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Collection of worrying incidents

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SUMMARY

The forum discussion highlights alarming incidents regarding the treatment of foreign nationals and academics in the United States, particularly under the Trump administration. A French scientist was denied entry due to his critical views on Trump policies, while an Irish charity criticized Conor McGregor's visit to the White House, linking it to the normalization of sexual violence. Additionally, a Venezuelan soccer player was deported under the Alien Enemies Act due to a tattoo, raising concerns about the implications of such actions on freedom of expression and human rights. These incidents collectively illustrate a troubling trend in U.S. immigration and civil liberties.

PREREQUISITES
  • Understanding of U.S. immigration laws and policies
  • Knowledge of academic freedom and its implications
  • Familiarity with the Alien Enemies Act
  • Awareness of the socio-political climate under the Trump administration
NEXT STEPS
  • Research the implications of the Alien Enemies Act on current immigration practices
  • Explore the concept of academic freedom and its legal protections
  • Investigate the normalization of controversial figures in political discourse
  • Examine the impact of U.S. immigration policies on international relations
USEFUL FOR

This discussion is beneficial for human rights advocates, immigration lawyers, political scientists, and anyone interested in the intersection of immigration policy and civil liberties in the United States.

Well... he "only" needs a two-thirds vote in both houses of Congress for proposal, followed by ratification by three-fourths (38) of the states... Et voilá!
Even our founding fathers have said that if the government does not serve the needs of its people, they should change it. It would be a sad day if some of this conservative ideology were built into the Constitution. The US brought the world hope for a short time. And may, in a short while, show that it was only a hope. Greed, selfishness, and power seem to be the only enduring characteristics of humanity. I don't think that it is going to happen.

I think the GOP will try to finagle the election processes to keep one of their boys in the presidency.

Trump and Hegseth have 3 years to cycle in loyalists and weak souls. They are already bombing boats, kidnapping heads of state and threating Greenland.
The US has 800 generals and admirals. Some may be OK with his anti DEI program or some ill-advised patriotic adventure, but having the majority violate their oath to uphold and defend the Constitution does not seem attainable.

Thought Bubble: Could Trump or Hegseth be subject to a military tribunal?
 
Some may be OK with his anti DEI program or some ill-advised patriotic adventure, but having the majority violate their oath to uphold and defend the Constitution does not seem attainable.
He won congress by having his MAGA minions threaten their families. We have verification from this from senators and congressman. How courageous are the remaining generals? I think we'll find out. So far Trump has steamrolled everyone in his path.
 
He won congress by having his MAGA minions threaten their families. We have verification from this from senators and congressman. How courageous are the remaining generals? I think we'll find out. So far Trump has ste industrial is wailing and the two often went hand in hand with waiting stations estab
Unfortunately the much publicized "checks and balances" goodness of the US system seem to actually refer to checkbooks and their balancing...
There's a hyper concentration of (not only political) power in the hands of 2 and half people.
I am definitely not optimistic and the end of the tunnel seems to be very very far away.
Very very dark times ahead no doubt.
 
I'm a little surprised that he hasn't been assassinated in a country overflowing with ghost guns. I mean a more charismatic president like Kennedy was offed pretty unceremoniously. It's like Trump uses the opposite of Putin's tactic. Putin keeps everyone at a distance while Trump surrounds himself with sycophants. I'm sure he's perfectly hale no matter his age too.

Ironically, with the influx of military personnel, Greenland is going to experience somewhat of a economic boom-town lift (before the ecology melts out from under them). And although I hate to admit it, if we can agree on getting up there as one big happy NATO-family (on the face of it if nothing else), it is important geopolitical real-estate denied to the Russians and Chinese. Let's just hope they don't get the obvious idea of "conquering" Antarctica....
 
This makes me want to puke


Ich kann nicht so viel fressen, wie ich kotzen möchte.
(I can't eat as much as I want to vomit.) Note that "fressen" is nastier than eat since it is used for animals, and "kotzen" is slang for vomit, also nasty.

