Category Archives: Bigotry

If MAGA Is Making America Great, Why Do They Need Pardons?

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The Felon-in-Chief has already pardoned violent insurrectionists, drug traffickers and white-collar criminals who have been convicted of stealing millions from unsuspecting Americans. Now we have learned that the Felon has told his staff that he will issue them blanket pardons at the end of his term, which raises the question: Why? After all, if they’re doing such a good job as he claims, why would they face any criminal charges?

The answer is that, since the Felon regained the Oval Office, he and many of his cabinet and staff have engaged in unprecedented illegal and corrupt activity. The Felon himself has violated the Constitution’s emoluments clause to enrich his family by more than $4 billion. In addition, he illegally blocked funds appropriated by Congress. He started an unnecessary and ill-advised war in Iran that will cost taxpayers as much as $1 trillion. He intends to waste billions of taxpayer funds on a ballroom and other vanity projects. And, with the help of his personal lawyer now acting (emphasis on ACTING) as Attorney General, he has engineered a $1.776 billion slush fund to pay off his seditionist thugs and create permanent immunity from any IRS investigations for himself, his companies and his fraudster sons.

His Vice President has proven that his loyalty is to the Felon and his multibillionaire owner rather than the American people. His first Attorney General clearly violated the law by delaying and mishandling the Epstein files. His FBI Director has executed the Felon’s retribution campaign by firing anyone who investigated the Felon’s crimes. He is also accused of being drunk on the job and handing out bottles of his own private label bourbon to supporters. His Christian Nationalist Secretary of “War” has decapitated military leadership by firing most female and black leaders. He has also executed numerous war crimes at the Felon’s behest.

The Felon’s first Secretary of Homeland Security oversaw the murder of U.S. citizens and the lawless detention of thousands of citizens and legal immigrants as she wasted hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars on her own vanity projects. His multimillionaire Secretary of Transportation has spent most of his time in office on an all-expenses-paid seven-month vacation with his family while filming a reality TV show. His multi-billionaire Secretary of Commerce is known to have lied about visiting Epstein’s island.

His multibillionaire Secretary of Education’s sole duty is to implode the Department she was appointed to lead. His antivax, roadkill gourmet who occupies the Secretary of Health and Human Services office is making the world more vulnerable to the next pandemic. His ethically challenged multibillionaire Secretary of Treasury has multiple conflicts of interest that have generated accusations of corruption. His Director of the Office of Management and Budget has overseen tax cuts that some experts expect to add $50 trillion to the national debt over the next 30 years.

And this list of ne’er-do-wells doesn’t even include the real criminal on his staff, Stephen Miller who should rightly be given the title Minister of Cruelty for his extreme racist, anti-immigrant, and anti-worker agenda.

Not satisfied with using their positions of power to enact policies that benefit themselves and their wealthy friends, the Felon and members of his staff are also accused of widespread insider trading. Given all of this, is it any wonder the Felon has added the prospect of blanket pardons to his staff’s employment benefits?

These people aren’t trying to make America great. They’re trying to make themselves rich off the backs of ordinary Americans.

Proof Of Trump’s Sedition.

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If there was ever a question that the Felon launched the January 6 insurrection, it has been clearly answered by his actions since returning to the Oval Office.

On the first day of his second term, he pardoned nearly 1,600 of his thug supporters who were awaiting trial, had pled guilty, or were convicted of crimes ranging from conspiracy to commit sedition to brutally beating capitol police officers to obstructing an official proceeding to unlawfully entering and vandalizing a restricted area. And, although no one was charged with the crime, it was also clear that many of those arrested planned to murder VP Mike Pence in addition to Democratic senators and representatives.

In his congressional testimony, special prosecutor Jack Smith testified that he not only had obtained grand jury indictments against the Felon for leading the insurrection and trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election. But he firmly believes he had enough evidence to secure a conviction. After all, there is an abundance of video of the plot as it unfolded.

Yet the Felon has indicated that he plans to reward his thuggish January 6 followers with $1.7 billion of taxpayer funds as compensation for their efforts!

Combined, all of that would surely be enough evidence to get a conviction of sedition in any court in the land. But sadly, it’s not enough to sway a single Republican to vote for impeachment, let alone a conviction.

