Monday, February 23, 2026

The Incredible Shrinking President

No one could have seen it coming. And another thing: We assumed he meant a Navy hospital ship. His “envoy” seems to think it’s a volunteer effort and a “Cajun Navy” response is coming. 
Aaja Chemnitz after Trump’s latest statement: “It has gone far, far too far”

The Greenlandic member of the Danish Parliament, Aaja Chemnitz (IA), yesterday clearly distanced herself from Donald Trump’s latest plan to send a hospital ship to Greenland.

Now she comes with yet another appeal on her Facebook profile.

“We live in a crazy time. Representatives from the opposition in Greenlandic politics are talking with MAGA people, and suddenly it is Naalakkersuisut (Greenland’s government, ed.) that must feel ashamed. It is simply a big NO from me to that kind of destruction of our democracy,” she writes and emphasizes:

“It has gone far, far too far, and we must be careful not to become part of their circus and manipulation.”

She further encourages Greenlanders to relate critically to what they “hear on social media.”

— Berlingske
When does reality set in? When does anybody not an internet pundit ask what the fuck Trump was talking about?
The party Siumut is now raising a number of questions to Naalakkersuisut (the Government of Greenland) regarding the case of the American submarine that was in Greenlandic waters near Nuuk on Saturday.

In an open letter, the party’s member of Inatsisartut (Greenland’s parliament) Foreign and Security Policy Committee, Erik Jensen, states that the party has submitted questions about the matter to Naalakkersuisut out of concern for public safety and reassurance.

Among other things, the party wants to know whether the submarine in question is operating alone or if there are more, what it is carrying, and for what purpose it is sailing along Greenland’s coast.

Siumut also wants to know whether the Arctic Command (AKO) was informed in advance about the submarine’s voyage and whether sufficient monitoring is being conducted of other submarines navigating near Greenland.

—Sermitsiaq
Greenland is more concerned about this than we are. That’s not exactly reassuring.
Posted by at No comments:

All The King’s Horses, And All The King’s Men

 But, you know…

A former ICE teacher at a Georgia training center will tell a forum called by Congressional Democrats on Monday, Feb. 23, that new agents are trained to run roughshod over constitutional rights, including the right against a home invasion, and that the federal agency is “broken.”

Ryan Schwank, who resigned from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on Feb. 13, plans to tell the forum that Immigration and Customs Enforcement is training new agents to violate the Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure, according to a draft of Schwank’s testimony shared with the Minnesota Star Tribune.

“ICE is lying to Congress and the American people about the steps it is taking to ensure its 10,000 new officers faithfully uphold the Constitution,” Schwank, who joined ICE as legal counsel in 2021, said in the draft.
Abolishing ICE is just too extreme.
Posted by at No comments:

If Brains Were Dynamite…

…Trump couldn’t blow his nose. Nixon had a "silent majority." He was forced to resign. Says the man convicted of civil and criminal fraud. Your Lenten meditation. "Real polls"? There were rails?
Posted by at No comments:

Somebody Is Giving POTUS Terrible Advice

The power he has left is limited to 150 days, and more easily challenged in court than IEEPA. Even the majority in Learning Resources recognized the procedural limits, even if Kavanaugh didn’t (told you he’s not very bright).

Or putting it another way:
(Katyal argued the case before the court. The majority adopted all 6 of his arguments.) But please, double down. What do the Democrats know that Maria doesn’t know? Battle lines being drawn: Son of immigrants v. ... ... old man shouting at clouds.

That SOTU’s gonna be a barn-burner. As in, locking everyone in and setting the place on fire.
Posted by at No comments:

Sunday, February 22, 2026

There’s Always More

I didn’t know who Ben Williamson is, which makes this all so much better. Well, in his defense, he’d been drinking. Somebody wanted us to know about this. Kash, you really need to be careful who you party with. It is comforting to know he was among friends.  Well, maybe they were friends. Maybe the whole team had bought his Xmas ornaments.
Posted by at No comments:

In The Finest Traditions Of The Agency

If you’re the head of the FBI you can get a government jet to fly you to the Winter Olympics where you can party in the locker room with the gold medal USA hockey team because, well, you earned it.

Right? I mean, you’ve been director of the FBI for a year. You deserve something for that, right?

Ask not what you can do for your country, but ask what your country can do for you, right? Like pay for the trip of a lifetime you could never get if you weren’t the Director of the FBI. Who replaced the guy the new President forced out so he could put you in charge.

