The majority of Democrats all seem to think they are still operating in a White House and system of institutions like in the 1980s, '90s, or early 2000s. Wake up, folks!!!!! That semi-sane political story now belongs to the "olden times"; we are not remotely in the same setting. In actuality we are in a Hellscape wrought by people who have completely lost their moral compasses, who have succumbed to cruelty, hate, greed, and in many cases White Nationalism. Who speak bald-faced lies with no compunction as frequently and easily as they breathe. People who have no problem abusing or un-aliving others.
Would "Chuckles" (as Jennifer Welch has dubbed him) and the rest behave this way, as if they are still in that old comfortable political landscape and continue to be like, "La la la ... This, too, shall pass," if they were faced with Sauron in Mordor? We are in dark times with a wannabe Dark Lord, the Nazgûl (Ringwraiths), and a rogue band of Orcs. (I know the Right has co-opted Lord of the Rings references, but I am taking them back! Tolkien was part of my teen years, too, and the story is a good analogy.)
We HAVE to adapt and adjust strategies to the grim, new reality. In the midterms, vote for brazen, outspoken, kick-ass fighters! No more both-sides, mushy, pasty marshmallows. We must all aspire to the courage and bravery of Frodo and his faithful companion Samwise. The people of Minnesota and elsewhere have taken up the burden of disposing of the Ring, as must we all.
I like the Lord of the Rings reference! I have always been a big fan. The Metaphors are plentiful! Who would you say plays Saruman, Wormtongue and Gollum? Interested to hear your picks!
I think I would place Vance as Saruman. In LotR, Saruman was originally good wizard who came under the spell Sauron. Vance was originally a "normie" Republican who once called DJT hitler. He really fits the part. (but I would never call him originally good) Lindsey Graham also fits. I'll put Miller in the dual role of Gollum and Wormtongue. Any other characters, I am open to suggestions, Amabel!
Does that mean we are relying on Kristi Noem to keep us safe?
As I write the question, I have to wonder if that is not a reason to get rid of DHS. It may be unnecessary if it is so inconsequential that it can be entrusted to Kristi Noem.
It has always seemed odd to me that the Coast Guard isn’t a branch of Department of Defense. When government shutdowns occur, military personnel still get paid, except for Coast Guard. It’s counterintuitive.
Unlike the military, the Coast Guard has police duties and powers. They do become part of DoD (I refuse to call it DoW) during wartime. But in peacetime, they have a different mission from the military.
Goes back a long way. The Coast Guard was part of the Department of the Treasury for a very long time. Part of their mission was to collect customs duties, so that's where they landed.
The USCG was formed by the merger of the Revenue Cutter Service, the Lighthouse Service, and the Lifesaving Service, all of which were previously separate federal sub-agencies.
I was in the Navy, but I told my kids they ought to look at the USCG. (Neither took me up on it.) No matter what you want to do, you can do it there. Everything from being on a buoy tender in Maui to jumping out of a helicopter flying in a hurricane onto a sinking ship in the Bering Sea to rescue people. Those Coasties do it all. "They say you gotta go out, but they don't say you gotta come back."
If I’d been inclined to “military” service the CG would have been my choice. I live on a small shallow lake where our local CG practices rescue swimmer drops and recovery - it’s very exciting to observe!
No, but I listened to an interview with a Coastie engineer on one of those ice breakers. That's about as harsh an operating environment as there is. Losing power at sea is a pain. It might even be dangerous in heavy weather, but losing power in the Arctic, in an ice pack, is existential every time. No one is coming to help. No one can get to you. And if you don't get the problem solved fast, everyone's going to die.
And that's just what I mean. Low octane or high octane. You pick.
I did two Law Enforcement Operations (LEO's) with the Coast Guard when I was in the Navy. Back then, the USCG didn't have the High Endurance Cutters they have now, so they'd put a Law Enforcement Detachment on a Navy ship and we'd cart them around intercepting drug boats in the Caribbean. (Sound familiar? Only difference was we did it lawfully back then.)
We'd put those guys over the side in a Zodiac boat and they'd board the other vessel and search it. That was really risky. You never knew what was happening on those vessels. If they found anything, they could seize the vessel. If they didn't they were allowed to proceed. Those were some gutsy guys.
It was a sop to the American people after 911. Bad call then, worse call now. It needs to be disbanded. Other agencies are more than capable of threat defence.
I agree. The Department of Homeland Security was created in 2002 as a response to 9/11. It put a bunch of other agencies under its umbrella, ostensibly to unify their communication with each other. The other agencies still exist. Want to streamline the federal government and cut spending, a traditional Republican goal? Do away with the DHS; maybe pass some legislation requiring regular communication among the various agencies.
