To donate by check, phone, or other method, see our More Ways to Give page.
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 vastly lowering standards and offering $50K bribes, DHS is still struggling to find enough sadists, losers, sexual predators, "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.
- YouTube www.youtube.com
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.
,
Having backed the already underwater Trump into a corner where he was advocating for starving Americans - Marie Antoinette was often evoked - the move was blasted as a "cataclysmic failure," "horrific mistake," "moral failure," "world-class collapse," "betrayal" and, from Bernie Sanders, "a very bad night." "When they go low, we cave," was one refrain. Also, "How about we shut down the government for this very popular issue that over three-quarters of Americans support, with a very specific goal and then, hear me out, we hold out for like a month and a half and then...ONLY THEN, fold and don't get the one thing we said we wanted?" Calls for the ejection of wussy Chuck Schumer were so prevalent they sprung up among even fed up moderate Dems like Mark Kelly.
What they got in return for their perfidy was...little enough they managed to make the cretinous Trump almost look like a stable genius. The key demand for an extension of Obamacare subsidies was left hanging in a vague deal wherein treacherous House Republicans may or may not bring it up for a vote in December; many cited Unholy Mike likewise last year "promising" to restore $1.1B in funding to DC in exchange for funding the government but then somehow not getting to it. Food stamps will continue to be funded through September, but most government spending will again expire on January 30, when we'll be back where we started. In the interim, House Dems may proffer their own bill to extend ACA subsidies by three years, but a venal GOP will (duh) kill it.
Meanwhile, our Narcissist-in-Chief remains focused on a revenge and redemption tour because governance = boring. As Americans struggled, he bragged about cuts to "Democrat programs," toyed with ballrooms and bathrooms, blamed besieged air-traffic controllers not evil Musk for air travel woes - "I am NOT HAPPY WITH YOU" - issued a symbolic, wildly broad pardon to over 70 criminal accomplices who helped try to overturn an election in case they wanna help him crime again, and got Ghislaine Maxwell a puppy. He also asked SCOTUS to throw out his much adjudicated, E. Jean Carroll rape and defamation verdict, calling it another "hoax (of) implausible, unsubstantiated assertions” - not his type - because "The American People...demand an immediate end to all of the Witch Hunts." Actually, not.
And abroad, in the name of "protecting the (Nazi) homeland," Pete Hegseth has killed 76 people in clearly illegal "kinetic strikes" on Venezuelan "narco-terrorists," likely hapless fishermen, based on zero evidence; to further inflame things, he also brought in the world's largest warship. In response, Maduro called for massive deployment of ground, aerial, naval and missile forces on "full operational readiness" against a greedy dimwit on record for wanting to take "all that oil." Said dimwit has also threatened to "go into Nigeria" with "guns-a-blazing" to protect the fictional "large number of Christians" being killed there. Again, no evidence; again, Nigeria says, not. One possible saving grace: It's improbable Trump could find NIgeria - on a map, in his fever dreams - given he's evidently now struggling just to find his office.
Helpful new sign taped onto the White HousePhoto from Bluesky
So it was that, last week, White House observers noticed a new sign - actually sheets of computer paper taped to the walls - announcing "The Oval Office." Or, per one report, "The White House Dementia Care Unit helpfully labels the Oval Office with giant, comforting, gold letters" - an act born, many speculated, after "who knows what Trump-kept-trying-to-go-into-the-broom-closet moments." The dumbfounding tackiness of the display, which didn't even manage to center the "the" - never mind what it suggested about the cognitive condition of the supposed most powerful elected official in the world, its presumed target - horrified many. "Please tell me this is not real," pleaded one viewer. Also, "Next, it'll be a picture," "This sign looks like shit," and, in a multi-layered gem, "This is not a good sign."
The fact of the sign was one thing. The slovenly visual - "dementia patient navigation signage disguised as nouveau-riche trash chic" - was another: "The1980s called and want their font back" captured the snark toward a script variously compared to a garage sale, a funeral home, an omelette bar, a whorehouse, an Olive Garden, a La Quinta lobby, the Newlywed Game, Daytona Beach circa 1981, and "invites to a shower for a baby named Lakynn." Some posited Barron designed and printed it because "he's good with computer," and, "It's computer everywhere these days." Gavin Newsom countered, "Live, Laugh, Lose." Or "Live, Laugh, Oval Office. I came up with the name Oval Office. It doesn’t have to be an oval. It can be any shape. Square. Rectangle. Doesn’t even have to be an office. It can be your den."
Alas, the sign is accompanied by the same ghastly, tacky, polyurethane, $58.07 Home Depot gimcracks that defile the Oval Office, along with the sparely elegant walkway now become a glitzy, game-show Presidential Walk of Fame. It seems the awful glare may finally prove too much even for Laura Ingraham, who in a new interview with the king seems a tad skeptical about the flood of bullshit she's long accepted. Peering at the newest gold vomit above a door, she asks, "So, this is not Home Depot? "Naah," he blusters, real gold, blah blah. (This is Home Depot). She seems likewise, oddly unconvinced about other bonkers claims, like HBCUs would "all be out of business" if fewer Chinese students go to American schools, and his 50-year mortgage is great (if you wanna pay double for your home.)
