimism. But I'm not nearly as confident as you are. Still think things will get a lot worse.
For what it's worth in these trying times, below is a link to Patrick Henry's entire famous 1775 speech to the Virginia legislature supporting independence from mad King George . "Give me liberty or give me death" is inspirational. But the entirety of the speech has many analogs to our time today and how to respond to tyranny waged by an authoritarian government. https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/patrick.asp
I would add/clarify they are also "rule adverse" which would not work in the military either.
People that police forces weed out, ICE weeds IN.
It's one step up from prison guard. People don't become guards because they love it. They become guards because they couldn't do better. ICE and Border Patrol are where people go when other agencies won't take you.
Unfortunately, they also do it for the money. I've known dedicated public school teachers, wonderful people, who became prison guards because it paid three times their salary. You can hardly blame them, as it is nearly impossible to raise a family, buy a home, etc. on what an average teacher makes. It's a sick world where the work of prison guards is more valued, financially, than the teaching of our children.
The idea that a school teacher has to become a prison guard to make ends meet is just insane. We value locking people up than educating children!
Remind me, what happens to crime when people are less educated and have less economic prospects?
It's probably "can't pass the background check" to be a cop.
That description sounds dead on.
More likely military and or policy rejects or booting out for bad behavior
Absolutely correct.
Pretty damn accurate.
If we were living inside a functioning democracy, Trump never would have been elevated in the first place. Not because the electorate is virtuous, or wise, or immune to demagoguery, but because democracies are not built on trust in human goodness. They are built on mistrust. On friction. On deliberately engineered resistance. Institutions exist to absorb shock, to filter out pathological actors, to slow the conversion of mass impulse into sovereign power.
If we had a functioning justice system, he would be in prison. Not as a moral spectacle, not as a cathartic act of political revenge, but as the dull, procedural consequence of law encountering evidence and proceeding without fear.
If we had a functioning Supreme Court, he would have been ruled ineligible. The constitutional prohibitions were neither novel nor obscure. They were explicit, historical, and designed for precisely this scenario. The guardrails did not erode through ambiguity; they were dismantled through willful non-enforcement. Law did not fail because it was unclear. It failed because it was inconvenient.
If we had a functioning Congress, he would have been removed. Again and again. Not after solemn speeches or strategic delays, but decisively, without ritualized handwringing. Impeachment did not collapse under the weight of insufficient evidence. It collapsed under the cowardice of legislators who understood the consequences and chose personal survival over institutional survival. What died in those chambers was not procedure, but legitimacy.
In a healthy political system, one individual cannot inflict this much damage, or distort reality this thoroughly. The fact that he could, and did, is the diagnosis. Trump is not the disease. He is the symptom made visible. The real emergency is not the man. It is the hollowed-out architecture that was supposed to stop him, and instead stepped aside.
Against that backdrop, arguing about masks feels almost obscene, and yet the mask controversy is instructive, a kind of moral MRI. The same cohort that howled about personal liberty when asked to wear a mask to protect the vulnerable now insists on anonymity as a prerequisite for inflicting harm. The pivot is flawless. The logic is airtight in its cynicism. It was never about freedom. It was never about safety. It was about insulation. About severing action from consequence. About exercising force without leaving fingerprints.
This is not a debate over fabric. It is a referendum on accountability. Masks here are not protective equipment; they are instruments of moral laundering. They erase the face, and with it the burden of ownership. They convert state power into something feral and deniable, something that can be disowned the moment it becomes inconvenient.
What we are witnessing is not polarization. It is epistemic collapse. The abandonment of any shared, verifiable reality in favor of narrative allegiance. A nation in which vast numbers of people no longer ask whether a thing is true, only whether it sounds good, whether it arrives wrapped in the correct emotional cadence, whether it flatters grievance and sanctifies cruelty. Facts became optional. Truth became factional. Reality itself is demoted to an aesthetic choice, curated to preserve identity rather than describe the world.
This is how democracies don’t fall with tanks in the streets, but with language quietly unmoored from meaning. With accountability rendered optional. With power detached from names, faces, and consequences. When authority wears a mask long enough, it forgets it ever had a face, and when a society stops insisting that power be seen, identified, and answerable, democracy doesn’t collapse in a single, cinematic moment. It hollows out. It becomes a costume. A word we keep using long after the thing itself has slipped the leash.