DHS was an agency created out of haste and fear for a different time. We can do better and build a different system for today that protects our citizenry from foreign adversaries. They have never protected our citizens from homegrown threats and those hate groups have been allowed to fester for many years. DHS is now a branch of our military industrial complex that seems to employ the Oath Keepers and 3%ers.
I was cheering for every sentence of this Morning Shot. It's outrageous to hear pundits say things like, "We've become numb to all this." We have not! The people are doing the work. It's Congress and the MSM that need to step up.
WAPO could not even name names in yesterday's affidavit release "justifying" the warrant for the Fulton County FBI raid on voter records. Fortunately, NYT and NPR, among multiple other outlets named names. At what point does my significantly discounted WAPo subscription become worthless to me? It is reaching that point.
As someone who used to read pieces out of the Post, I have been amazed at all the talent that left the post: Rampell, Aaron Blake, Dana Milbank and many talented journalists.
Totally with you on this. I canned my subscription after the newsroom cuts last week. My $29/yr subscription, which I reluctantly extended last summer (I had initially cancelled in Oct'24 after they stopped the Kamala endorsement) bc of wanting to support the true news folks there, will finally expire this summer. Every WaPo link I now open displays a message asking if I'd like to re-subscribe --- annoying but worth whatever tiny signal my cancellation sent to Bozos and the dearly departed Will Lewis.
Cocaine Larry Kudlow - another study in how to be pathetic. This clown goes back to Reagan, yet will sit there and not call Trump out on tariffs being taxes on Americans. What the actual fuck happened to the right?? Seems like yesterday that assclown Grover Norquist was running around making people sign pledges not to raise taxes. Now Congress is twisting themselves into knots acting like they don’t know how tariffs work
I think this comes from a bad combination of being too attached to the power/comfort of political relevance and a willingness to say whatever is best in the short term to keep it.
It's being so attached to your position that you're un-able to carry out its actual responsibilities for fear of losing it. If more leaders would dare to speak the truth about things like tariffs, I think that truth would win out.
But...the "telling truth about tariffs" is actually a proxy for contradicting the Dear Leader in public, and cowardice in the face of that inspires the spectacle of knot twisting we see every day.
Well how can they be taxes on Americans? After all, their cult leader assured them that the tariffs are being paid by other countries! Didn't you know that??
I understand the arguments against a government shutdown tied to DHS funding -- notably that the problematic ICE funding is already in place from the prior budget bill (BBB). The other side? Miller et al are using the contractual systems of the DHS and military procurement systems to purchase, lease, build, and support detention facilities. This includes buildings, personnel, and support systems like food and medical services. Some of this is far more opaque than ICE coming into town and occupying a Hilton property.
We need to start referring to them as concentration camps. If they're not going to address the legal side and start following the law with judicial warrants, putting enough judges and prosecutors in place to deal with Miller's daily quota and their general dragnet swooping up citizens and immigrants alike, then they're just collecting "undesirable" humans to be warehoused, starved and mistreated for the benefit of the trump's for profit prison buddies.
They are creating a situation where they're not "detaining" people, which implies a short term situation, but incarcerating them with no legal rights. Warehouses that will incarcerate 10k people in towns with a population of 5k? Where are they going to find people to staff that? Will they be new, poorly trained ICE agents? That sounds like a recipe for disaster. No wonder towns, mayors and citizens are fighting back against these purchases. Heck, even some GOP congressmen have had the "courage to say "not in MY backyard" even if they won't say "not in MY country."
Yes. Concentration camps. This is why they need to wake up to what time it is and stop the politics as usual BS. How do you hope for a deal with people creating concentration camps?
when people are unlawfully detained for weeks or months without due process in violation of their constitutional rights in conditions that are illegal and a violation of rights. The 8th amendment prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. I think putting 6 or more people in a single jail cell with a single open air toilet, forcing them to sleep on the floor, feeding them starvation rations, denying them medical care -- all of that qualifies as a violation of the 8th amendment. the lack of due process makes the 'detention centers' fit the definition of concentration camps.
32 deaths - that we know of - in immigration detention in 2025.
100% So now they're violating 1,2,4,5,6,8,10,14 amendments. If I hear Schumer say another word about how he thinks he can "get a deal" with Republicans this week, and just not restate the Dem position, "we will not fund this criminal enterprise without the following changes to ICE/CBP policy and on the ground actions..."
Schumer's bi-partisan happy talk in the face of the repeated actions of the GOP that are clearly in opposition to his belief he can work with them. I don't care what BS they're slathering on him in private, they're going to Charlie Brown him again and yank the deflated football out as soon as he agrees to some "modest" changes and calls it a win.
There's concern about potential plans for a ICE detention camp in Hutchins, Tx. Converting a privately owned warehouse into a detention (concentration) camp. The city has not received any official reports from the federal government. The residents do not want this.
Since DHS is moving quickly and secretly would it surprise the residents if DHS thinks this is a done deal? Question everything.
