Sign at the US Military Academy at West Point:

The reason people freak out and run from Trump’s racist goon squad is they are literally disappearing people. www.latimes.com/politics/sto...

Reminder: SDNY "was running an active investigation into Jeffrey Epstein[’s] ... coconspirators. In January [2025], SDNY prosecutors were ordered to transfer the Epstein case files to DOJ headquarters in Washington, D.C. ... the investigation into co-conspirators has inexplicably ceased."

❤️

I hope you’ll read this piece that I wrote about Donald Trump, the price of having a president who openly calls for his political enemies deaths, & why we should be discussing this with friends & family during the holiday. joycevance.substack.com/p/sorry-geor...

THREAD: Judge Ellis is the first federal judge to review extensive body cam video of DHS's actions in Chicago. She finds that DHS *repeatedly* misled the public and made claims that were disproven by agents' own videos. I'll go through some of the most egregious ones here.

MAGA gets to line up at the MAGA Bondi lunchline for big handouts of taxpayer money, as “settlements.” What a racket. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

"You know us...So please trust us now when we say that what is happening in the Chicago area is wrong." Powerful letter from retired Chicago broadcast journalists about what ICE/CBP is doing to our city: "it is terror" www.chicagotribune.com/2025/11/13/l...

Jesus Christ. This email was less than a month before Helsinki

“Federal authorities told demonstrators Friday that there would be ‘no more prayer’ in front of or inside the Broadview ICE facility, in a move that mystified local leaders and raised legal questions.” blockclubchicago.org/2025/11/07/f...

He said that the agents would throw food at them to eat. The agents threatened to withhold food for a week and to beat him up if he didn't sign deportation papers. He said he saw others refuse and get beaten/receive no food. He signed because he was afraid.

New: The FBI is quietly urging ICE agents to properly ID themselves in the field. In a bulletin to law enforcement last month, it warned of criminals posing as ICE to rob, rape, kidnap—a problem it says now demands national coordination to confront. By me & @carolinehaskins.bsky.social:

"According to his running club, the man, who is a U.S. citizen, was returning from a team run when agents pulled him out of his vehicle, tackled him to the ground and kneeled on top of him, allegedly breaking six ribs and causing internal bleeding"

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche is incorrect. When federal law-enforcement agents exceed the scope of their job, and commit a state crime, they can and should be arrested.

Scoop: Trump has started demolishing the White House's East Wing facade to build his ballroom. The president had claimed construction of the $250 million building wouldn’t ‘interfere’ with the existing White House structure. /W @ddiamond.bsky.social wapo.st/4hqBNiU

#A_NewHope ✊

Vic Mensa, an American rapper born and raised in Chicago, breaks down ICE raids and the politics of division.

So many similarities to GOP candidate Nixon dispatching Kissinger to sabotage LBJ's Vietnam talks, initiating a horrendous Cambodian bombing campaign after winning the 1968 election - only to sign essentially the same deal in 1973 that LBJ had put together 5 years earlier. t.co/joY390u4V0

ICE agents blocked an ambulance that was trying to take an injured protester to hospital. "We are still not being allowed to leave by ICE officers.” an EMT said on radio When driver tried to get out, an agent yelled, "DON’T YOU EVER DO THAT AGAIN, I WILL SHOOT YOU" www.wweek.com/news/2025/10...

Lawyers have been publicizing a new term to describe ICE's racially targeted detainments: a “Kavanaugh stop.” Mother Jones reporter Pema Levy explains in this new video:

If you’d like a more realistic assessment; I wrote about it today. www.pbump.net/o/dethawing-...

"This is supposed to be an oversight hearing" -- Schiff helpfully ticks through all of the incriminating questions -- and there are many of them -- that Bondi refused to answer during today's hearing

Claim: 10 cars rammed ICE Truth: No cars rammed ICE Claim: She boxed ICE in Truth: ICE boxed her in Claim: She shot a rifle at ICE Truth: She did not have a rifle Claim: ICE returned fire Truth: Only ICE fired Claim: She drove herself to the hospital Truth: Paramedics found her

🚨 ICE said Marimar Martinez “rammed their vehicles.” Bodycam footage says otherwise. It shows an ICE agent ram his own vehicle into hers, sneer “Do something, bitch,” and then shoot her. We can never believe anything ICE accuses anyone of.

