As of yesterday, members of Congress who sit on the House or Senate Judiciary Committees can see unredacted versions of the Epstein files the Department of Justice (DOJ) has already released.
I already loved Poland because a woman from Poland ended up being the life saving bone marrow match for a transplant my brother needed 8 years ago - and now they’re investigating Epstein/Russia ties. Will we know everything, no, but at least other countries are attempting to pick up our slack.
Don’t forget to - Be LOUD. These are unprecedented times 💔🤍💙
Use/share this spreadsheet (bit.ly/Goodtrouble) to contact members of Congress, the Cabinet and news organizations. Call. Write. Email. Protest. Unrelentingly.
Reach out (beyond your own) to as many in the Senate and House as you can. All of this is bigger than “I only represent my constituents” issues.
Please urge your members of Congress to write about the human rights abuses in the detention camps, especially after the extreme MAGA ruling in the Fifth Circuit that denies bond hearings for detainees using the fiction that they can classify everyone as in the "process of applying" whether you have been in the US for 2 days or 2 decades.
While it only applies to people being detained in facilities in the Fifth Circuit, ICE and CBP are shipping people down there from all over the country so they are subject to the ruling.
This means that every person who is rounded up can be detained INDEFINITELY.
It seems to me that the Constitution speaks of "the people" and "persons". Who is not legally a "person"? I thought we gave that sort of BS up? Clearly not every one in the US is eligible to vote, and we have a right to control ingress from abroad, but the impunity of border agents to dispense with due process has no Constitutional basis as far as I can see.
The whole issue with jurisdiction shopping is screwed up, especially given the SCOTUS ruling that disallowed nationwide injunctions unless a class action is certified. It’s a two-edged sword. The Fifth Circuit could declare a class and rule nationwide, but that would provoke a rapid appeal to SCOTUS, which might overrule them on the merits, or not. But they surely would issue a stay favorable to the Fifth.
Functionally, keeping it to just the Fifth Circuit means Steven Miller and company can build their 10,000-person camps there and ship as many people as they want. SCOTUS will feel no pressure to rule on the merits and stall because their docket is already full for the year.
The strategy is to keep pushing the boundaries so that the worst authoritarian excesses are normalized and to slow things down to minimize pushback, counting on another distraction. Now that the Epstein files are back in the spotlight, along with election interference, the camps have been submerged back in the flood.
'Twould not surprise me the Regime is now using the Trumpstein files to distract from its death camps. (Given their deliberate starvation of detainees and denial of medical care, let's start calling them what they damn well are.) Once again in worshipful emulation of Hitler and the Third Reich, the "Unified Reich" is literally renewing the Holocaust, this time with a vastly broadened list of extermination targets.
Yesterday, there was an account of detainees sleeping in feces.
And where are Roberts and the rest of the SCOTUS Republicans. Hiding in their homes I'm guessing.
Someone needs to detain the daughters and sons of a few Republican Senators like Ted Cruz and Brett Kavanaugh as well as a couple of Trump's grandkids. Yes, that is cruel, but so is shooting an unarmed US citizen in the head.
It should be interesting to see how the ICE agents in Minneapolis get by with no salary and no expense money. Maybe the Marriott and Hilton hotels will through them out of the hotels.
Or second homes. Or Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket vacation homes. Or homes provided by Harlan Crow to the most corrupt and beholden to the billionaire amoral. Or luxury motor homes also provided to the same most corrupt justice in U.S. history.
Loren GREAT call! I'm writing this 02:39 cornfield central, 2-11-26.
Could not agree more.
His ruse to distract by means of obfuscation produced ( mass redactions) cost millions of $'s repeat and recycle. My very interesting supposition is they made a calculated guess. These bottom line, I am assuming till proven incorrect , the attempt was made by massive redactions to attempt to provid cover for these six men would by calling them victims of a witch hunt. In his deluded mind he feels like a victim, search bach he has said both, they are victims .
Have you heard or do you care about the Elpaso airport being shut down temporarily by OHS, I'm sure Hog's breath would have gave the OK. Nice distraction from the Pammi Bondi testimony making news currently. It is just money about money anyway they can get it. Big time Advertisers or alligator shit makes no difference. WEll done!
Two people have died due to not receiving their medications. One was a diabetic - his medication(s) are common and life-saving. He was not allowed to have his medications, resulting in his death. One had a heart condition; again, not allowed his medication, resulting in death. It may be safer and healthier to be in prison where most have private cells and private toilets, plus a bunk with a mattress. Detention centers are paid millions (billions ?) to provide dirty water, bugs in food, and hard floors to sleep on in overcrowding cells with broken toilets. No showers, no toothpaste or soap. We are now a third-world, and dropping.
That’s what I meant to write. Let me check to see what came out after I used Grammarly, which is usually a godsend until it becomes the devil. I use it to break down run-on sentences, my personal “most in need of improvement” item. Sometimes it rearranges the bits in strange ways, especially if I am using passive voice in the draft.
Grammarly was the devil. I rewrote the offending sentence for clarity. Thanks for the catch.
Hit the nail on the head, disposing of due process (I can’t believe they’re getting away with that without consequence, why isn’t Dem leadership hammering this point home day after day?) is reason enough, as if we needed any more, to abolish ICE. Eliminate it entirely, the culture is too far gone to repair. Get rid of these masked thugs and start all over.
John, I read so much from so many, I can't remember who wrote what. I'm guessing it was Robert Reich who wrote that most of us aren't aware that ICE was created only in 2003. Compared to other government agencies, it's a "baby." That short lifespan means that it's not very well integrated into U.S. Government. That it has devolved so far, so fast, is grounds for its dissolution. And no one would miss it.
By contrast, the predecessors had been around forever. U.S. Customs, 1789; U.S. Border Patrol, 1924: Immigration and Naturalization, 1933.
We could make the U.S. great again by breaking up the DHS monopoly on terrorizing immigrants and citizens.
Yeah, I never warmed up to the DHS idea. It’s always had more than a whiff of state bureaucratic totalitarianism to me about it. If we couldn’t get the myriad of “Homeland Security” agencies co-ordinated to warn of us of what was right out in the open, Middle East men over here learning how to fly our airplanes for example, maybe the answer wasn’t to build a bureaucratic monstrosity but rather pare back the number of agencies all playingthe same game and figure out a way to improve communication among the ones still in it.
The oligarchs who own the government are simply applying their business rationale. Growth must not be stopped. If you have nothing new to bring to the market, then ramp up mergers and acquisitions.
We live in a world where only a handful of corporations own everything.
I expect the ground hog of Washington himself to collapse of clogged intestinal track from gobbling untold amounts of Kentucky Fried Chicken from containers and with turd oozing from his gullet, expire in a stench of his own making real soon.
Ya.., and meanwhile, ICE Agents Gutierrez & Ochoa, along with Agent Ross, are still out on the street. Just an "administrative" issue. Line of duty, no doubt. Innocent until proven guilty. I read that somewhere, so let's not be hasty. Remember: What you just see'd.., is not what you just saw'd. Mad magazine material. What? Me worry? Yeah.
"In Washington today, a grand jury refused to indict six Democratic members of Congress for breaking a law that makes it a crime to “interfere with, impair, or influence the loyalty, morale, or discipline of the military or naval forces of the United States.”
Good. Time to run this ad again and again, since Trump is determined to force the military into becoming his personal servants.
We need an PSA of Americans reminding their fellow citizens that none of us are bound to obey illegal orders either. There are many examples of citizen courage in our history.
That's good Al, except that ICE will "zip" any bellergent-butt and throw it in a back-seat where yelling and kicking is futile. Time to get strategic, as you have indicated. I see lights on the horizon my friend.
I think that there are many kinds of courage, and many examples of holding the line. HCR helps to spotlight some of them. Artists often do so. Tomorrow is Lincoln's Birthday, that was a national holiday in my youth, as well it should be. Perhaps more effectively than any other, he fleshed out what the Declaration of Independence referenced as +universal+ "unalienable rights" and "consent of the governed".
"Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure."
Some things are learned best by example, and examples of human behavior can inspire as well as horrify.
Der Leader isn't phased by what was clearly to him a 'frivolous question to begin with'. "They" are clearly guilty as he has clearly said so in no uncertain terms "death". Der Leader has spoken. Pete's in charge. One text to brother Homan and Tulsi and "they" will be rounded up in the back seat of a Tahoe. Who.., is going to stop that, if I might ask. When ICE busts your window, your spouting -off your "rights" means zero to them.., you're gonna get Zipped my friend.
Yes! One of the biggest camps in the Midwest is in Baldwin, Michigan. We're trying to get our representative, Kristen McDonald Rivett, to observe, but haven't convinced her yet. 601 Saginaw Street
...then be rebuffed and with the press there also - 6 times a day, every day, but at some point don't leave, set up a chair, read books about democracy. The point is, quit whining and be an agitator for good trouble
And that's whether they are US citizens or have ever committed a crime or had their houses broken into by ICE.
Hopefully, that decision is appealed soon Georgia, but if it goes to SCOTUS there's a good chance the Fascist Republicans on the court will side against the Constitution.
I have written to both of my senators, even though they are both republicans - especially because they are both republicans, because this decision has really upset me. As a Texan who lives on the border, I am very aware of how bad the conditions already are at the detention camps, even before this awful decision. I did not write my representative because she is already working to make the camps less horrific.
Susan.., any guess as to why El Paso airport has been closed for the next ten days. Security reasons? What? The airspace for ten nautical miles is CLOSED..FHUTDOWN.., to any and ALL air traffic. That includes Airlines!!!
Apparently it was because of Mexican drones, and was dropped. However, the air space around Santa Teresa, NM is still shut down. We live in the flight path for the El Paso airport and planes have been flying in and out all day..
Alex, I know no more than you, but my search of the news suggests drones — though that shouldn’t close an airport down for hours - much less ten days. I also saw something suggesting the drones were “handled” before the shutdown was ordered. This regime seems to be going out of its way to generate conspiracies. Anyone know of any troop movements in the USA near El Paso?
The excuse was Mexican cartel drones, but the Mexican president said there were none. The real reason seems to have been the US Air Force wanted to practice dealing with drones, and didn't care what that did to the El Paso airport. Cf. that plane that collided with a helicopter and both went down in the Potomac.
Daniel, the House is voting this week on a new version of the SAVE Act – the GOP's latest attempt to trick you into giving up YOUR right to vote.
Supporters claim that anyone who really wants to vote will simply jump through all the hoops they want to put into place.
But we're not going to fall for that – this is just the same old voter suppression scheme we've been fighting for decades.
Here’s the simple truth: the SAVE Act would block millions of eligible voters from casting a ballot by adding unnecessary, costly, and confusing barriers to the ballot box.
If you agree that's wrong, Congress needs to hear from you today.
Save Act.......The Regime's attempt at Orwellian "1984" Language to try to fool the citizens.. SAVE IS DESTROY... as the Regime attempts to promote its fraudulent claims to "fairness" and "protection of the vote" while working feverishly to obliterate our Democracy one ballot at a time... This could be one of our biggest obstacles to overcome. The wording of this Act is intentionally misleading to many...
It actually is a new version of the bill in the House with a different name, the Save America Act with a different House bill number. The Save Act was passed last year by the House and is the active bill in the Senate although it has not been released from the Senate Rules Committee to the floor.
I think the confusion is intentional both for people in Congress and definitely for the general public!!!!
I have been meaning to try to compare the two versions side by side but that is hard to do because no bill is cleanly written, you just see the amendments which can be one word on a specific line in a section and clause.
It likely will pass the House, as it did in the earlier form last year. Once again, it will be up to senators to block it. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) declared it “dead on arrival.” But this time around, a mobilized outside drive is pushing lawmakers to restrict voting. “It must be done or democracy is dead,” instructed Elon Musk. The SAVE Act will not expire quietly, surrounded by loved ones. It’s on all of us to stand up and speak out, once again.
It will die in the Senate. But that doesn't mean their pissant battle to siphon votes won't continue in localities across the country.
And yet, history shows that nothing drives up voting more than somebody trying to tell you you can't vote because you forgot to dot the "i" in your name, or your married name isn't the same one as your birth one (duh) or trying to make you pay a poll tax (outlawed by the 1965 Voting Rights Act) by getting a $160 passport -- which you've never had to show before.
And I believe they have already removed drop boxes in areas in many states that are known to lean Democratic -- just another suppression technique. And then there are the post office changes re when a ballot is actually considered mailed / received / postmarked.
You remembered about the nefarious change in the postmark date!!! It is not when you mail the letter anymore, it is when it is first "processed," which can be days later.
Now, if you mail your ballot on election day, the postmark could be several days later, and your ballot could be rejected.
Similarly, if you mail your income tax forms and the postmark is three days later, you would have to pay a penalty.
I wrote about it in a note on December 24, 2025. I can't believe it was less than 2 months ago. So much news packed into so little time! Two months ago seems like 6 to 12 months when I think back.
and getting a passport right now is so delayed and difficult. AND now in my state they passed something that says no matter when you mail something it only counts when (if) it gets to its destination. Mail in ballots only go out but so early and now all they have to do is delay all the mail enough to make it so they will not arrive 'in time' to be counted. So that is all the active-duty military, disabled, and residents who are out of town at that time of year.
A family member applied for a passport seven months ago and has not received it yet. I suspect there are fewer agents working to process applications due to staff cuts.
Summaries from the Congressional Research Service (There may be differences in what is acceptable proof of citizenship between the bills that would not appear in the summaries.)
The big difference is the requirement to show proof of citizenship when you VOTE, not just when you register to vote, which is present in the SAVE America Act.
Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act or the SAVE Act
This bill requires individuals to provide documentary proof of U.S. citizenship when registering to vote in federal elections.
Specifically, the bill prohibits states from accepting and processing an application to register to vote in a federal election unless the applicant presents documentary proof of U.S. citizenship. The bill specifies what documents are considered acceptable proof of U.S. citizenship, such as identification that complies with the REAL ID Act of 2005 that indicates U.S. citizenship. [My note: Current Real ID does not indicate US citizenship status; it can be issued to anyone who is legally in the US.]
Further, the bill (1) prohibits states from registering an individual to vote in a federal election unless, at the time the individual applies to register to vote, the individual provides documentary proof of U.S. citizenship; and (2) requires states to establish an alternative process under which an applicant may submit other evidence to demonstrate U.S. citizenship.
Each state must take affirmative steps on an ongoing basis to ensure that only U.S. citizens are registered to vote, which shall include establishing a program to identify individuals who are not U.S. citizens using information supplied by certain sources.
Additionally, states must remove noncitizens from their official lists of eligible voters.
The bill allows for a private right of action against an election official who registers an applicant to vote in a federal election who fails to present documentary proof of U.S. citizenship.
The bill establishes criminal penalties for certain offenses, including registering an applicant to vote in a federal election who fails to present documentary proof of U.S. citizenship.
This bill requires individuals to provide documentary proof of U.S. citizenship when registering to vote, and requires photo identification to vote, in federal elections.
Specifically, the bill prohibits states from accepting and processing an application to register to vote in a federal election unless the applicant presents documentary proof of U.S. citizenship. The bill specifies what documents are considered acceptable proof of U.S. citizenship, such as identification that complies with the REAL ID Act of 2005 that indicates U.S. citizenship.
Further, the bill (1) prohibits states from registering an individual to vote in a federal election unless, at the time the individual applies to register to vote, the individual provides documentary proof of U.S. citizenship; and (2) requires states to establish an alternative process to demonstrate U.S. citizenship.
Each state must take affirmative steps on an ongoing basis to ensure that only U.S. citizens are registered to vote, which shall include establishing a program to identify individuals who are not U.S. citizens using information supplied by certain sources.
Additionally, states must remove noncitizens from their official lists of eligible voters.
The bill (1) provides for a private right of action for certain violations, and (2) establishes criminal penalties for certain offenses.
Individuals voting in federal elections must present an eligible photo identification document. An individual who votes by absentee ballot must submit a copy of their identification document with both the request for, and the submission of, the absentee ballot.
What of voters already registered? If we have to re-register, that is going to eliminate millions of seniors and disabled people who are home-bound by physical disability and have no way to get to the registration office with our papers because truly adequate transport for us is but another of USian capitalism's Big Lies. (If I'm still alive, which in all probability I won't be, that will permanently disenfranchise me, and I have never missed a federal election since I became eligible to vote in 1961.) (Thank you, Georgia, for ferreting out this ChristoNazi outrage.)
I agree -- my husband is homebound in a wheelchair - there is no way he could get out to re-register in person. And I am home most of the time, being his caregiver. But I will be sure to take our mail-in ballots directly to the postoffice and have them stamped in my presence (not really a big risk in NYC, but this year we can't be too careful.)
That’s why the Congressional Research Service summaries are inadequate, and the details that aren’t covered by the congressional act can vary by state. The SAVE America Act is the one that requires proof of citizenship every time you vote.
Which would (1)-end mail-in voting (and absentee voting in any form) and (2)-further the disenfranchisement of physically disabled people. (If I remember correctly, one of the upper-level ChristoNazis has already said publicly that the proper final solution to disability of any sort is "lethal injection." )
so now we are now mailing all our important identification documents through the mail????? wow can we say identity theft opportunities for alllllll I already live in the check washing capital of the country.
I haven’t stitched together the full text of either bill—It is a several day pain in the ass exercise. The details of what gets sent and how may be left to the individual states or in the complete bill.
Some people think neither bill has any chance of getting through the Senate. This is one I don’t want to trust to Democrats holding together in the Senate to stop it since it is subject to cloture, so 7 democrats would have to support bringing it to a vote to get past cloture (filibuster) and then it is a simple majority vote to pass it in the Senate.
