Yeah, the way it’s phrased it definitely seems like they want to make things worse by blaming voters for behaving like voters instead of focusing criticism on the elected officials who refuse to really attack the Republican party and its policies and end up demoralizing everyone

If you want people to vote for us when there isn’t a Republican in the White House then we need to push for leaders who

1. Consistently tell people Republicans are bad people with bad ideas.
2. Tell people creating ICE and DHS were Republican ideas and they need to be gotten rid of because Republicans have bad ideas.
3. Tell people things were better back in the 90s before ICE existed because we didn’t let Republicans’ bad ideas ruin everything and we could just go back to what we were doing then.
4. Publicly disown anyone who tries to campaign with Republicans or says anything positive about them.

Deviating from those things only loses us votes.

e; deleted something that was needlessly proactive

Absolutely, if only to make it really clear to future Americans that this kind of behavior from a government agency is completely unacceptable and leads to real consequences. Besides that, it’s a way easier policy lift than Defund the Police - we could just go back to how we did things in the 90s and bring back Immigration and Naturalization Services, who were more like DMV workers making sure paperwork was in order than the psychopath gun wielding spec ops wannabes that have always made up Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Of course, since this is such an obvious good idea, the second worst group of people in America are going into overdrive right now - “Dems Are Begging Their Own to Drop ‘Abolish ICE’ - A new memo circulating on Capitol Hill urges Democratic lawmakers to instead embrace reforming the agency.” (arc)

Nothing matters until suddenly it does matter

Fair point, but I’ll take empty posturing that people might run further with than Walz actually wants them to over stuff like

• Mayor Jacob Frey Says ‘I Do Not Support Abolishing ICE’ After Telling Agents to ‘Get the F*ck Out of Minneapolis’ (arc)

and

• Schumer and Jeffries Refuse to Back Growing Democratic Calls to Defund ICE (arc)

Good luck, and tell your insurance company I said they’re a bunch of bums

Were they actually restored? Unless I missed something, the only evidence presented for that is an anonymous federal government employee, which is an organization that’s been known to lie about a lot of stuff. Until one of these orgs confirms the money is in their accounts acting like the feds have definitely reversed course here is premature.

Agree with everything you say except the last sentence. Long term I don’t think there’s anywhere people can flee to that will put them beyond the reach of the US government. It has to be confronted and stopped.

This is basically the Kilmar Abrego Garcia case all over again except the judge is a fucking idiot and asshole who will apparently accept any bullshit the feds come up with to say why they’re actually really sorry about this terrible accident but it would be just impossible for them to do literally anything at all to fix the mess they made

e;

Stearns said he did not think a contempt finding seemed appropriate. However, there are the human consequences, he said. He floated a solution: Why not just grant Lopez Belloza, by all accounts a good student attending Babson on a scholarship, a student visa?

Yeah, that’s a federal judge being presented with the federal government breaking the fucking law and just being like, “Doesn’t look like anything to me! But I get that you’re upset right now, and since you’ve gotten such good grades let’s see if maybe we can’t do you a little favor.”

Fuck that, he’s a racist douchebag who throws immigrants under the bus when it’s politically expedient. The fact that he’s an astronaut is as impressive and relevant to his character as Ben Carson being an accomplished brain surgeon.

Yeah, that’s fair. For the record, I think NPR (and PBS) are among the best and most ethical American news organizations, but they’re still only about half as committed to their own ideals as what this country needs.

“Veterans of the Great War claim Germany has lost its way, saying ‘Sure, we invaded other countries and used chemical weapons on people, but when we did those things we pretended to be sad about it, these Nazi kids are making us look bad!’”

Anybody who ever worked for ICE can fuck all the way off

Also, somebody should mention the fact that 50 votes in the Senate plus a VP tiebreaker vote was all that was needed to just throw out the filibuster

Amazing how people who accuse progressives of not knowing how stuff works or whatever always forget that little detail

NPR: “Everybody thinks we’re a bunch out of touch elites, how do we reconnect with ‘Real America’?”

Walmart Advertising executive: “I have an idea for you.”

NPR: “Well, you seem like a trustworthy sort without any kind of ulterior motives, please go on!”

Huh, that site normally supports HTTPS, but perhaps they’re having some sort of technical issue today

If you need an archived page, here’s another resource that does seem to be working - https://web.archive.org/web/20260114142409/https://www.al.com/news/2026/01/ice-arrests-detains-more-children-in-alabama-under-trump-administration.html

Yeah, and this probably isn’t even in the top 10 for terrible things the Clintons have done to politics in this country

You’re right, but Adams was such a crappy writer that he produced some decent anti-corporate messaging in spite of himself. Like, I’ve heard the “laughing at Dilbert strips when I was a kid was what led to me being an anti-capitalist adult” thing several times now (which goes alongside the “JK Rowling made me anti-fascist” thing and “Kanye West made me anti-rascist” thing in the halls of literary ironies).

These fucking things need to be banned.

Hear hear, should have been years ago - https://www.npr.org/2024/06/21/nx-s1-5015030/linda-tirado-journalist-shot-police-2020-george-floyd-protests-hospice-care (arc)

I definitely agree that’s what should happen, but until anything like that does happen I think this GoFundMe is fraudulent. As it stands they’re raising money for a court case that isn’t going to happen.

Sure, and thank you for your gifts to this community, but gift links aren’t permanent copies of an article as it exists at this point in time, which I think is always important to document with certain publications that have a mixed history on journalistic ethics (e.g. NYT, WaPo, CNN, etc. (for the record, I think they’re all way better than e.g. WSJ and conservative rags like that, but they’re still unreliable))