Ingraham grows downright quizzical - wait, has he lost Ingraham? - on the subject of affordability. When Trump brags about "the greatest economy we've ever had," she wonders then why are people saying they're anxious about high prices? Big bluff and bluster. "More than anything else it's a con job by the Democrats," he says. "Are you ready? Costs are way down" - like the newly revealed $700 a month more families spend to survive. Also $2 gas, drill baby drill. She, clearly doubtful: "So you're saying voters are mis-perceiving how they feel?" For all the bombast, the underwater loser sounds like one. Perhaps sensing their slow, pitiable fall, the White House social media team has begun releasing random, hallucinatory montages of some of the "greatest hits" of "one glorious (insane) nation under God." Wowza.
Despite the frantic cheerleading, reality in all its cognitive dissonance keeps intruding. Last week, in one of its most freakish moments, Trump's cluelessness and sick indifference came into ugly, eerie focus when he stood gazing blankly into space, his back to the room, as an Oval Office guest collapsed and a scrum of people rushed to render aid. As Dr. Oz announced a possible deal to lower the price of weight-loss drugs - never mind why are fat drugs the only drug to see price cuts - one man passed out and slowly sank to the floor. As Oz and several others went to help, the People's President turned away - not my narcissistic table - to demonstrate "the unsubtle art of not giving a fuck," also, "how to spot a sociopath," "more mannequin than man," and, "truly, a dick." I really don't care, do you?
The same day, his State Department issued new rules about who can/cannot come to our pristine shores. Officials will be charged with rejecting any applicants with an array of conditions - obesity, depression, cancer, cardiovascular - especially if they lack the resources to pay for their health care, which we sure won't, never mind the $100,000 H-1B visa. So: Only the skinny, healthy, rich and racist - like white Afrikaners - need apply. No huddled masses. Def no dementia-ridden fatsos "crumbling in real time," like, you know. People had questions: Will that be all obese people, or just poor ones? Has he looked in a mirror? Also, their social media must show they support white Christian nationalism, Charlie Kirk, and eugenics. His ignoble work done, Trump then left to party, again.
In his second big Hell-A-Lago extravaganza in a week - during the shutdown, as his USDA returned to court to whine they shouldn't have to feed hungry kids, after his tone-deaf Great Gatsby party whose irony he missed sparked widespread fury - Trump again lifted a fat teeny middle finger to America and welcomed another toxic swarm of rich old white guys and makeup-drenched, pouty-lipped babes, this time to gorge on beef filet even he concedes nobody else can afford, truffle dauphinoise, pan-seared scallops and a trio of desserts including "Trump chocolate cake." In the shape of turds? Also there: A vast seafood spread, a CPAC ice sculpture, an opera performance, and sorta synchronized swimmers performing to a tinny God Bless the USA. Where is David Lynch when we need him?
Amidst the fuck-you opulence, he still babbled, deflected, raved. He spewed out a preposterous scheme for people to buy "THEIR OWN, MUCH BETTER, HEALTH CARE" that mainstream media dutifully reported as something other than ignorant rants - Trump "has floated a proposal" - based, per Klugman, on “whatever the fuck he thinks he knows about healthcare," which is clearly nothing. "Everybody is gonna be happy," he bleated. "They're going to feel like entrepreneurs." He mused, "Nobody knows what magnets are." In one especially deranged stab at distraction, he dug back into birther crap about Obama, who "betrayed a country he wasn't born in." Jittery, hollow, spiteful, he threw spaghetti at the wall, hoping something would stick as his approval plunged to 33%, glossy swimmers or no.
Then he went to an NFL game - Commanders vs. Detroit Lions - where 67,000 D.C.-area denizens twice booed him so bigly, loudly, relentlessly, all in with jeers, thumbs down, middle fingers up, the noise happily drowning him out, that even cocooned high up in his luxury suite with Mike and Pete (also booed) beside him he seemed to notice, and wilt. D.C lost badly, he left early and sulkily, The Borowitz Report said he tried/failed to get ICE to arrest all 67,000 booing fans, who were probs paid by Soros and/or Venezuelan drug dealers. At Arlington Cemetery for Veterans' Day, still unable to sing God Bless America, a furious veteran declared it "an affront to me and every other veteran past, present and future to have this bloated POS (who) doesn't give a flying fuck about the Military at this hallowed ground."
Wednesday, Jeffrey Epstein returned to haunt him, as we knew one day he would, exposing both ties between two pedo besties and a larger "crisis of elite impunity” of the rich and powerful. In Dem-released damning emails. Epstein said "of course (Trump) knew about the girls," and Trump was "the dog that hasn’t barked" though he'd just spent "hours at my house" with a victim, etc etc. And Rep. Adelita Grijalva is finally sworn in to force release of the rest. Swiftly, prayerful, AI Press Barbie leapt to the podium to "defy the laws of moral physics" and declare it all a "hoax, "fake narrative," "bad-faith effort to distract from (Trump's) historic accomplishments," proving "absolutely nothing" as righteous Repubs re-open the government evil Dems shut down. Also, "there are no coincidences (in) DC," and it's all Biden's fault. Cave, idiocy, lunacy, evil: This timeline is killing us.
Update: With Congress scouring the Epstein trove, the sordid hits from the president's pedophile best friend keep coming: Pics of "my 20 year old girlfriend (that, sic) i gave to donald,” “Hawaiian tropic girl Lauren Patrella (would) you like to see photos of donald and girls in bikinis in my kitchen,” "i have met some very bad people, none as bad as trump. not one decent cell in his body," worse than "gross" and "evil beyond belief" - this from the world's most degenerate pedophile running a sex trafficking ring. Devastating polls on Trump/Epstein - minus 39% - show that in America, "Nobody is buying what he's selling." Also, the statue's back!
Trump falls asleep at (another) press conference. We're exhausted too.Image from Gavin Newsom office on Bluesky
