74 Comments
User's avatar
Julie Kamrath's avatar

GOP is no longer the party of fiscal responsibility. They are evil and cruel.

Bikracer's avatar

They were never the party of fiscal responsibility they were always the party of greed and corruption.

Kate Cunningham's avatar

They haven’t had any interest in fiscal responsibility since Richard Nixon, they just have good PR lies about it.

JODASHDE's avatar

He will leave us bankrupt like he did his businesses. Why do his followers think he is so fiscally responsible?

Barbara Grinell's avatar

The law was teranical.Trump is cruel and the ICE agents are evil.

Paul T Shattuck, MSW, PhD's avatar

If you spent the holiday feeling angry, scared, or heartbroken instead of patriotic, you're responding to something real.

It's like the bullies have taken over the school. Donald Trump is the principal, Kristi Noem runs detention, Kash Patel is the hall monitor, and the Heritage Foundation decides the curriculum.

They're targeting people from groups who proved democracy could work because that threatens their power. And because - let's be honest - they take visible sadistic pleasure in the pain of others. These are cruel people who light up when discussing how to "traumatize" their enemies.

Screwing People Who Play by the Rules: Trump’s “Long Train of Abuses and Usurpations”

That sick feeling in your stomach? It's systematic betrayal. Name it and claim it to fuel your resistance.

https://paultshattuck.substack.com/p/screwing-people-who-play-by-the-rules

Noel Wright's avatar

Apparently they never considered how their politicization and weaponization of all levers of government, like Nixon/Mitchell on steroids, could be similarly used against them when (if) non-fascists regain some control. MAGAts, don’t ever say you were not warned!

DC Policy Geek's avatar

I hate to say this but, seeing this budget bill pass, knowing a vast majority of people in the US didn't support it according to polls, I no longer believe calling/emailing/writing members of Congress or the Cabinet does any good. Fox News is still the most viewed TV station for news, which is full of mis- and disinformation. We have far too many news deserts. Maybe Heather Cox Richardson and Timothy Snyder are right -- we need to protest even more! Or, maybe, we need a General Strike! We also need to continue to protest and do whatever else we can to continue what San Francisco journalist and former CA Dem staffer called a Palantir Power Down campaign. Palantir is providing the technology to assist ICE in racial profiling to do ethnic cleansing that, according to Prof. Richardson and Snyder, will also involve concentration camps and the Federal government engaging in slavery. And, Palantir's doing surveillance of all of us using the data from DOGE.

Russell John Netto's avatar

US prison labour programmes have been in existence for a long time. This ia hardly a new idea from Trump. His problem with migrants is the same as with the prison service and he's admitted it: the costs are extortionate.

https://apnews.com/article/prison-to-plate-inmate-labor-investigation-c6f0eb4747963283316e494eadf08c4e

https://news.uchicago.edu/story/us-prison-labor-programs-violate-fundamental-human-rights-new-report-finds#:~:text=Key%20findings%20include%3A%201%20Nearly%20two-thirds%20%2865%25%20percent%29,the%20mercy%20of%20their%20employers.%20...%20More%20items

We've all seen the stories about the prisoner firefighters in California, a Democrat state, paid a pittance to fight increasingly dangerous wildfires.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3rwdjwglx2o

Trump is wasting money on detaining and deporting people who are already working and paying taxes. It's an insanely inflationary policy as well as being immoral. He's trying to make up for it by imposing new fees on undocumented migrants ($5,000 for crossing the border, $5000 more for court hearings migrants don't attend). They're even proposing to charge a $100 application fee for people claiming asylum making the US the only country in the world to charge for providing humanitarian refuge. He's also withdrawing access to benefits and healthcare even though tax-paying migrants pay a third of their taxes towards those services.

https://itep.org/undocumented-immigrants-taxes-2024/

Steve Muratore's avatar

If a person has something that needs to be said to a Congress critter, it should still be said or written. The more the hear it, the more likely they will "get it."

Loren Bliss's avatar

There is an old song from Scotland's Jacobite Rebellion that is eerily relevant today and would be much more so with modern revision of the lyrics: https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=MdO6K3vgQlI

Laurie T Miller's avatar

Substack “This Will Hold” is also a valuable resource!

DC Policy Geek's avatar

Recommended to me via a comment on Substack. Description says it'll connect the dots and was banned on Twitter by Elon. https://substack.com/@thiswillhold

Laurie T Miller's avatar

Yep, it's pretty geekie reading but well worth the time spent readkng.

Mary M. Owens's avatar

I view the bill passed on 7/3 to be the republican party declaring war on the American people by dropping a BOMB on US - it is a Big Offensive Malicious Bill. There is nothing beautiful about it.

Steve Muratore's avatar

That's why we should all read Chenoweth's book on civil (nonviolent) resistance.

Kathy H's avatar

Exactly. That felon is so over the line saying he hates Democrats, there is no coming back. He has a real problem with pronouns, always using the royal "we" & referring to OUR country as if it doesn't belong to US. He & his enablers need to be imprisoned for grammatical errors, war crimes, & terrorism. Republicans owe a huge debt to society.

Rebecca Williams's avatar

I was thinking cruelty does seem to be the point. How else can you justify taking a baby from a woman breast-feeding it? Would you say they couldn’t risk losing her in a crowd? Do you think you wouldn’t be fast enough to catch her if she ran? Seems illogical.

My guess is they just didn’t have the heart to wait- or maybe it bothered them what they were doing so they decided to rip the band aid? Or they just had a quota to meet.

I wonder if anyone inside one of those masks would be willing to share what they are being told- how they transition seemlessly from their own lives to these kidnapping machines. Do they do this in their own hometowns?

