In feb. 2014 the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projected that recent immigration to the U.S. will lead to a $1 trillion increase in government revenue over the next decade, and that the U.S. economy will grow by $7 trillion due to immigration over the same period, according to reports on the CBO's findings. This increase in revenue is primarily attributed to the increased economic activity and tax contributions from the growing immigrant population.
Immigration is clearly good for America and one of the reasons the US faired better than most other advanced economies after COVID. But I don’t think that this is the reason public opinion is shifting.
The assault on immigrants is similar to the Fugitive Slave Act in both its cruelty and its effect on public sentiment . Passed as part of the Compromise of 1850, the Fugitive Slave Act enabled Southern slave catchers to come North and take people accused of being escaped slaves back to their “owners” in the South. As people who had lived and worked for years in their committees were suddenly and violently ripped away, slavery stopped being an abstraction and became a very real and manifest evil.
The unintended effect of the Fugitive Slave Act was to increase and harden Northern opposition to slavery. Trump and his Gestapo nightmare are doing the same thing for support for immigrants.
Actually, there had a Fugitive Slave Law on the books since 1793, but it wasn't well-enforced partly because accused runaways could actually defend themselves in court. That, along with sympathetic Northern judges and juries, made recovery of the "lost property" pretty difficult if not impossible. The 1850 version fixed those problems by virtually denying a defendant's ability to defend themselves and by authorizing the appointment of special commissioners (rather than the "unreliable" civil courts) to handle runaway slave cases. Moreover, the law stipulated that these commissioners would be awarded ten dollars for every suspected fugitive returned to slavery, but only five dollars if the suspect went free (note that every African-American north of the Mason-Dixon Line could be considered a suspect).
So it's not just about the cruelty. It's also about the money.
Excellent point about the money. Recent reports have shown the prison population will decline as inmates swept up from 1970-2010 age out of the system and crime rates are low. Building and staffing prisons was for many states an economic development tactic for rural areas. The OBBA funding creates another subsidized employment opportunity for people who remain in rural areas.
Which was based on a clause of the Constitution. Didn’t realize how much harsher the 1850 Act was. I think the comment above yours is right - it’s fostering sympathy for immigrants. And unlike with slavery, ICE is rounding up people all over the country so the impact won’t be purely sectional (though they do seem to be targeting blue cities for now).
They do have the military in Texas, they’re stationed at the border rounding up immigrants and asylum seekers who cross the border, not in the cities rounding up kids in playgrounds…:)
Immigration isn’t a threat—it’s this country’s future strength. But the MAGA crowd is stuck in reverse, gripped by fear as America’s skin tone deepens and its values evolve. They don’t want progress—they want a return to the days when women were silent, people of color were invisible, and power was never questioned.
The idea that women might control their own bodies? To them, that's heresy. How dare they make decisions without permission from men in power? This isn’t about morality—it’s about control. And they’ll cling to it by any means necessary.
Hardcore MAGA haven’t changed. The WSJ has an editorial suggesting that Trump do something to legalize the “Dreamers” (DACA)—people brought here illegally as children.
I read about 100 comments there perhaps five favourable. The rest were “kick them out.”
Now we can expect those numbers to trend negative, and that's before even taking all these insane tariffs into account, along with other moronic economic policies.
The entire American model is premised to quite an extent on immigration being a good thing.
Incidentally, one of the reasons the North circa 1860 was such a healthier society than the South, and was able to outlast it, was that it turned itself into a magnet for easy immigration. It was for all intents and purposes open borders, and while the immigrants didn't have it easy, they still had far more opportunity than they did back home and the same basic rights as the native-born. End result, a fast-growing and very loyal population, which not only helped grow the economy but provided a pretty big numerical advantage when the societies finally came to blows.
Again, a good laugh. The US does not want more immigrants, no country does. In the US it is the citizens who have immigration rights. They can bring in Immediate Relatives (parents, spouses, minor children) and Family Members (siblings with their families, adult children with family). All others interested in immigration here, can forget about it. Unless they manage to fit in one of the exceptions. Like Melania Knavs who came based on the H-1B Tits&Ass exception, an EB-1 Green Card, then Citizenship. And of course people well-educated, moving in the same higher levels of society as Mr. Krugman. These are welcome too. As are those who have One Million dollars that they can spare for a while to buy their way in.
In 1996 - under Prez Clinton - the "anti-immigrant" legislation was enacted. Forcing people who wanted to migrate here without an option to do so legally, to trek through the deserts, or swim the river. Hundreds (possibly thousands) perished by dehydration or by drowning because of that law. It is also the cause of many of the current issues.
The U.S. DOES want immigrants. Did you not look at the chart in this post? Only maga bigots oppose immigration. Republicans PRETEND that they don't want them, and make it difficult, but then they hire them, because the GOP is the party of greed, and the more potential workers, the easier it is to exploit them.
The idea of running a country like a business is totally wrong in almost every possible way. The biggest problem with that is being demonstrated by Trump and his Dirty Cabal in almost every possible way. (Repeat of words intended)
Facts - Do you think for one second facts could infiltrate a MAGA* brain? Tell them some alternative facts that confirm their bigotry and they buy it lock stock & barrel.
Here’s another important fact: When the poor do better, everyone does better. Every dollar that goes to a poor person typically gets spent—and then re-spent—circulating through the economy five to seven times. That means each dollar becomes $5 to $7 in economic stimulus.
Because the poor spend nearly all their income just to get by, their money flows immediately into local economies—on food, rent, and necessities—often at businesses owned by middle-class entrepreneurs. Helping the poor isn’t charity; it’s smart economics.
Have you seen graphs, charts by economists in books like Wealth & Democracy by Kevin Phillips, probably those by Piketty, whom I haven't read, etc? The 1970's was the apex of equality in wealth & incomes, but the oligarchs want to go back to the Gilded Age. Apparently, life's no fun if one is merely affluent--rather than filthy rich. Middle-class entrepreneurs are too independent-minded. You have to eliminate them as competition and make them precariously employed, always fearful of ending up homeless, therefore compliant.
Facts can be distorted. This time by myself... The date of the CBO's findings is not 2014, but 2024!! Sorry about that. But then again: every politician currently in office should know this!
I never know whether to laugh or cry with "facts" like that. When I came to the US I was told that I could not be allowed to work, that the jobs were needed for Americans, and if we (H-4 non-immigrant wives) would also be allowed to accept a job, the whole of the US economy would be destroyed! Next thing I hear is how much immigrants contribute to the economy, how important they are, how much revenue they bring, that more migrants should be admitted, etc. How can both be true? Can economists please make up their minds - before I lose mine.