Eight Dems voted to end the shutdown…
This is too important a bill to leave to chance—it needs a full-court press to contact members of the House and Senate.
Georgia, one of the things for which I was famous during my working-press years (or infamous, depending on the viewer's political perspective), was reading legislation top to bottom and exposing its hidden landmines and punji pits. (Best catch ever: discovering a so-called "anti-pornography initiative" contained a provision that would enable the closure of any bar or restaurant where it could be proven people met and subsequently engaged in extra-marital or non-marital sex. The initiative was several points ahead when we put that atop Page One, but our story -- which I also did for UPI -- killed it; got me a commendation from the ACLU too.) Point being, if I may be of similar assistance in your legislative work, PM me and I'll send you my email and phone number.
In Italy all citizens can vote without registering, assuming they have a place of residence and the obligatory national ID card, as all citizens are required to carry. I have never heard an Italian complain about this.
Voter registration would seem to be an invention designed to make voting more difficult and less accessible for US citizens.
Too many American businesses rely on immigrant employees who do not have legal authorization to work. Having a national identity card would not be good for their bottom line.
No doubt that's true, but US businesses that give jobs to insufficiently documented aliens, as many do, are breaking the law in any case. I have an Italian national ID card because my wife is Italian, and this gives me all the rights Italians have, except voting. To say nothing of the superior healthcare I can get here. For free if I don't mind waiting to see a specialist sometimes.
I believe it began when white men didnt want women voting or black folks voting-white men have been racist and believing in their own superior-ness since forever
It would be great if the US government would automatically issue every a voter ID card. But many states make it difficult and costly to get. There are many was to make it easier for people to vote, especially with all of today’s technology. But Republicans don’t want everyone to vote. People don’t like their policies or politicians.
They have closed air space around El Paso Texas, do you think it is because there will be a large number of planes coming in filled with ICE detainees?
OFF TOPIC & per Reuters a few minutes ago citing the FAA, flights in & out of EL PASO International Airport will be halted for ten (10) days for "security reasons".
?
Per Morning Joe a few minutes ago the flight ban at EPI has been LIFTED. Apparently there has been a "failure to communicate" between the FAA & the DOD over planned weapon testing of a new anti-drone weapon in the El Paso area. No flight ban now.
Representative Ro Khana & just started looking at un-reacted Epstein Files for just 2 hours today & posted the names six (6 )FBI investigated persons but, Politico cautions there is no evidence revealed of wrong doing at this time.
The six (6) Names:
1. Leslie Wexner, Co-founder of Victoria's Secret
2. Nicola Caputo
3. Leonid Leonov
4. Salvador Luana
5. Zurab Mikeladze
6. Sultan Ahmed bin Nuora
UPDATE:
Bondi's DOJ has already un-redacted the names.
And, Bondi will be on the Hill today, 2/11, to be grilled about the Epstein Files.
“Today, Ro Khanna named Epstein associates on the House floor, shielded by the Speech and Debate Clause. The files themselves were scrubbed in March, just ahead of the Epstein Transparency Act.”
MAGA, overwhelmingly Christian in identity, has responded with silence.
If this is where “Christian morals” go to die, then it’s worth asking whether those morals ever existed, or only mattered when convenient.” ~The Rational League (2/10/26)
The silence is affirmation that Trumpstein is Christianity in action. (Note for example the tsunami of sexual abuse charges against Southern Baptist pastors and Roman Catholic priests.) The cover-up is merely another proof of what Jeff Sharlet exposed as "the Secret Fundamentalism at the heart of American power."
Hello Loren... Note Mike Johnson's Silence, and keeping the USG shutdown for Months.... If Deeds, not Words Matter, what does that tell you about Mike Johnson's Piety?...
That's just more Democrat "change-we-can-believe-in" grandstanding. Extremely unlikely the Republicans would let it out of Congress, as that would many times intensify the risk of prison for the Pedophile-in-Chief and who knows how many other ChristoNazi collaborators. And even if it did pass, Trump or his successor would veto it.
Here’s another maybe… The Ohio State University ought to rethink that name of the Medical Center-Hospital…as well as all the other buildings. Seriously considering Wexner is named after way to many buildings is a “co-conspirator to the largest sex trafficker in the USA” just sayin… Ah but there was that nagging situation at The Ohio State University about that wrestling scandal of sexual assault and abuse while Richard Strauss was employed as a physician by OSU. Recall Gym Jordan was the assistant coach back then at OSU… Guess those sexual assaulters do stick together even when it comes to girls or boys…
Ohio State keeping Wexner's name, but what about other buildings?
Our government shares so many characteristics with an organized crime group that it's chilling, and it's all about generating income and power for the "Family". In our case, having just one "Boss" (DJT) with Family that includes his chosen family who are loyal to him. The Mafia was founded on a distrust of the powers that be, "the swamp", and their authority was enforced through the threat of violence while their criminal activities went unreported, even by the victims, because of the fear of retaliation. Our Congress is mostly frozen due to fear of retaliation from the Boss. A shroud of secrecy is necessary to protect the Family from the law, for example the muzzling of Press, while their illegal activities in regard to immigrants, etc, are enabled by the Family. It's past time to vote the mob out.
Agreed, Signe. It takes little imagination to develop a typical Mafia screenplay, substituting actual regime officials for the cast of characters. Donald is the aging, ailing patriarch who thinks he's still running the syndicate and expects obeisance from everyone around him. He sits like a stinking pile in the corner booth of the restaurant with an overhead can light shining directly on him.
Stephen is the don who sits in the booth in the shadow constantly on his phone as he runs the business, ordering lieutenants scattered across the city to carry out orders to intimidate and murder.
Megan, two days ago, I used your fine spread-sheet to write six-to-eight G.O.P. Senators to urge the august Chamber to pass funding of 'the good guys' within the Department of Homeland Security (e.g., F.E.M.A.) and leave out funding for I.C.E. and Border Control. Those two would be hashed out separately. Thank you. (Note: that idea was put forth by fellow conservative, Bill Kristol in Bulwark.) ✍️
Yesterday, I used your resource to write Representatives Massie and Khanna a note commending each for their courage and patriotism. Representative Massie is taking a fearsome risk in stating that he will read some of the names of accusers on the House floor. These are likely to be non-U.S. names. Still, that will create momentum to get the Americans out in the open. So, thank you, again. 🫱🏻🫲🏽
Yes Megan. Donald Tusk is a hero in this. It is interesting that some European countries are dealing with fallout from the revelations as well. Norway and England come to mind. There are certainly leaders from other countries who are mentioned.
I read this morning that Germany is scrutinizing any information about the Epstein Files, to see if anyone in German government is compromised. There are great concerns about the ensuing security issues from the Epstein Files as this is the week of the Munich Security Conference, where world leaders will talk and there will be round tables. The security concerns are great.
AOC is attending and she is speaking to University students in one or two cities. I know she will be speaking at the TU in Berlin, and maybe in Munich as well. All students in Berlin have been invited to the TU talk, but tickets to get in went online and were gone in less than 20 minutes. It is free, but requires a ticket to get in. There is a wait list too, and they have said they will livestream it.
Meanwhile there is a lot of discussion by Zev Shalev and Dean Blundell about the Russia ties. Zev has been following the money too.
Yesterday Zeteo had Ro Khanna on a podcast discussing what he saw. My 20-year-old daughter feels that this is an indication that the world is just going to S--T! and she never uses words like that.
Glad to know that AOC is speaking there and attending the Munich Security Conference. Wonder if she’ll run into Tulsi Gabbard there, or is she still on the hunt for missing votes from past elections? Maybe she wasn’t even invited to the conference and chumming it up with Putin instead…
Hello Megan... From HCR Today: "Poland announced it was launching an investigation into whether Epstein was tied to Russian intelligence. “More and more leads, more and more information, and more and more commentary in the global press all relate to the suspicion that this unprecedented paedophilia scandal was co-organised by Russian intelligence services,” Polish prime minister Donald Tusk said. “I don’t need to tell you how serious the increasingly likely possibility that Russian intelligence services co-organised this operation is for the security of the Polish state. This can only mean that they also possess compromising materials against many leaders still active today.” ... ... There is the livelihood of other Intel Services being involved... Netanyahu is again in DC this Week... DJT is toying with deploying another USN Strike Force off Iran for a potential Strike... Epsteingate has the potntial to take down DJT's Regime as numerous members of DJT's Regime are involved in it's Crimes, and Coverup...
Just had dinner in which the Polish Ambassador to the United States spoke. Remarkable diplomat from a remarkable people and country. We have to get the rot out of the core of our culture. We have a decent chance of surviving Trump. This rot of the corruption of power, if not scraped away methodically, will destroy us.
Thank you for your support, Apache. People often do not like that sentiment of mine due to, I suppose, fuzziness. So a second coming from you ranks first in my book.
Hello Anne-Louise... Netanyahu is one of DJT's Puppet-Masters.... Let's see if Netanyahu stays in Israel if he loses Re-Election this Year in Israel... Larry Ellison once offered him a position at Oracle...
But isn't Netanyahu in the same situation? if he loses the election he'll be tried for corruption and probably jailed. Oracle?? Maybe we should all just go back to typewriters, paper, envelopes and postage stamps.
That's something I was cured of quite early, when I started getting vicious attacks from people I didn't know. Pre-Trump, FB was interesting conversations about music and books, post-Trump 1 it was about pink beanies, pants suits and women's marches, then I quit and returned to my own life. Then a friend in Maryland started sending me LFAA...
Good Morning, Apache! It is with great hope that the Polish investigation into the Epstein/Russia ties will finally expose djt, and bring to an end this horrific regime. It really should be the American intelligence agencies uncovering the treason committed, but alas, those agencies have been corrupted as well. I for one will be watching this one closer than all the other atrocities being committed by these traitors.
Hello Daniel... If they are 'Dancing' to Putin's, and other Foreign Actor's Tune, then they are indeed Treasonous Actors, and should be treated that way...
Ned ,Apache and Daniel, thank you. I've suspected as many have that our very own humptydumpster has been and is a Russian asset. Now it appears that Epstein was as well. He didn't committed suicide. His testimony alone would have brought down our dear leader along with can you even begin to imagine the landslide?
Thank you for the good trouble list! I hope you include that every time you leave a comment on HCR. The more people who have it, the better… and it is always, always relevant to her content. Thank you Megan!
You’re welcome! I’ve posted it almost every day on her Facebook posts since early March of last year, and almost every day since probably around May of last year when I started here on Substack 🤣 I’m pretty persistent
Megan, THANK SCIENCE and medical technology for your brother! Having worked primarily as a Hematology medical technologist, including many pediatric patients, I know what your brother went through. I am happy to hear it was a success.
This essay names what too many have been trained to excuse. Abuse of power is not a metaphor here. It is literal. It is government overreach used to shield elites rather than protect the public. It is the sexual abuse of children facilitated by wealth, proximity, and silence. It is the abuse of wealth itself, hoarded, leveraged, and weaponized to escape consequence while institutions bend to preserve status.
These abuses are not separate scandals. They are expressions of the same disease. When power is insulated from accountability, it mutates. It protects predators. It rewrites laws into loopholes. It calls secrecy stability and calls cruelty necessity. The result is a system that harms the vulnerable while congratulating itself for restraint.
What follows is not speculation or outrage theater. It is a refusal to normalize what should never be acceptable. If this feels uncomfortable, it should. Discomfort is the proper response to a society that has allowed exploitation, impunity, and moral collapse to pass for governance.
Netanyahu is meeting with our criminal president to blackmail him with Epstein info. about his naughty deeds so he will go along with bombing Iran. To keep them both out of jail, they will happily kill millions.
Our entire country is run by criminals in league with criminals. Let Israel ruin their precious "safe place for jews" because it never will be safe. THEY guarantee it every day with their hatred towards all. BTW: They really hate the Zionist Christians: dirt beneath their feet.
The insane Zionist stuff started way before the handy for intimidation and $$$ Holocaust. It started in 1890! Zionists had plans to wipe out the indigenous population in Palestine way before WW2. Hitler did them a favor with that "incident" as Trump refers to the murders of two Americans who weren't even committing the crime of demonstrating.
ALL the files referring to Trump should be released NOW to save the Americans from ruin...not to mention the bases and carriers with troops destroyed. Iran is not kidding. Even when Netanyahu WILL lob nuclear bombs. He's dying to. Then Iran will respond with ballistic missiles, destroying its enemies. Completely destroying the problem of Israel.
After reading Trump and other powerful and wealthy people are vicitmizing children, I do not mind God, the Creator, sends again flood to wipe us out. We are living in a sick world.
Jay Kuo at the Big Picture reported on this disturbing news.
The Fifth Circuit panel decision in Buenrostro-Mendez accepted the government’s extreme argument that immigrants can be detained without any opportunity for a bond hearing, based solely on classifying all immigrants as perpetually “seeking admission,” whether they have been in the country for 2 days or 2 decades.
Don’t underestimate what this is about. It allows for indefinite detention of all persons rounded up in sweeps anywhere in the country if they are sent to detention centers in the Fifth Circuit.
Decisions in hundreds of similar cases in other judicial circuits have reached the opposite conclusion, but jurisdiction shopping to secure a decision that supports a distorted, contorted interpretation of the law is a specialty of the Trump administration. Because the interpretation of the law depends on where you are when you are charged, detainees are being shipped to facilities in the Fifth Circuit so the law can be applied to them.
This is a Stephen Miller exercise in maximizing cruelty. The detention facilities are concentration camps, with stories emerging of human and constitutional rights abuses. Detainees are being inadequately fed, are not being allowed clean water, are living in filth, and are not given medical attention. Deaths in custody are being ruled as homicides.
America is committing crimes against humanity with impunity.
Many, many people are fighting back against this regime. It is absolutely necessary to keep all of the crimes front and center. We must also remember to keep urging people to keep resisting.
Barbara, speaking of fighting back, it was encouraging to hear that the Democratic Governors refuse to attend the conference if all are not invited. I long to see members of the press corps leave the room in protest after Trump insults the intelligence, capability, and integrity of the news organizations they represent. Oh, and telling someone to "smile more" is ludicrous when you look at Todd Blanch and Marco Rubio. They have a resting frown face. I've never seen Blanch smile, so Trump should reprimand him too. Like that's going to happen.
Standing together and fighting back is the only way out of this nightmare.
I don't get too caught up in performative politics on either side of the aisle. I also don't care about all the personality stuff. What I care about is the ability of the Democrats to effectively: stop ICE, expose those files, stop the concentration camps, combat voter suppression, fight AI centers and most of all solidify the 2026 midterms. All the rest is podium clutching.
The Democrats need to learn they work for us. Get rid of your corporate bosses. Weed out your ineffective leaders. Or we will.
"We want an opposition Party that fights back. Fighting back against the regime does work… and we will remake this party to represent the people because it is currently full of too many people who are too weak. We’re not asking. We’re demanding."
Indivisible Las Vegas
"This message is for the members of Congress who are supposed to be looking out for us their constituents and voters:
Find a spine. Find a vertebra. Find some strength in yourself to stand up for this Country and the people who live here. You have a masked militia in the street murdering citizens who are doing nothing wrong. If you cannot find it in yourself to do something about that then please know we will find new leadership. If you think you are safe because you live in a non-competitive district, think again. We are not afraid to change our party in order to defeat you. We are not afraid to figure out how to work the system to get you out of office if you will not keep us safe. Do your jobs. Do it with an ounce of bravery. All it takes is a hundredth of the bravery that Renee Good or Nurse Pretti had. Do better or do a different job."
Thank you. We are too easily grateful. Being pleased the Governors are skipping the White House function is desperate. I have asked my Governor why he isn't handling ICE in our communities. Why haven't the Governors banded together to address the fact we are now living under a fascist regime? Why haven't the Governors called their own Democratic/Republican conference to get some concrete actions?
Barbara, I personally have to be grateful for small steps that are taken to stop the madness of Trump's regime. To say that Im desperate is a bit harsh. Asking “why?” Is important. But acknowledging positive steps are important too, in my opinion.
Thank you Pam and Barbara. I sent your comments on to a group here. Now I’m going to my study to send that letter Barbara to both state and Fed elected Reps and Senators. I admire passion linked with steady high intelligence and courage.
Keep squeezing that bunch like a pimple. Eventually we will get all the puss out. I don’t want to forget who we need to catch and cook after all is said. Because we will prosecute them until all are done. We need a law which we will make stripping them of all they possess, since they are going for broke.
Pam, you know very well that only women are told to smile. This is one of my pet peeves and I refuse to go around wearing a perpetual smile. I smile when there is a reason to smile.
You're right. Many women's smiles have hidden fear, sadness, despair, anger, and dissolutionment. Women often smile to ease volatile situations. Some of The Baffoon Bunch” who stand behind Trump in the Oval Office have sickening smiles. I imagine, if they have any integrity at all, they may too be hiding their embarrassment, incredulity, and knowledge that they are protecting a very unbalanced man. :) :(
Very true, Chicky and (obviously) what We, the People need to do (must do) is demonstrate very clearly that we 1.) Vote and 2.) Speak and 3.) Spend Our Dollars wisely and forcefully. For too long many of us have griped about “draining the swamp,” when, in fact, WE allowed the swamp to exist. Right now, Stephen Miller is possibly the Chief Swamp Monster, who collects his taxpayer-funded salary (nearly $200K) plus his health care and retirement. Mr. Miller works for us - We, the People. Trump (who also works for us) needs to use his favorite two words on Stevie: “You’re Fired!” Or, perhaps we should use those two words on Trump. Of course it’s our Congress People (more folks are our employees) who can get the You’re Fired! Process going. It’s called Impeachment!