Masks are incidental. The disappearance underneath them is the point.
Yup.
If we had a functioning citizenry he wouldn't have survived the first primary in 2016. It was clear what Trump was 30yrs before that.
"If we had a functioning justice system, he would be in prison."
There is a lesson to be learned from Brazil.
Ironically, Trump “unmasked” the ugly American.
It's true - all three pillars for the 'checks and balances' are dysfunctional today. We don't have a healthy democracy that follows its constitution right now. And it was a decades-long process that brought the country to this point, trump of course simply acting as an accelerationist to hurry the breakdown of constitutional guardrails. I think what began the process was actually built into the original wording of the constitution, though - the unforeseen and unintended consequences of unregulated free speech in its 1st Amendment. If you can spread propaganda widely and quickly (as cable TV and Mr. Murdoch proved) with no requirements that it be explicitly labeled as Opinion and not necessarily factual, you can't expect a country with unrestricted universal voting to have enough discerning citizens to know when they're being lied to. But it's impossible to regulate speech when there's such a fine line between stretching the truth by exaggerating something, or leaving out context about something being 'reported' by your on-air personalities, and outright lying by making something up entirely. I don't know if this country can withstand 3 more years of this particular accelerationist, but I do think removing trump is step 1 of any chance at correcting course.
Thank you Steve. I agree. I am fully on the side of removing him, it is a necessary survival reflex for the republic, but I also want everyone to be fully clear-eyed about what comes next. I worry that if he is removed without the iron-clad consequences that historically accompany treason, we aren't solving the problem; we are just advertising the vacancy.
The Supreme Court has already stripped the presidency of legal guardrails. If we demonstrate that a President has no laws and faces no reckoning, we are simply sitting on a ticking bomb, waiting for a more competent operator to pick up the detonator.
Either way, I'm honored to share a country with people like you, even if it's temporary.
Yep....simply removing him would be like draining the boil, but not taking ALL the required antibiotics. The infection comes back and even becomes resistant.
Outstanding commentary Patrick. Beautiful.
Agreed.
Spot on my brother. You have captured the essence of the argument, and highlighted the hypocrisy that is endemic in the administration.
Thank you, my friend. I appreciate that. The sanity contained within these connections matters more with each passing day. I’m unconvinced America can be saved, but I remain convinced humanity can endure what this country has become because of people like you.
That so much of what made "America" great was the belief that norms and rational behavior would be enough to constrain the worst.
For so long, I kept reading in outlets like The Bulwark that "norm are important" and all through the Biden administration there was a sigh of relief from parts like here that the norms based world is in vogue again. Sure, there was a smidgen of concern that structural, legislative fixes weren't pursued (they were, but turns out that they are very difficult to enact) but the return of Trump, without any stabilizing members of his inner circle is now demonstrating how bad our beliefs were misplaced.
There is no quick return to sanity. Rick Wilson has a long piece about the process to restore America as we knew it. But like the half hearted efforts in the aftermath of the Civil War, and the inadequacy of the Nuremberg trials to truly punish the rank and file of the Nazi functionaries, I doubt that we as a nation will have the fortitude to do what is necessary. As near 40% of the population is just fine with everything that is happening (two of my 5 employees are gung ho about all that Trump and MAGA is doing, even the saber rattling over Greenland) and there isn't a benevolent coalition large enough to punish us like the allied forces utterly destroying Nazi Germany in 1945), I seriously doubt that the deep reflection and cleaning will happen.
Sigh.
And that's why Trump was elected. His followers give him absolute, god-like trust, and can't abide any disrespect of the deer leader. In their fevered minds, Trump is infallible and always 100% correct, even when he contradicts himself. That's why they're willing to let him move their jobs overseas, gut their healthcare, close their local hospitals, make their children die of preventable diseases, and excuse him being a pedophile. And now they're dug in too deep and will never admit they (or he) were wrong.
This is very well put. Even were Trump to keel over tomorrow, there is no reason to expect the ruination of what Jonathan Rauch calls the the epistemic commons not to continue apace.