Yeah, they're trying to do this undercover of darkness. Time to hit the city council meetings, talk to local official, organize. Wherever you are they're probably trying to buy a warehouse for a concentration camp near you.
I can't imagine what the impact to local infrastructure alone (power, water...) will be for local communities. Is the cost of your power and water going to go up because there's a 10K concentration camp that moved in? No one's explaining that since they just want us to shut up and accept it.
Hutchins is small. The impact would be terrible. The mayor is against it. Will the government listen? You just know that hot wheelz abbott would welcome it with open arms.
One council meeting attendee was all for it - just think of all the employment opportunities it will bring! I can't even wrap my head around the thought of how warehousing people and treating them worse than animals is good for the local economy.
It's worth emphasizing that "undesirable" in this context appears to have multiple, flexible meanings for individual agents to adopt and further modify according to mood.
Yes indeed. There's a great, troubling article by Leah Feiger up at Wired headlined "ICE Is Expanding Across the US at Breakneck Speed. Here’s Where It’s Going Next."
Feiger describes ICE metastases across the country: leasing and occupying new facilities, they are expanding their presence in virtually every state, and as always are expanding in or near the cities where most Democratic votes are concentrated.
She notes, "In many cases, these facilities, which are to be used by street-level agents and ICE attorneys, are located near elementary schools, medical offices, places of worship, and other sensitive locations."
Thanks for the link. I would also note that Rachel Maddow has now spent two weeks on this particular topic (the expansion of ICE facilities and resistance efforts).
I read that article, truly chilling. They are going to be everywhere…watching the establishment of a police state is the most alarming thing being rolled out by this regime, which is doing many other alarming and unlawful harms.
I wonder what's on the "wish list" of the people running DHS and ICE. Is it stuff like using a ruling eliminating birthright citizenship to revoke the citizenship of descendants? I can imagine this kind of argument in favor of the "heritage Americans" that have been treated so badly all these years...
These facilities and the quantity seem FAR too large to just be meant for "illegals". It feels a bit like they're ramping up to have room for citizens that disagree with their policies and exercise their rights. We'll see
If Schumer can't see how morally wrong this is, then he being willfully ignorant. Chasing bipartisanship is not the flex he thinks it is. This is straight up imprisoning innocent people w/o due process in deplorable conditions for who knows how long. What does Schumer not get? - these are exactly like the German concentration camps. The only thing missing are the showers and ovens.
I'm screaming into the void, I know. When will Chuck realize that THEY DON'T WANT TO WORK WITH YOU!!!
Legislators, like Sen Schumer succeed by making deals with your political opponents. That's what they do. Expecting a legislator to go on the metaphorical warpath and spearhead the resistance is not realistic.
Legislators are the wrong tool for the job. We the people need to keep stepping up. Congress isn't ever going to lead the charge.
I don’t need them donning war bonnets and breaking out the tomahawks, but they should realize what time it is and what the Republican Party under Trump has become. Popular support is draining from this presidency and yet the Democratic leadership doesn’t seem to realize we’ve hit the iceberg. They seem out of touch with what is going on.
The thing is, it seems to me that Repub voters elected many of the candidates who were advocating a warpath approach - and had not the slightest interest in legislating if a need to compromise was necessary. It may be up to the people to cast their primary votes with that notion in mind this year.
Was it the prime minister of Switzerland or someone acting as the prime minister of Switzerland, or just some random other Swiss person? I mean it’s so hard to tell. You can’t expect the president of the most powerful country to remember such little things. For once, though, Trump wasn’t the one dominating the phone conversation but a woman he couldn’t get off the phone. I would have enjoyed hearing that conversation!
Oh the landmines you walk between Turkey and her neighbors; a task JD is clearly not up to. But who is hiring these staffers? This is the 2nd staffer faux pas in a week. I thought this administration only hired the best and brightest. Suzy Wiles needs to tighten up her processes.
There is no prime minister of Switzerland. There is a president of the Swiss Confederation. Their executive branch has 7 people in it who rotate the presidency among them. And the current president is male.
FINALLY a move towards legitimacy. The Dems really need to stop trying to insist they are doing business as usual and start representing the will of the people, even if it means unusual/unprecedented new processes. … . .
Trump has corrupted every agency of our government, the Supreme Court, and the entirety of the Republican Party. There is no deal to be done with the Republicans, no deal that Republicans will honor, no deal that Republicans won’t renege on, that Trump won’t renege on the instant it’s to his advantage to do so. Bush was the decider. Trump is the reneger, the great reneger. And Schumer reveals himself to be a hopeless dupe by even mentioning the words “deal” and “Republicans” in the same breath.
As many millions of ignorant, racist idiots as there are in this country, this article and others like it keep reminding me that there are just as many millions who are stalwart and full of integrity.