The swamp is our own elected Democrats who have been sitting in those cozy chairs in plush offices on Capitol Hill for way too long. These entrenched Democrats allowed this coup to happen while they played at being bipartisan and polite. They are too hand-tied by their corporate donors.
We need to let them know we demand a voice. We are not their ATM. WE demand change-now within the Democratic Party.
Louis, my two D Senators are doing what they can as members of the minority as well as my D rep. One of the D reps from Oregon went to Texas and brought home a family who had been taken when they brought their little girl to the ER. Many of them are doing what they can including the six the grand jury refused to indict for speaking out against obeying illegal orders.
But, unfortunately, there are many people who do not recognize the "power of the people" yet. It is important to turn the the cards and bring transparency to all their actions.
We should recognize the sexual victimization of terrorized children by the Trumpstein Cult is the immediate predecessor, perhaps even a test run, of the terror the MAGAstapo is now unleashing on anyone who refuses to kowtow to the ChristoNazi theocracy. Thus the vital, know-our-enemy relevance of the full text of the Jane Doe lawsuit against Trump and Epstein -- later withdrawn in response to credible death threats against the plaintiff: https://cdn.factcheck.org/UploadedFiles/Johnson_TrumpEpstein_Lawsuit.pdf Please let us ensure this text is linked early (and therefore prominently) on as many Resistance sites as possible every day until the traitorous regime of ecogenocidal ChristoNazi pedophiles is no more.
I will ask these questions here even if it is not the most appropriate. Is there a list of the concentration camps that have been set up since Trump took office with locations and the districts that they reside it so that we can contact all of their representatives? What is the geographic coverage of the Fifth Circuit so that our letters/calls/emails can be directed towards this abomination? Am I correct is saying that residents (of all political persuation) near these concentration camps are actively protesting against them?
Look at the capacity (beds) versus average daily population at the biggest centers in the Wikipedia spreadsheet. Eye-opening. There are 250 in the list but most are local jails. Geo Group and CoreCivic are the private operators and are building out or renting out new facilities in warehouse spaces--those are getting the push back from local groups.
Again and again, U.S. Supreme Court slaps down 5th Circuit - The ...
The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit is headquartered in the John Minor Wisdom United States Court of Appeals Building at 600 Camp Street in New Orleans, Louisiana. It serves federal judicial districts in Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi.
This list has been generated by good evidence including neighbors, hotel concierge and the agents themselves. The biggest fear is not violence but being shunned by their communities.
“She refused to answer any questions, invoking her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. Her lawyer said she is “prepared to speak fully and honestly” if Trump grants her clemency.” I think it’s time to move her back to a less nice prison and take the puppies away.
It's extremely unlikely that Maxwell woman would EVER speak "openly and honestly" under any circumstances, especially after she'd already gotten what she wants. The suggestion that she should get clemency first and talk later is just stupid.
On the other hand, she probably knows enough that she could sink T****, and a few law firms, and change the makeup of the boardrooms of a few large corporations, and bring down a few family dynasties. 'Prince' Andrew got off lightly.
That a monstrous convicted felon, pedophilia enabler and groomer, Ghislaine Maxwell, can invoke her 5th amendment right while so many innocent Americans are being denied their constitutional rights, especially the 1st & 4th Amendments, speaks volumes about our country right now.
One thing about the Epstein files that has bothered me is that it is taking the eye off of the ball, i.e., Ukraine. I have not really paid attention to this scandal until the last two or three months. The rot it implies at the core of our culture may represent a larger long-term threat. 😯
We may dig our way out of Trump with repudiations, court proceedings, and reforms. With this child-trafficking scandal and possible involvement of Mossad or the F.S.B., however, the cultural rot *at our core *could compromise the republican virtue required to sustain our institutions.😱
WHY the latter? The demoralization of the citizenry attendant to so prevalent a level of violation of the most important norms of any society. That demoralization could make average, decent Americans give up on democracy. The rationale? People can not trust men with power.💔
Ned, you make a good point. The main difference between Donald and his lust object, Vladimir, is that Donald was always learning disabled, now exacerbated by dementia. Putin, by contrast, is an evil genius.
Epstein's ties to Russia are now being revealed as stronger than previously known.
Maybe the scope of Putin's plan wasn't just to install a favorable president, but to completely discredit democracy and its freedoms. If the rich and powerful enjoy the freedom to be pedophilic monsters, U.S. citizens might become disillusioned with democracy and prefer a more "orderly" system commanded by a "strong man with high morals." A "satellite nation" in North America would strengthen Vladimir's hand in taking over Europe.
Absolutely not. Victims of sexual assault must not be sacrificed. This is a variation of "too big to fail" and "you can't handle the truth." Democracy dies in darkness.
What I am saying, in a convoluted manner, is that, as disturbing as this thinking is, we are still in the realm of possibility and speculation. If we are fortunate and maintain a communal solidarity to protect people we can avoid or, at least, minimize the damage to these victims. Communal primacy means being fearless in exposing the wrong-doers, no matter who they are.
Loren, check out the Jimmy Kimmel monologue, if not the whole thing or the first nine minutes or so, then the segment from 3:30 to 4:45. https://youtu.be/shzx9MPdV44 Funny, but drives the point home. The jokester riffs off of Congressional complaints about Epstein to lambaste immigration policies. Masterful!
Victim testimony -- don't recall where I read it or I'd post a link -- describes her as vacillating between trying to seem motherly and being just plain "mean." And -- based on the newest disclosures -- likely vicious enough to force a nine-year-old into a pedophile's bed.
Maxwell’s “truth” for clemency carrot sounds out of kilter to me. Epstein was found dead August of 2019. Maxwell was arrested nine months later in July the next year. She is not stupid. Like many smart people she likely was very suspicious whether Epstein committed suicide. Any evidence she may have accumulated against bad people over the years was not found to be with her when she was arrested. That does not mean it does not exist. If it is does exist Maxwell had nine months to secure it in a safe place to assure her safety, her life, if she ever goes to prison. Now Maxwell “hints” she can “talk.” Again, she is not stupid. Maxwell knows her word is meaningless and therefore not of value in a lets make a deal, this for that. However, if she stashed in different places (like land mines) physical, or documentary, or demonstrative evidence against bad people she can do a lot more than just “talk.” If that is the case then her lawyer dangling a carrot of “truth” may likewise have a double meaning of what she has to offer. Maxwell could be demanding clemency or else.
What I think her game might be is the sort of double-cross I'd expect of Trump: talk out of both sides of her mouth, promise to the authorities she'll testify "honestly" but cut a deal with Trump to take the Fifth if he pardons her.
Heather has written here before on the growing dangers of U.S. concentration camps.
Now she’s spoken today, too, on her podcast, of how we might not call them death camps – but that dictator Donald is headed there, now ending medical care for the hundreds of thousands his police state thugs aim to warehouse.
In his weekly talk with Mark Thompson, also today, David Cay Johnston urged Americans of faith to insist their pastors, priests, rabbis, and imams all stress abhorrence at the concentration camp conditions across this gulag of illegal, unconscionable death and detention.
Why might religious leaders look the other way from the mass crimes Donald and his thugs now ratchet up? Because they’ve done so in the past (he cited civil rights era ministers opposed to integration then).
We may be coarsening now, too, given the insistence of our economic elites that they stay protected from any consequences at their rape of underage girls whom criminal Donald’s pals long trafficked.
Will Americans of faith indeed look the other way? Did many attend the same schools of amorality and dehumanization as produced our billionaire classes?
No, to answer your obvious question. No they won't, and no, they haven't. Faithful America already has a a petition which thousands of Christians have signed, not just denouncing the obvious violations of any definition of Christianity, but today -- officially thanking the 19 venerable Buddhist monks who finally arrived at National Cathedral after more than 100 days' walk from Ft. Worth, Texas today, as thousands of well-wishers heralded their arrival outside and along for Wisconsin Avenue.
Addressing the assembled monks (and nearly 30-40 other local Buddhist religious, as well as an assembled interfaith panel of pastors, priests, rabbis, imams and others of many spiritual backgrounds), Cathedral Dean Randy Hollerith stood at the transept and told the congregation that in the 10 years he had been Dean, he had never before seen such a beautiful sight in front of him.
It's absurd to hint, much less assert, that Americans of faith "attend...schools of amorality..." Schools are not immoral, people are. More specifically, people make immoral choices all the time, no matter where they went to school. And universities continue to be centers of learning where students and alumni are free to make individual choices about their own lives. I've yet to hear of any leading university anywhere whose directors or regents do not encourage their students to make their own professional lives some kind of moral statement about how they see their place in the world, through scholarship, career, charitable work, intellectual or spiritual inclinations. Has anybody else?
ICTT: Substack was glitchy today stalling and returning system error messages to reader comments e.g. my like to your post. I have since subscribed to the substack error page to get notifications when the system is compromised. Here's the link...
Before Heather writes hers today, it’s already Feb. 12 in the mountains of Kyushu, Japan.
That is, by our international time zones, here now it’s hours before Lincoln’s birthday arrives beginning Feb. 12 on Maine’s eastern seaboard.
So I address one misunderstanding one wag has long had here, where yesterday he wrote, “It's absurd to hint, much less assert, that Americans of faith "attend...schools of amorality..." Schools are not immoral, people are.”
This contributor to Heather’s cannot see, will not see, how institutions and their instruments, particularly testing, matter.
Those of us who’ve read Anne Applebaum and Timothy Snyder recently, or George Orwell, Hannah Arendt, and Boris Pasternak earlier all know that the first thing authoritarians do is collapse the individual. Group think then can take over. As Putin, other dictators, and U.S. social media billionaires have engineered.
My friend the wag on Heather’s site dismisses institutions partly because he embraces the National Rifle Association’s conceit about how its own institutional push for military assault rifles for all is fine, as if they don’t kill, only “people” do that.
He also oddly tilts to “people” because, in all his here he has long indulged wit and good leftism but never cited any people – no Applebaum, Snyder, Orwell, Arendt, or Pasternak – for only testing’s institutional priorities for all the decades since the Powell memo began its multi-pronged assaults on democracy.
Please with the “schools as cesspools” comments, Phil. Your provocative assumption that it was the “schools” that corrupted and dehumanized its students is really disgusting to me. Quit it.
I’d venture strongly to say that our public schools have a strong hand when dealing with values of community and diversity and equity. Humanizing the wild natural personalities of young children.
Educator here. I too am tired of the blame the schools trope. You want better schools? Then elect school board members that value a well rounded education. Also, schools are typically funded through the incredibly unfair property taxes, I.e. good neighborhoods = good schools. Just how much is a child’s daily education worth? 5$? 100$? Make funding fair and pay your taxes.
The tests are not yours, Christine, not anybody's.
But humanities do belong to people. They enhance people being able to see others.
For the sake of teachers and students being people, growing in abilities to see others and to empathize with others dealing in life's complications, I'd hope you see how testing does the opposite.
Diane Ravitch explains this clearly about testing's offices and damaging conceits (and those of corporate packaged textbooks similarly, too) in "The Language Police."
Thank you for all this work and for sharing it publicly! You will be one of history’s heroes. What I wonder is why, when a witness says they are deporting criminals, someone doesn’t push their faces into the facts: According to data compiled by Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, 42,755 out of 59,762 people in ICE detention as of September 21, 2025 — about 72% — had no criminal conviction. Of the remaining 28%, many were convicted or charged with minor offenses such as traffic violations.
Case-level evidence from Chicago underscores this pattern. An NPR article, drawing on Department of Justice records filed in federal court in November 2025, reports that 598 of the 614 immigrants arrested in Chicago as part of the “Operation Midway Blitz” raids launched in September had no criminal record at the time of their arrest, which amounts to about 97%.
On September 30, 2025, federal agents conducted a dramatic raid on a Chicago apartment building, resulting in the arrest of 37 individuals. This operation involved approximately 300 agents, including those from the Border Patrol and FBI, and was characterized by the use of a Black Hawk helicopter. The raid was initially justified by claims that the building was occupied by members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. However, subsequent investigations revealed that the operation was based on allegations of illegal occupancy by immigrants, rather than gang activity. Despite the aggressive nature of the raid, no evidence has been presented to support the claims of gang involvement, and federal prosecutors have not pursued charges against any of the detainees.Total Arrested: 37 individuals
Charges Filed: None of those arrested have been charged with a crime.
In bitter truth, the United States government has always been a criminal organization. Just ask the First Nations people. Or the striking coal miners it attacked with field artillery and bombing planes. Or the ghosts of the Triangle Shirtwaist dead, who still haunt the corner of Greene Street and Washington Place, where they died after leaping from windows to escape the fire and falling eight or 10 storeys to splatter on the pavement.
Alas our nation's sins are enormous; and yet reflective of the "Mr. Hyde" aspect of human nature around the planet throughout the compass of human history.
"This, as I take it, was because all human beings, as we meet them, are commingled out of good and evil: and Edward Hyde, alone in the ranks of mankind, was pure evil." - Stevenson, "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde"
R. L. Stevenson's story is fiction of course, but I think it illustrates that complexity and tensions of human nature. We surely pursue self-interest, but a balanced personality, does so justly, even lovingly; and we humans are capable of care, even as in the "Samaritan" story (Samaritans and Jews were enemies); we can appreciate, and create beauty. We can not be certain that we know the truth, but we can tell the truth as best we know it. That's why it matter so much to keep the whole thing from going to hell in a hand-basket.
Why did people travel miles and wait for hours to attend Trump’s rallies, some again and again? To let loose their anger and hatred. Trump may not be a genius, but he sure knows how to bring out the worst in people.
Though I think of projection as something people do with being fully aware of it. I think the case can be made and documented that Trump and his ilk know very well that they are manipulative deceivers, and are proud of it. I have read that a trick that pickpockets use is to yell "Thief theif" if caught in the act, and then vanish in the confusion. The former "Party of Lincoln" learned that trick to blunt outrage over their self-serving behavior.
" 'cause confusing you is the nature of my game"-- The Rolling Stones
"without" being aware, right? Yeah, it may be so. I do think it's different then the "thief" call. That, it seems to me, is diversion. In this case, it's done deliberately, I think, to disempower, sow disequilibrium, and harm. (That might just be me; I'm particularly vulnerable to gaslighting.)
This was the Trumpian version of kristalnacht. Helicopters and drones lowered agents onto the building where they proceeded to break down doors of everyone regardless of their citizenship.
It's hard to believe that an attack this brutal was barely mentioned in the mainstream media.
This attack is on every fucking Republican politician for not speaking out and doing something about ICE at the time. If they had perhaps at least two American citizens would still be alive.
Those facts were pushed into their faces today during a House oversight committee on homeland security. "Will you apologize to Reneé Good for being called a domestic terrorist by the President and his leadership?" Eric Swalwell (D-CA) asked the Director of ICE, Tod Lyons. Lyons refused. Others pointed out that among the tens of thousands of those detained, arrested, incarcerated or deported, less than 15% had any criminal conviction whatever (which means 85% of those ICE has detained simply constitute -- for lack of a better word -- the "usual suspects").
Many detainees didn't even have a parking ticket to their names. Many are here legally awaiting asylum hearings, arrested on the spot for attending their own hearings. Some have even been US citizens, some arrested even as they showed identification proving their citizenship. When asked how many people ICE had fired, Lyons told Swalwell "none." Lyons said nothing when Swalwell added, "yet two people have been murdered."
At every opportunity, Democrats rub their faces in it. So far it hasn't stopped ICE, but that's no reason not to keep pressure from multiple levels.
The scene in "The Equalizer" where McCall (Denzel Washington) tells the killer Nicolai that "in your case, I'm going to make an exception" comes to mind.
GEO group and Core Civic are the main prison-for-profiteers. They have been for years. They are gleefully taking your taxpayer dollars, and, like a hotel, they thrive on long stays, high fees, and low services.
I suppose the original idea had some merit. The government-run facilities were characterized by bloat and lassitude, so contracting with companies with expertise and a more lean approach SHOULD have saved money and promoted efficiency. Instead, it became just another grift for greedy corporate entities. We seem to have difficulty finding balance in complex systems. Additionally, the for-profit system has reinforced the cradle-to-prison pipeline as outlined by the Children's Defense Fund.
Imprisonment is self evidently a prime tool of tyrants. It serves a purpose in a free society, but like a dangerous drug, like chemotherapy, is beneficial only when sparingly and responsibly applied. Handing it over to a profit-making business is insane. Apart from universal human rights that apply even to convicts, I am aware that in some states, politicians have signed contracts guaranteeing profits to prisons, even paying profit-prisons for empty beds. Last I heard, the City of Chicago sold all it's parking meters to a for profit corporation and is obligated to pay for lost revenue on disused meters, if they are blocked by street-fairs, parades or construction, at public expense. Head they win, tails we lose.
The industrial prison system. If I didn’t have to head off to work, I’d do some digging for y’all. I wouldn’t be surprised if the owners of the prison companies are heavy supporters, and fundraisers, for T****.
*Penn, nice to hear from a fellow PGHer! 🥳 Jimmy Kimmel, one of the few policy guys whom I trust, had quite a bit to say last evening about the Epstein files (first eight or nine minutes) followed by derision of the depredations committed against our neighbors.😠 https://youtu.be/shzx9MPdV44 As an erstwhile Republican and confused conservative, though moderate, I lean on the words of a conservative icon: "Rage and frenzy will pull down more in half-an-hour than prudence, deliberation, and foresight can build up in a hundred years." –Edmund Burke, ‘Reflections on the Revolution in France’; 1790. 💔
More disturbing news, this time from Chris Geidner at Law Dork.
Below is the entire text of an e-mail sent to a lawyer at DHS which has major ramifications for us all.