"if' is the middle word in l if e.
...also, I appreciate General Hertling's comments this morning. But at the end of the day, Trump is attempting to destroy the United States, and anyone who has signed up with ICE since last January is fully onboard with that project. They don't give a shit about accountability or the rule of law. They want to fuck people up, and especially women who are considered "mouthy".
That is exactly their mindset.
Nice to know that the president of the United States will defend street protesters in Iran and sanction violence against them here in the country that elected him.
It's a similar thing with offering every Greenlander money for them to turn over the country. Or spending trillions on Iraq and Afghanistan.
Our country cares far more with projecting military/political strength outside our country than we do when it comes to caring for our own people.
It has to be a fig leaf for the common denominator of OIL. He still thinks oil is the future. He has the mind of a child. A very antisocial, damaged child.
Yes, he is not content with just destroying America, with his anti-environmental policies he will not be happy until he destroys the future of the entire world, including his own grandchildren. What an uncaring, ignorant ass.
This is a great statement! If I could "like" more I would
Democrats should be throwing this in his face every single day. Along with the fact that he cares about the quality of life for Venezuelans, but Americans? Not so much.
Everything else bill kristol wrote about resisting trumpism is true but his delusion that collins or mcconnell ( there's a fractional chance that situational votes by murkowski and tillis are gettable) in particular will rise to the occasion by caucusing with dems isn’t going to happen, much as it should.
I agree. Collins, of course, famously has never had a spine, like those wind-blown wigglies in front of car dealerships, and McConnell has been an enemy of "The People" in his entire career as Senate leader by refusing to do his one job, as laid out in the founders' Constitution, of legislating and if necessary compromising with those of the opposing viewpoints to pass legislation. Outright refusal to allow anything Obama proposed to get a hearing, unconstitutionally stuffing the Supreme Court with two partisans of his party by defying the founders' stated intentions, on and on - doing absolutely nothing to honor their description of "We the people".
Yeah those 4 """moderates""" couldn't even coordinate to vote down a single Trump cabinet appointee. Instead they passed around 'who gets to be the deciding vote on this particular unqualified clown' like a hot potato.
I know, it's like they drew straws to see whose turn it was to "voice concern"
Yes. Bill remembers that McConnell could have ensured that djt was impeached OUT of office after the first impeachment, and/or the second one. Why, Bill, would you ever think McConnell would do anything to help now?
Of all the enablers who have disgraced themselves and the Constitution, McConnell is singularly responsible for failing to stop the megalomaniacal djt, because he had the power to do so when we were at the brink.
I read a comment a few years ago that McConnell by himself has screwed up all 3 branches of the federal government.
It's my belief that McConnell, like many Republican politicians, HATES Donald Trump - as a person and as a leader. As McConnell gets closer and closer to the end of his career there is a chance that his abhorrence of Trump may motivate him to bring him down. Maybe. Perhaps he is just biding his time. There is always hope.
If Moscow Mitch felt at all bad about letting Trump stick around, he'd have resigned in disgrace.
As Collins said in 2020, Trump "learned his lesson" - the lesson being that he can wield absolute power and no one in the GOP will even pretend to care.
he learned a lot of lessons in the first term but that was the most significant.
Don't worry, we won't have Susan Collins to kick around much longer, unless this is kayfabe, which who knows these days?
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/5682431-susan-collins-maine-senate-race/
We have hope here, too. I don't think she will get enough support from Trump voters to pull it off this time.
There have been some green shoots. Thom Tillis. Thomas Massie. Showing fertile ground, I hope?
I was in North Carolina in August when Tillis stood up to Trump for 30 minutes to protect rural hospitals. If rural hospitals for his own constituents only gave him 30 minutes of courage, I suspect Powell will only give him 2 hours of courage. Donors get more courage than sick people, but enjoy it while it lasts.
I guess I’ll settle for a drop in the reservoir of courage. Hoping it helps break the dam of Republican tail-tucking.
