We Go As We Please: What the Fuck Is Wrong With Y'all

The American Gestapo's brutish, racist, unholy crusade rampages on. They've now left Chicago - trailing tear gas, court losses, manifest lies, the wrath of a people - to terrorize diverse blue Charlotte NC with its "cowardly fascist pigs doing cowardly fascist pig things." In a new "offense to history," they even named their latest depravity Operation Charlotte's Web. its author E.B. White, a stirring voice for democracy and inclusion who decried the "smell" arising from those who "adjust to fascism," weeps.

Thanks to his big butt-ugly bill's profane gift of $75 billion to thugs fighting an imaginary invasion of "criminal illegal aliens" and other forms of "domestic terrorism" by brown people, nearly half of FBI agents and countless Homeland Security workers have been pulled off other issues (like homeland security) and reassigned to round up deadly day laborers, taco makers and baby-sitting abuelas - coincidentally and not vengefully at all, mostly in Dem-run cities. Key to keeping the ethnic cleansing program churning is fascist ghoul Stephen Goebbels Miller, who sees every critic or court loss as "legal insurrection" and "domestic terrorist sedition" - what Jan. 6?- against federal government heroes who have immunity no matter their atrocities because, "This campaign of terrorism will be brought down."

Miller's fever dreams are echoed in the frenzied white nationalist agit-prop DHS spews to lure thugs to JOIN.ICE.GOV: "America has been invaded by criminals and predators. We need YOU to get them out." The rhetoric is brown-shirted: "We're Taking Back America," "The Enemy Is At the Gates," "America For Americans," "We Are Asleep No Longer," and, from the video game Halo whose villains are zombie parasites, "Destroy the Flood." They've even tossed into their state-sponsored domestic terrorist campaign Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Riders from the Spanish-American War - "We have room for but one flag, the American flag" - evidently unaware they were famously diverse, from cowboys to elites to Native Americans. George Conway on the brazen language: "It's hard to Nazi what's going on here."

Despite lowering physical and moral standards, and offering $50K bribes, DHS is still struggling to find enough sadists, losers, "pudgy militia stooges" and Marx' “scum, offal, refuse of all classes" to fill their ranks of bounty hunters. As a result critics, often cops, say it's clear from videos of wild, ham-fisted abductions, "There's something off with those guys - they're out of control." Many cite operations "built on spectacle, not evidence," with "a total abrogation of responsibility or training" and illegal practices like chokeholds meant to "send a message of brutality..."They're just fascist shows of force to satiate the creepy desires of an old man who wants to seem macho.” In Chicago, those abuses led to multiple court orders to rein them in, and even a call from Mayor Brandon for the UN to investigate them.

Response from a Chicago bounty hunter when a resident began filming him.Photo from Bluesky

"Operation Midway Blitz," the terrorizing of Chicago's brown-skinned population from early September to last week, saw 3,100 people, including U.S. citizens and children, detained, perhaps 1,100 of them deported or agreed to leave, lively communities shrunk to ghost towns, widespread trauma, inspired resistance, and a shitshow of often deranged violence by grossly ill-trained goons. They shot at least 2 people, killing one. They repeatedly, indiscriminately shot rubber bullets, flash-bang grenades, teargas and smoke bombs at protesters, journalists, first responders, pastors, and outside an elementary school. They handcuffed a city alderman at a hospital, pepper-sprayed a one-year-old in the face, beat up and bloodied the people they detained. They undertook 8 car chases that ended in 8 crashes.

In one of their most ludicrous, performative flops, they launched a flamboyant raid on an apartment building allegedly filled with Venezuelan gang members - rappelling from a Black Hawk helicopter, smashing doors, seizing families and crying kids, dragging them into the cold, zip-tying, leading away and slickly videotaping 37 victims in what Goebbels hailed as a counterterrorism victory that "saved God knows how many lives" - except all the drama resulted in zero criminal charges. Again and again, the bombastic cruelty proves both hollow and illegal: In a lawsuit about conditions at Broadview detention facility, a judge "literally ordered DHS to clean up their shit" after agreeing detainees were being held without access to beds, toilets,food, water, counsel, telephones, anything approaching basic humanity.

The malfeasance kept bigly backfiring on them. Last week, another judge, citing "repeated, material violations," ruled that 614 detainees at Broadview should be released on a $1,500 bond following an earlier class action lawsuit charging their detentions contravened a Biden-era consent decree limiting warrantless arrests; he also barred them from being deported. Of the 614 named, just 16 have criminal records, usually minor, and will not be freed. The other 97.4% were just randomly grabbed and shoved in vans, mostly while working, commuting to or from work, or at Home Depot looking for work, leaving little time for the gang murders they're alleged to indulge in. Sensibly and hysteria about terrorism notwithstanding, the judge decided it was "highly unlikely" they constitute the infamous "worst of the worst.”

