He’s been on the Senate floor for over 14 hours
Donald Trump wants to deploy the U.S. military against you. Yes, you. Shocking? Hardly. He’s as transparent as glass. Sen. Jeff Merkley, the Oregon Democrat, has taken the Senate floor to call out Trump for tryinhg to turn a government that is already authoritarian into a military dictatorship.
“I’ve come to the Senate floor tonight to ring the alarm bells. We’re in the most perilous moment, the biggest threat to our republic since the Civil War. President Trump is shredding our Constitution,” Merkley said to begin his remarks.
Merkley’s topics have ranged from attacks on universities to indictment of political enemies to his deployment of National Guard troops to American cities.
“President Trump wants us to believe that Portland, Oregon, in my home state, is full of chaos and riots. Because if he can say to the American people that there are riots, he can say there’s a rebellion. And if there’s a rebellion, he can use that to strengthen his authoritarian grip on our nation,” Merkley said.
Sen. Dick Durbin, Democrat of illinois, just raised a question about Trump’s trying to gin up the perception of unrest in blue cities as pretext for sending in troops. Even with thousands peacefully in the streets of Chicago to run a marathon and for the No Kings protest, Durbin points out. Meanwhile, ICE is already terrorizing the citizens of Chicago as they quietly head home from church.
Durbin is not blowing smoke. Even U.S. citizens, ProPublica reports,
… have been dragged, tackled, beaten, tased and shot by immigration agents. They’ve had their necks kneeled on. They’ve been held outside in the rain while in their underwear. At least three citizens were pregnant when agents detained them. One of those women had already had the door of her home blown off while Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem watched.
About two dozen Americans have said they were held for more than a day without being able to phone lawyers or loved ones.
Over two-thirds of detainees are have no criminal convictions. Those who do “committed only minor offenses, including traffic violations.”
Yet DHS has a film crew producing sensationalized propaganda videos. One was of the ICE assault on a South Shore apartment building that, contrary to DHS allegations, was not filled with Venezuelan gang members. Another was a “TikTok-worthy fascism-slop video” (American Prospect) of its agents cruising in boats down the Chicago River.
It continues in Chicago.
A Chicago High Schooler Had Just Returned From Chemotherapy. Then ICE Arrested Her Father
Immigration agents arrest CPS [Chicago Public Schools] vendor outside North Side school
ICE Tells North Side Alderperson To Back Off As She Warns Neighbors About Immigration Agents
The American Prospect calls out ICE for its two months of terrorizing Chicago. Spooked citizens imagine seeing ICE around every corner:
The fear that ICE could be lurking in any car on any street has pushed many Chicagoans to avoid going out in public, where having brown skin makes you a target. Notorious U.S. Border Patrol chief Gregory Bovino said the quiet part out loud to a white WBEZ reporter, describing how ICE makes arrests based on “the particular characteristics of an individual, how they look. How do they look compared to, say, you?”
In response to fears of racial profiling, neighbors are organizing grocery deliveries for those who are too scared to leave the house. Parents gather at elementary schools during dismissal, keeping watch for federal agents as their at-risk neighbors pick up their children. Advocacy groups hand out whistles to anyone they see, telling them to sound the alarm if they see la migra.
Someone mocked the DHS propaganda videos using the theme from the 1975–76 television series “S.W.A.T.“
Merkley’s still at it.
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Is this a private fight, or can anyone join?
No King’s One Million Rising movement
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Indivisible: A Guide to Democracy on the Brink
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