I wish the Sunday shows had asked the guests should that Louisville, Kentucky police officer have shot Scottie Scheffler that Friday morning of the PGA Championship last year:
https://www.espn.com/golf/story/_/id/40164654/officer-dragged-ground-trying-stop-scottie-scheffler-car
After all, Scheffler disobeyed a police officer and “was dragged trying to stop his car”. It’s a damn good thing this ICE agent wasn’t there or we’d be looking for a new world #1 golfer. Turned out it was a simple misunderstanding. Imagine that when you have people yelling in a chaotic situation and he was thinking he was obeying the officer then before he knew it he was arrested. And that police department being normal dropped the charges once they saw how ludicrous it was.
It’s impossible to question habitual liars and expect anything different but I would’ve enjoyed seeing them try to square the circle with a question like that.
I'd want to see Scheffler himself asked that question. He's extremely religious--wouldn't be surprised if he's MAGA thru and thru.
He’s clearly a Trump supporter but also known as a man of deep faith who demonstrates calm and kindness wherever he goes. I imagine he would be horrified about her death as he was arrested for an honest mistake and originally overcharged.
Schefflers original account has some analog to Goods situation:
He stated he was confused, thought the officer was aggressive, and pulled away out of fear, not realizing it was a police officer initially. He said he was just trying to get to his tee time and was "shaking with fear".
They all went aggressively at Good and she responded not ideally but reasonably.
Trump supporter and man of faith are two words that cannot coexist together. Unless you have evidence that Scheffler can see the analogy, I would be careful claiming anything about him. He would probably say he made a *honest* mistake while Good clearly intended to harm the officer. Just because something similar happened to someone does not mean that person has the self awareness to realize it in another context.
This crop of liars just repeats the lie, only louder and with embellishments, when challenged.
VERY, VERY GOOD ANALOGY - democrats need to pick this up and run with it.
Trump running Venezuela sounds like a great idea as long as he takes JD and Marco with him. Or they can become the new monarchy in Iran he will get even more adulation there. Anywhere but the United States is fine with me.
If only. I have a dream that Rubio is physically placed in Venezuela to continue wrestling his own soul into submission.
"And here’s the thing: No one is really disputing it."
Your daily Trumpian corruption the size of an elephant that Republican electeds will have to pretend not to see.
I bet Mike "Jellyfish" Johnson hasn't seen any of the Minneapolis video or know a single thing about Trump's bloviating about Greenland, Mexico, Cuba, or Canada, too.
You are probably correct. I sometimes think Republican politicians never watch TV or anything other than their own social media accounts so they can plausibly deny knowing anything about Trump's corruption or idiotic policies. "I, personally, don't know anything about that," or "I haven't seen the coverage yet" have become pat excuses for not knowing what is going on right under their noses.
I’ve yet to read a news outlet discuss the glaring hypocrisy of Trump threatening to attack Iran over their killing of protesters, when Trump’s secret police did exactly that last week. I’m stuck in Irrational Land.
The news also forgot to report that the Epstein files haven't been released in violation of federal law. I wonder why they forgot about that? She wonders while she reads about all the people at the NY Times on the Epstein list.
Oh phooey. Why has this never occurred to me that NYT is invested in the cover up for the obvious reasons. I still have one foot in Normal Land. Has this been somewhat validated?
David Brooks was in the released photos and the NY Times ran to his defense. They also had a reporter, Landon Thomas Jr., who warned Epstein when the cops were onto him instead of, you know, reporting things.
Thomas was most definitely assisting a pedophile to get away with crimes. He no longer works at the Times. There is no proof that Brooks did anything wrong, other than hanging out with the pedophiles, but the fact that the Times and PBS have chosen to promote the guy photographed with Epstein and run his "Epstein was no big deal" op-eds at this point in time disgusts me. No clearer way to communicate to victims that child rape is just fine if you're rich and famous enough.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/18/nyt-david-brooks-epstein-photos-released
I better start reading The Guardian. Thanks for the link. And maybe it explains Brook’s ongoing smarmy morality essays. I was shocked at his tepid response compared to Jonathan Capehart’s on their Friday Newshour segment about the killing of Renee Good. Wow. The scales keep falling from my eyes.
The Guardian is an excellent source of information, and no paywall. If you read the entire article about Brooks, it does not implicate him in anything other than being in attendance at a TED talk dinner that Epstein also attended, which I imagine is a situation common to thousands of people.
