Tag Archives: ice

Who’s Benefitting?

The corruption on display by the Trump administration just keeps growing. Metastasizing, actually.

A reader recently sent me a video that reported on a little-noted element of ICE’s efforts to acquire warehouses. There’s been a lot of pushback from locals who object to the purchases on the grounds that they will be barely-veiled concentration camps, but I had not previously encountered a different objection, an itemization of the obscene overpayments being made— sales prices that are wildly inflated over assessed values and/or recent, previous acquisition costs, with the identity of those profiting from these transactions difficult to determine.

The woman in the linked video asks a reasonable question: who’s benefiting from this boondoggle?

It’s difficult to grasp the astonishing degree of corruption of the Trump administration–not just the official favors being done for the president’s billionaire cronies (the tax cuts and official permits and terminations of investigations begun under previous administrations), but the numerous outright bribes from foreign countries and domestic fat cats. (The Center for American Progress estimates the Trump family has taken in 1.8 billion in cash and gifts.)

This outright looting has certainly not been accompanied by any moves benefitting the American people. It’s a shame that the length of Trump’s meandering, bloated and mendacious State of the Union speech kept so many people from seeing or hearing the Democratic rebuttal presented by Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger–as a recent post from the Contrarian reported, it was a concise and effective 13 minutes.

Spanberger began with three simple questions: Is the president working to make life more affordable for you and your family?Is the president working to keep Americans safe — both at home and abroad? Is the President working for YOU? She proceeded to point out that Trump’s reckless trade policies have cost American families an average of $1,700 each. (Despite Trump’s insistence that tariffs are paid by foreign countries, they aren’t–as every economist, liberal or conservative, has pointed out, they are a tax on Americans, intended to offset the revenues lost thanks to the deep tax cuts for the wealthy.)  

Spanberger also highlighted the escalating closures of rural health clinics, thanks to provisions in Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill.” 

And tonight, the President celebrated this law — the one threatening rural hospitals, stripping healthcare from millions of Americans, and driving up costs in energy and housing. All while cutting food programs for hungry kids.

Spanberger–who was an intelligence officer with the CIA before entering politics–then turned to the question of public safety, pointing out that ICE’s time spent sowing fear is time “not spent investigating murders, crimes against children, or the criminals defrauding seniors of their life savings.” Worse still, Trump has destroyed America’s reputation as a force for good in the world–outcomes she attributed to the appointment of “deeply unserious people to our nation’s most serious positions.”

Turning to the third of her questions, Spanberger ticked off the multiple grifts of an administration that she quite accurately accused of being the most corrupt in memory. Not only is Trump enriching himself, his family, and his friends at a scale that is unprecedented–“cozying up to foreign princes for airplanes and billionaires for ballrooms”–there’s the ongoing cover-up of the Epstein files, the crypto scams, and the embarrassing plastering of his name and face on buildings all over our nation’s capital.

Spanberger ended her thirteen minutes by reminding her listeners that We the People have the power to stop the desecration of the American Idea. We have the power–and the obligation–to put an end to what is truly a massive theft, not just of our funds, but of America’s founding philosophy.

As she concluded,

George Washington warned us about the possibility of “cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men” rising to power. But he also encouraged us — all Americans — to unite in “a common cause” to move this nation forward.

That is our charge once more. And that is what we are seeing across the country.

It is deeply American and patriotic to do so, and it is how we ensure that the State of our Union remains strong, not just this year but for the next 250 years as well.

If we’ve learned anything from the slow drip of the Epstein files, it is that a class of wealthy and entitled individuals consider themselves above the laws that govern us “little people.” That sense of impunity has now led to unprecedented corruption and the wholesale looting of dollars meant to provide for the public good.

“It’s time for a change” has never been a more powerful slogan.

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Yellow Lines And Dead Armadillos

Well-meaning people continue to urge folks on the political Left and Right to talk to each other, to listen to each other, and to come to the “middle.” This constant refrain drives me up the wall, because what I see are not “politics as usual” disputes, but a fundamental moral divide. The only “policy” being debated is the right of a lawless administration to send ICE goons (aka Trump’s Gestapo) into American cities to kidnap and brutalize citizens at will.

Even the terms “Left” and “Right” are inappropriate. The Republican Party once had a coherent, politically conservative agenda–free trade, limited government, respect for law and order, support for NATO… That party has vanished, substituting  virulent racism and devotion to Trump for anything resembling a conservative philosophy–or any philosophy, for that matter.

The morphing of the Republican Party into an alternate reality cult has also remade the Democratic Party (most of which was never as “Left” as Republicans used to charge). Actual conservatives and moderates have departed the GOP in droves. Many–probably most–now count themselves Independent, but a not-insignificant number now identify as Democrats, turning Democrats into a nearly ungovernable ideological mix.

