Tag Archives: ICEstapo

What Is Patriotism?

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Today’s conservatives are fond of calling themselves patriots. But is there really a patriot among them? Their support for the Felon-in-Chief and their acceptance of his dismantling of our government would indicate otherwise.

Patriotism is defined as “devotion and vigorous support for one’s country.” How does that square with those who watched, or even applauded, as the Trump regime encouraged and then pardoned insurrectionists who violently tried to overturn an election? How does it fit with those who support a twice-impeached president that has repeatedly violated numerous sections and amendments to the US Constitution? How does it describe those who have chosen Party over country? Who have approvingly watched as Dear Leader uses the justice department to attack his political opponents? Who have silently stood by as the regime builds a 32,000-member version of Hitler’s gestapo that arrests people who are legally in this country, denying both immigrants and citizens due process?

None of that. I repeat, none of that is patriotic. Indeed, it’s very much the opposite!

Far from being patriots, the MAGA cult consists almost entirely of racial and socio-economic bullies. Bullies who believe they are superior by birthright. Bullies who demand that others do as they say. Some strut around with weapons and tactical gear to intimidate political opponents. Others hide their true feelings from the public. But when they are exposed, as were the texts between leaders of Young Republicans, it’s clear that they are antisocial, antidemocratic, anti-Semitic racists and fascists.

To be clear, these Young Republicans aren’t exceptions. They are representative of the entire MAGA cult. They were encouraged and promoted by the likes of Charlie Kirk, vice-president J.D. Vance, speaker MAGA Mike Johnson and the Putinesque fascist who has taken up residence in the Oval Office.

Of course, in public many of the cult members recite passages from the Bible to justify their actions and claim to be Christians while ignoring every aspect of Christ’s teachings. They claim to support “family values” even as they cheer on the ICEstapo as it rips families apart. They take perverse joy in threatening and abusing innocents, especially immigrants. They talk and act tough. But at their core, they are soulless, mindless cowards.

Others of the cult use their wealth and positions within large corporations to manipulate the government and the economy to serve their personal interests, not caring about the effects of their actions on those who cling to lower rungs of the economic ladder.

No amount of flag waving and Bible thumping can excuse the actions of these people or make them what they claim to be. All of that is mere theater. In fact, the more they wave the flag and the more they proselytize, the more clear it becomes that they are imposters. And that their “patriotism” fails to extend beyond themselves and their self-interests.

Our nation’s Founders went to great lengths to create a constitution that would prevent tyranny. And history provides many examples and warnings of how tyrants rise to power. Yet these so-called patriots have not only ignored those warnings. They have voted a tyrant into office, and many continue to cheer him on as he accumulates power and diminishes our freedoms.

Such people are not patriots. They’re losers and traitors. And they’re as phony as the gilded yard sale trash that’s now tacked all over the walls of the White House.

Gone.

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Trump’s ICEstapo recently reported that it’s on track to detain and deport 600,000 immigrants this year. (And that doesn’t count the number of legal immigrants and citizens who have been detained and often brutally treated.) In addition, ICE stated that 2 million immigrants have already left the country.

That’s 2.6 million Americans gone. And, if the Felon-in-Chief gets his way, millions more will follow.

That may seem like a victory for MAGA, but they, too, will soon feel the impact on our economy, on tourism, on our communities, our lifestyle, and our international reputation. They, too, will suffer from the impact on medical research and technology because, instead of the world’s best and brightest coming to the U.S., they are leaving for Canada, Europe and other parts of the world. The “brain drain” will be catastrophic for our future.

Further, the ICEstapo’s “success” means that many of those 2.6 million people will no longer pay income taxes. They will no longer make contributions to Social Security and Medicare without ever enjoying the benefits. These immigrants are no longer available to harvest our food, help raise our cattle, milk our cows, prepare our meat, cook our food, care for our lawns, construct our buildings, care for our children and our elderly, or to tidy up the hotel rooms after us.

These immigrants were our neighbors, our church members, our classmates, our employees, and our friends. They owned businesses and rented apartments or purchased homes. They were also our customers. They purchased groceries, clothing, pharmaceuticals, cars, appliances, electronics, haircuts, entertainment and more.

These are people who gave our communities diversity and everything that comes with it: new and interesting flavors. New music. New celebrations. New life. But much of that will be gone.

Sadly, most of these people overcame extreme hardships to live the American dream. Mostly out of necessity, they left their homes and everything they knew behind to come here. In most cases, their emotions have gone from hope to panic and sheer terror as they are snatched from their homes, their schools, their workplaces, and the streets by gangs of masked, heavily armed men.

Once again, they are forced to leave everything behind and watch their families torn apart. Many will be returned to their homelands and the desperation they fled. And, in a bizarre example of this regime’s cruelty, some will be sent to lands halfway around the globe where everything is unfamiliar. Where there are no friends. No family. No knowledge of the language or the culture. Some will be tortured or killed.

And for what reason?

Because an orange-tinted fat man in Washington and his cult-like followers want to cleanse our nation of anyone who – God forbid – doesn’t look like him. Or act like him. Or fails to constantly praise him.

And if they succeed, the nation and the freedom we love will also be gone.

What Did You Vote For?