Overseeing much of this hapless carnage is preening, Napoleonic, 5'4", Nazi-coiffed Greg Bovino, who goes to work "with a Bowie knife in his belt - it's all for show." Bovino often posted heroic photos of his time in Chicago, like on a Mekong-esque patrol boat - "Where streets end, our Marine Unit begins" - and when he slammed a city official to the ground and paraded him around "like in some kind of masked-domination fantasy reboot of the Battle of Midway and the London Blitz, but where the Nazis were the good guys." His contempt for heeding the law is so great that, when he got hauled before another judge in a lawsuit ripping his violence - teargassing students, no body camera, repeatedly lying, "force (that) shocks the conscience" - and she issued a restraining order, it took him just days to violate it.

On Friday, ongoing protests at Broadview erupted in scuffles that ended in several injuries and 21 arrests. Among the detainees was Rev. Michael Woolf, pastor at Lake Street Church and one of many faith leaders who've long put their bodies out there to decry a "black hole" of a facility, tell those inside "we didn’t forget you," offer weekly witness "at the picket line, amid the tear gas," and declare the moment "absolutely a spiritual emergency...We are somewhere in 1930s Germany, and whether the church is going to be silent is being tested." In this commitment, he joins Catholic bishops, journalists, rights advocates, former federal officials and other critics who've blasted the months of mindless brutality, abduction, fear-mongering and gutting of communities. One attorney: "This is not law enforcement. It is terror."

The Rev. Michael Woolf was slammed to ground at Broadview protest Photo by Ashlee Rezin/Chicago Sun-Times

Still, Chicago has sought to rise to the challenge. The nation's third-largest city, with a history of fierce labor activism, it likes to view itself as "a collection of small towns with Midwest sensibilities," where "people know their neighbors (and) word spreads quickly." Organizers began building a broad grassroots coalition right after Trump's election: "We knew what was coming. Trump wants to terrify Chicagoans into submission - we aren’t having it. Mayor Brandon Johnson created an Office of Immigrant, Migrant, and Refugee Rights to strengthen sanctuary protections, declare an "ICE Free Zone," expand access to resources and local groups launched multiple resistance efforts, many in the largely Latino Little Village: Rapid Response teams, neighborhood patrols, ICE-spotting hotline, Know-Your-Rights flyers.

Volunteers escorted kids to school and families dropping them off; for those afraid to go out, they did grocery runs and gave out ride-share gift cards. A West Side group hosted "Whistlemania" events, packing over 17,000 kits with warning whistles, resource guides, tips on what to do if ICE turns up. MigraWatch trained over 2,000 people to monitor raids and tell people their rights. Everyone honked horns. To help often-targeted Latino street vendors - tacos, flowers, candy, tamales - cyclists organized "buy-out" events, emptying stands and delivering the goods to shelters or families in need. Pop-up events raised money for vendors, restaurant crawls helped keep Latino-owned eateries open, students held walkouts, tracked unmarked SUVs, monitored ICE hot spots to keep neighbors safe.

"The strategy here is to make us afraid. Our response is a bunch of obscenities and ‘no,’" said one resident. Of those threatened, she said, "We’re showing we care about them, even if the federal government doesn’t." Organizers also sought to create a template for other besieged cities to follow - a tactic that's evidently worked as North Carolina towns face their own "reign of terror." Tellingly, before leaving, Bovino berated Chicago as "a very non-permissive environment"; weirdly, he then gathered his gang of armed sadists in their masks and fatigues for a photo op by their agit-prop team at Anish Kapoor’s landmark sculpture Cloud Gate, or The Bean; preposterously, because they exist beyond irony, on command they shouted not "cheese" but "Little Village," the community they've been terrorizing.

Saturday, they moved on to Charlotte, which has a black female mayor and black male sheriff; he and four other black sheriffs in the state’s largest counties were all elected on platforms opposing ICE after fierce organizing by immigrants’ groups. DHS said they were "surging" agents to Charlotte "to ensure Americans are safe"; they also charged "sanctuary politicians" letting alleged criminals "roam free on American streets" "failed to honor" ICE detainers - so, keep people in prison to not hurt goons' feelings? Given Charlotte's diversity, its low crime rate, and Dem Gov. Josh Stein's charge ICE is just "stoking fear," their arrival was widely deemed "pure racism and retribution." Also, Bovino is from there and attended Western Carolina University before becoming a stormtrooper; his parents, if he had any, must be so proud.

