What can you do? Easy - stop cooperating. Modern society, for all the laws and courts and police, depends heavily on voluntary cooperation. Most people will just go along with whatever.
Stop doing that. Dig your heels in. Make them work for it. Stop cooperating. If you serve on a jury and the defendant isn’t an actual danger to the public, vote to acquit. It’s not your job to help the government enforce the law. So stop helping. Contest EVERYTHING. Make their lives miserable whenever possible.
You have the power to bring the mighty United States to its knees. Use it.
"Emboldened by the Supreme Court Six’s reprehensible decision on June 23 effectively greenlighting the Department of Homeland Security sending migrants to third foreign countries where they’ve never been"
It was a given that two assholes on the SCOTUS bench would decide for the Fulvous Fuckwad (Thomas and Alito); and two strong maybes (Gorsuch and Kavanaugh). Barrett is a conundrum; sometimes she decides in favor of the Constitution and other times her partisanship is on her sleeve for all to see. Roberts is a paper tiger with no control over rogue justices, a squish that waffles between concern for how his legacy will be viewed in the future (spoiler alert: not great, Bob) and abject fear of the Sociopathic Marigold Swamp Monster' vengeance if he isn't loyal to the tiny, weak little man-child enjoying cosplay as POTUS.
-----
"the Supreme Court conservative six seem just fine with giving him free rein to do whatever evil things he can inflict on people who came to this country seeking a better life, or anyone at all who stands up to him"
* If I'm not mistaken, the middle initial "J" in the Amber Ardipithecus ramidus' name is for JustPlainEvil."
* Most of the undocumented are seeking a better life for themselves and their families back home. Outside of money for food, shelter, and a few other incidentals, a preponderance is remitted to their families. But since it is essential to punish both the "illegal alien" and their loved ones to teach a lesson that the US will not be ripped off by anyone, there must be a tax on the funds transferred out of the US:
> "One piece of the “One Big, Beautiful Bill Act” passed by the House of Representatives on May 22 is a new 3.5 percent excise tax on remittances: non-commercial transfers of money from people working in the US to people abroad (for instance, family members)." https://taxfoundation.org/blog/us-remittances-tax-big-beautiful-bill/
* The Whale-sized Pumpkin Wannabe Potentate better have a vast trove of evil stashed since "anyone at all who stands up to him" includes a growing number of American citizens -- born on American soil of two citizens to clarify their bona fides -- are standing up to him. No Kings Day events have been drawing larger and larger numbers of protesters (it'll be interesting to see how many attend protests this Thursday 17 Jul, an afternoon weekday event and not on a weekend or holiday).
-----
"Children as young as 14 are being hauled away in chains"
The cruelty is intentional. We all recall (or at list I think all) an exportation of a child with Stage 4 cancer:
> "Another mother wasn’t allowed to speak with attorneys or family members before she was deported, accompanied by her U.S.-born children, even though Immigration and Customs Enforcement knew one of them had Stage 4 cancer.
But the assholes in the current regime learned nothing from the pushback over this. ICE Nazis just keep on doing their thing:
> "A 6-year-old Honduran boy with leukemia whose arrest sparked a public outcry after he, his mother and sister were seized by ICE agents and sent to a Texas detention center is back in Los Angeles, one of the family’s lawyers said Friday.
* In this case, there was enough of an uproar to force the release of the family... for now. I have little doubt that the ICEholes will try again.
* As has been typical of ICE, the family was moved to be held half way across the country, away from any support from friends and other family members.
* How did the family get back to LA? Did the gubmint pick up the tab or was the family forced to pay for their own return?
* One month in detention!!!!! The six year old missed a doctor's appointment because of the asshattery... and the family was only freed because ICE faced yet another lawsuit.
-----
(Sidebar: "DHS had insisted repeatedly that the boy was examined several times while he and his family were locked up. In a post on X, DHS called allegations of medical neglect “fake news.”
...
