Chris Edelson

Just a quick update from the Twin Cities. (Please forgive the unsolicited message). THINGS ARE NOT BETTER IN MINNEAPOLIS. The media is mostly moving on, Trump is focused on other stuff, BUT NOTHING HAS CHANGED ON THE GROUND. More than 2,000 DHS thugs continue to roam the streets, abducting people 24/7, assaulting legal observers with impunity, and routinely denying 1st, 4th, and 5th amendment rights. Drones and helicopters are overhead every day. Hundreds and hundreds of terrified families have not left their homes since mid-December ... relying on the community to bring them food and help with rent and other necessities. (Those people are NOT violent drug cartel sex offending murderers, as DHS would tell you. Most are legal residents or citizens.) If anything, things have just become more stressful and intractable (think trench warfare as a suitable metaphor): The resistance is better organized and numerous, but DHS has become more clever and better at disguise... and the county sheriff's office is increasingly supporting them . Do not let anyone tell you that Homans (the new person in charge of the occupation) is making anything better. Do not let anyone tell you that 700 ICE agents leaving the city has made much of a difference; the remaining force (again, ~2,000) is still larger than the entire city's police force (which is legally unable to do anything). Please call your congressional reps ... especially if there is any chance the administration might listen to them.

A desperate plea sent to me by a Minneapolis resident who's been on the front lines since the beginning of the ICE occupation:

one of many ironies this year, given that the American revolutionaries abhorred what they saw as a corrupt British system

This. Science and democracy are linked. We can’t put science advocacy in a bubble and do it alone— the fascism, division, and attack on experts and trust are *the reason* science is under attack.

Plus the inside advocacy alone does not work! Just look at what happened with MYF this year.

if this is real, this is trump unapologetically embracing gutter level racism in the vein of the KKK. There has to be a consequence for this naked bigotry.

years ago, someone helped me to understand that presidents can't do very much on their own. They need people within the executive branch (and perhaps beyond) to carry out their orders and no one who will stop them (e.g. courts, Congress, states, the people).

and so many other outrageous scandals have happened since then that this has gotten lost in the pile.

It really pays to remind ourselves frequently that this whole immigration "crisis" is made up out of whole cloth. There was no emergency,danger or problem, only a demagogue stirring up racist grievances for political advantage.

LAPD Charges at Hundreds of High School Students in Peaceful Walkout Protest at MDC ~ L.A. TACO LAPD arrested at least two teenagers protesting ICE raids in Los Angeles yesterday. They were also seen corresponding with ICE agents on Alameda Street during the demonstrations.

I feel like Los Angeles is a place where people expect ICE to happen because the kidnappings have been happening to my home city for decades, so there’s less media attention to it now. and I want folks to see that in LA, Latine students are organizing major protests & the police are attacking them

“They’re basically torturing people into signing off on their own deportation,” said one attorney.

Superb, deeply reported story, via @charpentier.bsky.social

"Racism...is...a belief in one’s inherent superiority, based on...a meaningless accident of birth...an ideology that papers over feelings of inadequacy & tells you that — no matter what you have or have not accomplished in your life — you’re still better than someone, some group." @jamellebouie.net

Opinion | This Is Just Who Trump Is

"For years, a cottage industry of political observers has contorted itself to obscure and occlude the obvious. That regardless of what others see in him, Trump’s entire political career...cannot be understood outside the context of his bitter, deep-seated racism." (gift link)

I have thought of this novel over past decade. Hard to read now.

"she was following the legal path to citizenship"

Photo shows a young girl with her cat

This is Maria, a 6-year-old detained by ICE last year.

She began to unravel soon after arriving at a detention center in Texas, wetting the bed after years without accidents, crying through the night and begging to breastfeed again.

Most of all, she wanted to be reunited with her cat, Milo. 1/

Children trapped in Texas immigration facility recount nightmares, inedible food, no school A photo of Liam Conejo Ramos, a scared 5-year-old, drew attention to a detention center in Dilley, Texas. Advocates say his experience reflects what hundreds of children have endured out of public vie...

