The past two days have seen a growing struggle between Democrats, who are demanding accountability from the Trump administration, and Republicans trying to hide what the administration is up to.
On top of everything, now “there is no longer a cap on nuclear weapons for the U.S. or Russia.” Awesome. (Sarcastic). I had not heard that and would be lying if I didn’t say it’s extremely concerning. Now I have another topic to send a round of messages to Congress about. 🤦♀️ Thanks for keeping us informed!
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.
Senator Wyden’s carefully worded open letter about a classified letter is as serious as anything any of us could imagine. None of us has a clue as to what this is all about, but whatever it is — it ain't small potatoes.
Send Senator Wyden a message of support even if you’re not his constituent. Actions like this are both serious and rare, and urgently needed if Article I of our Constitution is to regain any meaning whatever.
I think Sen. Wyden is a great example of leadership. His town halls are engaging, he respects differing opinions, and ultimately, he is a " bloodhound" in his quest for justice and truth. And now, he is a"whistle blower" of possible danger. In this darkness, he shines...
Sen. Wyden obviously knows that Trump, the ChristoNazi conquest and its MAGAstapo terrorism is the triumph of a multi-generation, bi-partisan scheme more than a century in the making, and his carefully worded open letter is therefore entirely appropriate. 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
Heather's catching the gravity of Senator Wyden's letter for this historical moment reminded me how she caught Adam Schiff's demand for Russia documents.
Just a guess -- came to me as I was shutting down to go to bed -- maybe der neu Führer is planning an executive order giving (his) CIA "emergency" permission for unlimited domestic operations. As I say, just a guess, but I can't think of anything more scandalous he could do with that particular agency. Obviously, we'll see.
Not to repeat conspiracy theories (but I will), supposedly the administration is using the CIA to surveil American citizens within the borders of the US.
This may be that French thing that has to have been simmering for a couple of weeks. The classified world is weird at times. If something is classified and yet public, one is still bound by the constraints of classification. I've seen this play out in a couple of fairly absurd ways in the past.
I've been calling my legislators every day with the same message and I tell them we will hold them accountable at election time if Schumer and his 'centrists' fold. Horse trading time is done - now it's time to stand your ground.
NO funding for DHS without meeting our demands. This is public money they're misspending.
"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."
Gary, it is clear Democrats are terrible negotiators. They need to go with the biggest demand like abolishing DHS and ICE in particular. All the things that are in the demands about ICE on the table are the very basics any law enforcement should meet which should never have to be negotiated. Where do they go from that basic? When Republicans balk at that basic set of rules, they are telling us all that they are OK with the brutalization of the American people which lets us all know they should not be in office anywhere in this nation. On this one, the "center" should have started negotiations with dump DHS!
That is exactly how I took it as well. Too many republicans appear to be just fine with the brutality and cruelty ICE forces on the American public and that says tons of the kind of people they really are. Democrats demands aren't impossible requests. Why are republicans fighting so hard to keep their gestapo force unknown to the rest of us.
They're the wrong ones to be negotiating. These individuals aren't opposition leaders - they're peacetime administrators. Good ones possibly - but not suited for the moment at hand. They need to be replaced with people who 1.) have a workable plan they can sell to the public, and 2.) are commited to fight to implement it and who will keep fighting until they do.
As the old quote goes, "I have no place for good losers! We need tough sons of bitches who can go out there and win"
Pretty rich that the response to the Democrats demands was to call them extreme and leftist -- really? unmasking / wearing ID / needing a judicial warrant / wearing regular uniforms and not nazi cosplay outfits. How do these people sleep at night?
Threat to humanity indeed. That's why 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'll do my best to be responsible for this posting, but I am 85 years old and terminally ill, which means others need be ready to pick up the torch on days I am absent and after I am no more.)
Thank you again for this, Megan. Stay safe, and try to get some rest. Some day you, HCR, Jess Craven (Chop Wood, Carry Water), Joyce Vance, and other activist women will enjoy good sleep after we've gotten rid of the FPFOTUS and his cronies.
Please write to your Senators and Representatives to strengthen protections for the human and constitutional rights of detainees in the ICE detention centers that are currently proposed in the DHS continuing resolution.
This is so frightening to learn that the last existing arms treaty between the U.S. and Russia expired today. As if just dealing with Trump and the regime's lawlessness, chaos and menacing intentions wasn't bad enough already, now there's the specter of another nuclear arms race or ,much worse, nuclear warfare.
The term overkill is used often today without thinking about what it really means. It was was first used in the mid-1940s to 1950s, as a military term to describe nuclear capabilities exceeding what was necessary for target destruction. First used as a verb in 1946, it was used as a noun in military discourse by 1957 because the atomic weaponry was becoming so much more destructive, and unnecessarily so.
Today there are an estimated 12,331 nuclear warheads, with over 9,600 in active military stockpiles, according to the Federation of Atomic Scientists' 2025 Status of the Worlds Nuclear Forces. Russia has about 5459...The U.S. 5277...which is not being overdramatic to say that those numbers alone would be enough to blow the world up 1000s of times over. North Korea has 50 nuclear weapons and that's enough to cause millions of deaths and major damage around the world like a nuclear winter.
During the height of the Cold War there were approximately 70,000 warheads owned by the nuclear-armed states, so at least the number of nuclear weapons have been reduced. But now that the New START treaty of 2011 has officially ended, nuclear arsenals are expected to grow over the coming decades and today’s nuclear weapons are vastly more capable than ever before.
Write or call your Senators and House Rep EVERY DAY. Think of it as brushing your teeth or using the toilet. And it can be done SO easily. I use a password manager that autofills all the contact info into the required email form - instantly. Write my message and copy it before sending it. Paste the message into the other two contact forms. The whole thing takes 3 to 5 minutes and I have made some good noise.
But there is another easier way to make some noise with your legislators. RESISTBOT.
The last paragraph of the newsletter was actually the important news because it shows that while this Trumpian shitshow is going on, important things are not being done. Putin offered in September last year to extend the treaty’s central limits for a year and despite Trump saying that it “sounds like a good idea” nothing was done. In January, Trump said of New START, “If it expires, it expires. We’ll do a better agreement.” Yet again, nothing has been done.
Under the treaty, the United States and Russia were limited to deploy each a maximum of 1,550 strategic nuclear warheads and 700 nuclear weapon delivery systems (which include land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and heavy bombers). In addition, each side was allowed to have 800 deployed and non-deployed launchers for these delivery vehicles, such as missile launchers, submarine launchers, and heavy bombers. That seems like plenty of weapons to me.
Furthermore, START did not limit nonstrategic nuclear weapons, even though Russia possesses more than 1,000 of them, nor did it limit new strategic weapon systems. Russia has not shared data on its deployed strategic nuclear forces since September 2022, it suspended its treaty participation altogether in February 2023, and the United States has not published any aggregate numbers since May 2023. This ought to have been high on the administration's agenda.
The casual reaction of the Trump administration to the expiry of the treaty stands in storng contrast to the warnings by both Barack Obama
although he has also said: “No START-4 is better than a treaty that only masks mutual distrust and provokes an arms race in other countries...”.
Trump claims to be making America great again but he's actually making the whole world less safe by his stupidity, like claiming that both China and Russia were secretly testing nuclear weapons.
Finally great to see Schumer and Jeffries standing up together. I’m nauseously optimistic that we will see substantial change in ICE thuggery, but how much remains unknown. The non-negotiable changes should include no masks, training similar to the local police and local law enforcement, all similar uniforms with identification and last but not least, be subject to criminal and civic liability. One more, no long guns, they are for the National Guard and Army.
The S&J list doesn't adequately address the human and constitutional rights abuses in the detention centers. It does it in a couple of words in point #8.
They are a worse stain on American history than the Japanese internment camps.
We can see for ourselves what is going on in the streets. The administration is hiding what is going on in the detention centers.
The transcript of the recent hearing in Minnesota, where the ICE attorney asked to be held in contempt, is a start.