“ICE always prioritizes the health, safety and well-being of all detainees in its care,” DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said last week." (ibid)
* Was the boy examined by real doctors or "Bobbie Brainworm doctors?" If it was by a real doc was the doc an Oncologist or a PCP.
* Anything and everything that paints the current regime in a bad light (which is pretty much all the time) is, by definition, fake news.
* “ICE always prioritizes the health, safety and well-being of all detainees in its care[]” caused me to blow my morning coffee out my nose.
◾ Health? Who gives a fuck if the illegal aliens are healthy or not, they're to be exported anyway.
◾ Safety? Just how safe are the political prisoners (if J6ers were political prisoners, so are undocumented immigrants with no criminal record) interred at Alligator Alcatraz? Maybe the 'gators can't get past the concertinas of razor wire surrounding the camp, but I don't think any of the snakes would have a problem.
◾ Well-being? No access to fresh water, limited food, no legal representation, no family/friends support nearby... none of this contributes to a person's well-being.)
Absolutely gut-wrenching cruelty. Where did my country go? I had to turn off Democracy Now just now because I could not listen to any more about the abject inhumanity of alligator Auschwitz. We are now living in one of those evil empires I’ve been hearing and reading about for my entire life. The most amazing thing is that I could never have even imagined this happening here. My belief/fantasy was that the Constitution was somehow ironclad. These folks don’t even think it’s a suggestion. I had hoped Amy Boney Carrot might have a moral code, she’s so religious you know, but I was oh so wrong. Thanks! I needed that! You are my community!
"My belief/fantasy was that the Constitution was somehow ironclad. "
And yet and still -- when Elie Mystal not only said "The Constitution is trash" - but wrote a whole book to tell everyone WHY that was, and the book even won a prize -- (mostly White) people *still* clutched all the pearls, and not enough of them actually read it to understand in time what he really meant
There's a scene in Thunderbolts where The Red Guardian saves a little girl from being crushed by concrete, only for her to be wiped out seconds later by the villain. As a father who has lost a child I find it horrific. But apparently a lot of fan bros in the audience laugh at that scene. They think it's "dark humor." These are the hard core of trump's following; angry, friendless, frustrated young men longing for someone to come down hard on anyone who They think has kept them down.
The phrase is rapidly becoming "fuck feelings," at least any of love, kindness, generosity, compassion, or empathy. In fact some of the best right wing "theologians" have written that empathy is a sin.
In a way, I can understand those "it won't happen to me" people. Having emigrated to Mexico "the right way" 20+ years ago, I can't say I'm not opposed to Mexico's crackdown on our own "illegals". The US State Dept says there are about 1.6 million US citizens living in Mexico, but according to IMN (the Mexican immigration service) less than a third of that number are here legally... either dual nationals or legal residents.
While the crackdown on "illegals" here is based on some different complaints (while, yeah, some of it is foreigners taking Mexican jobs, or the basic "habla español" type complaints), it has more to do with foreigners' sense of entitlement and cultural imperialism here. And I tend to be supportive of moves to keep "those kind" out.
Not that I should, necessarily.. and -- given the widespread protests to gentrification and foreigners acting out with a sense of entitlement -- there is a undercurrent of xenophobia that gives even those of us .. the "right kind of immigrant"... a sense of unease.
While skin tone is less a factor here, I don't try to "pass" as Mexican. Oh, after all this time there are things I do that are more typically Mexican than USAnian, but there's just too many clues that I'm not from around here. I've had to show my papers (er, card) twice, both a very long time ago (one time simply because I was on a bus coming up from Guatemala and everybody was checked, migra just going thru the motions, the other a stupid business dispute that had nothing to do with me).
I just keep my head down, live my life, but there is that nagging sense that turn-about might be fair play, but then again, might not. I can't say doing nothing wrong, and everything right isn't always enough. And that sucks.