Antoinette, serious economists, like Paul Krugman and myself, follow facts, teach those, publish those, but do not make the rules. Politicians make the rules and have opinions that are aligned with the interests of the people that pay them most, which mostly are not the voters. These simple facts explain your confusion.
But the jump scare is the chart that shows the vast majority of Americans still believe immigration is a good thing.
When the irrational fears of a vanishing minority of citizens determine policy for the entire nation, are we allowed to declare that it's fascism by definition, and not just an effort to score rhetorical points?
Yes, but the comment isn't directed at people like you, is it?
It's an indictment of those who refuse to believe what their eyes and ears are telling them, and there are still tens of millions of such people.
Plus of course the editorial department at the New York Times, which makes a policy of sane-washing and normalizing with anodyne language and banal framing just about everything Trump does.
I write the newsroom and editorial department directly most days. It's possible they may be shamed into doing a better job.
I certainly remind them that the Washington Post lost *half its subscribers in just two disastrous years* -- and there's no reason that can't happen to NYT if they refuse to serve their readers properly.
I also regularly write Executive Editor Joe Kahn to remind him that he's a worthless nepo baby.
It's a bizzaro corruption in language: "terror," historically, is a term used for crimes committed by the state (i.e. Robespierre's terror), and yet today it's pretty much exclusively reserved for non-state-actors.
Yes. The US has been dispensing state terror throughout its entire existence, both at home and abroad. (Hint: It's never conducted a war without committing war crimes for which it is never prosecuted.)
But it plays the good guy in the movies. And that's worked out pretty well.
The US is an agent of "state terror, both at home and abroad" and has been since its inception.
That's it. If you don't know the history, read up on it. It might help explain to you why the country is where it is now, and that's the point I'm making and worth you knowing.
Well, let's see how many of that "79% approving immigration" will actually stand up for these besieged communities, not just voting against Nazi-style roundups, but joining thousands of other concerned Americans and make "good trouble" when the goon squads show up in their towns and cities. It's your country, people, take it back!
That's really the key. And the world watches and waits for the American public -- as well its gatekeeper media, like the Times (looking at you, Joe Kahn) -- to respond as though they know they're already in the middle of a life-threatening emergency.
You’re missing one of the key tools in the fascist playbook: right wing populism. A fascist regime doesn’t need the majority to support its policies, only a majority of its “base.” The hinge point—when the fascist regime achieves a critical mass of power to crush dissent and act with impunity—usually is only known in hindsight, and popularity isn’t required. Trump is already in power, it’s now simply a matter of where the hinge is. Perhaps the hinge has already creaked shut, perhaps not.
you're missing that I never said Trump wasn't a fascist. My point is entirely that the popularity or unpopularity has nothing to do with whether it's fascist or not
Trump is a fascist because he wants to remove people, in the most cruel way he can, essentially on the basis of their ethnicity and will use extralegal means to deprive them and anyone who stands up for them of their basic human rights. It doesn't matter whether he has 1% support or 99% support, he's a fascist.
There's no "scare point" in the fact that it's becoming unpopular - which heavily implies that it's merely whether he's swayed by the will of the people which makes him a fascist. This dumbs down the definition of fascism and distracts from the actual evil it represents, which is not merely contradicting democracy but contradicting basic human dignity.
I agree with all you wrote, and even agree his overall popularity is irrelevant. But I still think you miss the importance of his populist appeal to his base—it was/is fundamental to his fascism. That’s my only point of disagreement.
"there are lots of good reasons to call Trump a fascist"
he is one, as far as I'm concerned, and his entire movement is at least a proto-fascist one. But it has nothing to do with whether his policies are popular or not or the degree of their unpopularity. If the graph were pointing in the opposite direction they would still be fascists, and in fact they would be worse.
No one here would support Trump’s nativist policies if they were more popular. No one said that. To point out they’re not all that popular does not undercut the immortality of these policies. You’re making no sense.
my reading of the post that I replied to is that he was saying that the anti-immigration policies of the Trump admin, *because it was minoritarian*, is why it fit the definition of fascism.
The minoritarian nature has nothing to do with it. Some minoritarian policies are good. Some are bad. Being minoritarian is neither a necessary nor sufficient criteria for fascism.
Red herring. You repeated what Krugman said, that immigration policy is not as popular as it appears with your words "... unpopular policy ...". The policy in question, immigration, has everything to do with scapegoating, which is a characteristic of fascism, which you're denying. How far did you get in school again?
Wow! People like Kristi No am make me ashamed but you are right, she is part of a right pilled irrational minority. The rational majority will prevail. Sing it: we shall overcome people 😎
Nothing funny or cute about it. It WILL become a death camp because you know that there will be no resources devoted to keeping the inmates alive beyond meager rations and maybe a once-a-month visit by a certified nurse to provide "medical care."
Yes, we are already well into hurricane season which runs through the end of November. There is no evacuation plan, I guarantee you. The guards will all run and leave the victims locked in the cages.
I agree with all your comments here, John. It's not just that this "facility's" name got tossed around long enough to become part of the national vocabulary, it's that some cretin(s) obviously thought it was a humdinger of an idea. I mean, OFFICIAL ROAD SIGNS were designed, produced, and ready to go for the big reveal! This ugly, ghastly thing (and everyone associated with it) will live in infamy! An irradicable mark of shame on this country. It's sickening.
In all honesty, I think it's irrelevant what we call it. We all know what it is, we know what they're doing there. We can all agree that it needs to be shut down. It needs to stop. No matter what we name it.
And the Trumpists are planning to build many more of these, to be filled by a vastly expanded ICE/Gestapo. It should be noted that some Floridians did try to stop this defilement.
Perhaps I am reading too much into it, but I picked up sarcasm when he used the word "cute" followed by a correct assessment of it being a concentration camp. And rather than taking a wild swing at my take on it, I was picking up on things he has said before, in videos with others. Either way, I agree with you, there is nothing cute about the name, the place, or anything associated with what this administration is doing.
I live 5 mins from where this song is based in Ireland … Kilkelly ! Conditions were real bad back then and immigration was first choice option in the midst of abject poverty and hopelessness. America was the destination and the land of hope, glory and opportunity and for so many it was the lifechanger. I remember older relatives getting mail during the year with a few dollars from friends and relatives who had made that trip. Some of these people never came home again but they didn’t forget. That on its its own a testament to the opportunity of America . That was back then and thankfully is no longer the case for Ireland . There’s a sense of sadness , loss and anger now in Ireland versus America and the Trump ‘ administration’ . A big dark cloud. Everything that America stood for is greedily being removed and realigned by this kakistocracy.