Max Liebermann, in view of the Nazi march on the so-called "Day of the Seizure of Power" in January 1933
 
A similar egregious phhoto appears in this WaPo article. The little boy wear a rabbit hat with long ears demonstarting a caring family. Agents used the toddler as "bait" to torment their parents.

imrs.php
 
In the interest of humanity I am reposting this simple yet evocative photo.

1769191599584.webp
This brave tot's family reportedly emmigrated from Ecuador. Their rabbit hat contains spiritual significance likely understood by the family. In American folklore Rabbit symbolizes honesty, integrity and intelligence. Think of Br'er Rabbit outhinking Fox and outflanking Wolf and Coyote in several instructive myths.

1769190942817.webp

As a child in the 1950s I wore and cherished a similar hat based on popular heroes Davey Crockett and Swamp Fox Francis Marion. We hope Rabbit guides and protects young Liam in his journey to freedom.
 
In the interest of humanity I am reposting this simple yet evocative photo.

View attachment 968
This brave tot's family reportedly emmigrated from Ecuador. Their rabbit hat contains spiritual significance likely understood by the family. In American folklore Rabbit symbolizes honesty, integrity and intelligence. Think of Br'er Rabbit outhinking Fox and outflanking Wolf and Coyote in several instructive myths.

View attachment 967

As a child in the 1950s I wore and cherished a similar hat based on popular heroes Davey Crockett and Swamp3v Fox Francis Marion. We hope Rabbit guides and protects young Liam in his journey to freedom.
My 63 years has shown me, day after day, that humanity as a group cannot be trusted with our own destiny.
But sometimes I see glimmers of hope in some individuals.
Albeit not enough to make me optimistic about our destiny as species.
 

Walz Reports ‘Another Horrific Shooting’ Involving Federal Agents In Minnesota​


  • The group of federal agents, shown in a video shared on Facebook, took the man to the ground and began punching him before at least 10 shots were fired outside Glam Doll Donuts on the south side of the city, with the man going limp.
  • Minnesota news outlet Bring Me The News said the man was unconscious and first responders were administering live-saving measures.
  • The man was taken to the hospital after having been shot several times, according to the Minnesota Star Tribune.
  • KARE reported federal authorities were deploying chemical irritants toward hundreds of protesters who had gathered in the area, with the City of Minneapolis urging residents “to remain calm and avoid the immediate area.”
  • The shooting comes weeks after Renee Good was fatally shot by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in Minneapolis, leading to nationwide protests and renewed calls to abolish ICE.
  • A week after Good was killed, a Venezuelan man was shot in the leg in Minneapolis after federal officials said he assaulted an agent.
...

Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikest...ooting-involving-federal-agents-in-minnesota/

Honestly? That is far worse than what Putin is doing to his protesters. Well, those Russians aren't treated nicely, and many of them end up in jail, although innocent from our point of view, but at least they aren't assassinated. 10 rounds on a helpless man already on the ground? Really?
 
America is under siege. This is existential.

Indeed. I have seen how Russians treat kids, and I can by no means imagine any Russian officer would arrest a 5-year-old. This is totally out of control. However, I assume primarily in the blue areas of the country.
 
Indeed. I have seen how Russians treat kids, and I can by no means imagine any Russian officer would arrest a 5-year-old. This is totally out of control. However, I assume primarily in the blue areas of the country.
This is Martin Niemöller all over again... If the courts don't act soon the country is going to the shits.
Minneapolis is being broadcasted live in Spain right now.
 
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WTF, MAGA says, get them before they get us.

Text from https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opin...n&cvid=697be29f547f4a84bf523f581d7fe56b&ei=11
MAGA panel warns of 'mass graves' for conservatives to justify Trump's secret police

A panel of MAGA pundits on Real America's Voice warned that conservatives would face "mass graves" if President Donald Trump isn't given wide latitude to make Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers into his secret police force.