“Oh, I think knives are out [for Lutnick]. He’s despised by nearly everyone,” one person close to the White House told Politico. “I doubt Trump would easily push him out, though. The president doesn’t wanna legitimize the Epstein issue too much.”
This is one of the most disgusting things I’ve read. Our politics is so corrupt that even pedophelia isn’t enough to end someone’s career let alone put them in jail!
On top of that, the total collapse of moral judgment has been propelled in part by people who call themselves "Christian nationalists" or otherwise pose as being deeply concerned about moral and religious values. But they started it by openly declaring selective moral indulgence to be a pragmatic necessity.
I get your point, but Trump and his lackeys are going to say they're Agents of the Deep State or that the DC courts are corrupt or that there's no way anyone friendly to Trump can get a fair trial in DC or some other nonsense.
There has to be a way to get Republicans to acknowledge that these WERE ordinary Americans who were called in to do their civic duty by sitting on a jury. They didn't sign up for it. They didn't get a choice of what they were going to do when they responded to the jury duty notice. Could have been this Grand Jury. Could have been a jury in a gas station robbery case or a case involving some nitwit who was passing bad checks.
American citizens. Normal, everyday people who DID have better things to do responded to a notification they received in the mail. Might have had important things to do at work that day. Might have had to have arranged for childcare. Might have had some fun thing planned, but, instead, they had to go down to the courthouse and deal with this.
This is how our system is supposed to work and I'd like some Democrats to start calling out Republicans for casting aspersions on these people and this process. These are the rules. American Democracy demands we respect and follow them. Period.
Republicans and MAGA voters do not care. If you are not with them, you are the enemy. That is the game we are playing right now. If you are against MAGA, you deserve to die and your family deserves to lose everything. This is the world we have right now. These are not people to negotiate with.
I do like the idea of Congressional Democrats spending the State of the Union with Epstein survivors and the good citizens of Minneapolis.
But hapless Chucky Cheese wants to keep his options open in "Negotiating" with Republicans.
The majority of Democrats all seem to think they are still operating in a White House and system of institutions like in the 1980s, '90s, or early 2000s. Wake up, folks!!!!! That semi-sane political story now belongs to the "olden times"; we are not remotely in the same setting. In actuality we are in a Hellscape wrought by people who have completely lost their moral compasses, who have succumbed to cruelty, hate, greed, and in many cases White Nationalism. Who speak bald-faced lies with no compunction as frequently and easily as they breathe. People who have no problem abusing or un-aliving others.
Would "Chuckles" (as Jennifer Welch has dubbed him) and the rest behave this way, as if they are still in that old comfortable political landscape and continue to be like, "La la la ... This, too, shall pass," if they were faced with Sauron in Mordor? We are in dark times with a wannabe Dark Lord, the Nazgûl (Ringwraiths), and a rogue band of Orcs. (I know the Right has co-opted Lord of the Rings references, but I am taking them back! Tolkien was part of my teen years, too, and the story is a good analogy.)
We HAVE to adapt and adjust strategies to the grim, new reality. In the midterms, vote for brazen, outspoken, kick-ass fighters! No more both-sides, mushy, pasty marshmallows. We must all aspire to the courage and bravery of Frodo and his faithful companion Samwise. The people of Minnesota and elsewhere have taken up the burden of disposing of the Ring, as must we all.
I like the Lord of the Rings reference! I have always been a big fan. The Metaphors are plentiful! Who would you say plays Saruman, Wormtongue and Gollum? Interested to hear your picks!
Ha ha. Oh, man. Let's see, I'd say Russ Vought for Saruman. Stephen Miller for Wormtongue. And JD Vance for Gollum.
Bernie for Gandalf? Maybe Miller would be the leader of the Nazgûl? Mike Johnson for Wormtongue?
I think I would place Vance as Saruman. In LotR, Saruman was originally good wizard who came under the spell Sauron. Vance was originally a "normie" Republican who once called DJT hitler. He really fits the part. (but I would never call him originally good) Lindsey Graham also fits. I'll put Miller in the dual role of Gollum and Wormtongue. Any other characters, I am open to suggestions, Amabel!
Lindsey Graham for Gollum...he even has the obsequious posture.
Milquetoast Mike and the rest of them have forgotten what "negotiating" means, if they ever really knew.
This is such an amazing idea, which means it will be hard to convince Chuck or Jefferies to even listen to it, let alone do it.
Invite some of the Epstein victims & relatives of Good & Pretti to the SOTU address.
Mikey likes it. Me too :-)
We are all curlers now.
And damn proud of it!
Curlers strong!
Why do we even need a DHS? Can someone please explain this? Cut the Coast Guard loose, tuck the TSA somewhere else and disband the darn thing.
All the post 9/11 terrorists will get us if there's no DHS!!!
[I wish this was sarcasm and not the agency's real reason for existing.]
Does that mean we are relying on Kristi Noem to keep us safe?