Unfortunately to date I have never been to America … I’m just gone 60 and had it in my raider. Not now or maybe never…. certainly not in these years during which the story of America is being dismantled.
The roles have been reversed. To many Americans, Ireland now looks like a beacon of freedom and prosperity. Not to mention music and good cheer. My most recent immigrant ancestor came from Dublin in 1825, and had the good sense to marry a prosperous widow.
My latest came from Germany in the mid-1800s - or maybe England about the same time. The German guy changed his name from "Schwarzwalder" to "Blackwelder" when he found that people in North Carolina couldn't pronounce his name.
"Will the public backlash against Trump’s immigration policies force ICE to stand down? Probably not, although the courts may at least slow the mass arrests."
In that case, I believe, having allocated resources to build up this type of quasi-militia, legal or not, that they would find other purposes to use ICE.
I confess I’m surprised by how many Americans, who as federal employees, took an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution, are behaving brutally and cruelly as part of this new American Gestapo. How is it they missed the message that they public servants? Working for the public good. With integrity and good character. There’s no room anywhere for “fucking” in a legitimate arrest for cause.
I'm not surprised at all. Law enforcement historically attracts highly conservative individuals. Not all of them are bad, of course, but there is no shortage of people who are mostly interested in wielding a lot of unchecked power against people they already think are the problem with society.
Yeah, this. Cops have been breaking the law and violating people's constitutional rights for decades, even centuries. It's part of the package. This happens to be especially egregious even by those standards, but the root of the problem was there.
Changing public opinion is all to the good. But we must be concerned about what Trump/Miller will do with the $75 billion in the OBBBA for increased ICE agents and detention centers when they have few undocumented criminals to pursue.
I'm not sure about that. For better or worse, Nazis in general were proud of their role, and it would've been unthinkable for them to hide their faces behind balaclavas. I believe that this behavior of ICE is maybe familiar from organized crime, but unprecedented for government bodies.
BTW: Gestapo (= "Geheime Staatspolizei") is female, therefore it should be "Die Neue Gestapo." You can use Google for that sort of thing, it has become surprisingly accurate:
Thanks for the info. I'll spell it that way from here on out.
As for hiding their faces, I thinks it's fair to assume that a good number of these goons aren't actual ICE but rather self appointed and "deputized" thugs.
There's a video I saw on substack of a bunch of them being driven off by an angry crowd - they escaped in the back of a rental truck, not any government issued vehicle.
“Business may also have a say, as labor shortages disrupt agriculture, construction and more.”
I would urge you to beware business bearing gifts, Timothy Snyder recently made this point: We should remember what drew I.G Farben into Auschwitz: profit.
One of Stalin’s original interests in the Gulag system was cheap labour, he also put quotas on the number of arrests authorities were meant to make.
Business helped put Trump in office, maybe this is why.
Yes, Thinking About…American Concentration Camps…About which Tim Snyder warns us all. And I ask, ‘When did for-profit prisons really take root in America?’
Work permits of all kinds - a true alphabet soup - have been issued for many years. Some employers find cumbersome, not all petitions are processed/approved, almost all are limited in time allowed.
The H-2A as used in AG makes employers responsible for housing and transportation for the workers, etc. So it is easier to hire just a number of undocumented workers already here. Also, H-2A workers are supposed not to bring spouses/children, the illegal ones usually have a house, a family, etc. Which makes them dependable, long-term workers.
How come people all of a sudden write about gulags, slave labor, but never had an issue with workers supposed to arrive here without their loves ones? Or that workers lived for years in stress, without options to secure their future?
Workers needed in this country should not have to jump through so many hoops. Just issue them Green Cards. A conditional one for the first two years and after approval an unconditional one. No more insecurity, no more looking over the shoulder.
That is what you should "urge" for. Stop the comparisons that are not helpful.
I recall reading that many more slave laborers died building the V-2 rockets than were killed by the V-2s themselves. (source: the footnotes in "V2: A novel of World War II" by Robert Harris).
All the ICE raids I've seen in posted videos clearly look like the "agents" are rounding up anyone who looks Latino, or speaks Spanish. They are not just detaining people from a list of known criminal immigrants, but haphazardly grabbing anyone they think looks "illegal". And strutting around with their pounds of armor and gear to look tough. Mexican search and rescue teams crossed the border to help find people in the Guadalupe River flood, only to get handcuffed and detained as "illegal immigrants". After rescuing survivors! Governor Abbott approved the draconian act. No wonder people are second guessing this "mass deportation" effort. It's a blatantly racist intent to rid the US of Latinos, since even citizens are being rounded up, and detained for weeks, before some, at least, are being released.
My bad, I just discovered it was an AI fake. I apologize profusely.
AI deep fake of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott bragging about deporting Mexican firefighters goes viral | San Antonio | San Antonio Current https://share.google/bdpyl2dSeq0j0Gsk7
Unfortunately so. I will have to look more closely at sources, I thought it came from a good one. Usually I know better than to accept something just because it reinforces my views.
'Mexican search and rescue teams crossed the border to help find people in the Guadalupe River flood, only to get handcuffed and detained as "illegal immigrants". After rescuing survivors! Governor Abbott approved the draconian act.'
I cannot find any source for this on right or left wing websites. I think this is baloney.
The fact that this is likely false shouldn't obscure the fact that Mexican emergency services workers who had visas did travel as volunteers to Kerr County to assist the search and rescue effort. (There were also volunteer teams from Mexico who came to help fight the California fires.) The contrast between their readiness to help and the administration's eagerness to hurt is grotesque.
Here is Snopes showing the Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum praised the Mexican volunteers but did not take credit for sending them in. Imagine Trump giving positive credit where credit is due.
My bad, I just discovered it was an AI fake. I apologize profusely.
AI deep fake of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott bragging about deporting Mexican firefighters goes viral | San Antonio | San Antonio Current https://share.google/bdpyl2dSeq0j0Gsk7
My bad, I just discovered it was an AI fake. I apologize profusely.
AI deep fake of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott bragging about deporting Mexican firefighters goes viral | San Antonio | San Antonio Current https://share.google/bdpyl2dSeq0j0Gsk7
My bad, I just discovered it was an AI fake. I apologize profusely.
