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Posted (edited)

Not sure where to post this but I thought it important to share this anecdote.

Childhood friend married a polish immigrant 25 years ago. His parents brought him over during the Cold war. They know fascism. Bizarrely enough they are also hard core maga, even now.

During a visit to the parents home the conversation eventually struck the maga event horizon. The MIL went on a maga tirade resulting in kicking her son, my friend, AND her grandson out of the house.

This shit is a mind warping disease not unlike dementia.

Edited by MissingInAction
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Posted
14 hours ago, 956 Worldwide said:

They fired the Librarian today basically for being a black woman today. Needless to say:

1. The Library of Congress doesn’t have a children’s loaning section. Or any loaning section. 
2. The Library of Congress has all the books. Literally all of them. It’s part of the copyright process.

image.thumb.jpeg.a55d2ce2e1404188128235b95dae22d3.jpeg

Yeah, elaborating a bit:  every time a publisher or author applies for a copyright in a book or other work, they are required to deposit two copies of the best edition of the work upon publication, thus stocking the LoC with just about everything.

Posted
9 minutes ago, MissingInAction said:

Not sure where to post this but I thought it important to share this anecdote.

Childhood friend married a polish immigrant 25 years ago. His parents brought him over during the Cold war. They know fascism. Bizarrely enough they are also hard core maga, even now.

During a visit to the parents home the conversation eventually struck the maga event horizon. The MIL went on a maga tirade resulting in kicking her son, my friend, AND her grandson out of the house.

This shit is a mind warping disease not unlike dementia.

It's an interesting phenomenon.  Most of those refugees from formerly communist countries also lived under a non-communist monarchy or other dictatorial or authoritarian regime and they're happy to go back to that as long as it isn't communist.  Of course the main problem with communism is the authoritarian aspects that quickly swallow up the economic ones.

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Posted
14 hours ago, 956 Worldwide said:

They fired the Librarian today basically for being a black woman today. Needless to say:

1. The Library of Congress doesn’t have a children’s loaning section. Or any loaning section. 
2. The Library of Congress has all the books. Literally all of them. It’s part of the copyright process.

image.thumb.jpeg.a55d2ce2e1404188128235b95dae22d3.jpeg

When?

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Posted (edited)
19 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

It's an interesting phenomenon.  Most of those refugees from formerly communist countries also lived under a non-communist monarchy or other dictatorial or authoritarian regime and they're happy to go back to that as long as it isn't communist.  Of course the main problem with communism is the authoritarian aspects that quickly swallow up the economic ones.

Castro called them gusanos and it really does stick, those people are dangerous. The most hardcore MAGA demographic were venezuelan immigrants, the same venezuelan immigrants that were made a target during and after the Trump campaign. Like Missing in Action said it really is a mental disease.

Belongs in the Leopard's thread

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/immigration/article303966071.html

 

Edited by linux
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Posted

Is MAGA presence so high in the DOJ, FBI, ICE and many other agencies that they are just going along with the surveillance, arrests and deportation?

Is there a point when officers just say fuck you, I'm not going to arrest a protestor or judge or whatever?

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Posted
47 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

“Right-wing regime threatens to arrest opposition leaders for protesting new security service detention facilities.”

https://www.axios.com/2025/05/10/trump-ice-arrest-house-democrats-new-jersey

In the most predictable move ever, the White House has turned to DHS to serve as its internal enforcers. If we ever get a D congress and President again ICE has to be abolished and DHS broken up and the parts returned to other agencies.  Any intel functions should also be destroyed and those needed created at other agencies.  It’s irredeemable. They’ve even adopted the “balaclava thug” aesthetic that is straight from Belarus. 

I would not hold my breath.

Posted (edited)
5 minutes ago, Superhero said:

Is MAGA presence so high in the DOJ, FBI, ICE and many other agencies that they are just going along with the surveillance, arrests and deportation?

Is there a point when officers just say fuck you, I'm not going to arrest a protestor or judge or whatever?

Although they're all cops, I think the feebs are by and large a significant cut above most DHS agents in education, training, and sense of their role in government.

It's probably unlikely across the board, but much more likely in the FBI than other federal law enforcement.

Edited by TwiceHorn
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Posted
2 hours ago, HenryJames said:

 

 

This is actually terrifying.