Great Chris Murphy quote from our interview: "I would be a sucker to agree to a budget that literally funds an operation to hunt me and my allies down—to imprison us, harass us, intimidate us. If you want our votes, it can’t be for rampant lawlessness." Tons more like that all throughout:

"When reporters feel compelled to add 'experts say' to basic mathematical facts or treat war crimes as matters of legitimate debate, they’re not being neutral — they’re actively misleading their audience into believing basic facts are up for debate among 'experts.'" www.techdirt.com/2025/09/30/t...

Judge Young: "This case ... squarely presents the issue whether non-citizens lawfully present here in United States actually have the same free speech rights as the rest of us. The Court answers this Constitutional question unequivocally 'yes, they do.' 'No law' means 'no law.'"

Trump tonight appears to have pushed the false "medbed" conspiracy theory, which has spread in the far-right internet over the years. www.yahoo.com/news/qanon-c...

I had missed this post from Ed Whelan questioning whether Lindsey Halligan was even validly appointed in the first place. One minor point: Whelan says that the 1986 Alito memo "might not be in the public domain," but in fact it is, thanks to the Alina Habba litigation!

If a government tells you that you can’t call it authoritarian, it’s authoritarian.

Here is the famous speech by former AG Robert Jackson in which he explains why prosecutors must target crimes, not people. Comey indictment feels like the opposite. www.justice.gov/sites/defaul...

Because this administration thinks everyone believes the rules only matter when it helps “your side” (like they do), they are counting on Comey’s unpopularity to normalize this. Don’t let it. Whatever you think of him or his actions in the past, etc. this indictment is dangerous and an outrage.

This is the most anti-science thing I have watched today. What is most shocking about this is all of these statements are being made without any scientific evidence to back it up. There are very few safe options to treat pain and fever in pregnancy so this is also an attack on women's health.

Trump has seized investigative and prosecutorial weapons that, in order to safeguard the rule of law, have traditionally been walled off from the president. SCOTUS handed him these loaded weapons.

This is amazing.

The H1-B visa thing is, like everything else in the Trump administration, set up to carve up exceptions for friends and punish enemies. It’s the authoritarian thru-line that stitches everything together.

“if he can order the Navy to operate as a presidential hit squad on the high seas, any number of grim hypotheticals could become reality sooner than Americans might expect,” @radiofreetom.bsky.social argues:

The Kimmel suspension is a much bigger deal than you know. It's really about a growing alliance between Trump and the companies that own America's local TV stations - like Nexstar - to turn local TV into Trump propaganda. 1/ Let me tell you the short story. It's chilling.

This FCC does not have the authority, the ability, or the constitutional right to police content or punish broadcasters for speech the government dislikes. Free speech is the foundation of our democracy, and we must push back against any attempt to erode it.

Monarez: "Kennedy demanded 2 things of me that were were inconsistent w/ my oath of office. He directed me to commit in advance to approving every ACIP recommendation regardless of the scientific evidence. He also directed me to dismiss career officials responsible for vaccine policy without cause"

Nothing "devalues and demeans the Christian faith" more than a group of lying grifters who just bragged about murdering a boatload of people and are protecting a pedophile sex trafficking ring pretending that they are, despite all their actions, Christians.

Chicago’s mayor & governor react to the president declaring war on the city

Online this morning, NYT update from "Harvard is about to cave" team. Today's update: Well, actually..... See headline below. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/06/u... For context of this narrative, please see my piece yesterday fallows.substack.com/p/harvard-vs... (Full timeline before paywall.)

1/ I worked at DoD. I literally cannot imagine lawyers coming up with a legal basis for lethal strike of suspected Venezuelan drug boat. Hard to see how this would not be "murder" or war crime under international law that DoD considers applicable. Read expert analysis by @bcfinucane.bsky.social⤵️

“He has built a kingdom on lies and illusion, masking the nefarious underworld in which he swims freely by courting an image that corporate media was only to happy to help propagate.” open.substack.com/pub/noelcasl...

This isn't just a political claim, it's an empirical one. If "the problem is not guns" then we shouldn't see any correlation between gun ownership and oh wait platform.vox.com/wp-content/u...

Frost: On one end, we have the big ugly law. And then on the other, we have the federal government occupying our cities.. It's not two different things. It's the same damn thing. These aren't things that distract from one another. This is the thing to enable the other thing,