Loren Bliss's avatar

Obviously the Lyudmila Pavlichenko formulation applies: they are not human beings; they are fascists.

Steve Muratore's avatar

It's ALL about future voter suppression.

Russell John Netto's avatar

The OBBB will be their biggest voter suppression initiative yet.

Kathy H's avatar

It's been systematic dehumanization, humans being referred to as animals & vermin. These fascists see themselves as a superior race. I don't think we can understand when we don't think that way. There isn't any understanding crazy. I've hoped a long time that this was misunderstanding, but I can't believe that any longer. They are sick. We're told turning against them won't help, but trying to meet them part way has got us where we are now. Maybe asking them questions will help them become self-aware, but not from what I've seen. They are in too deep with this being their identity, the ones to dominate & control the world.

Noel Wright's avatar

Fascists: that’s what they do! I’d guess that Mitch McConnell would just say: “they’ll get over it!”.

Steve Muratore's avatar

And with ICE concentration camps likely to deny medical and proper nutrition care to the new slaves, it will more closely mimic the death camps of German origin nearly a century ago.

Loren Bliss's avatar

That German mimicry is of course intentional, Führer Trump's special gift to the Christonazis and their "Unified Reich" theocracy.

(Ah but where is Marshal Zhukov now that we so desperately need him?)

There is also der neu Führer's special gift to the Neoconfederates, turning the entire nation into one big slave plantation, the planet's largest ever, with the White (supremacist) House as Massa's Throne and all the Romanesque capital buildings as Massa's Mansion.

(And where are Generals Meade, Grant and Sherman now that we so desperately need them?)

Steve Muratore's avatar

Of course it's intentional.

Noel Wright's avatar

Is Washington D.C. the new Rome, or the new Berlin ( to create the planned world-dominating city that motivated Hitler and his Third Reich to mass murder)? Which Reich are we now in, is there any consensus on that?

Gayla Kunis's avatar

I pray that this ends sooner rather than later.

Nancy Taylor's avatar

SHAMEFUL REPUBLICANS! destroying the government for our grandchildren. Here comes the debt! 😭 20 points of disapproval !!! Lies damn lies! .

Preston's avatar

What if Donald J. Trump has been wrong about everything? I worked for Bill Harrah of Harrah's Club. He did not lose money. Trump bankrupted his.

What a rube.

betsy5231's avatar

I just listened to this, and I don’t think I have ever felt more terrified and more alone

Megan Rothery's avatar

Call. Write. Email. Protest. Unrelentingly. About everything ❤️‍🩹🤍💙

Use/share this spreadsheet as a resource to call/email/write members of Congress, the Cabinet and news organizations. Reach out to those in your own state, and those in a committee that fits your topic.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/13lYafj0P-6owAJcH-5_xcpcRvMUZI7rkBPW-Ma9e7hw/edit?usp=drivesdk

Nancy Taylor's avatar

You are very sweet, thinking that a deluge of letters will matter to ANY of the Republicans or tRumps followers. Keep angry friend, there may come a day we will have power again.

Megan Rothery's avatar

I hear you. I’m thinking those that are on the edge, definitely not the ones who are deep MAGA.

I don’t think we’ll see many big waves (like a major MAGA Congress member changing their opinions), however I think we can cause little ripples. I’m thinking staff members who hear the same thing over and over via voicemail, phone calls, letter after letter, email after email - maybe they’ll be a little more receptive each time they hear from us. Maybe they’ll talk more about our talking points to friends and family, maybeeee they’ll vote differently. I think we can cause ripples to push news organizations to be more honest and maybe even a bit accusatory about what’s happening. As a collective, our volume matters. And, at the end of the day, if we just annoy and overwhelm some staffers working for people hurting the average American, I’m ok with that too 🙃

Jack A.'s avatar

We do not have a government, what we have is a Transnational Crime Syndicate* pretending to be our government. (* Sarah Kendzior) No wonder polls showing what people want or don’t want, are without meaning.

Michael Corthell's avatar

The ICE Age of American Decline

This isn’t immigration policy. It’s fascism wrapped in a flag and sold as freedom. Trump’s budget turns ICE into a weaponized labor force and opens the door to modern slavery. The warning lights are flashing.

Read more:

https://essayx.substack.com/p/the-new-chains-how-trumps-budget

Carol Navarrete's avatar

The absolute glee of the traitors of our country is disgusting.

Patricia W. Cole's avatar

I am beyond words...PLEASE PRAY FOR AN "ICE FREE" USA TO BE ESTABLISHED !!

Robert Gray's avatar

We need ICE as a permanent agency in our govt. I'm not convinced we need so many $billions for that agency, though. I understand you are very unhappy with what ICE is doing currently, but with a proper mission, it is needed in every Administration. It's needed to secure the border and deport people here illegally who are criminals.

Nancy Taylor's avatar

Nuts!

If you know history you will understand my comment.

Noel Wright's avatar

Sure, ICE and CBP exist for good reasons. They do what they are told to do, as required by law (if the orders are legal). Obama deported around three million people, apparently legally, with help from Tom Homan himself! Perhaps Humpty is motivated to beat Obama’s record? No, this is the construction of a gulag system where ICE and COB just grab anyone they can (citizen or not) and sort them out (maybe) later; that is if you can find out what they did with them. The concentration camps will then rent out the convict labor, probably to build more concentration camps, mining, road construction into national forests, and ethnic cleansing in blue states and cities. Everyone should know that many if not most of the asylum seekers and others should be given work visas as guest workers, rather than being deported to the place they fled from. This is about “White-Sizing” America. Reference: the creepy red white and blue face of Humpty, now on the WH wall among portraits of women. “I, Caligula”?