That should tell you everything you need to know about the MAGA/Republican Party’s willingness to see justice and our constitution corrupted in its quest for power. It is certainly no longer the “party of law and order” it claimed to be.

Moreover, the party’s actions speak volumes about the lack of patriotism, ethics and morality of those who voted for the 34-count convicted felon. They not only set aside the standard that normally prevents a felon from holding office. A significant percentage of voters was willing to overlook his convictions for fraud and a jury’s decision that he had committed sexual assault, as well as the numerous and credible accusations of rape, including that of a 13-year-old!

Of course, there’s the Access Hollywood tape in which he brags about grabbing women between the legs and walking into the dressing room of the Miss Teen USA pageant to see contestants naked. There’s his longtime friendship with a convicted pedophile and sex trafficker, his adultery and philandering, his many thousands of lies, his delight in acts of cruelty, his obvious ties to Russia, our nation’s greatest external threat, and his obvious mishandling of the nation’s secrets.

But none of that seemed to matter to millions of Americans. They claim to have voted for the man because he promised them lower grocery prices – prices that had become inflated due to his policies and mishandling of the pandemic during his previous term in office.

Even now, many of those voters are willing to overlook spiraling inflation caused by his folly in Iran, his corruption of our justice system and many of our most beloved institutions, his dictatorial and narcissistic behavior, his obvious dementia, and his unconstitutional use of the government to enrich his family. For them, his racism and misogyny aren’t faults, they’re strengths.

Contrary to his supporters’ beliefs, he’s not the second coming of Christ. He’s the second coming of Idi Amin.

Feeding The Felon’s Ego.

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I believe Trump’s vision of a White House ballroom encapsulates the entire Trump presidency, indeed his entire life. First, he decides to build a grandiose ballroom in his name. He and his friends will pay for it, and it will be attached to the East Wing. But don’t worry, the East Wing will not be touched. Instead, it was demolished. Then we were assured that the new East Wing and the ballroom would be even better. And they would be funded by private donors. No taxpayer funds needed. Now…now we are told that building the ballroom is a matter of national security, and it will cost taxpayers a billion dollars!

None of this should come as a surprise. In the Trump regime, EVERYTHING IS A LIE! A lie to feed the insatiable ego of a deeply flawed individual.

Though he has done nothing to advance the lives of others (in fact, the lives of most Americans are demonstrably worse for his malignant narcissism), the Felon-in-Chief has a grandiose vision of himself as some sort of savior. A leader so revered that the entire capital city and all of America’s symbols should pay tribute to him.

Like Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, and other despots before him, he wants his image and his name plastered everywhere. Not satisfied with seeing his name in cartoonishly large letters atop hotels, on golf courses, on airplanes and the like, he wants to see it on theaters, government buildings, and airports. And, of course on his grandiose ballroom and an even more self-aggrandizing “Arch d’ Trump.”

He even has expectations of seeing his highly punchable face on Mt. Rushmore. Who knows? Before he can be dragged out of the now gold encrusted Oval Office, he may try to rename the White House after himself, or the District of Columbia, or the entire nation.

“Welcome to Trumplandia, formerly known as the United States of America.”

And what has the Felon done to earn this greater than George Washington legacy? He pushed his way into office with help from Russia and its highly dangerous leader. He embraced bullies, racists, thugs, and terrorists of every kind. He weakened our international standing and alienated our most reliable allies. He destroyed our democracy’s most valuable institutions and traditions and turned Americans against one another as never before. He reshaped the Supreme Court and is in the midst of politicizing the entire judicial system.

His national police force has terrorized cities. His “War Department” has committed war crimes. He has set back race and gender relations by more than 50 years. He has rolled back regulations and compromised our environment. His failed response to the pandemic killed more than a million Americans and tanked our economy. He cut off food and medical aid to impoverished people around the world leading to millions more deaths. He has imprisoned and deported thousands of law-abiding immigrants who had become necessary parts of our communities. With the help of RFK, jr., he has made the world even more vulnerable to the next pandemic.

He started a war of choice that has destabilized the Middle East and crippled world economies. He has overseen a regime of unparalleled corruption. In just the first year of his second term, he has used his title to enrich his family with more than $4 billion. And by the time he’s done, he will likely have doubled the national debt.