"Mr. Dernich, don't play Russian roulette with H's life. Err on the side of caution. There's a reason the US government along with many other governments don't recognize the Taliban. Apply principles of common sense and decency"
This is the most chilling example of an assault on free speech and privacy rights by DHS in America that I can imagine. A 4-sentence e-mail to a DHS lawyer asking that a third party not be deported back to face the Taliban and possible death merited agents coming to the author of the e-mail’s home, and requests to Google for the records of his e-mail account and months of ACLU intervention to get the investigation dropped.
What triggered this investigation? Who approved the administrative subpoena within 4 hours of the e-mail being sent? Is this AI filtering gone amok? Why could this blatant intimidation occur without the need for a judicial warrant?
This is an attack on dissent in its most basic form. The right to express your opinion to government officials. IS DHS going to come after me for the strong opinions I send to my Republican Congressman next?
This is not (ever) going away because Trump, his efforts to legitimize white-supremacist genocide, the resultant ChristoNazi conquest and its MAGAstapo terrorism (with Trumpstein as the ultimate expression of ruling-class sociopathy) are all the triumph of a multi-generation, bi-partisan scheme more than a century in the making, To learn of the carefully hidden roots of the crisis, the documentation of which include a PBS film about the enormous support for Hitler here in the '30s and additional, meticulously footnoted documentation of the plutocracy's support for Nazism, go here: https://open.substack.com/pub/heathercoxrichardson/p/january-25-2026?utm_campaign=comment-list-share-cta&utm_medium=web&comments=true&commentId=205274486
I'm not so sure anybody has a hold on Trump. I think for reasons that are probably inconceivable to the rational mind -- most likely vengeance for some imagined slight -- he intends to destroy the nation, and Putin, trained as he is -- '"proceed in accordance with the circumstances" is a situational instruction in Red Army tactical doctrine -- is merely exploiting the opportunity Trump's madness provides. (It has been decades since I studied any psychology, but it seems to me the sort of compulsive destructiveness Trump evidences is a symptom of one of the major psychiatric ailments. Perhaps someone more knowledgeable will speak up.)
Linda, Marc Elias is a mensch and founder of Democracy Docket. Pls follow him. He and HCR have taught me volumes- along with the guests they interview.
The judge who authorized the Fulton County warrant bears some responsibility for being part of the political farce as well. At best careless and inattentive, at worst incompetent or complicit.
Three million references to you in a database connected to Jeffrey Epstein isn't exactly a ringing endorsement of your ethics, personal standards of conduct, common sense, good judgment, respect for women and girls, or the law itself, let alone your own sanity....just saying.
At best this is a regime protecting people that have abused the most vulnerable in deplorable, criminal ways. At worst, this is a regime trying like hell to hide the most dispicable crimes committed by the most significant of its own members and their broader cabal. Surely the people have to rise on mass to ensure this is exposed.
Watching Heathers interview with Sen Wyden shows the drive required. He clearly needs all the help he can get.
All I can say at this point is that aI am so tired of all this. I have run out of fighting steam. I admire those of you that keep fighting for all of us. I am too old for this . I feel like I am being slapped daily, hourly, all the time....
This is why some of us have described it as watching a ‘slow motion train wreck’.
— it’s horrendous but we can’t take our eyes off it.
Nature abhors a vacuum … so whatever you replace the doom-scrolling with needs to be as interesting & vital as the *temporary collapse of democracy. 🌺🌿
— and if you are of a Faith, have some meaningful discussions there.
The Good Book says that as bad as it gets, this too shall pass. Rev. 12:12, 24:4.
Ha! I've just said the same thing in only slightly different words, Doctor JJA. If I'd just scrolled down a bit further, I wouldn't have sent mine - but I'll leave it there, in support.
I find that I'm sleeping a lot more. I'm taking some anti-anxiety meds to fight emotional paralysis and waking-up-at-3am-with-pounding-heart. And I'm gathering with supportive, caring people. And singing. As much as I can.
Our choir director has pointed out that in a well trained choir often we have to deal with music requiring that we not breathe for insanely long periods of time. So a choir learns to "scatter their breathing" - some take breaths while others are singing through a phrase. Then others take their turns. We enter, do our part, then breathe, then enter again.
This is what we all have to do. I do what I can and when I get emotionally or physically overwhelmed, I let it go, watch some stupid TV or do something else restful, and come in again later. It will take all of us, and we have to stay mentally and physically healthy for the duration.
Stagger breathing. Us low brassers do a lot of that as well. 15 measures of a sustained C below the bass clef staff at even a moderate tempo is hard. In our section, the two oldest of us (60 and 67) do the even/odd measure breakdown: I breathe on the odd measures and he breathes on the even measures. Our section mate who is 24 breathes when he needs to, so someone is always playing.
I put on the Olympics, which I stream with Peacock almost zero commercials and since I’m using an Apple TV as long as they have already happened they are on the web and can then be accessed. It doesn’t matter who wins, just to be able to compete is a victory, and the joy is contagious. 🙏
That is all well and good. Tailor your phrasing to your lung capacity with proper technique and good tonal quality. Keep in mind as Alley notes that lower notes require more air though not more air pressure. What they lack in intensity they make up for in total energy, providing the harmonic foundation for the ensemble.
So much for singing. Otherwise, "float like a butterfly. Sting like a bee"
Veronica, the exhausting thing is that while the spirit maintains its fight, it's still only videos and protests; it's a fight but not a fight. So nobody gets hurt. But... Or...? Things can get worse. And will. Meanwhile, please have a rest. Fall back on the things you love. Stop reading the news every day. If you can! I can't, so I know what's happening to you.
Let’s let Sen. Wyden know we’ve got his back. Thank him for his leadership. And urge him to move his bill, S.2746, the Produce Epstein Treasury Records Act (PETRA) forward in the Senate.
While it may be what some consider a good day because the Governors are uniting which for me is basically a low bar. Should they not be united in the first place we may need to start asking that… because at this point the revelations from some of the finally redacted information from the foulness of Epstein has not achieved much here in the U.S. because if it’s at this point what appears as an “awww shucks - I got caught in a lie” from Lutnick that’s not good enough… Maybe the bar is set way too low across the board.. Maybe because after reading letters from a 9 year old in a concentration camp in the USA in the year 2026 just guts me..
This morning will be on the phone once again with my soulless Republican shitheads (at this point refusing to call them representatives) they don’t represent a damn thing other than the pit of pure evil filth…
Would suggest reading The Big Picture - Jay Kuo as he ends this heartbreaking disgusting events that are currently happening —
“As people learn more about the deplorable, unsanitary and inhumane conditions of the prisons and camps, the incarceration of innocent people including thousands of children without access to adequate medical care, and the perverse and corrupt for-profit nature of the human trafficking paid for by the taxpayers, the protests outside such facilities are mounting.
If Congress and the courts cannot find a way to shut down America’s concentration camps, then the people may find a way to do so themselves. In the meantime, families and children continue to languish in a hellish legal limbo.”
These are not “detention centers” they are GD “concentration camps” — Call them what they are. Reading those children accounts in this country is like reading the Diary of Anne Frank — This is horrific..
Have already thought that.. it’s a GD replay of the Holocaust am so sickened by this entire regime this government has become so putrid it’s like a cesspool of every stinking display of the 7-deadly sins… No decency and so little virtues it’s disgusting. The generation that fought against this realist gone and we all have forgotten what they asked us all to do Never Forget - Never Again
Have called those 3 shitheads in DC every day and they just don’t listen and stand up against this abomination. Just want to slap them across the face to wake up.. There’s a right versus wrong and maybe just so tired that it seems nothing is breaking through… stay safe and healthy…
Stay focused, stay safe... don't let them get to you. The world will turn after we are all gone... and history will repeat itself. People in DC don't seem to have the country in sight, nor the everyday Americans; just their ability to be re-elected to whatever post they hold. Representatives of both parties, with some exceptions, are guilty. We seem to have given them too much power. They should have more accountability.
After Epstein’s death in 2019, four banks cumulatively and retroactively flagged 5,000 suspicious wire transfers that moved approximately $1.5 billion in and out of Epstein’s accounts, many over a decade old.
That $1.5 billion in SARs represents a floor, not a ceiling—it captures only what banks eventually chose to flag and excludes potentially billions more in transactions that were processed but never reported as suspicious.
On 10 Feb 1936 the Reichstag passed a law giving the Geheimstaatspolitzei authority to arrest or detain anyone in Germany for any reason without any judicial authorization and with complete immunity. Sound familiar? Only now Trump+Vance+Noem seek to do it by executive decree giving the border police untrammeled authority to arrest from border to border, sea to shining sea. History rhymes!
But this historical rhyming scheme ends with a clunk as terminal as a head falling into a guillotine basket. It's increasingly obvious we are already as conquered as the Weimar Germans and therefore cannot liberate ourselves -- that our politicians will continue mouthing their unenforceable complaints and doing nothing; that the military will continue its oath-breaking surrender to the ChristoNazi regime; and that We the People will never achieve the disciplined solidarity necessary to nullify the white-male-supremacist majority. And we already know the longstanding "Better-Dead-Than-Red" policy the "Unified Reich" inherited from the failed United States -- its pledge to literally blow up the world rather than surrender (the reason its thermonuclear arsenal is reportedly larger than all other such arsenals combined) -- guarantees there will be no liberation from without.
It is most certainly NOT obvious we are "as conquered as Weimar Germany." Millions of people are resisting, MAGA is cracking, judges are ruling against them left and right, Donnie is dementifying and the people who were sure this was the real thing no longer find much of any of this passing a basic giggle test. The signs of a coming Rube Goldberg implosion are literally all around.
I simply do not understand people who ignore what's happening all around, ignore the cycles of history, taking absolutely no part in anything except to play the role of a pontificating Cassandra who shoots herself in the foot as often as gets anything right.
What that gets you at the end of the day, I don't know.
Right, ICTT, the proven futility of demonstrations as anything more collective expressions of self-righteous egotism; the murders of protestors; the radical expansion of death camps; the escalating death-camp murders; the radical expansion of death-squad operations into cities throughout the nation (https://www.wired.com/story/ice-expansion-across-us-at-heres-where-its-going-next/); the ChristoNazis' absolute control of all three branches of the federal government; the Democrats' posturing rendered utterly meaningless by its lack of enforcement capability; the Regime's ever-expanding persecutions of its opponents; its unstoppable effort to either fix or cancel the elections; its organized assaults on every conceivable front -- all this is proof "MAGA is cracking." Maybe in your world, blinded to reality whether out of duty to the reliably treacherous post-JFK/anti-New-Deal Democrats or merely by capitalism's cult of mandatory positivism, you pretend or delude yourself into believing these ongoing setbacks are indications of better times to come. But even if by some strange quirk of fate your analysis is correct, the (soonest) anything (might) change for the better -- and that's (only) if the ChristoNazis allow another election (and) are prevented from fixing it, (and) the Democratic Party can somehow overcome the Republicans' vast advantage in corporate money (with which the Republicans are sure to hire a sufficient number of Josef-Goebbels clones to mindpress-the-Moronic-Majority back to voting its routine hatefulness again) -- is January 2027. But how much higher will the body-count be by then? Will you write off all those additional dead as you're implicitly writing off Heather Heyer, Renee Good and Alex Pretti -- mere victims of "cycles of history"? I find it very telling, ICTT, that despite your obviously well-practiced progressive pretense, when vexed you never fail to manifest the sociopathic arrogance that defines all members of the capitalist ruling class. Be careful lest the foot you shoot is your own.
I already loved Poland because a woman from Poland ended up being the life saving bone marrow match for a transplant my brother needed 8 years ago - and now they’re investigating Epstein/Russia ties. Will we know everything, no, but at least other countries are attempting to pick up our slack.
Don’t forget to - Be LOUD. These are unprecedented times 💔🤍💙
Use/share this spreadsheet (bit.ly/Goodtrouble) to contact members of Congress, the Cabinet and news organizations. Call. Write. Email. Protest. Unrelentingly.
Reach out (beyond your own) to as many in the Senate and House as you can. All of this is bigger than “I only represent my constituents” issues.
Comments/reactions help keep this bumped ✊
Please urge your members of Congress to write about the human rights abuses in the detention camps, especially after the extreme MAGA ruling in the Fifth Circuit that denies bond hearings for detainees using the fiction that they can classify everyone as in the "process of applying" whether you have been in the US for 2 days or 2 decades.
While it only applies to people being detained in facilities in the Fifth Circuit, ICE and CBP are shipping people down there from all over the country so they are subject to the ruling.
This means that every person who is rounded up can be detained INDEFINITELY.
It seems to me that the Constitution speaks of "the people" and "persons". Who is not legally a "person"? I thought we gave that sort of BS up? Clearly not every one in the US is eligible to vote, and we have a right to control ingress from abroad, but the impunity of border agents to dispense with due process has no Constitutional basis as far as I can see.
The whole issue with jurisdiction shopping is screwed up, especially given the SCOTUS ruling that disallowed nationwide injunctions unless a class action is certified. It’s a two-edged sword. The Fifth Circuit could declare a class and rule nationwide, but that would provoke a rapid appeal to SCOTUS, which might overrule them on the merits, or not. But they surely would issue a stay favorable to the Fifth.
Functionally, keeping it to just the Fifth Circuit means Steven Miller and company can build their 10,000-person camps there and ship as many people as they want. SCOTUS will feel no pressure to rule on the merits and stall because their docket is already full for the year.
The strategy is to keep pushing the boundaries so that the worst authoritarian excesses are normalized and to slow things down to minimize pushback, counting on another distraction. Now that the Epstein files are back in the spotlight, along with election interference, the camps have been submerged back in the flood.
'Twould not surprise me the Regime is now using the Trumpstein files to distract from its death camps. (Given their deliberate starvation of detainees and denial of medical care, let's start calling them what they damn well are.) Once again in worshipful emulation of Hitler and the Third Reich, the "Unified Reich" is literally renewing the Holocaust, this time with a vastly broadened list of extermination targets.
Yesterday, there was an account of detainees sleeping in feces.
And where are Roberts and the rest of the SCOTUS Republicans. Hiding in their homes I'm guessing.
Someone needs to detain the daughters and sons of a few Republican Senators like Ted Cruz and Brett Kavanaugh as well as a couple of Trump's grandkids. Yes, that is cruel, but so is shooting an unarmed US citizen in the head.
It should be interesting to see how the ICE agents in Minneapolis get by with no salary and no expense money. Maybe the Marriott and Hilton hotels will through them out of the hotels.
"Hiding in their home," GJ?
Or second homes. Or Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket vacation homes. Or homes provided by Harlan Crow to the most corrupt and beholden to the billionaire amoral. Or luxury motor homes also provided to the same most corrupt justice in U.S. history.
Personally, I'd like to see Leavitt, Noem and Bondi tossed into the prison they're holding those men.
And this regime makes me hate them for instilling these cruel thoughts in my head. I don't want them to steal my humanity.
One in the head, one in the back. pete hegseth's idea of brave warriors.
ya NEVER staying in a Hilton chain again.
Are you assuming the Dems won't cave? I am assuming no such thing.
Loren GREAT call! I'm writing this 02:39 cornfield central, 2-11-26.
Could not agree more.
His ruse to distract by means of obfuscation produced ( mass redactions) cost millions of $'s repeat and recycle. My very interesting supposition is they made a calculated guess. These bottom line, I am assuming till proven incorrect , the attempt was made by massive redactions to attempt to provid cover for these six men would by calling them victims of a witch hunt. In his deluded mind he feels like a victim, search bach he has said both, they are victims .
Have you heard or do you care about the Elpaso airport being shut down temporarily by OHS, I'm sure Hog's breath would have gave the OK. Nice distraction from the Pammi Bondi testimony making news currently. It is just money about money anyway they can get it. Big time Advertisers or alligator shit makes no difference. WEll done!
I really enjoy reading your assessments Georgia which give more in depth information to some of the posts. Thank you.
Hear! Hear! (I see her byline, I read what she wrote. Every time.)
and no medical care-can you say concentration camp.
Two people have died due to not receiving their medications. One was a diabetic - his medication(s) are common and life-saving. He was not allowed to have his medications, resulting in his death. One had a heart condition; again, not allowed his medication, resulting in death. It may be safer and healthier to be in prison where most have private cells and private toilets, plus a bunk with a mattress. Detention centers are paid millions (billions ?) to provide dirty water, bugs in food, and hard floors to sleep on in overcrowding cells with broken toilets. No showers, no toothpaste or soap. We are now a third-world, and dropping.
My understanding is that SCOTUS banned nationwide injunctions not class-action lawsuits.
https://www.courthousenews.com/with-universal-injunctions-out-of-style-class-actions-are-already-trending/
That’s what I meant to write. Let me check to see what came out after I used Grammarly, which is usually a godsend until it becomes the devil. I use it to break down run-on sentences, my personal “most in need of improvement” item. Sometimes it rearranges the bits in strange ways, especially if I am using passive voice in the draft.
Grammarly was the devil. I rewrote the offending sentence for clarity. Thanks for the catch.
I used to use Grammarly until I realised ChatGPT was just as reliable= and I am in there more.
Hit the nail on the head, disposing of due process (I can’t believe they’re getting away with that without consequence, why isn’t Dem leadership hammering this point home day after day?) is reason enough, as if we needed any more, to abolish ICE. Eliminate it entirely, the culture is too far gone to repair. Get rid of these masked thugs and start all over.
John, I read so much from so many, I can't remember who wrote what. I'm guessing it was Robert Reich who wrote that most of us aren't aware that ICE was created only in 2003. Compared to other government agencies, it's a "baby." That short lifespan means that it's not very well integrated into U.S. Government. That it has devolved so far, so fast, is grounds for its dissolution. And no one would miss it.