How’s that working out for the country which pays your salary?

Then again, what can be expected? (This almost makes up for that:)
Posted by at No comments:

Close Enough Is Never Good Enough

I would find this even insightful if I didn’t stumble over the assumption that Trump ever cared what MAGA wants. As Trump said early on, “I love the poorly educated.” Trump has never seen MAGA as anything but the rubes for his con.

Trump is a con man; has always been a con man; will always be a con man. But he’s not what Hollywood portrays as a good con man, because Trump believes the corporate con.  In fiction, you’re supposed to know to never believe the con. Trump believes anything that he thinks makes him look good.
If Democratic leadership, and wannabe leadership, won’t even publicly agree to abolish ICE, they’re never going to remove Trump from office. Not unless they have enough votes to not need Fetterman. And I think even with a supermajority, even with 100 Democratic senators, they wouldn’t have that many votes.
Posted by at 4 comments:

Your Tax Dollars Hard At Work

Enjoy paying your taxes this year, knowing it’s going to a good cause!

 Meanwhile, in Minnesota, where it is also very cold:
The people of Minnesota will have to adapt again. Population density is a tactical disadvantage for occupiers—that’s why cities are always hubs of resistance in any military occupation. If DHS is changing doctrine to concentrate on more diffuse population zones, resistance will be more challenging. It simply takes longer to assemble observers when there are fewer residents per square mile.

The resistance will need to devise its own doctrine for exurban operations and it will need to adapt to DHS’s attempt to carry out operations with less flamboyance. It will need to figure out how to resist an enemy that resorts to trickery, as DHS agents did last week when two women posed as distressed motorists to lure a man out of his home so that he could be ambushed and abducted when he came to help them.

In the future, citizens may have to counter the government’s facial-recognition technology. This might mean masks or other countermeasures. I invite you to consider what it signals when law-abiding citizens have to obscure their identities for fear of retribution from the state.

This is not an arrangement between a democratic government and its citizens. It is what happens in war.

...

The Twin Cities have tens of thousands of residents who cannot leave their homes for fear of being abducted by DHS. These people cannot go to work. They cannot shop for groceries. They cannot go to doctors’ appointments. Many of them cannot send their children to school.

Various civic groups have self-organized to help them. Food banks deliver groceries. People donate money to pay rent. Doctors finish their shifts and then make house calls. The governor told us about a group of doulas who make secret home visits to deliver babies to mothers who cannot go to a hospital, because DHS agents view health care facilities as abduction traps.

Think about that: You now live in a country where volunteers deliver babies at home, in secret, off the books, because mothers fear that if they go to the hospital, they will be abducted by masked, armed agents of the state while giving birth.

This is not a hypothetical. It is your lived reality. It is America.

...

I cannot emphasize enough how hostile the relations between the federal government and the citizenry are at this moment in Minnesota.

Many of the people abducted by the government are taken without cause. When the government runs out of excuses to hold them, or is forced to release them by the courts, they send them out the front door of the Whipple Building, often in the dead of night. Alone. No cell phone. No jacket. In the freezing cold and snow.

A civic group called Haven Watch now stands guard at Whipple around the clock so that former prisoners of the regime do not freeze to death after release. While we were at Whipple talking to observers, a mother and two small children emerged from the building. They had nothing with them other than the clothes on their backs. It was about 15 degrees, the day after an unexpected snow. The three small humans haltingly made their way across the ice and slush in the road. Someone from Haven Watch met them and ushered them into a warm car.

I ask you: What do you think would have happened to this woman and her children had the United States government sent them into the cold and snow, far from taxis or transport, with no way of contacting anyone for help?

What do you think would have become of these three vulnerable human beings at the hands of our government had the people of Minnesota not stepped in to care for them?

This is Anne Frank territory; the stuff of the Stasi and East Germany, or Kosovo and Sarajevo. And the only way it ends is with victory for the regime or a reckoning for all those who waged this war against America.

However alarmed you are, it’s not enough.
But don’t call it Nazi Germany, ‘cause that would disturb Jake Tapper’s delicate sensibilities.
Posted by at 1 comment:

Who Is Going To Ask The White House?

“Where’s the hospital ship?”

Posted by at 1 comment:

🫠

BASH: Let's start with the big question -- will you refund the roughly $134 billion taken by these tariffs?