AI deep fake of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott bragging about deporting Mexican firefighters goes viral | San Antonio | San Antonio Current https://share.google/bdpyl2dSeq0j0Gsk7
Not me, but my bad, I just discovered it was an AI fake. I apologize profusely.
AI deep fake of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott bragging about deporting Mexican firefighters goes viral | San Antonio | San Antonio Current https://share.google/bdpyl2dSeq0j0Gsk7
My bad, I just discovered it was an AI fake. I apologize profusely.
AI deep fake of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott bragging about deporting Mexican firefighters goes viral | San Antonio | San Antonio Current https://share.google/bdpyl2dSeq0j0Gsk7
My bad, I just discovered it was an AI fake. I apologize profusely.
AI deep fake of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott bragging about deporting Mexican firefighters goes viral | San Antonio | San Antonio Current https://share.google/bdpyl2dSeq0j0Gsk7
One of the things about having been a Republican for a couple years in my youth two decades ago is that looking at their policies is a constant back and forth between "oh, I remember when I was dumb enough to believe that" and "yeah, I was never dumb enough to believe that."
Idolizing and wanting to join the military, the police, the CIA, the FBI? Yeah, I remember being that kid. Idolizing and wanting to join immigration enforcement? Nah, I was never that kid. Even back in the 2000s when I was mostly just following the post-9/11 zeitgeist, it was already obvious to me that these people were, at BEST, the modern version of Prohibition enforcers - busybodies hassling ordinary people who aren't bothering anyone and are just trying to get by.
I recently heard it said that “some of the best Americans I know just got here.” That has been true of my experience with immigrants my entire life, whether they had become citizens or were peacefully living and working in my community with perseverance and dignity. More of us in this country know this to be true than those who deny it, so the cruelty and dehumanizing will not, in my opinion, be normalized.
In order to become citizens, they're required to know more about American history than most born Americans. This becomes obvious when you hear King MAGA talk about American history.
I recently made a somewhat similar observation here in Europe: Whenever a civilian saves the day from domestic terrorism, or an accident, or some other disaster, that civilian tends to be an asylum seeker or some other non-white immigrant from the lowest rungs of the social hierarchy.
It's hard to imagine a context where "it's sitting on my desk" actually means, "it's not sitting on my desk, it doesn't exist, and I've never heard of it."
No, there are plenty of Epstein files. The rabbit hole people are incensed because a) the files were released years ago, and b) all of the juicy bits are still blacked out.
Here is an article about a man from Venezuela scheduled to be deported back to Venezuela, whose mother in Venezuela was looking forward to seeing him for the first time in six years. Instead, he was deported to Cecot in El Salvador to be tortured.
Many of us live in and around Blue cities also have MAGA relatives who live elsewhere, and they make references to how our kid's baseball teams are staffed with trans kids and our cities are hellscapes. So we're like, "huh?" It would be laughable but for the damage done by all this brainwashing.
Here are the facts:
In feb. 2014 the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projected that recent immigration to the U.S. will lead to a $1 trillion increase in government revenue over the next decade, and that the U.S. economy will grow by $7 trillion due to immigration over the same period, according to reports on the CBO's findings. This increase in revenue is primarily attributed to the increased economic activity and tax contributions from the growing immigrant population.
Immigration is clearly good for America and one of the reasons the US faired better than most other advanced economies after COVID. But I don’t think that this is the reason public opinion is shifting.
The assault on immigrants is similar to the Fugitive Slave Act in both its cruelty and its effect on public sentiment . Passed as part of the Compromise of 1850, the Fugitive Slave Act enabled Southern slave catchers to come North and take people accused of being escaped slaves back to their “owners” in the South. As people who had lived and worked for years in their committees were suddenly and violently ripped away, slavery stopped being an abstraction and became a very real and manifest evil.
The unintended effect of the Fugitive Slave Act was to increase and harden Northern opposition to slavery. Trump and his Gestapo nightmare are doing the same thing for support for immigrants.
Actually, there had a Fugitive Slave Law on the books since 1793, but it wasn't well-enforced partly because accused runaways could actually defend themselves in court. That, along with sympathetic Northern judges and juries, made recovery of the "lost property" pretty difficult if not impossible. The 1850 version fixed those problems by virtually denying a defendant's ability to defend themselves and by authorizing the appointment of special commissioners (rather than the "unreliable" civil courts) to handle runaway slave cases. Moreover, the law stipulated that these commissioners would be awarded ten dollars for every suspected fugitive returned to slavery, but only five dollars if the suspect went free (note that every African-American north of the Mason-Dixon Line could be considered a suspect).
So it's not just about the cruelty. It's also about the money.
Excellent point about the money. Recent reports have shown the prison population will decline as inmates swept up from 1970-2010 age out of the system and crime rates are low. Building and staffing prisons was for many states an economic development tactic for rural areas. The OBBA funding creates another subsidized employment opportunity for people who remain in rural areas.
I used to think they weren't poisoning our food to make us sick..."𝐛𝐮𝐭" this changed everything....
https://t.co/b6AV3rm8dI
Which was based on a clause of the Constitution. Didn’t realize how much harsher the 1850 Act was. I think the comment above yours is right - it’s fostering sympathy for immigrants. And unlike with slavery, ICE is rounding up people all over the country so the impact won’t be purely sectional (though they do seem to be targeting blue cities for now).
Note Texas, who has almost as many immigrants as California, has no National Guard or Marines in their State.
Yup, that’s the problem. This is being used to attack blue states.
They do have the military in Texas, they’re stationed at the border rounding up immigrants and asylum seekers who cross the border, not in the cities rounding up kids in playgrounds…:)
Sorry, I forgot they were at the border for awhile now.
Immigration isn’t a threat—it’s this country’s future strength. But the MAGA crowd is stuck in reverse, gripped by fear as America’s skin tone deepens and its values evolve. They don’t want progress—they want a return to the days when women were silent, people of color were invisible, and power was never questioned.
The idea that women might control their own bodies? To them, that's heresy. How dare they make decisions without permission from men in power? This isn’t about morality—it’s about control. And they’ll cling to it by any means necessary.
Agree, MAGA is made up of people without a shred of empathy.
Hardcore MAGA haven’t changed. The WSJ has an editorial suggesting that Trump do something to legalize the “Dreamers” (DACA)—people brought here illegally as children.
I read about 100 comments there perhaps five favourable. The rest were “kick them out.”
Francis, you should start your own substack and stop spamming others.