By contrast, the predecessors had been around forever. U.S. Customs, 1789; U.S. Border Patrol, 1924: Immigration and Naturalization, 1933.
We could make the U.S. great again by breaking up the DHS monopoly on terrorizing immigrants and citizens.
Yeah, I never warmed up to the DHS idea. It’s always had more than a whiff of state bureaucratic totalitarianism to me about it. If we couldn’t get the myriad of “Homeland Security” agencies co-ordinated to warn of us of what was right out in the open, Middle East men over here learning how to fly our airplanes for example, maybe the answer wasn’t to build a bureaucratic monstrosity but rather pare back the number of agencies all playingthe same game and figure out a way to improve communication among the ones still in it.
The oligarchs who own the government are simply applying their business rationale. Growth must not be stopped. If you have nothing new to bring to the market, then ramp up mergers and acquisitions.
We live in a world where only a handful of corporations own everything.
I expect the ground hog of Washington himself to collapse of clogged intestinal track from gobbling untold amounts of Kentucky Fried Chicken from containers and with turd oozing from his gullet, expire in a stench of his own making real soon.
that is why half the nation is ill from constant rage. and shame.
Ya.., and meanwhile, ICE Agents Gutierrez & Ochoa, along with Agent Ross, are still out on the street. Just an "administrative" issue. Line of duty, no doubt. Innocent until proven guilty. I read that somewhere, so let's not be hasty. Remember: What you just see'd.., is not what you just saw'd. Mad magazine material. What? Me worry? Yeah.
Trump, Trump, Trump
Set thugs a-marching
That's our blood upon the wall
They have shot us in the head
They will starve our children dead
And he won't stop 'till they've massacred us all.
"In Washington today, a grand jury refused to indict six Democratic members of Congress for breaking a law that makes it a crime to “interfere with, impair, or influence the loyalty, morale, or discipline of the military or naval forces of the United States.”
Good. Time to run this ad again and again, since Trump is determined to force the military into becoming his personal servants.
Plus that will piss him off.
We need an PSA of Americans reminding their fellow citizens that none of us are bound to obey illegal orders either. There are many examples of citizen courage in our history.
That's good Al, except that ICE will "zip" any bellergent-butt and throw it in a back-seat where yelling and kicking is futile. Time to get strategic, as you have indicated. I see lights on the horizon my friend.
I think that there are many kinds of courage, and many examples of holding the line. HCR helps to spotlight some of them. Artists often do so. Tomorrow is Lincoln's Birthday, that was a national holiday in my youth, as well it should be. Perhaps more effectively than any other, he fleshed out what the Declaration of Independence referenced as +universal+ "unalienable rights" and "consent of the governed".
"Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure."
Some things are learned best by example, and examples of human behavior can inspire as well as horrify.
While visions of Bad Bunnies danced though his head.
Der Leader isn't phased by what was clearly to him a 'frivolous question to begin with'. "They" are clearly guilty as he has clearly said so in no uncertain terms "death". Der Leader has spoken. Pete's in charge. One text to brother Homan and Tulsi and "they" will be rounded up in the back seat of a Tahoe. Who.., is going to stop that, if I might ask. When ICE busts your window, your spouting -off your "rights" means zero to them.., you're gonna get Zipped my friend.
Yes! One of the biggest camps in the Midwest is in Baldwin, Michigan. We're trying to get our representative, Kristen McDonald Rivett, to observe, but haven't convinced her yet. 601 Saginaw Street
Suite 403
Flint, MI 48502
Phone: (810) 238-8627
VOTE HER OUT.
most of the time they are rebuffed at the gates, but she should still try just for humanitarian oversight.
...then be rebuffed and with the press there also - 6 times a day, every day, but at some point don't leave, set up a chair, read books about democracy. The point is, quit whining and be an agitator for good trouble
Congressman John Moolanaar R 2nd District Michigan is AWOL
That's for sure.
And that's whether they are US citizens or have ever committed a crime or had their houses broken into by ICE.
Hopefully, that decision is appealed soon Georgia, but if it goes to SCOTUS there's a good chance the Fascist Republicans on the court will side against the Constitution.
I have written to both of my senators, even though they are both republicans - especially because they are both republicans, because this decision has really upset me. As a Texan who lives on the border, I am very aware of how bad the conditions already are at the detention camps, even before this awful decision. I did not write my representative because she is already working to make the camps less horrific.
Susan.., any guess as to why El Paso airport has been closed for the next ten days. Security reasons? What? The airspace for ten nautical miles is CLOSED..FHUTDOWN.., to any and ALL air traffic. That includes Airlines!!!
Apparently it was because of Mexican drones, and was dropped. However, the air space around Santa Teresa, NM is still shut down. We live in the flight path for the El Paso airport and planes have been flying in and out all day..
Thank you for your quick response!
You are welcome!
Alex, I know no more than you, but my search of the news suggests drones — though that shouldn’t close an airport down for hours - much less ten days. I also saw something suggesting the drones were “handled” before the shutdown was ordered. This regime seems to be going out of its way to generate conspiracies. Anyone know of any troop movements in the USA near El Paso?
Apart from the troops that were sent here some time ago, despite the presence of Fort Bliss, I have not heard of any new troop movement.
The excuse was Mexican cartel drones, but the Mexican president said there were none. The real reason seems to have been the US Air Force wanted to practice dealing with drones, and didn't care what that did to the El Paso airport. Cf. that plane that collided with a helicopter and both went down in the Potomac.
CONCENTRATION CAMPS
Let's start calling them what they are. Heinous. Atrocities being committed in OUR names with OUR tax money.
In my inbox:
Daniel, the House is voting this week on a new version of the SAVE Act – the GOP's latest attempt to trick you into giving up YOUR right to vote.
Supporters claim that anyone who really wants to vote will simply jump through all the hoops they want to put into place.
But we're not going to fall for that – this is just the same old voter suppression scheme we've been fighting for decades.
Here’s the simple truth: the SAVE Act would block millions of eligible voters from casting a ballot by adding unnecessary, costly, and confusing barriers to the ballot box.
If you agree that's wrong, Congress needs to hear from you today.
Save Act.......The Regime's attempt at Orwellian "1984" Language to try to fool the citizens.. SAVE IS DESTROY... as the Regime attempts to promote its fraudulent claims to "fairness" and "protection of the vote" while working feverishly to obliterate our Democracy one ballot at a time... This could be one of our biggest obstacles to overcome. The wording of this Act is intentionally misleading to many...
SAVE=EVAS=EVASive Villains Acting Shifty
It actually is a new version of the bill in the House with a different name, the Save America Act with a different House bill number. The Save Act was passed last year by the House and is the active bill in the Senate although it has not been released from the Senate Rules Committee to the floor.
I think the confusion is intentional both for people in Congress and definitely for the general public!!!!
I have been meaning to try to compare the two versions side by side but that is hard to do because no bill is cleanly written, you just see the amendments which can be one word on a specific line in a section and clause.
It likely will pass the House, as it did in the earlier form last year. Once again, it will be up to senators to block it. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) declared it “dead on arrival.” But this time around, a mobilized outside drive is pushing lawmakers to restrict voting. “It must be done or democracy is dead,” instructed Elon Musk. The SAVE Act will not expire quietly, surrounded by loved ones. It’s on all of us to stand up and speak out, once again.
It will die in the Senate. But that doesn't mean their pissant battle to siphon votes won't continue in localities across the country.
And yet, history shows that nothing drives up voting more than somebody trying to tell you you can't vote because you forgot to dot the "i" in your name, or your married name isn't the same one as your birth one (duh) or trying to make you pay a poll tax (outlawed by the 1965 Voting Rights Act) by getting a $160 passport -- which you've never had to show before.
And I believe they have already removed drop boxes in areas in many states that are known to lean Democratic -- just another suppression technique. And then there are the post office changes re when a ballot is actually considered mailed / received / postmarked.
You remembered about the nefarious change in the postmark date!!! It is not when you mail the letter anymore, it is when it is first "processed," which can be days later.
Now, if you mail your ballot on election day, the postmark could be several days later, and your ballot could be rejected.
Similarly, if you mail your income tax forms and the postmark is three days later, you would have to pay a penalty.
I wrote about it in a note on December 24, 2025. I can't believe it was less than 2 months ago. So much news packed into so little time! Two months ago seems like 6 to 12 months when I think back.
It is a Trumpian time warp!
https://substack.com/@georgiafisanick/note/c-194266532?r=dvhmb&utm_source=notes-share-action&utm_medium=web
exactly
and getting a passport right now is so delayed and difficult. AND now in my state they passed something that says no matter when you mail something it only counts when (if) it gets to its destination. Mail in ballots only go out but so early and now all they have to do is delay all the mail enough to make it so they will not arrive 'in time' to be counted. So that is all the active-duty military, disabled, and residents who are out of town at that time of year.
A family member applied for a passport seven months ago and has not received it yet. I suspect there are fewer agents working to process applications due to staff cuts.
Summaries from the Congressional Research Service (There may be differences in what is acceptable proof of citizenship between the bills that would not appear in the summaries.)
The big difference is the requirement to show proof of citizenship when you VOTE, not just when you register to vote, which is present in the SAVE America Act.
*************************************************************************************
SAVE Act HR 22
Introduced in House (01/03/2025)
Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act or the SAVE Act
This bill requires individuals to provide documentary proof of U.S. citizenship when registering to vote in federal elections.
Specifically, the bill prohibits states from accepting and processing an application to register to vote in a federal election unless the applicant presents documentary proof of U.S. citizenship. The bill specifies what documents are considered acceptable proof of U.S. citizenship, such as identification that complies with the REAL ID Act of 2005 that indicates U.S. citizenship. [My note: Current Real ID does not indicate US citizenship status; it can be issued to anyone who is legally in the US.]
Further, the bill (1) prohibits states from registering an individual to vote in a federal election unless, at the time the individual applies to register to vote, the individual provides documentary proof of U.S. citizenship; and (2) requires states to establish an alternative process under which an applicant may submit other evidence to demonstrate U.S. citizenship.
Each state must take affirmative steps on an ongoing basis to ensure that only U.S. citizens are registered to vote, which shall include establishing a program to identify individuals who are not U.S. citizens using information supplied by certain sources.
Additionally, states must remove noncitizens from their official lists of eligible voters.
The bill allows for a private right of action against an election official who registers an applicant to vote in a federal election who fails to present documentary proof of U.S. citizenship.
The bill establishes criminal penalties for certain offenses, including registering an applicant to vote in a federal election who fails to present documentary proof of U.S. citizenship.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act or the SAVE America Act
HR 7296 Introduced in House on 1/26/2026
*************************************************************************************
New in SAVE America Act
This bill requires individuals to provide documentary proof of U.S. citizenship when registering to vote, and requires photo identification to vote, in federal elections.
*************************************************************************************
Specifically, the bill prohibits states from accepting and processing an application to register to vote in a federal election unless the applicant presents documentary proof of U.S. citizenship. The bill specifies what documents are considered acceptable proof of U.S. citizenship, such as identification that complies with the REAL ID Act of 2005 that indicates U.S. citizenship.
Further, the bill (1) prohibits states from registering an individual to vote in a federal election unless, at the time the individual applies to register to vote, the individual provides documentary proof of U.S. citizenship; and (2) requires states to establish an alternative process to demonstrate U.S. citizenship.
Each state must take affirmative steps on an ongoing basis to ensure that only U.S. citizens are registered to vote, which shall include establishing a program to identify individuals who are not U.S. citizens using information supplied by certain sources.
Additionally, states must remove noncitizens from their official lists of eligible voters.
The bill (1) provides for a private right of action for certain violations, and (2) establishes criminal penalties for certain offenses.
*************************************************************************************
New in SAVE America Act
Individuals voting in federal elections must present an eligible photo identification document. An individual who votes by absentee ballot must submit a copy of their identification document with both the request for, and the submission of, the absentee ballot.
*************************************************************************************
What of voters already registered? If we have to re-register, that is going to eliminate millions of seniors and disabled people who are home-bound by physical disability and have no way to get to the registration office with our papers because truly adequate transport for us is but another of USian capitalism's Big Lies. (If I'm still alive, which in all probability I won't be, that will permanently disenfranchise me, and I have never missed a federal election since I became eligible to vote in 1961.) (Thank you, Georgia, for ferreting out this ChristoNazi outrage.)
I agree -- my husband is homebound in a wheelchair - there is no way he could get out to re-register in person. And I am home most of the time, being his caregiver. But I will be sure to take our mail-in ballots directly to the postoffice and have them stamped in my presence (not really a big risk in NYC, but this year we can't be too careful.)
That’s why the Congressional Research Service summaries are inadequate, and the details that aren’t covered by the congressional act can vary by state. The SAVE America Act is the one that requires proof of citizenship every time you vote.
Which would (1)-end mail-in voting (and absentee voting in any form) and (2)-further the disenfranchisement of physically disabled people. (If I remember correctly, one of the upper-level ChristoNazis has already said publicly that the proper final solution to disability of any sort is "lethal injection." )
so now we are now mailing all our important identification documents through the mail????? wow can we say identity theft opportunities for alllllll I already live in the check washing capital of the country.
I haven’t stitched together the full text of either bill—It is a several day pain in the ass exercise. The details of what gets sent and how may be left to the individual states or in the complete bill.
Some people think neither bill has any chance of getting through the Senate. This is one I don’t want to trust to Democrats holding together in the Senate to stop it since it is subject to cloture, so 7 democrats would have to support bringing it to a vote to get past cloture (filibuster) and then it is a simple majority vote to pass it in the Senate.
Eight Dems voted to end the shutdown…
This is too important a bill to leave to chance—it needs a full-court press to contact members of the House and Senate.
Georgia, one of the things for which I was famous during my working-press years (or infamous, depending on the viewer's political perspective), was reading legislation top to bottom and exposing its hidden landmines and punji pits. (Best catch ever: discovering a so-called "anti-pornography initiative" contained a provision that would enable the closure of any bar or restaurant where it could be proven people met and subsequently engaged in extra-marital or non-marital sex. The initiative was several points ahead when we put that atop Page One, but our story -- which I also did for UPI -- killed it; got me a commendation from the ACLU too.) Point being, if I may be of similar assistance in your legislative work, PM me and I'll send you my email and phone number.
Run it through ChatGPT to compare the 2 versions.
In Italy all citizens can vote without registering, assuming they have a place of residence and the obligatory national ID card, as all citizens are required to carry. I have never heard an Italian complain about this.
Voter registration would seem to be an invention designed to make voting more difficult and less accessible for US citizens.
Too many American businesses rely on immigrant employees who do not have legal authorization to work. Having a national identity card would not be good for their bottom line.
No doubt that's true, but US businesses that give jobs to insufficiently documented aliens, as many do, are breaking the law in any case. I have an Italian national ID card because my wife is Italian, and this gives me all the rights Italians have, except voting. To say nothing of the superior healthcare I can get here. For free if I don't mind waiting to see a specialist sometimes.
Yes, they are, but it is part of their business plan.
I believe it began when white men didnt want women voting or black folks voting-white men have been racist and believing in their own superior-ness since forever
“Would SEEM”?
It’s deliberate.
Yes, I suppose it is. No need to beat around the bush. I guess I've been a Democrat for too long. Sorry.
It would be great if the US government would automatically issue every a voter ID card. But many states make it difficult and costly to get. There are many was to make it easier for people to vote, especially with all of today’s technology. But Republicans don’t want everyone to vote. People don’t like their policies or politicians.
Of course. It dates from when all citizens were not entitled to vote.
Called my rep yesterday.
They have closed air space around El Paso Texas, do you think it is because there will be a large number of planes coming in filled with ICE detainees?
I agree Daniel ~ Done!
OFF TOPIC & per Reuters a few minutes ago citing the FAA, flights in & out of EL PASO International Airport will be halted for ten (10) days for "security reasons".
?
Per Morning Joe a few minutes ago the flight ban at EPI has been LIFTED. Apparently there has been a "failure to communicate" between the FAA & the DOD over planned weapon testing of a new anti-drone weapon in the El Paso area. No flight ban now.
++++++±++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Representative Ro Khana & just started looking at un-reacted Epstein Files for just 2 hours today & posted the names six (6 )FBI investigated persons but, Politico cautions there is no evidence revealed of wrong doing at this time.
The six (6) Names:
1. Leslie Wexner, Co-founder of Victoria's Secret
2. Nicola Caputo
3. Leonid Leonov
4. Salvador Luana
5. Zurab Mikeladze
6. Sultan Ahmed bin Nuora
UPDATE:
Bondi's DOJ has already un-redacted the names.
And, Bondi will be on the Hill today, 2/11, to be grilled about the Epstein Files.
“Today, Ro Khanna named Epstein associates on the House floor, shielded by the Speech and Debate Clause. The files themselves were scrubbed in March, just ahead of the Epstein Transparency Act.”
https://substack.com/@therationalleague/note/c-212795840?r=kxzps&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action
“This is the largest cover-up in history.
MAGA, overwhelmingly Christian in identity, has responded with silence.
If this is where “Christian morals” go to die, then it’s worth asking whether those morals ever existed, or only mattered when convenient.” ~The Rational League (2/10/26)
The silence is affirmation that Trumpstein is Christianity in action. (Note for example the tsunami of sexual abuse charges against Southern Baptist pastors and Roman Catholic priests.) The cover-up is merely another proof of what Jeff Sharlet exposed as "the Secret Fundamentalism at the heart of American power."
Hello Loren... Note Mike Johnson's Silence, and keeping the USG shutdown for Months.... If Deeds, not Words Matter, what does that tell you about Mike Johnson's Piety?...