As I write the question, I have to wonder if that is not a reason to get rid of DHS. It may be unnecessary if it is so inconsequential that it can be entrusted to Kristi Noem.
Noem: keeping the country safe from puppies.
More people did watch the Puppy Bowl than the alternate half-time show. 😀
Apparently. 😀
We get the double-banger 2fer of Noem AND Lewandowski! Feeling safe is overrated…
Yea, now that I think about it. What happened to that threat? Hmmm!
It has always seemed odd to me that the Coast Guard isn’t a branch of Department of Defense. When government shutdowns occur, military personnel still get paid, except for Coast Guard. It’s counterintuitive.
Unlike the military, the Coast Guard has police duties and powers. They do become part of DoD (I refuse to call it DoW) during wartime. But in peacetime, they have a different mission from the military.
Goes back a long way. The Coast Guard was part of the Department of the Treasury for a very long time. Part of their mission was to collect customs duties, so that's where they landed.
They started as the Revenue Cutter Service.
The USCG was formed by the merger of the Revenue Cutter Service, the Lighthouse Service, and the Lifesaving Service, all of which were previously separate federal sub-agencies.
Much better summary, thank you!
Thanks, to you both for that bit of history. I should have looked it up, living in a proud Coast Guard supporting community.
I was in the Navy, but I told my kids they ought to look at the USCG. (Neither took me up on it.) No matter what you want to do, you can do it there. Everything from being on a buoy tender in Maui to jumping out of a helicopter flying in a hurricane onto a sinking ship in the Bering Sea to rescue people. Those Coasties do it all. "They say you gotta go out, but they don't say you gotta come back."
If I’d been inclined to “military” service the CG would have been my choice. I live on a small shallow lake where our local CG practices rescue swimmer drops and recovery - it’s very exciting to observe!
When mariners in distress pray for a miracle, the Coast Guard is that miracle.
"For those in peril on the sea."
Did you see the incredible videos USCG just released showing them icebreaking? Considering they’re part of DHS I choose to celebrate the metaphor.
No, but I listened to an interview with a Coastie engineer on one of those ice breakers. That's about as harsh an operating environment as there is. Losing power at sea is a pain. It might even be dangerous in heavy weather, but losing power in the Arctic, in an ice pack, is existential every time. No one is coming to help. No one can get to you. And if you don't get the problem solved fast, everyone's going to die.
Just another day at the office for those guys.
I want to be a buoy tender in Maui man ! Sounds awesome ! 🌊👍
And that's just what I mean. Low octane or high octane. You pick.
I did two Law Enforcement Operations (LEO's) with the Coast Guard when I was in the Navy. Back then, the USCG didn't have the High Endurance Cutters they have now, so they'd put a Law Enforcement Detachment on a Navy ship and we'd cart them around intercepting drug boats in the Caribbean. (Sound familiar? Only difference was we did it lawfully back then.)
We'd put those guys over the side in a Zodiac boat and they'd board the other vessel and search it. That was really risky. You never knew what was happening on those vessels. If they found anything, they could seize the vessel. If they didn't they were allowed to proceed. Those were some gutsy guys.
It was a sop to the American people after 911. Bad call then, worse call now. It needs to be disbanded. Other agencies are more than capable of threat defence.
I think the very idea of a DHS was worrisome. Why? Because people were afraid THIS would happen.
We have managed to live without them for 225 years.
I agree. The Department of Homeland Security was created in 2002 as a response to 9/11. It put a bunch of other agencies under its umbrella, ostensibly to unify their communication with each other. The other agencies still exist. Want to streamline the federal government and cut spending, a traditional Republican goal? Do away with the DHS; maybe pass some legislation requiring regular communication among the various agencies.
DHS was an agency created out of haste and fear for a different time. We can do better and build a different system for today that protects our citizenry from foreign adversaries. They have never protected our citizens from homegrown threats and those hate groups have been allowed to fester for many years. DHS is now a branch of our military industrial complex that seems to employ the Oath Keepers and 3%ers.
We did just fine without it for a very long time.
Arguably, we did better without it!
But Dark Barbie will be out of a job! 😭
Put TSA under the DoT and the USCG can be put back under the DoT and under the DoD during wartime.
I was cheering for every sentence of this Morning Shot. It's outrageous to hear pundits say things like, "We've become numb to all this." We have not! The people are doing the work. It's Congress and the MSM that need to step up.
I have noticed a change in NYT reporting on Trump. They are calling out the lies and cruelty. Kudos.
Just think where we'd be if they started that 10 years ago.
Good point!!
They have been redeeming themselves. WaPo on the other hand.....
WAPO could not even name names in yesterday's affidavit release "justifying" the warrant for the Fulton County FBI raid on voter records. Fortunately, NYT and NPR, among multiple other outlets named names. At what point does my significantly discounted WAPo subscription become worthless to me? It is reaching that point.