The GOP has become a neo-fascist cult; Democratic voters are those who oppose that cult.

When I read pious exhortations about “coming together” and “listening to each other” I want to scream that I have been listening– I’ve heard MAGA loud and clear, and I know there is no “middle ground.”

A recent, welcome essay in Lincoln Square made that point forcefully. As Stuart Stevens began,

In this time of national trauma, we hear many calls for an end to the divisions that are shredding the national fabric. It all sounds lovely. Who could argue that Americans need to do more to understand each other and reach a consensus?

Well, I could.

I don’t want to understand the guy in the Camp Auschwitz sweatshirt during the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol.

I don’t want to understand the Death Squad ICE agents who murder innocent citizens.

I don’t want to understand the twisted hatred of Stephen Miller and Kristi Noem.

I don’t want to understand the MAGA followers who say the 2020 election was stolen.

Stevens–one of the sane Americans who fled the GOP–draws a stark line between those who he says are “defending the legacy of the Greatest Generation and those who defile its sacrifice.” He points out that carrying the same country’s passport  is an accident of birth, while values are a choice.

Too many Democrats still believe Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 election when she said, “You could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables.” I don’t know how to break it to you guys, but that’s the sort of self-flagellating instinct that helped my Republican candidates win races they had no business winning.

The problem wasn’t that Hillary Clinton described MAGA as deplorable. The problem was that she stopped doing it. You win races by defining the other side in sweeping negative language. Races are about differences and choices. There’s nothing in the middle of the road but yellow lines and dead armadillos.

Stevens underlines that observation with a very simple question: Is this who you are?” He invokes the image of a ranting Stephen Miller “looking like he’s auditioning for Joseph Goebbels role as Reich Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda” and suggests asking a normal American, a sane voter, “Is this who you want to be?”

We are taught that it is a positive character attribute to give another person the benefit of the doubt. That may work when debating converting the U.S. to the metric system, but it’s a Munich Accord-level of appeasement when dealing with the lunatics of MAGA. Those of us who view this moment as an existential threat to democracy should reject any assumption that the other side is acting in good faith. When a home invader has broken in your door, don’t act like he thinks he’s visiting a friend and has the wrong address. Do whatever it takes to get the bastard out of your house.

Legacy media “both-siding” to the contrary, Americans are not engaged in the sort of normal political debate that demands compromise and conciliation. MAGA folks understand that, while far too many of the rest of us don’t. We are facing a sustained, intentional assault on the very foundations of America’s identity.

That assault calls for resistance, not conciliation. There is no “middle ground” between liberal democracy and fascism.

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Cities

Wonder why Trump sends his SS troops–aka ICE–to cities? And why the people who live in those cities can be counted on to mount a resistance?

The nation’s cities are Blue, of course–studies show that every urban area over half a million people votes Democratic. There’s evidently something about density, about living near other people, that makes folks more likely to be “woke”– a term that actually denotes a degree of humanity and tolerance utterly lacking in the MAGA base. (There’s even data showing that people who live in more dense areas of America’s small towns tend to be more liberal than those in the more sparsely populated neighborhoods of those same towns.)

The American Prospect recently addressed the administration’s hatred of America’s cities. Harold Meyerson writes that

For leaders in search of uniform compliance, cities are inherently troublesome. They are, by their very nature, diverse: It’s cities to which both foreign and domestic immigrants flock, because it’s cities where there’s work. Worse yet, most successful cities foster some level of cross-group tolerance, or even, in the best cases, cross-group solidarity, as a necessary modus vivendi for keeping a city up and running. Partly in consequence, cities develop distinct cultures reflective of their diversity and their urbanity.

That’s why the current generation of our planet’s autocrats often lack support from their nations’ cities. Budapest has never voted for Viktor Orbán; Istanbul is a thorn in the side of Recep Erdoğan. A Muslim Labourite has been mayor of London since 2016, even as no major American city can be found that’s voted for Donald Trump in any of the past three presidential elections.

Of course, as Meyerson points out, Orbán hasn’t sent troops into Budapest, and Erdoğan hasn’t tried to subdue Istanbul. Our mad would-be king is threatening to invoke the Insurrection Act and to send the Army into Minneapolis to protect his SS troops while they seize people who, as Meyerson says, “look suspiciously brown.”

If there was any doubt that ICE is a recreation of the Gestapo, its recruitment materials –rife with retreads of Nazi slogans–should disabuse us of that doubt. The administration is clearly aiming to attract white nationalists who share a hatred for the diversity that characterizes the nation’s urban centers.