That it's hollow and false, despite his little choir boy demeanor - he is a snake.
Hello Lauriecf.... I agree.... Deeds Not Words Matter...
Thank you Loren Bliss. Here is a C-SPAN headline:
'CongressionalDems introduced legislation yesterday [2/10] "that would. ELIMINATE the statute of limitations for victims of Epstein"🎯
That's just more Democrat "change-we-can-believe-in" grandstanding. Extremely unlikely the Republicans would let it out of Congress, as that would many times intensify the risk of prison for the Pedophile-in-Chief and who knows how many other ChristoNazi collaborators. And even if it did pass, Trump or his successor would veto it.
Actually they have
Roman values not Christian values: and our quite happy with Caligula as their leader
And like King Herod they all pay homage with lots and lots of Mammon
Trump as Caligula. "Little Hands" and "Little Boots." Truligula the Tyrant. Great catch, MJ.
GetOutOfJail~ MikeLuckovich
https://www.instagram.com/p/DUYd8ldDefD/?igsh=ZzZrMmdidWg3c3Ni
Here’s another maybe… The Ohio State University ought to rethink that name of the Medical Center-Hospital…as well as all the other buildings. Seriously considering Wexner is named after way to many buildings is a “co-conspirator to the largest sex trafficker in the USA” just sayin… Ah but there was that nagging situation at The Ohio State University about that wrestling scandal of sexual assault and abuse while Richard Strauss was employed as a physician by OSU. Recall Gym Jordan was the assistant coach back then at OSU… Guess those sexual assaulters do stick together even when it comes to girls or boys…
Ohio State keeping Wexner's name, but what about other buildings?
https://www.dispatch.com/story/news/education/2026/02/06/les-wexner-ohio-state-buildings-name-controversy/88495133007/#
Behind closed doors?
Our government shares so many characteristics with an organized crime group that it's chilling, and it's all about generating income and power for the "Family". In our case, having just one "Boss" (DJT) with Family that includes his chosen family who are loyal to him. The Mafia was founded on a distrust of the powers that be, "the swamp", and their authority was enforced through the threat of violence while their criminal activities went unreported, even by the victims, because of the fear of retaliation. Our Congress is mostly frozen due to fear of retaliation from the Boss. A shroud of secrecy is necessary to protect the Family from the law, for example the muzzling of Press, while their illegal activities in regard to immigrants, etc, are enabled by the Family. It's past time to vote the mob out.
It seems like the real Mob Boss is Stephen Miller.
He's the most evil and sickest at the very least.
Agreed, Signe. It takes little imagination to develop a typical Mafia screenplay, substituting actual regime officials for the cast of characters. Donald is the aging, ailing patriarch who thinks he's still running the syndicate and expects obeisance from everyone around him. He sits like a stinking pile in the corner booth of the restaurant with an overhead can light shining directly on him.
Stephen is the don who sits in the booth in the shadow constantly on his phone as he runs the business, ordering lieutenants scattered across the city to carry out orders to intimidate and murder.
I could go on.
It'll be difficult to vote anyone out if the SAVE act passes.
Exactly. The Trump Organized Crime Family.
Megan, two days ago, I used your fine spread-sheet to write six-to-eight G.O.P. Senators to urge the august Chamber to pass funding of 'the good guys' within the Department of Homeland Security (e.g., F.E.M.A.) and leave out funding for I.C.E. and Border Control. Those two would be hashed out separately. Thank you. (Note: that idea was put forth by fellow conservative, Bill Kristol in Bulwark.) ✍️
Yesterday, I used your resource to write Representatives Massie and Khanna a note commending each for their courage and patriotism. Representative Massie is taking a fearsome risk in stating that he will read some of the names of accusers on the House floor. These are likely to be non-U.S. names. Still, that will create momentum to get the Americans out in the open. So, thank you, again. 🫱🏻🫲🏽
Hello Ned… Good Work!!!…
Hey, Apache! So honoured to hear from you, good man.
Hello Ned... You are a Good Man too....
Yes Megan. Donald Tusk is a hero in this. It is interesting that some European countries are dealing with fallout from the revelations as well. Norway and England come to mind. There are certainly leaders from other countries who are mentioned.
I read this morning that Germany is scrutinizing any information about the Epstein Files, to see if anyone in German government is compromised. There are great concerns about the ensuing security issues from the Epstein Files as this is the week of the Munich Security Conference, where world leaders will talk and there will be round tables. The security concerns are great.
AOC is attending and she is speaking to University students in one or two cities. I know she will be speaking at the TU in Berlin, and maybe in Munich as well. All students in Berlin have been invited to the TU talk, but tickets to get in went online and were gone in less than 20 minutes. It is free, but requires a ticket to get in. There is a wait list too, and they have said they will livestream it.
Meanwhile there is a lot of discussion by Zev Shalev and Dean Blundell about the Russia ties. Zev has been following the money too.
https://open.substack.com/pub/narativ/p/eight-minutes-from-the-kremlin?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web
Yesterday Zeteo had Ro Khanna on a podcast discussing what he saw. My 20-year-old daughter feels that this is an indication that the world is just going to S--T! and she never uses words like that.
https://open.substack.com/pub/zeteo/p/ro-khanna-reacts-epstein-files-new-redaction?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web
AOC! That's very good to hear.
Glad to know that AOC is speaking there and attending the Munich Security Conference. Wonder if she’ll run into Tulsi Gabbard there, or is she still on the hunt for missing votes from past elections? Maybe she wasn’t even invited to the conference and chumming it up with Putin instead…
Hello Megan... From HCR Today: "Poland announced it was launching an investigation into whether Epstein was tied to Russian intelligence. “More and more leads, more and more information, and more and more commentary in the global press all relate to the suspicion that this unprecedented paedophilia scandal was co-organised by Russian intelligence services,” Polish prime minister Donald Tusk said. “I don’t need to tell you how serious the increasingly likely possibility that Russian intelligence services co-organised this operation is for the security of the Polish state. This can only mean that they also possess compromising materials against many leaders still active today.” ... ... There is the livelihood of other Intel Services being involved... Netanyahu is again in DC this Week... DJT is toying with deploying another USN Strike Force off Iran for a potential Strike... Epsteingate has the potntial to take down DJT's Regime as numerous members of DJT's Regime are involved in it's Crimes, and Coverup...
Just had dinner in which the Polish Ambassador to the United States spoke. Remarkable diplomat from a remarkable people and country. We have to get the rot out of the core of our culture. We have a decent chance of surviving Trump. This rot of the corruption of power, if not scraped away methodically, will destroy us.
Hello Ned... Thanks, it is indeed a Malignant Cancer that could kill the Republic...
Thank you for your support, Apache. People often do not like that sentiment of mine due to, I suppose, fuzziness. So a second coming from you ranks first in my book.
Thank You Ned... You are a Gentleman....
Netanyahu is back AGAIN? Why doesn't he just move in?
Hello Anne-Louise... Netanyahu is one of DJT's Puppet-Masters.... Let's see if Netanyahu stays in Israel if he loses Re-Election this Year in Israel... Larry Ellison once offered him a position at Oracle...
Hello, Apache
But isn't Netanyahu in the same situation? if he loses the election he'll be tried for corruption and probably jailed. Oracle?? Maybe we should all just go back to typewriters, paper, envelopes and postage stamps.
The Luddite part of me loves this.......
Well, the good news would be that I recover from social media addixion.
That's something I was cured of quite early, when I started getting vicious attacks from people I didn't know. Pre-Trump, FB was interesting conversations about music and books, post-Trump 1 it was about pink beanies, pants suits and women's marches, then I quit and returned to my own life. Then a friend in Maryland started sending me LFAA...
Good Morning, Apache! It is with great hope that the Polish investigation into the Epstein/Russia ties will finally expose djt, and bring to an end this horrific regime. It really should be the American intelligence agencies uncovering the treason committed, but alas, those agencies have been corrupted as well. I for one will be watching this one closer than all the other atrocities being committed by these traitors.
Hello Daniel... If they are 'Dancing' to Putin's, and other Foreign Actor's Tune, then they are indeed Treasonous Actors, and should be treated that way...
Ned ,Apache and Daniel, thank you. I've suspected as many have that our very own humptydumpster has been and is a Russian asset. Now it appears that Epstein was as well. He didn't committed suicide. His testimony alone would have brought down our dear leader along with can you even begin to imagine the landslide?
Hello Samani... Thanks... Not Just A Russian Asset... Other Foreign Actors are involved as Well...
I love Poland too. Friends there, friends from there, food, history, and that Tusk is taking on the Great Conspiracy. Dzerzhinsky! Enigma machine!
I love Poland. I have roots from my family immigrants........
Thank you Megan. Poland is a wonderful country as are the people who live there
Iran is a wonderful country, also. And, Lebanon. And, Yemen. And, never to be again: Palestine.
And, Cuba.
We need to destroy them all.
Thank you for the good trouble list! I hope you include that every time you leave a comment on HCR. The more people who have it, the better… and it is always, always relevant to her content. Thank you Megan!
You’re welcome! I’ve posted it almost every day on her Facebook posts since early March of last year, and almost every day since probably around May of last year when I started here on Substack 🤣 I’m pretty persistent
Megan, THANK SCIENCE and medical technology for your brother! Having worked primarily as a Hematology medical technologist, including many pediatric patients, I know what your brother went through. I am happy to hear it was a success.
And as always, thank you for posting this daily.
Yes! Science is crucial! I’ve sent many messages about RFK Jr based on how much he’s trying to limit science!
Thank you for your dedication to such an important profession!
Thanks not just for your list, but for your untiring work in getting this out there.
''Perversion and Abuse of Power''
Forward
This essay names what too many have been trained to excuse. Abuse of power is not a metaphor here. It is literal. It is government overreach used to shield elites rather than protect the public. It is the sexual abuse of children facilitated by wealth, proximity, and silence. It is the abuse of wealth itself, hoarded, leveraged, and weaponized to escape consequence while institutions bend to preserve status.
These abuses are not separate scandals. They are expressions of the same disease. When power is insulated from accountability, it mutates. It protects predators. It rewrites laws into loopholes. It calls secrecy stability and calls cruelty necessity. The result is a system that harms the vulnerable while congratulating itself for restraint.
What follows is not speculation or outrage theater. It is a refusal to normalize what should never be acceptable. If this feels uncomfortable, it should. Discomfort is the proper response to a society that has allowed exploitation, impunity, and moral collapse to pass for governance.
https://essayx.substack.com/p/perversion-and-abuse-of-power
Netanyahu is meeting with our criminal president to blackmail him with Epstein info. about his naughty deeds so he will go along with bombing Iran. To keep them both out of jail, they will happily kill millions.
Our entire country is run by criminals in league with criminals. Let Israel ruin their precious "safe place for jews" because it never will be safe. THEY guarantee it every day with their hatred towards all. BTW: They really hate the Zionist Christians: dirt beneath their feet.
The insane Zionist stuff started way before the handy for intimidation and $$$ Holocaust. It started in 1890! Zionists had plans to wipe out the indigenous population in Palestine way before WW2. Hitler did them a favor with that "incident" as Trump refers to the murders of two Americans who weren't even committing the crime of demonstrating.
ALL the files referring to Trump should be released NOW to save the Americans from ruin...not to mention the bases and carriers with troops destroyed. Iran is not kidding. Even when Netanyahu WILL lob nuclear bombs. He's dying to. Then Iran will respond with ballistic missiles, destroying its enemies. Completely destroying the problem of Israel.
After reading Trump and other powerful and wealthy people are vicitmizing children, I do not mind God, the Creator, sends again flood to wipe us out. We are living in a sick world.
I was hoping for AIDS to wipe out the humans but now there's cures. Too bad.
I hate us.
Jay Kuo at the Big Picture reported on this disturbing news.
The Fifth Circuit panel decision in Buenrostro-Mendez accepted the government’s extreme argument that immigrants can be detained without any opportunity for a bond hearing, based solely on classifying all immigrants as perpetually “seeking admission,” whether they have been in the country for 2 days or 2 decades.
Don’t underestimate what this is about. It allows for indefinite detention of all persons rounded up in sweeps anywhere in the country if they are sent to detention centers in the Fifth Circuit.
Decisions in hundreds of similar cases in other judicial circuits have reached the opposite conclusion, but jurisdiction shopping to secure a decision that supports a distorted, contorted interpretation of the law is a specialty of the Trump administration. Because the interpretation of the law depends on where you are when you are charged, detainees are being shipped to facilities in the Fifth Circuit so the law can be applied to them.
This is a Stephen Miller exercise in maximizing cruelty. The detention facilities are concentration camps, with stories emerging of human and constitutional rights abuses. Detainees are being inadequately fed, are not being allowed clean water, are living in filth, and are not given medical attention. Deaths in custody are being ruled as homicides.
America is committing crimes against humanity with impunity.
https://substack.com/home/post/p-187548906
Many, many people are fighting back against this regime. It is absolutely necessary to keep all of the crimes front and center. We must also remember to keep urging people to keep resisting.
There are more of us than them. And we will win.
NO KINGS MARCH 28
Look up Indivisible in your area
Join a Bridge Brigade
Write Congress. And then write them again.
Barbara, speaking of fighting back, it was encouraging to hear that the Democratic Governors refuse to attend the conference if all are not invited. I long to see members of the press corps leave the room in protest after Trump insults the intelligence, capability, and integrity of the news organizations they represent. Oh, and telling someone to "smile more" is ludicrous when you look at Todd Blanch and Marco Rubio. They have a resting frown face. I've never seen Blanch smile, so Trump should reprimand him too. Like that's going to happen.
Standing together and fighting back is the only way out of this nightmare.
I don't get too caught up in performative politics on either side of the aisle. I also don't care about all the personality stuff. What I care about is the ability of the Democrats to effectively: stop ICE, expose those files, stop the concentration camps, combat voter suppression, fight AI centers and most of all solidify the 2026 midterms. All the rest is podium clutching.
The Democrats need to learn they work for us. Get rid of your corporate bosses. Weed out your ineffective leaders. Or we will.
"We want an opposition Party that fights back. Fighting back against the regime does work… and we will remake this party to represent the people because it is currently full of too many people who are too weak. We’re not asking. We’re demanding."
Indivisible Las Vegas
"This message is for the members of Congress who are supposed to be looking out for us their constituents and voters:
Find a spine. Find a vertebra. Find some strength in yourself to stand up for this Country and the people who live here. You have a masked militia in the street murdering citizens who are doing nothing wrong. If you cannot find it in yourself to do something about that then please know we will find new leadership. If you think you are safe because you live in a non-competitive district, think again. We are not afraid to change our party in order to defeat you. We are not afraid to figure out how to work the system to get you out of office if you will not keep us safe. Do your jobs. Do it with an ounce of bravery. All it takes is a hundredth of the bravery that Renee Good or Nurse Pretti had. Do better or do a different job."
Author: Kate Compton Barr
Barbara, I agree.
Thank you. We are too easily grateful. Being pleased the Governors are skipping the White House function is desperate. I have asked my Governor why he isn't handling ICE in our communities. Why haven't the Governors banded together to address the fact we are now living under a fascist regime? Why haven't the Governors called their own Democratic/Republican conference to get some concrete actions?
Barbara, I personally have to be grateful for small steps that are taken to stop the madness of Trump's regime. To say that Im desperate is a bit harsh. Asking “why?” Is important. But acknowledging positive steps are important too, in my opinion.
Thank you Pam and Barbara. I sent your comments on to a group here. Now I’m going to my study to send that letter Barbara to both state and Fed elected Reps and Senators. I admire passion linked with steady high intelligence and courage.
Keep squeezing that bunch like a pimple. Eventually we will get all the puss out. I don’t want to forget who we need to catch and cook after all is said. Because we will prosecute them until all are done. We need a law which we will make stripping them of all they possess, since they are going for broke.
Pam, you know very well that only women are told to smile. This is one of my pet peeves and I refuse to go around wearing a perpetual smile. I smile when there is a reason to smile.
You're right. Many women's smiles have hidden fear, sadness, despair, anger, and dissolutionment. Women often smile to ease volatile situations. Some of The Baffoon Bunch” who stand behind Trump in the Oval Office have sickening smiles. I imagine, if they have any integrity at all, they may too be hiding their embarrassment, incredulity, and knowledge that they are protecting a very unbalanced man. :) :(
I heard the republican govs in solidarity also refused the invitation.
That's great. Time for the Republicans to stand up in solidarity with others who are trying to fight the corruption.
I don't know why ANY press shows up for In your face lies, from that hideous woman. ..except Fox.
Yes! I truly believe THE POWER OF THE PEOPLE IS GREATER THAN THE PEOPLE IN POWER!!!
Very true, Chicky and (obviously) what We, the People need to do (must do) is demonstrate very clearly that we 1.) Vote and 2.) Speak and 3.) Spend Our Dollars wisely and forcefully. For too long many of us have griped about “draining the swamp,” when, in fact, WE allowed the swamp to exist. Right now, Stephen Miller is possibly the Chief Swamp Monster, who collects his taxpayer-funded salary (nearly $200K) plus his health care and retirement. Mr. Miller works for us - We, the People. Trump (who also works for us) needs to use his favorite two words on Stevie: “You’re Fired!” Or, perhaps we should use those two words on Trump. Of course it’s our Congress People (more folks are our employees) who can get the You’re Fired! Process going. It’s called Impeachment!
The swamp is our own elected Democrats who have been sitting in those cozy chairs in plush offices on Capitol Hill for way too long. These entrenched Democrats allowed this coup to happen while they played at being bipartisan and polite. They are too hand-tied by their corporate donors.