BESSENT: That's not the big question. That's bad framing

BASH: Refunds are clearly gonna be up to you

BESSENT: No no no no, Dana. It's not up to me or the administration. It's up to the lower court
Can we first determine what the #%@! number is? 😡 Or who the caller is? Trump’s brain is melting. 🫠 *
Premier of Greenland Jens-Frederik Nielsen posted the following on Facebook:

It will be a no thank you from here.

President Trump’s idea of sending an American hospital ship to Greenland has been noted. However, we have a public healthcare system where treatment is free for citizens. That is a deliberate choice — and a fundamental part of our society. That is not the case in the United States, where seeing a doctor comes at a cost. 💵💰

We are always open to dialogue and cooperation — including with the United States. But please speak with us instead of making more or less random statements on social media. 👍

Dialogue and cooperation require respect for the fact that decisions about our country are made here at home. 🇬🇱

(Photo of Jens-Frederik Nielsen with his Minister of Health)

*TBH, it sounds a little too much like Trump, and not enough like Trump. And the line about Schumer, “who can’t cook a cheeseburger,” is too good for Trump, who’s never been that clever. But given the deranged post about Greenland and a naval hospital ship, it’s not impossible that this is real. Which is a sad commentary, indeed.
Posted by at No comments:

Reporting From Greenland

The Arctic Command has this afternoon evacuated a crew member from a United States submarine.

The crew member required urgent medical treatment and has been transferred to the Greenlandic health authorities and the hospital in Nuuk.

The evacuation took place within Greenlandic territorial waters, 7 nautical miles off Nuuk. It was carried out by the Danish Defence Seahawk helicopter.

The helicopter was deployed from the inspection vessel Vædderen

—Arctic Command
No thanks!!!!
We in Greenland 🇬🇱 are healthy and doing well, sustained by our own traditional foods — including seal blubber, which is rich in vitamins and nutrients that have kept our population strong for generations.

Instead, you may want to focus on the internal challenges in the United States, where many citizens are in need of healthcare and cannot afford necessary treatment!
Important issue? All is well here in Greenland.

There was one submarine crew member who required hospitalization in Nuuk. He was evacuated by the Royal Danish Navy and is receiving proper care. He is in safe hands with skilled doctors from Greenland and Denmark. There is no need for a hospital ship.

Perhaps it would be better to focus on the needs of your own state.
Greenlanders shake their heads

TV 2 reporter Marie Rønde is currently in Nuuk, where she has gone to Queen Ingrid’s Hospital.

“I arrived just as the night shift was leaving, so I managed to speak with a couple of staff members who work here at the hospital.

“They shook their heads and think it sounds like a hoax,” Marie Rønde says.

It is Trump’s statement that he intends to send an American ship to Greenland to help care for the sick that has prompted head-shaking among parts of the population.

—TV2
Mette Frederiksen comments on Trump post

🇩🇰Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has addressed healthcare in Greenland in a social media post.

Her post follows a statement made overnight by President Donald Trump, in which he wrote that he would send a hospital ship to Greenland to care for the sick, though he did not elaborate on what he specifically meant by that announcement.

The Prime Minister did not directly mention Donald Trump or his post, but wrote:

“I am grateful to live in a country where there is free and equal access to healthcare for everyone. Where it is not insurance coverage or personal wealth that determines whether you receive proper treatment.

The same approach applies in Greenland. Have a good Sunday, everyone,” Mette Frederiksen wrote.

—DR
The whole world is watching.
This Sunday morning, I've now seen a number of comments on this mysterious Truth Social post from Donald Trump. It demonstrates with absolute clarity that the man is suffering from dementia and cannot grasp the most basic connections.

Why do I say this? Because what his post is almost certainly prompted by is the fact that the Danish navy evacuated a sick crew member from an American submarine near Greenland within the last few days.

Trump has been informed of this and told that the sick submariner (or whatever his rank may be) has been evacuated. But Trump's dementia-addled brain cannot process even the most straightforward information. Hence his bizarre post.

In the White House, everyone knows that this is what has happened. The question is, when will they finally acknowledge that he is no longer mentally present?
Posted by at No comments:

Trump IS Contagious!

You need what, now? And I haven’t been ID’d for a beer in almost 50 years. Maybe JD has other problems.