Meyerson says comparisons with the Gestapo and the Klan are incomplete– that a glance through history provides other apt comparisons: Trump as a 21st-century version of Attila or Genghis Khan,

heading a horde that is defined by an exterminationist loathing of cities and all that they stand for and promote. Their diversity, their toleration, their culture, their solidarity across racial and other lines—all are threats to the horde’s and its ruler’s autocratic monoculture.

That attitude goes a long way toward explaining the administration’s inhumane response to the murder of city dwellers, and its immediate, blatantly dishonest characterizations of these victims.

The pictures coming out of Minneapolis–the videos captured by cell phone cameras and photojournalists– are mind-blowing. The reactions of the legitimate, elected officials of the city and state have not only been entirely appropriate, they’ve echoed the reactions of those of us who never in a million years anticipated that we would live to see such things happen on the streets of an American city at the direction of an American president. Neither the Mayor nor the Governor has held back–both have “told it like it is.”

And “like it is” is shocking and heartbreaking.

For years, the extremist fringe on the political Right has lusted for a race war. Most rational Americans have gone about our businesses ignoring that fringe and its threats, dismissing the White Supremacists and Neo-Nazis as mentally ill and assuming that these deranged folks represented a small minority. Thankfully, they are a minority, but a majority of Americans failed to vote in 2024, and they were able to elect one of their own.

And he has assembled an administration composed of people who are just as profoundly sick and malevolent as he is.

In the absence of a functioning Congress and an honorable Supreme Court, it increasingly looks as if it will be up to those of us in the cities–the urban folks Trump hates– to power the resistance and reclaim the America that respected and obeyed the Constitution and the rule of law.

Minneapolis is leading the way.

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Then And Now

A good friend with whom I lunch regularly used to be a high school history teacher. She is tormented by what she sees as clear parallels between Nazi Germany in the 1930s and America under Trump, and for anyone familiar with that history, it’s hard to disagree with her.

I thought about our conversations when I read a recent guest essay in the New York Times.

The author began by sharing his recollection of rooting through a pile of items in a flea market in the early 1940s, and finding an old diary–the product of a German soldier from WWII. As he wrote, he might have missed it, but being Jewish, books adorned with eagles perched on swastikas tended to catch his eye.

The diary was in German, which he couldn’t read, but it was the black-and-white photographs of the soldier’s life that interested him: the diarist’s photo in his sharp new uniform, pictures with his fellow soldiers, others with what appeared to be his family at a festive dinner, and several of the soldier with a pretty young woman–perhaps his wife or girlfriend.

What was most notable was what I didn’t find: There were no photos of death camps, or mass graves, or starving prisoners. Instead, there was one of him with his parents in front of their house. Proud.

The absence of any visual representation of the horrors being visited on Germany’s Jews (and gays and gypsies..) reminded the author of his family’s characterization of Germans. All Germans. His grandparents’ families had been murdered in the Holocaust, and to them, all Germans were “hateful, fascist murderers — fools who could be led by a fearmonger to commit atrocities he claimed were necessary and good.”

His family often expressed thankfulness that “we were not like them.” Americans were different.

I recalled that certainty in recent days, reading about the murder of Renee Nicole Good. I read about how the Trump administration quickly labeled her a terrorist. About how federal officials blocked the investigation by the state of Minnesota. About how our leaders accused her of trying to ram an Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agent when the videos of the incident seemed to clearly show otherwise. “Who are you going to believe,” asked Chico Marx, “me or your own eyes?” I suppose, in the eyes of this administration, that makes me a Marxist now.

None of this surprised me. After all, the shooting was just one day after the administration published a propaganda website saying the Jan. 6 insurrection was the fault of the Democrats and the Capitol Police.

As the author then writes, any belief that “Americans are different” will be rebutted by a visit to social media.

On several social media platforms, he encountered Americans who believed the Trump administration without question, who repeated the government accusations that Good was a “paid agitator” who got what she deserved, that the armed agent was a hero, “defending his nation from undesirables.” 

Past or present, it’s not the leaders who disappoint me. It’s the led…

But I miss those days.

I miss the comfort of believing Germans were different.

I miss believing that we Americans could never be led by a fearmonger to commit atrocities he claimed were necessary and good.

I miss believing we are not like them.

I could have written that essay–or something similar. I too was raised in a family horrified by the atrocities of the holocaust, and convinced that there must be something twisted and different in the German psyche that allowed ordinary Germans to ignore the camps, the mass graves and smells from the crematoria, that allowed them to agree with their government that eradicating millions of people was for the good of the nation, that people who were different–people who worshipped differently or loved differently– were no better than vermin and that their extermination wasn’t cause for concern. 