We need to let them know we demand a voice. We are not their ATM. WE demand change-now within the Democratic Party.
Ah’ it’s the dems fault’! On which planet do you live????
Louis, my two D Senators are doing what they can as members of the minority as well as my D rep. One of the D reps from Oregon went to Texas and brought home a family who had been taken when they brought their little girl to the ER. Many of them are doing what they can including the six the grand jury refused to indict for speaking out against obeying illegal orders.
Yup, it should be easy as 1 2 3 - 1.) Vote and 2.) Speak and 3.) Spend Our Dollars wisely and forcefully.
Precisely! IMPEACH! But also CONVICT and REMOVE!! The whole lot of them!
But, unfortunately, there are many people who do not recognize the "power of the people" yet. It is important to turn the the cards and bring transparency to all their actions.
We should recognize the sexual victimization of terrorized children by the Trumpstein Cult is the immediate predecessor, perhaps even a test run, of the terror the MAGAstapo is now unleashing on anyone who refuses to kowtow to the ChristoNazi theocracy. Thus the vital, know-our-enemy relevance of the full text of the Jane Doe lawsuit against Trump and Epstein -- later withdrawn in response to credible death threats against the plaintiff: https://cdn.factcheck.org/UploadedFiles/Johnson_TrumpEpstein_Lawsuit.pdf Please let us ensure this text is linked early (and therefore prominently) on as many Resistance sites as possible every day until the traitorous regime of ecogenocidal ChristoNazi pedophiles is no more.
I will ask these questions here even if it is not the most appropriate. Is there a list of the concentration camps that have been set up since Trump took office with locations and the districts that they reside it so that we can contact all of their representatives? What is the geographic coverage of the Fifth Circuit so that our letters/calls/emails can be directed towards this abomination? Am I correct is saying that residents (of all political persuation) near these concentration camps are actively protesting against them?
The fifth Circuit covers Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi. It is headquartered in New Orleans.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_immigrant_detention_sites_in_the_United_States
Look at the capacity (beds) versus average daily population at the biggest centers in the Wikipedia spreadsheet. Eye-opening. There are 250 in the list but most are local jails. Geo Group and CoreCivic are the private operators and are building out or renting out new facilities in warehouse spaces--those are getting the push back from local groups.
Thank you so much!
Wow! Thanks for the link. One can even sort the list itself by category except by state.
where is the fifth circuit located
+2
Again and again, U.S. Supreme Court slaps down 5th Circuit - The ...
The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit is headquartered in the John Minor Wisdom United States Court of Appeals Building at 600 Camp Street in New Orleans, Louisiana. It serves federal judicial districts in Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi.
ICE List: the small European website exposing US immigration agents
Netherlands-based site uses public information and tips to reveal identities of agents involved in crackdowns across US
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/10/ice-list-small-european-website-exposing-us-immigration-agents?
This list has been generated by good evidence including neighbors, hotel concierge and the agents themselves. The biggest fear is not violence but being shunned by their communities.
Following Zionist Israel. Cruelty is our favorite sport.
“She refused to answer any questions, invoking her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. Her lawyer said she is “prepared to speak fully and honestly” if Trump grants her clemency.” I think it’s time to move her back to a less nice prison and take the puppies away.
It's extremely unlikely that Maxwell woman would EVER speak "openly and honestly" under any circumstances, especially after she'd already gotten what she wants. The suggestion that she should get clemency first and talk later is just stupid.
Really stupid. Which is prob why Trump will do it.
Salud Kathryn!
🗽
On the other hand, she probably knows enough that she could sink T****, and a few law firms, and change the makeup of the boardrooms of a few large corporations, and bring down a few family dynasties. 'Prince' Andrew got off lightly.
Perhaps not quite so lightly…King Chas apparently gave the green light for the government to pursue a criminal investigation.
That a monstrous convicted felon, pedophilia enabler and groomer, Ghislaine Maxwell, can invoke her 5th amendment right while so many innocent Americans are being denied their constitutional rights, especially the 1st & 4th Amendments, speaks volumes about our country right now.
One thing about the Epstein files that has bothered me is that it is taking the eye off of the ball, i.e., Ukraine. I have not really paid attention to this scandal until the last two or three months. The rot it implies at the core of our culture may represent a larger long-term threat. 😯
We may dig our way out of Trump with repudiations, court proceedings, and reforms. With this child-trafficking scandal and possible involvement of Mossad or the F.S.B., however, the cultural rot *at our core *could compromise the republican virtue required to sustain our institutions.😱
WHY the latter? The demoralization of the citizenry attendant to so prevalent a level of violation of the most important norms of any society. That demoralization could make average, decent Americans give up on democracy. The rationale? People can not trust men with power.💔
Ned, you make a good point. The main difference between Donald and his lust object, Vladimir, is that Donald was always learning disabled, now exacerbated by dementia. Putin, by contrast, is an evil genius.
Epstein's ties to Russia are now being revealed as stronger than previously known.
Maybe the scope of Putin's plan wasn't just to install a favorable president, but to completely discredit democracy and its freedoms. If the rich and powerful enjoy the freedom to be pedophilic monsters, U.S. citizens might become disillusioned with democracy and prefer a more "orderly" system commanded by a "strong man with high morals." A "satellite nation" in North America would strengthen Vladimir's hand in taking over Europe.
This line of thought is incredibly disturbing.
It is disturbing . . . as a possibility. We can foreclose its chance of becoming reality, if we elevate communal concerns to a political primacy.
Absolutely not. Victims of sexual assault must not be sacrificed. This is a variation of "too big to fail" and "you can't handle the truth." Democracy dies in darkness.
EDIT: I think we are similar in our thinking.
What I am saying, in a convoluted manner, is that, as disturbing as this thinking is, we are still in the realm of possibility and speculation. If we are fortunate and maintain a communal solidarity to protect people we can avoid or, at least, minimize the damage to these victims. Communal primacy means being fearless in exposing the wrong-doers, no matter who they are.
Look closely at her portraits and you can actually see her viciousness lurking in her facial features.
Loren, check out the Jimmy Kimmel monologue, if not the whole thing or the first nine minutes or so, then the segment from 3:30 to 4:45. https://youtu.be/shzx9MPdV44 Funny, but drives the point home. The jokester riffs off of Congressional complaints about Epstein to lambaste immigration policies. Masterful!
I saw it in her face in the brief clip of her pleading the fifth. And in her voice. I wasn’t sure if it was just projection of what
I know about her, but I don’t think so.
Victim testimony -- don't recall where I read it or I'd post a link -- describes her as vacillating between trying to seem motherly and being just plain "mean." And -- based on the newest disclosures -- likely vicious enough to force a nine-year-old into a pedophile's bed.
Maxwell’s “truth” for clemency carrot sounds out of kilter to me. Epstein was found dead August of 2019. Maxwell was arrested nine months later in July the next year. She is not stupid. Like many smart people she likely was very suspicious whether Epstein committed suicide. Any evidence she may have accumulated against bad people over the years was not found to be with her when she was arrested. That does not mean it does not exist. If it is does exist Maxwell had nine months to secure it in a safe place to assure her safety, her life, if she ever goes to prison. Now Maxwell “hints” she can “talk.” Again, she is not stupid. Maxwell knows her word is meaningless and therefore not of value in a lets make a deal, this for that. However, if she stashed in different places (like land mines) physical, or documentary, or demonstrative evidence against bad people she can do a lot more than just “talk.” If that is the case then her lawyer dangling a carrot of “truth” may likewise have a double meaning of what she has to offer. Maxwell could be demanding clemency or else.
What I think her game might be is the sort of double-cross I'd expect of Trump: talk out of both sides of her mouth, promise to the authorities she'll testify "honestly" but cut a deal with Trump to take the Fifth if he pardons her.
She needs more than clemency to stay alive. She needs a new identity.
Definitely!
Speak fully and honestly”. She does that, she’s dead.
Heather has written here before on the growing dangers of U.S. concentration camps.
Now she’s spoken today, too, on her podcast, of how we might not call them death camps – but that dictator Donald is headed there, now ending medical care for the hundreds of thousands his police state thugs aim to warehouse.
In his weekly talk with Mark Thompson, also today, David Cay Johnston urged Americans of faith to insist their pastors, priests, rabbis, and imams all stress abhorrence at the concentration camp conditions across this gulag of illegal, unconscionable death and detention.
Why might religious leaders look the other way from the mass crimes Donald and his thugs now ratchet up? Because they’ve done so in the past (he cited civil rights era ministers opposed to integration then).
We may be coarsening now, too, given the insistence of our economic elites that they stay protected from any consequences at their rape of underage girls whom criminal Donald’s pals long trafficked.
Will Americans of faith indeed look the other way? Did many attend the same schools of amorality and dehumanization as produced our billionaire classes?
No, to answer your obvious question. No they won't, and no, they haven't. Faithful America already has a a petition which thousands of Christians have signed, not just denouncing the obvious violations of any definition of Christianity, but today -- officially thanking the 19 venerable Buddhist monks who finally arrived at National Cathedral after more than 100 days' walk from Ft. Worth, Texas today, as thousands of well-wishers heralded their arrival outside and along for Wisconsin Avenue.
Addressing the assembled monks (and nearly 30-40 other local Buddhist religious, as well as an assembled interfaith panel of pastors, priests, rabbis, imams and others of many spiritual backgrounds), Cathedral Dean Randy Hollerith stood at the transept and told the congregation that in the 10 years he had been Dean, he had never before seen such a beautiful sight in front of him.
It's absurd to hint, much less assert, that Americans of faith "attend...schools of amorality..." Schools are not immoral, people are. More specifically, people make immoral choices all the time, no matter where they went to school. And universities continue to be centers of learning where students and alumni are free to make individual choices about their own lives. I've yet to hear of any leading university anywhere whose directors or regents do not encourage their students to make their own professional lives some kind of moral statement about how they see their place in the world, through scholarship, career, charitable work, intellectual or spiritual inclinations. Has anybody else?
The monks are coming to Annapolis tomorrow. I hope that I can get out to see them.
ICTT: Substack was glitchy today stalling and returning system error messages to reader comments e.g. my like to your post. I have since subscribed to the substack error page to get notifications when the system is compromised. Here's the link...
https://substack.statuspage.io/
Philip Brown, Many thanks. I've had that as well as the entire comment section doing 'an elevator' or slippage suddenly passing loads of comments.
For today's:
Before Heather writes hers today, it’s already Feb. 12 in the mountains of Kyushu, Japan.
That is, by our international time zones, here now it’s hours before Lincoln’s birthday arrives beginning Feb. 12 on Maine’s eastern seaboard.
So I address one misunderstanding one wag has long had here, where yesterday he wrote, “It's absurd to hint, much less assert, that Americans of faith "attend...schools of amorality..." Schools are not immoral, people are.”
This contributor to Heather’s cannot see, will not see, how institutions and their instruments, particularly testing, matter.
Those of us who’ve read Anne Applebaum and Timothy Snyder recently, or George Orwell, Hannah Arendt, and Boris Pasternak earlier all know that the first thing authoritarians do is collapse the individual. Group think then can take over. As Putin, other dictators, and U.S. social media billionaires have engineered.
My friend the wag on Heather’s site dismisses institutions partly because he embraces the National Rifle Association’s conceit about how its own institutional push for military assault rifles for all is fine, as if they don’t kill, only “people” do that.
He also oddly tilts to “people” because, in all his here he has long indulged wit and good leftism but never cited any people – no Applebaum, Snyder, Orwell, Arendt, or Pasternak – for only testing’s institutional priorities for all the decades since the Powell memo began its multi-pronged assaults on democracy.
You really don't have the FAINTEST idea who I am, Mr. Balla, let alone what you're talking about. National Rifle Association? 🤪😜🤪
Please with the “schools as cesspools” comments, Phil. Your provocative assumption that it was the “schools” that corrupted and dehumanized its students is really disgusting to me. Quit it.
I’d venture strongly to say that our public schools have a strong hand when dealing with values of community and diversity and equity. Humanizing the wild natural personalities of young children.
🗽
Educator here. I too am tired of the blame the schools trope. You want better schools? Then elect school board members that value a well rounded education. Also, schools are typically funded through the incredibly unfair property taxes, I.e. good neighborhoods = good schools. Just how much is a child’s daily education worth? 5$? 100$? Make funding fair and pay your taxes.
I'll continue to speak for schools, teachers, and their students, Christine.
And against admin bureaucrats and their tests.
I was admin. And the tests were not mine. But I certainly supported “tests” to drive instruction.
The tests are not yours, Christine, not anybody's.
But humanities do belong to people. They enhance people being able to see others.
For the sake of teachers and students being people, growing in abilities to see others and to empathize with others dealing in life's complications, I'd hope you see how testing does the opposite.
Diane Ravitch explains this clearly about testing's offices and damaging conceits (and those of corporate packaged textbooks similarly, too) in "The Language Police."
Thank you for all this work and for sharing it publicly! You will be one of history’s heroes. What I wonder is why, when a witness says they are deporting criminals, someone doesn’t push their faces into the facts: According to data compiled by Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, 42,755 out of 59,762 people in ICE detention as of September 21, 2025 — about 72% — had no criminal conviction. Of the remaining 28%, many were convicted or charged with minor offenses such as traffic violations.
Case-level evidence from Chicago underscores this pattern. An NPR article, drawing on Department of Justice records filed in federal court in November 2025, reports that 598 of the 614 immigrants arrested in Chicago as part of the “Operation Midway Blitz” raids launched in September had no criminal record at the time of their arrest, which amounts to about 97%.
https://econofact.org/factbrief/fact-check-are-70-of-undocumented-immigrants-arrested-by-ice-under-trump-convicted-or-charged-with-a-crime
None of this is about immigration enforcement.
On September 30, 2025, federal agents conducted a dramatic raid on a Chicago apartment building, resulting in the arrest of 37 individuals. This operation involved approximately 300 agents, including those from the Border Patrol and FBI, and was characterized by the use of a Black Hawk helicopter. The raid was initially justified by claims that the building was occupied by members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. However, subsequent investigations revealed that the operation was based on allegations of illegal occupancy by immigrants, rather than gang activity. Despite the aggressive nature of the raid, no evidence has been presented to support the claims of gang involvement, and federal prosecutors have not pursued charges against any of the detainees.Total Arrested: 37 individuals
Charges Filed: None of those arrested have been charged with a crime.
Intimidation. Theater of cruelty.
Trump had early relationships with gangsters, and lies, graft, and intimidation are at the core of his M.O.
In bitter truth, the United States government has always been a criminal organization. Just ask the First Nations people. Or the striking coal miners it attacked with field artillery and bombing planes. Or the ghosts of the Triangle Shirtwaist dead, who still haunt the corner of Greene Street and Washington Place, where they died after leaping from windows to escape the fire and falling eight or 10 storeys to splatter on the pavement.
Loren, we are a nation founded on theft, extermination, and slavery. Criminals from the get-go.
Alas our nation's sins are enormous; and yet reflective of the "Mr. Hyde" aspect of human nature around the planet throughout the compass of human history.
"This, as I take it, was because all human beings, as we meet them, are commingled out of good and evil: and Edward Hyde, alone in the ranks of mankind, was pure evil." - Stevenson, "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde"
R. L. Stevenson's story is fiction of course, but I think it illustrates that complexity and tensions of human nature. We surely pursue self-interest, but a balanced personality, does so justly, even lovingly; and we humans are capable of care, even as in the "Samaritan" story (Samaritans and Jews were enemies); we can appreciate, and create beauty. We can not be certain that we know the truth, but we can tell the truth as best we know it. That's why it matter so much to keep the whole thing from going to hell in a hand-basket.
Why did people travel miles and wait for hours to attend Trump’s rallies, some again and again? To let loose their anger and hatred. Trump may not be a genius, but he sure knows how to bring out the worst in people.
As does his ilk. Manipulators
The modus operandi of the current fascists in the federal government has always been projection, projection, projection. It makes me nauseus.
Though I think of projection as something people do with being fully aware of it. I think the case can be made and documented that Trump and his ilk know very well that they are manipulative deceivers, and are proud of it. I have read that a trick that pickpockets use is to yell "Thief theif" if caught in the act, and then vanish in the confusion. The former "Party of Lincoln" learned that trick to blunt outrage over their self-serving behavior.
" 'cause confusing you is the nature of my game"-- The Rolling Stones
"without" being aware, right? Yeah, it may be so. I do think it's different then the "thief" call. That, it seems to me, is diversion. In this case, it's done deliberately, I think, to disempower, sow disequilibrium, and harm. (That might just be me; I'm particularly vulnerable to gaslighting.)
And probably still does J L. as well as the Russian mafia in the US and in Russia.
The devil's bargain.
This was the Trumpian version of kristalnacht. Helicopters and drones lowered agents onto the building where they proceeded to break down doors of everyone regardless of their citizenship.
It's hard to believe that an attack this brutal was barely mentioned in the mainstream media.
This attack is on every fucking Republican politician for not speaking out and doing something about ICE at the time. If they had perhaps at least two American citizens would still be alive.
So WHAT HAPPENED TO THEM? Where are they now?
It’s about stirring the hate pot. Period
Not just stirring, JD. Making sure it stays at a rolling boil.
Madness.
They ransacked and destroyed their homes, and no charges were filed 🤬🤬🤬
Those facts were pushed into their faces today during a House oversight committee on homeland security. "Will you apologize to Reneé Good for being called a domestic terrorist by the President and his leadership?" Eric Swalwell (D-CA) asked the Director of ICE, Tod Lyons. Lyons refused. Others pointed out that among the tens of thousands of those detained, arrested, incarcerated or deported, less than 15% had any criminal conviction whatever (which means 85% of those ICE has detained simply constitute -- for lack of a better word -- the "usual suspects").
