Radley Balko

Yes, JD. Let’s ask them if they think a stay at home mom, avowed Christian, and widow of a veteran deserved to be shot in the face and left to bleed out in her own car after dropping her 6-year-old off at school, for the crime of looking out for her neighbors. Let’s ask everyone running for office.

We're witnessing the most aggressive, fanatical crackdown on free speech in my lifetime. The speed and breadth of government censorship and private sector and nonprofit capitulation has been astonishing. As has the lack of urgency/silence from people who've long claimed to care about this stuff.

ICE has arrested and detained a Nashville journalist who reported stories critical of ICE. She’s married to a U.S. citizen and has been seeking asylum here after fleeing death threats in Colombia because of her journalism there.

They’ve already sent her to Louisiana.

ICE detains reporter Estefany Rodríguez in Nashville - Nashville Banner

Reporter Estefany Rodríguez, detained by ICE with no arrest warrant, may face deportation. Her attorneys seek immediate review of the legality of her case.

500K Mexican-Americans served in the U.S. armed forces in WWII, as did millions of 1st and 2nd-gen immigrants, and 109K noncitizens.

Mexican immigrant Macario Garcia won the Medal of Honor in Normandy. When he returned to the US, he was was arrested for trying to eat at a segregated restaurant.

"I'm coming to Boston and I'm bringing hell with me."
--Homan in February

"Do I expect violence to escalate? Absolutely."
-- Tom Homan in March

"I actually thought about getting up and throwing that man a beating right there in the middle of the room"
-- Homan in July, referring to a D congressman

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com

Homan: "I begged for the last two months on TV for the rhetoric to stop. I said in March -- if the rhetoric doesn't stop, there is gonna be bloodshed. And there has been. I wish I wasn't right. I don't want to see anybody die."

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The president just gathered the highest ranking officers in the military to tell them that he may order them to kill American citizens -- and that they better follow his orders. All in response to a series of crises that have no basis in reality.

I don't know how to yell any louder.

Which work? Calling for gay people to be stoned to death? Blaming airplane crashes on black pilots? Anti-vax bullshit? Election denialism? Pushing Great Replacement Theory?

Kirk’s murder is awful and ominous for this country. But no, we don’t need to honor him or “continue his work.”

Good. Even if this doesn’t work, it’s time to go on offense.

www.newsweek.com/jb-pritzker-...

JB Pritzker looking at prosecuting ICE agents in Chicago

Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker has suggested that state prosecutors might examine the conduct of ICE agents.

They claim they can snatch people up, put them on planes, and deport them to a country run by an authoritarian, where those people will be forced to work slave labor at an inhumane prison. All without due process, and in defiance of federal courts.

The hypotheticals are over. This is the nightmare.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com

Homan: "We're not stopping. I don't care what the judges think. I don't care what the left thinks. We're coming."

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Really need journalists to push back on this bullshit. When they say this, just ask them point blank: "Are you saying that because one Latino man committed a murder, another Latino man deserves a life sentence? Do you think all Latino men interchangeable?"

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com

Homan on Abrego Garcia: "He got more due process than Laken Riley got."

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Floored by this story. A man wrote a pollite email to a federal prosecutor objecting to the deportation of an Afghan seeking asylum. DHS responded with an administrative warrant to get the man's info from Google, then visited his home to intimidate him.

DHS Hunts Down 67-Year-Old U.S. Citizen Who Criticized Them in Email

The Department of Homeland Security is using a little-known tool to go after its critics.

Every photo from Minneapolis looks like this. Cops decked out with guns and full tac gear facing off against people in bathrobes, parkas, and sweatpants armed only with whistles and cell phones.

Yet every verified MAGA chode on X dutifully calls it a riot or violent insurrection.

JD Vance personally invited Pope Leo to the U.S. 250th celebration on the 4th of July. Today the Vatican announced Leo will be spending the day with migrants instead.

Pope Leo Will Spend July 4 Visiting Migrant Crossing Island

Pope Leo has spoken out against the treatment of migrants in the United States several times over the last year.

Kavanaugh stop. Smashed the kid’s car windows and arrested him. He told them he was a U.S. citizen. The officer replied “I don’t care.”

www.oregonlive.com/portland/202...

High school senior, a U.S. citizen, detained by ICE in Oregon

The 17-year-old was held more than five hours Friday in an ICE facility, his brother said.

BREAKING:

House Speaker Mike Johnson announces that male Republicans neutered by Donald Trump may continue to use the men's bathrooms.

A Trump supporting, anti-trans, anti-gay Republican was elected commissioner of the county where I grew up. He won despite being in jail on election night for a sexual assault in Vegas.

It’s now come out that the woman he assaulted was his daughter.

fox59.com/news/indycri...

Politician pleads guilty in sexual assault case after being elected to Hancock County Council

HANCOCK COUNTY, Ind. — A current central Indiana county commissioner has pleaded guilty in a Nevada sexual assault case, days after being elected to his local County Council. John D. Jessup – a cur…

NYU canceled a planned speech by the former president of Doctors Without Borders because she planned to discuss the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and cuts to US AID.

This is what actual campus censorship looks like.

‘Climate of fear’: Montreal doctor says NYU cancelled her presentation

A Montreal doctor says her presentation at NYU was abruptly cancelled and believes the university did so out of fear of being pressured by the Donald Trump administration.

If our democracy dies, this is its epitaph

Remember the incident where DHS claimed officers shot a guy because he attacked them with a snow shovel?

Yeah. It didn't happen. They shot him through the door of his own home. And then arrested him. And then lied about it. Again.

And they almost shot some kids in the process.

This is deranged. Jan. 6 defendants were repped by one of the best public defender offices in the U.S. They were more likely to be released pretrial & got comparatively light sentences. SCOTUS threw out a bunch of convictions, which almost never happens. They got gold-plated due process!

Open-air corruption. They’re just flaunting it.

Upon learning that your own mistake sent an innocent father to a brutal prison where he’s likely to be tortured, anyone with a shred of decency would be overcome with shame and fight like hell to get him back.

They think it’s funny.

www.rollingstone.com/politics/pol...

Trump: I’m going to put ICE in the airports, where they will target and arrest all the illegals, especially Somalis, because I hate the Democrats

Headlines: Trump puts ICE officers in airports to ease long lines, provide relief for weary travelers

Can't overstate how fucked up it is that unraveling what is arguably the greatest achievement in the history of humanity is now a motivating issue of one of the two dominant parties in the U.S.