Perhaps just being a pedant here but "Wasserman Schultz said each cage contained three small toilets with attached sinks, which detainees use for drinking water and brushing their teeth, SHARING THE SAME WATER TO BRUSH THEIR TEETH AS IS USED TO FLUSH THE TOILET." and "being forced to drink out of toilets" are not remotely the same thing. My house, most normal houses, your house probably all have one fresh water line coming from the city main. The water in that line then goes to your taps, to the water heater and, horror of horrors, to flush your toilets. It doesn't seem to me that Ms. Schultz is too versed in plumbing technology/connections. Too, it seems odd that Wonkette is now using her as a compadre after years of unbridled criticism over nearly each and every action she's taken lo those many years.
So picking nits with the congresslady's understanding of plumbing is the hill you choose to die on? As Rep. Frost said in the other clip, you can't get a drink if someone's using the toilet. Yes this is evidently a thing in prison toilets but not in ratios of over ten to one.
And Wonkette has always been able to see the good things people do even if they have or will criticized them in other circumstances. I'm pretty OK with that.
"America's circling of the toilet bowl continues unabated. Click Bait at 11"
Holding out zero hope that the media will ever start properly reporting on this, until ICE comes for their own. Just as the white MAGA supporters think "the leopards will never eat MY face", the media continues to contribute to America's downfall and won't stop until reporters, newsroom workers and management start getting scooped up in raids.
Well, Trump hates everyone, except when they're adoring him, and sometimes even then. Fundamental psychology going on here: Trump was taught to hate himself by his own narcissistic and sociopathic father, and all else extends from there
The next frontier is, of course, "white" citizens who refuse to salute the Fuhrer. What a government does to foreigners it doesn't like, you can be certain it will soon do to citizens it doesn't like. And in truth, that's an admission that the whole "illegals are harming our country!" argument is a very thin cover for the primal HATE that fuels these right-wing *other-*uckers.
"Meanwhile, US cities are under violent siege from ICE, and the atrocities keep piling up, notably intensely in the Los Angeles area, which has been under federal occupation for almost 40 days now. Children as young as 14 are being hauled away in chains. Senior citizens who have been in the US for decades are being roughed up, and American citizens, and both."
Given that LA is bascially a war zone with invading armies of brown people, who would dare travel there or, worse, expose their minor children to it???
"After news that Vice President JD Vance had a family visit planned to Disneyland, hundreds of people turned out to protest his trip to the Happiest Place on Earth while Trump administration’s immigration policies result in ICE raids across Los Angeles.
“'No family vacation while we deal with family separation,' read one protester sign, adorned with Vance’s face."
All these rich folk know each other, it's like a little club
Jeffrey Epstein Invested With Peter Thiel, and His Estate Is Reaping Millions
Mr. Epstein, the late financier and sex offender, started by putting $40 million into Valar Ventures, a firm backed by Mr. Thiel. Today that investment is worth about $170 million.
What can you do? Easy - stop cooperating. Modern society, for all the laws and courts and police, depends heavily on voluntary cooperation. Most people will just go along with whatever.
Stop doing that. Dig your heels in. Make them work for it. Stop cooperating. If you serve on a jury and the defendant isn’t an actual danger to the public, vote to acquit. It’s not your job to help the government enforce the law. So stop helping. Contest EVERYTHING. Make their lives miserable whenever possible.
You have the power to bring the mighty United States to its knees. Use it.
"Dear Leader have spent years fantasizing about migrants getting eaten by alligators and bitten by snakes"
Sorry to disturb you, but those snakes don't bite, they asphyxiate you.
Ta, Marcie. Too fucking ghastly.
Homan has declared that "his people" are above the Law.
I don't see a light at the end of this tunnel.
Just because he of all people says so it doesn't make it so
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFOSivOkGCw
"Emboldened by the Supreme Court Six’s reprehensible decision on June 23 effectively greenlighting the Department of Homeland Security sending migrants to third foreign countries where they’ve never been"
It was a given that two assholes on the SCOTUS bench would decide for the Fulvous Fuckwad (Thomas and Alito); and two strong maybes (Gorsuch and Kavanaugh). Barrett is a conundrum; sometimes she decides in favor of the Constitution and other times her partisanship is on her sleeve for all to see. Roberts is a paper tiger with no control over rogue justices, a squish that waffles between concern for how his legacy will be viewed in the future (spoiler alert: not great, Bob) and abject fear of the Sociopathic Marigold Swamp Monster' vengeance if he isn't loyal to the tiny, weak little man-child enjoying cosplay as POTUS.