Maria is one of hundreds of children, who — like Liam Ramos — have been held at a Texas detention facility where parents say children languish as they’re served contaminated food, receive little education and struggle to obtain basic medical care.

Here's our attempt at telling their stories. 2/

Rep. Jeffries is right, but he'll have to follow thru by refusing to normalize trump in any way in the future. That would follow logically from the minority leader's properly righteous indignation but hard to do in practice. For one thing, how can Rep. Jeffries ever be in same room as trump again?

plus/relatedly, he knows he's dying and wants to play Ozymandias (with the same lack of self-awareness, but I assume greater moral degeneracy).

"trump is, more than anything else, a loser. He fears defeat & he can’t take it & he’s making wild claims to try to wriggle out of accountability...Contempt, scorn &...laughter are the... proper responses to Trump’s claims & demands. They’re weakness rather than strength..."per @joshtpm.bsky.social

1. It was not an accident.
2. It was not a staffer.
3. While the president may have dementia his racism is not due to dementia.
4. He isn’t sorry. He means every racist thought he shares.
5. His base agrees with him.
6. He will do it again.
7. No one in power will hold him accountable.

Cult of personality watch. We don't name things for sitting presidents.

yeah, I mean the head of the American Nazi party would be safe, or head of KKK--not incidentally, each leader (or former leader for KKK) enthusiastically supported trump (and I assume still do)

"Praying it was fake because it’s the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House. The President should remove it."

👋🏽 Hey Tim, if that's the "most racist thing," care to revisit any of the 10,000+ other racist things that ya boy Trump says & does (as policy!) that *don't* reach this threshold of "outrage"?

By the way, have we heard from Trump bootlicker Rep. Byron Donalds, running for gov in FL?
🦋 is.gd/Io2git

46th St & I-35w, 175 E 46th St, Minneapolis, MN 55419, USA Description: As I was leaving my home, I hear cars honking near the top the of bridge. People screaming and whistling, I got in my uber and drove out. My uber driver mentioned that they were standing on top of the bridge and doing a check point and stopping people.

46th St & I-35w, 180 E 46th St, Minneapolis, MN 55419, USA Description: 4 vehicles pulled over a man in a red van on 46th over 35. Agents in Police US border patrol vests surrounding vehicle checking papers

ICE is still doing checkpoints in Minneapolis like we are an occupied territory. Life remains really hard here thanks to Trump's thugs.

NBC news: Trump removes racist video depicting the Obamas as apes The White House initially defended Trump's post, saying it was "from an internet meme video." But after backlash — including from Republicans — it was removed.

House and Senate should remove Trump

Gladys Mae West obituary: mathematician who pioneered GPS technology She made key contributions to US cold-war science despite facing huge barriers as a Black woman.

No joke: I got angry hate mail today for writing an obituary of a Black woman scientist—because the person felt she did didn’t deserve the recognition.

Which just makes me want to share it again: www.nature.com/articles/d41...

I am not going to repost the vile and racist image that Trump posted last night of President & First Lady Obama because it is beyond disgusting. Trump is a vile racist as is every Republican that continues to support him. I don’t want to hear mumbling from Mike Johnson or stoic silence from Thune.

Echoes of the Ukraine call that promoted the first impeachment:

"You want taxpayer money that was already guaranteed to you? Sure, but I would like you to do us a favor, though, because I have been through a lot and New York knows a lot about it."

I'm sorry, what in the hell is this?

Pour one out for every professional political pundit, writer, consultant whatever that has spent the last decade trying to pretend that the Trump phenomenon was about trade or opiates and not a big chunk of white america losing its mind over having a black president bsky.app/profile/kyle...

Pardoned January 6 rioter pleads guilty to threatening US Democratic leader Jeffries A January 6, 2021, rioter, who was pardoned by President Donald Trump, pleaded guilty to a harassment charge after being accused of threatening to kill U.S. House of Representatives Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, prosecutors said on Thursday.

A January 6, 2021, rioter, who was pardoned by President Donald Trump, pleaded guilty to a harassment charge after being accused of threatening to kill U.S. House of Representatives Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, prosecutors said on Thursday.