This is North Korea-level propaganda and telling people what they think.  Soon, there will be consequences for anyone in the 1 to 5% who don't think this, so everyone who doesn't think this will STFU out of fear.  They will make the 95-99% approval an actual thing, at least out in the open.  Then we are a full-blown fascist shithole.

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Posted
5 minutes ago, Superhero said:

ICE and many other agencies

I know several ICE agents that are USMC vets.  They are going to follow orders short of anything clearly illegal, but anything on that slippery slope is likely to get obeyed.  It’s just how they have been trained and follows their natural instincts.  DHS is probably similar-they just aren’t trained for independent decision making that conflicts with senior leadership.

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Posted
1 minute ago, LCHorn said:

I know several ICE agents that are USMC vets.  They are going to follow orders short of anything clearly illegal, but anything on that slippery slope is likely to get obeyed.  It’s just how they have been trained and follows their natural instincts.  DHS is probably similar-they just aren’t trained for independent decision making that conflicts with senior leadership.

I don’t know but it sure seems like many of the ICE agents and border patrol are fucking racists.

I hate racists.

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Posted
3 minutes ago, Steamboat1874 said:

I don’t know but it sure seems like many of the ICE agents and border patrol are fucking racists.

I hate racists.

Most of them in Texas are 2nd or 3rd generation Tex Mex-racism isn’t a big part of it, though I’m sure they aren’t trying to closely examine what they have in common with migrants getting deported.  

Posted
26 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Although they're all cops, I think the feebs are by and large a significant cut above most DHS agents in education, training, and sense of their role in government.

It's probably unlikely across the board, but much more likely in the FBI than other federal law enforcement.

FBI requires a bachelors degree doesn’t it?  Can’t imagine ice or dhs does. 

Posted
1 hour ago, TwiceHorn said:

Although they're all cops, I think the feebs are by and large a significant cut above most DHS agents in education, training, and sense of their role in government.

It's probably unlikely across the board, but much more likely in the FBI than other federal law enforcement.

Organizations build cultures over time and culture is powerful. There is a reason for example, that the Red Army was a target and not a tool of repression. 
 

DHS and ICE are uniquely suited for being tools of abuse. 
 

We are not that far away in time from when FBI agents only wore white dress shirts.  Hoover certainly abused liberties, but he built the bureau into one of the most trusted and elite institutions in America.  You cannot imagine Hoover’s G-Men wearing balaclavas and disappearing people. Subsequent reforms made it hard for them to return to freelancing.  It attracts a better class of person with more education and more options and they tell you your job is to catch spies and terrorists and the worst criminals. They are told that to do their job effectively they must be trusted by everyone but the real baddies. They believe it, mostly. 
 

The CIA cannot be effectively and widely used against regular Americans. The people they hire and the skills they recruit for are completely unsuited to doing something like listening to opposition politicians or infiltrating domestic gatherings.  Their people would be angry, insulted, and resentful if you even asked.  Not even on (only) moral grounds but simply because they’d be bored and see it as beneath them.

DEA and ATF are cowboys who deal with a lower class of criminal, who often are immediate and urgent threats. Adrenaline junkies who want to kick down doors and exchange fire (or at least they imagine they are). Again— nothing would be more insulting to them than to ask them to go put cuffs on a fucking mayor who is angry about a new jail.

DHS is new and has no real culture and is a hodgepodge of weird toys. ICE is already conditioned to arrest people who are not really dangerous and whose crime is really just procedural and administrative. They are comfortable rounding people up with a standard of evidence much lower than for a real court.  They are conditioned (unlike the FBI) to go into communities and be feared and distrusted even by people who aren’t doing anything wrong.  They are a large force present across the country.  They are perfect for this stuff. 

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Posted
2 hours ago, 956 Worldwide said:

Organizations build cultures over time and culture is powerful. There is a reason for example, that the Red Army was a target and not a tool of repression. 
 

DHS and ICE are uniquely suited for being tools of abuse. 
 