Context: Heather's second to last paragraph tonight on Elon Musk:
********
Harper Collins is distributing a new book titled "Muskism" authored by Professor Quinn Slobodian & Ben Tarnoff. I already ordered a copy that is not available in my hands until April 2, 2026
The authors cover the on-going prosecutors' investigations in the UK , France & Spain. The French inquiry started a tear ago when Musk's 'X' was busted manipulating algorithms that included sexual imagery of over 2 million & up to 20K of children. The images are a are apparently a cauldron of AI manipulations
.
IMO, Musk is creating a Frankenstein corporate merger -- a new Musk monster likely labeled ‘XAI’.
We need the preliminary discoveries of the Euro investigations now!
"Robert A. Heinlein coined the term grok in his 1961 novel Stranger in a Strange Land as a Martian word that could not be defined in Earthling terms." [Wikipedia]
Then there’s also apparently a science fiction book that Nazi rocket scientist Werner Von Braun wrote in which some Martian overlord is called the Elon…
Hello Mike.... From HCR Today: " Another court case might tear away some of the administration’s obfuscation, as well. Zoe Tillman of Bloomberg reported today that U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang of the District of Maryland has denied the government’s request to block depositions of Elon Musk and two other former officials from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in a lawsuit charging Musk with unlawfully dismantling the agency.
Because Musk and the other two “likely have personal, first-hand knowledge of the facts relevant and essential to the resolution of this case,” Chuang said the testimony could go forward. While courts have generally said that “high-ranking government officials may not be deposed or called to testify about their reasons for taking official actions absent ‘extraordinary circumstances,’” Chuang said it was not clear that Musk and the other two were, in fact, high-ranking government officials.At the same time, the case appeared to meet the criteria for extraordinary circumstances. The government employees who brought the case argue that Musk personally dismantled USAID when he had no authority to do so. The judge noted that the government’s failure to produce documents that explained the decisions killing the agency, as required, suggested that the decisions had been made orally, so the testimony of Musk and the other two men is crucial to the case." ... ... Finally Elon Musk may be held Accountable for the Cruel Agonizing Deaths of Thousands.... Elon should lose his USA Citizenship, and should be sent back to South Africa if not be imprisoned here ...
I’m hung up on what the compromises might mean. If Schumer and Jeffries have to say OK to stripping some demands, doesn’t that mean rubber stamping some of the thuggery?
The conditions in ICE detention violate constitutional and human rights. The transcript of the Minnesota hearing, where the special US Attorney asked to be held in contempt so she could get some sleep, documents these abuses.
The press treated it as a joke.
It is one of the worst stains on our history, right up there with the Japanese internment camps.
ICE has to be abolished. The question is how.
Details of the transcript and Schumer's list are in the link.
I don’t think the press is treating it “like a joke” unless you are referring to the cheerleaders and non-entities on Fox News. Jennifer Psaki and others have had detailed segments on this, presenting it to the public with the seriousness and scrutiny it deserves.
Maybe get every eligible citizen registered to vote and devote all other efforts to getting them to actually vote. Not sure how many votes wouldn't happen successfully anyway in spite of Trump's attempt to cancel the vote. At some point civil war will loom.
Write to your representatives in Congress about the detention centers today. If S&J are smart they will not vote on the bill until as late as possible to allow that story to develop and to get some members of the Congressional oversight committees into visit the detention centers.
Find out if you are the constituent of someone on the oversight Committee and make a personal appeal for them to go before the vote. If you are close to a detention center, join a demonstration there.
Hello Georgia... Visit Contemporary Indigenous Tribal Lands... We have the lowest Life-Spans, the Highest UnEmployment, and now ICE Raids... The Japanese Internment Camps were situated close to some of our Tribal Lands, and the interned Japanese felt Sympathy for us....
Apache: There is a long list of stains on American history, the treatment of indigenous people being the longest and incredible in its brutality. Trump is trying to erase a lot of history and hide a lot more that is still in the making. Thank you for the source.
I used the Japanese internment camps as the most recent parallel because of the ethnic profiling and detentions, but it doesn't capture the current brutality. Says something about our history that there are so many choices for the comparison.
It is very, very late, and we are very far down the road to tyranny, but many people continue to live in their bubbles, saying that "living a happy life is a form of resistance" and that they can't stand to follow the news. I guarantee that every day that passes while this shitshow continues makes resistance harder and the eventual crash and subsequent clean-up longer, more difficult and more painful.
"Living a happy life is a form of resistance" is nonsense. Living a happy life while others suffer and our country is demolished is a form of unbelievable selfishness.
THIS! Thank you! You can still resist and do your best with whatever you have (time, joining an organization, money, just sharing an important message, passing on info, etc) and still have happiness and joy in your life. I will not be in the presence though of people who continue to bury their heads in the sand. White, well off, privileged friends who don’t want to hear about anything happening? Yeah those were people I knew and refuse to be around. They are complicit. Their silence is repulsive.
Agree. I am currently under some pressure to resume friendships I ended because of this very sense that continuing such relationships was complicity with a view I deplore and also just living a lie. Thanks for the strengthening message.
Finding joy is a necessary act of self-care and very important. And supporting the arts, writing, making art or crafts, etc., are almost subversive acts of resistance these days, at least sometimes.
Agree with the self-care and supporting the arts and all that but we can't flatter ourselves that it is "subversive." Survival, maybe, and maintaining parts of culture that can be reborn when the darkness lifts, yes.
We are caught in the time of monsters. The Trump gang has broken so many laws and lied so constantly that they are tangled in their own web. They contradict each other hour to hour. Yet, they still hold the power to not only waste our time and money while keeping us anxious, they make people sick, suffer and die.
But 98% of elected Republicans still support him. So, we have to defy the threats and keep the pressure on. We have to break the media bubble and the also pressure the silent corporations.
He knows he can’t win legally. His only answer is to act like the government in Iran. That’s why he clings to ICE. THE Dems have to stick to their “ unrealistic “ demands.
This is precisely what I suggested on several fora after Congress separately passed the other funding bills: Isolate ICE in order to apply even greater pressure to implement Democratic Demands. But pass funding for FEMA, the Coast Guard, TSA and other essential parts of DHS.
Several knowledgeable commenters shot that down with "No, that’s not how the budget process works."
They are right, of course – but these are NOT normal times!
The money for ICE in the CR is a pittance compared to the multiyear authorization in the OBBB Act. It has to be abolished as an institution to force the OBBBA to be amended.
Schumer and Jeffries' list of ICE reforms does not adequately address the human and constitutional rights abuses going on in the detention facilities. Those were exposed in the Minnesota court hearing, where the ICE attorney asked to be held in contempt so she could get some sleep. The press treated that as a clickbait story and left out the horrific news.
It remains to be seen how firmly Schumer and Jeffries maintain their position. And it also impossible to 'reform' ICE: abolishing it is the only solution. Our government should not have a private army of thugs at the disposal of the occupant of the Oval Office.
I agree ICE has to be abolished. That has to be done in a bipartisan way with a veto-proof majority in both houses. Therein lies the rub. The only way we got the Epstein Files Transparency Act was when Trump realized his veto would be overridden.
I think the only way to manage that in this case is to roll ICE into something else like CBP and put constraints on the combined entity, including vetting and retraining employees hired since January 1, 2025, to December 31, 2024, standards.
Then impeach Noem and every political appointee in a supervisory capacity at ICE for the human and constitutional rights abuses including those in the detention centers.
Amend the OBBBA to eliminate the multi-year ICE appropriations and put some of the money to expanding and reforming the immigration courts, and for a fund to cover the judgments in the civil cases arising from the abuse.
Write new legislation to require political appointees to have at least 5 years of supervisory experience in the agencies they are to head as a minimum requirement for Senate confirmation. That avoids the Noem and Patel disasters, unfortunately not Homan.
