Predictably, the exit of mini-Nazi Bovino did little to staunch ICE abuses - kids gassed, women dragged, skulls fractured, observers facing guns - which go on apace. But so do growing protests, testimony and court rulings against them. This week saw a spectacularly scathing one as ICE Barbie tried to strip protections from 350,000 Haitians peaceably living and working here - en route, dubbing them "killers" and "leeches." The result: "Federal judge reaches down Noem's throat, rips out her heart, and eats it raw."

Amidst a half-assed government shutdown that's funded vast venal parts of the regime but temporarily left out DHS, "metaphorically trapped on the street in its weaponized SUV," nobody's mourning the abrupt departure of former "commander" Greg Bovino, who quietly slunk back to whatever dark dank cave he crawled out of. Swapping him out in the wake of outrage over ICE's murderous abuses, it was agreed, was "like shitting your pants and then changing your shirt." "To stem a spiraling crisis, the White House replaced an asshole with a different asshole," reported Andy Borowitz, who quoted "senior asshole" and Nazi ghoul Stephen Miller on what's next: "Anyone who thinks this administration is going to run out of assholes any time soon better think again. We have a very deep bench." (It includes his ignorant, hateful wife.)

The bench boasts Noem, Rubio, Drunk Pete and Miller himself, who's taken to not just raving that ICE stormtroopers have total immunity (NOT) but desperately advertising for them on X - "If you want to combat fraud, crime and illegal immigration, reach out. Patriots needed." It also includes Tulsi Gabbard, fresh from charging Obama with "treasonous conspiracy" in the 2016 election and running her own investigation into - as well as inexplicably joining the FBI raid on a Georgia election office aimed at - the hoary, tired, alleged steal of the 2020 election. (Really.) Finally, don't forget cartoon thug Tom Homan, Bovino's replacement, who wisely blames anti-ICE "rhetoric" for his goons shooting Renee Good in the head and Alex Pretti in the back several times, in the fine tradition of abusers everywhere who plead, "Why did you make me kill you?"

In Minneapolis, meanwhile, a county medical examiner’s office ruled the death of Pretti "homicide by multiple gunshot wounds"; it also found agents denied aid to the dying nurse by turning away a physician who offered to help. Last week, ProPublica identified his killers as Border Patrol agents Jesus Ochoa and Raymundo Gutierrez, at their jobs 11 and 7 years respectively, after federal officials refused to release their names. An internal federal report also found Good's killers violated policies on use of force "during every step of the encounter" - from deescalation to handling guns to moving vehicles to calling her "a fucking bitch"; law enforcement experts agreed agents made "grave tactical and legal mistakes" in a “completely uncoordinated and chaotic" assault. To date, her killers have only been put on administrative leave.

Since both murders, DHS made small, contradictory shifts. Agents were told not to engage with “agitators,” aka peaceful protesters, and to only target immigrants with criminal charges - like they said they were doing all along but obviously weren't. Yet an internal memo claims they're newly free to make random, warrantless arrests to skirt court orders that demand warrants. Experts and veterans deem them inept "fake soldiers" and brazen "mercenaries"; Mayor Jacob Frey calls them "marauding gangs...indiscriminately picking people up,” and often attacking them. When Castañeda Mondragón arrived at the hospital, agents boasted he "got his shit rocked." After scans showed he had eight skull fractures with life-threatening brain hemorrhages - and staff called bullshit - agents said he tried to flee, cuffed, and "purposefully ran headfirst into a brick wall."

”It was laughable, if there was something to laugh about," said one nurse bitterly, who described fractious ICE agents roaming the halls, harassing patients for their papers as fearful hospital staff huddled, and insisting a comatose Mondragón - who came here legally, started a construction company, and has no criminal record - be shackled to his bed. After two weeks, a judge ordered him released; with no family nearby, co-workers took him in for a long recovery. Across the state, a similar sense of siege reigns. While five-year-old Liam Ramos, grabbed in his bunny hat, was released, several more kids from his school have been detained, school officials, parents, grandparents, neighbors patrol in shifts outside at dismissal time as ICE agents prowl, and streets are littered with empty ghost cars - doors open, sometimes running - of other victims whisked away.