I agree; no evidence of guilt. But a possible thread of weird nervousness and a lack of Brooks taking a strong stance on topics where he used to jump right in without moral equivocation.
I paid for the subscription even without the paywall. Independent journalism is essential right now.
I just subscribed to The Guardian. Thanks, Kate! You’re the best!
I will give Brooks the benefit of the doubt. He said the 2011 photo was at a widely-attended dinner adjacent to a TED talk, the type of thing he frequently attends. He says that in 2011 he had no idea who Jeffrey Epstein was, had never met him, and never spoke to him at that event. It was not until the investigations of 2018 that he became aware of the name Jeffrey Epstein. Attending the same public event as someone does not equal personal involvement with that person. I want facts, not supposition. I will agree that it looked suspicious as Brooks had just written a column expressing his belief that people were spending too much time on Epstein. If anybody has any solid proof that Brooks was doing anything nefarious I am open to learning about it.
Well...Trump is incredibly transactional and doesn't pay any attention to what he says.
This could be beyond what he says, to what he does, assuming he actually attacks Iran using the fig leaf of protecting their protesters.
I've written about that apparent incongruence
That’s a relief. It literally jumps off the page, to me. To not mention it feels like extreme denial, or fear, or false witness . . .
Thank you Gen. Hertling for saying what should be obvious about authorities hiding their identity, but apparently isn't. And Bill for calling on Dems to up their game: I sent emails to my Senators over the weekend demanding they include defunding and disbanding ICE in any CR they vote for. And yes, there should be bipartisan support for enforcing the Epstein Files law. I continue to call on my Senators to replace Schumer with someone who can lead, like Sens. Murphy or Booker. The People are leading while our leaders follow.
Thank you for that specific detail to include when contacting Democratic legislators. I’m in Oregon too, and I’m going to use exactly that language.
"Democrats could also refuse to vote to fund the government until Trump’s Justice Department obeys existing law and releases the Epstein files."
This should be a complete no-brainer. If you make this the main tenet of why the government is shut-down, it gives the Trump administration nowhere to go and would likely be supported by a lot of MAGA people - assuming they still believe the files are important to release to capture those bad Dems in the files
YES!
Couldn't agree more. Jeffries, too. He may be able to do the job of Speaker well, but he does not do well as a public speaker. He should admit that and appoint someone else to make public appearances for the House. He doesn't seem able to make any facial expressions, and he talks with something of a whine - nobody likes that. We need dynamic people who the public can relate to. Also from Oregon - lifelong native.
How Presidential. Felon Trump condemning an autocratic Iranian ruler for attacking and killing his protesting citizens, calling them insurgents and terrorists, while condemning and killing his own citizens and calling them the enemy. That’s our would be king, Felon Donald.
"If not resistance now, then when?" Hear, hear, Bill Kristol!!
And that’s partly why I think the time is at hand for consumer and worker strikes. It will hurt. But there will be pain whether we resist or submit. Time to choose.
Good, objective way to look at it.
In case you missed it, this MSNOW segment on "Who are the ICE agents behind the masks?" was really good. They show body cam footage of ICE agents being stopped or arrested for various offenses, and how these thugs respond to authority.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eh-V58lc2p4
ICE agents seem to think they have immunity in their personal lives. Given the type of person who would apply, that seems like a logical outcome.
That was interesting. They sound like ideal ICE hires.
Trump’s retribution agenda of do what I want or else is especially pathetic in this case as the Fed Chairman’s term is up in just a few months.
Then there is Trump’s life time of crime and he has the gall to want to investigate and prosecute.
Come election time, remember that Republicans have nominated Trump for the presidency three times in a row. Republicans are not fit to be a political party.
Another glaring hypocrisy! As if Trump himself notified Congress before bulldozing the East Wing. Every accusation really is a confession.
He's all about revenge.
Amen LTG Hertling! Drop the masks. I deployed 2004-05 and during the Surge in 2007-08. Thanks for your voice!
DJT, "...highly disrespectful..." Ms. Good, "That's fine, dude. I'm not mad at you." ICE Agent (perhaps the shooter) post shooting, "F***ing bitch." That which we do, we will accuse of you.