I agree. I think the Democrats should acknowledge that we need proper immigration rules and that removing undocumented adjudicated criminals makes sense - and propose a new agency. To often - as in "defund the police" their message is skewed and spun as "democrats hate police" -- the same way Trump kept saying that Biden loved open borders. So I think they should move ahead with the idea of reform - and say that the very name ICE is now so associated with thuggish behavior that we need a clean slate to start again.
Again, you state things as fact that are simply not true. Serious reporters are treating her testimony with the seriousness it clearly deserves. And independent media is all over it.
As far as trying to line up the circular firing squad against Jeffries and Schumer, it makes no sense. Your outrage is better directed against Thune and Barraso, who are both clearly terrified of the very concept of accountability widely considered routine for civilized police forces in all modern democracies.
I tire of listening to regular barrages against Democrats who have been skillfully manipulating their minority status to become a genuine pain in the ass for the lickspittle of the GOP. It’s like being upset with Ivory soap because it’s only 99 and 44/100% pure, instead of 114%. It just doesn’t make much sense.
Well said! We need to direct our ire at the Trump Regime and Republican lawmakers. It’s a huge mistake to channel energies into what is essentially a "circular firing squad" – in fact, it’s brain-dead and amounts to doing Trump’s and MAGA’s work for them!
ICTT: I form my opinions after using the feedly news consolidator which covers all of the major news outlets so I research what is appearing and where.
MSNOW, Jacob Soboroff has done some excellent reporting. Yesterday it reached unbearable for me with the story of the two year-old in her father’s arms. It was so bad that he, wife and child will self-deport to Ecuador. It hit me because of my family connection.
I am so sorry this horror is impacting you and your family.
I think the dam broke on the reporting yesterday, in part because of the court transcript reporting the extent of the purposeful systematic human and constitutional rights abuses in how ICE is handling detainees in the detention centers.
Up to then, the news focused on individual cases that broke your heart, but there was a resolution for little Liam. It couldn’t be all bad if little Liam and his Dad got to go back home. The reality behind what is happening is far darker.
Heather is dead on that the administration has been hiding as much as they can. S&J have to make the detention center conditions a major focus in the DHS CR debate and part of the bill. I hope it is enough to abolish ICE with a veto-proof majority like the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
But my gut tells me it’s not—it’s too existential an issue for Trump, especially after he saw he couldn’t control the narrative on the files once the bill was passed. He needs to keep ICE in place to fix the elections so he can stave off personal jeopardy.
I saw Senator Slotkin interviewed on Jim Acosta's show today. She's very smart and had a lot of insight about the intelligence agencies in the time of Trump and the strange case of Tulsi Gabbard, among so many other criminal acts by the regime, like ICE thuggery and funding. Very good interview and glad she's in the Senate doing much more than Schumer or a useless Susan Collins.
She is fantastic IMHO. She is my Senator and I stand with her. She’s been very vocal and provides insight and facts based on her experience working inside the administration under both parties. Additionally, she recently lost her father after a long illness but still stood strong for us. I hope she continues to be a shining star!
No. Shut it all down. Shut down Coast Guard to stop more wars. Shut down Customs to stop tax collection. FEMA is akready dead. So shut it all down, and let them all suffer while these goons are in charge of this NAZI inspired department of government.
The anti-ICE chants from protestors on the street are being echoed by real demands from our Democratic lawmakers. That alone is a huge step forward! And I am so relieved and encouraged to see Chuck Schumer & Hakeem Jeffries acting in tandem. Now we need to have their back.
These are great demands from Schumer & Jeffries! Very substantial. This one under #10 is huge:
“Prohibit tracking, creating or maintaining databases of individuals participating in First Amendment activities.”
#8 on the detention facilities is unconsiencably weak. S&J are only constraining what we can see on the streets. What is going on inside the facilities is being ignored.
Has anyone noticed that the US debt is around 37.7 trillion and as it's going, will pass 40 trillion this year? It costs a lot to fund chaos and authoritarianism. And who pays in the end?
By setting a precedent that allows the spouses and family members of a former president to be forced to testify under threat of criminal charges, the Trump administration has created a new potential starring role for Melania. How about a real-life sequel?
Brazenly and with impunity this president has lied, violated laws, disregarded court orders, showed only contempt for rule of law itself. How can any man escape accountability so completely? It's ironic that it's in Britain where public figures are paying the price for their alliances with Epstein. Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor has been stripped of his birthright title and his honors and his home, and made a pariah. Keir Starmer looks set to lose his position at the top of his government and all that goes with that. Peter Mandelson faces the possibility of a jail term for his dealings with Epstein. And here in America, where Epstein made his fortune and executed his pedophilia, our complicit president remains smug and secure, because our Congress is silent.
Heather shows an unceasing Republican campaign to hide, and to defend Donald's criminality.
But the Epstein part of it shows it's worse than such repetition alone would make it. To that worse, Representative Ro Khanna put it today as how “we have a moral crisis in America.”
He asked, too: “How shallow, reckless, self-entitled, arrogant is America’s elite that they did this for decades and no one blew the whistle?” And he added, “You have people at the highest levels in our universities, and in the media, in technology, and in finance all thinking this is totally normal?”
If we move on from this, it must include freeing teachers to set higher personal standards. They can do this teaching youth to write essays, and not at the impersonal levels which computers and AI easily score.
One shudders to think that there is so much we don’t know, when what we do know is so egregious. What they hide should keep us awake at night. And chump is chomping at the nuclear bit…
"a classroom banner that featured the words “Everyone is Welcome Here” and hands with various skin tones, according to a federal lawsuit."
"In July, Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador wrote in a Fox News op-ed that the state stood against 'woke' attempts at "indoctrination' like Inama’s sign.
Labrador, a Republican, claimed the sign was linked to a “broader ecosystem of political resistance groups launched in protest of the political rise of President Donald Trump” and alleged the sign was part of a left-wing movement that 'transformed learning spaces into venues for DEI messaging disguised as inclusion.' ”
Admin should serve teachers, J L. Not the other way around.
Finland has a great record showing the success of putting teachers first. Hire the best of them. Then get out of their way. If they need advice or consultation, they'll do that with each other.
Remember, Virginia, what happened nearly four years ago?
Russia invaded Ukraine then -- and many hundreds of thousands of Russian young men fled Putin's madness. Long lines of cars packed with people and their possessions waited to enter many neighboring countries, and one of the most popular was Finland.
LIAR FRAUD, CONVICTED-FELON TRUMP, TRUMP’s MAGAts and TRUMP’s REPUBLICAN SYCOPHANTS ARE PLANNING TO INTERFERE IN THE UPCOMING NOVEMBER ELECTIONS. THIS (please excuse the French) SHIT MUST NOT BE ALLOWED TO HAPPEN!
We ALL know (in fact, EVERYONE knows) that NO NON-US CITIZENS will show up at the polls this coming November.
We ALL must be aware that, on election day, Trump will send his ICE and CBP goons to every polling place in Blue States and to every heavily-populated minority voting district polling place in Red States. ICE and CBP will not be there to arrest/detain non-US citizens, they will be there to INITIMIDATE – and to (excuse the French) FUCK with US citizens who came to cast their votes. As we’ve already seen across the U.S., ICE and CBP goons are racial profiling and are stopping and demanding proof of citizenship from US citizens. This will seriously delay people casting their votes. This will seriously delay the voting process to the point where polls might close before citizens have had the opportunity to cast their votes. This will also deter US citizens from showing up at the polls, simply because they do not want to go through the hassle, the annoyance of being stopped by ICE and CBP. FED GOV interference at polling places cannot be allowed to take place! We must – WE MUST – do EVERYTHING we can to prevent election interference from taking place. We must get an injunction from the courts to prevent this from taking place.
Please DO NOT WAIT. Time is of the essence. Contact your Senators and Representatives. Demand that they take action to prevent ICE and CBP (as well as all other FED GOV agents) from disrupting and interfering with the election. Also send letters to SCOTUS Justices. Put them on notice that WE THE PEOPLE will not tolerate election interference and that WE THE PEOPLE will hold them accountable and will do so by any means necessary. Please also send a copy of this post to every reporter you have an email address for.