Now we can expect those numbers to trend negative, and that's before even taking all these insane tariffs into account, along with other moronic economic policies.
The entire American model is premised to quite an extent on immigration being a good thing.
Incidentally, one of the reasons the North circa 1860 was such a healthier society than the South, and was able to outlast it, was that it turned itself into a magnet for easy immigration. It was for all intents and purposes open borders, and while the immigrants didn't have it easy, they still had far more opportunity than they did back home and the same basic rights as the native-born. End result, a fast-growing and very loyal population, which not only helped grow the economy but provided a pretty big numerical advantage when the societies finally came to blows.
Blue staters should take notice of this.
Again, a good laugh. The US does not want more immigrants, no country does. In the US it is the citizens who have immigration rights. They can bring in Immediate Relatives (parents, spouses, minor children) and Family Members (siblings with their families, adult children with family). All others interested in immigration here, can forget about it. Unless they manage to fit in one of the exceptions. Like Melania Knavs who came based on the H-1B Tits&Ass exception, an EB-1 Green Card, then Citizenship. And of course people well-educated, moving in the same higher levels of society as Mr. Krugman. These are welcome too. As are those who have One Million dollars that they can spare for a while to buy their way in.
In 1996 - under Prez Clinton - the "anti-immigrant" legislation was enacted. Forcing people who wanted to migrate here without an option to do so legally, to trek through the deserts, or swim the river. Hundreds (possibly thousands) perished by dehydration or by drowning because of that law. It is also the cause of many of the current issues.
The U.S. DOES want immigrants. Did you not look at the chart in this post? Only maga bigots oppose immigration. Republicans PRETEND that they don't want them, and make it difficult, but then they hire them, because the GOP is the party of greed, and the more potential workers, the easier it is to exploit them.
Green energy also brings in a ton of money, but Trump and his party hate that, too.
Funny thing, coming from a party that is always telling us that we'd be better off if we "ran government like a business."
But golly, gee! Trump has been running businesses for decades - right into the ground.
He couldn't make a correct decision if his life depended on it.
The idea of running a country like a business is totally wrong in almost every possible way. The biggest problem with that is being demonstrated by Trump and his Dirty Cabal in almost every possible way. (Repeat of words intended)
Facts - Do you think for one second facts could infiltrate a MAGA* brain? Tell them some alternative facts that confirm their bigotry and they buy it lock stock & barrel.
*Morons Are Governing America
Here’s another important fact: When the poor do better, everyone does better. Every dollar that goes to a poor person typically gets spent—and then re-spent—circulating through the economy five to seven times. That means each dollar becomes $5 to $7 in economic stimulus.
Because the poor spend nearly all their income just to get by, their money flows immediately into local economies—on food, rent, and necessities—often at businesses owned by middle-class entrepreneurs. Helping the poor isn’t charity; it’s smart economics.
Have you seen graphs, charts by economists in books like Wealth & Democracy by Kevin Phillips, probably those by Piketty, whom I haven't read, etc? The 1970's was the apex of equality in wealth & incomes, but the oligarchs want to go back to the Gilded Age. Apparently, life's no fun if one is merely affluent--rather than filthy rich. Middle-class entrepreneurs are too independent-minded. You have to eliminate them as competition and make them precariously employed, always fearful of ending up homeless, therefore compliant.
Facts can be distorted. This time by myself... The date of the CBO's findings is not 2014, but 2024!! Sorry about that. But then again: every politician currently in office should know this!
I never know whether to laugh or cry with "facts" like that. When I came to the US I was told that I could not be allowed to work, that the jobs were needed for Americans, and if we (H-4 non-immigrant wives) would also be allowed to accept a job, the whole of the US economy would be destroyed! Next thing I hear is how much immigrants contribute to the economy, how important they are, how much revenue they bring, that more migrants should be admitted, etc. How can both be true? Can economists please make up their minds - before I lose mine.
Antoinette, serious economists, like Paul Krugman and myself, follow facts, teach those, publish those, but do not make the rules. Politicians make the rules and have opinions that are aligned with the interests of the people that pay them most, which mostly are not the voters. These simple facts explain your confusion.
All of this is horrifying.
But the jump scare is the chart that shows the vast majority of Americans still believe immigration is a good thing.
When the irrational fears of a vanishing minority of citizens determine policy for the entire nation, are we allowed to declare that it's fascism by definition, and not just an effort to score rhetorical points?
We don't need permission to declare it's fascism by definition - it just is.
Yes, but the comment isn't directed at people like you, is it?
It's an indictment of those who refuse to believe what their eyes and ears are telling them, and there are still tens of millions of such people.
Plus of course the editorial department at the New York Times, which makes a policy of sane-washing and normalizing with anodyne language and banal framing just about everything Trump does.
It'll take a little longer, but they'll come around eventually. They have to.
Hence the comment.
To make sure we're properly oriented on the problem we face: too many people are in denial.
Or just plain cowardly or greedy. Especially the "gray lady". What a damned shame.
I write the newsroom and editorial department directly most days. It's possible they may be shamed into doing a better job.
I certainly remind them that the Washington Post lost *half its subscribers in just two disastrous years* -- and there's no reason that can't happen to NYT if they refuse to serve their readers properly.
I also regularly write Executive Editor Joe Kahn to remind him that he's a worthless nepo baby.
These round-ups are an act of terrorism.
The formal term for it -- neatly provided to us by Robespierre -- is "state terror".
And as we know, the circle of "enemies of the state" subject to state terror only tends to expand.
It's a bizzaro corruption in language: "terror," historically, is a term used for crimes committed by the state (i.e. Robespierre's terror), and yet today it's pretty much exclusively reserved for non-state-actors.
Yes. The US has been dispensing state terror throughout its entire existence, both at home and abroad. (Hint: It's never conducted a war without committing war crimes for which it is never prosecuted.)
But it plays the good guy in the movies. And that's worked out pretty well.
We call that "cultural hegemony".
The US is an agent of "state terror, both at home and abroad" and has been since its inception.
That's it. If you don't know the history, read up on it. It might help explain to you why the country is where it is now, and that's the point I'm making and worth you knowing.
Umm ... yeah. And how did that work out for Robespierre? In a cycle of about four years ... one elctorl cycle here.
Nobody's advocating for Robespierre!
It's just clear that he understood what "state terror" is in a way American policymakers pretend not to know.
"Electorl [sic] cycles" are likely finished in the good old US of A.
FYI...
Terrorism worked for Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Putin, Kim Jog Un, Xi Jinping, Gaddafi ..... Need I go on?