Given all this, I submit there is only one fitting monument to bear his name: A prison. Who else is for renaming Gitmo?

Kakistocracy? Idiocracy? Kleptocracy? Oligarchy? Theocracy? Or Autocracy?

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I admit to being flummoxed by how best to describe our current regime, er, administration. A government of the worst and most unscrupulous blowhards? A government by self-serving and unqualified incompetents? A government designed to fill its leaders’ bank accounts with taxpayer money? A government run by democracy-hating billionaires? A government based on ethically and morally challenged evangelic Christianity. Or a banana republic-like dictatorship?

In truth, I believe it’s an amalgamation of them all.

Consider that it is being led by Felon-in-Chief Donald J. Trump, the 34-count convicted felon, adjudicated sexual assaulter, three-time adulterer, insurrection-leading conman, and former best pal of Jeffrey Epstein who spends most of his time golfing and rage posting on social media. His greatest accomplishments are hiding his alleged sex abuse of 13-year-old girls, regrowing his ear following an alleged assassination attempt, demolishing the East Wing of the White House, starting an economy-crushing unnecessary war, plastering his name and face all over government buildings, building monuments to himself, and using his office to fill the Trump family coffers with $4 billion during his first year in office.

Second in command is Vice-President James Donald Bowman, aka James David Humel, aka J.D. Vance, a deceitful author turned politician who was financed by the anti-democratic billionaire and government contractor, Peter Thiel. Among the most devoted of Trump bootlickers, the Veep’s greatest achievement is his ability to so frequently fit his size 11 shoe in his mouth. In a display of supreme hubris, the recent convert even lectured the Pope on the finer points of Catholicism.

There’s Acting Attorney General (emphasis on acting) Todd Blanche who has continued his role as Trump’s personal attorney to file Trumped-up charges against the Felon-in-Chief’s perceived enemies. Of course, he follows the more famous, more combative and more hateful Pam Bondi who was apparently brushed aside for releasing the Epstein files without clearly exonerating Dear Leader.

In charge of our nation’s health is HHS Secretary RFK Jr., the vaccine denier with a brain worm whose accomplishments include dining on roadkill and stopping his car to cut the penis off a dead racoon as his wife and children watched. He has singlehandedly brought measles back from eradication and is ambitiously cueing up the next pandemic.

The “Director of War” is Pete Hegseth, a hard-drinking, Bible-thumping Christian Nationalist and racist who has blown through the world’s largest military budget in record time while decapitating the top leadership of our military and publicly advocating war crimes.

At the helm of DHS is Markwayne Mullin, the three-win MMA fighter turned politician who notoriously physically threatened his Senate colleagues. It remains to be seen if he can be as successful as his predecessor, ICE Barbie, in advocating brutality while cheating taxpayers out of hundreds of millions for luxury jets and self-aggrandizing TV commercials.

The rest of this Cabinet of clowns and misfits are relatively silent partners in the regime doing the Felon’s bidding but escaping public attention. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick is the primary proponent of inflation-inducing illegal tariffs and infamous guest of Jeffrey Epstein’s magical island of sex trafficking and abuse. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has given us the Felon’s signature on our currency and the creation of a Trump coin. The queen of pro wrestling, Linda McMahon, seems to have but one assignment – the demolition of public education. Similarly, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, seem to have been given the task of destroying our nation’s wildlands and poisoning our air and water.

And don’t forget Secretary of State Marco Rubio who seems to ideally fit the description jack of all trades and master of none. What he is good at is making things disappear. If there’s a task the Felon wants everyone to forget about, he simply piles it on Magic Marco’s desk and voila, you never hear about it again.

Finally, we must acknowledge the a**holes behind the scenes: Stephen Miller and Russell Vought. Miller acts as a Mafia-like caporegime for the Felon to initiate and oversee the regime’s most racist and cruel policies. While Director of Management and Budget Russell Vought acts as a reverse Robin Hood, taking money from the poor to give to the rich. He is also lead author of Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s agenda intended to transform the American Dream into the American Nightmare. One in which the Executive Branch controls all the levers of power without restraint.