-----
"the Supreme Court conservative six seem just fine with giving him free rein to do whatever evil things he can inflict on people who came to this country seeking a better life, or anyone at all who stands up to him"
* If I'm not mistaken, the middle initial "J" in the Amber Ardipithecus ramidus' name is for JustPlainEvil."
* Most of the undocumented are seeking a better life for themselves and their families back home. Outside of money for food, shelter, and a few other incidentals, a preponderance is remitted to their families. But since it is essential to punish both the "illegal alien" and their loved ones to teach a lesson that the US will not be ripped off by anyone, there must be a tax on the funds transferred out of the US:
> "One piece of the “One Big, Beautiful Bill Act” passed by the House of Representatives on May 22 is a new 3.5 percent excise tax on remittances: non-commercial transfers of money from people working in the US to people abroad (for instance, family members)." https://taxfoundation.org/blog/us-remittances-tax-big-beautiful-bill/
* The Whale-sized Pumpkin Wannabe Potentate better have a vast trove of evil stashed since "anyone at all who stands up to him" includes a growing number of American citizens -- born on American soil of two citizens to clarify their bona fides -- are standing up to him. No Kings Day events have been drawing larger and larger numbers of protesters (it'll be interesting to see how many attend protests this Thursday 17 Jul, an afternoon weekday event and not on a weekend or holiday).
-----
"Children as young as 14 are being hauled away in chains"
The cruelty is intentional. We all recall (or at list I think all) an exportation of a child with Stage 4 cancer:
> "Another mother wasn’t allowed to speak with attorneys or family members before she was deported, accompanied by her U.S.-born children, even though Immigration and Customs Enforcement knew one of them had Stage 4 cancer.
...
the 4-year-old boy who left without access to his cancer medicines" https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/deported-moms-citizen-children-cancer-trump-officials-rcna203398
But the assholes in the current regime learned nothing from the pushback over this. ICE Nazis just keep on doing their thing:
> "A 6-year-old Honduran boy with leukemia whose arrest sparked a public outcry after he, his mother and sister were seized by ICE agents and sent to a Texas detention center is back in Los Angeles, one of the family’s lawyers said Friday.
The family, which had been held for a month in the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in Texas, was released on Wednesday by Immigration and Customs Enforcement after a lawsuit was filed on their behalf in San Antonio federal court." https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/ice-releases-honduran-boy-leukemia-immigration-rcna216951
* In this case, there was enough of an uproar to force the release of the family... for now. I have little doubt that the ICEholes will try again.
* As has been typical of ICE, the family was moved to be held half way across the country, away from any support from friends and other family members.
* How did the family get back to LA? Did the gubmint pick up the tab or was the family forced to pay for their own return?
* One month in detention!!!!! The six year old missed a doctor's appointment because of the asshattery... and the family was only freed because ICE faced yet another lawsuit.
-----
(Sidebar: "DHS had insisted repeatedly that the boy was examined several times while he and his family were locked up. In a post on X, DHS called allegations of medical neglect “fake news.”
...
“ICE always prioritizes the health, safety and well-being of all detainees in its care,” DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said last week." (ibid)
* Was the boy examined by real doctors or "Bobbie Brainworm doctors?" If it was by a real doc was the doc an Oncologist or a PCP.
* Anything and everything that paints the current regime in a bad light (which is pretty much all the time) is, by definition, fake news.
* “ICE always prioritizes the health, safety and well-being of all detainees in its care[]” caused me to blow my morning coffee out my nose.
◾ Health? Who gives a fuck if the illegal aliens are healthy or not, they're to be exported anyway.