As someone who used to read pieces out of the Post, I have been amazed at all the talent that left the post: Rampell, Aaron Blake, Dana Milbank and many talented journalists.
Totally with you on this. I canned my subscription after the newsroom cuts last week. My $29/yr subscription, which I reluctantly extended last summer (I had initially cancelled in Oct'24 after they stopped the Kamala endorsement) bc of wanting to support the true news folks there, will finally expire this summer. Every WaPo link I now open displays a message asking if I'd like to re-subscribe --- annoying but worth whatever tiny signal my cancellation sent to Bozos and the dearly departed Will Lewis.
WaPo is beyond worthless. Unless you really feel like reading a fourth rate MAGA rag.
Cocaine Larry Kudlow - another study in how to be pathetic. This clown goes back to Reagan, yet will sit there and not call Trump out on tariffs being taxes on Americans. What the actual fuck happened to the right?? Seems like yesterday that assclown Grover Norquist was running around making people sign pledges not to raise taxes. Now Congress is twisting themselves into knots acting like they don’t know how tariffs work
Amazing how Kudlow can continue to have his influence when he has gotten every one of his predictions wrong. But then he is on FOX.
Man, Faux Nooz hires a lot of lushes. Judge Boxwine Pirro, Pete Kegsbreath. Kudlow.
Then again after having to work there day in and day out I'd have to get plastered just to sleep.
I think this comes from a bad combination of being too attached to the power/comfort of political relevance and a willingness to say whatever is best in the short term to keep it.
It's being so attached to your position that you're un-able to carry out its actual responsibilities for fear of losing it. If more leaders would dare to speak the truth about things like tariffs, I think that truth would win out.
But...the "telling truth about tariffs" is actually a proxy for contradicting the Dear Leader in public, and cowardice in the face of that inspires the spectacle of knot twisting we see every day.
Well how can they be taxes on Americans? After all, their cult leader assured them that the tariffs are being paid by other countries! Didn't you know that??
Our annual trade deficit with Switzerland is like $ 8.0 billion on $ 90 billion traded
I understand the arguments against a government shutdown tied to DHS funding -- notably that the problematic ICE funding is already in place from the prior budget bill (BBB). The other side? Miller et al are using the contractual systems of the DHS and military procurement systems to purchase, lease, build, and support detention facilities. This includes buildings, personnel, and support systems like food and medical services. Some of this is far more opaque than ICE coming into town and occupying a Hilton property.
We need to start referring to them as concentration camps. If they're not going to address the legal side and start following the law with judicial warrants, putting enough judges and prosecutors in place to deal with Miller's daily quota and their general dragnet swooping up citizens and immigrants alike, then they're just collecting "undesirable" humans to be warehoused, starved and mistreated for the benefit of the trump's for profit prison buddies.
They are creating a situation where they're not "detaining" people, which implies a short term situation, but incarcerating them with no legal rights. Warehouses that will incarcerate 10k people in towns with a population of 5k? Where are they going to find people to staff that? Will they be new, poorly trained ICE agents? That sounds like a recipe for disaster. No wonder towns, mayors and citizens are fighting back against these purchases. Heck, even some GOP congressmen have had the "courage to say "not in MY backyard" even if they won't say "not in MY country."
Yes. Concentration camps. This is why they need to wake up to what time it is and stop the politics as usual BS. How do you hope for a deal with people creating concentration camps?
when people are unlawfully detained for weeks or months without due process in violation of their constitutional rights in conditions that are illegal and a violation of rights. The 8th amendment prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. I think putting 6 or more people in a single jail cell with a single open air toilet, forcing them to sleep on the floor, feeding them starvation rations, denying them medical care -- all of that qualifies as a violation of the 8th amendment. the lack of due process makes the 'detention centers' fit the definition of concentration camps.
32 deaths - that we know of - in immigration detention in 2025.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/jan/04/ice-2025-deaths-timeline
https://www.aclu.org/news/immigrants-rights/inside-an-ice-detention-center-detained-people-describe-severe-medical-neglect-harrowing-conditions
https://abc7chicago.com/post/ice-chicago-news-lawsuit-filed-aclu-illinois-conditions-inside-broadview-facility-court-tuesday/18111176/
https://www.startribune.com/ice-detention-conditions-mn-immigration-enforcement/601578072
https://www.opb.org/article/2025/05/28/like-a-jail-cell-family-of-six-detained-at-washington-state-border-facility-for-more-than-three-weeks/
https://www.wbur.org/news/2025/06/05/ice-burlington-immigration-detention-conditions
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/migrant-families-allege-children-held-by-ice-face-unsafe-and-unsanitary-conditions
100% So now they're violating 1,2,4,5,6,8,10,14 amendments. If I hear Schumer say another word about how he thinks he can "get a deal" with Republicans this week, and just not restate the Dem position, "we will not fund this criminal enterprise without the following changes to ICE/CBP policy and on the ground actions..."