It’s as if our nation’s largest rival and global threat, Russia’s Vladimir Putin, handpicked our government leaders to dismantle NATO, weaken our military, accelerate climate change, impoverish tens of millions, and destroy the world’s greatest democracy.

And it’s not as if we had no warning of what might happen in the Felon’s second term. All you had to do was read the Muller Report, the court reports, and watch the videos from January 6.

1984 In 2026.

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Published in 1949, George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984 warned of a future in which a totalitarian government, aided by technology, controlled nearly every aspect of its citizens’ lives through a combination of mass surveillance, propaganda, and lies.

It turns out that his prediction arrived 42 Years late.

Think that’s hyperbole? Consider this: In his first term, media documented that the Felon-in-Chief told more than 35,000 lies. And he has only accelerated his assault on the truth in the years since.

The propaganda began (ironically) in 1984 when Rush Limbaugh began spewing rightwing lies and half-truths on his syndicated radio show followed by imitators such as Mark Levin, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Michael Savage, Dennis Prager and Bill O’Reilly. Their success led to the founding of TV propaganda outlets such as Fox News Channel, NewsMax, OAN, and now CBS News. In addition, we have Breitbart, Meta and X to spread the lies.

As for mass surveillance, it has increased over the past several decades to help law enforcement track criminals and terrorists. But, under the Trump regime, it has grown to track the entire population with more than 70,000 Automatic License Plate Reader cameras that can map the movements of vehicles. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is being used to track cellphones using Stingray/IMSI simulated cell towers. AI is being used to sweep social media using RAVEn. Drones and helicopters are used to track immigrants and who knows who else.

Facial recognition using the technology of Mobile Fortify and Clearview AI is being used by ICE to identify immigrants and to intimidate citizens. As I’ve written before, Elon Musk’s DOGE has compromised your personal data at the regime’s request. And Peter Thiel’s Palantir is in the process of consolidating all federal databases making it easy for anyone in the regime to invade your privacy as never before. The regime is even in the process of collecting voter data which can be used to compromise free and fair elections.

After the megalomaniac in the Oval Office has deported millions of people of color and permanently rigged elections so only his allies can win, what comes next? He has already compromised the courts, subjugated Congress, and willfully violated the Constitution. Will he be satisfied with total power and complete control? Will he continue to rebuild Washington, DC and splash his name on every building and entity of note? Will his desire to corruptly use his office to add billions more to his personal fortune ever be satiated? Will he be content to exact legal and monetary retribution against his perceived enemies?

Or will he need to see his political enemies punished in some sort of twisted version of the Hunger Games?

It Was Never About The “Worst Of The Worst.”

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The invasion of Minnesota by 3,000 feral paramilitary shock troops was never about arresting violent immigrants. Most of those people were already in Minnesota jails and prisons before being turned over to ICE. Certainly, the ICEstapo did detain immigrants. But almost all of them were hardworking, taxpaying individuals who contributed to our communities and are here legally.

Many of our immigrants are refugees or have applied for asylum. Some have been sponsored by family members. Many are legally here on Temporary Protected Status after fleeing war zones or overwhelming natural disasters. Others are going through the immigration process “the right way” and have been issued green cards, which permit them to live and work in the U.S. permanently. Some are “Dreamers” who were granted special status after being brought here as children. Some are holders of temporary visas. Still others are here on H1-B “genius” visas because they possess unique and valuable talents. A very few may be undocumented. But none of them – I repeat – none of them are “illegal aliens.”

That term should not be applied to any human being!

The invasion of Minnesota was, in fact, the combination of a Mafia-style shake-down and the regime wanting to exact violent retribution against a proud blue state.

How do we know that? Pam Bondi and the DOJ have recently stated that the regime will end its siege if the state ends its sanctuary policies, provides details of SNAP and Medicaid recipients and, more importantly, turns over voting data – an action that would be against state law.

Why voting data? Because the regime wants to use voter records to rig future elections, including the upcoming midterms. As Marc Elias says, “Donald Trump is obsessed with the midterms and will do whatever he needs to prevent losing control of Congress. Given his unpopularity, that likely means mass voter suppression, election subversion and outright election theft.

To accomplish any of this at scale, he will need unredacted statewide voter files. That would allow him and Bondi to identify which voters to target, which ballots to discard, and against whom to lodge false claims of fraud.”