Exactly what Trump likes.
stochastic terrorism.
Well, let's see how many of that "79% approving immigration" will actually stand up for these besieged communities, not just voting against Nazi-style roundups, but joining thousands of other concerned Americans and make "good trouble" when the goon squads show up in their towns and cities. It's your country, people, take it back!
That's really the key. And the world watches and waits for the American public -- as well its gatekeeper media, like the Times (looking at you, Joe Kahn) -- to respond as though they know they're already in the middle of a life-threatening emergency.
I don't think the government pursuing unpopular policy is a sign of fascism, no
there are lots of good reasons to call Trump a fascist but that's not one of them
What about ethnic cleansing, which is what this is actually about? Would you describe ethnic cleansing as fascist?
yes ethnic cleansing is fascistic
but it's fascistic regardless of whether it's popular or not. if 90% of Americans agreed with it it would still be fascistic.
fascism is often at least marginally popular, it's ridiculous to use polling results as a way of determining whether it's fascist.
The overwhelming popularity of immigration in the face of a fascistic and unsupported response to it is significant, whether you can see that or not.
it's significant but not because it affects the degree of fascism Trump and his regime represent
it's a hopeful sign to me that most people aren't drinking the kool-aid and that continued resistance to these cruel authoritarians will pay off
You struggle with the phenomenon of correlation.
My non-responsiveness from this point on I hope provides an object lesson.
You’re missing one of the key tools in the fascist playbook: right wing populism. A fascist regime doesn’t need the majority to support its policies, only a majority of its “base.” The hinge point—when the fascist regime achieves a critical mass of power to crush dissent and act with impunity—usually is only known in hindsight, and popularity isn’t required. Trump is already in power, it’s now simply a matter of where the hinge is. Perhaps the hinge has already creaked shut, perhaps not.
you're missing that I never said Trump wasn't a fascist. My point is entirely that the popularity or unpopularity has nothing to do with whether it's fascist or not
Trump is a fascist because he wants to remove people, in the most cruel way he can, essentially on the basis of their ethnicity and will use extralegal means to deprive them and anyone who stands up for them of their basic human rights. It doesn't matter whether he has 1% support or 99% support, he's a fascist.
There's no "scare point" in the fact that it's becoming unpopular - which heavily implies that it's merely whether he's swayed by the will of the people which makes him a fascist. This dumbs down the definition of fascism and distracts from the actual evil it represents, which is not merely contradicting democracy but contradicting basic human dignity.
I agree with all you wrote, and even agree his overall popularity is irrelevant. But I still think you miss the importance of his populist appeal to his base—it was/is fundamental to his fascism. That’s my only point of disagreement.
"...unpopular policy ..."? Not among his base. You do realize that one of the characteristics of fascism is the use of scapegoats?
did you stop reading after the first sentence?
"there are lots of good reasons to call Trump a fascist"
he is one, as far as I'm concerned, and his entire movement is at least a proto-fascist one. But it has nothing to do with whether his policies are popular or not or the degree of their unpopularity. If the graph were pointing in the opposite direction they would still be fascists, and in fact they would be worse.
No one here would support Trump’s nativist policies if they were more popular. No one said that. To point out they’re not all that popular does not undercut the immortality of these policies. You’re making no sense.
that isn't what I said.
my reading of the post that I replied to is that he was saying that the anti-immigration policies of the Trump admin, *because it was minoritarian*, is why it fit the definition of fascism.
The minoritarian nature has nothing to do with it. Some minoritarian policies are good. Some are bad. Being minoritarian is neither a necessary nor sufficient criteria for fascism.
Red herring. You repeated what Krugman said, that immigration policy is not as popular as it appears with your words "... unpopular policy ...". The policy in question, immigration, has everything to do with scapegoating, which is a characteristic of fascism, which you're denying. How far did you get in school again?
This does not deserve a response -- other than this one, of course.
Actually, yes it is.
Too many reasons 😳
Wow! People like Kristi No am make me ashamed but you are right, she is part of a right pilled irrational minority. The rational majority will prevail. Sing it: we shall overcome people 😎
What difference does the label make? The behavior itself, irrespective of its name is unacceptable and repulsive.
Sorry, “Alligator Alcatraz” is not a "cute" name. Why not call it what it is: The Everglades Concentration Camp.
When you are told that your government plans to be as miserable, nasty, crude as possible, believe them.
It will actually be worse.
How about "Alligator Auschwitz"?
Sorry, I just find anything that tries to make it funny or cute sickening; just how I feel about it
Nothing funny or cute about it. It WILL become a death camp because you know that there will be no resources devoted to keeping the inmates alive beyond meager rations and maybe a once-a-month visit by a certified nurse to provide "medical care."
Yes, we are already well into hurricane season which runs through the end of November. There is no evacuation plan, I guarantee you. The guards will all run and leave the victims locked in the cages.
That’s why it ought to be called by what it is. Not some nonsensical alliterative play on a tragedy from another time. Again just MHO
I agree with all your comments here, John. It's not just that this "facility's" name got tossed around long enough to become part of the national vocabulary, it's that some cretin(s) obviously thought it was a humdinger of an idea. I mean, OFFICIAL ROAD SIGNS were designed, produced, and ready to go for the big reveal! This ugly, ghastly thing (and everyone associated with it) will live in infamy! An irradicable mark of shame on this country. It's sickening.
In all honesty, I think it's irrelevant what we call it. We all know what it is, we know what they're doing there. We can all agree that it needs to be shut down. It needs to stop. No matter what we name it.
And the Trumpists are planning to build many more of these, to be filled by a vastly expanded ICE/Gestapo. It should be noted that some Floridians did try to stop this defilement.
I think Paul was been sardonic
Yes, but I think any usage of that expression is offensive
Perhaps I am reading too much into it, but I picked up sarcasm when he used the word "cute" followed by a correct assessment of it being a concentration camp. And rather than taking a wild swing at my take on it, I was picking up on things he has said before, in videos with others. Either way, I agree with you, there is nothing cute about the name, the place, or anything associated with what this administration is doing.
Krugman did call it a concentration camp. He was mocking the government officials who came up with the name in the first place.
I believe he was being sarcastic.
Thank you. This is exactly what it is. This is what I will call it.
Good idea. I shall follow your suggestion.