UPDATE:::::
Article on Democracy Docket AFTER I wrote the post above:
MENU
* NEWS
* VOTING
* WHITE HOUSE
White House ‘can’t guarantee’ ICE won’t be at polls
By Yunior Rivas
February 5, 2026
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt gives remarks during a press briefing in the James Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House in Washington DC, on Thursday, February 6, 2026. Credit: Aaron Schwartz/CNP Photo by: Aaron Schwartz/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images
The White House Thursday refused to rule out the presence of immigration enforcement at voting locations this November, a response that follows extremist rhetoric about placing federal forces at the polls.
Asked directly about far-right activist Steve Bannon’s claim that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) would “surround the polls,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt dismissed the question while conceding the Trump administration could not promise such a thing would not happen.
“That’s not something I’ve ever heard the president consider,” Leavitt said. “I can’t guarantee that an ICE agent won’t be around a polling location in November.”
And, what of poll workers? Will there still be volunteers? Will they be “vetted,” replaced by “special employees,” handpicked by the local Republican parties? Maybe elections will be federalized by November.
“Those demands are pretty straightforward, but if written into law as required for the release of funds, they would change behavior.”
We already have an administration that is not following the law, including those in the Bill of Rights. What guarantee do we have if/when money is allocated they will follow the (new) law?
Idiotic. Schumer is living in the 1970s. Or whoever said this. These are poison pills to Republicans. Yo6 want them to eat them ? Kill all further funding for DHS. The bloody votes are there !
Not saying some of these topics aren't reasonable but framing them as "demands" is hardly a good faith start to negotiations. Or is "good faith" is too much to expect?
As for masks, how about the protesters leave their masks home too?
To argue that these demands are not good faith starting points is... well you are arguing for the right to violate the law.
Which leaves, uniforms, and not invading the sanctuary of a place of worship or school, and wearing clear identifying uniforms. These are both common sense reforms.
A reasonable ending place is to recognize that these institutions are not serving the people and their mission should be performed in other less corrupt agencies.
"Good faith" in what? In the president's promises? In some action he takes today but TACOs tomorrow. Look who we are dealing with. Good faith is far to much to expect or bestow.
Trump aside, the point is anybody who is serious does not begin negotiations with demands. All that says is "you give us what we want or we pout and hold our breath".
This president does not negotiate. He bullies he threatens he extorts. The Democrats have tried negotiating in good faith repeatedly, to the point of seeming weak. They are dealing with a pathological liar whose ego cannot abide defeat or loss. And most true negotiations will of necessity involve some loss. Each party will give up something. Our president cannot do that, he is congenitally, constitutionally if you will, unable to handle losing. He'll eviscerate the Constitution, the rule of law, the world order to look invincible, if he must.
I have a hard time deciding if chump is losing it or if he is Nero resurrected. All the above. Part of post yo TC in LA earlier. He seems so invested in his building and reinventing the capitol, it’s almost as if he is in his glory instead of distressed. I have to say that the basic anxiety is part and parcel of his pathology, seems to me. Yes, he loves living on the edge, and “outsmarting” those he controls. It’s a game with his rules, his realm, his power (given black to him by Kevin McCarthy in an action that remains unfathomable). I think that he will enjoy every second that he is able to twist the knife…until the turd turns. I hope I live that long. Yes, I said “outsmart.” His thug skills qualify. Two elections, fooling so many, even with Rupert’s propaganda and muskrat’s money, reinforces his tin horn bravado. That “big ego” that he claims is justified, is it not. Chump is a happy man, even as he skates on razor-thin ice. Maybe because he does. And always has. Vlad being really in control dampens his bravado not in the least. But should…
“Until the turd turns” indeed, or until a sufficient number of terrified wormtongues out there start imagining what their *own* lives will look like once it does.
Pete Buttigieg said recently that Republicans have already begun imagining that day — why don’t we? 39 Republican Congresscritters have announced they will not be seeking re-election in 2026. No doubt to spend more precious time with their families, of course.
Their fear of getting primaried, doxxed, pizza-ed, or just plain run out of town is now far greater than our fear of taking on truly daunting challenges. The cracks are widening. The undercurrents do not bode well for them, and it’s likely they know it.
On top of everything, now “there is no longer a cap on nuclear weapons for the U.S. or Russia.” Awesome. (Sarcastic). I had not heard that and would be lying if I didn’t say it’s extremely concerning. Now I have another topic to send a round of messages to Congress about. 🤦♀️ Thanks for keeping us informed!
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 ✊
Senator Wyden’s carefully worded open letter about a classified letter is as serious as anything any of us could imagine. None of us has a clue as to what this is all about, but whatever it is — it ain't small potatoes.
Send Senator Wyden a message of support even if you’re not his constituent. Actions like this are both serious and rare, and urgently needed if Article I of our Constitution is to regain any meaning whatever.
I think Sen. Wyden is a great example of leadership. His town halls are engaging, he respects differing opinions, and ultimately, he is a " bloodhound" in his quest for justice and truth. And now, he is a"whistle blower" of possible danger. In this darkness, he shines...
Sen. Wyden obviously knows that Trump, the ChristoNazi conquest and its MAGAstapo terrorism is the triumph of a multi-generation, bi-partisan scheme more than a century in the making, and his carefully worded open letter is therefore entirely appropriate. 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
Did you read Joyce Vance today? She quoted Ann Frank's diary entry. Reminds me of what's happening today. In 2026.
Heather's catching the gravity of Senator Wyden's letter for this historical moment reminded me how she caught Adam Schiff's demand for Russia documents.
Just a guess -- came to me as I was shutting down to go to bed -- maybe der neu Führer is planning an executive order giving (his) CIA "emergency" permission for unlimited domestic operations. As I say, just a guess, but I can't think of anything more scandalous he could do with that particular agency. Obviously, we'll see.
Not to repeat conspiracy theories (but I will), supposedly the administration is using the CIA to surveil American citizens within the borders of the US.
Obviously this is quite illegal.
This may be that French thing that has to have been simmering for a couple of weeks. The classified world is weird at times. If something is classified and yet public, one is still bound by the constraints of classification. I've seen this play out in a couple of fairly absurd ways in the past.
Done.
I've been calling my legislators every day with the same message and I tell them we will hold them accountable at election time if Schumer and his 'centrists' fold. Horse trading time is done - now it's time to stand your ground.
NO funding for DHS without meeting our demands. This is public money they're misspending.
"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
Gary, it is clear Democrats are terrible negotiators. They need to go with the biggest demand like abolishing DHS and ICE in particular. All the things that are in the demands about ICE on the table are the very basics any law enforcement should meet which should never have to be negotiated. Where do they go from that basic? When Republicans balk at that basic set of rules, they are telling us all that they are OK with the brutalization of the American people which lets us all know they should not be in office anywhere in this nation. On this one, the "center" should have started negotiations with dump DHS!
That is exactly how I took it as well. Too many republicans appear to be just fine with the brutality and cruelty ICE forces on the American public and that says tons of the kind of people they really are. Democrats demands aren't impossible requests. Why are republicans fighting so hard to keep their gestapo force unknown to the rest of us.
2 of the 3 MAGA House Reps here in Baghdad By the Sea have broken with Trump on immigration. Both Cuban Americans.
But that doesn't mean they'll publicly support Dems.
Hopefully, Jeffries has been working the problem solvers' conference.
They're the wrong ones to be negotiating. These individuals aren't opposition leaders - they're peacetime administrators. Good ones possibly - but not suited for the moment at hand. They need to be replaced with people who 1.) have a workable plan they can sell to the public, and 2.) are commited to fight to implement it and who will keep fighting until they do.
As the old quote goes, "I have no place for good losers! We need tough sons of bitches who can go out there and win"
This! And how do we know there isn’t another negotiation simmering behind or within this demand strategy? Israel, Russia, Epstein, something?
