JohnB

Getting the impression that ICE is gearing up for a pogrom in Springfield, Ohio, which was ground zero of Vance’s lies about Haitians during the campaign. Haitians lose temporary protected status on February 3rd. Reporters, lawyers, neighbors — please get ready.

by popular request i have turned the meme into a blog post, which explains how it works, links to the template file and includes a selection of examples from the thread

#KirbyFraming

police stand by, protestors sit in front of doors. A dear friend in good action: Press Release: Friday, January 23, 2026 Note: Vermont elders occupied ICE surveillance offices in Williston on January 22, 2026 WILLISTON – Thursday, Jan 22. At approximately 1pm, a group of about a dozen Vermont community elders with whistles entered the atrium of White Cap office park, home of ICE’s National Criminal Analysis and Targeting Center. They refused to leave when ordered by Williston Police, the property manager, and federal agents, demanding instead that the landlord renegotiate and cancel the facility’s lease. For the next 3.5 hours, they sat together in silence, pausing every 90 seconds to read the name of someone killed in ICE custody, followed by a loud whistle blast. Williston Police arrived at around 1:30pm, and asked protesters to leave and stop making noise. A group of 5 elders refused and remained in the atrium accompanied by a medic and physical therapist. Around 2pm, property manager and landlord Normand Stanislas arrived and began screaming at supporters gathered outside that he would have them arrested. Around 3:15, the Williston Police announced that they had determined that the protestors were not breaking the law and were acting within their first amendment rights. They declined to arrest the group, which had paused blowing whistles to sit in front of the ICE office doors. After the Williston Police had left, several DHS agents approached the group and threatened to charge them with Class C federal misdemeanors but did not actually do so, likely because they lacked authority to do so. The agents attempted to physically remove the elders and carry them away from the doors, but the group continued to exercise their right to protest by walking over and sitting back down. Eventually, the agents left. The group continued their protest with banners and singing until the sun began setting, when they left the office park of their own accord.

Karen Bixler, 83, of Bethel said, “I’m taking this action to bring attention to our state’s role in this horrific institution. White collar workers, sheltered from the brutality that is taking place in our country, are providing ICE with information to aid in their raids.” This protest follows several months of public outcry against the Industrial Ave facility, which is used to monitor civilian social media activity and identify targets for ICE detention and deportation. Over the winter, community groups conducted several noise demos at White Cap Business, and anonymous individuals hung a banner from the flagpoles reading “ICE VIOLATES RIGHTS HERE.” 70 year-old Dorothy Mammen of Middlebury said: “This facility is staffing up to spy on people via social media, to flag "negative sentiment" toward ICE and build dossiers on anyone who opposes fascism. They are compiling personal details, family links, and using facial recognition. To what end? To stifle dissent; to trample our right to free speech.” The office at White Cap is one of many ICE-related facilities in Chittenden County, which serves as the national nerve center for ICE operations. The notorious Law Enforcement Support Center on Harvest Lane is home to ICE’s nationwide tip line, while at least 10 other nearby locations (totalling an estimated 400,000 square feet of office space) are used by DHS for data processing, surveillance, and administrative work. On Tuesday, the Williston Selectboard passed a resolution condemning ICE activities in the town, and several hundred protesters marched in the frigid temperature to denounce the ICE Call Center on Harvest Lane. The elders risking arrest in Thursday’s sit-in were not representatives of any official group or organization, but simply community members concerned about the safety of their neighbors. They expressed hope that their action would help others to find the courage necessary to get ICE out of Williston.

This statement was read aloud as the start of the action: “Every minute and a half, ICE kidnaps someone. All across the country, they are brutalizing and murdering innocent people, separating families, and terrorizing entire communities. That violence starts here, with the research and surveillance happening at White Cap Business Park’s National Criminal Analysis and Targeting Center. And all across the country, people are blowing whistles to alert and protect each other from ICE raids. Today, we do the same. The disturbance caused by our presence here is only a tiny fraction of the life-changing disruption that ICE visits on Black and Brown communities every day. We know that our whistles can do nothing to bring back the 42 people killed by ICE in the past year or to bring home people who have already been deported. With this nonviolent protest, we hope to prevent future violence from ICE and help fellow Vermonters find the resolve needed to stand up for each other. White Cap Business Park, we demand that you find your courage, cancel the lease with ICE, and prioritize the rights and safety of your neighbors above your own profit and comfort. Until you do so, we will remain here to read the names of individuals killed by ICE and blow our whistles at the rate of ICE kidnappings.”