I live 5 mins from where this song is based in Ireland … Kilkelly ! Conditions were real bad back then and immigration was first choice option in the midst of abject poverty and hopelessness. America was the destination and the land of hope, glory and opportunity and for so many it was the lifechanger. I remember older relatives getting mail during the year with a few dollars from friends and relatives who had made that trip. Some of these people never came home again but they didn’t forget. That on its its own a testament to the opportunity of America . That was back then and thankfully is no longer the case for Ireland . There’s a sense of sadness , loss and anger now in Ireland versus America and the Trump ‘ administration’ . A big dark cloud. Everything that America stood for is greedily being removed and realigned by this kakistocracy.
Unfortunately to date I have never been to America … I’m just gone 60 and had it in my raider. Not now or maybe never…. certainly not in these years during which the story of America is being dismantled.
The roles have been reversed. To many Americans, Ireland now looks like a beacon of freedom and prosperity. Not to mention music and good cheer. My most recent immigrant ancestor came from Dublin in 1825, and had the good sense to marry a prosperous widow.
My latest came from Germany in the mid-1800s - or maybe England about the same time. The German guy changed his name from "Schwarzwalder" to "Blackwelder" when he found that people in North Carolina couldn't pronounce his name.
What's not to like about immigrants working and paying taxes for social security for baby boomers?
Hey, them criminals are take'n away good jobs from us 'mericans!
Signed, MAGA.
Planning on picking vegetables, MAGA? Then STFU.
"Will the public backlash against Trump’s immigration policies force ICE to stand down? Probably not, although the courts may at least slow the mass arrests."
In that case, I believe, having allocated resources to build up this type of quasi-militia, legal or not, that they would find other purposes to use ICE.
It’s his SS. That was always the point.
Yes and when it’s decided that ICE is not sufficiently cruel, they’ll bring in Eric Prince and Blackwater - the US’s Prighozin and Wagner.
I confess I’m surprised by how many Americans, who as federal employees, took an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution, are behaving brutally and cruelly as part of this new American Gestapo. How is it they missed the message that they public servants? Working for the public good. With integrity and good character. There’s no room anywhere for “fucking” in a legitimate arrest for cause.
I'm not surprised at all. Law enforcement historically attracts highly conservative individuals. Not all of them are bad, of course, but there is no shortage of people who are mostly interested in wielding a lot of unchecked power against people they already think are the problem with society.
Yeah, this. Cops have been breaking the law and violating people's constitutional rights for decades, even centuries. It's part of the package. This happens to be especially egregious even by those standards, but the root of the problem was there.
At this point in the sequence, they're his "Brownshirts."
Agree, but the billions afforded them by the OBBB will end the current SA and birth the SS.
That's the goal.
Trump won’t stop. His base is very fond of all his actions with migrants.
One more cruel and immoral policy on behalf of the folks who hold bibles in the air(upside down) and crosses around their necks.
Can't just complain in our living rooms, action is called for.
GOOD TROUBLE July17
Exactly! Doing it here in Michigan! 👊🏻
Changing public opinion is all to the good. But we must be concerned about what Trump/Miller will do with the $75 billion in the OBBBA for increased ICE agents and detention centers when they have few undocumented criminals to pursue.
Der Neu Gestapo.
I'm not sure about that. For better or worse, Nazis in general were proud of their role, and it would've been unthinkable for them to hide their faces behind balaclavas. I believe that this behavior of ICE is maybe familiar from organized crime, but unprecedented for government bodies.
BTW: Gestapo (= "Geheime Staatspolizei") is female, therefore it should be "Die Neue Gestapo." You can use Google for that sort of thing, it has become surprisingly accurate:
https://translate.google.com/?sl=en&tl=de&text=the%20new%20gestapo&op=translate
Thanks for the info. I'll spell it that way from here on out.
As for hiding their faces, I thinks it's fair to assume that a good number of these goons aren't actual ICE but rather self appointed and "deputized" thugs.
There's a video I saw on substack of a bunch of them being driven off by an angry crowd - they escaped in the back of a rental truck, not any government issued vehicle.
“Business may also have a say, as labor shortages disrupt agriculture, construction and more.”
I would urge you to beware business bearing gifts, Timothy Snyder recently made this point: We should remember what drew I.G Farben into Auschwitz: profit.
One of Stalin’s original interests in the Gulag system was cheap labour, he also put quotas on the number of arrests authorities were meant to make.
Business helped put Trump in office, maybe this is why.
Snyder’s piece: https://snyder.substack.com/p/concentration-camp-labor
Yes, Thinking About…American Concentration Camps…About which Tim Snyder warns us all. And I ask, ‘When did for-profit prisons really take root in America?’
Circa Early 1980s, Reagan Years.
Work permits of all kinds - a true alphabet soup - have been issued for many years. Some employers find cumbersome, not all petitions are processed/approved, almost all are limited in time allowed.
The H-2A as used in AG makes employers responsible for housing and transportation for the workers, etc. So it is easier to hire just a number of undocumented workers already here. Also, H-2A workers are supposed not to bring spouses/children, the illegal ones usually have a house, a family, etc. Which makes them dependable, long-term workers.
How come people all of a sudden write about gulags, slave labor, but never had an issue with workers supposed to arrive here without their loves ones? Or that workers lived for years in stress, without options to secure their future?
Workers needed in this country should not have to jump through so many hoops. Just issue them Green Cards. A conditional one for the first two years and after approval an unconditional one. No more insecurity, no more looking over the shoulder.
That is what you should "urge" for. Stop the comparisons that are not helpful.
I recall reading that many more slave laborers died building the V-2 rockets than were killed by the V-2s themselves. (source: the footnotes in "V2: A novel of World War II" by Robert Harris).
All the ICE raids I've seen in posted videos clearly look like the "agents" are rounding up anyone who looks Latino, or speaks Spanish. They are not just detaining people from a list of known criminal immigrants, but haphazardly grabbing anyone they think looks "illegal". And strutting around with their pounds of armor and gear to look tough. Mexican search and rescue teams crossed the border to help find people in the Guadalupe River flood, only to get handcuffed and detained as "illegal immigrants". After rescuing survivors! Governor Abbott approved the draconian act. No wonder people are second guessing this "mass deportation" effort. It's a blatantly racist intent to rid the US of Latinos, since even citizens are being rounded up, and detained for weeks, before some, at least, are being released.
Source please for the Texas treatment of the Mexican rescue team. It should be widely circulated.
Yes, I had the same reaction. If this took place, we need to know.
My bad, I just discovered it was an AI fake. I apologize profusely.
AI deep fake of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott bragging about deporting Mexican firefighters goes viral | San Antonio | San Antonio Current https://share.google/bdpyl2dSeq0j0Gsk7
This deepfake stuff is getting good.