Pretty rich that the response to the Democrats demands was to call them extreme and leftist -- really? unmasking / wearing ID / needing a judicial warrant / wearing regular uniforms and not nazi cosplay outfits. How do these people sleep at night?
Laurie, in terms of how they sleep at night, as the joke goes, from the rafters. (At least regarding Stephen Miller,)
Threat to humanity and they're ignoring it.
Threat to humanity indeed. That's why 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'll do my best to be responsible for this posting, but I am 85 years old and terminally ill, which means others need be ready to pick up the torch on days I am absent and after I am no more.)
Thank you again for this, Megan. Stay safe, and try to get some rest. Some day you, HCR, Jess Craven (Chop Wood, Carry Water), Joyce Vance, and other activist women will enjoy good sleep after we've gotten rid of the FPFOTUS and his cronies.
Thanks for continuing to share this important resource.
Please write to your Senators and Representatives to strengthen protections for the human and constitutional rights of detainees in the ICE detention centers that are currently proposed in the DHS continuing resolution.
YES. We must keep the pressure on about these virtual concentration camps. Simon Rosenberg's excellent newsletter yesterday is horrifying and enlightening: https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/we-know-enough-powerful-testimony
Thank you for the link.
This is so frightening to learn that the last existing arms treaty between the U.S. and Russia expired today. As if just dealing with Trump and the regime's lawlessness, chaos and menacing intentions wasn't bad enough already, now there's the specter of another nuclear arms race or ,much worse, nuclear warfare.
The term overkill is used often today without thinking about what it really means. It was was first used in the mid-1940s to 1950s, as a military term to describe nuclear capabilities exceeding what was necessary for target destruction. First used as a verb in 1946, it was used as a noun in military discourse by 1957 because the atomic weaponry was becoming so much more destructive, and unnecessarily so.
Today there are an estimated 12,331 nuclear warheads, with over 9,600 in active military stockpiles, according to the Federation of Atomic Scientists' 2025 Status of the Worlds Nuclear Forces. Russia has about 5459...The U.S. 5277...which is not being overdramatic to say that those numbers alone would be enough to blow the world up 1000s of times over. North Korea has 50 nuclear weapons and that's enough to cause millions of deaths and major damage around the world like a nuclear winter.
During the height of the Cold War there were approximately 70,000 warheads owned by the nuclear-armed states, so at least the number of nuclear weapons have been reduced. But now that the New START treaty of 2011 has officially ended, nuclear arsenals are expected to grow over the coming decades and today’s nuclear weapons are vastly more capable than ever before.
https://www.icanw.org/nuclear_arsenals.
Thank you for always making this available and sharing your spreadsheet.
Yes! Thank you Megan.
Write or call your Senators and House Rep EVERY DAY. Think of it as brushing your teeth or using the toilet. And it can be done SO easily. I use a password manager that autofills all the contact info into the required email form - instantly. Write my message and copy it before sending it. Paste the message into the other two contact forms. The whole thing takes 3 to 5 minutes and I have made some good noise.
But there is another easier way to make some noise with your legislators. RESISTBOT.
Here is one petition. But you will find many at this site: https://resist.bot/petitions/PRISZH
And if you need more ideas to scream about (not likely) just read Jess Craven's "Chop Wood, Carry Water". She is a public treasure and indefatigable.
https://chopwoodcarrywaterdailyactions.substack.com/
Whatever tool you use, don't stop. Don't let them wear you down.
And after all that, I am sure you have some energy left to read a brilliant article that explains a lot. And should make us even more motivated.
https://richarddavidhames.substack.com/p/the-woman-in-the-dock
Epstein=Trump=Putin
The last paragraph of the newsletter was actually the important news because it shows that while this Trumpian shitshow is going on, important things are not being done. Putin offered in September last year to extend the treaty’s central limits for a year and despite Trump saying that it “sounds like a good idea” nothing was done. In January, Trump said of New START, “If it expires, it expires. We’ll do a better agreement.” Yet again, nothing has been done.
Under the treaty, the United States and Russia were limited to deploy each a maximum of 1,550 strategic nuclear warheads and 700 nuclear weapon delivery systems (which include land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and heavy bombers). In addition, each side was allowed to have 800 deployed and non-deployed launchers for these delivery vehicles, such as missile launchers, submarine launchers, and heavy bombers. That seems like plenty of weapons to me.
Furthermore, START did not limit nonstrategic nuclear weapons, even though Russia possesses more than 1,000 of them, nor did it limit new strategic weapon systems. Russia has not shared data on its deployed strategic nuclear forces since September 2022, it suspended its treaty participation altogether in February 2023, and the United States has not published any aggregate numbers since May 2023. This ought to have been high on the administration's agenda.
The casual reaction of the Trump administration to the expiry of the treaty stands in storng contrast to the warnings by both Barack Obama
https://x.com/BarackObama/status/2018323947230540249
and Dmitri Medvedev (who signed the treaty with Obama in 2010)
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/russias-medvedev-says-expiry-start-070109249.html
although he has also said: “No START-4 is better than a treaty that only masks mutual distrust and provokes an arms race in other countries...”.
Trump claims to be making America great again but he's actually making the whole world less safe by his stupidity, like claiming that both China and Russia were secretly testing nuclear weapons.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/oct/29/trump-pentagon-us-nuclear-weapons
Finally great to see Schumer and Jeffries standing up together. I’m nauseously optimistic that we will see substantial change in ICE thuggery, but how much remains unknown. The non-negotiable changes should include no masks, training similar to the local police and local law enforcement, all similar uniforms with identification and last but not least, be subject to criminal and civic liability. One more, no long guns, they are for the National Guard and Army.
Yes. Take away the long guns and swat gear. I wonder how many J6ers are now in ICE living out their fantasies.
General Mark Milley called "The Proud Boys" etc. 'the same people we fought in WWII".
I've wondered that as well.
The first time we went to Cancun I was shocked to see militia with a machine gun as we exited the airport on a bus.
And they weren't wearing masks and terrorizing the population.
I'm all in on them wearing regular police uniforms and losing the pepper spray and tears gas on peaceful protesters.
FUCK TRUMP, FUCK ICE and FUCK REPUBLICANS.
They are all Fascists pigs.
and all those paramilitary militias that played warrior on the weekend - this must be their wet dream.
The S&J list doesn't adequately address the human and constitutional rights abuses in the detention centers. It does it in a couple of words in point #8.
They are a worse stain on American history than the Japanese internment camps.
We can see for ourselves what is going on in the streets. The administration is hiding what is going on in the detention centers.
The transcript of the recent hearing in Minnesota, where the ICE attorney asked to be held in contempt, is a start.
Context: Heather's second to last paragraph tonight on Elon Musk:
********
Harper Collins is distributing a new book titled "Muskism" authored by Professor Quinn Slobodian & Ben Tarnoff. I already ordered a copy that is not available in my hands until April 2, 2026
The authors cover the on-going prosecutors' investigations in the UK , France & Spain. The French inquiry started a tear ago when Musk's 'X' was busted manipulating algorithms that included sexual imagery of over 2 million & up to 20K of children. The images are a are apparently a cauldron of AI manipulations
.
IMO, Musk is creating a Frankenstein corporate merger -- a new Musk monster likely labeled ‘XAI’.
We need the preliminary discoveries of the Euro investigations now!
*******************************************************************
Xai sounds pernicious evil and menacing
Here is another Musk product "Grok' Frankly, I not understand it or its creepy symbol.
Techies, please advise.
It’s a reference to an old Robert Heinlein novel. Musk thinks he’s the first person in the world to have read and “grokked” 1950s sci-fi.
Elon Musk keeps acting like a "stranger in a strange land" – and in his case I don’t mean that in a good way.