There is one important difference between today’s America and Germany in the 1930s, and I cling to it. A huge percentage of Americans have seen the videos of Good’s murder, and the millions who aren’t substituting the administration’s propaganda for the evidence of their own eyes are taking to the streets. And Minnesota’s Governor made a magnificent speech in which he pulled no punches, praising the resistance in that state.

The country is being tested. And as I keep assuring my friend, I do believe a majority of Americans will prove to be different from the “good Germans” who closed their eyes and went along.

I sure hope I’m right…..

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Indiana’s Embarrassing AG

He’s at it again.

I don’t know how many pixels I’ve wasted on discussions of Indiana’s ridiculous Attorney General, Todd Rokita. When I took a look at the history of this blog, I realized that reports of his problematic behaviors began while he was still in Congress, and  accelerated when he became AG. 

Rokita’s self-importance isn’t matched by even a modicum of self-awareness, a lack that has led to admonitions of him from Indiana’s all-Republican Supreme Court. His tireless efforts to play to the craziest fringes of MAGA (and those are some fringes!) have led to his efforts to smear the IU Ob-Gyn who performed a legal abortion on  a ten-year-old rape victim, a recent request that the Trump administration send federal troops to Indiana, and his maintenance of an unvetted list of school teachers who are reportedly sharing “woke” positions in their classrooms.

Rokita’s sustained assault on public education has erupted again, via a bizarre lawsuit Rokita has filed against Indianapolis’ Public Schools for failure to assist ICE in terrorizing students. IPS has had the nerve to demand legal authority before allowing ICE agents into its classrooms.

As the Indiana Capital Chronicle reported, Rokita “filed suit against Indianapolis Public Schools — with help from a conservative think tank — accusing the state’s largest public school district of ‘thwarting’ federal immigration enforcement.”

In response, the IPS board re-affirmed the district’s commitment to “ensuring safe, supportive, and welcoming learning environments for all students.” (It isn’t difficult to picture the eye-rolls that must have accompanied the response–and the “here he goes again” sighs…) Per IPS,

As has always been the case, we will continue to uphold the law while keeping these commitments,” the board added, before knocking Rokita’s intentions.

While IPS takes all legal obligations seriously, we respectfully hope that all concerned parties will recognize the heavy burden that silly litigation and political posturing places on students, families, and taxpayers,” the statement continued. “Every dollar spent on defensive legal posture is a dollar not spent on instructional support, teacher development, student services, or enrichment. In this case, Mr. Rokita prefers those dollars go to fight gratuitous political battles, as has too often been the case.

A very tactful way of saying “we really don’t want to pay for his incessant grandstanding.”

IPS requires that officers have a warrant signed by a judge unless there is an emergency situation, and the school system’s legal counsel must authorize the access. That policy certainly appears reasonable; after all, school systems are legally charged with acting in loco parentis, and with safeguarding the children in its care. Rokita, however, argues that the district should allow individual employees to “voluntarily comply” with ICE demands.

Rokita’s office began “investigating” (harassing) IPS in February, and communications have evidently gone back and forth since, with Rokita’s most recent demanding immediate changes.  As the IPS response noted,

Unfortunately, despite taking six months to craft his opinion on IPS’ policies, Mr. Rokita permitted only five business days from the time IPS received his review to respond, and then refused IPS’ request for any additional time….Yet, these important issues deserve thoughtful, deliberative weighing of important legal rights — not impulsive, superficial efforts for political gain.

Board members also criticized Rokita’s use of the term “aliens” for noncitizen children and their families, accusing him of  “willfully dehumanizing” them.

Assisting Rokita in this effort at bullying the system is something called the America First Policy Institute. (I guess a name really does say it all…) The institute says the Indiana case is part of its mission to hold “rogue” government entities accountable. Evidently, it’s “rogue” to protect children from being terrorized without legal authority.

In the wake of the suit, the Indiana State Teachers’ Association affirmed its belief that “every child in Indiana, regardless of background or immigration status, has the right to a safe and welcoming public school.” The organization confirmed the  professional and moral responsibility of educators “to protect the wellbeing of their students and ensure schools remain places of learning, trust and stability….Turning schools into extensions of immigration enforcement threatens that trust and undermines the learning environment every student deserves. Our focus must remain on educating and protecting students, not politicizing their safety.”

A local immigration attorney interviewed by WTHR believes the lawsuit is part of an effort to increase ICE’s presence in Indianapolis, and characterized it as fear mongering playing to the base….”the idea of federal agents often masked and in full uniform and flak jackets going into schools is just diabolical.”

It would be nice if Rokita would stop his constant pandering to MAGA’s looney-tune fringe and spend some time doing the job he was elected to do, but I’m not holding my breath…

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