The abuses came fast. En route to work Saturday morning, Willy Aceituno stopped at Pollo Campero to get breakfast; Honduran-born, he's a U.S. citizen. At the door, he was confronted by thugs for living while brown; he showed his REAL ID, they let him go. Minutes later, in his truck, more thugs; he declined to open his window or answer their questions with, "Why don’t you ask other people? Why just me?" They smashed his window, dragged him out, slammed him to the ground; livid bystanders yelled, "They just I.D.'ed him!", "Don't you guys coordinate?", "This whole thing's wrong, man!" and "What the fuck is wrong with y'all?" After driving off with him, he later said, they finally looked at his I.D. and let him out of the car; when he asked for a ride back, they told him to get lost or they'd arrest him again.

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Charlotte, meanwhile, grew quiet, with residents "reeling" from the ugly incursion. Protesters marched and chanted, "Fuck Donald Trump"; drivers honked thug warnings; a woman in a car kept yelling, "This is an illegal traffic stop" until nervous goons pointed guns at her. But many restaurants stood empty, street vendors dwindled, small businesses and foreign markets shut down. Manolo’s, a Colombian bakery that's closed once in 28 years, did again after thugs chased and tackled customers when they left; the owner didn't want to carry the weight "of maybe a kid to lose their father or mother on their way (to) get a cake." Outside apartment complexes, auto parts stores, Wal Mart, masked agents menacingly patrolled, grabbing "whoever they see as Latino" and bumbling with handcuffs before driving off with them.

Panicked churchgoers fled after masked agents came and snatched a member as scared kids cried; one 15-year-old: "We thought church was safe." Thugs "geared up like they're in Fallujah" chased a flower-shop owner into the woods; bystanders followed, filmed, shamed them into clumsily retreating. The owner of a laundromat stayed open but locked the door behind each customer. as louts patrolled outside: "I know these folks, and I'm pretty sure they're not criminals...People need to do laundry. Laundry does not discriminate."An older woman having coffee on her porch as two guys she'd hired hung her Christmas lights chased off goons who came by "looking for easy pickings." "We've got two human beings in my yard trying to make a living," she raged. "It's an abuse of all our laws."

At a grocery store, Bovino heroically helped bulky guys in camo snare a teenager pushing carts and pin him to the ground; as agents drove out, they smirked at appalled residents filming them. And a neighbor filmed goons chasing down two women, U.S. citizens, who'd been honking at drivers to warn of a raid; as they pulled into their driveway, the guys aimed a rifle, screamed to open the car window, smashed it, hauled them off. The neighbor, in disbelief: "This is our reality now." In a scathing editorial, The Charlotte Observer blasted that reality of a hateful regime that's "already failed...with every unnecessarily smashed window, every sneer at due process, every federal agent’s smirk." While the cruelty is still the point, they write, "It turns out Americans don't like masked federal agents gleefully stomping on our core values."

An oblivious, Bovino keeps celebrating doing it anyway, crowing on social media of his success in Charlotte. He touted the arrest of a "criminal illegal" with an alleged history of drunk driving, bragging he took him "off the streets so he can’t continue to ignore our laws (like he is) and drive intoxicated on the same roads you and your loved ones are on." He gloated about capturing his latest victim with a photo of her in tears. He boasted 81 people were detained Saturday - the total eventually climbed to 130 - with, "We had a record day today!!!!!" He added, "With some good criminals also," evidently forgetting the tired, worst-of-the-worst claim. Many had “significant criminal and immigration history,” he said, then listing minor breaches like DUI, larceny, and removal orders - which have always been, and remain, a civil offense.

His transgressions grew yet more egregious when he doubled down on the assault's grotesque Charlotte's Web shtick. Alongside a video of two victims, Bovino quoted, wildly out of context, the gentle, eloquent, freedom-loving E.B. White, who created a generous, compassionate spider, Charlotte, who uses her web and words for good, to save Wilbur the pig. "By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a little,” she says. "Heaven knows anyone’s life can stand a little of that." Bovino, deeply ignorant of lifting up a life, appropriated the words of Charlotte’s babies as they hatch and fly off: "Wherever the wind takes us. High, low. Near, far. East, west. North, south. We take to the breeze, we go as we please." He then crudely, basically added, "Us too!" with, "Our agents go where the mission calls." Just fucking fuck off, you fascist fucking loser.

Bovino, raged both White's granddaughter and literary executor Martha White and Law Dork's Chris Geidner, "is exactly who E.B. White warned us about." Geidner praises White, who once shamelessly admitted he believed in freedom "with burning delight," as "a leading voice for American democracy." In a 1940 essay, before the U.S. entered World War II, White described America's worrisome reaction to the rise of Nazism as "a sort of dim acquiescence." "The least a man can do at such a time is to declare himself and tell where he stands," he wrote, adding he was "suspicious of people beginning to adjust to fascism and dictators. From such adaptable natures a smell rises. I pinch my nose." After Charlotte, Bovino and his thugs went to Raleigh, where they were fiercely denounced; said Mayor Janet Cowell, "We didn't ask for this." Neither did 16-year old Manny Chavez. "Everyone is scared," he said. Still, he spoke up.

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