Schumer's bi-partisan happy talk in the face of the repeated actions of the GOP that are clearly in opposition to his belief he can work with them. I don't care what BS they're slathering on him in private, they're going to Charlie Brown him again and yank the deflated football out as soon as he agrees to some "modest" changes and calls it a win.
There's concern about potential plans for a ICE detention camp in Hutchins, Tx. Converting a privately owned warehouse into a detention (concentration) camp. The city has not received any official reports from the federal government. The residents do not want this.
Since DHS is moving quickly and secretly would it surprise the residents if DHS thinks this is a done deal? Question everything.
Yeah, they're trying to do this undercover of darkness. Time to hit the city council meetings, talk to local official, organize. Wherever you are they're probably trying to buy a warehouse for a concentration camp near you.
I can't imagine what the impact to local infrastructure alone (power, water...) will be for local communities. Is the cost of your power and water going to go up because there's a 10K concentration camp that moved in? No one's explaining that since they just want us to shut up and accept it.
Hutchins is small. The impact would be terrible. The mayor is against it. Will the government listen? You just know that hot wheelz abbott would welcome it with open arms.
One council meeting attendee was all for it - just think of all the employment opportunities it will bring! I can't even wrap my head around the thought of how warehousing people and treating them worse than animals is good for the local economy.
It's worth emphasizing that "undesirable" in this context appears to have multiple, flexible meanings for individual agents to adopt and further modify according to mood.
Yes indeed. There's a great, troubling article by Leah Feiger up at Wired headlined "ICE Is Expanding Across the US at Breakneck Speed. Here’s Where It’s Going Next."
Feiger describes ICE metastases across the country: leasing and occupying new facilities, they are expanding their presence in virtually every state, and as always are expanding in or near the cities where most Democratic votes are concentrated.
She notes, "In many cases, these facilities, which are to be used by street-level agents and ICE attorneys, are located near elementary schools, medical offices, places of worship, and other sensitive locations."
Worth a read if you have access to Wired.
Thanks for the link. I would also note that Rachel Maddow has now spent two weeks on this particular topic (the expansion of ICE facilities and resistance efforts).
I read that article, truly chilling. They are going to be everywhere…watching the establishment of a police state is the most alarming thing being rolled out by this regime, which is doing many other alarming and unlawful harms.
I wonder what's on the "wish list" of the people running DHS and ICE. Is it stuff like using a ruling eliminating birthright citizenship to revoke the citizenship of descendants? I can imagine this kind of argument in favor of the "heritage Americans" that have been treated so badly all these years...
These facilities and the quantity seem FAR too large to just be meant for "illegals". It feels a bit like they're ramping up to have room for citizens that disagree with their policies and exercise their rights. We'll see
control the food, control the people
so, force young and middle aged to either work in fields OR allow them
to let these people out of the mini conc camps to work, and , we pay for it
trump
is a mini failed MAO
and useless, his plan will fail.
If Schumer can't see how morally wrong this is, then he being willfully ignorant. Chasing bipartisanship is not the flex he thinks it is. This is straight up imprisoning innocent people w/o due process in deplorable conditions for who knows how long. What does Schumer not get? - these are exactly like the German concentration camps. The only thing missing are the showers and ovens.
I'm screaming into the void, I know. When will Chuck realize that THEY DON'T WANT TO WORK WITH YOU!!!
Legislators, like Sen Schumer succeed by making deals with your political opponents. That's what they do. Expecting a legislator to go on the metaphorical warpath and spearhead the resistance is not realistic.
Legislators are the wrong tool for the job. We the people need to keep stepping up. Congress isn't ever going to lead the charge.
I don’t need them donning war bonnets and breaking out the tomahawks, but they should realize what time it is and what the Republican Party under Trump has become. Popular support is draining from this presidency and yet the Democratic leadership doesn’t seem to realize we’ve hit the iceberg. They seem out of touch with what is going on.
I guess Chuck thinks that in their weakening state the Repubs will start lying a little less.
I doubt he's right.
But the Democrats have important raquet ball appointments and meetings with lobbyists to sell their votes, they are busy little beavers.
🙄🌊
The thing is, it seems to me that Repub voters elected many of the candidates who were advocating a warpath approach - and had not the slightest interest in legislating if a need to compromise was necessary. It may be up to the people to cast their primary votes with that notion in mind this year.
If we cannot legislate then we don’t have a need for a Congress. We see on the MAGA Republican side where all this leads.
DJT and DoJ have found out that you can't indict a ham sandwich.
Not even the act of throwing one.
I see what you did there. 😀
And it started with a subway sandwich.
No - THEY can’t indict a ham sandwich- or a ham sandwich hurler (note: not a “curler” - whom they couldn’t indict either)
There was a comment on the WAPO story about this. That all the ham sandwiches in Washington took a collective sigh of relief.