◾ Safety? Just how safe are the political prisoners (if J6ers were political prisoners, so are undocumented immigrants with no criminal record) interred at Alligator Alcatraz? Maybe the 'gators can't get past the concertinas of razor wire surrounding the camp, but I don't think any of the snakes would have a problem.
◾ Well-being? No access to fresh water, limited food, no legal representation, no family/friends support nearby... none of this contributes to a person's well-being.)
fnord
“ICE always prioritizes the health, safety and well-being of all detainees in its care,” DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin LIED last week."
Overheard in boardroom of large industrial farm corp, “who the fuck is going to pick our crops now?
Absolutely gut-wrenching cruelty. Where did my country go? I had to turn off Democracy Now just now because I could not listen to any more about the abject inhumanity of alligator Auschwitz. We are now living in one of those evil empires I’ve been hearing and reading about for my entire life. The most amazing thing is that I could never have even imagined this happening here. My belief/fantasy was that the Constitution was somehow ironclad. These folks don’t even think it’s a suggestion. I had hoped Amy Boney Carrot might have a moral code, she’s so religious you know, but I was oh so wrong. Thanks! I needed that! You are my community!
"Where did my country go?"
I hate to break it to you, but it's been here the whole time
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJQEcTqROqk
"My belief/fantasy was that the Constitution was somehow ironclad. "
And yet and still -- when Elie Mystal not only said "The Constitution is trash" - but wrote a whole book to tell everyone WHY that was, and the book even won a prize -- (mostly White) people *still* clutched all the pearls, and not enough of them actually read it to understand in time what he really meant
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIzA-SYSl_Y
There's a scene in Thunderbolts where The Red Guardian saves a little girl from being crushed by concrete, only for her to be wiped out seconds later by the villain. As a father who has lost a child I find it horrific. But apparently a lot of fan bros in the audience laugh at that scene. They think it's "dark humor." These are the hard core of trump's following; angry, friendless, frustrated young men longing for someone to come down hard on anyone who They think has kept them down.
A bunch of sadists.
They're a bunch of self-pitying liars
I believe the phrase - that THEY COINED - is "f*** their feelings"
https://www.wonkette.com/p/new-ice-cruelty-memo-out-more-third/comment/135315655
The phrase is rapidly becoming "fuck feelings," at least any of love, kindness, generosity, compassion, or empathy. In fact some of the best right wing "theologians" have written that empathy is a sin.
In a way, I can understand those "it won't happen to me" people. Having emigrated to Mexico "the right way" 20+ years ago, I can't say I'm not opposed to Mexico's crackdown on our own "illegals". The US State Dept says there are about 1.6 million US citizens living in Mexico, but according to IMN (the Mexican immigration service) less than a third of that number are here legally... either dual nationals or legal residents.
While the crackdown on "illegals" here is based on some different complaints (while, yeah, some of it is foreigners taking Mexican jobs, or the basic "habla español" type complaints), it has more to do with foreigners' sense of entitlement and cultural imperialism here. And I tend to be supportive of moves to keep "those kind" out.
Not that I should, necessarily.. and -- given the widespread protests to gentrification and foreigners acting out with a sense of entitlement -- there is a undercurrent of xenophobia that gives even those of us .. the "right kind of immigrant"... a sense of unease.
While skin tone is less a factor here, I don't try to "pass" as Mexican. Oh, after all this time there are things I do that are more typically Mexican than USAnian, but there's just too many clues that I'm not from around here. I've had to show my papers (er, card) twice, both a very long time ago (one time simply because I was on a bus coming up from Guatemala and everybody was checked, migra just going thru the motions, the other a stupid business dispute that had nothing to do with me).
I just keep my head down, live my life, but there is that nagging sense that turn-about might be fair play, but then again, might not. I can't say doing nothing wrong, and everything right isn't always enough. And that sucks.
Wish you could convey to TPTB in the US what that feels like.
Fascists don't listen to reason.
People are in some seriously staggering denial about that
Sure. I had in my head the idea of making them feel it but that requires empathy so.
Why isn't Wonkette writing articles about 'what we can do'?