We are not that far away in time from when FBI agents only wore white dress shirts.  Hoover certainly abused liberties, but he built the bureau into one of the most trusted and elite institutions in America.  You cannot imagine Hoover’s G-Men wearing balaclavas and disappearing people. Subsequent reforms made it hard for them to return to freelancing.  It attracts a better class of person with more education and more options and they tell you your job is to catch spies and terrorists and the worst criminals. They are told that to do their job effectively they must be trusted by everyone but the real baddies. They believe it, mostly. 
 

The CIA cannot be effectively and widely used against regular Americans. The people they hire and the skills they recruit for are completely unsuited to doing something like listening to opposition politicians or infiltrating domestic gatherings.  Their people would be angry, insulted, and resentful if you even asked.  Not even on (only) moral grounds but simply because they’d be bored and see it as beneath them.

DEA and ATF are cowboys who deal with a lower class of criminal, who often are immediate and urgent threats. Adrenaline junkies who want to kick down doors and exchange fire (or at least they imagine they are). Again— nothing would be more insulting to them than to ask them to go put cuffs on a fucking mayor who is angry about a new jail.

DHS is new and has no real culture and is a hodgepodge of weird toys. ICE is already conditioned to arrest people who are not really dangerous and whose crime is really just procedural and administrative. They are comfortable rounding people up with a standard of evidence much lower than for a real court.  They are conditioned (unlike the FBI) to go into communities and be feared and distrusted even by people who aren’t doing anything wrong.  They are a large force present across the country.  They are perfect for this stuff. 

Good analysis, I think.

All LEO have a tendency to suffer self-righteousness and becoming true believers in whatever harm or crime they are directed against and to cultivate contempt for those they arrest, and probably a goodly number of those they don't.  It takes some intelligence, empathy, and higher-order thinking to restrain that tendency.  Education and training don't guarantee any of that, but probably help and I think FBI is the leader in the clubhouse on those things.

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Posted
4 hours ago, InkaUtexas said:

Will be there monday. Will try and get a picture. If it is still up.

Land Thursday, one of us has to get it.  It's petty but shit like this drives Trump and his minions insane...so keep it up. 

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Posted
8 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Good analysis, I think.

All LEO have a tendency to suffer self-righteousness and becoming true believers in whatever harm or crime they are directed against and to cultivate contempt for those they arrest, and probably a goodly number of those they don't.  It takes some intelligence, empathy, and higher-order thinking to restrain that tendency.  Education and training don't guarantee any of that, but probably help and I think FBI is the leader in the clubhouse on those things.

I don’t think you can underestimate the ethos of building cases for real courts either.  Most Feds, and especially the FBI, want to return a real indictment that leads to a conviction.  Or on the FBI side, they want to catch a spy or real terrorist and preferably do both.
 

The FBI isn’t event interested in inside government threats and clearance shit unless it’s going to return an indictment or reveal actual espionage; the ticky-tack administrative violations are left to individual agencies for HR actions and shit. Same with DEA, they want cases or maybe a dead body from a firefight. 
 

ICE certainly has some investigative function and goes after real criminals but a big part of the work is just rounding up people who have a deportation order or no papers.  So it’s not a big mental leap to “go arrest that guy cause we said so.” 

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Posted (edited)
19 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

I don’t think you can underestimate the ethos of building cases for real courts either.  Most Feds, and especially the FBI, want to return a real indictment that leads to a conviction.  Or on the FBI side, they want to catch a spy or real terrorist and preferably do both.
 

The FBI isn’t event interested in inside government threats and clearance shit unless it’s going to return an indictment or reveal actual espionage; the ticky-tack administrative violations are left to individual agencies for HR actions and shit. Same with DEA, they want cases or maybe a dead body from a firefight. 
 

ICE certainly has some investigative function and goes after real criminals but a big part of the work is just rounding up people who have a deportation order or no papers.  So it’s not a big mental leap to “go arrest that guy cause we said so.” 

Excellent point.  DOJ lawyers keep the feebs on their toes.  And notwithstanding Trumpco, AUSAs and other DOJ lawyers are pretty head-and-shoulders above most other agency lawyers, and state prosecutors, for that matter.