I’ve also never voted without identity confirmation.
Trump is also getting incredibly poor advice.
Seems hard for the President to rely on the 15 percent statute (sec 122) when his DOJ in our case told the Court the opposite: “Nor does [122] have any obvious application here, where the concerns the President identified in declaring an emergency arise from trade deficits, which are conceptually distinct from balance-of-payments deficits."

If he wants sweeping tariffs, he should do the American thing and go to Congress. If his tariffs are such a good idea, he should have no problem persuading Congress. That’s what our Constitution requires.

Trump Says He Will Raise Global Tariff to 15 Percent https://nytimes.com/2026/02/21/business/trump-tariffs.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share via @NYTimes
And, he’s just an idiot: The tedious reality:
“The USNS Mercy, commissioned in 1986, departed San Diego last July for a one-year scheduled maintenance period at Alabama Shipyard under an $18.7 million firm-fixed-price contract for a 153-calendar day mid-term availability, including drydocking. The timing and logistics of any potential deployment to Greenland remain unclear given the vessel’s current maintenance status in Alabama.”

The USNS Comfort , the U.S. Navy’s only other hospital ship, is also docked at the same port as the USNS Mercy, and is secured in place away from its homeport in Virginia, suggesting the ship is also undergoing maintenance.
I’ll be surprised if it’s even brought up. Don’t want to scare the children, after all.
Posted by at No comments:

Saturday, February 21, 2026

All In How You Look At It

Except the authors of this situation are….?

Meanwhile, Talarico is getting the reference.
Lauren Boebert: I would rather my children see the Ten Commandments, that gives a moral standard, rather than saying, you can pleasure yourself and here's how.

James Talarico: Seeing politicians force everybody to put up a poster of the Ten Commandments when they don't even follow them themselves.

(I don't think she got the reference)
Posted by at 1 comment:

Where Else Should The Pope Be?

NEW: JD Vance flew to Rome to formally invite Pope Leo XIV to join America’s 250th anniversary celebration.

The first American pope has declined — days after rejecting President Trump’s “Board of Peace” invitation.

On July 4, he’ll be in Lampedusa, standing with migrants — not in Washington — drawing another stark line between the Trump-Vance White House and the Catholic Church under Leo.
Under Trump, the 250th anniversary will whitewash the American history of genocide, racism, slavery, class warfare and economic injustice, and abuse and exploitation of the immigrant.

The “Board of Peace” is an Orwellian Minitrue label for a cynical attempt to turn Gaza into a resort for Trump’s profit, and for currying favor with the U.S. by the lowlife members of the “Board.” It dissolves as soon as Trump is clearly a lame duck.

Why would the Pope appear alongside a man who kills people in boats indiscriminately, and claims credit for it?
Lampedusa is a destination on what has become one of the world's deadliest migration routes, where many people land after crossing the Mediterranean often in simple fishing boats or makeshift dinghies.
Pope Leo’s purpose is pretty clear.
Posted by at 2 comments:

🎶”Lies! Lies! I Can’t Believe A Word You Say “🎶

A) Because it doesn’t exist, and never has?
B) Because Trump has already spent it?
C) Because you lied to the court?
D) Because you’re lying now?

And if Congress tells you to give the money back? And tells you how? Could you do it then?

And is it $175 billion?
I’ve also read it’s $170 billion.Funny how the amount changes depending on who’s saying it.

And it’s not like this Administration has never lied to us:
And that you haven’t taught your supporters to lie:
Posted by at No comments:

Friday, February 20, 2026

USA! USA! USA!!

Everybody pays. One way or the other.
Posted by at No comments:

How It Actually Works

Hear that dripping? That’s my heart, bleeding for you. Wait for the courts or Congress to establish the mechanism? You know, how government works? WOW! And I thought Trump had a huge ego! No, there isn’t. The issue here is, who has the authority to impose that tax? The Supreme Court today ruled that the POTUS doesn’t have that power.  EOD.

As I said, talk to Congress. That’s the way our federal governments works.
Posted by at No comments:

That Keeps On Giving

Posted by at No comments:

Why Trump Used The IEEPA

Klobuchar: "The scariest part from his press conference, in addition to the continued assault on the rule of law and the Constitution, is that he plans to continue doing this ... [but] I think you're starting to see bipartisan opposition to the president's tariffs, which would affect the 150 days under this new statute he's throwing out"
But Trump has read all the case law and the statutes, right?
Posted by at No comments:

“When Elephants Fight, The Grass Gets Trampled”

Congress can do something; or the courts can do something. But the odds of money being returned to the people who paid the tariffs (U.S.) are low.