"Robert A. Heinlein coined the term grok in his 1961 novel Stranger in a Strange Land as a Martian word that could not be defined in Earthling terms." [Wikipedia]
Then there’s also apparently a science fiction book that Nazi rocket scientist Werner Von Braun wrote in which some Martian overlord is called the Elon…
Nazi salutes
Nauseously optimistic- says it all
Hello Mike.... From HCR Today: " Another court case might tear away some of the administration’s obfuscation, as well. Zoe Tillman of Bloomberg reported today that U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang of the District of Maryland has denied the government’s request to block depositions of Elon Musk and two other former officials from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in a lawsuit charging Musk with unlawfully dismantling the agency.
Because Musk and the other two “likely have personal, first-hand knowledge of the facts relevant and essential to the resolution of this case,” Chuang said the testimony could go forward. While courts have generally said that “high-ranking government officials may not be deposed or called to testify about their reasons for taking official actions absent ‘extraordinary circumstances,’” Chuang said it was not clear that Musk and the other two were, in fact, high-ranking government officials.At the same time, the case appeared to meet the criteria for extraordinary circumstances. The government employees who brought the case argue that Musk personally dismantled USAID when he had no authority to do so. The judge noted that the government’s failure to produce documents that explained the decisions killing the agency, as required, suggested that the decisions had been made orally, so the testimony of Musk and the other two men is crucial to the case." ... ... Finally Elon Musk may be held Accountable for the Cruel Agonizing Deaths of Thousands.... Elon should lose his USA Citizenship, and should be sent back to South Africa if not be imprisoned here ...
Nauseously? LOL.
More ICE thuggery:
https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/ice-aliya-rahman-minneapolis-autism-b2912407.html
I’m hung up on what the compromises might mean. If Schumer and Jeffries have to say OK to stripping some demands, doesn’t that mean rubber stamping some of the thuggery?
The conditions in ICE detention violate constitutional and human rights. The transcript of the Minnesota hearing, where the special US Attorney asked to be held in contempt so she could get some sleep, documents these abuses.
The press treated it as a joke.
It is one of the worst stains on our history, right up there with the Japanese internment camps.
ICE has to be abolished. The question is how.
Details of the transcript and Schumer's list are in the link.
https://georgiafisanick.substack.com/p/the-end-of-ice-and-conviction-of
I don’t think the press is treating it “like a joke” unless you are referring to the cheerleaders and non-entities on Fox News. Jennifer Psaki and others have had detailed segments on this, presenting it to the public with the seriousness and scrutiny it deserves.
Hear what the people are saying. No more ICE. No more money fir it. Period. Repair is by disposal.
Tyler: Disposal requires a veto-proof majority in both houses. How do you get there sooner than the intolerably long wait for 2028?
Georgia, how about impeachment and conviction?
Love it. Got 2/3 in the Senate to convict?
Maybe the human and constitutional rights abuses in the ICE detention camps will get it there if S&J push it hard enough. My ardent hope.
But it is an existential issue for Trump. He will pull out all the stops in pressuring the Senate Republicans. There has to be a Plan B.
Maybe get every eligible citizen registered to vote and devote all other efforts to getting them to actually vote. Not sure how many votes wouldn't happen successfully anyway in spite of Trump's attempt to cancel the vote. At some point civil war will loom.
Write to your representatives in Congress about the detention centers today. If S&J are smart they will not vote on the bill until as late as possible to allow that story to develop and to get some members of the Congressional oversight committees into visit the detention centers.
Find out if you are the constituent of someone on the oversight Committee and make a personal appeal for them to go before the vote. If you are close to a detention center, join a demonstration there.
Hello Georgia... Visit Contemporary Indigenous Tribal Lands... We have the lowest Life-Spans, the Highest UnEmployment, and now ICE Raids... The Japanese Internment Camps were situated close to some of our Tribal Lands, and the interned Japanese felt Sympathy for us....
Apache: There is a long list of stains on American history, the treatment of indigenous people being the longest and incredible in its brutality. Trump is trying to erase a lot of history and hide a lot more that is still in the making. Thank you for the source.
I used the Japanese internment camps as the most recent parallel because of the ethnic profiling and detentions, but it doesn't capture the current brutality. Says something about our history that there are so many choices for the comparison.
Thank You, Georgia. Shared.
It is very, very late, and we are very far down the road to tyranny, but many people continue to live in their bubbles, saying that "living a happy life is a form of resistance" and that they can't stand to follow the news. I guarantee that every day that passes while this shitshow continues makes resistance harder and the eventual crash and subsequent clean-up longer, more difficult and more painful.
"Living a happy life is a form of resistance" is nonsense. Living a happy life while others suffer and our country is demolished is a form of unbelievable selfishness.
THIS! Thank you! You can still resist and do your best with whatever you have (time, joining an organization, money, just sharing an important message, passing on info, etc) and still have happiness and joy in your life. I will not be in the presence though of people who continue to bury their heads in the sand. White, well off, privileged friends who don’t want to hear about anything happening? Yeah those were people I knew and refuse to be around. They are complicit. Their silence is repulsive.
Agree. I am currently under some pressure to resume friendships I ended because of this very sense that continuing such relationships was complicity with a view I deplore and also just living a lie. Thanks for the strengthening message.
Leave a window open for (former) friends who begin to sense they've been conned. Of course, that awakening won't come until Faux News is killed.
Finding joy is a necessary act of self-care and very important. And supporting the arts, writing, making art or crafts, etc., are almost subversive acts of resistance these days, at least sometimes.
Agree with the self-care and supporting the arts and all that but we can't flatter ourselves that it is "subversive." Survival, maybe, and maintaining parts of culture that can be reborn when the darkness lifts, yes.
If they can’t stand it now, what’s an ostrich to do as they up the ante…
Word up.
We are caught in the time of monsters. The Trump gang has broken so many laws and lied so constantly that they are tangled in their own web. They contradict each other hour to hour. Yet, they still hold the power to not only waste our time and money while keeping us anxious, they make people sick, suffer and die.
But 98% of elected Republicans still support him. So, we have to defy the threats and keep the pressure on. We have to break the media bubble and the also pressure the silent corporations.
He knows he can’t win legally. His only answer is to act like the government in Iran. That’s why he clings to ICE. THE Dems have to stick to their “ unrealistic “ demands.
The demands don't go far enough.
Of course, Gabbard, Bondi, Noem, and Hegseth should be relieved of their positions immediately. We’ll get to the rest next. Criminals, all
"Senator Slotkin raises idea of funding everything at DHS but ICE."
https://bsky.app/profile/burgessev.bsky.social/post/3me4yzhdzoc25
This is precisely what I suggested on several fora after Congress separately passed the other funding bills: Isolate ICE in order to apply even greater pressure to implement Democratic Demands. But pass funding for FEMA, the Coast Guard, TSA and other essential parts of DHS.
Several knowledgeable commenters shot that down with "No, that’s not how the budget process works."
They are right, of course – but these are NOT normal times!
The money for ICE in the CR is a pittance compared to the multiyear authorization in the OBBB Act. It has to be abolished as an institution to force the OBBBA to be amended.
Schumer and Jeffries' list of ICE reforms does not adequately address the human and constitutional rights abuses going on in the detention facilities. Those were exposed in the Minnesota court hearing, where the ICE attorney asked to be held in contempt so she could get some sleep. The press treated that as a clickbait story and left out the horrific news.
It remains to be seen how firmly Schumer and Jeffries maintain their position. And it also impossible to 'reform' ICE: abolishing it is the only solution. Our government should not have a private army of thugs at the disposal of the occupant of the Oval Office.
I agree ICE has to be abolished. That has to be done in a bipartisan way with a veto-proof majority in both houses. Therein lies the rub. The only way we got the Epstein Files Transparency Act was when Trump realized his veto would be overridden.
I think the only way to manage that in this case is to roll ICE into something else like CBP and put constraints on the combined entity, including vetting and retraining employees hired since January 1, 2025, to December 31, 2024, standards.
