But, of course, many of us live in this country with the secret police and lawless king. And I don't know that I can count 5 votes on the Supreme Court to prevent this.
One of the effects of this, of which the administration is probably already aware, is other countries will be more likely to arrest and hold Americans in response and as a way to placate their local populations.
This is insanity and supremely dangerous. What's to stop ANY RANDO from posing as a "secret" police officer and kidnapping ANYONE off the street? There was one (that I know of) would-be rapist in NYC who posed as an ICE agent to get his victim alone.
Ted Bundy pretended to be a plainclothes cop to get his victims to go with him who knows how many times. One managed to escape from his car and lived to testify about it.
or worse? they break in on a legally armed US citizen who is not white in a "castle doctrine" state & they don't leave vertically.. soon to be in a jurisdiction near you, this is why we have a 4th amendment to prevent precisely these scenarios
If masks are banned on campuses and at demonstrations, then surely public servants paid by taxpayers should not wear masks and should identify themselves. Wtf
Tired of yelling at your 📱 like it’s gonna fix things? Good.
On April 5th, we stop scrolling and start showing up.
Because if you’re not at the protest, you’re basically the NPC in someone else’s story.
Be loud. Be seen. Resist.
History doesn’t remember the quiet ones—👀 you there.
#handsoff
I only bring that up is because when we see groups like the proudboys with their faces constantly covered it's not a stretch to imagine that these *aren't* feds, and that they're just fascists that are in the area and want to intimate both students and the general public from standing up
I've subscribed to your podcasts and newsletters for at least a decade. Though I am more liberal, whenever I disagreed with you about the US descent into hell, it was because I thought you didn't scream loud enough when it was relatively safe to do so. Now it's unsafe and you yell louder than me. 👍
The thing you have to remember about fascism's footsoldiers is that they're people. I don't mean that in an, "We should all respect and appreciate our common humanity," way. I mean it more in a, "Nobody wants to die doing evil, illegal shit," way. Also, tac gear's heavy. Make the bastards suit up.
Not only that, but detaining them incommunicado and refusing to provide their lawyers and families with any information. It's going to be a citizen soon, not that anyone should be waiting for that.
I think it would be big enough news by now that if it happened, it would have cropped up. But when it does happen, believe that they'll be trying to suppress it. Right now there's still independent media that will at least pass along "substantiated reports" or the like, though.
I think whether it would make the news or not depends largely on the mindset of that person’s family or loved ones. If their family is too scared to speak out, or if they’re not in regular contact and aren’t immediately missed, we might not hear about it for a while.
This is just FUD. Saying things have happened because we don't know about them is the same thing they're saying when they toss a gay barber into an infamous labor camp. Because we don't know they're terrorists, that proves how dangerous they are!
I mean you already had a veteran get rounded up in these deportation raids, you don't think they're going to start disappearing American citizens that get too far out of line?
For the record, they've been deporting veterans without citizenship since at least the Bush years. I'd really love it if people paid better attention and had a sense of history. And my point is precisely that, dear Rose Twitterer, they will get there. It just hasn't happened explicitly.
you think way too optimistically. there were 600 Americans detained during Obama's presidency and 700 during trump's first term, 70 of whom were deported.
Davino Watson, a high school grad, spent 3½ years in custody successfully fighting wrongful deportation.
you have a right to an attorney during immigration proceedings, as with any court, but since it is a civil procedure, a lawyer is not provided for you, and there are even fewer protections for rights that few citizens know they have or how to exercise them, even for children
Most dystopian literature has, from the very beginning, based on very possible realities, such as past and present history. All you need to add here is imaginative extrapolation of said reality.
They’re really not the kind of people I hang out with, but I keep hoping to meet an ICE agent at a social event of some sort, so I can loudly insult them and whatever trash they have on their arm.
If they are hoping out 6at a time that's a gang. No one is getting thrown into a white or black van by 6 men is going to think they won any kind of fun prize. My first thought would not be 'cop' either.