"I think part of what we're doing is we're looking at the world and seeing ways law can fix the problems we see from a conservative perspective," Will Chamberlain told host Jack Posobiec on Thursday. "We don't have an attitude towards government power that is reflexively against it because the idea is that... a small government is a means, not an end, right?"

"There's a lot of reasons why I think the libertarian philosophy is just ultimately very simplistic."

Posobiec wondered, "So what happens if we say, oh, we shouldn't use government power because what if the left uses it against us in the future?.
"Well, what happens is that you end up disqualifying yourself, you end up seeding power," panelist Charles Cornish-Dale remarked, "and then potentially you'll shut out from government for good, and, you know, maybe you end up lined up alongside a trench in a field in the early hours of the morning waiting to be you know shoveled into a into a mass grave."

"Yeah, the stakes are that high. We're not being hyperbolic here. Mass graves," he added. "Simply limiting ourselves to not using this incredibly powerful apparatus of government that's being used against us and has been used against us. It's a recipe for failure."
 

Even for a president who has radically transformed the Justice Department and the F.B.I. by trampling over their political independence and using them as tools for personal retribution, Mr. Trump appears to be taking that kind of involvement to a new level. Rather than going to senior department or F.B.I. officials, Mr. Trump spoke directly to the frontline agents doing the granular work of a politically sensitive investigation in which he has a large personal stake.

...

It is extremely dangerous to our democracy and a shocking abandonment of years of sound policy for the president to be directly involved in the conduct of domestic criminal investigations, especially one that seeks to redress his personal grievances and to make the director of national intelligence an instrument of his political will,” said David Laufman, who served as a senior Justice Department official in both Republican and Democratic administrations. “It’s now more clear than ever that the independence of the Department of Justice and the F.B.I. is completely compromised and they are essentially under the direction and control of the White House.”

He is taking political abuse of law enforcement to new and staggering heights.
 
BREAKING: Trump’s ICE just threw a 7-year-old Canadian girl with autism and her mom into one of their worst prisons for NO REASON WHATSOEVER!

Edward Warner, an American citizen from Kingsville, Texas, was driving home with his Tania Warner and their daughter, Ayla Lucas, from a baby shower when all of a sudden they were stopped at a border patrol checkpoint and demanded to see their papers.

Tania showed them her Texas driver’s license, work visa, and actual visa, informing the goons that she was a Lawful Alien Allowed to Work, as Tania is originally from British Columbia.

“I presented mine and she presented her Texas driver’s licence, her work visa and her actual visa,” Edward, who is American, told CTV News. “After that, they took her in, saying that they needed to fingerprint her to get more information, and she never came back out.”

The goon squad said there was an “error” with Tania’s Employment Authorization Document and needed to send their fingerprints to Border Patrol headquarters in Washington, who refused to let them go.

“It’s scary, it’s really frustrating, especially when they have paperwork that’s good, and it doesn’t come up in the system as being good. It didn’t come up as having paperwork at all,” said Edward to the Canadian media.

Tania and Ayla were thrown into the gulag at the Rio Grande Valley Central Processing Center in McAllen, Texas, a site notorious for housing little kids in chain-link cages during Trump’s first term.

“It’s no place for a seven-year-old to be,” Edward said. “They’re using, like, space blankets in order to cover up. She’s having to use the mat from the floor to get a proper cover to keep warm. This food is terrible … it’s overcrowded, very loud, and they’re just very stressed out right now,” he said of what he’s hearing from his family, adding that they’ve only been able to have two short phone calls a day.

This is what happens when you build a machine designed to incarcerate people for profit with no regard to the law or to basic human decency. There’s a private prison company making a fat profit off of locking up this poor little girl and her mother and an evil bald man in the White House, Stephen Miller, ordering the Border Patrol to fill quotas of arrestees, no matter who they are or whether they deserve to be thrown into a disgusting prison, served mouldy food, and forced to sleep under bright lights on piss-soaked floors.

Tania and Ayla and every other innocent child in these camps need to be freed, IMMEDIATELY, and their cells filled with the men responsible for this absolute miscarriage of justice.