Thus does the system “serve” us.
Posted by at No comments:

NO KINGS!

😹🤡 It’s like he’s talking to his mirror. *YAWN!* I remember the days of “Impeach Earl Warren!” You’ve gotta up your game, old man. Press the Congress to “pack the court” and give you four more Alitos, Thomases, and Kavanaughs before January! C’min, you know you can do it! 😹 That certainly should have made them respect your authoritah! 😹😹😹 So, for all the bitching, he’s accepted the authority of the Court. Now, let’s get him to specify the statutes he’s going to use, and how they won’t be tariffs, because the majority has said “tariffs = taxes, and the POTUS can’t impose taxes; only Congress can.

He’s gonna be cussing the courts for years.
Yeah, about that…. Really? When was that? Yeah. Go back to court with that argument. We’ll call it the Copium defense.😹😹😹
“Although I firmly disagree with the Court's holding today, the decision might not substantially constrain a President's ability to order tariffs going forward," Kavanaugh wrote. "That is because numerous other federal statutes authorize the President to impose tariffs and might justify most (if not all) of the tariffs issued in this case...Those statutes include, for example, the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 (Section 232); the Trade Act of 1974 (Sections 122, 201, and 301); and the Tariff Act of 1930 (Section 338).”

Trump thanked Kavanaugh, the second of three justices he nominated during his first term, and claimed the ruling actually granted him even more authority than he had previously claimed.

"In actuality, while I am sure they did not mean to do so, the Supreme Court’s decision today made a President’s ability to both regulate Trade, and impose TARIFFS, more powerful and crystal clear, rather than less," Trump said. "There will no longer be any doubt, and the Income coming in, and the protection of our Companies and Country, will actually increase because of this decision. Based on longstanding Law and Hundreds of Victories to the contrary, the Supreme Court did not overrule TARIFFS, they merely overruled a particular use of IEEPA TARIFFS. The ability to block, embargo, restrict, license, or impose any other condition on a Foreign Country’s ability to conduct Trade with the United States under IEEPA, has been fully confirmed by this decision. In order to protect our Country, a President can actually charge more TARIFFS than I was charging in the past under the various other TARIFF authorities, which have also been confirmed, and fully allowed."

"Therefore, effective immediately, all National Security TARIFFS, Section 232 and existing Section 301 TARIFFS, remain in place, and in full force and effect," he added. "Today I will sign an Order to impose a 10% GLOBAL TARIFF, under Section 122, over and above our normal TARIFFS already being charged, and we are also initiating several Section 301 and other Investigations to protect our Country from unfair Trading practices. Thank you for your attention to this matter. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!"
Unless tariffs = taxes, which is the decision Kavanaugh dissented from; and which would mean the majority didn’t overlook the statutes Kavanaugh cited. Let’s find out, huh? Or maybe Congress can step in…🤔 That one is even better. Go with that! It’s time for his nap.💤  Delusion as ego defense mechanism. This guy will wind up in textbooks. POTUS gets the best legal advice. The Peter Navarro defense. Yeah, that’s where he’s going. It’s not going to work out well for him. See? Begun, it already has. Please tell Johnson to tell the Sergeant at arms to only admit Scalia, Thomas, and Kavanaugh! 😹 The investigators who went to Hawaii to find Obama’s real birth certificate are on it! Time for his meds. Sure he did, Grandpa. Well, of course.
Posted by at No comments:

Ox. Gored. Whose.

Although I agree with Cardinal Dolan in this point, and those who are not against us are with us (Jesus said), it’s still Dolan.

And more often than not, he’s against us.
Posted by at No comments:

When Optometrists Try To Practice Law

But can she still impose Sharia law? The Texas GOP wants to know.
Posted by at No comments:

😹😹😹 “These fucking courts!😹😹😹

BlueSky:
Supreme Court absolutely bodies Trump on IEEPA.

Just complete groin kicking.

They could have said that IEEPA lets him impose tariffs in an emergency but that this didn't qualify as one of those, or he failed to define one.

It didn't.

It ruled IEEPA doesn't let him impose tariffs at all.
I haven’t read the opinion (I’m honestly waiting for Professor Vladeck to do that for me. What? This is not my job!), but if this analysis is correct, Trump is done. His administration has been saying since oral arguments that they have other options. But if it’s correct that the majority ruled tariffs are taxes, then they’re ruling that only Congress can levy taxes, which moots any further action by Trump.