In pursuit of the information, the ICEstapo and Border Patrol led by Hitler mini-me Greg Bovino have subjected tens of thousands of Minnesota residents to terrorist tactics – illegally dragging them out of their cars with the windows broken and the motors still running. They’ve kidnapped a 2-year-old and a 5-year-old to use as bait to lure parents out of their homes.

These morally bankrupt criminals have usurped freedoms guaranteed by the Bill of Rights, including freedom of speech and freedom of assembly. They have violated the 4th Amendment prohibiting unreasonable search and seizure. They’ve also violated the 5th Amendment guaranteeing due process in addition to numerous other provisions of the Constitution.

And with the murders of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti, they have unconstitutionally invoked a policy of “obey or die.”

Apparently, they believe that no one can hold them accountable by recording and observing their almost always brutal tactics. They have, after all, been told by their leaders and the corrupt regime in Washington, DC that they have complete and total immunity for their actions. In the process, they have terrified most residents of our great cities.

Because the ICEstapo is racial profiling, citizens who are brown and black are afraid to leave their homes. Even Native Americans have been detained and swept away to detention centers in other states. As a result, our economy is dying. What the racist, anti-immigrant crowd doesn’t understand is that we need immigrants. A Minnesota economist has stated that the African, Asian, Latino, and Native American communities in Minnesota account for 1 in 10 businesses owned, 1 in 5 workers, and 1 in 5 dollars earned.

If this invasion is to stop, we must see a unified response from elected Democrats, candidates and patriotic Americans across the nation. It’s not enough to retire Bovino and chastise the puppy killing Noem.

We must see more Republicans follow the lead of a Minnesota candidate for governor who recently left the electoral race and the party in disgust. We cannot wait for the regime to have a change of heart. (It’s no more likely to do that than to release all of the Epstein files.) And we certainly cannot expect the outcome of the midterm elections to rein in the fascists. Given the statements and actions of the Trump regime, those elections may very well never be allowed to happen.

The Occupation Of Minnesota.

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In case you are unaware of what is happening, Trump has created a personal army of 30,000 heavily armed, masked thugs (aka ICE and CBP) to do his bidding. A force of 3,000 of those bullies has invaded Minneapolis-St. Paul and surrounding communities on the pretext that they will make our cities safer.

The truth is quite the opposite.

Indeed, these thugs continue to break laws and violate the Constitution. In the cities’ most diverse neighborhoods, masked teams are going door-to-door and demanding residents show their papers.

Everyone with brown or black skin, including Native Americans, are vulnerable to being stopped and brutally detained regardless of their citizenship status. Thousands of nonviolent Minnesotans, including U.S. citizens, have been detained and incarcerated. Minnesota drivers have been pulled over and brutally dragged away in handcuffs – their cars left running in the streets. Some have had their cars rammed by ICE.

Lawless teams of armed masked men are pushing their way through department stores, restaurants and other businesses. They are teargassing legal observers and nonviolent protestors in violation of international law. They are using electronic surveillance of license plates, cell phones, social media and personal data from the newly consolidated government database to identify and intimidate those who record their activities.

At least one foreign visitor who came to Minnesota for medical treatment was detained. In another case, a team of agents without warrant unconstitutionally broke down the door to a home and dragged out one of its residents at gunpoint. Two young women were struck by nonlethal rubber bullets because they were apparently not moving fast enough through a crosswalk. And sadly, a young mother of three was shot and killed for simply trying to protect her neighbors.

Residents – most residents – are scared. Some too frightened to leave their homes or let their children go to school. As a result, many businesses are closed.

Some Minnesotans are purchasing groceries and other essentials  for immigrant families who are afraid to shop for themselves. Others have “adopted” immigrant neighbors who have legal status to help them in case one or more of them are detained.

It’s as if there are hundreds, if not thousands, of Anne Franks in our cities.

You may wonder why our federal government would treat its citizens this way. The answer is a combination of retribution against a “blue” state and theater designed to intimidate and threaten Minnesotans and all other Americans into compliance. Violence is the goal. And it’s escalating.

The New Surveillance And Police State.