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Source: www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1461521236079446&set=a.201905705374345
 
BREAKING: Trump’s ICE just threw a 7-year-old Canadian girl with autism and her mom into one of their worst prisons for NO REASON WHATSOEVER!

Edward Warner, an American citizen from Kingsville, Texas, was driving home with his Tania Warner and their daughter, Ayla Lucas, from a baby shower when all of a sudden they were stopped at a border patrol checkpoint and demanded to see their papers.

Tania showed them her Texas driver’s license, work visa, and actual visa, informing the goons that she was a Lawful Alien Allowed to Work, as Tania is originally from British Columbia.

“I presented mine and she presented her Texas driver’s licence, her work visa and her actual visa,” Edward, who is American, told CTV News. “After that, they took her in, saying that they needed to fingerprint her to get more information, and she never came back out.”

The goon squad said there was an “error” with Tania’s Employment Authorization Document and needed to send their fingerprints to Border Patrol headquarters in Washington, who refused to let them go.

“It’s scary, it’s really frustrating, especially when they have paperwork that’s good, and it doesn’t come up in the system as being good. It didn’t come up as having paperwork at all,” said Edward to the Canadian media.

Tania and Ayla were thrown into the gulag at the Rio Grande Valley Central Processing Center in McAllen, Texas, a site notorious for housing little kids in chain-link cages during Trump’s first term.

“It’s no place for a seven-year-old to be,” Edward said. “They’re using, like, space blankets in order to cover up. She’s having to use the mat from the floor to get a proper cover to keep warm. This food is terrible … it’s overcrowded, very loud, and they’re just very stressed out right now,” he said of what he’s hearing from his family, adding that they’ve only been able to have two short phone calls a day.

This is what happens when you build a machine designed to incarcerate people for profit with no regard to the law or to basic human decency. There’s a private prison company making a fat profit off of locking up this poor little girl and her mother and an evil bald man in the White House, Stephen Miller, ordering the Border Patrol to fill quotas of arrestees, no matter who they are or whether they deserve to be thrown into a disgusting prison, served mouldy food, and forced to sleep under bright lights on piss-soaked floors.

Tania and Ayla and every other innocent child in these camps need to be freed, IMMEDIATELY, and their cells filled with the men responsible for this absolute miscarriage of justice.


View attachment 1159

Source: www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1461521236079446&set=a.201905705374345
Those guys are the worst!
 
BREAKING: BOMBSHELL — Trump associate allegedly pulled strings to get ex-girlfriend detained by ICE to help him win a custody battle over their child.

If you ever wondered what abuse of power looks like, we now have the perfect example for you.

A longtime Donald Trump ally reportedly reached out to ICE with a jaw-dropping request: detain the mother of his own child so he could gain the upper hand in a custody battle.

According to reporting, Paolo Zampolli — a well-connected Trump insider who was the person who reportedly introduced Trump to Melania — learned his ex-girlfriend was sitting in a Miami jail on fraud charges… and saw an opportunity.

So, what did he allegedly do?

He contacted a top ICE official and flagged that she was undocumented, suggesting she be picked up and detained before she could be released.

And the response?

The official reportedly sprang into action, calling local agents and making sure she was transferred straight into ICE custody.

This wasn’t random enforcement. This was a connected insider pulling strings — using the machinery of the federal government in the middle of a personal family dispute.

Even if officials now claim it would’ve happened anyway, the bigger issue is undeniable: access. Who gets the hotline to ICE? Who gets their calls returned? Who gets results?

Not ordinary Americans.

Meanwhile, the woman at the center of it all says she’s “appalled” — and who wouldn’t be? Facing detention and deportation is terrifying enough without wondering if it’s being influenced behind the scenes by someone with powerful friends.

This is exactly what critics have warned about: immigration enforcement being twisted into a tool for the well-connected friends of Donald Trump — making political relationships matter more than actual justice.

Because when insiders can allegedly nudge federal agencies for personal gain, it’s not just unfair. It’s dangerous.