Was it the prime minister of Switzerland or someone acting as the prime minister of Switzerland, or just some random other Swiss person? I mean it’s so hard to tell. You can’t expect the president of the most powerful country to remember such little things. For once, though, Trump wasn’t the one dominating the phone conversation but a woman he couldn’t get off the phone. I would have enjoyed hearing that conversation!
Oh the landmines you walk between Turkey and her neighbors; a task JD is clearly not up to. But who is hiring these staffers? This is the 2nd staffer faux pas in a week. I thought this administration only hired the best and brightest. Suzy Wiles needs to tighten up her processes.
There is no prime minister of Switzerland. There is a president of the Swiss Confederation. Their executive branch has 7 people in it who rotate the presidency among them. And the current president is male.
It appears that "cheat and liar" are the first prerequisites for an administrative position.
Even then best and brightest can still apply.
For what it's worth.
I just kind of assumed he made the whole thing up.
Would Donald even remember whether it happened or he made it up?
Hard to say...at some point the incessant lying and the dementia kinda overlap.
Lordy, let's hope there are tapes!
Hah! love the sarcasm.
FINALLY a move towards legitimacy. The Dems really need to stop trying to insist they are doing business as usual and start representing the will of the people, even if it means unusual/unprecedented new processes. … . .
Trump has corrupted every agency of our government, the Supreme Court, and the entirety of the Republican Party. There is no deal to be done with the Republicans, no deal that Republicans will honor, no deal that Republicans won’t renege on, that Trump won’t renege on the instant it’s to his advantage to do so. Bush was the decider. Trump is the reneger, the great reneger. And Schumer reveals himself to be a hopeless dupe by even mentioning the words “deal” and “Republicans” in the same breath.
In MAGA ideology, all of the agencies and institutions were "corrupt" if they didn't do exactly as Trump willed.
I'm posting an article from the Minnesota Star Tribune regarding suburban "Soccer Moms" helping immigrants to stay safe by assisting getting their children to school, patrolling school neighborhoods, rec centers and playgrounds. They are also delivering needed food, supplies and medicine. They are were not activists; only citizens concerned about the treatment in their community. https://www.startribune.com/the-unexpected-resistance-to-ice-in-minnesota-the-soccer-moms-of-signal/601571253?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=breaking_news&utm_term=Breaking%20News
As many millions of ignorant, racist idiots as there are in this country, this article and others like it keep reminding me that there are just as many millions who are stalwart and full of integrity.
Someone should just send Chuck Schumer a watch. He doesn’t know what time it is.
It is not 1995.
Not sure if Schumer is built even for the Gingrich era.
“Oh, I think knives are out [for Lutnick]. He’s despised by nearly everyone,” one person close to the White House told Politico. “I doubt Trump would easily push him out, though. The president doesn’t wanna legitimize the Epstein issue too much.”
This is one of the most disgusting things I’ve read. Our politics is so corrupt that even pedophelia isn’t enough to end someone’s career let alone put them in jail!
On top of that, the total collapse of moral judgment has been propelled in part by people who call themselves "Christian nationalists" or otherwise pose as being deeply concerned about moral and religious values. But they started it by openly declaring selective moral indulgence to be a pragmatic necessity.
Re: "Ordinary citizens: What can’t they do?"
I get your point, but Trump and his lackeys are going to say they're Agents of the Deep State or that the DC courts are corrupt or that there's no way anyone friendly to Trump can get a fair trial in DC or some other nonsense.
There has to be a way to get Republicans to acknowledge that these WERE ordinary Americans who were called in to do their civic duty by sitting on a jury. They didn't sign up for it. They didn't get a choice of what they were going to do when they responded to the jury duty notice. Could have been this Grand Jury. Could have been a jury in a gas station robbery case or a case involving some nitwit who was passing bad checks.
American citizens. Normal, everyday people who DID have better things to do responded to a notification they received in the mail. Might have had important things to do at work that day. Might have had to have arranged for childcare. Might have had some fun thing planned, but, instead, they had to go down to the courthouse and deal with this.
This is how our system is supposed to work and I'd like some Democrats to start calling out Republicans for casting aspersions on these people and this process. These are the rules. American Democracy demands we respect and follow them. Period.
Republicans and MAGA voters do not care. If you are not with them, you are the enemy. That is the game we are playing right now. If you are against MAGA, you deserve to die and your family deserves to lose everything. This is the world we have right now. These are not people to negotiate with.
I was heartened by Mona's column the other day about the size of MAGA. Might not be as big as they'd like us to believe...
Just the site of a half empty chamber for the state of the union is a powerful sight and statement. Even the hapless Schumer wouldn't need to explain.
that should be the baseline. I'm open to other ideas, but business as usual - wear white, hold signs, etc. won't cut it.