Many detainees didn't even have a parking ticket to their names. Many are here legally awaiting asylum hearings, arrested on the spot for attending their own hearings. Some have even been US citizens, some arrested even as they showed identification proving their citizenship. When asked how many people ICE had fired, Lyons told Swalwell "none." Lyons said nothing when Swalwell added, "yet two people have been murdered."
At every opportunity, Democrats rub their faces in it. So far it hasn't stopped ICE, but that's no reason not to keep pressure from multiple levels.
I hang my head, half in sorrow, half in shame. I have never wished that a public figure drop dead, but these guys are really, really testing me.
The scene in "The Equalizer" where McCall (Denzel Washington) tells the killer Nicolai that "in your case, I'm going to make an exception" comes to mind.
Me too, Ned.
Dead is too painless for this inhumane class.
I wonder who is pocketing the tax dollars used to run these concentration camps?!
GEO group and Core Civic are the main prison-for-profiteers. They have been for years. They are gleefully taking your taxpayer dollars, and, like a hotel, they thrive on long stays, high fees, and low services.
Thank you for answering. For-profit prisons represent the worst of capitalism.
I suppose the original idea had some merit. The government-run facilities were characterized by bloat and lassitude, so contracting with companies with expertise and a more lean approach SHOULD have saved money and promoted efficiency. Instead, it became just another grift for greedy corporate entities. We seem to have difficulty finding balance in complex systems. Additionally, the for-profit system has reinforced the cradle-to-prison pipeline as outlined by the Children's Defense Fund.
Imprisonment is self evidently a prime tool of tyrants. It serves a purpose in a free society, but like a dangerous drug, like chemotherapy, is beneficial only when sparingly and responsibly applied. Handing it over to a profit-making business is insane. Apart from universal human rights that apply even to convicts, I am aware that in some states, politicians have signed contracts guaranteeing profits to prisons, even paying profit-prisons for empty beds. Last I heard, the City of Chicago sold all it's parking meters to a for profit corporation and is obligated to pay for lost revenue on disused meters, if they are blocked by street-fairs, parades or construction, at public expense. Head they win, tails we lose.
Yikes!
SOMEONE ANSWER THIS QUESTION?
The industrial prison system. If I didn’t have to head off to work, I’d do some digging for y’all. I wouldn’t be surprised if the owners of the prison companies are heavy supporters, and fundraisers, for T****.
You bet'cha. They also lobby for harsher prison sentences, this in a county that leads the world for imprisoning much of it's population.
@Signe K. answered.
There is an earlier comment citing a Wiki link to all the detention centers in the US.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_immigrant_detention_sites_in_the_United_States
Good question 🤬
The people who bribe him for the contracts!
*Penn, nice to hear from a fellow PGHer! 🥳 Jimmy Kimmel, one of the few policy guys whom I trust, had quite a bit to say last evening about the Epstein files (first eight or nine minutes) followed by derision of the depredations committed against our neighbors.😠 https://youtu.be/shzx9MPdV44 As an erstwhile Republican and confused conservative, though moderate, I lean on the words of a conservative icon: "Rage and frenzy will pull down more in half-an-hour than prudence, deliberation, and foresight can build up in a hundred years." –Edmund Burke, ‘Reflections on the Revolution in France’; 1790. 💔
Best, Ned McDonnell.
More disturbing news, this time from Chris Geidner at Law Dork.
Below is the entire text of an e-mail sent to a lawyer at DHS which has major ramifications for us all.
"Mr. Dernich, don't play Russian roulette with H's life. Err on the side of caution. There's a reason the US government along with many other governments don't recognize the Taliban. Apply principles of common sense and decency"
This is the most chilling example of an assault on free speech and privacy rights by DHS in America that I can imagine. A 4-sentence e-mail to a DHS lawyer asking that a third party not be deported back to face the Taliban and possible death merited agents coming to the author of the e-mail’s home, and requests to Google for the records of his e-mail account and months of ACLU intervention to get the investigation dropped.
What triggered this investigation? Who approved the administrative subpoena within 4 hours of the e-mail being sent? Is this AI filtering gone amok? Why could this blatant intimidation occur without the need for a judicial warrant?
This is an attack on dissent in its most basic form. The right to express your opinion to government officials. IS DHS going to come after me for the strong opinions I send to my Republican Congressman next?
https://www.lawdork.com/p/dhss-investigation-of-a-man-who-emailed
I would not rule it out Georgia.
This is not going away.
https://bsky.app/profile/2the7thgen.bsky.social/post/3mehmempnrk2h
Putin-Netanyahu-Thiel-Musk-Trump-AIPAC-Mossad-MI6-CIA
Drugs-Trafficking-Weapons-Extortion-Blackmail-Rape-Torture-Murder
Trump is the Pedophile Protector In-Chief
This is not (ever) going away because Trump, his efforts to legitimize white-supremacist genocide, the resultant ChristoNazi conquest and its MAGAstapo terrorism (with Trumpstein as the ultimate expression of ruling-class sociopathy) are all the triumph of a multi-generation, bi-partisan scheme more than a century in the making, To learn of the carefully hidden roots of the crisis, the documentation of which include a PBS film about the enormous support for Hitler here in the '30s and additional, meticulously footnoted documentation of the plutocracy's support for Nazism, go here: https://open.substack.com/pub/heathercoxrichardson/p/january-25-2026?utm_campaign=comment-list-share-cta&utm_medium=web&comments=true&commentId=205274486
Is Epstein, finally, the hold Putin has over Trump?
I'm not so sure anybody has a hold on Trump. I think for reasons that are probably inconceivable to the rational mind -- most likely vengeance for some imagined slight -- he intends to destroy the nation, and Putin, trained as he is -- '"proceed in accordance with the circumstances" is a situational instruction in Red Army tactical doctrine -- is merely exploiting the opportunity Trump's madness provides. (It has been decades since I studied any psychology, but it seems to me the sort of compulsive destructiveness Trump evidences is a symptom of one of the major psychiatric ailments. Perhaps someone more knowledgeable will speak up.)
What an excellent example of why I support (and you should) Professors Richardson & Vance and Marc Elias’s Democracy Docket!! 🤩🤩🤩
What is Democracy Docket?
Marc Elias is a lawyer who has brought and continues to bring cases against the government for abuses and overreach.
Democracy Docket - Wikipedia https://share.google/simEsTOuykj3oNLJs
Linda, Marc Elias is a mensch and founder of Democracy Docket. Pls follow him. He and HCR have taught me volumes- along with the guests they interview.
https://www.democracydocket.com
Sign up for free or support Democracy Docket financially:
https://www.democracydocket.com/
Thx everyone for answering Linda’s question so promptly!
I believe 2026 will be decided in courtrooms with Marc Elias’s firm leading the way. I just upped my monthly contribution!
The judge who authorized the Fulton County warrant bears some responsibility for being part of the political farce as well. At best careless and inattentive, at worst incompetent or complicit.
Three million references to you in a database connected to Jeffrey Epstein isn't exactly a ringing endorsement of your ethics, personal standards of conduct, common sense, good judgment, respect for women and girls, or the law itself, let alone your own sanity....just saying.
Yes, so good it is starting to come out!
At best this is a regime protecting people that have abused the most vulnerable in deplorable, criminal ways. At worst, this is a regime trying like hell to hide the most dispicable crimes committed by the most significant of its own members and their broader cabal. Surely the people have to rise on mass to ensure this is exposed.
Watching Heathers interview with Sen Wyden shows the drive required. He clearly needs all the help he can get.
Another great. interview!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMmhGzZWTUs
All I can say at this point is that aI am so tired of all this. I have run out of fighting steam. I admire those of you that keep fighting for all of us. I am too old for this . I feel like I am being slapped daily, hourly, all the time....
Remember … “She who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day!”
Taking time out / off is vital, we all get our emotional energy sapped.
Take all the time you want off, doing things you love … and don’t return to these pages until curiosity gets the better of you! (Doctor’s Orders!) 🙃
I hear this so much. Yet I do not seem to be able to stay away. I know it is self-defeating. Thank you for your kind words.
Veronica, I just started doing Tai Chi in an effort to ward off some stress.
This is why some of us have described it as watching a ‘slow motion train wreck’.
— it’s horrendous but we can’t take our eyes off it.
Nature abhors a vacuum … so whatever you replace the doom-scrolling with needs to be as interesting & vital as the *temporary collapse of democracy. 🌺🌿
— and if you are of a Faith, have some meaningful discussions there.
The Good Book says that as bad as it gets, this too shall pass. Rev. 12:12, 24:4.
Ha! I've just said the same thing in only slightly different words, Doctor JJA. If I'd just scrolled down a bit further, I wouldn't have sent mine - but I'll leave it there, in support.
I find that I'm sleeping a lot more. I'm taking some anti-anxiety meds to fight emotional paralysis and waking-up-at-3am-with-pounding-heart. And I'm gathering with supportive, caring people. And singing. As much as I can.
Our choir director has pointed out that in a well trained choir often we have to deal with music requiring that we not breathe for insanely long periods of time. So a choir learns to "scatter their breathing" - some take breaths while others are singing through a phrase. Then others take their turns. We enter, do our part, then breathe, then enter again.
This is what we all have to do. I do what I can and when I get emotionally or physically overwhelmed, I let it go, watch some stupid TV or do something else restful, and come in again later. It will take all of us, and we have to stay mentally and physically healthy for the duration.
Stagger breathing. Us low brassers do a lot of that as well. 15 measures of a sustained C below the bass clef staff at even a moderate tempo is hard. In our section, the two oldest of us (60 and 67) do the even/odd measure breakdown: I breathe on the odd measures and he breathes on the even measures. Our section mate who is 24 breathes when he needs to, so someone is always playing.
I put on the Olympics, which I stream with Peacock almost zero commercials and since I’m using an Apple TV as long as they have already happened they are on the web and can then be accessed. It doesn’t matter who wins, just to be able to compete is a victory, and the joy is contagious. 🙏
That is all well and good. Tailor your phrasing to your lung capacity with proper technique and good tonal quality. Keep in mind as Alley notes that lower notes require more air though not more air pressure. What they lack in intensity they make up for in total energy, providing the harmonic foundation for the ensemble.
So much for singing. Otherwise, "float like a butterfly. Sting like a bee"
Gotta love that Mohammed Ali quote - Thanks for the intro.
— “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. 🦋
The hands can’t hit what the eyes can’t see.”
Veronica, the exhausting thing is that while the spirit maintains its fight, it's still only videos and protests; it's a fight but not a fight. So nobody gets hurt. But... Or...? Things can get worse. And will. Meanwhile, please have a rest. Fall back on the things you love. Stop reading the news every day. If you can! I can't, so I know what's happening to you.
Read Rebecca Solnit’s latest, take 3 deep breaths, and look away for a while:
https://www.meditationsinanemergency.com/auspicious-omens-and-excellent-insubordination/
Let’s let Sen. Wyden know we’ve got his back. Thank him for his leadership. And urge him to move his bill, S.2746, the Produce Epstein Treasury Records Act (PETRA) forward in the Senate.
Senator Ron Wyden DC Office: (202) 224-5244
https://www.wyden.senate.gov/contact/email-ron
He's my senior senator. The professor interviewed him this past week; it is worth a listen.
"FOLLOW THE MONEY!"
While it may be what some consider a good day because the Governors are uniting which for me is basically a low bar. Should they not be united in the first place we may need to start asking that… because at this point the revelations from some of the finally redacted information from the foulness of Epstein has not achieved much here in the U.S. because if it’s at this point what appears as an “awww shucks - I got caught in a lie” from Lutnick that’s not good enough… Maybe the bar is set way too low across the board.. Maybe because after reading letters from a 9 year old in a concentration camp in the USA in the year 2026 just guts me..
This morning will be on the phone once again with my soulless Republican shitheads (at this point refusing to call them representatives) they don’t represent a damn thing other than the pit of pure evil filth…
Would suggest reading The Big Picture - Jay Kuo as he ends this heartbreaking disgusting events that are currently happening —
“As people learn more about the deplorable, unsanitary and inhumane conditions of the prisons and camps, the incarceration of innocent people including thousands of children without access to adequate medical care, and the perverse and corrupt for-profit nature of the human trafficking paid for by the taxpayers, the protests outside such facilities are mounting.
If Congress and the courts cannot find a way to shut down America’s concentration camps, then the people may find a way to do so themselves. In the meantime, families and children continue to languish in a hellish legal limbo.”
These are not “detention centers” they are GD “concentration camps” — Call them what they are. Reading those children accounts in this country is like reading the Diary of Anne Frank — This is horrific..
https://open.substack.com/pub/thinkbigpicture/p/ice-dhs-detention-5th-circuit?r=viplr&utm_medium=ios&shareImageVariant=overlay
The plan might be to turn them into a free labor force, replacing the slaves they used to own whom they considered dispensable.
Have already thought that.. it’s a GD replay of the Holocaust am so sickened by this entire regime this government has become so putrid it’s like a cesspool of every stinking display of the 7-deadly sins… No decency and so little virtues it’s disgusting. The generation that fought against this realist gone and we all have forgotten what they asked us all to do Never Forget - Never Again
Have called those 3 shitheads in DC every day and they just don’t listen and stand up against this abomination. Just want to slap them across the face to wake up.. There’s a right versus wrong and maybe just so tired that it seems nothing is breaking through… stay safe and healthy…
Stay focused, stay safe... don't let them get to you. The world will turn after we are all gone... and history will repeat itself. People in DC don't seem to have the country in sight, nor the everyday Americans; just their ability to be re-elected to whatever post they hold. Representatives of both parties, with some exceptions, are guilty. We seem to have given them too much power. They should have more accountability.
What are GD “concentration camps?”
God Damned (GD) concentration camps…
After Epstein’s death in 2019, four banks cumulatively and retroactively flagged 5,000 suspicious wire transfers that moved approximately $1.5 billion in and out of Epstein’s accounts, many over a decade old.
That $1.5 billion in SARs represents a floor, not a ceiling—it captures only what banks eventually chose to flag and excludes potentially billions more in transactions that were processed but never reported as suspicious.
https://resistancemediainfo.substack.com/p/the-real-epstein-bombshell-isnt-at
I am waiting for the ball to drop on Jamie Dimon's head.
Ahh … that was 10 Feb 2026.
On 10 Feb 1936 the Reichstag passed a law giving the Geheimstaatspolitzei authority to arrest or detain anyone in Germany for any reason without any judicial authorization and with complete immunity. Sound familiar? Only now Trump+Vance+Noem seek to do it by executive decree giving the border police untrammeled authority to arrest from border to border, sea to shining sea. History rhymes!
But this historical rhyming scheme ends with a clunk as terminal as a head falling into a guillotine basket. It's increasingly obvious we are already as conquered as the Weimar Germans and therefore cannot liberate ourselves -- that our politicians will continue mouthing their unenforceable complaints and doing nothing; that the military will continue its oath-breaking surrender to the ChristoNazi regime; and that We the People will never achieve the disciplined solidarity necessary to nullify the white-male-supremacist majority. And we already know the longstanding "Better-Dead-Than-Red" policy the "Unified Reich" inherited from the failed United States -- its pledge to literally blow up the world rather than surrender (the reason its thermonuclear arsenal is reportedly larger than all other such arsenals combined) -- guarantees there will be no liberation from without.
It is most certainly NOT obvious we are "as conquered as Weimar Germany." Millions of people are resisting, MAGA is cracking, judges are ruling against them left and right, Donnie is dementifying and the people who were sure this was the real thing no longer find much of any of this passing a basic giggle test. The signs of a coming Rube Goldberg implosion are literally all around.
I simply do not understand people who ignore what's happening all around, ignore the cycles of history, taking absolutely no part in anything except to play the role of a pontificating Cassandra who shoots herself in the foot as often as gets anything right.
What that gets you at the end of the day, I don't know.
Right, ICTT, the proven futility of demonstrations as anything more collective expressions of self-righteous egotism; the murders of protestors; the radical expansion of death camps; the escalating death-camp murders; the radical expansion of death-squad operations into cities throughout the nation (https://www.wired.com/story/ice-expansion-across-us-at-heres-where-its-going-next/); the ChristoNazis' absolute control of all three branches of the federal government; the Democrats' posturing rendered utterly meaningless by its lack of enforcement capability; the Regime's ever-expanding persecutions of its opponents; its unstoppable effort to either fix or cancel the elections; its organized assaults on every conceivable front -- all this is proof "MAGA is cracking." Maybe in your world, blinded to reality whether out of duty to the reliably treacherous post-JFK/anti-New-Deal Democrats or merely by capitalism's cult of mandatory positivism, you pretend or delude yourself into believing these ongoing setbacks are indications of better times to come. But even if by some strange quirk of fate your analysis is correct, the (soonest) anything (might) change for the better -- and that's (only) if the ChristoNazis allow another election (and) are prevented from fixing it, (and) the Democratic Party can somehow overcome the Republicans' vast advantage in corporate money (with which the Republicans are sure to hire a sufficient number of Josef-Goebbels clones to mindpress-the-Moronic-Majority back to voting its routine hatefulness again) -- is January 2027. But how much higher will the body-count be by then? Will you write off all those additional dead as you're implicitly writing off Heather Heyer, Renee Good and Alex Pretti -- mere victims of "cycles of history"? I find it very telling, ICTT, that despite your obviously well-practiced progressive pretense, when vexed you never fail to manifest the sociopathic arrogance that defines all members of the capitalist ruling class. Be careful lest the foot you shoot is your own.
I repeat, read Solnit’s latest and take a break!
https://www.meditationsinanemergency.com/auspicious-omens-and-excellent-insubordination/