And it raises a chilling question: How many other times has this happened without anyone knowing?


RZDJEdQduWkRU1uM_&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent-fra5-1.webp

Source: www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1462549942643242&set=a.201905705374345

Comment: This is beyond belief. The rule of law in the USA is in ruins.

Edit: The "rule of law" is a suboptimal translation by Google. My German word was "Rechtsstaatlichkeit", which refers to the property of a country being a "Rechtsstaat". It means: A state governed by the rule of law is a state that creates universally binding law and also binds its own organs to the law when exercising state power. The opposite is a state governed by injustice, or later, a police state. The USA is turning from being a Rechtsstaat (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rechtsstaat) to becoming a police state, or ICE-state in this case.
 
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BREAKING: BOMBSHELL — Trump associate allegedly pulled strings to get ex-girlfriend detained by ICE to help him win a custody battle over their child.

If you ever wondered what abuse of power looks like, we now have the perfect example for you.

A longtime Donald Trump ally reportedly reached out to ICE with a jaw-dropping request: detain the mother of his own child so he could gain the upper hand in a custody battle.

According to reporting, Paolo Zampolli — a well-connected Trump insider who was the person who reportedly introduced Trump to Melania — learned his ex-girlfriend was sitting in a Miami jail on fraud charges… and saw an opportunity.

So, what did he allegedly do?

He contacted a top ICE official and flagged that she was undocumented, suggesting she be picked up and detained before she could be released.

And the response?

The official reportedly sprang into action, calling local agents and making sure she was transferred straight into ICE custody.

This wasn’t random enforcement. This was a connected insider pulling strings — using the machinery of the federal government in the middle of a personal family dispute.

Even if officials now claim it would’ve happened anyway, the bigger issue is undeniable: access. Who gets the hotline to ICE? Who gets their calls returned? Who gets results?

Not ordinary Americans.

Meanwhile, the woman at the center of it all says she’s “appalled” — and who wouldn’t be? Facing detention and deportation is terrifying enough without wondering if it’s being influenced behind the scenes by someone with powerful friends.

This is exactly what critics have warned about: immigration enforcement being twisted into a tool for the well-connected friends of Donald Trump — making political relationships matter more than actual justice.

Because when insiders can allegedly nudge federal agencies for personal gain, it’s not just unfair. It’s dangerous.

And it raises a chilling question: How many other times has this happened without anyone knowing?


View attachment 1164

Source: www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1462549942643242&set=a.201905705374345

Comment: This is beyond belief. The rule of law in the USA is in ruins.

Edit: The "rule of law" is a suboptimal translation by Google. My German word was "Rechtsstaatlichkeit", which refers to the property of a country being a "Rechtsstaat". It means: A state governed by the rule of law is a state that creates universally binding law and also binds its own organs to the law when exercising state power. The opposite is a state governed by injustice, or later, a police state. The USA is turning from being a Rechtsstaat (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rechtsstaat) to becoming a police state, or ICE-state in this case.

The worst is that by now we're beyond surprise and caring is dwindling fast.
 
Who gets the hotline to ICE? Who gets their calls returned? Who gets results?


This example is certainly infuriating. That said, I'd be surprised if ICE isn't getting multiple calls daily from folks who want a troublesome neighbor or ex-partner or co-worker or whoever to conveniently be out of their lives. This awful fellow had connections at the top and very likely got an expedited response, but these days I'd bet most anyone can get most anyone else looked into and perhaps worse than looked into if they just call and voice some suspicions.

If one is in fact calling about a non-citizen who is here illegally, I'd be shocked if anyone couldn't get a similar response from ICE, and I'd be shocked if such things aren't happening all the time these days.

Probably relationships between US citizens and non-citizens that result in children are common, and break-ups are common, and custody fights are common, and it doesn't seem a stretch that it would occur to many in these circumstances to use the power in-equity to their advantage, and the arrest quotas are said to be driving all kinds of egregious behavior from ICE officers and management.
 

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