Unfortunately so. I will have to look more closely at sources, I thought it came from a good one. Usually I know better than to accept something just because it reinforces my views.
'Mexican search and rescue teams crossed the border to help find people in the Guadalupe River flood, only to get handcuffed and detained as "illegal immigrants". After rescuing survivors! Governor Abbott approved the draconian act.'
I cannot find any source for this on right or left wing websites. I think this is baloney.
Everyone must be so very careful about the dissemination of "facts".
The fact that this is likely false shouldn't obscure the fact that Mexican emergency services workers who had visas did travel as volunteers to Kerr County to assist the search and rescue effort. (There were also volunteer teams from Mexico who came to help fight the California fires.) The contrast between their readiness to help and the administration's eagerness to hurt is grotesque.
Could not agree more:
Here's one of many stories of the Mexican volunteers:
https://www.kut.org/texas/2025-07-13/mexican-firefighters-volunteers-search-rescue-texas-kerr-county-flooding-border-visas-permits
Here is Snopes showing the Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum praised the Mexican volunteers but did not take credit for sending them in. Imagine Trump giving positive credit where credit is due.
https://www.snopes.com/news/2025/07/09/mexican-president-texas-rescue-teams/
They are truly a blessing. Abbott is a terrible & nasty man.
My bad, I just discovered it was an AI fake. I apologize profusely.
AI deep fake of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott bragging about deporting Mexican firefighters goes viral | San Antonio | San Antonio Current https://share.google/bdpyl2dSeq0j0Gsk7
Thanks for owning up to it.
Thank you for taking responsibility! Your honesty puts you above the entire Republican party.
The commenter explains above. He was fooled by a deepfake.
My bad, I just discovered it was an AI fake. I apologize profusely.
AI deep fake of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott bragging about deporting Mexican firefighters goes viral | San Antonio | San Antonio Current https://share.google/bdpyl2dSeq0j0Gsk7
I did a few minutes of research and there is no credibility for the claim that Mexican rescuers were handcuffed and detained.
It’s a deepfake.
Ditto. Not that I'd put it past them or anything, but there are no reports of it as of yet.
My bad, I just discovered it was an AI fake. I apologize profusely.
AI deep fake of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott bragging about deporting Mexican firefighters goes viral | San Antonio | San Antonio Current https://share.google/bdpyl2dSeq0j0Gsk7
No problem. It's all too easy to believe. Especially when it comes to either Abbott or King MAGA.
Were you able to find any non-credible sources? I couldn't. Perhaps Rain Robinson made it up.
Not me, but my bad, I just discovered it was an AI fake. I apologize profusely.
AI deep fake of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott bragging about deporting Mexican firefighters goes viral | San Antonio | San Antonio Current https://share.google/bdpyl2dSeq0j0Gsk7
My bad, I just discovered it was an AI fake. I apologize profusely.
AI deep fake of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott bragging about deporting Mexican firefighters goes viral | San Antonio | San Antonio Current https://share.google/bdpyl2dSeq0j0Gsk7
My bad, I just discovered it was an AI fake. I apologize profusely.
AI deep fake of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott bragging about deporting Mexican firefighters goes viral | San Antonio | San Antonio Current https://share.google/bdpyl2dSeq0j0Gsk7
It’s ok. It’s hard to tell the difference. Mistakes happen.
ICE's big budget boost will result in many, many new hires. What kind of person aims to work for the current ICE? Pretty scary
One of the things about having been a Republican for a couple years in my youth two decades ago is that looking at their policies is a constant back and forth between "oh, I remember when I was dumb enough to believe that" and "yeah, I was never dumb enough to believe that."
Idolizing and wanting to join the military, the police, the CIA, the FBI? Yeah, I remember being that kid. Idolizing and wanting to join immigration enforcement? Nah, I was never that kid. Even back in the 2000s when I was mostly just following the post-9/11 zeitgeist, it was already obvious to me that these people were, at BEST, the modern version of Prohibition enforcers - busybodies hassling ordinary people who aren't bothering anyone and are just trying to get by.
All the reichwing militia types. They're just itching to be fitted with jackboots.
I recently heard it said that “some of the best Americans I know just got here.” That has been true of my experience with immigrants my entire life, whether they had become citizens or were peacefully living and working in my community with perseverance and dignity. More of us in this country know this to be true than those who deny it, so the cruelty and dehumanizing will not, in my opinion, be normalized.
In order to become citizens, they're required to know more about American history than most born Americans. This becomes obvious when you hear King MAGA talk about American history.
Or Alito.
Oh Alito knows it alright. He just deliberately ignores it.
I recently made a somewhat similar observation here in Europe: Whenever a civilian saves the day from domestic terrorism, or an accident, or some other disaster, that civilian tends to be an asylum seeker or some other non-white immigrant from the lowest rungs of the social hierarchy.
So, they're NOT eating the pets, they're actually doing the work, or were until we deported some and scared many others.
What's next?
Gonna tell me there are no Epstein files?
According to Bimbo Bondi, when she said the client list was on her desk, her words were "taken out of context". Then she "self disappeared".
It's hard to imagine a context where "it's sitting on my desk" actually means, "it's not sitting on my desk, it doesn't exist, and I've never heard of it."
In the bizarro world of Trumpkopf, anything is possible. Up is down, down is up, War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength.
It probably actually WAS sitting on her desk, and DonnyJon nearly had a heart attck when she said that. "DON'T YOU DARE RELEASE THAT LIST!!!!"
No, there are plenty of Epstein files. The rabbit hole people are incensed because a) the files were released years ago, and b) all of the juicy bits are still blacked out.
Here is an article about a man from Venezuela scheduled to be deported back to Venezuela, whose mother in Venezuela was looking forward to seeing him for the first time in six years. Instead, he was deported to Cecot in El Salvador to be tortured.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/7/13/2332959/-It-was-a-kidnapping-Mom-shares-horror-of-son-s-inhumane-deportation?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=top_news_slot_6&pm_medium=web
Yes, cruelty is the point.
Many of us live in and around Blue cities also have MAGA relatives who live elsewhere, and they make references to how our kid's baseball teams are staffed with trans kids and our cities are hellscapes. So we're like, "huh?" It would be laughable but for the damage done by all this brainwashing.
Cut them off.
I mean, that’s what horrible people tell kids about their breasts or testicles.
That poll was the first unambiguously good news I’ve heard in months.