And don't anybody say "this is not who we are"

 

Sickening.  

Are they fucking serious?

 

Somebody actually thought that was worthy of a secret assessment by our intel agencies?  Or was it maybe ordered by a court?  That might make sense.

The National Intelligence Council, using findings from the 18 intelligence agencies, found in a secret assessment earlier this month that the Venezuelan government isn’t sending members of the prison gang Tren de Aragua to the U.S., according to The Washington Post.

[...]

Using the Alien Enemies Act, the Trump administration sent planes filled with alleged gang members to El Salvador’s infamous megaprison in the face of a judge’s order to turn the planes around to give the detainees due process.

[...]

Invoking the legislation last month, Trump said - without providing evidence - that the prison gang was conducting an “invasion” of the U.S. “at the direction” of the government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

[...]

The assessment of the intelligence community ascertained that there are some contacts between Tren de Aragua and the Venezuelan government at the lower levels, but the gang doesn’t follow orders from Maduro. Similarly, The New York Times reported that U.S. intelligence found in February that the Venezuelan government doesn’t control the gang.

[...]

The National Intelligence Council, the nucleus of the U.S. intelligence community, reports to the Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard.

  UK Independent

So Trump's DNI has had that assessment since at least February, before Trump sent a plane load of people to El Salvador.

Trump 2.0 - Protests

 

Jesus, Joseph, & Mary!

I spent one day off the doom machine, and, as for each day since Trump went to the White House, that day was worse than all the ones before it.  

Trump is talking about ethnic cleansing of Gaza - but more than that - about going in to "take ownership" of the Strip!  What in blue blazes!  The man is a certified madman.  Is he perhaps syphilitic?  Just asking questions.

Let's see.  What else did I learn last night?  He's also cleaning out the CIA.  He's shutting down the Department of Education and NOAA, the weather service!

Trump insanely said the US is going to occupy Gaza at a joint press conference with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu tonight: “The US will take over the Gaza Strip - and we will do a good job with it too. We’ll own it. We’ll level the site.” He then said we are going to go in there and develop it with new properties - it is oceanfront property after all.

When asked by a reporter if he was talking about a permanent occupation of Gaza by the US: “I do see a long-term ownership position” for the US. He then said he would use military force if necessary.

Trump in the Oval Office earlier today: “The Gaza has not worked. It has never worked. I think they should get a good fresh piece of land. I don’t know how they could want to stay. It’s a demolition site. If we could find the right piece of land or numerous pieces of land and build them some nice places - could be Jordan, could be in Egypt.”

  Meidas Touch

Hmmmm...kind of like moving the decimated Jewish populatios to a piece of land and calling it Israel? ("The Gaza.")

Earlier today, demented Trump said if Iran assassinates him he “left instructions” to “obliterate” their country. He said this from the Oval Office while announcing new sanctions against Iran and warning them not to try and retaliate that way: "If they did that, they would be obliterated. I left instructions.”

An honest to goodness madman. Joined in federal office by other madmen...

But Trump’s new right-wing white nationalist conspiracy theorist State Department Spokesman Darren Beattie said last September that he really thinks our own intelligence agencies have been trying to have Trump killed, not Iran: “It's more likely that the intelligence officials telling Trump that Iran is behind assassination attempts are actually the ones behind the assassination attempts, than it is for Iran being behind the assassination attempts.”

[...]

Axios reported that about 20,000 federal employees have accepted the buyout offered to them last week by Musk, which is only about 1% of the federal government workforce. That number is way lower than he expected, as Musk reportedly predicted that 5-10% would accept the offer. However, the offer is open until this Thursday so we will see if more people fall for this.

Total insanity. And if those people think they're going to get paid without going to court, god bless 'em.

Trump nominated right-wing podcaster Sean Parnell to be Pete Hegseth’s Chief Pentagon Spokesperson and Asst. Sec Def. Trump endorsed Parnell for Senate in PA in 2022, but he dropped out of the race when he lost custody of his children after his wife testified in court that Parnell abused her and their children by choking her and pinning her down, and also struck one of their children in a fit of rage.