Then impeach Noem and every political appointee in a supervisory capacity at ICE for the human and constitutional rights abuses including those in the detention centers.
Amend the OBBBA to eliminate the multi-year ICE appropriations and put some of the money to expanding and reforming the immigration courts, and for a fund to cover the judgments in the civil cases arising from the abuse.
Write new legislation to require political appointees to have at least 5 years of supervisory experience in the agencies they are to head as a minimum requirement for Senate confirmation. That avoids the Noem and Patel disasters, unfortunately not Homan.
Do you see another way to do it?
I agree. I think the Democrats should acknowledge that we need proper immigration rules and that removing undocumented adjudicated criminals makes sense - and propose a new agency. To often - as in "defund the police" their message is skewed and spun as "democrats hate police" -- the same way Trump kept saying that Biden loved open borders. So I think they should move ahead with the idea of reform - and say that the very name ICE is now so associated with thuggish behavior that we need a clean slate to start again.
Brown Shirts by any other name...
Again, you state things as fact that are simply not true. Serious reporters are treating her testimony with the seriousness it clearly deserves. And independent media is all over it.
As far as trying to line up the circular firing squad against Jeffries and Schumer, it makes no sense. Your outrage is better directed against Thune and Barraso, who are both clearly terrified of the very concept of accountability widely considered routine for civilized police forces in all modern democracies.
I tire of listening to regular barrages against Democrats who have been skillfully manipulating their minority status to become a genuine pain in the ass for the lickspittle of the GOP. It’s like being upset with Ivory soap because it’s only 99 and 44/100% pure, instead of 114%. It just doesn’t make much sense.
Well said! We need to direct our ire at the Trump Regime and Republican lawmakers. It’s a huge mistake to channel energies into what is essentially a "circular firing squad" – in fact, it’s brain-dead and amounts to doing Trump’s and MAGA’s work for them!
ICTT: I form my opinions after using the feedly news consolidator which covers all of the major news outlets so I research what is appearing and where.
Do you?
My comments are directed at your judgment. All of us are capable of gathering whatever facts we like to support our own conclusions.
But we know that the MSM is not reporting the worst, right?
MSNOW, Jacob Soboroff has done some excellent reporting. Yesterday it reached unbearable for me with the story of the two year-old in her father’s arms. It was so bad that he, wife and child will self-deport to Ecuador. It hit me because of my family connection.
I am so sorry this horror is impacting you and your family.
I think the dam broke on the reporting yesterday, in part because of the court transcript reporting the extent of the purposeful systematic human and constitutional rights abuses in how ICE is handling detainees in the detention centers.
Up to then, the news focused on individual cases that broke your heart, but there was a resolution for little Liam. It couldn’t be all bad if little Liam and his Dad got to go back home. The reality behind what is happening is far darker.
Heather is dead on that the administration has been hiding as much as they can. S&J have to make the detention center conditions a major focus in the DHS CR debate and part of the bill. I hope it is enough to abolish ICE with a veto-proof majority like the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
But my gut tells me it’s not—it’s too existential an issue for Trump, especially after he saw he couldn’t control the narrative on the files once the bill was passed. He needs to keep ICE in place to fix the elections so he can stave off personal jeopardy.
I saw Senator Slotkin interviewed on Jim Acosta's show today. She's very smart and had a lot of insight about the intelligence agencies in the time of Trump and the strange case of Tulsi Gabbard, among so many other criminal acts by the regime, like ICE thuggery and funding. Very good interview and glad she's in the Senate doing much more than Schumer or a useless Susan Collins.
She is fantastic IMHO. She is my Senator and I stand with her. She’s been very vocal and provides insight and facts based on her experience working inside the administration under both parties. Additionally, she recently lost her father after a long illness but still stood strong for us. I hope she continues to be a shining star!
She's terrific -- I grew up in Michigan and am proud that she represents the state!
So proud to have voted for Senator Slotkin here in Michigan!
And, don't underestimate our esteemed Senator Slotkin (Michigan)!
No. Shut it all down. Shut down Coast Guard to stop more wars. Shut down Customs to stop tax collection. FEMA is akready dead. So shut it all down, and let them all suffer while these goons are in charge of this NAZI inspired department of government.
ECHOING THE CHANTS OF PROTESTORS
The anti-ICE chants from protestors on the street are being echoed by real demands from our Democratic lawmakers. That alone is a huge step forward! And I am so relieved and encouraged to see Chuck Schumer & Hakeem Jeffries acting in tandem. Now we need to have their back.
These are great demands from Schumer & Jeffries! Very substantial. This one under #10 is huge:
“Prohibit tracking, creating or maintaining databases of individuals participating in First Amendment activities.”
#8 on the detention facilities is unconsiencably weak. S&J are only constraining what we can see on the streets. What is going on inside the facilities is being ignored.
This will not make up for Schumers past sins. He has got to go.
Here we go again. Let’s crank up that ole’ time circular firing squad. It’s worked SO well in the past, hasn’t it?
But will they cave, repubs think so.
Has anyone noticed that the US debt is around 37.7 trillion and as it's going, will pass 40 trillion this year? It costs a lot to fund chaos and authoritarianism. And who pays in the end?
Putin is laughing as he plans which pieces of Europe to take over first.
Since he already successfully took over the U.S.A.
Yes Stephen Ranck….Bankrupt
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DUOa5yuDQNI/?igsh=MWNpMnJ5dGtkNmdwZQ==
By setting a precedent that allows the spouses and family members of a former president to be forced to testify under threat of criminal charges, the Trump administration has created a new potential starring role for Melania. How about a real-life sequel?
Are you really saying that some folks are actually above the law?
Haha...if only it were a laughing matter!
Brazenly and with impunity this president has lied, violated laws, disregarded court orders, showed only contempt for rule of law itself. How can any man escape accountability so completely? It's ironic that it's in Britain where public figures are paying the price for their alliances with Epstein. Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor has been stripped of his birthright title and his honors and his home, and made a pariah. Keir Starmer looks set to lose his position at the top of his government and all that goes with that. Peter Mandelson faces the possibility of a jail term for his dealings with Epstein. And here in America, where Epstein made his fortune and executed his pedophilia, our complicit president remains smug and secure, because our Congress is silent.
Heather shows an unceasing Republican campaign to hide, and to defend Donald's criminality.
But the Epstein part of it shows it's worse than such repetition alone would make it. To that worse, Representative Ro Khanna put it today as how “we have a moral crisis in America.”
He asked, too: “How shallow, reckless, self-entitled, arrogant is America’s elite that they did this for decades and no one blew the whistle?” And he added, “You have people at the highest levels in our universities, and in the media, in technology, and in finance all thinking this is totally normal?”
If we move on from this, it must include freeing teachers to set higher personal standards. They can do this teaching youth to write essays, and not at the impersonal levels which computers and AI easily score.
One shudders to think that there is so much we don’t know, when what we do know is so egregious. What they hide should keep us awake at night. And chump is chomping at the nuclear bit…
But we do know, JD, what our schools too dutifully do.
These dehumanized elites -- not our great teachers -- have schools set to the same agendas as made them, the Epstein class, empty souls.
Idaho teacher sues after her ‘Everyone is Welcome’ banner hung at school is outlawed
https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/idaho-lawsuit-everyone-is-welcome-dei-b2914897.html
"a classroom banner that featured the words “Everyone is Welcome Here” and hands with various skin tones, according to a federal lawsuit."
"In July, Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador wrote in a Fox News op-ed that the state stood against 'woke' attempts at "indoctrination' like Inama’s sign.
Labrador, a Republican, claimed the sign was linked to a “broader ecosystem of political resistance groups launched in protest of the political rise of President Donald Trump” and alleged the sign was part of a left-wing movement that 'transformed learning spaces into venues for DEI messaging disguised as inclusion.' ”
Admin should serve teachers, J L. Not the other way around.
Finland has a great record showing the success of putting teachers first. Hire the best of them. Then get out of their way. If they need advice or consultation, they'll do that with each other.
