We are the ones we’re fighting against
Mona Charen warns that under Trump 2.0 we’ve become the bad guys, the rogue state, the lawless, imperialist bullies. With a maniacal grin, Trump’s slavering White House Deputy Chief of Staff, Stephen Miller, declares it proudly.
Rights? Rule of law? We don’t need no stinking rule of law. Or any rules-based international order.
Sure, our American record is hardly spotless. We are sinners. But we still look to the ideals in our Declaration and to the flawed Constitution we’ve worked to perfect for 250 years as a guide to who we as a nation aspire to be. Or we did before Trumpism, a gangsterish shakedown racket self-parodying as a nation of laws, not men.
Charen laments:
… Trump and his people don’t leave any doubt that they are in the business of intimidation and possible conquest. Marco Rubio warned other leaders not to “F around” lest they find out what a bad hombre the president is. There were direct, bald threats against Cuba, Colombia, Mexico, and of course, Greenland.
Trump’s understanding of the world arrested its development in the late 1970s to early 1980s, as I’ve noted. Trump believes any country he dislikes is emptying its prisons and asylums and dumping them on our shores. Charen traces that Trumpish fixation to Castro’s 1980 Mariel Boatlift. So, yes.
Charen concludes:
The United States under Trump is an outlaw nation, threatening excellent neighbors like Canada with economic devastation, blasting people in fast boats to pieces, withdrawing from international agreements, bullying friends and foes alike, and now kidnapping foreign leaders (however evil). We are becoming the kind of nation against which America used to defend others.
The Western Hemisphere had better prepare for a taste of this.
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This video is terrifying, and it’s exactly why “just comply” does not protect you from ICE/Border Patrol agents, even as U.S. citizens, and why you always film them.
In North Carolina, ICE/Border Patrol agents illegally stopped two U.S. citizens. They questioned them without legal cause, took their licenses, and admitted on camera that the men were allowed to record.
And they were still attacked.
In the video, one man asks if he can film for his safety. The agent says yes, saying that he’ll “have to put his mask on.” The agents take their licenses, ask where they’re from, where they live, what they’re doing in the area, all without legal authority. The men cooperate anyway.
Then the situation turns dangerous.
Another agent suddenly tells the driver, “Turn off your video. You are being detained, so you are not free to record.”
That is false. Recording law enforcement in public is legal, including during detention.
The driver calmly refuses, keeps one hand on the steering wheel as instructed, and holds his phone in the other.
That’s when the agent lunges for the phone.
The agent throws himself into the car, trying to grab the device. When the driver moves it away, the agent assaults him.
The agent then illegally opens the car door, something the driver correctly points out they are not allowed to do.
The agents keep demanding the filming stop, as multiple agents keep reaching for the phone.
Then they escalate again.
They threaten arrest, grab the driver, and start hitting him and trying to drag him out of the car, even though he keeps saying, “We haven’t done anything wrong.” When they fail to pull him out, they back away, visibly angry.
They turn on the passenger next.
An agent grabs him, threatens handcuffs, and assaults him trying to force him out of the vehicle. When that doesn’t work, they start yelling conflicting commands, claiming the men are “interfering with an investigation.”
An investigation into what?
Their own illegal stop.At one point, an agent shouts that the men can’t interfere, while another tries… again… to grab the phone, almost certainly to stop or erase the recording.
Only after all of this do the agents finally release them.
Because they are U.S. citizens.
Because the stop was illegal.
And because the camera was still rolling.This is why you film ICE.
This is why compliance doesn’t save you.
This is why they hate cameras.If this hadn’t been recorded, this would be another lie in a report, another “resisting” accusation, another abuse buried and denied.
Film them. Always.
Here’s another:
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BREAKING: ICE/Border Patrol agents are once again illegally arresting U.S. citizens in Minnesota.
In the video, you can hear the agent ask for ID AFTER he assaulted, tackled and handcuffed the man.
When the man asks why he’s being detained, the agent claims it’s because the car is registered to an undocumented immigrant. The man responds, “What? I’m a U.S. citizen.” Despite this, the agent grabs his wallet and drags him toward an unmarked van… still without verifying his identity.
This isn’t law enforcement. This is reckless abuse of power.
If ICE can assault, arrest, and transport a U.S. citizen without confirming their identity, then no one is “safe” under this system.
This is what happens when agencies operate with impunity… and it’s exactly why these abuses must be documented, challenged, and stopped.
The courts are barely holding the line. Congress is asleep at the switch.