Threadjack a little.  I have read this guy's, Robert Dugoni's, crime fiction for a while.  It's decentish, like a lot of other sort of pulpy crime fiction.  But he was an actual lawyer, and wrote this non-fiction account of an early EPA environmental case and the politics, small p, among federal agencies and how the EPA really was quite a bit of a bastard in the early going..  https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0743246527/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=bsio-20&linkCode=as2&camp=217145&creative=399369&creativeASIN=0743246527

Edited by TwiceHorn
Posted
41 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Excellent point.  DOJ lawyers keep the feebs on their toes.  And notwithstanding Trumpco, AUSAs and other DOJ lawyers are pretty head-and-shoulders above most other agency lawyers, and state prosecutors, for that matter.

Threadjack a little.  I have read this guy's, Robert Dugoni's, crime fiction for a while.  It's decentish, like a lot of other sort of pulpy crime fiction.  But he was an actual lawyer, and wrote this non-fiction account of an early EPA environmental case and the politics, small p, among federal agencies and how the EPA really was quite a bit of a bastard in the early going..  https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0743246527/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=bsio-20&linkCode=as2&camp=217145&creative=399369&creativeASIN=0743246527

The people who become AUSAs and agents or really anything during this admin are going to be some real pieces of work. 

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Posted
On 5/9/2025 at 6:38 PM, 956 Worldwide said:

They fired the Librarian today basically for being a black woman today. Needless to say:

1. The Library of Congress doesn’t have a children’s loaning section. Or any loaning section. 
2. The Library of Congress has all the books. Literally all of them. It’s part of the copyright process.

image.thumb.jpeg.a55d2ce2e1404188128235b95dae22d3.jpeg

 

shes a female and black

no and no

 

Posted (edited)
2 hours ago, 956 Worldwide said:

The people who become AUSAs and agents or really anything during this admin are going to be some real pieces of work. 

I have been keeping an eye on it and have identified some of the Trumpkin advocates.  

There's too much workaday, apolitical work in the US Attorneys offices and they're largely staffed with longtime civil servants and I bet that won't change too much even if the USAs wind up being pieces of shit like Ed Martin and Judge Jeannine.

For example, Chad Meacham, USA ND Tex was appointed by Biden for part of his term and re-appointed by Trump as acting.  Not sure if he's up for the full appointment.  He's been there at least 20 years. 

SD Tex seems to have a bit of a hack, but has been there a long time.

Main justice is getting a lot of turds for sure.  It's gonna need a high colonic.

 

Edited by TwiceHorn
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Posted

When an extremely destructive F5 tornado hit Moore, Oklahoma in 2013, the city received about $13 million from FEMA and another $52 million from HUD for a total of $65 million. The charity, Americares, was able to donate about $3 million. Since it's likely that HUD will be joining FEMA in the 'new phone who dis' category, and the state would have to pick up the tab were something so catastrophic were to recur, Oklahoma and every other state (pretty much all of them) had better start manufacturing bootstraps because they're going to need them.

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Posted
20 minutes ago, Mrs Whiggins said:

When an extremely destructive F5 tornado hit Moore, Oklahoma in 2013, the city received about $13 million from FEMA and another $52 million from HUD for a total of $65 million. The charity, Americares, was able to donate about $3 million. Since it's likely that HUD will be joining FEMA in the 'new phone who dis' category, and the state would have to pick up the tab were something so catastrophic were to recur, Oklahoma and every other state (pretty much all of them) had better start manufacturing bootstraps because they're going to need them.

If another F5 hits and there’s nothing there to help

 

Seinfeld Whatever GIF by MOODMAN

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Posted
20 hours ago, MissingInAction said:

Not sure where to post this but I thought it important to share this anecdote.

Childhood friend married a polish immigrant 25 years ago. His parents brought him over during the Cold war. They know fascism. Bizarrely enough they are also hard core maga, even now.

During a visit to the parents home the conversation eventually struck the maga event horizon. The MIL went on a maga tirade resulting in kicking her son, my friend, AND her grandson out of the house.

This shit is a mind warping disease not unlike dementia.

Our propaganda news channels combined with facebook, twitter and like-minded people getting together has made this mess. It is absolutely a disease of the mind and doctors and psychologists will be studying this for decades. A lot of people we know have fallen victim to this cult. The sad part is listening to people who don't realize they are being played for a fool and became an easy mark. It was not easy for us to get to this point and it won't be easy to get through this, but I think as a society we are strong enough to do it.