Phil Balla, you have told US why Finland will be the next country Putin invades. We have to get over Trump and help Ukraine
Remember, Virginia, what happened nearly four years ago?
Russia invaded Ukraine then -- and many hundreds of thousands of Russian young men fled Putin's madness. Long lines of cars packed with people and their possessions waited to enter many neighboring countries, and one of the most popular was Finland.
LIAR FRAUD, CONVICTED-FELON TRUMP, TRUMP’s MAGAts and TRUMP’s REPUBLICAN SYCOPHANTS ARE PLANNING TO INTERFERE IN THE UPCOMING NOVEMBER ELECTIONS. THIS (please excuse the French) SHIT MUST NOT BE ALLOWED TO HAPPEN!
We ALL know (in fact, EVERYONE knows) that NO NON-US CITIZENS will show up at the polls this coming November.
We ALL must be aware that, on election day, Trump will send his ICE and CBP goons to every polling place in Blue States and to every heavily-populated minority voting district polling place in Red States. ICE and CBP will not be there to arrest/detain non-US citizens, they will be there to INITIMIDATE – and to (excuse the French) FUCK with US citizens who came to cast their votes. As we’ve already seen across the U.S., ICE and CBP goons are racial profiling and are stopping and demanding proof of citizenship from US citizens. This will seriously delay people casting their votes. This will seriously delay the voting process to the point where polls might close before citizens have had the opportunity to cast their votes. This will also deter US citizens from showing up at the polls, simply because they do not want to go through the hassle, the annoyance of being stopped by ICE and CBP. FED GOV interference at polling places cannot be allowed to take place! We must – WE MUST – do EVERYTHING we can to prevent election interference from taking place. We must get an injunction from the courts to prevent this from taking place.
Please DO NOT WAIT. Time is of the essence. Contact your Senators and Representatives. Demand that they take action to prevent ICE and CBP (as well as all other FED GOV agents) from disrupting and interfering with the election. Also send letters to SCOTUS Justices. Put them on notice that WE THE PEOPLE will not tolerate election interference and that WE THE PEOPLE will hold them accountable and will do so by any means necessary. Please also send a copy of this post to every reporter you have an email address for.
UPDATE:::::
Article on Democracy Docket AFTER I wrote the post above:
MENU
* NEWS
* VOTING
* WHITE HOUSE
White House ‘can’t guarantee’ ICE won’t be at polls
By Yunior Rivas
February 5, 2026
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt gives remarks during a press briefing in the James Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House in Washington DC, on Thursday, February 6, 2026. Credit: Aaron Schwartz/CNP Photo by: Aaron Schwartz/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images
The White House Thursday refused to rule out the presence of immigration enforcement at voting locations this November, a response that follows extremist rhetoric about placing federal forces at the polls.
Asked directly about far-right activist Steve Bannon’s claim that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) would “surround the polls,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt dismissed the question while conceding the Trump administration could not promise such a thing would not happen.
“That’s not something I’ve ever heard the president consider,” Leavitt said. “I can’t guarantee that an ICE agent won’t be around a polling location in November.”
And, what of poll workers? Will there still be volunteers? Will they be “vetted,” replaced by “special employees,” handpicked by the local Republican parties? Maybe elections will be federalized by November.
“Those demands are pretty straightforward, but if written into law as required for the release of funds, they would change behavior.”
We already have an administration that is not following the law, including those in the Bill of Rights. What guarantee do we have if/when money is allocated they will follow the (new) law?
Idiotic. Schumer is living in the 1970s. Or whoever said this. These are poison pills to Republicans. Yo6 want them to eat them ? Kill all further funding for DHS. The bloody votes are there !
We converted the Democratic demands into a 15 min podcast so it's easier to understand how the mandates will help curb DHS brutality.
Jeffries & Schumer: 10 Mandates to Reform DHS Enforcement (Explainer Podcast)
https://thedemlabs.org/2026/02/05/schumer-jeffries-dhs-reform-10-mandates-memo/
The mandate is to them. No more money for DHS. No more ICE. There. Fixed.
Heather Cox Richardson lays out the Democratic demands for DHS funding:
• Judicial warrants for home entries
• Visible identification and badges
• Body cameras
• Standard law enforcement uniforms
• Protection of sensitive sites
Republicans call these "very unrealistic."
Minneapolis proved why each one matters:
Judicial warrants: Bovino's memo authorized door-kicks on administrative warrants—no judge, no Fourth Amendment.
Visible identification: BORTAC agents traveled from El Paso to Chicago to Minneapolis with no accountability—until court-ordered footage exposed them.
Body cameras: Agent Meza's footage was "missing" the 12-minute window when he fired at bystanders. Vazquez had no footage at all.
Sensitive sites: ICE attempted to enter the Ecuadorian consulate. Agents detained parents near school bus stops in Ypsilanti. Showed up at hospitals.
Two citizens killed. Both vindicated by video. Commander removed.
These demands aren't "radical." They're what Minneapolis already proved is necessary.
https://theramm.substack.com/p/the-four-thresholds
Minneapolis also proved the necessity for ICE to be disarmed, which is not included among the Democratic "demands."
Not saying some of these topics aren't reasonable but framing them as "demands" is hardly a good faith start to negotiations. Or is "good faith" is too much to expect?
As for masks, how about the protesters leave their masks home too?
Body cameras, badges with ID, warrants.
These are not new demands, they are the law.
To argue that these demands are not good faith starting points is... well you are arguing for the right to violate the law.
Which leaves, uniforms, and not invading the sanctuary of a place of worship or school, and wearing clear identifying uniforms. These are both common sense reforms.
A reasonable ending place is to recognize that these institutions are not serving the people and their mission should be performed in other less corrupt agencies.
"Good faith" in what? In the president's promises? In some action he takes today but TACOs tomorrow. Look who we are dealing with. Good faith is far to much to expect or bestow.
Trump aside, the point is anybody who is serious does not begin negotiations with demands. All that says is "you give us what we want or we pout and hold our breath".
This president does not negotiate. He bullies he threatens he extorts. The Democrats have tried negotiating in good faith repeatedly, to the point of seeming weak. They are dealing with a pathological liar whose ego cannot abide defeat or loss. And most true negotiations will of necessity involve some loss. Each party will give up something. Our president cannot do that, he is congenitally, constitutionally if you will, unable to handle losing. He'll eviscerate the Constitution, the rule of law, the world order to look invincible, if he must.
are you equating protestors' actions with ICE actions re masks? Seriously?
I have a hard time deciding if chump is losing it or if he is Nero resurrected. All the above. Part of post yo TC in LA earlier. He seems so invested in his building and reinventing the capitol, it’s almost as if he is in his glory instead of distressed. I have to say that the basic anxiety is part and parcel of his pathology, seems to me. Yes, he loves living on the edge, and “outsmarting” those he controls. It’s a game with his rules, his realm, his power (given black to him by Kevin McCarthy in an action that remains unfathomable). I think that he will enjoy every second that he is able to twist the knife…until the turd turns. I hope I live that long. Yes, I said “outsmart.” His thug skills qualify. Two elections, fooling so many, even with Rupert’s propaganda and muskrat’s money, reinforces his tin horn bravado. That “big ego” that he claims is justified, is it not. Chump is a happy man, even as he skates on razor-thin ice. Maybe because he does. And always has. Vlad being really in control dampens his bravado not in the least. But should…
“Until the turd turns” indeed, or until a sufficient number of terrified wormtongues out there start imagining what their *own* lives will look like once it does.
Pete Buttigieg said recently that Republicans have already begun imagining that day — why don’t we? 39 Republican Congresscritters have announced they will not be seeking re-election in 2026. No doubt to spend more precious time with their families, of course.
Their fear of getting primaried, doxxed, pizza-ed, or just plain run out of town is now far greater than our fear of taking on truly daunting challenges. The cracks are widening. The undercurrents do not bode well for them, and it’s likely they know it.