Trump's type.

Hegseth announced that the first flights of migrants to Guantanamo Bay started today. Trump’s executive order allows for up to 30,000 to be housed there while their deportation cases are litigated.

[...]

Trump said that he wants other countries to start housing our prison inmates, and President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador said he is willing to accept the offer: "We have offered the US the opportunity to outsource part of its prison system. We are willing to take in convicted criminals (including convicted US citizens) into our mega-prison (CECOT) in exchange for a fee. The fee would be relatively low for the US but significant for us, making our entire prison system sustainable."

What a fantastic idea! Holy Mary, Mother of God.

Immigration Law expert Aaron Reichlin-Melnick: “Okay, but that's not a thing. I don't care what Bukele says, the US cannot legally banish Americans - such authorities died centuries ago and are the relic of a time of terra nullius. It just is not legal under any modern international laws either.”

You people need to find some other cry. Illegal! is't working. He just keeps doing illegal - and unconstitutional - shit.

Canadian MP Charlie Angus told Meidas Touch that Trump lost the tariff battle: “He blinked. He choked. Two days ago, he was telling us that if we didn’t give up our nationhood, the tariffs would stay on. Then we hit him with $125 billion in tariffs. We pulled KY booze off our shelves. Then we said, ‘You’re getting another $25 billion right after that.’ The market started to tank, and suddenly, he said, ‘Oh, didn’t you guys already have a plan to deal with the border back in December? I love that—I’ll take that.’ This is Mr. Art of the Deal.”

[...]

WaPo columnist Catherine Rampell on CNN: “Trump is trying to repackage the status quo as a victory. That's what the leaders of these foreign countries are learning. You don't actually have to give Trump anything. You just have to let him announce victory on TV.”

[...]

NYT reports that a DC judge just awarded the Proud Boys’ trademarks to the Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church. Proud Boys can’t legally use the name and the church can seize the proceeds of any merchandise sold with that name or logo. The church sued the Proud Boys after they destroyed Black Lives Matter signs outside their building. They got a $1 million judgment which PBs refused to pay, so the judge ordered this as an alternative.

Well, thank whatever gods there be for one small bit of good news. Oh, and this...

Italian Green Party politician Andrea Zanoni filed a complaint with a court in Italy accusing Donald Trump Jr. of illegally killing an endangered Ruddy Shelduck bird near Venice, Italy during a recent hunting trip. Local environmentalists and Italian MPs have joined the formal complaint and called for an investigation.

Lock him up and keep him. You'll be protecting the world.

Do we get to know which ones those are?

Are we sure Elon is not simply implementing Project 2025 for Russ Vought and Stephen Miller?  

At any rate, it does seem like the country is being hijacked by a vengeful madman and a Bond villain.  

YOU own this, Rand Paul.  You and your greedy, soulless colleagues in the GOP Congress.

ASSHAT.

Do Democrats STILL not get it?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE 05:58 pm:

Protest on the 101

Better watch out.  Trump appointed Pete Hegseth to the DoD because he will send out the military on American streets when Trump orders it.

The finding out phase begins

And shame on military personnel who carry out these orders.

UPDATE 02/03/2025:

Takin' it to the streets

Trump 2.0 - Gitmo concentration camp

Yep.  Not even on American soil.

UPDATE 01/30/2025:

There's enough blame to go around.

In August 2024, the Biden administration granted a private prison company a $163.4 million contract to run the facility.

"For decades, the Guantanamo migrant detention center has been the hallmark of the most inhumane, racist, and brutal U.S. policies against people seeking refuge," said Jesse Franzblau, senior policy analyst with the National Immigrant Justice Center. "The Biden administration could have shut down the facility but tragically renewed and entered into new contracts to keep it up and running."

[...]

“We have 30,000 beds in Guantanamo to detain the worst criminal illegal aliens threatening the American people. This will double our capacity immediately,” Trump said.