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Did you vote for increased inflation and higher prices due to tariffs? Did you vote to pay higher taxes so that billionaires and multinational corporations could receive large tax cuts? Did you vote to increase the deficit and add trillions to the national debt? Did you vote to consolidate more power in the executive branch by taking power away from the courts and your elected representatives?

Did you vote to have unvetted 20-something-year-old geeks sort through all of your private information and cut thousands of federal jobs? Did you vote to make America more racist again by eliminating DEI programs and firing government and military leaders just because they are women or people of color? Did you vote to have inexperienced and unqualified people take control of government agencies?

Perhaps you voted to arrest and deport immigrants who are violent criminals, but did you vote for mass deportations of essential farm workers and those who work in meat processing plants? Did you want to see families torn apart? Did you vote to have your immigrant neighbors and community members arrested and deported without due process? Did you want to see innocent immigrants and US citizens imprisoned in El Salvador and beaten and tortured or thrown in concentration camps?

Did you vote for cruelty?

Did you vote to have masked men with military weapons kidnap working Americans without warrants? Did you vote to have armed military in our streets? Did you vote to have judges and congressional representatives arrested?

Did you vote to dispense with the rule of law?

Did you vote to deport Afghan interpreters who saved the lives of US troops? Did you vote for massive cuts to the Veterans Administration? Did you vote to see millions thrown off Medicaid, including elderly in senior care? Did you vote to make healthcare unaffordable for millions of your fellow Americans? Did you vote to close hundreds of rural hospitals? Did you vote to cut funding for the National Institutes of Health and Centers for Disease Control? Did you vote to cut medical research on cancer, Alzheimer’s and other diseases?

Did you vote to eliminate foreign aid programs that save millions of lives? Did you vote to alienate are most loyal allies, including Canada? Did you vote to make foreigners afraid to visit our country and to stop buying our products? Did you vote to end Voice of America? Did you vote to help Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestinians?

Did you vote to ignore climate change while cutting funds for NOAA and the National Weather Service and eliminating FEMA? Did you vote to increase the use of fossil fuels and lease public lands to oil companies?

Did you vote to lower taxes on gun silencers? To watch our leaders engage in massive bribery schemes and corruption? Did you vote to pardon the criminals who violently beat police and planned to hang the Vice-President and many in Congress on January 6? Did you vote to have the president pardon felons in exchange for presidential bribes? To sell green cards for millions of dollars?

Did you vote for increased attacks on freedom of the press and freedom of speech? Did you vote to undermine the US Constitution?

Maybe you didn’t intend to vote for many of those things. But if you voted Republican in 2024, that’s what you got. Indeed, that’s who you are. Because your vote is a reflection of you.

The Kakistocracy Is In Full Bloom.

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And the foul odor coming from Washington makes a corpse flower smell like roses.

At the heart of that stench is the Trump crime family’s extortion and bribery campaign. Not only is The Donald unconstitutionally imposing or threatening tariffs to extort foreign governments. The 34-count felon has sold access to more than 200 of the largest investors in his meme coin cryptocurrency scam. He has also sold pardons to convicted criminals for bribes, and he has pardoned more than 1,500 insurrectionists, including those who violently attacked law enforcement and invaded the Capitol on January 6, 2021, with intent to hang VP Mike Pence, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and numerous other congressional representatives on his behalf.

In addition, Trump has used the power of the Oval Office to take aim at every individual and institution that, in his twisted mind, has wronged him. That includes former FBI agents and federal prosecutors who dutifully investigated the crimes stemming from his first term in office. Of course, he has illegally used executive orders to attack those he perceives to be liberal institutions, such as Harvard and other universities, as well as law firms.

And Trump isn’t the only one using the powers of office to pursue personal, vile and often illegal agendas.

Pam Bondi, Kash Patel, Ed Martin and others are restructuring the justice system in such an extreme manner that it more rightly should be called the injustice system. They have opened investigations into former officials – not based on evidence of wrongdoing or unlawful behavior but based entirely on politics and cruelty. Bondi has even announced that judicial nominees will no longer be vetted by the American Bar Association in order that their selection be based on MAGA loyalty rather than legal worthiness.

Kristi Noem and Stephen Miller are pursuing their racist agenda of removing millions of brown and black migrants while welcoming white Afrikaners into the country. Indeed, they have announced their intent to arrest more than 3,000 per week, including citizens. (Of course, the ICEstapo already has a history of deporting residents without due process and illegally detaining citizens and legal residents who have exercised their freedom of speech.) And now the Supreme Rightwing Court of the United States has cleared the way for removing more than 500,000 refugees with Temporary Protected Status.

Trump has even announced his intent to create an Office of Remigration, a fascist term for ethnic cleansing, based on removing all those who do not integrate into local culture regardless of their legal status – meaning they are brown, black or speak any language other than English. (Trump previously issued an executive order to overturn the 14th Amendment so that he might deport the descendants of certain immigrants despite their citizenship.)

RFK, Jr. has pursued his anti-vax, anti-science agenda to destroy the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control making the US and world population vulnerable to more pandemics. And he recently released his MAHA report. Though it offered some medically accepted studies on the cause of chronic diseases, it incorporates Kennedy’s skepticism of vaccines based on flawed and, in some cases, nonexistent studies.

And those are just the lowlights.

There are many more odiferous individuals within this criminal enterprise, aka the Trump administration. But, honestly, their cruel, illegal and unconstitutional actions are far too numerous to mention.