When I think about what is happening and what kind of strength we'll need as individuals I refer back to a Civil Rights icon in John Lewis. When you read about what happened to him, not just Bloody Sunday, but the entirety of his experience during the Civil Rights movement it reminds that we can push back against fascism the same way he pushed back against racism and the lack of equal rights. He got tossed in jail so many times and was treated like he was not even a human being. That man had every right to hate America, but he loved this country so much that he spent the last 34 years of his life in Congress trying to make this a better place. We can have that same energy he had. He got in good trouble. We can do that too. I don't want my 6 year old niece and 3 year old nephew to grow up in a country run by hateful, racist white nationalists. Many of you have kids and grandkids now. They don't deserve that either. They deserve a country that is for everyone and not just white people. We gotta just do better. This sucks. There is no way to say otherwise, but we have so many really smart people in this community that can make positive contributions right now to fight back. Stay the course on this and eventually the tide turns and they all get washed away into the dustbin of history.

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Posted
1 hour ago, UpperWestside said:

...and doctors and psychologists in other countries that fund scientific research will be studying this for decades.

FIFY.

Heard that NSF laid off another round of employees. Academia is facing some very real very bleak problems given that most states have reduced their portions of higher ed support. An MD-Phd scholar cannot rely on NIH funding for mental health as that was one of the areas with cuts. In the state of Texas, it is the teaching portion of the trifecta (teaching, academic research, and service) that brings in dollars and one of the reasons why tuition grew so high when the state cut out its support. However, what the *research grants fund are not insignificant and not meant to imply that there is no economic benefit to the universities, the local communities, the states, and the nation (not to mention the world at large).

*Salaries (for post-doctoral positions, lab managers, PhD candidates, etc), supplies, equipment (this is often a pooled shared resource to save start-up funds), and doesn't include the cut off the top that the institution takes for utilities, maintenance, staff support, and so on.

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Posted
16 hours ago, 956 Worldwide said:

Organizations build cultures over time and culture is powerful. There is a reason for example, that the Red Army was a target and not a tool of repression. 
 

DHS and ICE are uniquely suited for being tools of abuse. 
 

We are not that far away in time from when FBI agents only wore white dress shirts.  Hoover certainly abused liberties, but he built the bureau into one of the most trusted and elite institutions in America.  You cannot imagine Hoover’s G-Men wearing balaclavas and disappearing people. Subsequent reforms made it hard for them to return to freelancing.  It attracts a better class of person with more education and more options and they tell you your job is to catch spies and terrorists and the worst criminals. They are told that to do their job effectively they must be trusted by everyone but the real baddies. They believe it, mostly. 
 

The CIA cannot be effectively and widely used against regular Americans. The people they hire and the skills they recruit for are completely unsuited to doing something like listening to opposition politicians or infiltrating domestic gatherings.  Their people would be angry, insulted, and resentful if you even asked.  Not even on (only) moral grounds but simply because they’d be bored and see it as beneath them.

DEA and ATF are cowboys who deal with a lower class of criminal, who often are immediate and urgent threats. Adrenaline junkies who want to kick down doors and exchange fire (or at least they imagine they are). Again— nothing would be more insulting to them than to ask them to go put cuffs on a fucking mayor who is angry about a new jail.

DHS is new and has no real culture and is a hodgepodge of weird toys. ICE is already conditioned to arrest people who are not really dangerous and whose crime is really just procedural and administrative. They are comfortable rounding people up with a standard of evidence much lower than for a real court.  They are conditioned (unlike the FBI) to go into communities and be feared and distrusted even by people who aren’t doing anything wrong.  They are a large force present across the country.  They are perfect for this stuff. 

It should also be noted that some of those non-insignia/masked people can also be private security firms or freelancers.  IIRC the guy in Massachusetts who broke the window of the people waiting to see their immigration lawyer was not an actual government employee. 

I'd say in about 6 months their will be a division of J6ers getting paid to arrest anyone they think looks suspicious.

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Posted

 

I'm not a legal scholar, but I'm pretty sure the President cannot accept personal gifts from foreign governments or officials without the consent of Congress. This is stipulated by the US Constitution (Article I, Section 9) and the Foreign Gifts and Decorations Act of 1966. 

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