But according to Department of Homeland Security and Navy documents from 2021 and 2022 reviewed by Drop Site News, the Trump administration may not be able to detain that high of a number of migrants at the facility — at least not immediately. Documents show the Guantánamo migrant detention center only has the capacity to expand to hold 400 people.

[...]

“The idea that the Trump administration is going to send 30,000 migrants to Guantánamo is one of the dumbest ideas I’ve heard all week. It’s utterly absurd,” said J. Wells Dixon, a senior staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights who represents detainees at the Guantánamo military prison and frequently visits the base. “It’s purely performative. President Trump is trying to use the image of Guantánamo to project toughness towards refugees and asylum seekers.”

  DropSite

It works.

Resist: Know your rights

ICE Detention camps

So telling

Trump 2.0 - Fuck the environment

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Your groceries are about to get even more expensive

Dear MAGA,

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

ICE in Chicago

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman Jeff Carter issued a statement Sunday saying that ICE and partner federal agencies “began conducting enhanced targeted operations today in Chicago to enforce U.S. immigration law and preserve public safety and national security by keeping potentially dangerous (criminals) out of our communities.”

ICE announced it had arrested 1,000 people nationwide Sunday, but a spokesperson declined to say how many were from the Chicago area. Last year, the Biden administration averaged about 310 immigration arrests per day.

[...]

The operations were carried out with two top Trump administration officials in Chicago. The Drug Enforcement Administration’s Chicago field office posted a picture on X of Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove and “border czar” Tom Homan meeting with federal agents Sunday morning.

[...]

["Dr." Phil] McGraw boasted about the arrests that took place Sunday, at one point asking the camera to pan to a wall that contained pictures of those apprehended during the operation.

[...]

In the Hermosa neighborhood, [one person] said her parents ran to hide in their attic when they saw ICE agents outside their home Sunday morning.

“They took our neighbor’s dad,” she said. “My parents were crying. We are terrified.”

Her family, she said, has been in the country for over two decades, and the fear of them getting deported is debilitating. Both her mother and father, who she said have no criminal record, did not come out until the agents left their block.

Across the city and suburbs, residents reported sightings of the prowling federal agents, exchanging texts and posting alerts and photos on social media.

  Chicago Tribune

You know who else was there? Dr. Phil!

In keeping with city law, the Chicago Police Department did not participate in Sunday’s operations, according to a post on X by Mayor Brandon Johnson, who acknowledged the reports of ICE activity. In the post, Johnson also implored Chicago residents to “know their constitutional rights.”

Also on Sunday, Gov. JB Pritzker appeared on CNN’s “State of the Union” and reiterated that local law enforcement “will not coordinate with federal officials on the arrest of people” when they do not have a judicial warrant.

[...]

Pritzker again said that he agreed violent criminals who are undocumented should be deported.

“Now, what they’re also doing, though, and it’s quite disturbing, is they’re going after people who are law-abiding, who are holding down jobs, who have families here, who may have been here for a decade or two decades, and they’re often our neighbors and our friends,” he said.

[...]

The governor also dismissed concerns raised from reports earlier this week that Justice Department officials would seek to prosecute state and local officials who do not cooperate with immigration enforcement activities. The memo, written by Bove, also instructs the Justice Department’s civil division to work with a new Sanctuary Cities Enforcement Working Group to identify and potentially challenge state and local laws and policies that “threaten to impede” the Trump administration’s immigration efforts.

[...]

[F]our local advocacy groups filed a federal lawsuit Saturday seeking to curtail immigration raids in Chicago.

[...]

Maria Perez, a volunteer with the nonprofit Southwest Collective, runs a food pantry for migrants on the South Side.

She said she got a call from a woman on Friday who asked for the address of the pantry and threatened “that if there were a lot of migrants at the pantry, you better hope ICE doesn’t show up.”

This is what Nazi tactics lead to. Some people are willing to do the state's dirty work for it.

Julie Contreras with United Giving Hope, a longtime immigration rights advocacy organization, said she was trying to gather more details after being in touch with families that were affected by arrests in Waukegan on Sunday.