This week, it happened twice. Footage by Ford Fischer shows agents swarming a car of legal observers and dragging them out at gunpoint. One thug claimed they were threatening them with "hand guns," which lamely turned out to be gun motions with their hands. Yelled one enraged bystander, "Put away your weapons, you douchebags." Outside the small city of St. Peter, a woman driving behind agents filmed herself - and, preternaturally calm, phoned colleagues to call 911- as they swerved in front of her, jumped out with guns drawn, dragged her out, and shoved her into their car. She was ultimately released and driven home by the police chief, a friend, after her husband notified him (see small city), but residents were horrified by the jumpy, masked, trigger-happy scene. "This is just insane," said one. "It’s only a matter of time before (they) kill another innocent person."

- YouTube www.youtube.com

The dystopian scenes repeat elsewhere. Last weekend in Portland, OR, ICE thugs launched tear gas, flash bangs, pepper balls and rubber bullets at thousands of peaceful protesters, including children in strollers. Tim Dickinson of The Contrarian wrote, "Today I saw ICE gas little white kids in the streets (with) chemical weapons. Imagine what they’re doing to brown and black kids in the detention camps." Mayor Keith Wilson raged, “To those who continue to work for ICE: Resign. To those who control this facility: Leave...To those who continue to make these sickening decisions, go home, look in a mirror, and ask yourselves why you have gassed children." Tuesday, after the ACLU filed a complaint, a District Judge banned such barbarism to preserve the U.S, "now at a crossroads,"-as "a well-functioning constitutional democratic republic.” Jack Dickinson, the Portland Chicken, thanked him: "Cruelty is not an appropriate response to dissent."

Also in Portland, another bullshit federal narrative has fallen apart after goons shot two people a day after they murdered Renee Good. DHS described the targeted stop of a vehicle with two “vicious” Venezueland gang members; they claimed a woman in the car was previously “involved” in a shooting and the driver “attempted to run over” the officers, after which they were shot - chest, arm - and detained. (Miraculously, "The agents were uninjured.) The real story that emerged: No gang evidence, no criminal record, no car "weaponization," no fearful agents, no footage, the woman was an earlier victim of rape, theft, kidnap and feds undertook "a dirtying-up of the defendants." "The federal government cannot be trusted," said a city councilor, citing "a playbook of demonizing people" and "a pattern of victim-blaming...It’s important we push back, because it’s propaganda.”

In Chicago, they rammed the car of Dayanne Figueroa, a U.S. citizen, home-care worker and member of SEIU Local 503 on her way to pay rent and buy a birthday cake for her grandson. After side-swiping her, a swarm of agents jump out with guns drawn, break her car window, drag her out barefoot, throw her to the ground and demand to see her “papers" as she screams and struggles; she has severe asthma and is terrified of tear gas. After goons cuff her, they ransack her purse, find her passport and storm off, leaving her lying in the street with a torn rotator cuff, concussion and bruised ribs. Her daughter got her to the hospital with the help of the union, who also led a protest and created a GoFundMe for car repair and medical costs. Their goal was $10K; once they got to almost $20K they shut it down and posted, "See who else needs help now!"

As a profit-seeking, Stasi-like DHS attacks and terrorizes those it's meant to protect - see "security" - and runs chilling ads like, "Want affordable housing? Help report illegal aliens in your area. Call 866-DHS-2-ICE," Trump's polls keep plummeting, even at Fox. In deep denial, he rambles about a mythical "silent majority” who loves him, raves about "Democrat CRIMINAL ACTS," and embarks on random acts of revenge like (after three tries) arresting CNN's Don Lemon for doing journalism, aka "violating the sacred right to worship freely" - though ICE did it first - in a "coordinated attack by rioters” at a........

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