It is an abomination, in a democracy (or anywhere else, for that matter) for masked, heavily armed “law enforcement” agents to use violence, including deadly violence, against civilians for any reason, or no reason. Totalitarian regimes rely on heavily armed, unaccountable goon squads, often in disguise, ignoring all law in their pursuit of the regime’s enemies, real and imagined. Every such regime has had its Brown Shirts, Black Shirts, Death Squads, Secret Police — American slavery had its well-armed slave catcher militias, and later its Ku Klux Klan, those brave defenders of southern white women’s virginity wore masks, and outnumbered their unarmed victims ten to one, just like today’s ICE agents.
Under Trump 2.0, ICE, armed for military engagement and funded up their masked wazoos, is that violent goon squad. They can murder American citizens, on video (sometimes ones they shoot themselves while firing bullets into a woman’s face through her car window) with no consequences for themselves. They are protected because they are carrying out the will of the Leader. The vast majority of Americans are appalled at this shit, particularly the murderous variant on Trump’s constant bullying of ordinary citizens and others. But Nazis always double, triple and quadruple down. They intend, by doing this — in your fucking face! — to break the will of their victims to resist. Here’s Heather Cox Richardson:
In February, G. Elliott Morris of Strength In Numbers crunched the polls and found that reforms to ICE are extraordinarily popular. Ninety-two percent of Americans want ICE agents to wear body cameras, for example, and 80% wanted an independent investigation in the killings of Good and Pretti. Morris noted that between 60% and 90% of voters—a supermajority that includes Republicans and a majority of Independents—say they want “transparency, accountability, rules, and oversight” for federal agents.
Today, at the Border Security Expo in Phoenix, Arizona, Trump’s White House advisor on border security, Tom Homan, assured Republicans that mass deportation is coming and that the administration will flood immigration officers into jurisdictions that aren’t cooperative. Michael Williams of CNN reported that Homan told Republicans angry that the administration is not deporting enough people: “You ain’t seen sh*t yet. This year will be a good year. Mass deportations are coming.” He added: “You’re going to see more ICE agents [than] you ever seen before.”
The administration’s disregard for the will of the American people also shows in its approach to its war on Iran. Today, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters: “The operation is over. Epic Fury, as the president notified Congress, we’re done with that stage of it. We’re now on to this Project Freedom,” the attempt to open the Strait of Hormuz. The 1973 War Powers Act required the president either to get congressional approval for the war or to withdraw the troops within 60 days of notifying Congress of a military action. That deadline was May 1.
Now, according to Rubio, the war is now in a different phase: opening the Strait of Hormuz, which was open before Trump’s military adventure.
But Iranian officials have responded to Trump’s Project Freedom with military strikes against both the vessels attempting the transit and other Gulf countries. This afternoon, Trump backed down.
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The invertebrate lickspittles who serve their demented, compulsively lying leader must resort to counterfactual narratives and bark threats and absurd justifications to stay in their precarious positions of power. Good Catholic Tom Homan “we’re going to round up MILLIONS, y’all ain’t seen shit yet!” and Little Marco Rubio “Epic Fury is over, we rebranded, like the corporate ass-rapers we base our company’s policies on, to Project Freedom, so we get to restart the 60 day clock on the War Powers Act, psyche!”
They are vomiting the quiet parts out loud, because to Nazis, there is no means too humiliating if the end is possible absolute power, revenge on all critics, the violent silencing of dissent and, ultimately, severe, humiliating punishment for all enemies. Anyone, like myself, for example, who routinely compares these fucking Nazis to the German Nazis who were forced to fight a war they insisted the Jews started, with terrible results for everyone involved.
On social media, Trump’s account continued to whipsaw between pressing for an end to the war and threatening apocalyptic destruction if Iran doesn’t agree to U.S. demands. “Assuming Iran agrees to give what has been agreed to, which is, perhaps, a big assumption,” he wrote, “the already legendary Epic Fury will be at an end, and the highly effective Blockade will allow the Hormuz Strait to be OPEN TO ALL, including Iran. If they don’t agree, the bombing starts, and it will be, sadly, at a much higher level and intensity than it was before. Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DONALD J. TRUMP”
The administration’s shifting justifications and claims about the Iran war are “dizzying,” Ben Finley, Matthew Lee, and Farnoush Amiri of the Associated Press wrote today. Yesterday, after calling the war “concluded,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth spent the day selling Trump’s Project Freedom to open the Strait of Hormuz, only to have Trump call Project Freedom off with a post on social media.
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