My own reaction was that Trump has meddled with primal forces, and the smarter members of the court (I.e., not Alito, Thomas, or Kavanaugh), realized it. I also don’t discount that the three conservatives finally see that Trump is a loose cannon on the deck of the ship of state.
CNN: Now that these tariffs are off, I am hearing from the Port of Los Angeles, the executive director there, saying that they are now bracing for a surge of cargo vessels to come into the United States, landing on the shores of Los Angeles.

We are in the Chinese lunar new year, so factories are largely shut down in China. But he is hearing already from business groups and importers saying that they want to get those factories up and running as soon as possible to bring in key items into the United States that are heavily imported toys, shoes electronics, appliances, because they are also nervous about the fact that potentially president trump could find another way to impose tariffs.
ETTD is an iron law of the universe..
Posted by at No comments:

Well, I Guess We’ll Find Out

Well, I guess we’ll find out.
Posted by at No comments:

But! But! “National Security!”

Hmmm... so did Trump v U.S. And the ruling overturning Roe. Anyway…
Posted by at No comments:

The Truth Is Way Out There

The senator from Pennsylvania knows “The X-Files” were fictional, right?

It’s just that, these days, you have to ask. I mean, my daughter grew up watching them, too. But she wouldn’t say that, even as a joke.
Posted by at No comments:

Immediately Following Up On That 👇 Post

The camp in Dilley, Texas, to be clear. Yup.
Homan: "We don't racially profile. When we detain somebody and question somebody for a short period of time, we need reasonable suspicion. That's what we're doing. But people say 'The Supreme Court allows you to racial profile.' That's not what the Supreme Court said. They said we're doing things legally."
Thanks, Justice Kavanaugh. And they got lots of white people in those concentration camps, Mr. Border Czar? What was the probable cause for sending a 9 year old to a concentration camp for 4 months?
After what they described as hours of questioning, the mother and daughter were reportedly placed in a room together. Maria Alejandra described her phone being confiscated, leaving her unable to contact her husband, who was waiting for them at the airport. Maria Antonia said she was confused; if her mother was applying for a green card — and if she herself had a valid tourist visa — why were they being detained?
The 9 year old spent 113 days in Dilley. All she’d wanted to do was go to Disneyland.  This is as friendly and welcoming as North Korea. There’s no other way to put it. See?
Posted by at No comments:

Abolish 🧊. Impeach Noem. End This Government Sponsored Horror

185,000 new jobs in 2025 is only making America more affordable for billionaires. The cities of Los Angeles and Portland and Minneapolis and Houston would question your definition of “safety.” And that’s just the highly publicized cases:
Thirty-two people died in ICE custody nationwide last year, surpassing the previous high of 20 in 2005, according to federal data. Nearly a quarter of last year’s deaths occurred in Texas.

Scott Shuchart, a former head of policy at ICE under Biden and senior adviser under Trump’s first term to DHS’ Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, said the agency “struggled to ensure adequate medical care” when its detainee population was 35,000. Now it is more than doubling that number.

The government last October also temporarily stopped paying many medical providers due to bureaucratic changes under the administration. As a result, ICE for months has been unable to reimburse health care officials, including for prescription medication, dialysis and chemotherapy, according to redacted ICE documents first reported by Popular Information.
Safety, huh? For whom? Select white people? From whom? “Dangerous criminals”? Try again:
Unlawful border crossings have plummeted due to the administration’s restrictions. Federal data shows that most current ICE detainees are not accused of crimes beyond civil immigration offenses.
The camps ICE is building under Noem’s watch are concentration camps where cruelty and incompetence is the point:
Constructed in a record two months last summer after the government granted a $1.2 billion contract to Acquisition Logistics, a small Virginia corporation with no listed experience running detention facilities, the camp has been plagued with problems since it opened. Claims of medical neglect, spoiled, insufficient food and unsanitary conditions are rife and advocates call it an “unfolding humanitarian crisis.”

More than 45 people detained there alleged abuse and serious injuries to attorneys, according to a letter advocacy groups sent to DHS and ICE supervisors in December. Those allegations included a teen hospitalized after he accused staff of slamming him to the ground and beating him. The detention staffers blocked the security cameras, he said, and “grabbed my testicles and firmly crushed them.”