'A dear friend in good action'

Vermont elders occupied ICE surveillance offices in Williston on January 22, 2026 read all in alt text

If you have not yet read @adamserwer.bsky.social on Minnesotans' heroics, you are going to feel way better when you do. He went there. He talked to the people doing the work. Then he thought about it and produced something rare. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0... [gift link]

We need to talk about the rise of "smol bean fascism" where you have all the guns and the immunity but the really scary people are the ones with whistles and phone cameras and they're giving you generational trauma and ptsd by filming you killing people for no reason

They gave a bunch of roided up thugs weapons and made them immune from legal consequences. You can't really tinker around the edges of something like that, you have to end it

I am more worried about war in Minnesota than in Greenland or Canada.

The US is hours or days away from civil war. This might sound extreme, but if Walz has the Minn National Guard blocking ICE ops, the usual response of the fed govt to governors using NG against feds is to call out the army. 1/

I've never seen a population more united. If people can hold onto that unity, if people can accept that different people will have different ways of confronting fascism, if we can remind NGOs and orgs that they can join but not control the resistance, then, well, people here will write history.

Let me just say, having to ask my pregnant patients who are having sudden bleeding if they’ve been at all exposed to chemical irritants/tear gas is not something I ever pictured having to do when going to nursing school.

#Minneapolis
#OBGYN

💀💀💀

No, it was a successful coup. None of the people who led it were punished, and are in fact back in power, rewarded for their efforts to break the system by running it. Donald Trump is currently the dictator he attempted to become 5 years ago, and it’s because nobody treated trying as a crime.

This is how the tactic works to the administration’s benefit. Rather than openly demanding data it is not legally entitled to receive, it creates pressure points elsewhere funding, approvals, and administrative bottlenecks. States are then forced to choose between

Yes correct

This is my blood I marvel at the design of our weapons. So sophisticated that they can transform any man woman or child into a terrorist. Writing in their flight between launch and concussion an entire alternate history of a life. Just as the cop’s bullet convicts you of a crime. Its presence in your body evidence enough that it always belonged there. A violent transubstantiation.

This is my blood

I feel like I haven’t even been properly lied to about the purposes of this war

Among the many reasons you don’t kidnap a foreign head of state at gunpoint even if you have the capability, is that it sparks consequences you can neither control nor anticipate.

"Maduro is a brutal authoritarian dictator," I wisely intone, as the corrupt demented paedophile US President violating Constitutional Law while operating a gestapo and concentration camps illegally arrests a foreign leader on charges which read like they were written on a paper placemat in crayon.

Holy fuck! Showing ZERO fear of retribution from a vengeance-obsessed TRAITOR who attempted to overturn the 2020 presidential election, usurp the constitution, and overthrow the U.S. government, Jack Smith, with ZERO fucks left to give is what a badass American hero looks like.

This is a great little read and ends on a positive note I’m also feeling: in 2026 we are going to keep building a better world. The bastards are not going to get us down.

Power outrage

A social media post recounts a story about helping an older lady with limited English, reflecting on how having pink hair signaled trustworthiness and individuality.

Things are Terrible, but this isn't.

Be weird.

Nope. Just had to watch it while I drank my beer

Square KNOT tied…

Pretty hilarious that this has gone ever so slightly viral

Nothing could better sum up where we are as a culture

Note to self: make up random bicycling toots since they yield the best virality (viral load?)

Not stolen! But I did sit near it, just to keep an eye on the square knot I used to “secure” it. (Square not tied with the arms of a bright yellow riding jacket)

Let’s talk about something not many people are chatting about and what’s actually happening right now.

You might wonder why Imran Ahmed and the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) suddenly became targets of the U.S. government. The honest answer is that their research hit where it hurt.

Note to self:
Bring your bike lock on your next ride.