ICE Patriots Guard the Exit
As airports reach peak chaos amidst a government shutdown and massive departures by unpaid TSA agents, the regime's evil idiots moved to resolve their new quagmire by sending in the same brutal, ill-trained, much-despised ICE goons who caused the shutdown - and whose past abuses and corruption now daily come to light. The Beckett-esque result: Images of cranky travelers standing up to six hours in hellish lines overseen by aimlessly loitering henchmen: "Nobody comes, nobody goes. It's awful."
Late-Stage-Capitalism-Calamity #764: We probably shouldn't be surprised the dumbest president in history abetted by the dumbest people making the dumbest mistakes should have gotten around to wrecking America's air travel after his "Derp State" already decimated all our other public endeavors, institutions and systems of governance - the economy and environment along with science, education, immigration, arts, health care, civil rights, criminal justice, international aid and foreign policy, which he brags he conducts by "speaking with myself, because I have a very good brain and I’ve said a lot of things.”
That must be why shameless GOP suck-ups just gave him another made-up award, after his FIFA and second-hand Nobel: a first-ever America First Award, per quivering Mike Johnson a "beautiful golden statue, appropriate for the new golden era in America," a move widely deemed, "unbelievably, gaga cringe levels of pathetic." Other takes on his new participation trophy: "This is the most snowflakiest president," "He should get a 'Most Mentions in Epstein Files Award,'" he got a "very special boy award" just for "insecure man baby presidents,” and, from facepalming MS Now hosts, "Stop! They did not make up another award for him!”
Out in the grim real world, the partial shutdown has left nearly 50,000 TSA agents, most living paycheck to paycheck on as little as $45,000 a year, working without pay for weeks. Nearly 500 have quit, thousands daily call in sick. Union officials say many are sleeping in cars at airports to save gas money, selling blood, taking 2nd or 3rd jobs, defaulting on loans, getting eviction notices, and struggling to afford food and gas: “They’re over their heads in debt.” Denver airport issued a “DONATIONS NEEDED!” plea for grocery or gas gift cards; Seattle opened a TSA food pantry; Chef Andrés' World Central Kitchen, which usually feeds natural disaster victims in Third World countries, is serving hot meals at multiple airports because now we are one.
Meanwhile, per MLK's famed moral arc of the universe, the past atrocities of ICE/DHS - that we watched, raged at and suspected - slowly see the damning light of day. Some are unsurprising, some "jaw-dropping," all horrific. Conditions in detention centers remain "unbelievably inhumane." Interviews and new data show ICE surges consistently hurt the cities they hit, disrupting lives and businesses, stretching thin police departments, leaving budgets and residents scrambling to absorb the fallout. The impact was less drastic in cities, counties, states that declared “ICE-free zones,” but they still left only damage in their baleful wake.
Many people and places are still fighting for due process. Minnesota A.G. Keith Ellison and other state officials just filed a federal suit in D.C. to force Trump and his goons to stop obstructing state investigators seeking to hold accountable the murderers of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, whose masked killers, inconceivably, remain unnamed. The suit demands stonewalling federal officials hand over records and evidence - including Good's shrink-wrapped car in a storage facility - in the name of justice and their long history of cooperation. The DOJ's Todd Blanche: “We investigate when it’s appropriate. That is not the case here."
In another long-overdue quest for justice, 18 Venezuelan men, among at least 288 abducted from the US and trapped in El Salvador’s brutal CECOT prison last year without charges, have filed a petition before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) demanding Salvador authorities be held accountable for a vast array of atrocities. They detail harrowing allegations of torture, sexual assault, medical neglect and sometimes daily beatings for 4 months that constitute what advocates term "a human rights catastrophe" - in a place where, victims say guards often boasted, "human rights did not exist."
Concurrently, the American players behind these obscenities continue to be revealed as...obscenities. In a vile exit interview with the Times, Nazi wannabe and Miller soul bro Greg Bovino, who faces multiple lawsuits from civil rights groups, said he only wishes "I'd caught even more illegal aliens." Bovino, who called immigrants "scum" and "trash" - pot/kettle - and argued "all illegal aliens are criminals," said he sought "total border domination." In his fever dreams, he wanted to deport 100 million people, far more than the number of undocumented immigrants; in surges, he'd declare, "This is our fucking city." Not any more, shitstain.
Sadly, (not) his bosses are likewise on the decline. Former ICE Barbie, in her new LOL fake job as "Special Envoy to the Shield of the Americas," faces likely investigations for defying court orders, gross mismanagement of DHS and much perjury, including her claim in Senate testimony that her eww-boyfriend Corey Lewandowski didn't approve contracts, except for the multimillion ones he did, plus "success fees." Also, it seems she'll now report not to Rubio but a lowly lackey, and Lewandowski just got canned after photos posted by the US embassy in Guyana showed the pair in a "meeting" about "cartels," aka enjoying a tropical getaway on our dime.
Finally, in a "genuine bombshell, even by Trumpian standards," it turns out ICE lied for over a year to courts and prosecutors when they claimed a legal rationale for targeting and arresting thousands of asylum seekers at immigration courts. In court documents for a lawsuit brought by the New York Civil Liberties Union on behalf of one of over 90 cases tracked, ICE lawyers admitted an ICE memo they long cited to justify the arrests in fact gave them no authorization for them and did not apply to immigration courts. As to the incalculable damage done by ICE to those thousands of innocents, Seth Magaziner offered a reminder of all the savage rest.
So sure, brilliant move all around to inflict ICE on America's airports, though they're getting paid but TSA agents all around them aren't, and a majority of the testy, trapped travelers already want to abolish them, and amidst the surreal packs of goons in "POLICE ICE” tactical vests, with handguns, radios, handcuffs, Tasers, extra magazines - but no masks - we haven't seen a single image of any of them doing anything but aimlessly loitering - standing, sitting, gabbing, milling, strolling, drinking coffee, scrolling through phones. Mostly, says one TSA dispatch from JFK Airport, "They're just standing - very uncomfortably, it seems like."
Huh. Is it possible the Stable Genius, who knows more........