ICE’s own inspectors found at least 60 violations at the facility shortly after it opened, the Washington Post first reported in September, including that the contractors had employed little more than a half of the security personnel it had promised. DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin, who did not respond to repeated requests from The Texas Tribune, said in a statement that “any claim that there are ‘inhumane’ conditions at ICE detention centers are categorically false.” She said detainees are provided “proper meals,” medical treatment and clean clothing.

Two officials who viewed that ICE investigative report or were briefed by the agency additionally told the Tribune that the facility had no policy detailing when or how contractors can use force. It lacked a compliance manager designated to oversee sexual assault allegations, required under federal regulations. Contractors were also provided only 40 hours of training, a fraction of at least 42 days typically required of regular ICE agents, according to those officials who were not authorized to speak publicly.

Acquisition Logistics and two of its contractors in charge of detention and medical care did not respond to questions so it is unclear if those conditions have since improved and if new policies were instituted.

U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar, an El Paso Democrat who has visited the site at least a half dozen times, said the conditions at East Montana are rapidly “deteriorating.”

After tuberculosis and COVID-19 cases, both highly infectious contagions, were confirmed there, Escobar said that employees told her not to enter a certain area because detainees had yet to be tested. Few people wore masks.

“All it takes is one major public health issue where there’s not been enough oversight, where human life and safety and welfare is not prioritized, for there to be a massive health impact on the community,” Escobar said in an interview. “Americans should care when these massive tent cities or massive warehouses are very quickly put up and filled with thousands of human beings and are run by corporations that are prioritizing profits, not people.”
I haven’t seen the government work this hard to lie and cover it’s backsides since Vietnam:
Congress imposed strict rules on how deaths in ICE custody should be reported, which include publicly posting “relevant details” within two business days and requiring ICE’s Office of Professional Responsibility to investigate each death and provide a report to senior management. Within 90 days, ICE must make the reports public.

But under Trump’s second term, experts said, death reports from ICE detention have often been delayed.

After Lunas Campos died at East Montana, for example, ICE waited nearly a week to issue the release claiming he died from “distress.” Only after the medical examiner advised his family that it might be a homicide, did ICE officials allege a suicide attempt.
This is ICE.
Historically, many deaths in ICE custody likely could have been avoided with better medical care, experts and advocates said, a pattern that sparks concerns given the government’s skyrocketing detention.

The ACLU examined the deaths of 52 people in ICE custody between 2017 and 2021 and found that 49 of them were “likely preventable,” most often resulting from faulty medical diagnoses by detention staff. In 40% of those deaths, ICE staff failed to provide timely care, the report found.

Lawyers and congressional representatives say conditions have worsened at such centers, including the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, 70 miles south of San Antonio, which drew widespread attention after photographs of 5-year-old Liam Conjeo Ramos went viral following his detention last month in Minneapolis. More than 1,300 parents and children are currently at that facility, congressional representatives have said. At least 1,000 complaints of poor medical care have been lodged since the administration reopened the detention center last April, according to Faisal Al-Juburi, co-chief executive at the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services, a Texas nonprofit that works in that facility. Last month, at least two cases of measles were confirmed at the facility.

Among the many cases of alleged medical neglect is a 2-month-old boy detained there for three weeks who was hospitalized in the past few days after “choking on his own vomit,” according to U.S Rep. Joaquin Castro, a San Antonio Democrat. The infant had bronchitis, he said, and was unresponsive for hours before being discharged. Late Tuesday, he and his family were suddenly deported despite attempts by Castro and lawyers.

“To unnecessarily deport a sick baby and his entire family is heinous,” said Castro, who in recent weeks has escalated concerns about the nation’s only facility currently holding parents with their children. He called ICE’s decision “monstrous,” pledging to seek details. DHS officials said on X that the mother “chose to take her child into custody with her” and “enter and remain in the country illegally.”

Attorneys, echoing complaints in an ongoing lawsuit seeking to prevent the Trump administration from terminating a decades-old settlement governing the rights of children in detention, describe at Dilley impotable water, barely any schooling and detainees forced to sleep under fluorescent lights. Medical care is lacking even for those with terminal conditions such as a 6-year-old with leukemia who was detained along with his family last year. He had little access to care, his lawyers said, before they were able to free him.
SNAFU.

Abolish ICE. Remove it root and branch. And impeach Noem. She’s responsible for this.
Posted by at No comments:
Subscribe to: Comments (Atom)