“Today across our cities Donald Trump placed terror into the hearts of U.S. citizen children,” said Contreras. “In my church today I had to sit down and hug and love and tell a 4-year-old little girl that no one was going to come and harm her and deport her and destroy her family.”

And hope you were right.

UPDATE 11:49 am:

Divided States of America

It's now up to your governor to resist Trump's illegal moves.

Trump revenge

Colombia turned back 2 deportation flights.  Trump responded.

Things are going to get far out of hand far too quickly.

UPDATE 07:09 am:  Looks like the bullying worked.

Colombia’s foreign ministry released a statement soon afterward that said “we have overcome the impasse with the United States government.” It said the government would accept all deportation flights and “guarantee dignified conditions” for those Colombians on board.

[Gustavo] Petro began the day by announcing that he had turned back U.S. military planes carrying deported immigrants. This set off a furious back and forth with Mr. Trump, who in turn announced a barrage of tariffs and sanctions targeting the country, which has long been a top U.S. ally in Latin America.

Mr. Trump said on social media that the United States would immediately impose a 25 percent tariff on all Colombian imports and would raise them to 50 percent after a week. The Trump administration would also “fully impose” banking and financial sanctions on Colombia, apply a travel ban on Colombian government officials and their associates, and revoke their visas, the president said.

Mr. Petro hit back on social media. In one post, he announced retaliatory tariffs of 25 percent on U.S. imports to Colombia; in another, longer post, he said those tariffs would hit 50 percent.

Directly addressing Mr. Trump, Mr. Petro also questioned whether the American president was trying to topple him.

“You don’t like our freedom, fine,” Mr. Petro said. “I do not shake hands with white enslavers.”

The clash reflected how Mr. Trump was ready to make an example out of Colombia as countries around the world grapple with how to prepare for the mass deportations of unauthorized immigrants that he has promised.

[...]

Early on Friday, Guatemala received two U.S. Air Force jets carrying around 160 deportees in total, making it one of the first countries to publicly receive such flights.

Officials in Mexico, the source of the largest number of unauthorized immigrants in the United States, have said that they remained open to receiving deported citizens. Routine deportations have taken place to Mexican cities along the U.S. border in recent days.

[...]

Honduras, which like Colombia has pushed back against the Trump administration’s plans for mass deportations, has said that it has not yet explicitly been asked by U.S. officials, but that it is open to receiving military flights.

  NYT

The arguments all seem to be, not over receiving deportees, but the manner of deporting them on military flights. The whole world is insane.

Fucking nuts.  Is this so people have to go to his social media site?

"Columbia"

Immigrants: Know your rights

An ICE warrant does not permit an officer entry to your property.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Not good

Fetterman and at least 7 other Democratic Senators are reportedly planning to vote for the Laken Riley Act, which will allow ICE to detain and later deport migrants with pending asylum and citizenship claims. That would give Republicans enough votes to overcome the filibuster.

[...]

Democrats want to require that someone actually be found guilty first, while the Republican bill simply states that detention can be ordered if they are arrested based on a police officer’s probable cause. It is certainly understandable that they would want that language changed, but it does not appear that is likely to happen based on the number of Senate Dems who have already pledged to vote for it as is.

[...]

The bill currently states that people can be put in detention if they are “charged with, arrested for, convicted of, or admits to committing acts which constitute burglary, theft, larceny, or shoplifting.”

  Meidas Touch

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

ICE detention center expansion

AKA concentration camps.

From ACLU newsletter:

Donate to support ACLU

Mass deportation results

The Congressional Joint Economic Committee published a report showing the effect of Trump’s mass deportations on the US economy. The report shows that 1.5 million workers in the construction industry, 225,000 from agriculture, 1 million from hospitality, 870,000 from manufacturing, and 461,000 from transportation would be subject to deportation.

The report showed that 25% of all US construction workers are migrants with 282,000 job openings in construction remaining unfilled. The study also showed that deportation of 8 million migrants would result in a 7.4% reduction in US GDP over the next four years, which would be a severe recession right on the borderline of a depression.

  Meidas Touch

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.