I have no idea how Dems expect solidarity from all the factions that made up their base when one faction of the base gets everything they want along with veto power on fucking everything, while another gets to eat the fkn boot every single fkn time.
The boot faction, aka corporate fascists, get their fat pay checks. That is all they care about, genocide, economic collapse, any other consequences a damned
I ain't gonna argue dem complicity, because they are complicit.
Can I think of some dems that belong in a dock at the Hague? Sure.
But facts matter: the Dems did not do this. There is a very specific set of people who are behind this, and as much as I hate dems right now, it aint them.
And the fkn Brits planted slavery on our shores, piled up a fortune on it here and around the fkn world, and got their fingerprints all over nearly every fkn atrocity on the fkn planet for the last 300 fkn years.
But you know what? The fkn Limeys didn't do this either.
Sure doesn’t seem like the secrecy is dual-purpose to both protect people blatantly acting as authoritarian bag men as well as give cover to any paramilitary or extralegal groups that want to do some disappearing of their own.
We’re at the point where I’m up for charging the individual officers, whose instructions were so cartoonishly to commit wrongdoing that they had a clear duty to refuse.
My inclination is to say these schools should risk losing federal funding rather than submit to government interference. Do conservatives really have an ideological axe to grind, or is ending federal funding really the end game?
There have always been exceptions for defending yourself from the police, and I'm sure they'll go right on applying it to the secret police too. After all, when the cops hit you, you get charged with assault.
Which is not to say that people shouldn't do what they can, just expect to be prosecuted.
Comments
pretty well
I think I need to get me one
The "shirts" will be blue this time.
We tried that before, and they came out of prison still nazis.
More permanent solutions will be applied.
On April 5th, we stop scrolling and start showing up.
Because if you’re not at the protest, you’re basically the NPC in someone else’s story.
Be loud. Be seen. Resist.
History doesn’t remember the quiet ones—👀 you there.
#handsoff
Sigh
The problem of engaging ICE/DHS in an effective manner once that point is reached is left as an exercise for the reader.
Davino Watson, a high school grad, spent 3½ years in custody successfully fighting wrongful deportation.
https://www.propublica.org/article/more-americans-will-be-caught-up-trump-immigration-raids
https://youtu.be/9fB0GBwJ2QA
https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/president-trump-politics/sen-warner-seeks-answers-about-ice-detaining-us-citizen/3873086/
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/trump-immigration-raids-citizens-profiling-accusations-native-american-rcna189203
https://blockclubchicago.org/2025/03/18/ice-illegally-arrested-22-people-in-the-midwest-since-trump-took-office-new-lawsuit-alleges/
Go and do thou likewise.
Quick Trials
plainclothes + balaclavas + assault = "Your Honor, I was in fear for my life and safety so I kept firing until the threat was gone."
https://bsky.app/profile/righteoushazard.bsky.social/post/3llcemwc3sk2v
I have no idea how Dems expect solidarity from all the factions that made up their base when one faction of the base gets everything they want along with veto power on fucking everything, while another gets to eat the fkn boot every single fkn time.
dems support fascism abroad when running an easy working class campaign would’ve won the presidency but they chose corporate $$
not the same at all, both firmly in “fuck them” bucket
fuck them too
Can I think of some dems that belong in a dock at the Hague? Sure.
But facts matter: the Dems did not do this. There is a very specific set of people who are behind this, and as much as I hate dems right now, it aint them.
But you know what? The fkn Limeys didn't do this either.
It's here. Right now. You're living in that time.
"If you're scooping up students off the street for writing op-eds, you're an enemy of America, and should be treated accordingly."
🦗 crickets 🦗
https://www.salon.com/2022/03/15/how-this-tiny-christian-college-is-driving-the-rights-nationwide-against-public-schools/
Which is not to say that people shouldn't do what they can, just expect to be prosecuted.