George Retes is an American citizen and Army veteran who served in Iraq.
He was jailed by ICE and held for three days. He was never given a phone call — much less an explanation for why was detained by ICE.
He shared his story of abuse by the Trump administration to
@timmiller.bsky.social:
Pope Leo quotes Hannah Arendt:
“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction and the distinction between true and false no longer exist."
www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news...
I was looking at this graph again today, and I honestly don't know how a democracy can function with this magnitude of a gap when it comes to perceptions of reality.
WSJ is reporting that the Truth Social post where Trump told Pam Bondi to prosecute Comey *really was supposed to be a private message*
www.wsj.com/politics/pol...
NEW: Reuters took a closer look at violent crime in D.C. after President Trump began a show of force here. Despite the big investment of federal resources, it's really hard at this point to see any dramatic changes.
www.reuters.com/world/us/did...
ICE officers stopped a family at gunpoint and smashed the car window on top of the newborn baby. “I was screaming that there was a baby,” cried the mother. “But they didn’t care,” and covered the baby with their bodies, fearing that the glass would hurt him.
Mario Guevara, an Emmy-award winning reporter, was deported to El Salvador — a nation he fled more than two decades ago. He was arrested while covering a protest of the Trump administration in a case that has alarmed free speech groups.
I am just so fucking proud of her.
I view today's decision as yet another grave misuse of our emergency docket. This Court should have stayed its hand. Having opted instead to join the fray, the Court plainly mis- judges the irreparable harm and balance-of-the-equities factors by privileging the bald assertion of unconstrained executive power over countless families’ pleas for the sta- bility our Government has promised them. Because, re- spectfully, I cannot abide our repeated, gratuitous, and harmful interference with cases pending in the lower courts while lives hang in the balance, I dissent.
NEW: By a 6–3 vote, the Supreme Court allows the Trump administration to cancel Temporary Protected Status for Venezuelan migrants.
KBJ, dissenting, says she "cannot abide our repeated, gratuitous, and harmful interference" while "lives hang in the balance."
www.documentcloud.org/documents/26...
Four more people were killed this morning.
To repeat:
- If it can happen at sea, it can happen anywhere
- Trump has offered no definition or limiting principle for who can be labeled a "terrorist" and summarily killed
- And no plausible legal theory for why an armed conflict exists
bangs. "They was terrified. The kids was crying. People was screaming. They looked very distraught. I was out there crying when I seen the little girl come around the corner, because they was bringing the kids down, too, had them zip tied to each other," Watson said. "That's all I kept asking. What is the morality? Where's the human? One of them literally laughed. He was standing right here. He said, 'f*** them kids.'" Watson said trucks and military-style vans were used to separate parents from their children. Other neighbors said agents destroyed property to get in the building. "They had a big, 15-inch chainsaw with round blade on it, cutting this fence down," said witness Darrell Ballard. "We're under siege. We're being invaded by our own military."
“Fuck them kids.”
That’s literally what an ICE agent said when ICE, the FBI et al. raided an apartment in Chicago, including with a Blackhawk helicopter, separated children from their parents, and zip-tied them to each other.
abc7chicago.com/post/ice-chi...
Background:
* "Domestic terrorism" memo: www.whitehouse.gov/presidential...
* Comey indictment report: abcnews.go.com/US/former-fb...
If a government tells you that you can’t call it authoritarian, it’s authoritarian.
NEW: Short video in which our pal Ben Wittes gives the background you need on the charges against Comey.
@benjaminwittes.lawfaremedia.org talks to @sarahlongwell25.bsky.social
substack.com/@thebulwark/...
Unbelievable dreck. At some point, you have to accept that Douthat’s anti-anti antics (“there will be coup!”) simply amount to support for authoritarianism.
We've reached the point where CDC medical experts are declining to speak publicly about vaccine safety because they’re afraid of being violently targeted by anti-vaccine conspiracy theorists. www.huffpost.com/entry/cdc-ex...
Kirk's murder is being weaponized to corral us into a smaller and smaller arena of speech, and it is our job to refuse to be confined, to keep speaking out, to keep making irreverent jokes, supporting progressive voices, chastising the high-profile cowards, and talking among ourselves.
President Trump warns an Australian reporter that he’s hurting Australia because he asked him about his business activity: You are hurting Australia very much right now. They want to get along with me. Your leader is coming to see me soon, I'm going to tell him about you.
National Guard is now tasked with picking up garbage in DC
Pritzker: Trump looked at the cameras and asked for me personally to say, Mr. President, can you do us the honor of protecting our city? Instead, I say, Mr. President, do not come to Chicago.
Your remarks about this effort have betrayed a continuing slip in your mental faculties
Gov. Pritzker:
“To any federal official who would come to Chicago and try to incite my people into violence as a pretext for something darker and more dangerous, we are watching, and we are taking names.”
You can tell yourself we are not living under a personalist authoritarian regime or you can listen to the spokesperson for that regime
Updated this story @taskandpurpose.com. Ohio and South Carolina are joining West Virginia in sending National Guard troops in DC. That brings the number of Guardsmen activated for this to ~1,500. taskandpurpose.com/news/west-vi...
If you’re under any illusions about what an authoritarian personality cult the GOP has become, they’re not hiding it:
So if a group of men -- all of them wearing masks, with no uniforms or badges visible, driving unmarked cars -- approach anyone on the streets of DC, they're just supposed to submit?