Perhaps just being a pedant here but "Wasserman Schultz said each cage contained three small toilets with attached sinks, which detainees use for drinking water and brushing their teeth, SHARING THE SAME WATER TO BRUSH THEIR TEETH AS IS USED TO FLUSH THE TOILET." and "being forced to drink out of toilets" are not remotely the same thing. My house, most normal houses, your house probably all have one fresh water line coming from the city main. The water in that line then goes to your taps, to the water heater and, horror of horrors, to flush your toilets. It doesn't seem to me that Ms. Schultz is too versed in plumbing technology/connections. Too, it seems odd that Wonkette is now using her as a compadre after years of unbridled criticism over nearly each and every action she's taken lo those many years.
"Perhaps just being a pedant here "
Yes
And your timing's also execrable
You had 200 years to make whatever you seem to perceive as "your point".
Now is not the time
Thank you.
So picking nits with the congresslady's understanding of plumbing is the hill you choose to die on? As Rep. Frost said in the other clip, you can't get a drink if someone's using the toilet. Yes this is evidently a thing in prison toilets but not in ratios of over ten to one.
And Wonkette has always been able to see the good things people do even if they have or will criticized them in other circumstances. I'm pretty OK with that.
"America's circling of the toilet bowl continues unabated. Click Bait at 11"
Holding out zero hope that the media will ever start properly reporting on this, until ICE comes for their own. Just as the white MAGA supporters think "the leopards will never eat MY face", the media continues to contribute to America's downfall and won't stop until reporters, newsroom workers and management start getting scooped up in raids.
Three clear facts:
A. Trump hates foreigners.
B. His (trophy) wife can't stand him.
C. She is a foreigner.
Could it be that (B) and (C) explain (A)?
Well, Trump hates everyone, except when they're adoring him, and sometimes even then. Fundamental psychology going on here: Trump was taught to hate himself by his own narcissistic and sociopathic father, and all else extends from there
The next frontier is, of course, "white" citizens who refuse to salute the Fuhrer. What a government does to foreigners it doesn't like, you can be certain it will soon do to citizens it doesn't like. And in truth, that's an admission that the whole "illegals are harming our country!" argument is a very thin cover for the primal HATE that fuels these right-wing *other-*uckers.
"That guy over there didn't clap long enough!"
I'd pretty much forgotten who she was (if I ever paid any attention to her, but Rosie O'Donnell has been a canary in a coal mine.
"Meanwhile, US cities are under violent siege from ICE, and the atrocities keep piling up, notably intensely in the Los Angeles area, which has been under federal occupation for almost 40 days now. Children as young as 14 are being hauled away in chains. Senior citizens who have been in the US for decades are being roughed up, and American citizens, and both."
Given that LA is bascially a war zone with invading armies of brown people, who would dare travel there or, worse, expose their minor children to it???
https://www.yahoo.com/news/hundreds-turned-protest-jd-vance-062326831.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAD75YNuoQqggu5C0cFd0OYucGPg2VHd3474pYwSlQa_95I2Trn5sPf42hhP2Hjj42tpyFxwD6b9KMap7Mtc8KCfRBUk5NPiw--M2OW-p51_3DND01UjLHWoXp5K17kPlCr7EXrqmBkXND7in_nSJsctQC_fpsvqdNNQ7md3U84q_
"After news that Vice President JD Vance had a family visit planned to Disneyland, hundreds of people turned out to protest his trip to the Happiest Place on Earth while Trump administration’s immigration policies result in ICE raids across Los Angeles.
“'No family vacation while we deal with family separation,' read one protester sign, adorned with Vance’s face."
All these rich folk know each other, it's like a little club
Jeffrey Epstein Invested With Peter Thiel, and His Estate Is Reaping Millions
Mr. Epstein, the late financier and sex offender, started by putting $40 million into Valar Ventures, a firm backed by Mr. Thiel. Today that investment is worth about $170 million.
June, NYT https://archive.ph/4pzXo#selection-505.0-509.180