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In recent years, the Republican Party and MAGA have constantly cried “Freedom”, believing that Democratic presidents were out to take away their liberty. But ironically, the people they voted for are the ones who are actually suspending the Constitution and taking away our freedoms.

Starting by suspending due process for immigrants, the Trump regime has quickly moved to attack the freedoms of citizens. It has attacked the First Amendment guarantees of free speech in government agencies, universities, and the media. It has violated the Fourth Amendment preventing unreasonable search and seizures, the Sixth Amendment right to a fair trial, and the 14th Amendment that gives citizenship to all those born in the United States, leading to a case that is now before SCOTUS.

The regime has initiated numerous attacks on the 15th Amendment guaranteeing the right to vote. Numerous individuals in the regime have openly discussed repealing the 19th Amendment, which gives women the right to vote. In addition, the regime has repeatedly discussed violating the 22nd amendment limiting all presidents, including Trump, to two terms.

And the regime is clearly only getting started.

Billionaire Peter Theil and his Palantir data mining company have helped construct a master government database of all US citizens enabled by the company’s numerous government contracts and Trump’s Executive Order to eliminate information silos. And the creation of the database and the accompanying surveillance network is happening faster than legislators can recognize the threat, let alone craft legislation to control it.

So, all of your personal data, including financial records, tax records, and medical records are all in one place, quickly accessible to anyone with clearance. And since the Trump regime has ordered states to turn over voting records, the database will likely include your party affiliation, political donations and voting history.

Additionally, Homeland Security and ICE are using more than 70,000 LPR (License Plate Reader) cameras to monitor the movements of undocumented immigrants. Of course, the cameras also allow the government to track movements of ordinary citizens, with the FBI and DHS using AI to sort through tips and social media to determine what they believe to be “threats.”

And the entire domestic surveillance network is shielded from oversight by “national security” exemptions.

At the same time, the regime is rapidly increasing the number of masked and armed ICE agents to roughly 30,000. It has also increased ICE’s budget for weapons by $71 million, a 700 percent increase.

But that shouldn’t worry us. We all trust that the Trump regime won’t use its database, cameras and secret police for political purposes, or to interfere with the liberties of American citizens. Right? Right? Right???

The Arpaio Model.

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From 1993 to 2017, the self-proclaimed “America’s Toughest Sheriff” Joe Arpaio terrorized Latinos and political opponents in Arizona’s Maricopa County for which he faced numerous civil rights lawsuits and was eventually convicted of contempt of court.

During his reign of terror, Arpaio established a model for what has become Trump’s ICEstapo.

Racial Profiling – Arpaio’s Sheriff’s department racially profiled Latinos during his anti-immigration sweeps stopping every driver with dark hair and brown skin to demand to see their papers. And, if they were unable to provide them, he swiftly hauled them off to jail where they were held in deplorable conditions. If those tactics seem familiar, that’s because the so-called conservative majority of SCOTUS decided to look the other way as ICE Barbie and her Gestapo wannabes violate the 4th Amendment ban on illegal searches and seizures.

Detention Conditions – Instead of normal jails, Arpaio housed many of his detainees in what he called a concentration camp in the Arizona desert. Known as Tent City, the camp consisted of surplus military tents located next to a landfill which made the entire site stink. Adding to the stench were the site’s only bathroom facilities – portable toilets. There was no heat or AC leading to temperatures inside the tent rising to as high as 145 degrees.

It was reported that Arpaio’s wife had a lucrative contract to provide meals for the detainees. Yet the twice-daily meals consisted of a carton of milk along with orange juice in the morning, a bowl of flavorless porridge, a hard roll and a piece of fruit recovered from food rescue.

Given that elected officials have been denied access to inspect ICE’s Alligator Alcatraz, it’s likely the conditions are as bad or worse.

Targeting Political Opponents – Arpaio famously arrested two reporters for publishing an article unfavorable to his office. The reporters were handcuffed by plainclothes officers, placed in an SUV with tinted windows and hauled off to jail. He also did the same to many of his political opponents. Sound familiar?

Like Arpaio ICE has also arrested political opponents without cause, forcing them to spend thousands on legal fees. The only difference between Arpaio’s thugs and the ICEstapo is that ICE agents have taken it a step farther by wearing masks.